Until You (The Redemption, #1)(52)

To say living under the same roof with him is difficult would be a lie. In fact, the first week has been quite seamless. I edit during the morning hours while he plays handyman doing some of Ian’s tasks. The girls swim and shoot and reshoot and then reshoot again their tutorials. Their laughter as they make them floats to wherever I’m working, and rather than distracting me, makes me smile.

In fact, after having lived on my own for the last two years, I thought living with someone else—let alone two eleven-year-old girls—might be sensation overload. Truth be told, I’ve been pleasantly surprised how much I’ve enjoyed having people and their noise around me.

Laughter. I never realized how much I’ve missed the sound of it, even if just in my periphery, until now. Until I’m working and I hear the deep rumble of Crew and the girls’ higher-pitched tone. While it may be muted through my closed door, it brings an automatic smile to my face. It gives me something to look forward to when I’m done working.

And that is something I haven’t had in the longest time.

It’s welcome.

It’s wanted.

And while the days have had an order that’s kept me sane—work, the girls, mealtime—the nights have been more challenging as Crew and I have to be clandestine with our flirting. Glances across the room that are held longer than one would deem platonic. The brush of a hand over my lower back as he walks past me. An innuendo made that flies over the girls’ heads.

But the following through on what that flirting promises has yet to happen. A stomachache one night led Addy to want Crew’s attention. A late-night movie marathon hindered another. An excitement over me being there and a sleepover downstairs in a homemade fort another.

The lack of opportunity for us to have sex again has made the desire that much stronger. Has made this burn so much more intense.

To have the dessert you want right at your fingertips but not be able to taste it is a torture in and of itself.

So when Crew looks at me like he does across the distance, every part of me dares him to find some dark closet and have at it.

Desperation and me are becoming good friends.

“Tenny?”

“What? I’m sorry. I was lost in thought,” I say, turning to find Tanya standing there with a smile on her lips. “What did you need?”

“It’s photo time.”

“Photo time?” I look around and see everyone being rounded up, including Crew and the guys working outside. “What for?”

“Can you believe Bobbi Jo got the Daily Sentinel to do a feature on Founder’s Day?” she says with a little flutter clap. “It’s the biggest newspaper in the state. Its circulation is . . . geez, I can’t even imagine, but it’s about ten thousand times more than the population of Redemption Falls.”

“That’s great news for all the vendors.”

“Don’t you know it. I told my hubby that we need to order extra everything for our booth.” Her eyes light up with an excitement that is more than endearing. Clearly this is a much bigger deal than I thought it to be. “It’s not often Redemption Falls gets any kind of love, so we’re just over the moon with this development.”

“It’s great for the town and the festival.”

She smiles and motions for me to follow her. “C’mon then.”

“For what?”

“To be in the photo, silly. The paper wants all of us volunteers in the shot.”

The smile I give her is strained. “That’s okay. I don’t need to be in the photo. It really should be all of you who have done this year after year.”

“That’s nonsense.” She grabs my hand and pulls me to go over to the group of volunteers being staged for the photo.

The last thing I need is for my face to be splashed on some newspaper and website. My hair color may be different, but everything else is the same. Most people would be able to spot someone they’d lived with day in, day out, been intimate with, and woke up next to for years.

Crew catches my arm as I try to head toward the back row where I’m hoping I can successfully hide myself behind other volunteers.

“Hey. Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back. I just need to ask Kelly something real quick,” I say and immediately hate myself for lying.

Crew gives me a confused look but releases my arm.

I purposely get lost in the confusion as the photographer stages people. The process takes so long that I silently slip away before the actual photo is taken, heading up the stairs to the storage room to find the banners.

Bobbi Jo was right. The storage room is a vast cavern of chaos. I can’t find the light switch, but there’s enough light coming in from the numerous skylights that I can see well enough.

There is row after row of shelving units. Some are overflowing with random items ranging from sports equipment to theater props to catering equipment. As I walk aisle by aisle, it’s clear that there is no rhyme or reason to the haphazard placement of what looks like a decade’s worth of stuff.

And that’s going to make finding the banners a difficult task, seeing as how they could be rolled up or folded and pushed to the back of a shelf where they can’t be seen.

Since I’m already halfway into the room, I decide I’ll start my search at the far end and make my way back toward the door. I’m only in my second aisle, opening the drawers of a long, low-profile cabinet, when I hear footsteps in the hallway. I tense for some reason, even though it’s not like the boogeyman frequents the community center.