Page 12 of To Bring You Back
“I’ll talk to Matt again, but I can’t control him.”
“I’ll be praying.”
“Thanks, Mom. Like I said, you’re welcome to come up for a weekend.” Hopefully, if she took him up on it, she wouldn’t spend the whole time after him about Matt.
After they ended the call, Gannon scanned the tabloids one more time.
Did Adeline watch the same headlines as the people back home? If so, she had to be as leery as Mom about Matt and Harper. Or more so.
As if she hadn’t had enough reasons to push him away.
As Adeline reachedfor the TV remote, footsteps and voices wafted through the front door. She pulled her hand back into her lap. One voice was female, the other male. Other than that, she couldn’t pinpoint their owners.
She slid her dinner, a steaming plate of homemade chicken pot pie, onto the coffee table and started for the door. Halfway there, she remembered her outfit. Athletic shorts and a T-shirt that had worn through in two spots on the shoulder.
She wouldn’t mind friends seeing her like this, but Gannon had already shown up at both of her jobs. Surely it wasn’t that much of a stretch that he’d try here next.
Bruce nosed the doorknob and peered back at her as if to ask what was holding her up.
What, indeed.
If the visitor was Gannon, did her appearance matter?
Even her most pulled-together outfit wouldn’t impress him. He had everything and more, including a famous girlfriend. And she didn’t want to impress him so much as show him she was living a life she’d prefer he not interrupt. Maybe these clothes did that as well as any.
But when she pulled open the door, she found Drew, his hair windblown from the hike. He bounced on his feet, attention on the boards of the porch while Tegan watched. He was testing the structure’s integrity.
Adeline cringed and pushed her shoulder into the storm door, opening it.
Drew’s gaze sprung upward, guilty. “Tegan told me about the letter.”
Of course she had.
Adeline reached back inside for a leash and brought Bruce onto the porch with her. “I haven’t gotten quotes yet, but we’ll figure it out.”
“Did you see the corner under that column?” Tegan motioned Drew toward the worst-looking part of the porch.
He took the three stairs down to the yard and crossed to the corner of the structure. “Sure enough.”
Adeline drew an even breath, hoping to exude calm confidence. “I tried painting it last year to keep water and bugs from doing any more damage, but I guess that was a lost cause.”
He braced a hand on the floorboards while he stuck his head under the deck. “Hate to say it, but you need a new porch.”
“You should see what the basement walls are doing,andthe roof leaks.” Tegan leaned on the railing. “The water seeps into the spare bedroom, and of course, there’s the siding.”
Adeline stepped up to the railing. She couldn’t dispute Tegan’s list of necessary repairs, but since when had her roommate tallied it all up? And why was she talking with Drew about this? “Unless there’s a raise somewhere in this conversation, we don’t need to get into it.”
“I know.” Drew took and released a deep breath. “I’m right there with you.” On his way back toward the door, he turned and lifted his arms as if to embrace the lake. “At least you’ve got a great view.”
The whole reason she’d invested in this fixer-upper. Pink laced the clouds over the lake, and the water answered with rosy highlights—serenity patiently waiting for her to lift her focus from her problems.
“How’d the hike go?”
Tegan laughed. “Fine, if you don’t count all the pouting when I showed up at the trail and not you.”
Drew chuckled. He petted Bruce as he rejoined them on the rotting porch, then shot Tegan a glance as he straightened. “I heard you had an exchange outside church this morning. You seemed upset when I found you in the office. Then you looked like a deer in the headlights as the girls charged you.”
She felt for pockets to hide her hands, but the athletic shorts had none. Did she look like a deer in the headlights now too? She cast a desperate look toward the lake. Still there. Calm and still. The clouds might be even brighter than before. “Thanks for having the sense to ask me to sit it out.”
