Beautiful Life: The Carpino Series Read Online Free PDF

trying one more time to convince them I don’t need the help. 
    “What do you have tomorrow?” Tony interrupts.
    “It’s not a problem, Leigh.  I’ll be up early to shop Black Friday, I’ll swing by to get you.  I’m sure you can’t wait to get that cast off,” Lizzie continues.
    “You get the cast off tomorrow?” Tony asks, butting in again.
    I close my eyes and sigh one more time.  Before I can say anything else I hear Tony, but he’s speaking to his mother this time, “I’m off tomorrow.  I’ll take her.  That way you can shop all day.”
    “Maybe we can hit some of the Black Friday sales when we get to Denver tomorrow,” I hear Gabby join in.
    “No,” is Jude’s response. 
    “Please?  I need to start my Christmas Shopping,” she adds. 
    I see Jude pull her in for a kiss before he repeats, “Babe.  No.”
    I hear a “humph” from Gabby and then Lizzie says loudly, “Thanks, Tony.  I don’t want her to go by herself.”
    I look back to Tony and reiterate, “I don’t need you to take me.  I’ll be fine.”
    Tony leans in and puts his lips to my ear, “Your almost ex-husband is out on bail.  He’s proved how many ways he’s willing to be an asshole.  You’re not going by yourself.  You think after what happened to Gabby and what’s already happened to you, anyone here wants you by yourself?  Be ready at two.  After your appointment, I’ll take you to dinner.  We’ll have something to celebrate.”
    His lips at my ear make me shiver a bit so I lean back to create some space between us and look at him.  Of course the Carpinos are freaked after what happened to Gabby.  Jude is a Special Agent with the FBI and she met him during a Federal Raid where Jude was the case agent.  Gabby was at a client’s house whose husband turned out to be a gun smuggler.  Later, that gun smuggler beat her up as a warning and Gabby ended up in the hospital. 
    “Fine,” I say on a sigh. 
    I push back from the kid table as Tony’s arm falls away and I stand to start picking up plates as best I can with only one arm.  I’m not going to think about tomorrow until tomorrow.  But I probably do need to think about where my shoes are. 

Chapter 3 - Another Step
     
    Leigh is sitting on the paper covered patient bed in the doctor’s office staring down at her bare arm for the first time in six weeks.  She turns her arm back and forth, runs her fingers over her wrist, all the while looking a million miles away.  She’s been quiet and contemplative again since I’ve picked her up for her appointment.  I knew the kids would loosen her up at dinner yesterday, that’s why I finagled a way for her to sit with me, not to mention I’d find any reason to be near her.  But today I’ve allowed her to keep to her thoughts, hoping to give her the space she seems to need this afternoon. 
    I can’t imagine what’s going through her head, all the memories being dredged up right now.  Reading the police reports and her divorce papers was horrific enough, I can’t imagine what she’s thinking having experienced it first-hand and losing a child in the process.  And that doesn’t begin to describe what she endured her entire marriage to that fuckwad.  It makes me want to find her husband and kill him with my own two hands.  It was all I could do not to jump across the table at him that day in the conference room.  I so badly wanted to have her sign the divorce papers that day so she would be severed from him for good, but I couldn’t let her walk away with nothing.  Even though she won’t need that rat bastard’s money since I’ll be taking care of her, she needs to take him for everything she can.  I don’t care if she donates the money the minute the divorce is final, going after him financially is her only way to bring him low.  He’s got his legal issues, but you never know what kind of plea he’ll make.  I had to do everything I could to make him pay for what he did to