Free Out of the Dark by Megan Hart Page A

passed the skill along to her daughter through hours of instruction. As a kid, it had irked Celia to no end to have her mother unfold a blouse or, God help her, a fitted sheet over and over again, making Celia re-do it until she had it right. As an adult, though, folding laundry was the only household chore that gave Celia any real sort of satisfaction—sure, it was an infinitely unending task the way all housecleaning was, but there was something so calm and sort of, well, Zen about taking an entire basket of clothes and folding them all into small, tidy squares that fit neatly into dresser drawers.
    There was nothing neat or tidy about Luke’s laundry. He had only a few days’ worth of clothes, and it was clear he wore most everything several times before washing. The dirty denim jeans she’d admitted to fetishizing weren’t just dirty but filthy, the hems ragged, belt loops torn or missing entirely. The few T-shirts bore stains bleach might take out, if the shirts didn’t fall apart from the caustic liquid. The elastic on his boxers was loose, his socks had holes in the toes. All of it, all together, made up only half a load in her washer.
    He came downstairs when she was folding the last T-shirt, still warm from the dryer and no longer smelling of gasoline and sweat but instead of lavender fabric softener sheets. He looked at the meager stacks of his clothes on the kitchen table and ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. She’d lent him a pair of scrub pants, and they hung low enough to expose his jutting hipbones and the line of dark golden hair running from his belly button into the waistband. Now he stood with one hip cocked, his bare toes curled slightly on the kitchen tiles.
    â€œWhat’s this?”
    Celia passed a hand over the warm cotton. “I did your laundry. It really needed to be done.”
    Luke looked like he meant to say something, changed his mind, opened his mouth again. “You didn’t have to.”
    â€œI wanted to. Well,” she said, “not that I wanted to do laundry. Nobody ever wants to do laundry. But it needed to be done, and I was up, so…I did it.”
    â€œThank you,” Luke said.
    Celia’d been through awkward morning afters before. “I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. And there’s coffee.”
    Luke didn’t move toward a seat, though his eyes cut toward the counter and the coffeemaker. “I should get on the road.”
    She’d had a suspicion he’d say something like that, but even so, her stomach sank. “You have time for breakfast, don’t you? You have to eat. You can’t head off without something in your stomach.”
    â€œI already slept too late….”
    â€œWhere do you have to go?” Celia asked quietly. “I mean, is there some sort of schedule I don’t know about? You have to punch a clock?”
    That earned her a small smile. “No. But I have a lead on a few things up toward Scranton. If I get on the road, I can be there before it gets dark.”
    â€œYou could stay here, have breakfast. Then lunch. Some afternoon delight,” she said, teasing. “Another good night’s sleep.”
    Luke looked with blatant longing at the coffeemaker and the plate of cinnamon rolls. “I really can’t.”
    â€œYou kind of look like shit,” Celia told him bluntly. “Like you’ve been riding hard and treating yourself like crap. Tell me how you can do what you do without taking better care of yourself, Luke.”
    He fixed her with a long, steady gaze, then looked away as though she’d shamed him. “Celia, this is too much.”
    â€œWhat’s too much?” she asked, not willing to let him slide away from her and uncertain why. It wasn’t as if she’d never let a man slide away from her before. Jeremy hadn’t even needed a good excuse to leave her, and she’d let herself be left. “The laundry?