Free Shelter by Lauren Gilley Page A

Her hands splayed across his chest and she pushed backward.
                  “You okay?” Carlos prodded, though he knew she wasn’t, his voice full of morning gravel.
                  She glanced up at his face for the first time and slowly, he saw the fight-or-flight instinct drain out of her. “Yeah.” She took a deep breath and then another. One corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. She smoothed her hands across his pecs, now leaning into him instead of away from him. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
                  He didn’t believe that, but damn did he want to. Wanted to think that as she stretched upward, meeting his kiss, she wasn’t pretending he was Sam.
    **
    Alma washed her hair with a dollop of the Axe body wash along the edge of the tub, stretching her back in a luxurious arch as she massaged the suds into her scalp. She had a feeling that when she let herself in her own front door later, the photos and smells and little reminders of Sam would crush her, but for the moment, one wonderfully mindless moment, she enjoyed the grab of her muscles, the soreness and fatigue, the finger-shaped bruises along her hips. In some part of her mind, she’d always known that she and Carlos would fit together like they had, that the spark between them could ignite into something hot that burned through friendship in a heartbeat.
                  And if she was honest, it hadn’t only been about Carlos. Hormones and loneliness had left her hungry, desperate.
                  When she pushed aside the shower curtain, wrapped in one towel with another on her head turban-style, she found Carlos at the sink brushing his teeth, dressed for work in jeans, boots and a Good & Green Landscaping shirt. He was the same guy she’d known for years, and yet…she was having a hard time seeing him that way this morning.
                  He spit his toothpaste in the sink and rinsed his mouth while she stood, looking on like an idiot. When he turned to her, one of his patented, sure-to-make-you-smile-back smiles already in place, she heard her phone trill to life beyond the bathroom, and it ruined the moment. Alma should have let it go to voicemail, but the idea of returning Carlos’s smile and asking to borrow his toothbrush was too intimate. So she clutched at the towel tucked under her arms and excused herself, hurrying out to the living room where she’d left her purse propped up against the sofa.
                  “Hello?” she greeted, breathless, without checking the caller ID.
                  “Alma.” Her father. Shit . “Are you alright?”
                  Tom was never one to interfere in mother/daughter conflicts, even when he should. He liked to go to each of them after the fact, earn a false smile and pretend things were “alright.” “Fine, Dad,” she sighed. “I’m fine.”
                  “I drove by your place a few minutes ago and you weren’t at home.”
                  Double shit . “I…” she scrambled, wanting to say anything but the truth. “Spent the night with Caroline.” Alma winced as she said it, knowing the excuse was weak. She and her friend had been on the outs for a while now. Diane would never have the bought the story.
                  But Tom said, “Oh, are you girls getting along again? That’s good.”
                  She shivered with relief. “Yeah. It’s long since time we buried the hatchet.”
                  “Good,” he repeated. There was a pause in which she heard the purr of his Beemer’s engine. He must have been on his way to work. “Well, just wanted to check up on you, sweetheart. After last night.” Another pause, one in which she knew he was looking for her to make some sort of guilty comment about ruining her mother’s dinner party.
                  “Thanks,”