The Perfect Husband by Lisa Gardner Read Free Book Online

give Teddy a little sister to play with. And Teddy and his little sister would be raised right, without any bad memories to keep them awake on dark nights later in life.
    Those dreams were gone. J.T. just had Rachel's kitchen, a large, cool room with a red-tiled floor and eggshell-blue counter. The stove was big and accented with a wreath of jalapeños. A huge collection of brass pots and pans hung from a wire rack suspended from the ceiling. He'd placed each one just where he figured Rachel would have, having listened to her excitedly describe the kitchen night after night as they'd lain together in bed and dreamed like children.
    “It's a nice kitchen,” Angela said from behind him. “Do you cook a lot?”
    “I don't cook at all.” He moved to the sliding glass door, which Rosalita had left slightly cracked. The heat seeped in like a tentacled beast. He shut the door.
    “You aren't going to lock it?”
    “Lock what?”
    “The door.”
    “No.”
    There was a small pause. He contemplated the pots and pans, trying to figure out which to grab. It had been a long time since he'd tried cooking anything; that was Freddie's job.
    “Do you lock your front door?”
    “Nope.”
    “Could… could I do it?”
    He looked at her. She stood by the wood table, her hands twisting in front of her, and her gaze fastened on the sliding glass door.
    “Sweetheart, this is Nogales, the outskirts of Nogales. You don't have to worry about anything here.”
    “Please.”
    He was really starting to hate how well she used that word. “You're scared,” he said flatly.
    She didn't bother to deny it.
    “You think he followed you here? This big bad ex-husband of yours?”
    “It's possible. He's very, very good at that.”
    “You said you paid cash, used fake names.”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you're fine.” He turned back to the stove, but he heard her move behind him, then heard the click of the sliding glass door lock sliding home. Whatever. He didn't feel like telling her about the small arsenal he kept in a safe and the fact that even dead drunk he could shoot the Lincoln head out of a penny at two hundred yards. If she wanted the doors locked that badly, he wasn't going to argue.
    He boiled water. He opened a canister of oatmeal and wondered how much he was supposed to dump in. He dumped in half and figured what the hell. If he could rig explosives, he ought to be able to manage oatmeal.
    “Generally people measure it out,” Angela commented, returning to the kitchen.
    “I like to live dangerously.”
    “I want my gun back.”
    “The water-logged .22? You'd be better off with a slingshot.”
    “I want my gun.”
    It irritated him. Too many people thought guns fixed things. They didn't. He ought to know. There wasn't anything he couldn't do with a rifle and yet everyone he'd ever loved had been destroyed. Guns didn't fix anything.
    “First let's get through breakfast.” He dumped the oatmeal into two bowls. It had the same consistency as mud. He sprinkled the bowls with raisins for more iron and poured two glasses of milk. Angela looked at the oatmeal as if it were an unrecognizable life-form.
    “Eat,” he said. “Tough guys never turn away from a nutritious meal. Hell, if we were outside, I would've topped it with bugs. They're almost pure protein, you know.”
    “I didn't know,” she confessed, and finally, gingerly, scooped up the first spoonful and thrust it into her mouth. Her eyes were closed. She looked like a little kid and he found himself thinking of Teddy again with a sharp, bittersweet pang.
    “Yugh,” she said.
    “Told you I wasn't a cook.” He took in three spoonfuls at once. “Don't chew. It goes down easier.”
    She looked horrified. She pushed the bowl away. Just as fast, he pushed it back in front of her. “Eat,” he ordered. “I wasn't kidding before — soldiers eat what they're given. And you need your iron, Rambo, so stop dreaming about room service.”
    For a moment it appeared that she would