Chapter Eight
Lilah put fresh sheets on the bed in the spare room and snipped a few daffodils that appeared each spring at the edge of the woods, arranging them in a glass jar since they didn’t have a vase. She set the jar on the nightstand then moved it to the dresser, then back to the nightstand.
“It’s fine,” Glenn said. Sophie wasn’t even here yet and already she was turning their lives upside down. “Go to bed.”
“Wake me up when she gets here,” Lilah begged, but Glenn had no intention.
Lilah could see her mother in the morning before school.
If Sophie was even up. She was a notoriously late sleeper; he didn’t imagine that had changed.
Lilah told him that when she was in Colorado Sophie slept until almost ten every day.
Lilah had watched his face for reaction, but he was careful not to show it.
Careful, that was what he always was. Careful not to badmouth Sophie. Careful to nurture memories of the three of them before she left. So damn careful, and where had it gotten him? A wife he hadn’t been able to please and a daughter who would forever suffer the fallout.
After Lilah went to bed, he tried to read but kept getting up to check the front window.
Too antsy to sit still, way too keyed up to concentrate.
When the lights of Sophie’s rental finally swung up the driveway close to midnight, he was wrung out.
Why on earth had he agreed to this? He should have held firm and insisted she stay somewhere else.
In a small act of resistance, he hadn’t changed out of the jeans he’d worn all day but couldn’t help tossing a couch pillow back in place on his way to the door.
Not much had changed around here since she left, but the couch was new.
He and Lilah had picked it out at Macy’s.
Lilah thrilled to be consulted, Glenn relieved to be rid of one more thing that had come with Sophie.
He stepped out the front door, the asphalt gritty on his bare feet, his heart beating fitfully. Sophie was on her phone and didn’t see him at first. The boyfriend, no doubt. For an instant, jealousy sparked—then fizzled.
She hadn’t opened the car door, and all he could see was the fall of her hair in the darkened interior and the artificial brightness of the phone. It made him feel like he was spying, so he released Charlie’s collar and the dog bounded over.
Sophie looked up and gave him a wave, then without hurry stowed the phone.
He recalled that she never hurried; that had been one of her great attractions.
The unrushed, almost languid way she moved through the world, which drew every eye, including his own.
In the beginning he was gratified by all that male attention, but she shrugged it off, insisting she was hardly aware.
He didn’t believe her, but what did it matter? Let them look. She was his.
He stood back, waiting for her to get out of the car, hands in his pockets, his stomach on spin cycle. Once he would have been falling all over himself like Charlie. But now he just felt irritated.
“Well, look at you,” she said as she unfolded herself from the driver’s seat. “You’ve gone a little gray.”
Reflexively, he ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t that gray. “How was your flight?” he said, ignoring the comment.
“Fine. I slept through most of it.” She popped the trunk, and he couldn’t let her manhandle the suitcase herself, so he got it.
The one-inch heel on her cowboy boots brought her nearly to his height.
He’d forgotten how tall she was. She accidentally brushed his shoulder as she reached for her carry-on and he drew back, which made her laugh.
“Oh my God, Glenn. I’m not going to bite.” Charlie had wedged himself between them and was sniffing at the contents of the trunk. “Who’s this?” she said, ruffling his head.
“Charlie.”
She slung her purse over her shoulder and locked the car, the beep shrill in the quiet. “I don’t remember you wanting a dog.”
“Lilah wanted one.”
“Ah, well that explains it.”
He carried her bags up the steps, keeping an eye on Charlie to avoid tripping. Acutely aware of Sophie just behind him, though he dared not look.
“Lilah’s asleep,” he said as he set the bags down in the entry.
“Oh, too bad.” Sophie sounded disappointed. “I was hoping to see her tonight.”
He had no choice. Here in the house, in the light, he had to look at her.
At forty-two she was still beautiful. Her face beginning to line in a delicate way, the hair still blond, but not the wild, white blond of youth.
She was still in shape, of course. He hadn’t expected anything less.
All that hiking and whatever else she did. She would turn heads at sixty.
He shoved his hands in his pockets. The entry, which had never before seemed cramped, suddenly closed in. “You hungry? There’s grilled chicken if you want something.”
“Nah, not that hungry. I had something on the plane, but thanks.” She squatted nose to nose with Charlie, who’d presented her with his stuffed hippo. She rubbed him behind the ears, which made him squirm deliriously. “Does he have some shepherd in him?”
