Whispers and Wishes (Untouchable Book 4)

by Heather Long

  “Course, if you want, I’ll do your laundry. You can even show me how the machines work. It can’t be that hard.”

  “There’s no way that could possibly go wrong,” Jeremy decried in his dry tone. “I implore you, Miss Frankie, that if you do teach him how to do his own laundry, you explain it in full, or I’m afraid you’ll find all your colors bleeding into your whites if he doesn’t blow up the washing machines themselves trying to improve them.”

  “That was once,” I argued, gleefully taking the bone he threw me. “And I was ten. I didn’t know that soap dispenser wouldn’t know to only dispense the correct amount of soap.”

  Jeremy gave me a patient look, and a small wink.

  Frankie laughed again, the watery sound far more amused this time. “That’s a story I’d like to hear.”

  “Well then I shall gladly tell you while I set up your food and Mr. Archie gets the laundry.”

  Glancing up at me, then at Jeremy, Frankie pulled off her hat and said. “Okay…do you mind if I send the bed sheets, too?”

  “Not at all. In fact, do you mind if I take pictures of Mr. Archie trying to make the bed?”

  She giggled. Honest-to-god giggled.

  “I don’t know, that might be mean.” Then she glanced at me. “Do you know how to make a bed?”

  “I know how to wreck one,” I said, keeping my tone dry. “How hard could it be to do it the other way?”

  Jeremy’s snort spoke volumes, but it made Frankie laugh again. “Tell you what, I’ll show you how after we eat and I have my shower.”

  “Works for me.” I dropped a kiss on her lips, just lightly brushing them. I did not want to upset that cut there. “Go sit and let Jeremy spoil you while I do the grunt work.” Then I whispered next to her ear. “He really needs someone to look after since I’m staying here.”

  “Uh huh. Don’t peek at my panties while you’re stacking the clothes.”

  “What panties?” I asked as I backed away. “If you don’t have any, you don’t need to wear them…”

  “Mr. Archie,” Jeremy’s prim verbal smack stopped me in my tracks. “You will include all of Miss Frankie’s things without comment or teasing. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal,” I said with a salute, and when Frankie looked away from me laughing, I met Jeremy’s gaze and mouthed ‘thank you.’ He nodded serenely.

  “Come along, Miss Frankie. As I recall, you were quite fond of the horseradish with your roast beef, and I brought some just for you.”

  “Oh, you really are going to spoil me.”

  That was the idea.

  In the bedroom, I fired off a text to the guys to let them know she was doing all right. I know I’d want to know, and I better get updates from them when I had to go in.

  That done, I whistled as I stripped the bed. See, that wasn’t so hard…

  The laundry though, there was a lot of it. All the guys had their stuff in here.

  Ah, hell with it. I bagged it all. Her stuff and theirs.

  Jeremy wouldn’t mind.

  Chapter Three

  It Gets Worse at Night

  Jake

  They started out the same way every night—she’d go from sleeping peacefully to beginning to twitch. After the third night in a row, the first tremble of her hand would rouse me. Most of the time, I’d open my eyes, and she’d just be shifting. It was harder when I slept on the floor. So far, only Bubba hadn’t taken a turn sleeping with her, even if we’d all made it clear that it was all right—even Frankie.

  That first night, he’d crashed on the sofa, but after that, he made a pallet on the floor in her room. Coop, Archie, and I rotated who slept with her. The bed could fit two of us with her comfortably, and three if we wanted to squeeze.

  Since her wrist was still in the splint and she had bruises on her back, face, and arms—fucking asshole—none of us wanted to squeeze. So for one night out of every three, I slept on the floor. The night before, I had, and it had been hard to sleep because I couldn’t tell if she twitched, so I found myself waiting for shifts in her breathing.

  I wasn’t the only one. More than once, when I opened my eyes to check on her, I’d find Coop shifting either on the other side or on the floor, we’d both look at her, and if she was still sleeping, we’d go back to sleep.

