"I"m home," Keeley called up the stairs once the elevator doors opened.
Aaron was lying on the couch in the living room with a blanket over him and sat up the moment he saw her. The blanket fell off to reveal he wasn"t wearing a s.h.i.+rt.
"Why aren"t you wearing a s.h.i.+rt?" she fretted as she approached and wrapped the blanket back around his shoulder. "It"s cold outside; you"re going to get sick."
"I can"t lift my arm," he admitted. "It hurts too much."
Keeley sighed as she hugged his non-injured side. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Help me put a s.h.i.+rt on?" Aaron suggested hopefully.
She honestly wasn"t sure how to do that if he couldn"t lift his arm at all. A b.u.t.ton-up one might work as long as he didn"t have to do the b.u.t.tons himself. Those were the kinds of pajamas he liked anyway.
Keeley hurried upstairs to get him a pair of pajamas and helped him change into them. He was still wearing his work pants and a belt even though he had probably been home for hours.
As she helped him change she ended up fussing over him and could tell he was enjoying it. This sap. They had been back together for twenty-five years now and he was even more ridiculously in love with her than before.
Not that she was complaining. Being loved by Aaron Hale was a wonderful thing. Their life together was a very happy one.
"You feel better now?" she teased once he was completely changed and they were cuddling on the couch with his uninjured arm.
He sighed contentedly and kissed her temple. "Much better."
Suddenly Keeley remembered the letter. "Not to ruin your good mood or anything…but you have a letter from Gray."
She pulled it out of her pocket, where she had stuck it after putting the rest of the junk on the table. Aaron took it from her with a grimace.
He scanned the entire contents of the letter with a progressively darkening look on his face. Uh oh. What did Gray want this time? He only got like this when the man was requesting something from him that he didn"t want to do.
"What is it?" she dared to ask.
"He"s getting out next Wednesday and needs me to come pick him up and take him home," Aaron said sourly. "He wants me to get his place habitable too. Basically I have to do a ridiculous amount of things to help him get his life back because he can"t do it himself from inside the prison. Why his lawyer can"t do it himself…"
Gray"s original lawyer had retired a long time ago and handed his case over to someone else in the law firm. His original sentence had been fifteen years to life. The new lawyer hadn"t been able to negotiate any sooner than twenty-five years but Gray would be free and clear once he got out.
Unfortunately, he wasn"t willing to do more than that. He had a full case load and reasoned that since Gray still had family who visited regularly, they could help him get back on his feet.
Keeley wished she knew how to comfort him. Both of them had known this day would come eventually—it was too much to hope that the "life" part of the sentence would hold up—but it had come faster than they expected.
At least all of their children were grown. Obviously they didn"t want their kids to know they were related to a murderer but if they did find out it would be easier to explain than if they had been younger.
Neither of them wanted Gray near their kids at all but he was clearly going to want to be involved in Aaron"s life somehow. They thought they had more time to figure that out.
"I"ll go with you," Keeley volunteered.
She didn"t like the man much either but she needed to be hospitable. He had gone to prison because of them after all.
"We can take him to lunch or something and explain that we don"t want him near the kids together. I think he"ll be fine as long as you still agree to have some sort of relations.h.i.+p with him."
Aaron leaned his head against the back of the couch in defeat. "You"re probably right. But I really don"t like that man. Prison hasn"t changed him at all; he"s as smooth and insincere as ever."
He had mentioned his suspicions that Gray was merely biding his time in prison and had something planned before. Keeley knew her husband had a lot more experience with him than she did so she couldn"t write it off as paranoia.
All she really cared about was that any sinister plans Gray had didn"t involve them. Their lives had been so peaceful while he was out of the way. It was a selfish way to think but she felt it was justified after everything she had been through in both lives.
Didn"t she deserve to live the remainder of her days out in peace with the people she loved? Hadn"t she been through enough? What more could the universe want from her?
"I don"t like him either but we"re just going to have to deal with it or everything you"ve done over the past twenty-five years to keep him happy would be in vain," Keeley said bluntly.
"I know." Aaron scowled before slumping over so his head rested on her shoulder. "At least you"ll be with me. Keep the conversation flowing if I can"t, okay?"
That was what she was good at. She could do that much for her sweet husband who really hated talking to most people.
They had been a team for over a quarter of a century. Their twenty-sixth wedding anniversary pa.s.sed without incident a week ago. They went out to dinner and a Broadway show to celebrate; saving their belated anniversary trip for the beginning of December when things slowed down for Aaron a bit at work.
Keeley had convinced him to take her on a European cruise that hit multiple countries in the Mediterranean. The sh.o.r.e excursions would involve an awful lot of hiking through ruins and historical sites. She couldn"t wait!
Their kids had never been interested in vacations like this, preferring to spend time at the beach. The one year they all went to England together they had been dreadfully bored for most of it, with the exception of Violet.
She could appreciate history. But she also complained about having bad cell signal so she couldn"t talk to Noah about the cool things she was seeing pretty much the entire time.
As much as Keeley adored her children and all around family time, there were certain things she preferred to do with only her husband.