Chapter Twenty—Lorna
ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING in late November, I call Aldren Capital’s main line for the third time this month.
Carla’s assistant answers on the second ring. “Aldren Capital.”
“It’s Lorna.”
“One moment, Mrs. Aldren.”
Through the kitchen window, I watch Chris reach for his phone on the guesthouse porch. He’s wearing a dark sweater against the cold, his laptop open beside a mug that probably contains the terrible coffee he still hasn’t replaced.
“Hey,” he says when the call connects. “Eight-twelve again. Per established pattern,” he teases.
I lean one hip against the counter. “I don’t have a pattern.”
“You absolutely have a pattern.” Chris glances toward the lodge, spots me at the window, and raises his mug.
I hang up before he can say anything else.
Across the yard, he laughs, sets down his phone, and returns to whatever he’s reading. He doesn’t come over to ask why I called. He stopped doing that after the second time.
I stand at the window another few seconds before going back to breakfast.
The lodge feels different without Willa in it.
She left two weeks ago after reducing her hours gradually enough that her final departure didn’t feel dramatic.
Her equipment stayed. The security system runs through my phone now, along with the driveway camera and motion alerts.
If I need her, she’s available, but she isn’t sleeping down the hall or walking the perimeter every night.
The first few mornings after she left, I noticed every absence. No boots by the door. No coffee mug beside the sink. No voice reminding Chris that the western camera needed adjusting.
Then I stopped.
Yesterday morning, I carried recycling outside before sunrise and didn’t check the trees first. I didn’t recognize what I’d done until I was already back in the kitchen.
I’m not waiting for Tim anymore. My routine realized it before my brain finally caught up.
The plea is moving forward. The DA reduced part of the identity-fraud case in exchange for guilty pleas on the charges that matter most to me, including stalking, assault, breaking and entering, and attempted kidnapping. The sentence will still keep him away for years.
Mark walked me through the final terms himself. I asked questions until I understood them, then approved the agreement.
Chris asked that evening how I felt about it.
“Relieved,” I’d told him while I rinsed lettuce at the kitchen sink. “Mostly because I don’t have to sit in a courtroom and listen to him explain himself.”
Chris stood at the stove stirring soup. “Then I’m glad you took it.”
That was all.
He didn’t discuss trial strategy or ask if the sentence was long enough, or whether I might regret the decision later. He accepted that I had the information and made the choice.
Ordinary shouldn’t feel remarkable but with us, it still does sometimes.
THANKSGIVING IS QUIET. We could’ve gone to Charleston. Chris’s mother invited us. One of my cousins in Virginia offered too. Instead, I said I wanted to stay here, and Chris said he’d rather cook than spend six hours in traffic.
He buys a turkey large enough for eight people.
“You know there are two of us,” I say Thursday morning when I find it taking up most of the refrigerator.
Chris looks over from the counter, where he’s chopping celery. “Leftovers.”
“For twelve days?”
“You’re underestimating me.” He nods to a stack of containers on the counter. “We can freeze some.”
I pull the cornbread I’d made the night before from the pantry. “That’s really smart.”
He grins and goes back to chopping.
We spend most of the day in the kitchen. Chris makes mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and something with sweet potatoes that requires enough brown sugar to qualify as dessert. I make my mother’s cornbread dressing.
He asks about the recipe while I crumble bread into a bowl. “Mom never wrote down anything. She’d hand me ingredients and tell me when it looked right.”
Chris measures broth into a saucepan. “That would’ve driven me insane.”
“It did when I was fourteen.” I add sage, mix it, then stop when the smell brings back a kitchen I haven’t stood in for years. “Thanksgiving was her favorite holiday.”
Chris sets down the measuring cup rather than filling the silence. After a moment, he asks, “What did she like about it?”
“Feeding people. Having everybody in one place.” I smooth the dressing into the casserole dish. “She would’ve liked the lodge.”
“I think so too.” He carries the saucepan to the stove. “For my mother, it’s just another social event, catered by an outside company to give most of the staff the day off.”
I nod, having spent three Thanksgivings at Eleanor’s home. It’s an elegant affair, but nothing about it is cozy.
We eat at the dining table with plates I found in the back of a cabinet after I bought the lodge. The turkey is better than I expected. The sweet potatoes are absurd.
After dinner, we wash dishes together while music plays quietly from my phone. Somewhere along the way, the routine stopped feeling temporary.
Chris dries the last plate, puts it in the cabinet, and reaches for his jacket. “I’m going to walk the property.”
I glance toward the dark windows. “You know Willa doesn’t require that anymore.”
“I know.” He zips the jacket. “I like the walk.”
He takes a flashlight and goes out through the back door.
I pour a glass of wine and carry it to the front porch.
The air is cold enough that I pull my cardigan closed before settling into the chair. The woods beyond the yard are almost black, except when Chris’s flashlight moves between the trunks.
My rings are in my pocket. They’ve lived there for weeks. Jeans, robes, jackets, sweaters. I’ve moved them from one place to another every morning without thinking much about it.
