2. Ellie
— ? —
Ellie
I set my coffee down on the counter and don’t move.
My first instinct is to go back upstairs and put on real clothes and pretend I didn’t hear anything, but there’s no one else here. The house is empty and I’m the lady of this house, whether I feel like it or not, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to hide from Daphne Long in my own goddamn kitchen.
I walk to the front door and open it.
She’s standing on my porch with three suitcases lined up behind her, expensive ones, brass hardware and leather trim that cost more than most people’s car payments.
Louis Vuitton, all three of them, arranged in a neat row for somebody else to carry.
Her red hair is falling in perfect waves over her shoulders and her green eyes are lined with makeup that takes at least an hour to apply and she’s wearing jeans that show off her hips and a silk blouse unbuttoned low enough that I can see her cleavage.
She belongs on a red carpet somewhere, not on a dusty porch in the middle of nowhere Texas.
She looks at me in my husband’s t-shirt and bare feet and messy hair, and her smile gets sharper.
“Ellie.” My name sounds wrong in her mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
Her eyes flick down to the shirt and back up to my face, and I can see her doing the math.
She looks past me into the foyer, taking inventory of everything she can see.
The hardwood floors Jacob had refinished last year.
The chandelier his grandmother picked out forty years ago.
The paintings on the walls that cost more than my annual salary at the law office.
I can see her pricing everything, adding it up, calculating what it’s worth and what she thinks she deserves of it.
“You live here. In Jacob’s house.”
“Our house. Jacob and I got married. A year in June.”
Her face goes blank for a second, and then she lands on a smile that has no warmth in it at all.
“Married.” She says it flat, and her nose wrinkles. “The Walker name is on half this county and every cow in it, and he married the girl from the law office.” She looks me up and down. “Jacob always did have interesting taste.”
I remember her in the hallway at school, her voice carrying, calling me a charity case loud enough for everyone to hear.
I remember the way the other girls laughed, clustered around her.
I remember going to the bathroom and crying and then washing my face and going back out because I wasn’t going to let her see me break.
I remember thinking that someday I’d get out of that school and never have to see Daphne Long again, and now here she is on my porch with her Louis Vuitton suitcases and her perfect hair and her smile that says she still thinks she’s better than me.
“What do you want, Daphne?”
“I need to see Jacob, we’re old friends.
” She puts a hand on her chest, her eyes going wide and innocent, and it’s such a practiced gesture that I almost want to applaud.
“My daddy had a stroke. He made the hospital keep it quiet, you know how he is, but I’ve come home to help take care of him, but the house is full of nurses and my room has a hospital bed in it now and I don’t have anywhere else to go. ”
“And you came here.”
“Jacob is my best friend.” She says it slowly, spelling it out for me. “He’ll want to help me. He always helps me.”
Behind her, I see Jenna hovering at the edge of the porch with her hands twisted together.
She’s the newest of our three maids, been here a couple weeks, and she still jumps when I say her name.
She’s a sweet girl, early twenties, trying to save up money for her little girl’s braces, and right now she’s looking at the porch boards and not at either of us.
Daphne snaps her fingers at her without looking. “You. Get my bags.”
“Don’t,” I say, and Jenna freezes, her eyes darting between us. “She’s not your maid.”
Daphne turns back to me with that smile. “I’m sorry, I thought you people had staff.”
“We do. They don’t work for you.”
Daphne’s smile doesn’t waver, but her eyes go cold.
She’s still standing there with her chin up, on my porch, and I’m the one who’s supposed to move.
I want to shove her off my porch. I want to grab those Louis Vuitton suitcases and throw them in the dirt.
I want to tell her to get the fuck off my property and never come back.
Instead I stand there and wait, because I can hear Jacob’s truck coming up the drive.
I watch Daphne watch him get out. Her eyes go down his body slow and appraising, taking in his chest and his arms and his hands, and I want to step between them and block her view.
I want to put my hands on him and mark him and make her understand that he’s mine.
Her eyes are lingering on his arms, right on the muscle of his bicep, right where I like to put my mouth when we’re in bed and I’m working my way down his body.
He’s in his work clothes from before dawn, sweat at the collar, and he looks exhausted, stubble on his jaw and dirt on his clothes.
“Daphne?” He stops on the walk, looking from her to me and back again. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Her chin trembles and her eyes fill with tears and she takes two steps toward him and puts her hand on his arm, her fingers curling around his bicep. The same spot I was just looking at.
“Jacob.” Her voice goes higher, softer. “I didn’t know where else to go. Daddy had a stroke and the house is full of nurses and I’ve been living out of my car for three days. I’m so tired, Jake. I just need somewhere to stay for a little while.”
“You haven’t been living out of your car,” I say. “Your hair’s done.”
She turns and gives me a look, then turns back to Jacob with the wounded expression firmly back in place.
“I know this is unexpected and I know I should’ve called, but I’ve been so scared and Daddy’s been so sick and I didn’t know you were married.
” She looks at him through her lashes, and I can see exactly what she’s doing, can see the calculated tilt of her head and the deliberate tremble of her lip. “Nobody told me.”
“It was in the paper.”
Jacob pulls his arm free of her hand and his face is closed off. “What do you need, Daphne?”
