Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III Read Online Free Page A

clear, precise, handwriting. Two, she was a fucking minimalist. Three boxes of clothes, a couple of books, and a damn few of those judging by the weight. She had only one box of toiletries and one box labeled ‘personal items’ and that was it.
    I hadn’t split anything marked ‘personal’ open, at least not on purpose, but the bottom had dropped out of the personal items box. Picture albums, a jewelry box that must have been something she’d had since she was a little girl, and a few other items of no consequence. The pictures that were framed, a few of the glass plates had broken, and the jewelry box had spilled out onto the bed where I’d gone to set it when the bottom of the box had given way. I’d cleaned up the glass and busted out the vacuum, careful to get it all while Trike had gone to work putting the top onto her Jeep before the rain could set in.
    The hard top we’d stashed against the side of the house, and the paperwork for the little U-Haul trailer we’d found on the passenger seat of her rig. I’d had Trike it back to the closest one while I’d carefully put away Charity’s things for her. It was like once that box had split giving me a deeper glimpse into her life, I’d needed to know more. Before I knew it, over half the boxes contents were put where they belonged. Clothes hanging, and useless bedding relegated to the linen closet. I’d taken the time to run out and get her some useable bedding before heading to The Plank. She had a thing for the color blue, like light blue, so I’d gotten her sheets that would match her eyes.
    She was all moved in, completely set, and I had some really mixed feelings about it. I turned on my bar stool and rapped my knuckles on the scarred wood surface of the bar. Trike loaded my glass with another double and I took a decent slug of it. I was way past the burning sensation and in that territory where the buzz was beginning to blur into a haze. Radar, slapped me on the back, hanging on me for a second before dropping onto the stool next to me. I only halfheartedly shrugged him off and he stared at me with that shit eating grin of his that screamed ‘I know something you don’t know.’
    He kept right on staring, knowing that it’d eventually get under my skin, until finally, exasperated, I growled out, “What?”
    “She likes you. Don’t ask me why; I mean, you’re an ugly fucker, but she started asking all kinds of questions. I think she’s the one , Nothing my man.”
    “One what?” I growled and finished off my double. Fuck me, but I wanted to drink tonight.
    “Come on, man. You should hit it. I mean look at her,” I shrugged him off of me as he tried to wrench me around on my bar stool to look in her direction. Except I didn’t want to look at her. I felt guilty as fuck that I’d almost let Corrine’s memory slip from my mind the last few hours.
    “Seriously, bro?”
    “Seriously, leave it the fuck alone tonight, Radar. I’m not into it.”
    Radar shook his head, “Man, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
    “I can, and I will. It’s what I deserve.” I slid off my stool by way of emphasis and made for the door. Fuck it. I’d walk home. I was in no shape to drive and Marlin would need the Subie to take his woman home, out of the rain. I’d given him my spare key to it when it was apparent Faith was a permanent fixture. She couldn’t ride all the time, not in the wet, and I couldn’t paint houses in the rain.
    I pushed my way out the front door and into the downpour, tipping my head back to let the warm wet wash some of my guilt away. Not like it mattered, though. There was always plenty more where it came from.
    “Don’t let him get to you.”
    I whirled and looked at Hope; she was tucked back into the alcove next to the front door out of the water streaming from The Plank’s eaves. I’d walked right by her. She raised her glass and took a sip, raising an eyebrow at me over the rim. She’d quit smoking long before