Page 41 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
I shivered when his hand came up and framed my jaw. The tingles on my cheek spread down my neck as his thumb drew a small circle by the corner of my mouth. With a racing heart, my lips parted, inviting him in for a kiss. I hadn’t been kissed in so, so long. I wanted Hunter to break that streak. I wanted his soft lips, his tongue—
“Mommy! I’m naked!”
Hunter and I both jerked, stepping apart as the moment vanished.
“Sorry.” I shook my head to clear the haze. “I’d better get to him.”
“It’s no problem. I’ll see you soon.” He leaned forward and softly kissed my cheek before letting himself out.
I stared at the door with my hand pressed to my cheek. Then I closed my eyes and memorized the feel of his lips on my skin.
“Mommy!”
My eyes snapped open and I stuttered into action. “Coming!”
I hustled to the bathroom and ran Coby’s bath. While he splashed and blew bubbles, I replayed Hunter’s words.
I’m staying until you make me leave.
Until I made him leave? I doubted that would ever happen.
“This is ridiculous,” I told my pillow. Craning my neck, I looked at my alarm clock. 3:24 a.m.
Three hours.
I’d been lying in bed, awake, for three hours.
After bath and bedtime, Coby had zonked right out. I’d had a glass of wine, picked up toys, then headed to bed early. Mistake. I’d woken up after midnight and my brain had been busy ever since. Nothing I’d tried could shut it down for sleep.
First, I’d run the gamut on my standard worries. Was I making the right choices for Coby? Was I spending enough time with him? Was I doing enough to make sure he wasn’t just surviving, but thriving?
Once those questions had been exhausted—without conclusion, just like every other time I’d hashed out my mommy worries—I’d moved on to my concerns about the inn. I’d recounted my to-do list for the next two weeks and all the things that needed to be done. Reservations were already starting to pick up and I was running out of free time.
I need to be sleeping! I had things to do tomorrow. Important things. Things that needed me to be rested, not walking around like a zombie.
Tossing and turning for another fifteen minutes, I finally gave up.
“Screw it.” I kicked my white down comforter off my legs and got up, reaching to turn on my bedside lamp.
If I couldn’t sleep, I’d make a new list to reduce some stress. My tasks lists were my sanity. Typically, I had three or four versions of the same to-do list going at once because the physical act of writing down my tasks helped me tackle them.
And because of nights like this, I’d learned to always keep pens and paper in my nightstand. Opening my drawer, I pulled out a notepad and then reached back in, patting around for a pen. My fingers hit a cold, metal pen, heavier than the standard plastic ballpoint, and I instantly froze.
My vision blurred as an Everett flash consumed my mind.
There was a scalpel in my hand, not a pen, and I was in the cold basement of the hospital. Everett was looming over Gigi on her knees because he’d just hit her in the face. And I was standing behind him ready to strike. My movements from that night replayed in slow motion. The windup of my shoulder, the plunge of the scalpel into Everett’s neck and the heat of his sticky blood as it coated my fist.
That night, Everett had dropped to the floor and Gigi and I had run away. But tonight in my flashback, he yanked out the scalpel from his neck. His brown eyes—my son’s brown eyes—were locked on mine as he lunged.
I gasped, standing from my bed and scrambling backward. When my butt hit the floor, the flashback broke.
Damn it to hell.
A tear dripped down my cheek as I worked to breathe and calm my racing heart. I was losing my mind. When would these flashes end? How many years would it take for me to forget that horrible night? To forget that horrible man?
Pushing up off the floor, I bent down and picked up the pen that had fallen to the carpet. Marching it straight to the bathroom, I tossed it in the trash before going to the sink to splash some cold water on my face. I dabbed it dry with a towel and looked at myself in the mirror.
You’re losing it.
