Page 30 of The Locksmith's Promise

“None of this was your fault.” He shook his head then tapped the cover of the album. “I’ll bring it back.”

“Take your time,” I murmured.

He huffed a bitter laugh. “Right now, free time is the one thing I have too much of.”

I didn’t move until the door clicked shut.

And then I crumpled like a used napkin, folded my arms on the table, and silently screamed for all that we’d lost.

All we might have been.

All I refused to allow us to have.

Three days and two visits later, as I prepared dinner in our tiny kitchen, I was no closer to finding my equilibrium.

Baxter texted me a couple of times a day. He kept them short, mostly focused on Corwin, but every time his name popped up on my screen, my blood pressure bucked like a wild donkey.

Immersed in kids and the school routine from 8:30 to 3:30, I put Bax out of my mind. But as soon as that bell rang, my interior clock tick, tick, ticked until he showed up at my house after dinner.

Not that I needed that internal countdown with Corwin bouncing off the walls giving me updates at fifteen-minute intervals.

This would be the fourth night in a row we’d be hanging out with Baxter.

I didn’t begrudge him the time with his son. God knew I screwed up by disappearing off the face of the earth and not tracking him down.

But me spending this much time with him was detrimental to the organ in my chest that had fiercely and unknowingly harbored the dream.

Corwin slid across the old wood floors in his stocking feet. “Why can’t Baxter come for dinner?”

Sit at the table? Play happy family while my heart broke? No, thank you.

“Maybe you guys can go out for dinner.”

He drew back. “Where?”

“Where?”

Where, indeed. There wasn’t a whole lot of choice in Moose Lake.

“The Loose Moose grills the best burgers in all of Ontario,” I informed him.

He brightened. If there was one thing my boy liked, it was a good hamburger. “Really?”

I shrugged, unwilling to double-down on my exaggeration. “Maybe you could go with your dad and find out.”

By this point, I was more than comfortable with Baxter taking Corwin out. Or maybe, considering Baxter was still staying with Miller and Maxine, I should go out and leave them the apartment.

But where would I go?

After seven, my only option was The Loose Moose, and with it being the be all and end all of Moose Lake’s nightlife, I avoided that place like the plague. I supposed I could have gone to my parents, but that would have invited questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

They knew Baxter was back and that Corwin had met him. Other than that, they were in the dark.

Probably as much as I was.

It took me a moment to realize he hadn’t answered.

I turned my head and cocked my eyebrow. “What?”

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