Chapter 10 #2
Bills. A flyer for the Flannel Festival. A catalog for outdoor gear. And—
She stopped.
A cream envelope, official-looking. Make-A-Wish Foundation in the corner. Stamped across the front in red: SECOND REQUEST.
Her stomach tightened. She didn’t know what it meant, exactly, but she knew it wasn’t good. Second requests were never good.
She tucked it into the stack with the rest and let herself in. She had a key now, no longer hidden under the ceramic frog, now on her key chain like she belonged here.
Whatever.
“Nate? I brought lunch.”
Nothing.
She checked the kitchen. Empty—dishes in the sink, coffeepot cold. The living room. Empty—dogs’ beds abandoned, fireplace dark. His office door stood open, chair pushed back from the desk, screen dark.
“Nate?”
She climbed the stairs, checked the hallway, the bathroom. Peered toward Emma’s room—door slightly ajar, the way she’d left it.
Empty. The whole house was empty.
Her pulse kicked up. Where was he? Had something happened? Had he given up, left, decided he couldn’t do this anymore?
She went back downstairs, moving faster now, and that’s when she saw it through the kitchen window.
The backyard. The stone retaining wall. The firepit with its blue camping chairs, rain darkening the canvas. The weathered bench where Emma used to sit.
And Nate, standing on the wet grass near the dock, throwing a ball for Huck and Finn.
Playing fetch.
In the rain.
While she’d been getting eviscerated by Richard. While she’d been counting words and defending his progress.
She was out the back door before she knew she was moving.
“What are you doing?”
He turned, brow furrowed as though he didn’t understand her question.
The rain had plastered his hair to his forehead, and her pulse gave a little spurt at the sudden realization that he’d shaved.
The dogs bounced around him, oblivious to the weather, to the tension, to anything but the joy of the ball.
“Playing with the dogs.”
“You need to be writing.” The words came out sharp, sharper than she meant. “You can’t keep doing this—you can’t just give up and come out here when there’s work to do—”
“I finished another scene.”
She stopped. “What?”
“I finished the entire chapter.” He was calm. Almost amused. “Last night. Another three thousand words. That’s six thousand and change for the day.”
She stared at him.
“I was on a roll.” He threw the ball again, and Huck went tearing after it. “Stayed up late. Finished the whole wall sequence, Aldric’s deal with the barrier. It’s rough, but it’s done.”
Three thousand words. In one night.
And oh, she wanted to be thrilled. Finally, the breakthrough she’d been working toward, the proof that her methods were working—
Except he’d done it without her. He hadn’t needed her pushing him. He’d just…done it. On his own.
Which meant clearly, he didn’t need her.
“I…” The excitement drained out of her, leaving something hollow in its place. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t know—”
He was watching her now. Really watching. The amusement had faded, replaced by something more careful.
“Livvie.” His voice was different. Gentle. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re shaking.”
She looked down at her hands. He was right. She was.
“It’s the cold,” she said.
“It’s not the cold.”
The rain kept falling. The dogs had lost interest in the ball and were sniffing along the retaining wall.
“My boss called,” she heard herself say. “He’s not happy with the progress.”
“Fifteen thousand words in a week isn’t nothing.”
“It’s not a book.”
“No.” He took a step closer. Water dripped from his hair onto his cheeks, ran down to his newly defined jawline. “But it’s a start. I’m finished with the first act.”
And the words just bubbled out. “You did that without me.”
He stilled, frowned. “I did it because of you.”
She looked away.
“Livvie, you found a way in when I’d given up on there being a door.”
Oh, shoot. Tears blurred her eyes.
He frowned.
“What?” she asked, blinking them away.
“You have—” He reached out, and his thumb brushed her cheek. Warm against the rain-cold of her skin. “Paint. Right here.”
She’d forgotten. The dragon. The violet. She must have touched her face at some point and—
“What are you painting? Will you show me?”
She stilled. “I’m—it’s not ready.”
“Someday, will you show me?”
She nodded.
And then his thumb stopped moving, his hand still cupping her face. The rain fell around them, soft and steady, and the dogs were wrestling in the grass, and none of it mattered because Nate Rivers was touching her cheek and she had completely forgotten how to breathe.
“Purple,” he said quietly. “It suits you.”
Oh. She should say something. Something witty.
Yeah, her heartbeat simply drowned out all thought except the crazy urge to step closer to him, to put her hands on his soggy shirt, to—
He dropped his hand. Stepped back. But he was still looking at her with that expression—the one she couldn’t name, the one that made her feel seen in a way she’d never felt before.
