Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
Cara
The last pan had just been dried and put away when we hear a car door close, and it’s obviously in our driveway. We look at each other, but it’s clear neither of us were expecting company.
“I’ll get it. It’s probably Mel,” I tell Gin, even though I know Mel always texts me first when she’s coming over—mostly so I can meet her out on the porch and decrease the chances of her having to make small talk with my mother.
I’m halfway to the front door when I hear the car door close again. Or maybe it’s a second door closing, like if the driver had to go around to the passenger side and get his dog out of her booster seat, for example.
There’s no way he would come here, I think as I force my feet to keep moving.
I knew he was coming back to Sumac Falls tonight.
I’d thought about nothing but that since getting into the hired car outside his apartment building Monday morning.
But I assumed he would go to Colleen’s and let me know he was back in town.
When I open the door and find Hayden on my porch with Penny tucked under one arm and a duffel bag slung over the other, my stomach drops.
“Hi, honey. I’m home,” he says as if this is all a big joke to him.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure my mother didn’t follow me to the door, and then step closer to him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m the kind of husband who expects to live with his wife.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Who is it, Cara?” Gin asks a second after I hear the creak in the floorboard warning me of her approach.
I glare at Hayden like I’m trying to set him on fire with my eyeballs, and then step out of the way to let him in. “It’s Hayden, Mom.”
That stops her in her tracks, but Hayden’s smiling as if he’s happy to see her. “Hello, Gin.”
“Is that a dog? I’m allergic to dogs.” Gin clutches her chest as if just the sight of the dog sends her into instant respiratory failure. Or maybe it’s finding a Reilly standing in her living room. It’s hard to tell with her. “I can’t breathe.”
“Penelope’s a Shih Tzu,” Hayden says, and I can hear amusement in his voice. He’s enjoying this. “She’s hypoallergenic.”
“Oh.” Gin drops her hands, but the distressed expression sticks. “Why are you here?”
“Because this is where Cara is.”
Gin looks at me as though she’s expecting me to explain what’s happening, but I’ve got nothing.
My heart is still pounding because Hayden is actually in my house, and just seeing him brought all those naughty memories I’ve been trying to suppress to the surface.
And my mind is still spinning because this is not going to be good.
I’m about to tell her Hayden’s just picking me up to take me to Colleen’s—even though I really don’t want to do that, but I will if it keeps the fragile peace—when Hayden sets Penny on the floor. She immediately comes to me, looking for chin scratches.
Of course I crouch and give her some because dogs are always the priority.
“You have a bag,” Gin says.
“I have another in the car, actually,” Hayden tells her. “I’d rather not wear the same clothes every day for a four-day weekend. I also have a bag for Penny and two beds for her.”
Gin is shaking her head, but she can’t seem to make words. Finally, she looks at me, and then at Penny. “Do you have a cage for her, too?”
I know the dog is probably reacting to a sudden tension in Hayden’s body, but I still have to stifle a giggle at the alarmed look Penny gives Gin.
Hayden, on the other hand, is total ice.
“Penelope doesn’t have a kennel. She’ll tolerate a leash to comply with town or city ordinances when necessary, but otherwise, she does as she pleases. ”
“This is still my house.”
“Yes, it is. And Cara is my wife. Either Penelope is welcome here, or I’ll take my wife and my dog and go elsewhere. You’ll have the entire house, including upkeep and expenses, all to yourself.”
I should object here. He doesn’t get to take me anywhere.
But I know what he’s doing—the more uncomfortable and unhappy Gin is, the sooner she’ll finalize the sale so I can help her get settled somewhere else.
Since I can’t be free of this farce of a marriage until that happens, I keep my mouth shut.
Without another word, Gin spins on her heel and walks back to the kitchen. Sighing, I give Penny a final scratch under her chin, and then straighten.
“I’ll show you where to put your stuff, I guess.”
I know I should be putting more effort into sounding like a newlywed reunited with her husband after a short separation, but I can’t muster the energy. Instead, I pick up Penny and lead Hayden up the stairs.
It had never occurred to me he would sleep under the same roof as Gin, so my room has a very lived-in look. It’s not too messy, but I clearly wasn’t expecting company.
As soon as he closes the door behind him, I put Penny down. Maybe because she can tell this is exclusively my space, she’s comfortable roaming around, investigating.
“I think you’d be more comfortable staying with Colleen,” I say as Hayden sets his bag on the foot of my bed.
“I definitely would be, but you wouldn’t be, so we’ll stay here.”
“Did you forget the part where I told you our hot water heater doesn’t actually make hot water?”
I can tell by his wince that he did, in fact, forget that part, but he rallies quickly.
“The goal is for your mother to not want to live here anymore, and it’s not good business to invest money in a property you don’t own.
On the other hand, denying my wife something as simple as hot water is extremely petty behavior for a newlywed. ”
My pride wants to tell him to keep his hot water heater. It stings that I couldn’t buy a basic item that’s apparently simple to other people.
But I also really like hot showers.
“There’s a compromise here,” he says, almost to himself. “I’ll replace the current hot water heater with a similar unit, but she’ll know if I owned the property, I would have installed a high-end on-demand system.”
“Like yours?”
“Exactly.”
That shower was one of my favorite parts of the Boston weekend, and my dreamy sigh remembering it makes him chuckle. If anything’s going to make me jack up the pressure on Gin to sell, it’s that shower.
Eventually, I’d have to leave it, of course. After enough time has passed between Gin selling the house to us and our divorce so it all looks legit, the plan calls for me being the one to move out. Hayden will get full custody of the shower.
“I’ll go bring in the rest of my stuff,” he says, as if it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll be sharing this room—and this bed—with me until he goes back to Boston Sunday night or Monday morning.
“Penny’s used to your mom’s house. We should go there,” I say in a last ditch effort to change his mind.
“She has you, so she’ll be fine.” He steps closer to me, presumably so he can lower his voice. “You and I spending our time together at my mom’s would make this situation a lot easier for Gin.”
And we don’t want it to be easy. We want her to be uncomfortable so she’ll want to sell the house and go live by herself. But having Hayden in my room might be even harder on me than staying at Colleen’s.
Four nights, I think. Four nights of Hayden in my bed, with my mother across the hall.
Maybe, if I can curl into a tight enough ball, Penny will share one of her beds with me.