Page 88 of Falling for Her

“Well, I have our son, so I sort of have to answer.” I look around. “But if you’re calling to talk to Asa, you’re out of luck. I’m already at work, and he’s at a sleepover, but he should be home soon.” I’m mostly not there when she calls Asa. Although from the conversation that I had with him, he misses his mom, so I’m going to make sure that she knows when he’s going to be back home.

“I’m calling to talk to you.” I can hear voices coming from her end of the phone.

“Okay.” I’m not sure why she would have to talk to me on her honeymoon.

“There was an accident,” she starts, and then I hear her sniffle. “We were hiking in Greece, and Tim fell.” My eyebrows pinch together.

“To his death?”

She gasps. “Burke!” For the first time, I wonder why she’s never called me Lincoln. Did she ever? “Of course not,” she hisses.

“So then why are you calling me?”

“He broke his leg and had to have surgery.”

“So he’s fine.” I honestly don’t know what to say.

“You’re incredible. You could try to care, you know.”

“You want me to care for a man who came in and fucked my wife when we were married?” I laugh. “It’s not going to happen.”

“You are incredible,” she repeats. “I’m calling to tell you I’ll be back early, by the end of the week, and I can take Asa.” I swallow. “We arrive on Friday, so I’ll come and get him on Monday.”

“Um, I already hired someone to watch him for the whole month.”

“So just pay her for her time and be done with it. I’ll call you when we get home.” She disconnects, and all I can do is look down at the phone.

“One week,” I say, unsure of how I feel. I knew it was going to come to an end. I just thought we had more time.

I turn to head back inside, and the phone beeps. It’s a text from Finley.

I open it and see a picture of her. She’s sitting in the tree house with a smile on her face. I see she’s wearing one of my shirts that she ruined with bleach.

Finley:

When the cat’s away, the mice will play.

“Fuck me,” I inhale deeply, “this is going to be harder than I thought.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

FINLEY

I’m slipping on my shoes when my phone rings. Davis has been calling every thirty minutes from different numbers. I picked up once, and when I heard his voice, I hung up and blocked the number, but he just called from another number. I finally put my phone on Do Not Disturb and added three numbers to my safe list: Lincoln’s, Collins’s, and my lawyer’s. Yesterday I had to add in Charlie because he had Asa. Then I added Harmony in case she called me for a playdate. It’s been one thing after another.

At least this call is from someone on the list.

“Homicide,” I joke when I put it on speaker, snickering at myself.

“That’s not fucking funny,” Collins retorts. “Shit, sorry I swore.”

Taking her off speaker, I put the phone to my ear. “You know that until the baby is like two, I don’t think they understand what words are, right?”

“Um, you would be wrong, that starts at six months.”

“You’re kidding.” I check the kitchen, making sure I turned everything off.

“I am not. Hey, why didn’t you tell me that your place was broken into?”