  Tonight, when the twitching started, I rolled onto my side and stared at her. Archie had the other side, but there was a light on in the corner, and when I glanced over, I found Bubba frowning at the bed. He had a notebook open and had been writing something in it. The roses he bought her filled the room with their scent, and she’d smiled so wide at them, the cut on her lip had started to split.

  Worth it, even if we had to ice it a little.

  Still…I didn’t care that he was awake so much. The light he had on let me make out Frankie’s face. The smallest of frowns tightened between her brows, and her eyes shifted swiftly under the closed lids.

  A dream.

  But a dream or a nightmare?

  The nightmares had been bad. She had them when she was younger, usually after a horror movie—hence why we never made her watch horror flicks. Frankie’s imagination didn’t need the help. While she hadn’t really talked about what happened with Mitch, I didn’t doubt that it was worse than a horror movie because it happened to her.

  Fucking asshole. If I ever saw him again, a broken jaw would be the least of his problems.

  Still, at the first whimper, I pressed my forehead to hers and whispered, “Shhh…” I gripped her left hand carefully, wrapping my fingers around hers so she could squeeze. “It’s okay,” I murmured close to her ear. “You’re safe.”

  I felt more than saw Archie wake up, and he wrapped his arm around her, hugging her. That was the other thing we’d discovered. If we caged her in and hugged her close, it seemed to settle her, and the last couple of nights, we’d gotten her out of the nightmare and back to sleep before she woke all the way up.

  I hated that panicked look when she’d jerk awake and the fact that she’d be shaking. Worse still, she wouldn’t tell us what was in her nightmares, and I wanted to push her, to make her tell me, because I couldn’t fight what I didn’t know was there. Any other time, that would be exactly how I tackled it.

  But I couldn’t do that to her right now. I didn’t want to be the asshole.

  No, that title was reserved for that fucking asshole who…

  Her eyes flickered open, and Bubba rolled forward to his knees, ready to move. She let out a little sigh, and they drifted closed again as she burrowed.

  “Sleep, Baby Girl,” I whispered. “We got you.”

  The corner of her mouth tipped, and she squeezed my hand, then her breathing deepened and evened out. I sighed, and Archie lifted his head long enough to press a kiss to the back of hers. We shared a look, and then he dropped back down with a yawn.

  Bubba scrubbed a hand over his face and went back to leaning against the pillow he had propped against the wall and glanced down at his notebook. I raised an eyebrow. “You should be sleeping,” I whispered. “You still have school in a few hours.”

  It was my turn to stay with Frankie, we’d drawn numbers for it to keep it fair. Coop would stay with her the next day, and then we were at the weekend. We’d make the call for Monday once we made it through the weekend.

  “Not tired,” Bubba said. “Want to finish this. Get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  I frowned. I got it, I did. But man… “Bubba,” I said, pitching my voice lower when Archie lifted his head to glare at me. “You need sleep. Leave it for tomorrow.”

  He just shot me a dry look. “Good night, Jake.” When he turned his attention back to his notebook, I just sighed and settled back down on the pillow. I still had Frankie’s hand in mine, so I hugged it to my chest, and when she snuggled closer, I let my eyes close.

  The next time I opened them, she was poking me. “I gotta pee,” she said by way of explanation, and the faintest of snores rose from behind her. Archie was pr
obably dead to the world.

  “Yep,” I said, rolling off the bed and to my feet so she could scoot out. I wasn’t making her climb or do anything awkward. She winced as she unfolded, though she wasn’t moving as stiffly as she had the last few mornings. Smothering a yawn, I debated falling back on the bed, but if she was up…

  Tiddles yowled at me.

  Then Tabby and Tory threaded around my legs. I swore that Tory only came out when food was involved, otherwise, the little hermit played hide and seek.

  “Got it, you want to eat.”

  Bubba was asleep on his pallet in the corner, the notebook closed next to him. Hopefully, he’d gotten some actual sleep. Leaving the room, I headed for the kitchen with the cats following and yowling all the way. Coop sprawled on his stomach on the sofa, also dead to the world. What the fuck time was it?

