Done [Running to Love 4] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Allyson Young

wandered around her apartment. She moved a picture an infinitesimal fraction, brushed a little dust from atop the frame and then ran her hand over the back of her brocade couch. The area rug took her attention next, and she picked up a tiny piece of thread and deposited it in the wastebasket. She could hear Greg rummaging around in the kitchen and wished him luck. He was hardly domestic, but he’d taken this task on, so he would just have to find out how difficult it could be all by himself. She simply was not going to assist him when she hadn’t asked for his help. She tested the soil in the white African violet on the window sill and decided to leave it one more day before she watered it. From the bottom of course.
    The door to the little second bedroom hovered just outside of her line of vision, nearly in her peripheral, and Lacey clamped down on any thoughts at all in that direction. Instead, she moved to touch the drapery at the closest window, letting the feel of the silky material sooth her fingers and her thoughts by extension. It was pleasant, this just drifting along, letting someone else cater to her every need. She didn’t feel guilty, at least not about that. She didn’t have the urge to pay attention to much of anything, just float. The medication she had taken before leaving the hospital, the little yellow pill that had accompanied the pain killer and the antibiotic, was obviously doing its job, although she had already begun to process the need not to rely on it. She hated to take any kind of drug, and was determined to deal with the aftereffects of what had happened as soon as she could allow herself to think about it.
    She had started to come back to herself early in the morning, when she had sat straight upright in the narrow hospital bed. Greg had been snoring lightly, his bulk draped awkwardly across the cot crammed against the far wall. It had felt quite surreal, and Lacey accepted that a terrible thing had happened, and life wasn’t going to ever be the same. She would have to go on again. It was going to take some time, however. There were things, a certain thing she couldn’t allow herself to think about just yet, if ever. Greg seemed determined to insert himself back into her life, and it made her mildly annoyed, much as one would feel at the incessant buzzing of a fly, but it was too much trouble to swat it. She had really wanted to go home, leave the place of her… No, she wasn’t going to think about that. Suffice it to say she simply wanted out of the hospital. She had done everything that was expected of her, and Sheila had been kind, whispering to her to just focus on getting well and things would work out the way they should. Feeling much of anything just took too much effort. Her job kind of sat out there on the horizon, but Gladys had reassured her she had plenty of time off, so Lacey didn’t think about it. If only the second bedroom would just go away, the contents vanish.
    “Baby?” Lacey winced a little. Greg shouldn’t call her that. She turned to face him and considered him dispassionately. He was such a good-looking guy, built, hot actually. Hard to believe he had once settled for the likes of her. She was a bit too top heavy, a lot too short, and wasn’t truly beautiful. Whatever. Maybe she should remind him what her name was.
    “Yes?”
    “I can’t find anything to drain the vegetables with. Can you tell me where to look for the colander?”
    She felt a trivial hint of supercilious amusement and was shocked at the nasty thought she had next, that he was really quite useless, once you got behind the strong, manly façade. Who needed strong, handsome, sexually satisfying men anyhow? She nodded and slipped behind him, stepping into the kitchen and pointed to one of the upper cupboards. She usually just held a plate over the pan with an oven mitt, because getting the colander would require that she drag out the step stool. Greg of course just reached up and yanked it