Read Online Forever My Angel by Kelly Walker - Free Book Online Page B

release.
    Afterward, we crawl under the covers, spent. Feeling Angel’s leg draped over mine, her hand curled lightly on my chest, her breathing slow and even, I decide this is heaven.
    Then she sighs, and it isn’t one of the good, ‘I’m completely content’ sighs. No, this is one of those 'I have something to say, but I don’t know if I want to' sighs that us guys fear. It’s the equivalent of, ‘we need to talk.’
    I shift my hips, tucking her closer under my arm and turning my head to study her. A dark tendril of her hair is laying across her face; I gently brush it back, tucking it behind her ear. “What is it, Angel?”
    She keeps her gaze turned away from me. She rarely meets my eyes when she’s nervous. I tilt her chin up, not letting her hide.
    “I don’t want you to call a cleaning company.”
    That? That’s what this is about? My chest instantly lightens and I have to fight the urge to laugh. “Okay...” I’m sure there must be more. There’s always more.
    “What?”” Her nose crinkles.
    “Nothing. I just thought this was going to be a bigger deal than just you not wanting to hire cleaners. Though I’ll admit I don’t understand why."
    Her brow furrows, and I worry I’ve misspoken. “That’s just it! I’m here all the time, unless I’m hanging out at the bar with you. I have nothing of my own. I do nothing on my own. And I do nothing for us.”
    What the hell is she talking about? Is this what she was getting at on the ride back from the farm yesterday? “Angel, you do everything for me, just by breathing. Don’t you understand you’re the air I need to survive?”
    “But I need to feel like I’m contributing. Like we’re equals. You have all this money, and you own the bar, and some day you’ll own the farm. I might as well be Vanessa. If we get married someday, everyone will think I’m just a gold-digger, the trophy on your arm.”
    They wouldn’t dare. I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks, but if it bothers Angel, then it bothers me. “We aren’t equals, Angel. You rule me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Whatever you want, whatever you need, if it’s in my power to give, it’s yours.”
    “That’s another thing. Stop putting me on a fucking pedestal! I don’t want that, any of it. I just want us to be equals who appreciate each other.”
    I have no clue how to fix this.
    “Think about how it makes me feel. I’m here with no responsibilities, and instead of expecting me to help you clean up the mess that’s overtaken our home, thanks to those asswipes who broke in—” her dark eyes flash with hatred ”—you want to hire it out to someone else. It’s like you don’t think I’m capable of handling anything!”
    What?” “No, baby, it isn’t that at all.” I cup her cheek. “I was just afraid that thinking about them invading our home would scare you.”
    She sits straight up, shrugging off my arm. “Of course it scares me!” she snaps as she climbs out of bed. “It fucking terrifies me. But what scares me more is not mattering. That twenty years from now I might look back and realize the only thing I’ve ever accomplished was being the broken girl who somehow became yours.”
    She shimmies into her shorts and shrugs my shirt over her head. I’m alone in the bed, sitting in the mess of sheets, afraid to open my mouth and make things worse.
    “Tell me what to do. How can I help you? How do I fix this?”
    She looks to the ceiling as if answers will be written there. I wish they were. “To start with? Go to the store and get us another box of trash bags.” She looks at the mess around us. “We’re going to need a lot of them.”
    I took today off from the bar hoping to spend it in bed with Angel, but if my girl wants trash bags then I guess I’m going to go get trash bags. Even if I do think she might have lost her ever-loving mind.

Chapter Nine
    —-♥—-
    B y the time I get back, trash bags in hand, I think I understand