Finding Home by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

it before. He saw no reason to rehash anything tonight. He had no desire to get into an argument on their anniversary.
    â€œYou get it often enough,” he assured her. He tugged the sheet up over him, rolling over as he closed his eyes. “I’ll owe you,” he told her. “I’m good for it.”
    â€œYou know, if I ever decide to collect on that, you’re going to be making love to me for at least six months straight.”
    â€œI look forward to it,” Brad murmured. He was already drifting off to sleep.
    â€œThat makes two of us,” Stacey answered.
    But she was talking to herself and she knew it. With a sigh, she leaned over, switching off the lamp. And then watched as the darkness swallowed up the room with one bite.

CHAPTER 7
    â€œHere.”
    Coming up behind her at the kitchen counter the following Monday morning, Brad placed two hundred-dollar bills next to her mug of coffee.
    Lost in thought, she hadn’t even heard him walk into the room. Stacey turned from the counter, his breakfast—four scrambled egg whites and one slice of wheat toast, no butter—on the plate she was holding. She set it down before him.
    â€œWhat’s this?” she asked.
    Brad picked up the newspaper and gave her an amused look. “I know that you like doing everything by credit card or check, but I thought you could still recognize money when you saw it.”
    Taking her coffee mug and leaving the bills where they were, Stacey sat down opposite her husband. She hated it when Brad got flippant. It always felt as if he was talking down to her.
    She supposed that she was being overly sensitive, a holdover from her hurt feelings. Ordinarily, she didn’t allow things to fester, but Brad had been gone most of the weekend, attending a local conference. This was supposed to have been their weekend.
    It took everything she had to bank down the frown that wanted to possess her lips. “I know it’s money, Brad. What was it doing next to my coffee mug?”
    Brad moved his broad shoulders in a dismissive half shrug, uncomfortable with having to explain himself. He wasn’t a man of words. Didn’t she understand that? “I just thought you might want to go buy yourself something.”
    Stacey stared at him, speechless. Dear God, when had this man gotten rooted in the fifties? Did he suddenly forget they had a joint checking account?
    She took a long sip of the black coffee, letting the caffeine jolt through her system before commenting. Very carefully, she set the mug down before her, then curved her hands around it. She had this sudden need to anchor herself to something.
    Stacey raised her eyes to his. “If I wanted to go buy myself ‘something,’ Brad, I would,” she informed him evenly. “I have all those credit cards and checks you just referred to a minute ago. And— ” she underscored the word because it was important to her that she was earning her own way, that he didn’t think of her as just so much dead weight he was carrying “—I earn a pretty decent salary, so if I did buy myself ‘something,’ I wouldn’t feel as if I was dipping into ‘your’ money.”
    Brad’s brow furrowed. He looked at her as if she’d just lapsed into a foreign language, one he was trying desperately to decode.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous.” He jabbed at his eggs with his fork as if he expected resistance from that quarter as well. “It’s our money.”
    Right. Until I want to do something with it. This morning, as she turned on the kitchen faucet, she could hear the toilet flush. Since there was no one in the house but the two ofthem and there was no resident ghost to speak of, that meant the water pressure was weak in the third bathroom. Something else that could be addressed if they renovated the house.
    Stacey seized the term he used, cornering him. At least for a second. “If it’s