I Slept With a Stranger at the Wedding, and Monday He Was My Boss novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Terms

On the porch Dane says the night happened and he doesn't regret it, and that it won't happen again; Katrina adds her own terms and finds Lottie alone in the orchard at dusk.

Marlene went in to find a copy of the house rules, and the screen door clapped shut behind her.

That left me on the porch with Dane Kneupper and a signed contract between us.

He took his hat off and held it against his leg.

His hair was dark and flattened where the band had been, and gray at the temples.

I had not seen that in the moonlight.

"Miss Pfluger," he said.

"Mr. Kneupper," I said.

"I didn't know it was you who applied."

"I didn't know it was you who hired," I said.

"My mother hires," he said.

"I sign the checks."

"Then you can tear mine up," I said.

"I don't want to."

He said it flat and fast, and then he looked out over the peach rows as if somebody might be listening in them.

"I'm going to say this once," he said, "because I'd rather you hear it from me than guess."

"Say it."

"Saturday happened.

"I don't regret it.

"I'd be lying if I said I did, and I think you'd know."

My face went hot from my collar to my hairline.

"But you work for me now," he said.

"You live under my roof, and my niece is going to put her hand in yours.

"So it doesn't happen again."

I looked at him for a while.

It was an honest thing to say, and I could tell it cost him.

"I'm not going to throw myself at my employer," I said.

"I never thought you would," he said.

"Then I have a rule too."

"Go ahead," he said.

"Nothing about me gets said in this house that you wouldn't say to my face.

"Not by you, and not by her."

I tipped my head toward the kitchen window.

"And I won't be anyone's secret.

"If this ever comes up, I get told first."

He nodded slowly.

"That's fair."

"And if the job isn't what it should be, I walk.

"No notice, no hard feelings."

"The pay would still stand," he said.

"Through the end of the month."

"I'll take that."

He held out his hand, scar and all, and I took it.

His palm was exactly as warm and rough as I remembered, and the shake lasted a half second too long.

When he let go, my fingers tingled.

I told myself it was the sun.

Down the drive, the white work truck started up.

I watched it back out onto the farm road with its decal flashing in the light.

Brady didn't look toward the house.

My shoulders dropped, and I hated that I had tensed up at all.

"You know him?" Dane said.

"He sells for you."

"Yes."

"He's an ex," I said.

"As of Saturday."

I watched his face.

He didn't smile, and he didn't frown, and something in his jaw moved once.

"I'll see he stays out of the house," he said.

"He doesn't come in the house anyway," I said.

"Not on his own."

He looked at me a moment longer and then put his hat back on.

"Mama will show you your room," he said.

"Lottie will be on the stairs.

"Don't say anything to her."

"Why not?"

"She doesn't answer," he said.

"Not me, not her grandmother, not the three before you.

"She hasn't said a word to a grown person since the funeral."

The room was over the kitchen, with a single window onto the orchard and a quilt the color of cream.

Marlene put my duffel on the bed and pressed a house key in my hand.

"Breakfast is at six," she said.

"The little one eats at six-thirty.

"Her mother died in April."

"I'm sorry."

"Her father is dead too," Marlene said.

"Trucking crash up in Oklahoma, before she was born.

"That boy never saw her face."

Her voice changed on the last word, in a way I couldn't read.

"That boy?" I said.

"Don't ask me about him," she said, and went out.

I unpacked in ten minutes.

When I came out onto the landing, a little girl sat halfway down the stairs with her chin on her knees.

She was five, in a yellow sundress, with a short brown bob and a gap between her front teeth.

She held a gray stuffed rabbit by one ear.

She watched me come down with big serious eyes and said nothing.

I sat on the step two below hers.

"I'm Katrina," I said.

"I'm going to live here for a while."

Nothing.

"I like your rabbit."

The rabbit's ear twitched, and the girl pulled it closer.

I decided that was enough.

At six-thirty I helped Marlene put out the plates, and at seven the girl ate half a peanut butter sandwich without looking at anybody.

At dusk I went out to the porch to call my mother.

I came back in, and the girl wasn't on her chair.

"Where's Lottie?" I said.

Marlene didn't look up from the sink.

"She goes quiet sometimes.

"She's in the den."

She wasn't in the den.

I checked the stairs.

I checked the hall and the pantry.

The screen door was open an inch, and I had closed it.

I ran down the porch steps.

The light was going purple.

The peach rows stood in long dark lines and the cicadas were so loud I couldn't hear my own boots.

"Lottie!"

I went between the trees with my phone flashlight, calling.

A hundred yards in, I saw something yellow.

She stood in the middle of a row with her rabbit hanging from her fist, looking at the road beyond the fence.

Headlights sat dark at the end of the lane.

A truck was parked there with its engine off.

I couldn't see who was in it.

The headlights came on, and it pulled away.

I scooped Lottie up.

She was light and warm and she let me, which I had not expected.

Her small arm went around my neck.

"It's okay," I said.

"I've got you."

I carried her back through the rows, and the house lights came into view, and Dane was running down the porch steps with his hat in his hand.

"She's all right," I called.

He stopped dead.

For a second I thought he would take her out of my arms.

He didn't.

He stood in front of me, breathing hard, and he put one big hand very gently on the back of her head.

"Lottie," he said.

She turned her face into my neck.

Then she said, in a small hoarse voice nobody had heard in eight months, "You smell like the dance."

I didn't look at Dane.

I looked at the dark rows behind us, where the truck had been.

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