  The clock in the kitchen said it was five minutes before the alarms would go off.

  Heh.

  Fine.

  I fed the cats and got the coffee started. Frankie surprised me when she padded into the kitchen.

  “Not going back to bed?”

  She shook her head. “I’m still tired, but I’m kind of tired of sleeping.”

  “K.” I kind of got that. “Want to work on homework after we kick the bums out and send them off to school like good little boys?”

  She snickered, and I grinned. Then her smile faltered. “I kind of thought I might try to go, but my face still hurts and so does my throat.”

  “The doc gave you a pass for the whole week,” I reminded her. “You might be better off just sticking to the plan. It’s not just going back to school.”

  It was all the assholes there.

  “But if you want to,” I continued, even though I would prefer she didn’t. “We could give it a shot. You’ll have one of us with you all day.” There were only two classes we didn’t have with her, and Rachel was in one of them. That just left finding a way to cover her TA period. Maybe they’d let her sit that out.

  “I want to, but I won’t,” she said, scooting over to lean against me when I lifted an arm. I wrapped it around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I start off being all ‘I can do this,’ and then I get tired thinking about it.”

  That was because my Frankie was an overachiever from hell. She did not like sitting anything out. Even when she got sick for real, she kept trying to do stuff. It could be maddening. Course, it didn’t help that she seemed to embrace the concept of guilt when it came to blowing off shit and just taking a day.

  Especially when she worried about things—like her job and money. Fuck. Her. Mom. I worked and helped my mom out, and she’d never in a million years put this kind of responsibility on me. Even if I could stand it. Even my dick of a dad wouldn’t pull this crap.

  Ugh, I hated that woman.

  “Then we do homework here, watch YouTube videos, eat ice cream.”

  “Cheesecake,” she corrected me, and I grinned.

  The coffee filling the pot hissed to its conclusion as Coop’s alarm went off, and then the others began to sound through the apartment. Not mine, I’d turned that shit off, but hey, look where we were.

  The next hour drifted by with coffee and cinnamon rolls—Frankie and I made them and got those going in the oven. She hadn’t had a fritter in a few days. I’d get up extra early the next day and do a donut run.

  The guys drifted through, morning kisses deposited with care and no pushing whatsoever. Except Bubba, he just gave her a side hug. Again, not pushing.

  “What do you want for dinner?” Coop asked.

  “Oh, and Jeremy will probably be by with the laundry later,” Archie said as he looked at his phone. There was something up, because he frowned but swiped out of whatever message before he focused on the rest of us. Yeah, I’d ask him about that later. If Frankie noticed it, she didn’t say anything.

  “We have so many leftovers in there,” she protested. “I say potluck so we can clean out the fridge.”

  “Potluck works,” I agreed. Coop and I had taken turns working on this schedule, too. Archie and Bubba could both be there in the evenings, but if I could slip in a few hours of shift that was extra dollars in the pocket. At the same time, I didn’t want to be away from her.

  I’d work this evening since Coop worked the night before—and likely why he’d slept on the sofa.

  After the guys left, Frankie let out a long sigh.

  “Okay, Baby Girl,” I said while rinsing the breakfast plates. “Talk to me. What’s going on in that beautiful brain?”

  “Nothing,” she said, but then made a face. “Just…tired of everyone tiptoeing around me.”

  “We’re not tiptoeing.”

  “Yes you are.” Then she shrugged and faced me, leaning against the back of the chair. “And I get it. Things are kind of screwy, and I look like this and I have this.” She motioned to her face then waved her splinted wrist at me. “Hard to forget. Unless you’re me, and then you have this blank wall.”

  One she wasn’t happy about, so no, I wasn’t taking that bait. “You’re recovering. So we’re taking it easy. That’s not tiptoeing. Nor is taking care of you.”

  “You guys have practically moved in, everyone is making sure I’m not alone, at any point. I can barely go to the bathroom by myself.”

  “Sick of us already?” I teased, keeping it light.

