My Last Wish novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Asking

Chad came up the path slowly, one hand raised.

"Callie," he said. "You're trespassing at my house, at ten at night. You know what that looks like."

"It's my house too."

"Your name is on a deed. That's all it is."

He glanced at Tierney's wet sleeve, then at Dane.

"And you brought him."

"I brought myself," I said. "Tierney, take it off."

She stared at me.

"The robe. It's mine."

Nobody on that porch moved.

A neighbor's porch light came on across the street, and then another.

Tierney looked at Chad.

He gave her nothing.

She untied the belt, slid the green robe off her shoulders, and held it out at arm's length.

She was dressed underneath, in jeans and a grey sweater, and she looked smaller.

I took it and folded it over my arm.

"The hearing is Friday," Chad said, to the air above my head. "Bring your doctor's little letter."

"I will."

Dane carried Teddy in from the truck without waking him, and I walked beside them the whole two doors home.

I didn't look back at the porch light.

At midnight, Dane's kitchen smelled of burnt coffee, and I was sitting under the lamp with the robe in my lap.

I touched my jaw and found it wet.

There was a thin line along the bone where the rose thorns had caught me, and I hadn't felt it.

Dane stood at the sink with a clean cloth under the tap.

He turned around, and stopped.

"Rule three," I said.

"I know the rule."

"No touching until the papers are filed," I said.

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