Tonight, I take them out.
The wedding band rests in my palm beside the engagement ring. The diamond catches the porch light when I turn my hand.
For weeks, I’ve been waiting for certainty to arrive as some unmistakable sensation, but it hasn’t.
What I have instead is nearly three months of watching Chris when he doesn’t know I’m watching.
I have him staying in the guesthouse because I haven’t asked him anywhere else.
I have him taking my answers the first time I give them.
I have dinners where he knows what my company is doing because he listened when I told him.
None of it erases what happened, but it all gives me something new to judge him by.
Chris’s flashlight disappears around the far side of the property as I slide the wedding band onto my finger.
It stops for a second at the old groove before settling into place. The engagement ring follows.
I look at my hand beneath the porch light. The rings don’t put me back where I was.
I don’t want to go back there. I want the marriage we’re building now.
Chris comes around the side of the lodge several minutes later. He switches off the flashlight before climbing the porch steps and rubs his hands together against the cold. “Everything’s quiet,” he says.
“I figured it would be.” I lift my wine glass and take another sip.
He starts toward the door, then notices my hand resting on the arm of the chair.
Chris stops. His gaze stays on the rings while realization moves across his face. He doesn’t smile immediately. His eyes close for a second before he sits in the chair beside mine.
I reach over and take his hand. “I want you to move into the lodge.”
Chris looks down at our joined hands, then back at me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I rub my thumb over his hand. “Not for a night. Not because it’s cold. I want your things here.”
His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
I squeeze his hand. “You can say something.”
Chris gives a rough laugh. “I’m trying not to ruin this.”
“Then don’t make a speech.”
“Okay.” He turns his hand beneath mine and holds on. “I want that too.”
“Excellent.” I look toward the guesthouse through the dark yard. “This is our home now. If you need to be in Charleston, you go. If you need New York, you go. I don’t want you proving anything by refusing to do your job.”
Chris nods, but I keep going before he can answer.
“I do need you to come back when you say you will. If plans change, tell me yourself. Don’t let somebody else manage the conversation because it’s easier.”
His expression sobers. “I can do that.”
I nod, ready to believe him. “That’s what I need.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.” He brings my hand closer but stops before kissing it, giving me the chance to pull away.
I don’t.
His mouth touches the back of my fingers just above the rings.
When he lowers my hand again, I take a slow drink of wine before saying the rest. “Willa still works for me on retainer. Security decisions stay mine.”
“They should.” Chris shifts closer in his chair, but not enough to crowd me. “I don’t need a role in that.”
“My business stays mine too.”
“Obviously.”
I give him a look.
Chris catches himself and smiles. “That came out wrong. I mean I know Raney Media is yours. I also want to know what’s happening with it because it’s important to you, not because I get a vote.”
“Better.”
“I’ve had practice.” He grins. “No one cares about my review of facial moisturizer anyway, and I have no authority to speak on what color of eyeshadow will be hot for Christmas.”
I chuckle while giving him silent points for referencing two of my current projects. “That’s correct.” I lean back in the chair. “You still have more to do.”
“I know.”
“Chris...”
He grimaces. “Right. No automatic agreement.”
That makes me laugh.
He waits until I’m done before speaking again. “I know I’m not finished. That’s different.”
“Yes, it is.” I look down at our hands.
For a while, neither of us says anything. The creek runs somewhere beyond the trees, and the porch light reflects off my rings whenever I move my hand.
Eventually, I turn toward him. “I love you.”
Chris’s fingers tighten around mine. “I love you too.”
“I never stopped.” Saying it hurts less than I expected. “That was part of why I was so angry. I loved you while I was leaving you.”
His eyes redden, but he doesn’t look away. “I’m sorry you had to.”
“I know.” I lean over and kiss him once. “Go get your stuff.”
Chris blinks. “Now?”
I point toward the guesthouse. “Do you need a formal moving date?”
His smile finally breaks through. “No.”
“Then go.”
He gets up, takes two steps toward the porch stairs, then turns back. “How much stuff am I allowed to bring?”
“All of it, Chris.”
“Just checking.”
“Go.”
He laughs as he crosses the yard.
I stay on the porch with my wine while lights come on in the guesthouse. A few minutes later, Chris appears with a suitcase in one hand, his laptop bag over his shoulder, and the ugly coffeemaker tucked under his other arm.
I stare at it when he reaches the porch.
“Absolutely not.”
He looks down at the machine. “You said all of it.”
“That thing makes coffee that tastes like rust water through a dirty sock.”
Chris considers the coffeemaker, then sets it beside the steps. “True enough, but I’ve become accustomed to the notes of sock and rust.”
I laugh and shake my head. “We clearly need to recalibrate your taste in coffee. Leave it for the trash.”
“First marital compromise.” He puts it on the porch for tonight.
I stand and take his laptop bag from his shoulder. “Don’t push your luck.”
Chris opens the lodge door for me, and I step inside wearing my rings. This time, he follows me home with no plans to return to the guesthouse.