* * *
Knox awoke to the knock on the hotel door and the sound of his phone ringing at the same time. He hurriedly put on the white hotel robe, grabbed his wallet, and padded across the floor.
“DoorDash delivery,” the young man said. “You paid with a card when you ordered. Have a nice evening.”
Knox handed him a generous tip. “You, too, and thank you.”
He set the bags on the small bistro table for two and picked up his phone to find a voice message telling him that the delivery person was in the elevator.
Lottie pulled the sheet up under her arms when she sat up. “Where did you get that robe?”
Knox opened a closet door and took the extra one over to her. She threw her legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and he helped her put it on. “Have you used up all your energy? Do I need to feed you supper, or can you do it yourself?”
She giggled as she knotted the tie. “I’ve just barely got enough to get the sandwich from the table to my mouth. How about you? Do I need to feed you?”
“I think I can manage,” Knox said with a fake sigh. “Ifyou’ll get a couple of bottles of water or sweet tea from that little fridge, I will get our food out and ready to eat.”
“If I faint dead away on the way across the room, you will give me mouth-to-mouth, right?”
“With pleasure.” He chuckled.
He could not even begin to imagine an argument so intense that he and Lottie couldn’t work it out, and he didn’t want to think about a time when she wouldn’t be in his life. He loved every minute he had spent with her, including the days when they were just pretending.
She carried two bottles over to the small table and then took her place across from Knox. “I hope this tastes as good as it smells.”
Knox bit into his sandwich and nodded. “Twice as good.”
“I’m not looking forward to summer,” she blurted out.
“That’s an abrupt change of subject, but neither am I,” Knox said.
“I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“It’s what’s on both our minds, but we’ll have to make the best of what time we have together and look forward to September.”
Those words stuck in Knox’s mind that night as he went to sleep. How did he make every minute count when so much dread was tucked away in his heart?
The next morning, Lottie took a dozen pictures of the wall decorations about the character, Dave Robicheaux, who appeared in James Lee Burke’s novels. Then she took even more at the Bayou Teche that ran through a lovely little park.She and Knox sat at a picnic table and fed the birds, and she even snapped a photo of a rare solid-black squirrel.
“This is a wonderful vacation,” she said as she scrolled back through all the photographs on her phone. “I’m already dreading going back to the construction site. How about you?”
He picked up her hand and kissed the knuckles. “You aren’t wired for that much adventure. You’d get bored after two days, but anyweekendthat you want to get away, I’ll call Lester. We can fly anywhere you want.”
“Are you saying you’d be bored with me after two days?” she snapped.
“Hey, don’t twist my words.” Knox could hear the edge to his words in his own voice.
She dumped the rest of the corn they had bought to feed the animals on the ground. “I’m ready to go back to the hotel for a nap.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said through clenched teeth.
How in the hell had things gone from hot romance to a cold shoulder in a split second? he wondered as he followed her back to the rental car. Was it because he mentioned the wordbored? By the time he came to the end of the short path, she was already in the vehicle, had fastened her seat belt, and had her head turned to look out the passenger window.
“I didnotsay you are boring,” Knox said as he started the engine.
She didn’t even answer him but continued to stare out the side window all the way to the hotel, where she jumpedout of the car the minute that he had parked, beat him inside, and didn’t even wait at the elevator for him. When he reached their room, the bathroom door was closed and locked.
Who would have ever thought our first big argument would be over a single word?He got a bottle of water from the minibar and took it out to the balcony. What was so wrong withboredanyway? And it came about so fast. Was this the first stage of failure for them, or just flat outTHE END—all in caps and bold print?
