He Let Them Think She Was His novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Keep It Locked

Abby takes Kit and Lottie in. Kit admits she signed a paper to stay quiet about the father and was paid $1,800 a month until two months ago. Ward arrives with a hotel room and a kind smile, and Abby sends him off. Kit asks her to lock the door.

I put Kit at my kitchen table with a mug of coffee and a plate of eggs, and I put Lottie in the middle of the floor with a wooden spoon.

Jesse stayed in the yard.

I could see him through the window, siphoning gas out of his truck into a can.

He filled the Subaru's tank, set the can in the bed of his truck, and stood there with his hands hanging.

I went to the door.

"Go home, Jesse."

"Abby."

"You can fix her car. You can't fix this. Go home."

He looked at the kitchen window, where Lottie's hat was bobbing around under the table.

Then he got in his truck and drove away.

When I came back inside, Kit hadn't touched the eggs.

"Eat," I said.

"I can't."

"Then watch her eat." I set a slice of toast on the floor in front of Lottie, who regarded it as a personal gift.

"You're the one who does the horses," Kit said.

"Yes."

"She heard the horses when we pulled in last night. She wouldn't stop saying it."

"Horse," Lottie said, with great authority, and hit the table leg with the spoon.

I sat down across from Kit.

"Here's what I want to know," I said. "And I want a plain answer, not a speech."

"Okay."

"Did you sleep with my husband?"

Kit looked at her hands.

"I never said Jesse was her father," she said. "I want you to know that. I said ask him whose she is. Everybody else filled in the rest."

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

"Then give me one."

"I can't." Her voice shook. "I signed a paper in the hospital. It says I don't say who. I'm breaking it just by being here."

"A paper."

"Yes."

"And somebody paid you for that."

"Eighteen hundred dollars on the first of every month. For two years." She finally picked up the mug. "Until two months ago, when it stopped."

Eighteen hundred on the first.

The first of the month was the day Jesse drove to the feed co-op alone.

He had done it for two years, and I had never asked him why.

I sat very still.

"Who stopped it?" I said.

"I don't know. The bank said the account was closed. I called the number I had and it wasn't a number anymore. So I drove here."

"You came to a branding barbecue with sixty people."

"I didn't know it was a barbecue." Her eyes filled. "I thought it was a ranch. I thought somebody would be in the kitchen."

I looked at the toddler under my table.

She had fallen asleep with the spoon in her fist.

I didn't say anything for a while.

A truck came up my gravel road a little before ten.

It was a good truck, clean and white, and I knew it by the sound.

Ward Renner got out in a pressed pearl-snap shirt and a hat that cost more than my saddle, and walked up on my porch like he'd been invited.

"Abby, honey."

"You're on my land, Ward."

"I'm on my daughter-in-law's porch." He smiled, and it was the same smile that had gotten me through my wedding day. "I won't stay. I only came to take the weight off you."

"What weight?"

"This situation." He looked past me into the kitchen. "I've got a room at the Sheridan Inn for Kit and the little one. Paid through the month. I'll have somebody drive her car in. You don't have to carry any of it."

Kit had gone completely still at the table.

Ward stepped around me and crouched by the sleeping child.

He lifted the straw hat off the floor, brushed it with his sleeve, and set it on her chest again.

"There you go, sugar," he said softly.

I thought it was a kind thing to say to a stranger's child.

"That's generous," I said. "No."

"Abby."

"Thank you for the offer. They're staying here."

He stood up slowly, and for one second his face went smooth and blank.

Then the smile came back.

"Well. It's your porch."

"It is."

"Lorna's been asking after you."

"Tell her I'll call her."

He tipped his hat and walked back to his truck, and his tires threw a little gravel on the way out.

I locked the door behind him, which I had never done in daylight in my life.

Behind me, Kit's mug hit the table.

Her hands were shaking so hard the coffee had slopped over her fingers.

"Mrs. Renner," she said. "Please. Keep it locked."

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