The Reaper's Runaway Princess novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: The Street
Mara walked down the middle of Main Street with her hands open at her sides.
Behind her, doors were opening.
The baker came out in her apron, and the hardware store emptied.
The old widower stood on the clinic step with the puppy in his arms.
Half the town lined the sidewalks with their phones raised.
She had said she would meet him in daylight, in front of everyone.
Daylight had come.
The back door of the black truck opened, and her husband got out.
He was forty-five now. His hair had gone silver at the temples, and he wore a pressed gray shirt under his leather vest.
He smiled at her with infinite patience.
"There you are," he said. "My poor girl."
Her stomach went cold, and she kept walking.
She stopped ten feet from him.
"Don't call me that."
"You've lost weight." He shook his head sadly for the street. "It breaks my heart. We've all been so worried."
"Who is we?"
"Everyone who loves you." He turned a little toward the crowd. "My wife has episodes. Some of you saw the poster. She hasn't been herself in six years, and her family has been frantic."
A murmur went along the sidewalk.
Mara raised her voice so that every window could hear her.
"For two years I had a locked bedroom door. For two years I wore long sleeves in July. He is not worried. He is angry that I left, and it is the first time anyone ever did."
Nobody on the sidewalk moved.
"You see?" her husband said gently. "Delusions."
Boots hit the pavement behind her.
Wyatt came through the crowd at a run, with Dean, Boone and Nash a few steps behind, and stopped one pace to her right.
Not in front of her. Beside her.
Her husband's eyes went over them, one by one.
"The Garrison boys," he said warmly. "How nice. Wyatt, I heard you went up to the pass this morning and offered to kneel in my clubhouse in exchange for a week."
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