Chapter 16
Sixteen
C annon awoke with a start, realizing that the noise that had brought him from unconsciousness was tapping on his window. He blinked and squinted, trying to see who it was.
He wished he’d brought a gun.
Then, the person leaned closer, and he could make out his wife’s features.
He knew he couldn’t wind down the window, so he just grabbed for the latch and opened the door.
She stood, wrapped in a blanket, her hair a little mussed, like she’d been lying down. He didn’t even know what time it was. He fumbled around, looking for his phone.
“Would you like to come in and sleep on the couch?” she asked.
He almost laughed. He wished she would have issued that invitation earlier, but she hadn’t, and he decided he wasn’t going to ask.
She had left him, and while he considered what was his was hers and what was hers was his, since they were still married, he wasn’t going to push in.
He…wanted her to want their marriage of her own free will, not because he forced himself into it.
“I don’t want to put you out,” he said, assuming she had a bed.
“No. There’s a bed in the bedroom, and there’s a couch in the living room. You could have it if you want. I…should have offered it earlier. I’m sorry.”
That surprised him, and he supposed his brows and open eyes showed her how he felt.
Still, he finally found his phone and looked at it.
Just a little after midnight.
It had only taken her a couple of hours for her guilt to nag her so bad that she would come and offer him the couch.
“That’s nice of you. If you truly don’t mind, I’ll take you up on it.”
“Yeah. It would make me feel better if you would. Please.”
It was late, and he was still a little groggy from sleep, and she didn’t look the greatest either. They could talk in the morning.
So, he followed her silently into the bakery, where he stopped and deliberately turned around and locked the door. Tomorrow, George would have the security system, and he could have it installed in an afternoon. The symbolism wasn’t lost on him.
Hopefully tomorrow night, Lauren would feel a lot better. But then, he would have no excuse for sleeping outside. But he wasn’t going to leave here without his wife. Not unless she made it clear that she absolutely did not want him and was going to file for divorce.
He didn’t like to think that word. Because when he’d vowed, for better or for worse, to be with her for a lifetime, he’d meant it.
And whatever was wrong that was within his realm of ability to save, he was going to save.
He understood that he couldn’t make decisions for her, and if she chose to continue on the path that she was on, separation, and eventual divorce, there was only so much he could do to stop her. He wasn’t going to stand in her way. That was her choice. But his choice was to stand for his marriage.
He was feeling dramatic though. So, he shut that off and walked silently up the steps behind her, after checking the back door to make sure it was locked. He thought he saw a shadow and stopped to squint.
“I think there’s something moving out there,” he said.
“It’s probably the stray dog I’ve been feeding. I think it’s pregnant.”
“You need to be careful with those things. They could have rabies.”
“It doesn’t have rabies,” she said .
She continued up the stairs, and he went to follow her. He wanted to argue. She had no idea whether it had rabies or not, but he supposed her opinion was just as valid and just as reasonable as his. Just because it was a stray dog didn’t mean it automatically had rabies.
It was just that rabies was a disease that he didn’t want his wife to get.
And he wanted to keep her safe, and the safest thing was to not hang out with stray dogs.
Whether they were pregnant, or whether they were cute.
It made perfect sense to him, but maybe it was one of those things that he saw clearly, and she didn’t see at all.
There was a door at the top of the steps, and they walked into the apartment, which, from first glance, was extremely small.
There was a tiny kitchen, a small island that must serve as the kitchen table as well, since he didn’t see one of those, and then a living room with a couch and a chair.
There was a small hall with two doors. He assumed one was a bathroom and the other a bedroom.
The bedroom couldn’t be very big at all, but he’d never been upstairs.
In as many times as they’d visited her mom, they’d always chatted downstairs in the bakery.
If it was open, they’d chatted around the customers, and if it was closed, they’d had the whole thing to themselves.
But he didn’t come very often. Maybe that was another thing that she wished were different.
If she’d told him that she wanted him to visit more, he would have gone.
It wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy traveling with his wife. He just…had a business to run.
That seemed to be a theme, every time he thought about things, and he wondered… Maybe there was something that he needed to do.
“Here. Let me get you a pillow and a blanket out. I don’t think you’ll be cold, you usually run hot at night, but if you need more, there’s some in the closet in the bathroom.”
“All right. Thanks,” he said. He watched her as she stood there, her fingers on the couch, looking at the blanket and pillow she’d laid there.
“Thanks for taking care of me,” she said, and she didn’t raise her eyes to meet his.
“It’s my job. It’s what I signed up for. I like doing it.”
He emphasized that last sentence. And she smiled faintly.
“Good night.”
She didn’t acknowledge his words. Didn’t have any comment about that. Maybe it was for the best, since again, neither one of them were at their best—it being after midnight and they were both extremely tired.
He lay down, stretching the blanket out and figuring that it was the perfect length for him.
She knew him very well. Better than he knew her for sure.
And yet, his command was to dwell with his wife according to knowledge.
She’d made the effort to get to know him, and he hadn’t made much effort at all.
He needed to change that. Obviously. Although, it hadn’t been obvious to him before this.
Before she’d done something so dramatic.
He wondered if she would have just said, “Hey, Cannon. I need to talk to you.” And then she’d laid it all out.
Would he have listened? Would he have changed his mind about anything?
Would she have been able to get his attention just like that?
Or did he need her to leave in order for him to wake up to what he was doing?
He liked the fact that when they had talked earlier, she didn’t blame it all on him. She admitted that maybe she hadn’t been perfect either. Honestly, that helped him want to do better, since she wasn’t railing against him and telling him how terrible he was.
Maybe leaving was what she had to do in order to get his attention without getting angry and screaming.
He’d like to think that he would have been able to have an adult conversation and change things around if she’d just had to talk, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he would have just brushed her off.
Maybe not even heard what she had to say.
Resented the fact that he had to take time to talk to her when there was work to be done.
Maybe he would have thought of her as needy or high maintenance. When he knew she was neither.
He must have drifted off at some point, because he awoke with a start. Was that a car door slamming?
He got up, holding the blanket as he did so and walking over to the window.
He looked down and studied the vehicle for a minute before he realized it was one of his work trucks. George must be here already.
He wasn’t expecting that.
He folded the blanket and set it on the couch, and walked softly across the floor, grabbing his boots from the end of the couch where he’d set them last night when he’d taken them off.
“What is it?” His wife’s voice stopped him with his hand on the doorknob.
“My foreman, George, is down there.”
“I thought that was one of your trucks,” she said, pulling her robe tighter against her and furrowing her brows. “What’s George doing here?”
Was she going to be mad about this? Normally he didn’t hesitate to tell her things, and he didn’t worry about her getting mad. But his wife packing up and moving across two states had a tendency to do that to a man.
He figured she was going to find out at some point, so he might as well be honest about it. “I ordered a security system for the shop yesterday. I told him I wanted it here today. He must have gotten it from the warehouse and driven straight through.”
“A security system? For here?”
“Yeah. For here. The front door, the back door. It’s not going to include the windows upstairs, but it will include the shop windows. I’ll feel a lot better once it’s in, and I should have it up and running by dusk. Possibly noon if George helps me.”
“Oh my goodness. You’re serious. You…” She didn’t say thanks, and he took that as his opportunity to escape. He didn’t even bother putting his boots on until he was downstairs, because he didn’t want to get yelled at.
Although, Lauren had never, not once in all their years of marriage, ever yelled at him.
Still, he figured what he’d done was going to make her angry.
But he wasn’t going to undo it. He was going to put a security system in.
He was going to take care of his wife. That was the way it was going to be.