Page 19 of Between the Shady Groves
“I promise you, I don’t.”
“You’re a smart man. You can figure it out.”
“Is it too late?” he said, and again, he wished he wouldn’t have said it. He didn’t want her answer to be yes. What was he going to do if she said yes?
“I suppose that’s your decision. I’m here now, and I’m not going back to Cincinnati.”
He blinked. “What?”
He’d thought they would just work it out, and she would comehome. Maybe she was getting this ready to sell, except…hadn’t she told him that she was going to open it again? Surely she wasn’t serious.
“You heard me.” She turned with the loaf of bread and stuck it on the far counter, then she started tidying up the area where she had been working.
“Lauren?”
She looked up, but her hands continued to move across the counter, wiping up the crumbs. She just lifted her brow.
“Would you talk to me please?”
He needed to know. Needed to have some kind of clue as to what he had to do.
“Now you want to talk? So all I had to do was come to Raspberry Ridge in order to get you to want to talk to me?” She rolled her eyes and then looked back down at the counter.
“Yeah. That was all you had to do. I’m here, now I want to talk. Please?” He knew that there was desperation in his voice, but he couldn’t help it. It was almost like she was dismissing him, but he truly, truly did not know what he needed to do. How did he get his wife back? He didn’t want to…go back to Cincinnati without her. He didn’t want to go anywhere without her. He loved her.
“I’m busy. I’m putting my time and effort into my business. After all, I want it to be successful.” There was something off about her words. She looked sincere, but was that sarcasm? Was that accusation? Why did her words sound…?
“I noticed there was no security system on the door. If you’re going to live here, you need to have something.”
“This is Raspberry Ridge. I don’t really need to lock the door at night if I don’t feel like it.”
“You do. Don’t you dare go to bed without locking the door.” He tried to modulate his tone. She didn’t understand all the stories that he’d heard about people getting broken into, almost murdered, and, in some cases, beaten up, raped, and shot. “It might be a small town, and you might feel safe, but that’s when you let your guard down, and the bad people get in. You absolutely need to have a security system here.”
“I’ll get right on that,” she said, taking the crumbs that she hadwiped up and shaking the rag over the sink. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m closed.”
“You’re closed?” he said, wondering what she was trying to say. Was she…dismissing him?
“I might be open again. I might be open tomorrow, but for now, you need to leave so I can lock the door behind you.” She gave him a tight smile and then walked out from behind the counter and stood by the door, her hand on the knob like she was going to open it for him.
He’d kind of trailed after her, and when he got beside her, she opened the door, a brow raised. Her expression said she was waiting for him to leave.
“Lauren. Please. I… I know I must have screwed up big time, but I’m having trouble seeing it. I worked hard to make our business successful so that it would support us and make money for us. I paid for a nurse to help you when your mom?—”
She waved a hand. “Yeah. I know. Thank you. I probably didn’t appreciate that like I should have. I’m tired, and I have a headache. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He stood staring at her, the pain that he had allowed himself to feel ever since he’d found her note making his chest feel like it had been crushed, run over by something hard and heavy.
“We can talk tomorrow?”
She lifted her shoulder. “Sure. Tomorrow.”
“All right.” He stood uncertainly. Where was he going to stay? Raspberry Ridge wasn’t even big enough to have a gas station, let alone a hotel. There was no place. And it didn’t look like he was welcome to stay with her. In fact, he would say quite the opposite. She was clearly telling him he was not welcome.
He supposed he’d sleep in his truck. Although, he wasn’t just giving her a hard time about the security system for this place, his truck was hardly secure or safe. But he was different than Lauren. He was a man. Women were targets because of their gender—solely because of their gender. Men were a little bit safer in that regard.
Plus, someone probably wasn’t going to break the window of his truck just to steal it in this little town. But just like he had told Lauren, it was when a person let their guard down that bad things happened.
Still, he didn’t have a choice. He walked out the door, wishing he had some kind of wise, compelling last words that would make her change her mind and ask him to stay, but no such words came to his head, and the door closed behind him. He could hear the lock turn and click into its place.
