Page 3 of Only Mine
Don’t. You’ve worked through this, Wrenley. You need to stay calm.
“Celeste has no right,” he repeats, each word sharp as a knife. “No right to send strangers to my home. Near my daughter.”
The last word makes his eyes flick toward the main house, and I follow his gaze. That’s when I notice the small silhouette standing in the open doorway, a tiny figure in a yellow raincoat that’s too big for her and quickly becoming soaked.
“Ivy?” he calls, his voice changing completely. “Ivy, go back inside!”
But the little girl doesn’t listen. Instead, she hurls herself toward us, her bare feet splashing through puddles, a plastic flashlight clutched in one hand.
“She’s going to slip,” I murmur, stepping next to Saint instinctively.
He blocks my path with one arm as she reaches us. “Don’t. You don’t touch her.”
Ivy pads inside, her feet leaving puddles. “You left the stove on. The pot bubbled over.”
Saint mutters something in French that sounds distinctly unprintable.
The little girl, Ivy, studies me with unnerving focus. “You look like you fell in the ocean.”
I laugh despite everything. “Close. Just driving through a biblical flood.”
Saint says through clenched teeth, “This woman was just leaving.”
“But it’s raining.” Ivy says this as if it settles everything. She approaches me without a trace of hesitation. “I’m Ivy. I’m five.”
“Wrenley,” I reply automatically. “I’m ... confused.”
She smiles and pats my arm as if she understands.
Saint watches this exchange with visible disbelief. “Ivy, she can’t stay here. She?—”
“But Aunt Celeste said this lady needed somewhere quiet,” Ivy says. “And you always tell me to help people when they need it.”
I’ve never seen such a scary man look so thoroughly outmaneuvered by a five-year-old.
Ivy asks me, “We’re having coq au vin, and Papa only makes it when he’s really mad or really happy, and today, he’s just regular mad about the rain, so it’ll be extra good.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m soaking wet, terrified, exhausted, and standing before a man who clearly wants me gone. And his daughter is inviting me to dinner.
Saint makes a noise in his throat that sounds like frustrated surrender. “We need to call Celeste.”
“Aunt Celeste just called. You missed it. We need to eat dinner now,” Ivy counters with absolute certainty. “It’s already seven thirty, and the sauce will separate if we wait.”
She turns on her heel and marches toward the door, then pauses to look back at both of us.
“Seven minutes,” she announces.
Ivy disappears into the rain, leaving Saint and me in a silence that feels combustible.
He stares at me, and I stare back, neither of us moving.
“Your daughter is persuasive,” I say, desperate to break the tension.
“She doesn’t talk to strangers. She hasn’t shown interest in anyone new in years.”
Oh. Well. I’m not sure how to handle that.
“I didn’t come here to disrupt your life,” I say. “I just needed somewhere to hide for a while.”
