Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
My jaw clenches, and I swallow the hard knot in my throat. Ten years apart from the bastard, and I’m still stuck cleaning up his messes.
“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did,” I say, monotone.
Anneliese sniffs. “You can say that again.”
“How long were you with him?” The last time I asked that question, she shot me down. One more try couldn’t hurt.
“It was a whirlwind, love-at-first-sight kind of thing,” she says with a breathy sigh. “He proposed after six months. We moved here and started the reno. Two months later . . . he was gone.”
Her voice tapers into nothing.
“When was the last time the two of you spoke?” she asks.
“Ten years ago.”
“Maybe he was mad at you for leaving? Maybe that’s why he wrote you off?”
“Like I told you before, the only one who can tell you why . . . is dead. Picking apart and psychoanalyzing our dysfunctional relationship isn’t going to get you any closer to the truth.”
At least not the kind of truth she’s looking for.
“I really thought he was a good man,” she says in such a way I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or talking out loud to herself.
“You and every other woman who fell for his shit.”
Silence fills the air between us. Maybe that was a little harsh, but it’s not in me to sugarcoat, especially not where it benefits Donovan.
I snap off my gloves. It’s time for a break anyway.
“At some point you have to move on,” I say. “Accept that there are things he never told you. Accept that maybe he wasn’t the person you thought he was.”
“Don’t you think I’m trying?” Her voice cuts like glass, but she maintains her composure. “I just want to make sense of whatever I can. A little closure would be nice.”
“Closure is a myth. This is going to follow you the rest of your life. Even if you accept it. Even when you think you’ve finally moved on, it’s still going to be there . . . like background noise. Some days it’ll be a little louder than others. But it never goes away. Not completely.”
She sniffs a melancholy laugh. “Well, that’s encouraging.”
“Just keeping it real.”
“Do you speak from experience?” she asks, head tilted as she studies me.
“You could say that.”
“And does your experience have anything to do with you wanting to burn the house down?” Her brows lift.
I take a second to gather my thoughts. I wasn’t expecting her to shotgun that follow-up question.
“If you’re fishing for information, you’re using the wrong bait,” I say.
Her nose scrunches. “It’s just a question.”
“To you, maybe,” I say.
She folds her arms. “I’m not the bad guy here, Lachlan.”
“And neither am I.”
“I invited you into my home.”
I huff. “You accepted me into my home after I invited myself. Let’s not rewrite the story, Blue Eyes.”
“If you want this to work, I need to know a little more about you and why you left home and never looked back,” she says. “And I need to know why you want to burn your childhood home to the ground.”
“You don’t need to know those things; you want to know them,” I say. “Big difference.”
Aside from Bryce, Lynnette, and one unfortunate woman in a bar in Notting Hill a handful of years ago, no one else has heard the full story. I intend to keep it that way. It’s not the kind of thing worth rehashing.
I rake my hand along my jaw before massaging the back of my neck. “I should get back to work. First coat’s starting to dry.”
Turning my back to her, I grab my gloves and a can opener and work the lid off a fresh container of stain. By the time I glance back, she has already disappeared beyond the plastic curtain.
After getting back to work, I finish the room by noon. I make my way to the kitchen for a glass of water before stepping out to the back porch for some fresh air. Along the way, I’m met with a silent house and no sign of Anneliese.
But it could be worse.
Things could always be worse.
ELEVEN
ANNELIESE
raconteur (n.) a talented storyteller
I arrive at the bookstore around noon, flick the lights on, and flip the sign on the door to OPEN. Earlier this week when Florence asked me to run the store, I told her I couldn’t come in until the afternoon on Saturday. I had the Zoom with the Johnsons, plus I needed to get caught up on work around the house—this was, of course, before I knew Lachlan was going to show up at my door with an offer I couldn’t refuse if I wanted to.
As quickly as he works, the renovations are going to be completed in no time and at a fraction of the cost (assuming he knows how to do half the things he claimed he did in the UK). This is also assuming we’re able to make this strange little arrangement work.