AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dale is my horse of choice from now on,” Annie said, smoothing his snout and giving him a kiss. “Thank you, Maggie. I guess I’d better get home and get to work.”
Maggie smiled. “I love it that we are still making memories together, just us girls.”
“Me, too.” Annie leaned forward to embrace her friend.
They put the horses up and when the saddles were put away, Annie left. She didn’t look at her phone, for fear Chris would be angry. Except for worrying about what he was going to say about her leaving his house and then going to Bayou Cottage, she continued to bask in the joy the ride had given her.
Arriving home felt good. She’d work for a few hours and then get Stevie from day care. But first she forced herself to look at her phone.
You’re gorgeous on horseback! Does this mean you’ll ride here with me? We can get horses now that I’m living here.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she’d underestimated Chris. He only had her well-being in mind. She quickly answered.
I can’t wait to get horses! Okay, going to get busy working and will call you later.
He sent her a heart emoji. All was well with the world.
The rest of the week passed by without any more surprises or catastrophes. Annie heard from Steve that he was going to take his first parenting class that Saturday. He’d spoken with his mother, and she was back in AA and would take the classes after Steve was finished so they weren’t in the same classroom. That meant that Stevie wouldn’t be going to Steve’s the following weekend unless the judge signed off acknowledging that he’d completed his sentence.
Saturday morning, Chris and Annie had coffee together before she left for her park date with the women.
“What’s the plan for today?” she asked.
“Believe it or not, Kirk’s going to rent an apartment in the old hotel Justin and Maggie own.”
“Oh, the same one where the day care is?”
“Yep. So he’ll move this weekend. Will that change your plans about living with me at all?”
She thought about it for a second, Maggie’s advice about the title being in her name, too running through her mind. “If you invite me, I could spend the rest of the weekend with you, once he’s gone.”
Cocking his head to the side, he looked at her intently. “Are you saying I have to formally invite you to stay in your own house?”
“I’d like that, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all, but that’s your house,” he emphasized.
“It’s not my house if my name isn’t on the title, Chris.”
He rubbed his jaw, thinking. In a matter of a week, Annie had changed their relationship on her own by refusing to move in with him now that his sons were there. Now she was asking for ownership of the house.
“You’re saying you want me togiveyou the house.”
He hadn’t meant for it to come across like it did, with more force than he intended on the word give. But she didn’t hesitate.
“Yes. If anything happens to you, I don’t want to have to move again. I don’t want to be homeless. It’s entirely up to you. But my understanding when we made the list of attributes the house was supposed to have that it was because it was going to be my house.”
“That’s true. I do keep saying it’s your house,” Chris replied. “Okay, I’ll work on that this week. Give me some time because I have the new job coming up on Monday.”
She smiled at him, letting him steer the course of the conversation.
“So will you bring Stevie and spend tonight with me?”
“Okay! It will be fun. I haven’t had a night away in a long time. Since you took me to a hotel last year.”
“I’m psyched!” he said, bending down to kiss Stevie goodbye. “Have fun at the park. Maybe we’ll go horse shopping this weekend.”
“How fun!”
