Page 34 of Between the Shady Groves
There was a tiny kitchen, a small island that must serve as the kitchen table as well, since he didn’t see one of those, and then a living room with a couch and a chair.
There was a small hall with two doors. He assumed one was a bathroom and the other a bedroom. The bedroom couldn’t be very big at all, but he’d never been upstairs. In as many times as they’d visited her mom, they’d always chatted downstairs in the bakery. If it was open, they’d chatted around the customers, and if it was closed, they’d had the whole thing to themselves. But he didn’t come very often. Maybe that was another thing that she wished were different. If she’d told him that she wanted him to visit more, he would have gone. It wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy traveling with his wife. He just…had a business to run.
That seemed to be a theme, every time he thought about things, and he wondered… Maybe there was something that he needed to do.
“Here. Let me get you a pillow and a blanket out. I don’t think you’ll be cold, you usually run hot at night, but if you need more, there’s some in the closet in the bathroom.”
“All right. Thanks,” he said. He watched her as she stood there, her fingers on the couch, looking at the blanket and pillow she’d laid there.
“Thanks for taking care of me,” she said, and she didn’t raise her eyes to meet his.
“It’s my job. It’s what I signed up for. I like doing it.”
He emphasized that last sentence. And she smiled faintly.
“Good night.”
She didn’t acknowledge his words. Didn’t have any comment aboutthat. Maybe it was for the best, since again, neither one of them were at their best—it being after midnight and they were both extremely tired.
He lay down, stretching the blanket out and figuring that it was the perfect length for him. She knew him very well. Better than he knew her for sure. And yet, his command was to dwell with his wife according to knowledge. She’d made the effort to get to know him, and he hadn’t made much effort at all.
He needed to change that. Obviously. Although, it hadn’t been obvious to him before this. Before she’d done something so dramatic. He wondered if she would have just said, “Hey, Cannon. I need to talk to you.” And then she’d laid it all out. Would he have listened? Would he have changed his mind about anything? Would she have been able to get his attention just like that? Or did he need her to leave in order for him to wake up to what he was doing?
He liked the fact that when they had talked earlier, she didn’t blame it all on him. She admitted that maybe she hadn’t been perfect either. Honestly, that helped him want to do better, since she wasn’t railing against him and telling him how terrible he was.
Maybe leaving was what she had to do in order to get his attention without getting angry and screaming. He’d like to think that he would have been able to have an adult conversation and change things around if she’d just had to talk, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he would have just brushed her off. Maybe not even heard what she had to say. Resented the fact that he had to take time to talk to her when there was work to be done. Maybe he would have thought of her as needy or high maintenance. When he knew she was neither.
He must have drifted off at some point, because he awoke with a start. Was that a car door slamming?
He got up, holding the blanket as he did so and walking over to the window.
He looked down and studied the vehicle for a minute before he realized it was one of his work trucks. George must be here already.
He wasn’t expecting that.
He folded the blanket and set it on the couch, and walked softly across the floor, grabbing his boots from the end of the couch where he’d set them last night when he’d taken themoff.
“What is it?” His wife’s voice stopped him with his hand on the doorknob.
“My foreman, George, is down there.”
“I thought that was one of your trucks,” she said, pulling her robe tighter against her and furrowing her brows. “What’s George doing here?”
Was she going to be mad about this? Normally he didn’t hesitate to tell her things, and he didn’t worry about her getting mad. But his wife packing up and moving across two states had a tendency to do that to a man.
He figured she was going to find out at some point, so he might as well be honest about it. “I ordered a security system for the shop yesterday. I told him I wanted it here today. He must have gotten it from the warehouse and driven straight through.”
“A security system? For here?”
“Yeah. For here. The front door, the back door. It’s not going to include the windows upstairs, but it will include the shop windows. I’ll feel a lot better once it’s in, and I should have it up and running by dusk. Possibly noon if George helps me.”
“Oh my goodness. You’re serious. You…” She didn’t say thanks, and he took that as his opportunity to escape. He didn’t even bother putting his boots on until he was downstairs, because he didn’t want to get yelled at.
Although, Lauren had never, not once in all their years of marriage, ever yelled at him. Still, he figured what he’d done was going to make her angry. But he wasn’t going to undo it. He was going to put a security system in. He was going to take care of his wife. That was the way it was going to be.
Seventeen
“What’s going on out there?” Grace asked as the door closed behind her, and she put her nose in the air, sniffing the cinnamon scent appreciatively.
