Page 91 of Shattered By the Currents

She stopped and read it back.

Folow.

Schedual.

Disucssed.

Argh. She couldn’t spell. Worse, she couldn’t concentrate. Her sentences didn’t even make sense.

I’m writing to follow on up the…

What was that? She’d been speaking the English language for her entire life and suddenly she couldn’t put together one readable, correctly spelled sentence?

She leaned back, glancing around the main area of the old firehouse. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it waswhereshe was working. She’d been doing her admin here for the last week, and it had been a frustrating mess of jumbled sentences and misspelled words since day one.

She snuck a peek at Ethan, who sat at the tech table. He didn’t seem to have a problem working here. Maybe it was the couch. Perhaps she needed to work at a desk like him.

Oh, who was she kidding? It washer. It was all her and her stressed-out brain.

She studied the back of Ethan’s broad shoulders. Shoulders that were so similar to Connor’s. Were all guys in the military built the same? Or was it just special operations that carved men from stone?

“Everything okay?”

She jumped at Ethan’s question.

He spun around.

Good God, did these men also have eyes in the backs of their heads? “Yes. Everything’s fine. I’m just having trouble concentrating.”

“I’d have trouble concentrating too if I had an ex from hell.” He frowned. “You know we’re going to work this out, right? I’m going to find something to incriminate the asshole and exonerate you.”

She nodded, wanting to believe him. But also needing to be realistic. Xander was smart. He’d spent years setting up his business to take her down with him. He also had a murder weapon with her prints on it. “Thank you.”

“I’m also going to find proof that it wasn’t you who killed Lottie.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“No, but Connor’s like a brother to me. And he cares about you.”

“We’re not… I mean…we’rekindof dating. But we’re also going slow right now.”

Which apparently meant sleeping in the same bed, but no sex. Seeing the shirtless man every morning and night, but nokisses. Having him make coffee for her, and only light, gentle touches.

There’d been pecks on the cheek and forehead. And she was almost certain she’d felt his lips linger more than once. But maybe that was in her head.

“Go gentle on him,” Ethan said, drawing her attention back to him. “His breakup with his ex really messed with him.”

“She’s in jail now, though, right?” The question slipped without conscious thought. A question she probably should be asking Connor, not his friend.

“She is. And she won’t be out for a long time. Connor carried some guilt about that for a while. He thought maybe he was partially to blame for her decisions. Like if he hadn’t been so absent with his military commitments, things might have been different. But that was bullshit. She made a decision and she paid for it. So did Connor.”

Raven swallowed, hating that Connor had been hurt in his past relationship.

“I even think—” A buzzer cut off Ethan’s next words. He turned toward his computer and pressed a few keys.

When he cursed, Raven set her laptop beside her and leaned forward. “Is everything okay?”

He rose, gun in his grip. “There’s someone outside.”