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“Yeah. I started mine first. It was a little bit easier for me to...believe that I was leaving. But packing up your office...feels weird. This is where you belong.”
Not just in his office. But in Chicago. In the city. A man like him, someone who was used to commanding things and wielding his power and being a mover and shaker didn’t belong in a tiny little place like Strawberry Sands.
She thought that maybe he knew what she was saying, because as she set another book in the box, he came over and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the lake. Night had fallen, but the lights of the city reflected from the clouds, and they could see the waves rolling in and hitting the shore walk, the whitecaps reflecting the neon lights, and a few people braving the wind and darkness.
“The view’s a little different on the other side of the lake,” he said, and it almost sounded like he was having a casual conversation with her. Normally they talked business. Except for last weekend.
“Yeah. A little wilder. A little more desolate.”
“Desolate. I don’t think that’s the way I would describe Strawberry Sands. There is a...community. A feeling of fellowship or something.”
She remembered the way he was raised. With parents who were in and out of jail, drug users, parents who allowed their only child to drink alcohol for the entertainment of their friends. Her fingers curled. She could hardly stand thinking about that. Someone should take them and throw them in jail, except...that’s where she was. What would it be like to have a mother who was in jail?
She knew what it was like to have a father who was absent, although somewhere in the world, her dad still walked the earth. His didn’t. That was a total shift and an important one.
She set the book in, pulling her hand from the box and looking out at the view he stared at.
“Strawberry Sands is a special place.” She believed that, but of course that was what someone who had grown up there would think.
“It is. I... I appreciate you introducing me to it. I...” His voice trailed off, and he didn’t say anything else.
She didn’t know what to say or do. This was all new to her. She’d spent the last three days trying to figure out what was going on in their relationship.
He hadn’t called her, hadn’t texted other than the typical business texts he normally sent—of ordering her to check paper supplies and to check into things like garbage pickup and office cleaning in Strawberry Sands, and she’d called about internet for that area as well.
“I don’t think I told you, but I talked to the realtor and submitted an offer on Sunday evening. It was accepted right away. I actually offered half of what they were asking, and I suppose it should give me pause that they didn’t even blink an eye. But they didn’t. And I didn’t, either. Just wanting to move ahead as fast as I could. We’re closing Friday.”
Clara gasped. “Friday? The day after tomorrow?”
He grinned a little. A satisfied grin, one she’d seen a few times over the years when he’d done especially well with a business deal. Then he spoke as he moved to the desk and started pulling things out of the take-out bag.
“We’re paying cash, so we don’t have to go through all the things the bank would require. I’ve got other things I’ve set in motion, too. We’re getting permits, lining up contractors, and I’m going to be doing some work on my own. I have a storage trailer that’s going to be sitting on the property, and we’re going to be moving all the stuff from the offices there. So we can get it all moved in when we’re able.”
“Wait. What? What property did you buy?”
He paused with a small white napkin in his hand. “The schoolhouse.”
Her mouth dropped again. She had assumed he was buying the house. The schoolhouse was a foolish decision. There was so much work to do. He couldn’t move in right away... There was so much to do, who knew when they would be able to move in.
“You bought the schoolhouse?”
“Yes. That was the one you wanted.”
Since when did he do what she wanted? What was going on? It wasn’t like he was doing any kind of underhanded business that he needed her to keep secret so he was trying to appease her. She knew no business secrets that she could spread to the world that would get him in trouble or even undermine him in any way.
“You know, if I leave, I’m not going to talk about anything that’s happening here.”
“Of course not. You signed an NDA when you started.”
“Even if I hadn’t. I wouldn’t blab.”
“I know.” He grabbed a fork and carried it along with two cartons over to her, handing a carton and a fork to her. “Shrimp lo mein.”
It was her favorite. She couldn’t believe it. In all the years that they’d eaten takeout together, and there had been more than a few times where they worked late at the office and ordered in, he had never been the one doing the ordering. It had always been her.
“I can’t believe you know.”
“April seventeenth.” He rattled off the year as well.
