Page 61 of A Song for Another Woman

I press myself back against a stud and close my eyes.Leave. I should leave right now.I shouldn't stand in the house he's building from a promise he broke and watch him work in the dark.

The hammer sounds again, and I open my eyes.

Through the gaps in the framing, I can see pieces of him as he moves. A shoulder. His hand. The bowed angle of his head. He kneels near the edge of the porch frame, sets something into place, then pauses and flexes his fingers.

That's when I see the bandage wrapped around his palm. It isn't a neat white strip applied for effect, but work bandages, dirty at the edges. His knuckles are scraped, and the skin at the base of his thumb looks raw.

Blistered hands. Cade Tyler, who used to have people steam his shirts and guard his guitar picks like holy relics, is kneeling on an unfinished porch at dusk with torn-up hands, lining up boards on a house no one asked him to build.

The ache that opens in me is so wide I almost make a sound. I cover my mouth with one hand.

I watch as he sits back on his heels and looks toward the yard. For one wild second, I think he knows I'm here. His face turns slightly toward the dogwood, the lantern catching the line of his cheek and the tired set of his mouth. He looks older than he did under the award-show lights. He looks like the man I married, the man who hurt me, and a stranger all at once.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. The sound is small, but in the quiet house, it's too loud.

Cade's head lifts, and I go still. The hammer stops completely.

The phone vibrates again. It's June, probably, keeping the promise I made because she loves me enough to worry on schedule.

I silence it with shaking fingers, the screen lighting up with her name, bright and accusing.

I move into the shadows, crouched low. There's a clean exit through the back of the house. Nothing precarious in the way to trip over, and if I can make it to what will be the back porch, I can make it out without incident.

His voice comes then, low and rough. "Cy?"

My chest caves, and I press my lips together. He takes another step as the lantern light shifts.

I don't run, because running makes sound. I skitter out of the framed house like a wild animal and walk fast while keeping the house between us, then cut toward the brush where I left the truck. Every twig seems determined to snap, and every leaf moves like a betrayal.

When I reach the truck, I ease the door open with both hands and hold it so it doesn't creak. I slide behind the wheel as my heart beats so hard my vision pulses.

Through the windshield, the house glows in pieces. Cade comes back out onto the porch and stands there looking into the near-dark, one hand wrapped around a hammer and the other hanging at his side.

For a second, I let myself look at him without the protection of anger. It's a mistake. I remember his hands on my face in a motel room when he promised mesomeday. I remember the warmth of his palm against my waist when we slow-danced in the bed of his truck. I remember believing his attention was the safest place in the world.

Then I remember the jumbotron, showing my face, huge, bright, and humiliated. I remember Melody tucked under his arm at the podium. I remember the whole arena sighing over alove story that was stealing air from mine. I remember the clip online, his voice saying,The only reason I'm not with Melody is because I'm married.

My hand tightens around the key. Cade turns his head slightly, scanning the tree line.

I duck, ridiculous and breathless, then start the truck as quietly as an old truck can start, which is to say not quietly at all. His head snaps toward the sound.

I don't wait to see whether he recognizes it. I pull onto the road and drive.

June calls three times before I make it past the church. On the fourth, I answer.

"Are you alive?" she demands.

"That's such an aggressive greeting."

"Emmy."

"I'm alive."

"Did you go?"

I watch the road unspool in the headlights. "Yes."

Silence follows, then she asks softer, "Was he there?"