Page 90 of The Story Between Us

And Livvie stood in the backyard with the dogs pressing against her legs and the birds singing and the sun warming her face, and she had never felt so cold in her entire life.

For a second there, I thought you came to help.

His own words rang in his head as he crossed the threshold into his office. The cruelty of them. The contempt.

His hands shook. He noticed it when he reached for the doorknob—his hand trembling, not quite closing around the brass. Anger, he told himself. He was angry. She’d lied to him, made promises behind his back.

Made him believe that…oh, he wasn’t so stupid as to think she’d come out here on an altruistic motive.

He’d started to talk himself into it, however. But of course it was business. So yeah, he could let that go.

What he couldn’t seem to shake free was the coil around his chest, the one cutting off his breathing.

Five. Days.

Five hundred thousand dollars—gone.

He’d have to sell the house. Maybe declare bankruptcy.

He walked into the house and headed to his office.

He should shut the door. Close out the world, the deadline, the woman standing on his porch with her paint-stained fingers and her well-meaning lies.

Retreat into the silence that had kept him safe for three years.

He didn’t shut the door.

He just sat down at his desk, leaving the door open.

The chair creaked. The cursor blinked.

He put his fingers on the keys. Typed nothing.

Outside, the September morning was shifting toward proper dawn. Golden light slanted through the window, catching dust motes, making everything soft. The lake turned to hammered copper in the rising sun.

He glanced out the window. Spotted her still in the yard. He could feel her presence the way you feel a storm approaching—that pressure in the air, that awareness of something unresolved.

Any second now, she’d come inside. She’d knock on the office door, demand he talk to her, refuse to let him hide. That’s the dance they did. He’d build the wall and she’d figure out how to break it down.

One minute passed. Two.

He stared at the screen. The cursor blinked its patient, mocking rhythm.

Three minutes. Four.

The house stayed quiet. No footsteps in the hallway. No knock on the door.

Five minutes.

She wasn’t coming.

He pushed back from the desk. Paced to the window.

She’d disappeared from the yard. Just the dock stretching into the golden water, the trees in their fall splendor, the kayak rack with its single boat.

For a second there, I thought you came to help.

He heard himself say it again. The ice in his voice. The dismissal.