“He’s half shepherd.” Charlie was on his back now, getting a stomach rub. The dog had no shame.
“I’ve got a girl at home who’d like you,” Sophie cooed. “Only she’s fixed so you wouldn’t get very far.” She stood, brushing off her jeans.
“He’s fixed too,” Glenn said stiffly.
“I had no doubt.” She gave Charlie a last pat. “Your daddy was always very responsible.”
“Someone had to be,” he muttered. It was beyond strange to have her here, showing up like a rodeo star in those cowboy boots.
Who wore cowboy boots anyway? And Lilah was going to be all over those silver bangles.
He wondered sourly whether Sophie had decked herself out that way on purpose to reel Lilah in.
But Sophie had never been conniving, just self-absorbed.
“Come on.” He picked up the bags, aware she was studying him, an anxious thrumming beginning in his gut. He didn’t want to be dissected, especially by her. “Let’s get this stuff to your room.”
“The place looks good,” she said. “You painted. The yellow lightens it up.”
“Thanks.”
“Did you refinish the floors too?”
“Nope, they’re the same.”
“Still can’t get two words out of you.” Her amused tone of voice, which annoyed him.
“This was your idea, not mine.” He set her suitcase down in the spare room, which served as his office too. Besides a desk it had a full-size bed and a chest of drawers he’d picked up at a tag sale. Enough space for someone to put a few things away. Not that he had a lot of guests.
She tipped her head, appraising him. “You look good.” She rubbed her face, miming his beard. “I like the scruff. It suits you.”
He took a step back, the small rush of pleasure that she still found him attractive immediately hardening into wariness.
Then a wash of relief that he no longer felt the powerful tug that made men chase her like besotted drones.
He’d been one of them, so desperate to keep her he’d ended up driving her away.
So devastated when she left that his mother had to move in to help with Lilah until he could put one foot in front of the other.
Now all he felt was irritation that he’d let himself be talked into this. “It’s late,” he said. “I’m tired and I’m sure you are too.”
She plopped onto the bed. “It’s only ten for me. How about a glass of wine?”
“There’s some in the fridge. Help yourself.” He was too wound up to be tired, but he had no intention of having a glass of wine with her. He’d opened his home for Lilah’s sake, but that was it. He wasn’t about to get chummy with Sophie like they were old friends. Because they weren’t.
She tugged off a boot, groaning in relief.
He eyed the boots narrowly. “Why do you wear those things if they’re so uncomfortable?”
She laughed. “I live in Colorado. People wear cowboy boots.” She massaged her foot, and he looked away. “Oh have a glass of wine with me, Glenn. I haven’t seen you in ages, and it’d be nice to hear what Lilah’s up to.”
His anger flared like a struck match. “You could talk to her on the phone once in a while and find out for yourself.”
She sighed. “I know I’m not going to win any awards for motherhood. I get that. But I do think about her. She sent me a little video of her talking about school and stuff. She was so cute.”
He kept his face expressionless, but a seed of worry took root in his gut. Lilah hadn’t said anything about a video. What else hadn’t she told him?
Sophie reached for something in her bag and her bracelets jangled. “What’s with those?” he muttered. They seemed to have a life of their own, clattering up and down her arm depending on how she moved.
“These? I got them at a flea market. What’s the matter with them?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” He didn’t give a damn about the bracelets; what he disliked was the way she had shimmied into their lives.
A place to land on the way to visit her mother, and oh yeah, try to convince Lilah to go along.
An impressionable twelve-year-old who would find everything about her mother intoxicating.
“I need to get to bed,” he said. “There’s clean towels in the hall bathroom.”
“Hey, I know this is weird. I do.”
He turned to look at her. “Do you? I don’t even get why you’re here.”
She patted the spot next to her on the bed like she was inviting the dog.
“If you won’t have a glass of wine with me, at least sit for a minute.
” When he hesitated she rolled her eyes.
“Whoever your lady friend is, she’s got you on a short leash.
Believe me, I’m not that alluring after eight hours of travel. ”
He sat reluctantly, worried her proximity might dredge up some dormant desire, but he felt only a mild surprise that he’d once been married to this person. How did you share your life with someone—have a child together!—then end up strangers?