“I think this boss could do with some biting.”
Chuckling, he said, “Want to eat? Or should I just eat you?”
“Gabriel.”
“Ms. Baird.”
“You should put me down.”
“Why?”
“I’m heavy.”
He snorted, shoulders shaking. Shoving at those shoulders when he started laughing so hard he couldn’t speak, she tried not to laugh with him. It was too difficult and it was the last thing she’d have thought she’d be doing when she’d received the letter. The reminder though, it stole the laughter.
Gabriel’s eyes immediately zeroed in on her face. Putting her down on her feet, he said, “What’s the matter?”
“Dick sent me a letter.”
His expression went hard and flat. “What does the bastard want?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t read it. I was waiting for you.”
THE WORDS SLICED THROUGH Gabriel’s anger. “Want me to read it?” He didn’t want that piece of scum anywhere near Charlotte, even if only through his words.
But Charlotte shook her head and led him into the kitchen. “I need to do this. If he writes to me again, I’ll throw it in the trash, but I need to read this first one, find out what he thinks he has to say to me after all this time.”
Gabriel could understand her need, but he still had to grit his teeth to keep from taking the envelope and tearing it to shreds. Especially when her fingers trembled as she slit the envelope open.
32
BAD, BAD, BAD WORDS
TUCKING CHARLOTTE CLOSE, GABRIEL said, “He can’t touch you. I’ll break him in half if he tries to lay so much as a finger on you.”
A shaky smile from Charlotte as she pulled out the letter.
Gabriel read it along with her. The bastard had written how sorry he was, how he’d tried to write before but the prison authorities wouldn’t permit it. They had okayed this letter because he was about to get out and it was considered a healthy sign of rehabilitation that he wanted to apologize to his victim to give her “closure.”
That wasn’t me, Charlotte. I don’t know what happened that weekend, who I became, but I take full responsibility for it. It’s important I do that. It’s on me. It had nothing to do with you and how we broke up. It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t give me what I needed—I shouldn’t have taken out my annoyance on you. I hope one day you can forgive me.
The fucking psychopath had the nerve to sign it “Love, Richard.”
“Passive-aggressive bullshit,” Gabriel snarled, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer.
“Manipulative,” Charlotte said. “That’s always been his MO.” She lifted the letter, went to rip it up, then frowned. “I’m going to give this to Detective Lee, just in case.”
“Good idea.” If Richard did come after her again, Gabriel wanted him locked up for the rest of his miserable life. “You okay?”
A wondering expression on Charlotte’s face. “Yes. He’s been the bogeyman for so long, but now that I’ve read this, I see him for the pathetic, manipulative son of a bitch that he really is.” She threw the letter down on the table. “He was such a big man when he ambushed me, had me alone, that pencil-dicked, scum-sucking fuckwit!”
Gabriel had never heard Charlotte swear. It was impressive.
It got even more impressive.
“Closure, my ass! That slimy excuse for a human being just wanted to get inside my head. Fuck that!” She poked Gabriel in the chest. “Annoyance? Annoyance? I’ll show that ass-faced peckerhead annoyance! His name shouldn’t be Dick. It should be Dickweasel Shit for Brains!”
Leaning with his forearm on the counter when Charlotte swept past him, Gabriel grinned as she marched around the kitchen, slamming pots and pans together and pouring flour into a bowl, taking out cocoa and chocolate chips and eggs and vanilla pods, other things he couldn’t identify. He decided not to remind her he’d picked up dinner and it was going cold.
Instead, he stole chocolate chips from across the counter, said, “Yes,” and “Absolutely” when she paused in her diatribe to wait for a response. The question was usually something along the lines of: Don’t you think so? after she’d murdered Richard’s character in ever more creative ways.
It wasn’t until the smell of muffins baking permeated the kitchen and Charlotte had hand washed the dishes—with more banging and clattering—that she began to calm down. Exhaling, she turned to him. “I didn’t know I had that in me.”
He kissed her cheek, adoring her. “That’s my Ms. Baird.”