She’d turned her head to look at him, her usually animated expression so blank, and blinked. “I don’t know.”
He hadn’t, either, but he’d figured it out. He found a condo to rent and packed the necessities. After twenty years together, it was going to take a long time to separate his from hers, but every time he stopped by the house for something or to see the kids, she had more boxes for him to take. Telling the kids had been hard, but what hurt the most was that they were both hurt and sad, but neither was surprised. Apparently, he’d been the last to know his marriage was irrevocably broken.
Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to see it because he didn’t know how to fix it.
But he could fix up this cabin. He hadn’t been lying about wanting to increase its value before it went on the market, but he also wanted the physical labor. He wanted to see a problem and fix it—to see results. A loose porch railing. A rotting board. A vine trying to creep under the shed siding. Those were things he knew how to make right.
Once Scott got moving, he was able to focus on the job at hand. Identifying ways to increase the curb appeal of the property, while being something he could manage on his own in one weekend, allowed him to shove his feelings about Emily to the back of his mind. For a while he even managed not to think about her at all, until she stepped out onto the porch and called his name.
For one short, sweet moment, it was as if nothing had changed. He was transported back to a happier time, when his family and his heart were still intact. He exhaled the breath that had caught in his chest and his world turned grim again.
After willing his jaw to unclench and doing his best to put a neutral expression on his face, he turned to see her walking toward him with a paper plate in her hand.
“I made lunch,” she said, thrusting it toward him. “I thought you might be hungry, too.”
He wasn’t, but he took it because it was the least awkward thing to do. It also gave him something to look at besides her face. Wisps of her hair were stuck to her cheek, and he wanted to brush them back. And to wipe the smudge of dust from her chin. But she wasn’t his to touch anymore, so he looked at his lunch instead.
That wasn’t much better, emotionally speaking. She’d made him a tomato and potato chip sandwich, just the way he liked it. Hearty white bread liberally slathered in mayo. Thick slabs of sliced tomato topped by a layer of potato chips for salt and crunch. It was his favorite, but he couldn’t make them like Emily did. On his first attempt, he’d used the wrong kind of bread and it had gotten soggy and started falling apart. On his second attempt, he’d used too many potato chips. He hadn’t tried again, and he’d added tomato sandwiches to the list of things he’d lost along with his marriage.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
“I brought deli meat to make sandwiches for supper. I don’t know if you…I have enough if you don’t mind sandwiches twice in one day.”
“I brought a steak and some corn to throw on the grill,” he said. “There’s enough for us to share.”
“Okay.” She nodded and took a few steps back toward the cabin.
He didn’t want her to go. Being near her was hard. But he knew from three months’ experience that being away from her was harder, and being here in a place that had brought them so much joy over the years messed with his head. “Hey, Em. Quick question.”
She turned back to him, her expression guarded. “Okay.”
Scott fumbled for a question to ask, but his brain was preoccupied with trying for the umpteenth time to figure out how he’d ended up in a place where talking to the woman he loved more than life itself was awkward.
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
Her gaze lingered on his face for a long time, her sad eyes searching for something she must not have found. Just when he was about to start squirming, she shoved her hands in her pockets and walked back to the cabin.
Scott cursed himself under his breath. He couldn’t seem to say anything, never mind the right thing, and this separation was going to be permanent. He was going to spend the rest of his life only seeing Emily at functions for their kids. Tight smiles. Polite conversation. And at some point, there might be another guy at her side.
Hell no. With a low growl, he went back to his plank desk to decide what to tackle next. Unfortunately, he didn’t think it was possible to cut fallen trees with a circular saw, so there was no end to the torment in sight.
* * *
They’d just finished eating their supper when the rain started again. Not a summer drizzle, either—the kind that was a nuisance you could live with if it was warm enough. This was a hard spring rain and the temperature had dropped, so Emily knew she and Scott would be spending the evening inside.
There was no television in the cabin—a decision they’d made when the kids were small and never revisited—and they had cell signals, but not a stream movies on their phones level of reception. She didn’t think she’d be able to concentrate on her book enough to make reading worthwhile. Plus it left Scott with nothing to do. Not that entertaining Scott was her problem anymore, but he didn’t handle boredom well and his restlessness and sighing wouldn’t help her lose herself in a novel.
Emily did the only thing she could think of to get them through the hours until they could go to bed with a minimum amount of awkwardness.
She pulled out a jigsaw puzzle.
Five hundred pieces of an Americana winter village should get them through until the road was cleared. Hopefully, anyway. They had a lot of puzzles in the cabin, but she didn’t even want to think about being trapped here with Scott for days.
He tried to ignore her. First by fiddling with the bathroom sink faucet so it would stop dripping. That didn’t take him long, though. Neither did fixing the drawer that liked to stick slightly open in the kitchen. The wind had picked up along with the rain, so everything on the porch was wet and he couldn’t even sit out there and stare at the lake without freezing. Finally, the temptation of the puzzle overwhelmed his obvious reluctance to be close to her and he sat at the table to help.
They didn’t talk at all. Just took turns poking through the puzzle pieces, looking for edges and making little piles of interior pieces that would obviously go together when the border was complete. There was no tension in the quietness. Just concentration. She didn’t mind the silence because they weren’t very good at talking to each other anymore, and she didn’t want to fight when there was literally nowhere for either of them to go.
Then she caught him putting together the pieces of a blue house she’d been eyeing and scowled at him. “We haven’t finished the edges yet.”
