Found A Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Garage Room

I called my mother from Quinton's kitchen with the post still open on my screen.

She picked up on the first ring.

"I sent that photo to one person, Mama."

"Katie, half of Tyler had seen it by lunch. I can't control who looks over my shoulder at the club."

"You showed it to people?"

"I showed my friends that my daughter got married. You'd rather I hid it?"

"It's on Brady's page."

"Then take it up with Brady." Ice clinked. "Are you bringing him or not?"

"I'm bringing him."

"Then God help us all," my mother said, and hung up.

On Monday afternoon I stood on her front porch on Charnwood Street with my husband beside me.

The house had a wreath on every window and a lit reindeer on the lawn that bowed its head every six seconds.

Quinton was in the thrift suit and the torn brown coat.

He'd kept the stubble, and put the watch cap back on.

"You look like you're casing the place," I said.

"I'm a man of the people."

"You're a man with a pine needle in his hair." I reached up and pulled it out.

The door opened before I could knock.

My mother looked at me first.

Then at Quinton.

Then at his shoes, which were the thrift store's best effort and still a size wrong.

She didn't say hello.

She said, "Wipe your feet."

"Hello, Mama."

"Katie." She kissed the air beside my cheek. Her pearls smelled like White Diamonds. "You. What's your name again?"

"Quinton, ma'am." He held out his hand.

She looked at it.

She didn't take it.

"Well, Quinton, we don't have a lot of room with the party coming. I've had the girl make up a cot for you in the garage. There's a space heater."

I laughed out loud.

I couldn't help it.

"He's my husband," I said.

"He's a stranger off the street, Kathleen, and I'm not having him in the house with the silver."

Quinton's face didn't change at all.

That was worse than if it had.

"Okay," I said.

My mother blinked.

"Okay," I said again, and picked up my suitcase. "Come on, Quin."

I walked right past her, through the front hall, past the twelve-foot tree with the crystal ornaments nobody was allowed to touch, through the kitchen and out the back door.

My mother followed us as far as the patio.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To Nana's."

The little white cottage sat at the back of the yard under the pecan trees.

My father built it for his mother the year I turned ten.

Every window had a candle in it.

The door flew open before we reached the step.

My grandmother stood there in a red cardigan and slippers, holding her cane.

"There she is." She grabbed my face with one floury hand and kissed me hard. "You look like hell, baby."

"Thank you, Nana."

She looked past me.

Up, and then further up.

"Well," Opal Verrill said. "Aren't you a tall one."

"Yes, ma'am," Quinton said.

"Diane put you in the garage?"

"She did."

"Diane would put Jesus in the garage if he showed up without a casserole." She stepped back from the door. "Get in here. Both of you. You hungry?"

"Starving," Quinton said.

"Good answer."

Inside it smelled like butter and brown sugar and the cinnamon candle she'd burned every December of my life.

There were three pecan pies cooling on the counter.

She cut into the first one before we had our coats off.

Quinton ate a slice standing up, then a second sitting down.

Nana watched him.

"Katie says you lived under a bridge," she said.

"Six months."

"Why?"

He glanced at me.

I gave him a little nod.

"Family trouble," he said. "I'm sorting it out."

"Hmm." She pushed the pie plate toward him. "My husband once lived in his truck for a whole summer because he lost the house in a poker game. Best man I ever knew. Terrible at cards."

"I'm good at cards," Quinton said.

"Then you can sleep in my spare room."

She went to bed at nine with her hearing aids in a dish on the kitchen windowsill.

"I'll never hear a thing, so don't you two whisper on my account," she called from the hall.

My whole face went hot.

Quinton very carefully didn't laugh.

The spare room was small, with slanted ceilings, a double bed under my grandmother's wedding-ring quilt, and a window that looked straight across the dark yard at my mother's house.

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