Redemption For Two Read Online Free PDF Page B

stayed in the bathroom to rinse the tub and collect Cindy’s toys into the blue plastic basket. Then he filled the bath again with a second bubble bath and called out to Sandy.
    “She’s on the porch, Daddy,” Cindy said. “And you didn’t dry my hair enough.”
    “Go get Mommy,” he said. “I’ll find you a fresh towel for your hair.”
    Sandy came after a minute and looked at the tub and then, briefly, at Mickey. “I’m just going to have a shower,” she said in that reasonable tone with a little sullen under it for emphasis. Sandy was big on those layered responses. She got a fresh towel and went to work on the three year old’s hair.
    “Tell your Mommy to take her bath,” Mickey said.
    His daughter put her fists on her hips and said, “You have to, Mommy, just like me. And if you’re a good girl then Daddy will take us both to the beach on Saturday.”
    Sandy gave Mickey a murderous look over the top of Cindy’s head and said, “Of course, I’ll take my bath, darling. Just as soon as we finish making your hair beautiful.”
    Mickey turned and went back to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee and have a cigar on the back porch. Three cigarette butts were ground out in the ashtray. Sandy only smoked when she was mad or drunk, and he knew which one it was this time. And three cigarettes one right after the other said that she was really mad. Well, fuck her. She’d just better get used to it.
    Later, they tucked their daughter in and Sandy disappeared into the bathroom. Mickey waited in the hall, and in about a minute, heard the gurgle of water as she opened the drain in the tub. He knocked gently and went in. Sandy was smoking another cigarette by the open window, all of her clothes in a pile on the floor.
    “Very pretty,” he said, and reached to stop the tub drain again. He tested the water and turned on the hot spigot to warm it up.
    “What the hell is the matter with you?” she asked, watching him.
    “Keep your voice down.”
    “I don’t want to take a bath, Mickey.”
    “Nyah, nyah, you can’t make me?” He grinned at her. “You love bubble baths, Sandy. They relax you.”
    “I’ll decide when...”
    “How about a glass of wine?”
    “Damn you,” she said in a flat voice. “Who do you think you are?”
    “Just a guy pouring wine for his wife,” he said, ignoring her tone and the circumstances. “I’ll bring you an ashtray.”
    Sandy lifted the toilet seat and dropped the cigarette butt deliberately into the water as if she was making some huge point. “I don’t need an ashtray,” she said. It was a petty thing to do, and even she seemed to realize it.
    “Stop being such a mule,” he said softly.
    Sandy’s eyes narrowed in sudden fury. “Why, you...!”
    He didn’t let her finish, just closed the door behind himself and went to pour wine into a stem glass. He took one of the pebbled glass ashtrays down from the cupboard and carried them both back to the bath. Sandy was in the tub when he got back.
    “I hope you’re satisfied,” she said acidly.
    He put the wine and the ashtray down on the side of the tub and found her cigarettes and lighter in the pile of her clothes. She leaned her head back, ignoring him pointedly. Mickey left her to it.
    “Gotcha again, sweetie,” he said to himself, walking away to get his dive gear ready. There wasn’t going to be any sex after that little set-to. Sandy would see to that. He was okay with it for the time being. Let her stew.
    When the alarm went off in the morning, Mickey got up to fix the coffee. It was only five o’clock, but he wanted a decent head start on the day. The truck was loaded, so all he had to do was clear the cobwebs out of his head and get on with things. Easier said than done. Two months on his ass, he’d developed some bad habits. Sitting around drinking coffee in the mornings being one of them.
    While the coffee perked, he got down on the floor and groaned through leg lifts and pushups, did some stretches