  “No, shockingly enough. You’d think I would be, but I almost don’t mind it—though I feel guilty that Ian keeps sleeping on the floor.”

  “Hey, the sofa’s there, and you offered to let him crash on the bed a couple of nights ago.” It had been a strained offer on her part, and we all knew it. He’d turned her down gently, and he’d even teased her, so…that was something. “Besides, I think he’s doing it to show you how devoted he is.”

  That got me rolled eyes.

  “He brought you roses,” I reminded her, and the corner of her mouth kicked up. “Not that I’m going to plead his case.” On this portion of it, Archie, Coop, and I were in agreement. We’d be supportive, but Bubba dug this hole and Bubba had to be the one to fix it. That didn’t mean we couldn’t root for him, but Frankie came first.

  “I know he did, and I like them,” she said, and then chuckled. “It’s kind of funny, I wanted you guys to be the ones sending the roses, and then it turned out to be Rachel, and now he brought me roses, and I’m wondering if he’s bringing me flowers because he wants to give me flowers or because he thinks I want them.”

  “I followed that—mostly.”

  “Good, because when I think about it, it gets all tangled up in knots, and then I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

  “I get that, too.”

  She pushed her left hand through her hair and then made a face. “Do you think you’d mind helping me put this in a ponytail?”

  It cost her to ask me that, so no way in hell was I teasing her.

  “How about I braid it?” Then it would be out of her face and off her neck. At her blink of surprise, I spread my hands before shutting off the sink. “Three sisters. Trust me, I can braid hair.”

  “That’s true. I’ve even seen you braid it, but I was sworn to secrecy.”

  “That was when Blake was into drill team.” I made a face. “I cannot tell you how happy I was when she gave up that crap.”

  “Louisa still does cheer though. All three of them dance.”

  True. “But drill team is where…” Then I winced. “Okay, I’m shutting up about that.”

  “Drill team is where the football team starts trolling for girls,” she pointed out, and I sighed. “Jake, you don’t have to edit for me. I get it. I tried out for drill team, remember?”

  And she’d been on the spirit squad too, yeah. I remembered. “You were hella cute making us those spirit boxes, too.”

  Her snort made me grin. Drying off my hands, I motioned her to the living room.

  “Come on, let me braid your hair for you. It’ll be fun.”

&nbs
p; “Will you put ribbons and trinkets in it?”

  “Yeah, let’s not go too far.” I’d only done that for Blake once. “But if you really want a ribbon, I can thread one in there.”

  “I really don’t want a ribbon,” she said, a hint of laughter in her voice. “Though maybe some other time.”

  “Good deal.”

  I turned on the TV while she hit the bathroom and came back with her brush and some hair ties. When she sat on the floor, between my legs, I took the brush and handed her the remote. “You are in charge of entertainment.”

  “I thought we were going to do homework. Do you know how far behind I am?”

  “Nowhere near far enough to be that stressed about it. But feel free to find us something educational to watch.”

  “Meh.” The moue of disgust was the right answer. Still, I took my time running the brush through her hair. It was easy to forget just how much she had. I loved her hair. I loved it when she tumbled over me with it or when it was spread out on a pillow below me.

  I loved it even more when I could fist her hair and guide…

  And new subject, Jake. I gave myself a good solid mental shake. The last thing I needed was a boner while I was brushing her hair. I’d barely gotten rid of the morning wood. Not getting a boner around Frankie took effort.

  I thought about Mitch for a split second, and that helped to deflate it but aggravated my temper.

  She scrolled through the channels as I smoothed out her curls. They were not quite a riot today, though the extra waves would make separating it a challenge.

  “Jake?”

  “Yeah, Baby Girl?”

  “Do you think I could have done something differently?”

  I froze then forced myself to keep moving. A French braid would take a lot of concentration, and I needed to not yank on her hair. “Saturday night?” I clarified after clearing my throat.

  “Yeah.” She had the TV on, but it was muted as she scrolled the channel guide. We’d end up switching to Netflix or YouTube, but we always started out on the guide. Like we had to verify there was nothing on.