The Boss Said My Father Drowned His Brother, So He Took Me to Stand in the Water novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Every Door Is Open

He didn't touch me in the truck.

Joel drove the last eight miles with his eyes on the road and his hands at ten and two, and he never looked in the mirror.

Stellan did not answer.

He looked out his own window at the lake, and I watched his reflection in the glass.

His jaw was tight, and his throat moved once.

At the house he got out first.

He walked up to the porch ahead of me and did not wait.

Pirjo was out for the evening at the church, and the housekeeper had left a pot of soup on the stove and gone home.

The house was dark and warm and smelled of cedar.

I stood in the hall and unbuttoned his coat from my shoulders, and hung it on the hook.

He came back from the kitchen and stopped at the foot of the stair.

"I'll say it plainly," he said.

"Say it," I said.

"The door's open," Stellan said.

"Which door?" I asked.

"Every door in this house," he said. "Joel keeps them for my mother, not for you. The key in your room is yours. The front door isn't locked. The drive is plowed. The truck's in the garage and the keys are on the hook."

"You said I'm not to leave."

"I said it to keep you where I could find you," he said. "I'm taking it back."

"Why?"

"Because of what you said in the truck."

I stood very still.

"If you want to go home to Lakeside in the morning, I'll drive you myself," he said. "I'll take you to your mother's door. I won't send a man after you. I'll still want my answer. But I won't get it like this."

"Like what?"

"By keeping a woman in my house who looks at me the way you did at the supper club," he said, "and says nothing, because she thinks she can't."

"I could say it," I said.

"I know," Stellan said.

"You'd stand there and take it?" I asked.

"I'd take whatever you gave me," he said.

"You'd let me do whatever I liked," I said slowly.

"Yes."

"With your hands at your sides."

"Yes," he said.

I walked toward him across the hall.

The boards were cold under my boots.

He stood at the foot of the stair with his arms hanging, and he watched me come.

I stopped so close I had to tilt my head back.

I smelled cedar, and cold air, and clean skin.

"Put your hands behind your back," I said.

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