Read Online Freedom's Price by Suzanne Brockmann - Free Book Online

again, and when he spoke, his voice was softer, as if he were trying to make up for sounding so hard. “Tonight we can look at your schedule, and I’ll take you around and show you where your classes are.”
    “You don’t—”
    “—have to do that, I know.” Liam managed a small, slightly crooked smile. “I got your refrain down cold, babe. But you should know mine by heart now as well.”
    “You don’t have to do it, but you
want
to,” Marisala recited. She paused. “You don’t
look
like you want to do much besides go home and crawl into bed.”
    “I had a rough night.”
    Marisala’s frustration and anger eased with her empathy toward those flatly spoken words. She knew what it was to have a rough night. It was funny, some nights she could sleep like a baby. But others, the nightmares hovered on the fringes of her consciousness and she didn’t dare close her eyes until she was so exhausted she knew a dreamless sleep would come.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.
    He didn’t look at her, didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
    The word came out flatly, almost rudely, but Marisala only felt more compassion. It was her experience that sometimes men had it worse. Some men found it terribly difficult to handle the fear and panic that the nightmares would bring. “I’m here if you ever change your mind.”
    He didn’t get a chance to answer as the door opened and the landlord stepped onto the porch. “You’re here to see the apartment? The entrance is around this way.”
    The unkempt-looking man led the way around to the side of the house. Marisala let Liam follow first as the man rattled off a list of rules about rent, utilities, parking unavailability, pets, and noise.
    No pets. Of course, Liam was probably right about the puppy. She
had
to belong to someone. They’d stopped at the copy shop and posted some flyers in the local stores before embarking on today’s great apartment hunt. There was probably a message from the puppy’s owner on Liam’s answering machine right now.
    The landlord stopped at a door in the side of the building and searched for the key. Unlocking the door, he opened it, gesturing for Liam to go in first. “There’s a light switch at the bottom of the stairs.”
    But Liam stopped short, and Marisala nearly smashed her nose against his wide and very solid back.
    “It’s a
basement
apartment,” he said.
    “That’s what makes it affordable.” Marisala moved past him, going down into the darkness. The landlord had told her over the phone this morning that even though not much light came in through the narrow ceiling-high windows, the rooms were dry. They were cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
    She found the light and switched it on.
    It certainly was gloomy, a fact that could be helped by painting over the drab and dingy yellowish-beige walls with bright whites and festive colors. The floor was covered with impossibly ugly beige vinyl tiles and the ceilings were low. Liam would have to duck to keep from bumping his head when he came into the room.
    “Marisala.” Liam was still standing outside the door. “You can’t live in a basement apartment.”
    The place was small, but certainly in much better shape than the last few apartments they’d looked at. She could definitely live here, basement or not.
    “It’s not bad,” she called up to him.
    “Mara…”
    “Kitchen’s in the back, bathroom’s off that.” The landlord pushed past Liam to come down the stairs. He opened a door. “Here’s your closet. The other door provides access to the oil burner. If there’s ever a problem, repairmen would need to get in there, so I’d have to ask you not to put any furniture in front of that doorway.”
    Furniture. God, she was going to have to get furniture—at least a bed, and a table to use for studying and eating her meals.
    Marisala wandered back into the kitchen.
    “Mara,” Liam’s voice called after her. “Dammit!”
    There was a window in