Page 37 of Stealing Home

Before I can answer he sweeps Wren up and plants a passionate kiss on her lips before setting her down so he can nuzzle his face against her belly.

Wren runs her fingers through his hair. “Harlow has an admirer. One of the players on her husband’s team.”

He grunts. “I think we need to have a barbecue. Measure him up.”

Wren gives me an apologetic look. “It might be good not to be at home tonight. Invite him over.”

I shrug. “I think it would be a good idea not to be alone with him. I kept telling him we were only going to be friends, and then we ended up making out like teenagers.”

“Makes sense. You two have been dancing around each other for a couple of weeks now,” she says.

“We’re definitely having everyone over tonight,” Griffin confirms, a shit-eating grin spreads across his face.

“Go back to work, caveman,” Wren says and shoos him out of the office.

After Griffin goes back to work we dig into the workload and in a couple of hours we’ve already split the tasks to help make sure Wren gets home at a decent time. I really don’t know how she’s done this for the last ten years. There’s enough for both of us to work full time. I make mental notes of ways we can cut back even further so she doesn’t have to be here forty hours a week after the baby is born.

We work steadily through the morning to clear the pile of written notes the guys have scribbled about the cars they’re working on. She shakes her head. “This happens every time I’m not here to start the invoice on the computer. They order the part and leave their chicken scratch for me to figure out.”

Around three I start checking my cell phone. My lawyer said they’d be serving Nando at his office just before practice, which just started. Wren grabs her keys to go pick up her three kids from school, but a commotion out in the bay makes her pause.

“Do you hear yelling?” I ask.

Her eyebrows scrunch together. “The guys can get loud, but this doesn’t sound like them.”

Liam bursts through the door, closes it and locks it behind him. He immediately works to pull the shades down. He points at us. “Sit down and do not go out there.”

The voices get louder, and I hear Nando’s voice shouting my name.

My hands cover my mouth. “He came here? How does he even know I’m here?”

“Harlow! Get your fucking ass out here,” he shouts, moving closer to the office.

I start shaking. Something hits the wall outside the door, and I flinch. Suddenly, I’m not in the garage, I’m back in college. Nando had been out drinking with the guys. When he came home I smelled another woman’s perfume on him. Naturally, I got upset and started packing my things. He found me putting my clothes in a duffle bag and lost it.

He started shouting at me, and when I didn’t stop packing he slammed me against the wall. My head hit hard enough to make me see stars. His fingers slid around my throat, and he squeezed. I grew lightheaded and everything went black.

I should have left then. I knew it wasn’t a good sign, but he cried. I found myself consoling him when that wasn’t my responsibility. Then he showered me with attention, notes, all the romantic gestures I was starved for. He even agreed to counseling. Slowly, he made me doubt what even happened.

He didn’t choke me, I hyperventilated. He didn’t push me, I tripped. With all the love bombing I started to believe the lie, and before long the incident was locked away deep in the recesses of my mind. Until now, and all the rose colored memories are scattered around me and I can see clearly my marriage has been toxic for way longer than the last couple of years.

Red and blue lights shine through the front window. The shouting stops soon after, but there’s a firm knock on the window. “Centralia Police, is Harlow Rivera here?”

I take a deep breath. Wren turns me to face her. “It isn’t the fifties, they can’t make you go home with him.”

“Open it, Liam,” she says.

“We need to speak to a Harlow Rivera,” the officer says, and I feel like he’s trying to intimidate me. I don’t normally have a distrust of police, but something about this guy is rubbing me the wrong way.

I square my shoulders. “It’s Pierce actually.”

He sneers, but jots it down in his book. “Your husband would like to speak to you.”

I lean against the desk. “I take it he was served today. I have nothing to say to him. Anything he’d like to say to me he can direct to my legal counsel.”

The officer puts his hands on his utility belt, probably trying to look more authoritative. “Ma’am, now you know how important his job is. I don’t think the town is going to appreciate you risking the baseball season.”

Liam stands up, and steps between me and the officer. “You did not just fucking say that to her.”

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