Elle's Seduction Read Online Free Page B

missing.
    Maybe Maxwell was seeing what he wanted to see. Maybe Darren was right. Maybe Elle was the one woman he couldn’t have.
     
    ***
     
    The lights up and down Lebanon Park glittered on the wet pavement as Elle sprinted up the steps to her apartment building. Thunder rumbled in the distance while she shook her umbrella and shouldered her way through the heavy main door.
    Built in the 40’s, the building didn’t have much to recommend it —central air being unfortunately absent—but it did have an elevator, which Elle ignored. As exhausted as she usually was at 6:30 when she dragged herself home it wouldn’t stop her from taking the stairs. She had enough padding on her thighs that six flights of stairs were about as far as she was going for exercise. And everyone should exercise every day.
    The sound of children’s laughter and the smell of kimchi and shrimp wafted from Mrs. Lin’s door at the base of the stairs. Her family reminded Elle of a better time. A time when her mother and father were healthy and they were a whole family. Happy.
    Those days were long gone. A car accident and cancer had seen to that , and there was no sense wallowing in it. Besides, Garfield would be waiting and she couldn’t show up at her doorstep crying. Garfield would be beside himself.
    She shifted her purse on her hip before trudging up the six flights of stairs. As she walked, allowing the different smells and sounds to move around her and comfort her. She’d lived in the building four years now. It was a far cry from the warm little country house they’d lived in before her mother’s death. Horses and wheat fields as far as the eye could see. What she remembered the most were the very long lazy nights, staring up at the stars, while her favorite horse nickered in the field.
    She’d wished on so many falling stars that her mother started saving quarters. Every time Elle would wish on a star, her mother would put a quarter in a jar. It only ever amounted to six dollars and twenty-five cents but those twenty-five wishes were embedded in her memory. She still had the jar. Her mother had never asked about her wishes. She’d just smiled and nodded, absolutely certain that those wishes were going to come true. Elle wondered where her own confidence was.
    Pushing those thoughts away, she passed Miss Sutter’s door and took the last flight of stairs. The sixth floor was quiet. The occasional sound of a dish clanking or an oven door shutting was all that broke up the silence.
    With a louder than normal clomp , clomp , Elle walked past Garfield’s door and shoved her key into her own lock. Before her door had swung opened, apartment door six hundred and four opened.
    “There you are!” An elderly man with fuzzy, gray hair and hunched back glared at her.
    Short, with a small paunch for a gut, Garfield rented his apartment, but he might as well have owned the whole place. Nothing happened in the building that he didn’t know about. When Mrs. Sutter’s cat died, he’d collected money for a burial. When old Doc down in three hundred and five had to move to a retirement home, he’d personally visited every day until the sweet man died in his sleep a year later.
    And one thing Garfield kept utmost in his mind was keeping an eye on Elle. Most evenings she welcomed the old man’s quiet presence. Tonight she didn’t have the heart to tell him how exhausted she was. Instead she met him halfway and hugged him. “How are you Garfield?”
    “I was wondering when you’d get back, Elle. I got us something special tonight.”
    Elle smiled at the goofy expression on his face. He was incredible. “What is it tonight Garfield? Roasted lamb? Carmel glazed squash? Oh—Oh...don’t tell me! Almond crusted truffle pork chops.”
    “Alas. No, my fair lady.” From behind his back he pulled two frozen dinner trays. “I have beef a la king and chicken enchilada. I hear this is the best chef of them all.”
    Elle laughed at the Slim Cuisines.