“Just somewhere to stay. A few weeks, maybe a month, until the nurses leave and there’s room for me at Daddy’s house again.” She steps closer to him, close enough that her tits are almost brushing his chest. “You know he would want you to help me. You know how much he loves you.”
“Hell no,” I say.
Both of them look at me. Jacob with surprise, Daphne with barely concealed hatred.
“Don’t you have friends?” I ask her. “Family? Anyone else in the entire state of Texas?”
“Jacob is my best friend.”
I look at Jacob and raise an eyebrow.
“Jacob.” I jerk my head toward the door. “A word.”
***
We go into the study and I close the door behind us harder than I need to.
“Absolutely not,” I say before he can open his mouth. “She’s not staying in this house.”
“Let me call Jackson first and find out what’s really going on.”
“I don’t care what’s going on. I’m telling you no.”
“Ellie, the man basically raised me. If he needs my help.”
“He’s not the one asking. She is.”
Jacob runs a hand through his hair. “Just let me call him. Please.”
He pulls out his phone and dials and I stand there with my arms crossed and watch his face while he talks.
I can hear Jackson’s voice through the speaker, and it’s wrong.
It takes me a second to understand what I’m hearing, because I’ve known Jackson Long my whole life.
He taught Sunday school when I was a kid.
He gave me butterscotch candies in the church pew and told me stories about my daddy before he died.
His voice has always been deep and strong and certain, the voice of a man who built a ranch out of nothing and never apologized for any of it.
The voice coming through the phone isn’t that voice.
It’s slurred and slow, with stops in the middle where he has to find breath.
There’s a long pause where Jackson is trying to get a word out and can’t, and I watch Jacob’s whole body change while he listens.
His shoulders drop. His jaw tightens. His eyes go soft in a way I’ve only seen a handful of times in the years I’ve known him.
“Yes, sir,” he says, and his voice is rough. “Of course, sir. Whatever you need.”
Jackson’s voice comes through again, thin and tired, and I can hear him asking.
Not telling. Not demanding. Not calling in a favor the way men like Jackson Long call in favors, with the expectation that they’ll be repaid.
He’s asking. His voice cracks on a word and he has to stop and breathe before he can finish the sentence, and I watch Jacob’s face while he listens and I see a thing I’ve never seen there before, and it’s fear. Jacob Walker is afraid.
“I will,” Jacob says. “I promise. You don’t have to worry about her.”
There’s more, Jackson’s voice going on for a while, and Jacob just listens, saying yes sir and of course and I understand. When he finally hangs up, his hand is shaking.
“He did have a stroke,” he says, and his voice is heavy.
“A bad one. He’s in a chair now. The house is full of nurses, round the clock, and Daphne’s room’s got a hospital bed in it.
” He looks at me. “He’s asking me to take her in.
Not telling. Asking. And Ellie, I’ve never heard Jackson Long ask anyone for anything in my life. ”
“That doesn’t mean we have to say yes.”
“He raised me.” Jacob’s voice cracks and he stops, clears his throat, tries again. “When my own people couldn’t look at me, he took me on and taught me everything. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father.”
“You can still tell him no.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You just won’t.”
He doesn’t argue with that, because there’s nothing to argue. I’m right and we both know it.
I look at him, this man I love, this man who’s good in all the ways that matter and infuriating in all the ways that don’t.
I think about Daphne’s hand on his arm. I think about the way she looked at him.
Hers. And me just keeping him warm for her until she came back.
I think about her sleeping in our house and walking our halls and looking at him with those eyes.
“Have you ever slept with her?”
He steps back. “What?”
“Have you. Ever. Slept. With her.”
“Fuck no.” His face twists with disgust. “She’s like a sister to me. I’ve never touched her and I’ve never wanted to.”
“She wants you. You know that, right? She was looking at you like she wanted to climb you and ride you right there in the driveway.”
“I don’t care what she wants.”
“Then prove it.” I step closer to him and make him look at me. “If she stays, there are rules. She’s in the west wing. She doesn’t come in our bedroom, our bathroom, our side of the house. She doesn’t interrupt us. And you have boundaries with her, Jacob. You set them yourself. Not me. You.”
“Of course, baby.” He takes my face in his hands and kisses me, soft and apologetic. “She won’t be here long. A month at most. I promise.”
“She better not be.” I hold his gaze. “I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”
His forehead drops to mine and we stand there for a second, breathing together, and I want to believe him.
I want to believe that this is going to be fine, that Daphne will stay in her wing and keep her hands to herself and be gone in a month.
I want to believe that my husband knows what he’s doing.
“If she touches you again,” I start.
“She won’t.”
“If she does, I’ll break her fucking hand.”
“There’s my girl.” He pulls back and looks at me, and the look is warm. “Go get dressed. I’ll tell her the rules.”
I don’t go upstairs. I walk to the study window instead, because I need to see this.
I watch him walk back out to the porch where Daphne’s waiting with her suitcases and her perfect hair.
I watch him talk to her and I watch her face light up, tears gone, and I watch her throw her arms around him in a hug that goes on too long.
Her body pressed against his chest. Her hands clutching at his shirt.
Her face buried in his neck, and I can see exactly where her mouth is, right on his pulse point, right where I put my mouth when I want to make him groan.
I dig my nails into my palms hard enough to leave marks.
Over his shoulder, her eyes find me through the glass.
She smiles.