Page 63 of A Song for Another Woman

"He let them use me. He let them cut to my face. He let Duke tell me where to sit and how to smile. He thanked me like I was staff and thanked her like she brought him back from the dead."

"I know, baby."

"And then he said..." My voice breaks before I can stop it. I press the heel of my hand to my sternum. "He said it."

June is quiet for a long moment. "I know what you heard," she says.

That's the careful wording, the one we don't touch too hard because if we do, the whole rotten floor might give.

"What I heard was enough."

"Okay."

"Don't okay me like that."

"I'm not arguing with a pregnant woman operating heavy machinery."

"It's a truck, not a forklift."

"Still."

I look down at the soft rise beneath my sweater, barely visible in the dim cab. My anger falters around it. It always does. It doesn't disappear, it just changes shape.

This baby isn't a reason to forgive him. This baby isn't a bargaining chip, a summons, a moral test, or a white flag. This baby is a person I'm already rearranging myself to protect, even from the beautiful, dangerous idea that Cade Tyler might be becoming the man I needed too late.

I pull into the overlook above town because I can't drive the rest of the way with my vision blurring. Harmony Ridge sits below as scattered lights in the valley, the diner sign glowing red and white, and the radio tower blinking in the distance.

"Emmy?" June asks.

"I'm here."

"Where is here?"

"Overlook."

"Want me to come?"

"No." I wipe under my eyes carefully. "I just need a minute."

"Okay."

"I mean it, June. I'm not falling for a house. A house is lumber, nails, windows, and a roof. Men build houses all the time for women they still don't know how to love properly."

June, wisely, says nothing.

"I'm coming home," I say, and barely hear June as she advises me to be careful.

I drive toward the red light of the radio tower, away from the man with the bandaged hand, holding a hammer in the moonlight.

Chapter Fifteen

CADE

By the time the third song comes, my fingers are bleeding again. Not badly, just a thin red line where the pick has worried the same raw place all night, but it spots the edge of the lyric sheet and pulls me out of the take.

Cy looks up from the folding chair by the window. “You planning to leave any hand attached for the house tomorrow?”

I set the guitar flat across my knees. “Probably enough.”