“I have an idea,” he said.
“An idea?”
“Let’s go out for dinner.”
What? She stared at him.
Nate Rivers. The man who hadn’t left his house in three years. The man who had groceries delivered and avoided town and communicated primarily through his dogs. That Nate Rivers just asked her to dinner?
“There’s a place. Fisher’s and Kline’s. Upstairs has a bar, overlooks the lake.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly looking less sure of himself. “I haven’t been there since—anyway. I thought maybe. If you wanted.”
If she wanted?
“Yes,” she said. “Dinner. I’d like that.”
He smiled. A real smile, the kind she’d only seen glimpses of before—usually there and gone, quick as a fish in the shallows. But this one stayed. This one reached his eyes.
“Good,” he said. “Tonight. Seven o’clock. I’ll even put on a clean shirt.”
“Revolutionary.”
“I’m a changed man.” He whistled for the dogs, who came bounding over, muddy and delighted. “Now come inside before we both catch pneumonia. You can read my three thousand words and tell me if they’re terrible.”
“Probably not.”
He looked at her, and something flickered in his expression. Hope, maybe. Or fear. Or some complicated mixture of both.
“Then I guess we’ll have something to celebrate at dinner.”
Three hours ago, this had seemed like a good idea.
Nate had finished a chapter. The rain had stopped. He’d been playing fetch with his dogs, feeling something dangerously close to happy—and then Livvie had shown up with coffee she hadn’t been asked to bring, and he’d opened his mouth and said Let’s go out for dinner.
Now he was sitting across from her at Fisher’s and Kline’s, candlelight catching the green of her sweater, and wondering what exactly had possessed him.
Oh, he was in big, big trouble.
The upstairs gastropub was intimate in a way he hadn’t fully considered when he’d suggested it.
Live-edge bar gleaming along one wall, the wood golden and warm in the low light.
Edison bulbs strung overhead cast everything in amber, and the windows facing the lake reflected it all back—the candles, the couples leaning close at small tables, the last of the sunset bleeding rose and copper across the water.
Someone had lit the fireplace on the enclosed porch, and the smell of woodsmoke drifted in, mixing with garlic and rosemary from the kitchen.
Small tables meant for two. Meant for couples.
And of course, he couldn’t stop looking at her.
She’d done something with her hair—it fell in softer waves, catching the light in shades of auburn and copper.
The green of her sweater made her eyes more gold than brown, and every time she leaned forward, he caught a glimpse of the delicate chain around her neck, the pendant that dipped below her collarbone, drawing his eye to the shadowed hollow of her throat.
The freckles he’d been trying not to stare at all week were dusted gold in the candlelight.
She was beautiful. She’d always been beautiful. But tonight, something about the candlelight, the intimacy of the space, the way she kept smiling at him—tonight it was hitting him like a physical force.
Lipstick—just a touch, something soft and pink that drew his eyes to her mouth.
Her mouth.
He watched her lips move as she read the menu options to herself, a silent murmur, and something tightened low in his stomach.
He looked back at his menu. Stared at words that refused to arrange themselves into meaning.
This awareness was new. Or maybe not new.
Maybe it had been building all along, buried under grief and guilt and the numbness he’d wrapped around himself like armor.
But something had cracked open this morning when he’d finished that chapter.
Something had thawed. And now he was sitting across from her, feeling like a live wire, every nerve ending awake at once, his whole body tuned to her frequency.
“What’s good here?” she asked, looking up.
Her eyes met his—hazel, warm, flecked with gold in the candlelight—and his stupid heart thundered against his ribs.
“I have no idea.” He picked up his own menu, grateful for somewhere to put his attention that wasn’t the hollow of her throat, the curve of her ear, the way she kept tucking her hair back and exposing the line of her neck. “I’ve never actually eaten inside. Always just did takeout.”
“Then why did you—” She stopped. Smiled—that smile, the one that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made her whole face light up, the one that made him want to lean across the table and taste it. “Never mind. We’ll figure it out together.”
Together. Right. That was the problem.
The server had seated them by the window, overlooking the lake. The water had gone dark now, reflecting the lights from the restaurant and the first stars emerging overhead. The fireplace crackled and popped, sending shadows dancing across the walls.
“The flatbread looks good,” she said. “Want to split one?”
“Sure.”
“And maybe the butternut squash soup? It’s seasonal.”
“Sounds great.”
“Nate.” She put down her menu. “Are you okay?”