Page 48 of Between Our Hearts

When a solid little fist met his thigh, he broke the series of closed mouth kisses with his wife and bent to pick up Lottie.

“I do it.” Their daughter pecked Sadie’s bare shoulder with slobbery lips.

His wife didn’t laugh, but she ran her hand over their daughter’s unbrushed hair as a small smile curved her mouth. When her gaze dropped to the plants near their feet, her lips downturned.

Suddenly, the strangeness of three plants at the base of a tree when he’d never seen that elsewhere in the well-manicured park made his stomach drop.

“Did you put these here?”

She nodded to the ground.

“Oh, love,” he whispered, gathering his wife to his side.

Sadie was quiet for a long time before he heard her raspy words. “I’m sorry.”

?Chapter 25?

“Love, you shouldn’t be sorry for this.”

The rebuttal to her husband’s statement warred with Sadie’s lips. If she argued and told him about the other parks with the other trios of flowers she’d planted, he’d see how unhinged she truly was. These three little plants were just the apex to a larger slab of impenetrable icy sorrow.

A novel flickering sensation jolted around in her body. She suddenly swelled with the need to unburden herself—to let words flow from her like blood from a wound.

But that was the problem.

Then she’d be bleeding without a surgical clamp in sight. Exsanguination would be the final result. With what she’d just told him, Sadie already felt as if she’d been skinned—more raw and exposed than ever before.

Her phone ringing in her back pocket pulled a relieved breath from her soundless mouth. Only when she saw her mother’s contact on the screen, she winced. Her husband had a more decisive response, clicking the side of her phone to send the call to voicemail. “Not right now.”

When her gaze flicked to his, he softened his tone and ran his hand up her arm. “You can talk to her later.”

A second later his phone rang in his pocket. He shifted Lottie to his other hip to dig it out.

“Answer it,” she said, seeing Penelope’s contact on her husband’s screen. “It’s got to be something important if she’s calling you.”

Sadie’s mind flew over all the possible reasons for her mother to call unexpectedly. Maybe she was ill or injured, or maybe one of her brothers was. Heart attacks weren’t unheard of in forty-year-old men, and after the way Daddy had died, they were all at an increased risk. Her stomach bottomed out thinking maybe one of her adorable nieces or nephews had been in an accident. If they’d broken something, Sadie would want to oversee their care. How quickly could she get to them?

Clark frowned but slid his thumb over the screen. “Hello. Yes. She’s—hold on.”

She took the extended phone and pressed it to her ear. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re taking my car,” her mother practically screeched. A male voice sounded in the background before her mother’s muffled voice said, “Don’t you have any manners? Just wait. I’m trying to sort it out with my daughter.”

“Why are they taking your car?” Sadie squinted as the bright sun momentarily pierced between the densely gathered nimbostratus clouds.

“I don’t know. Didn’t you pay them for it?” Her mother’s voice was more shrill than normal.

“No, Mama,” she sighed, wiping sweat from her face. “That’s what the money is for. I put it in your bank account, and then you make the payments. Haven’t you been getting a bill from the dealership?”

A dismissive sound echoed over the phone. “I figured they were trying to charge me twice. Weasel what little money I had left from Daddy’s life insurance.” Sadie could tell that the last sentence wasn’t for her benefit but for those around her mother. Penelope was probably dressed in her best shift, pressing her manicured hand to her waifish chest with pouty lips.

Sadie pinched her eyes closed. “Just tell them you’ll pay them. That it’s a misunderstanding.”

A honeyed version of Sadie’s words echoed in the distance followed by mumbled male voices and then her mother’s trademarked “No need to be ugly” pointed at the men.

“They say they gotta take it, and I’ll have to sort it out with the dealership.”

“Okay, then that’s what you’ve got to do, Mama.”

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