I Was His Wife, She Was His Everything novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Fries at Two

Lawton swears Mariel drowned, his chief of staff slips about divorce papers she shouldn't know about, and Rue moves into the room over the bar, only to find a notice on the door the next morning.

Nobody at the bar moved.

Somebody's jukebox song ended, and the next one didn't start.

"Dead," I said.

"Dead." Lawton didn't let go of the bar. "I was on the boat. I watched the water for nine hours."

"Then somebody's wearing her name," I said. "And spending my money."

Clancy set the phone down between us.

"Could be a skimmed card," he said. "People clone those things all the time."

"A card that's been dead six years?" I said. "And it's on the account that's supposed to be mine?"

Lawton looked at me.

Really looked, for the first time since he walked in.

"I didn't know," he said.

"I know you didn't. That's the part I can't get over."

Sallie leaned on the far end of the bar with her arms crossed.

"Y'all want privacy, take it outside. I've got a line."

Lawton pulled out his own phone.

"I'm calling Libba."

"It's after eleven."

"She always picks up."

That was true.

Libba Haddrell always picked up.

She'd picked up all nine times I called.

He put it on speaker and laid it on the bar.

It rang twice.

"Lawton." Her voice was soft and warm, like a hand on your back. "Are you home? I thought Saturday."

"Libba, who's Mariel's name doing on the household account?"

A tiny pause.

"Oh, honey. That's awful. It must be an old card. Somebody skimmed it years ago and sat on the number."

"It's been taking three million a month."

"I'll freeze it tonight. First thing tomorrow I'll have the bank pull every charge."

Her voice dropped, gentle.

"I know this is hard, with her divorce filing on top of everything. Don't let it all hit you at once."

Lawton went still.

I watched it land in him.

He'd told the card table about the papers an hour ago.

He hadn't told his office.

"Thanks, Libba," he said. "Freeze it."

He ended the call.

Clancy said what all three of us were thinking, at full volume.

"How does she know about the divorce papers?"

Half the bar turned around.

"Clancy," Sallie said. "Indoor voice or out."

Lawton picked up his phone and put it in his pocket.

His hands were steady now, which was worse.

"Rue. Come home tonight. Please. We'll sort this out at the house."

"Her house," I said.

He flinched.

"It's our house."

"There's a room on the third floor of it I'm not allowed to open. There's a portrait of her in the front hall."

I kept my voice down.

"I've been a guest there for two years, Lawton."

He had nothing to say to that.

I didn't expect him to.

I pulled the next tap.

Sallie came down the bar and took the glass right out of my hand.

"I've got a room upstairs," she said. "Clean sheets, a window unit and a lock on the door. It's yours."

"I can't pay you rent yet."

"You can pay me by not quitting. Last girl lasted four days."

I almost laughed.

It came out wet.

Lawton put a hundred on the bar for his whiskey.

He didn't take the ring out of the glass.

He didn't leave, either.

At two, when Sallie flipped the sign, his truck was still in the gravel lot.

The windows were fogged.

He was asleep across the bench seat with his jacket over his face.

"That your husband?" Sallie asked, at the window.

"Unfortunately."

"He paying for that parking space?"

"I'll tell him he owes you."

She went into the kitchen and came back with two plates of fries and a bottle of hot sauce.

We sat on overturned buckets by the walk-in.

My feet were throbbing.

The fries were the best thing I'd eaten in a month.

"So," Sallie said. "Three million a month."

"Five hundred."

"Somebody's getting the difference."

"Somebody named after a dead woman."

She shook hot sauce over her plate in a long, slow line.

"My husband left me this bar and a box of bills I didn't know about," she said.

She shook her head.

"Took me a year to find out what he owed. Took me ten to pay it."

"Did you ever forgive him?"

"He was dead, sugar. Forgiving's easier when they can't do it again."

I ate another fry.

"Mine's alive and sleeping in your parking lot."

"Then he's got time to earn it." She pointed a fry at me. "Doesn't mean you've got to give it."

The baby gave a tiny flutter, like a minnow turning.

It was too early to feel, the doctor said.

I felt it anyway.

"I want to see that account," I said. "Every charge."

"Now you're talking like a bartender."

"I am a bartender."

"Then go to bed. We open at eleven."

The room upstairs had a slanted ceiling and a window over the creek.

I lay on top of the quilt in my clothes.

The shrimp boats knocked against the dock below.

For the first time in two years, I slept all night.

At ten-thirty I came down the outside stairs to open.

Lawton's truck was gone.

Sallie stood on the dock in her robe with a coffee cup in her hand, very still.

There was a sheet of paper taped to the front door.

Official letterhead. A county seal.

And a logo I'd seen on a hundred cocktail napkins.

The sheet said the lien on Sallie's unpaid property tax had been sold.

The new holder was Kershaw House Hotels.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend