He Chose Mistress, I Chose Empire novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: The Barn

"I can't bid," I said. "You heard the judge. Not through a friend. Not through anybody."

"I heard him."

"So you can't buy it for me."

"I'm not buying it for you."

He leaned back on his hands on the dock.

"I've bought a unit at your auction just about every first Saturday for ten years."

"My own money, for my own barn. Nobody in that room would blink."

"And if you open the door and there's a box of papers?"

"Then I do what the law says. Personal papers go back to the tenant, in front of everybody." He shrugged. "I just make sure they get there."

"We," I said. "You said we."

"Me and bug. She keeps the clipboard."

He went home at eleven.

I lay on the cot in my father's office and didn't sleep.

At three in the morning I got up and sat at his desk and pulled the drawer that sticks until it gave.

Old pencils. A receipt book from 1998.

I thought about yellow flags.

Six years of signing where Brantley put them.

The co-signer form. The checks for a house I filled with my own money and never once asked to own.

I'd told Jubal I wouldn't touch him until a piece of paper said I was free.

Brantley's paper.

The paper of a man who forged my name and wrote his mistress's for her.

On Friday Jubal signed for a pallet of lumber at my counter.

He mentioned, very casually, that his daughter was going to her grandmother's for the weekend.

He didn't look up when he said it.

At eight that night I drove out past Ashland City.

The porch light was on. The barn smelled like linseed oil and onions.

He opened the door in a clean flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled, a dish towel over his shoulder.

He looked at me in my work shirt and jeans, with my hair coming down out of its pins.

"I made pot roast," he said. "In case you came by to eat."

"I didn't come to eat."

He went very still.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.

"I told you I wouldn't do anything with you until I wasn't married on paper," I said.

"You did."

"He wrote my name on a bank form. He wrote Shayla's on a lease. He's the only one who ever made that paper mean anything."

My voice shook a little. I let it.

"I'm done signing where he puts the flags. I haven't been his since the night he chose."

He took the dish towel off his shoulder and laid it on the counter. Slowly.

"Haddie. Tell me exactly what you're saying."

"I'm saying I want you. Tonight. Here. Yes."

He crossed the kitchen in three steps.

He was already there, close enough that I could smell the cedar on his hands and the soap from his shower.

I put both palms flat on his chest, on the flannel.

"I'm giving the orders first," I said.

His breath went out slow, like he was steadying himself.

"Then give them."

I worked the top button.

Then the next.

"I want this shirt on your kitchen floor."

He stood still and let me do it.

My fingers didn't shake until the last button, and then they did, and he closed his hand over mine.

"Don't stop now," he said, low.

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