Chapter 14 #2
The ache that opens in me is so wide I almost make a sound. I cover my mouth with one hand.
I watch as he sits back on his heels and looks toward the yard.
For one wild second, I think he knows I'm here.
His face turns slightly toward the dogwood, the lantern catching the line of his cheek and the tired set of his mouth.
He looks older than he did under the award-show lights.
He looks like the man I married, the man who hurt me, and a stranger all at once.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. The sound is small, but in the quiet house, it's too loud.
Cade's head lifts, and I go still. The hammer stops completely.
The phone vibrates again. It's June, probably, keeping the promise I made because she loves me enough to worry on schedule.
I silence it with shaking fingers, the screen lighting up with her name, bright and accusing.
I move into the shadows, crouched low. There's a clean exit through the back of the house. Nothing precarious in the way to trip over, and if I can make it to what will be the back porch, I can make it out without incident.
His voice comes then, low and rough. "Cy?"
My chest caves, and I press my lips together. He takes another step as the lantern light shifts.
I don't run, because running makes sound. I skitter out of the framed house like a wild animal and walk fast while keeping the house between us, then cut toward the brush where I left the truck. Every twig seems determined to snap, and every leaf moves like a betrayal.
When I reach the truck, I ease the door open with both hands and hold it so it doesn't creak. I slide behind the wheel as my heart beats so hard my vision pulses.
Through the windshield, the house glows in pieces. Cade comes back out onto the porch and stands there looking into the near-dark, one hand wrapped around a hammer and the other hanging at his side.
For a second, I let myself look at him without the protection of anger.
It's a mistake. I remember his hands on my face in a motel room when he promised me someday.
I remember the warmth of his palm against my waist when we slow-danced in the bed of his truck.
I remember believing his attention was the safest place in the world.
Then I remember the jumbotron, showing my face, huge, bright, and humiliated.
I remember Melody tucked under his arm at the podium.
I remember the whole arena sighing over a love story that was stealing air from mine.
I remember the clip online, his voice saying, The only reason I'm not with Melody is because I'm married.
My hand tightens around the key. Cade turns his head slightly, scanning the tree line.
I duck, ridiculous and breathless, then start the truck as quietly as an old truck can start, which is to say not quietly at all. His head snaps toward the sound.
I don't wait to see whether he recognizes it. I pull onto the road and drive.
June calls three times before I make it past the church. On the fourth, I answer.
"Are you alive?" she demands.
"That's such an aggressive greeting."
"Emmy."
"I'm alive."
"Did you go?"
I watch the road unspool in the headlights. "Yes."
Silence follows, then she asks softer, "Was he there?"
"He came back early."
"What?"
"He didn't see me."
"Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure."
"Pretty sure isn't my favorite phrase."
"He was working."
June goes quiet.
"I mean, really working," I say, hating every word as it leaves me because saying it makes it more real. "No people, no press, and no audience. He just came back after the crew left and kept going."
June exhales.
"Don't make that sound," I say.
"What sound?"
"The sound where you're being moved against your will."
"I'm not moved. I'm irritated."
"Good. Stay there."
"I'm trying."
My throat tightens again. I blink hard, keeping my eyes on the road. "It's my house, June."
June's voice gentles. "Yeah, it is."
"No, you don't understand. It isn't some rich-man version. It's not even close. It's exact. The porch, the kitchen, the nook." I swallow. "The dogwood."
"Oh, Em."
"He kept the drawings."
"Yeah."
I hate that she isn't trying to explain it away. I need her to explain it away. I need someone to hand me a clean, ugly motive I can hold like a weapon. Manipulation, optics, or guilt with a floor plan, just something simple.
Instead, there's that house on Mill Creek Road with the right window over the kitchen, and my husband working alone in the dark until his hands tear open.
"He can build a house," I say.
June waits.
"A house isn't a marriage."
"No," she says. "It isn't."
"He humiliated me on live television."
"Yes, he did."
"He let them use me. He let them cut to my face. He let Duke tell me where to sit and how to smile. He thanked me like I was staff and thanked her like she brought him back from the dead."
"I know, baby."
"And then he said..." My voice breaks before I can stop it. I press the heel of my hand to my sternum. "He said it."
June is quiet for a long moment. "I know what you heard," she says.
That's the careful wording, the one we don't touch too hard because if we do, the whole rotten floor might give.
"What I heard was enough."
"Okay."
"Don't okay me like that."
"I'm not arguing with a pregnant woman operating heavy machinery."
"It's a truck, not a forklift."
"Still."
I look down at the soft rise beneath my sweater, barely visible in the dim cab. My anger falters around it. It always does. It doesn't disappear, it just changes shape.
This baby isn't a reason to forgive him. This baby isn't a bargaining chip, a summons, a moral test, or a white flag. This baby is a person I'm already rearranging myself to protect, even from the beautiful, dangerous idea that Cade Tyler might be becoming the man I needed too late.
I pull into the overlook above town because I can't drive the rest of the way with my vision blurring. Harmony Ridge sits below as scattered lights in the valley, the diner sign glowing red and white, and the radio tower blinking in the distance.
"Emmy?" June asks.
"I'm here."
"Where is here?"
"Overlook."
"Want me to come?"
"No." I wipe under my eyes carefully. "I just need a minute."
"Okay."
"I mean it, June. I'm not falling for a house. A house is lumber, nails, windows, and a roof. Men build houses all the time for women they still don't know how to love properly."
June, wisely, says nothing.
"I'm coming home," I say, and barely hear June as she advises me to be careful.
I drive toward the red light of the radio tower, away from the man with the bandaged hand, holding a hammer in the moonlight.