Page 6 of Keeping What's Mine

Which I don’t open.

Because I can’t make myself do it.

Because I keep hoping, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he’d come all the way out to California for me. That he’d say, “Okay, honey, you’re right and I was wrong. You’re amazing, and I want to be with you so much that I would give up my hometown and my extended family to be where you are.”

Nothing short of that will do.

It’s my career. My life. And I’m keeping it.

I spend the morning working on my laptop in my room, grateful that I’d insisted on Aunt Zee getting high-speed internet when the town got the capability last year. She’d taken a lot of persuasion, but the incentive of being able to talk to me on Zoom, as face-to-face as possible from 2600 miles away, finally made her give in.

And now? I’m working from home.

It’s pretty freaking awesome.

I work with earbuds in, so I’m only vaguely aware of banging sounds from elsewhere in the house until I take a break for lunch. I pass by the formal parlor on my way to the kitchen for a salad, and then I stop walking, to turn around and peer in between the sheets of plastic hanging over the door.

Everett is stripped to the waist, ripping out the wainscoting with a crowbar. I watch the muscles of his back strain and flex, gleaming with sweat, and my breath comes quick.

I’ve made no noise, but he glances over his shoulder. “Oh, sorry. Was I disturbing you? These need to come out—at least the ones on this wall,” he says, putting down his crowbar. “The panels on the front wall are just fine, but these on this wall that backs up to the bathroom have suffered some moisture damage.” He points to a warped panel. “There may have been a leak at one time. It was fixed a long time ago, but the damage remained.”

Like us, I think.

“Can you fix it?” I ask, my eyes on his dark blue ones.

“I can make it better,” he says softly, and a chill goes up my spine. Desire blooms in my belly, and I catch my breath. “Trust me, Flora,” he adds.

I want to.

I want to touch him. I want him to touch me.

I want that too much for my own comfort. So I step back and tear my gaze from his, and I nod carelessly. “Sure. You’re the contractor. If you say it needs doing, I believe you can fix it.”

And then I escape. I eat avocado toast for lunch, and then I wonder why I bother with avocado toast. It’s such a California food, and I’m in Dogwood Falls. I should be having fried chicken from the grocery deli, or a barbecue sandwich on those gorgeous onion buns from the Dogwood Bakery.

I ponder it in the back of my mind all day. And I work late, hoping to avoid Everett in the kitchen.

But when I come downstairs, Ev is working in the kitchen. He’s making fried green tomatoes, and I can smell catfish in the oven. There’s a dish of homemade coleslaw on the table. My mouth waters for the second time today.

“Wow, what’s all this for?” I ask, feeling stupid.

Ev looks over his shoulder at me. “You like catfish and fried tomatoes.” Then his face darkens. “Or at least you used to.”

“No, I still love them.” I can’t help feeling a glow inside. He made this meal for me.

“Well, good. ‘Cause that’s what we’re having.”

“Did your contract with Aunt Zee involve meals?” I ask, only realizing it sounds snarky once it comes out.

“At first she fed me,” he says softly, flipping a tomato slice over in the pan. “And then when she got sick, I fed her.”

“She didn’t tell me,” I say, feeling guilty.

“She didn’t want you to worry,” he says, flipping another slice. “She figured she would have time. And then…” He shrugs, but I can see his sadness. “And then she didn’t get the time she thought she’d have.”

Aunt Zee’s oval oak pedestal table is already set, and frosty glasses of iced tea are set at opposite places. I sit down at my spot, missing my aunt…and terribly turned-on by her handyman.

Who is still, yeah, technically, my husband.

Dammit.

How am I going to live here for the next six months, without ripping that clean white t-shirt off him and licking his abs?

Or something even more intimate than that?