Jilted at the Altar, I Married His Billionaire Uncle novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: Home

I drove to the police station first thing the next morning and told the detective what my stepmother had said on the porch.

She wrote it down.

Then she put her pen on the notebook and looked at me.

"A woman you just threw out in the rain says her daughter lied seven years ago," she said. "That's not evidence. That's a family."

"Then talk to Kaylee."

"I've called her twice since your husband's nephew reported that phone. She has a lawyer now. His lawyer."

So I called Kaylee myself.

A dozen times in three days.

It rang out every time.

On Saturday she posted a photo of a nursery painted pale pink. Hayden's hand was on her bump, his heavy steel watch catching the light.

Our forever home, she wrote.

I looked at that hand for a long time.

My gang spent those days at the union hall, signing the out-of-work list, playing cards.

The business agent let them have the back room and the coffee.

My partner brought a new pickle jar and wrote on it in marker. HAYDEN JAR. TEN BUCKS A MENTION.

It was full by Friday.

On Sunday afternoon I packed my duffel bag.

Dad watched me from the doorway of my old room, where the sewing machine wasn't anymore.

"You going back to him?"

"I'm going home," I said. "There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Yes. I get to say what it looks like."

He nodded slowly.

"He sat at my table," he said. "Seven years I wanted that man in front of me, and he came in the rain and sat at my table."

"That's not nothing," I said.

My father almost smiled.

"Tell him Sunday dinner. Here. I'll make ribs."

The gate stuck when I pushed it, the way it always did.

The front door wasn't locked.

The house smelled like something burning.

I found him in the kitchen in jeans and a gray T-shirt, barefoot, standing over the pan with the price sticker still on the bottom.

There were potatoes in it.

Black on one side. Raw on the other.

He looked up and saw me in the doorway with my duffel bag.

He didn't move.

"You're early," he said.

"For what?"

"I was practicing." He looked at the pan. "In case."

"In case of what?"

"In case you came home and I could feed you something for once."

I put the bag down on the floor.

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