The Day I Divorced Him, I Became His Landlord novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Guests Pay

Lillian came back with a pillow and found me standing in front of the photograph.

"Ah," she said. "You found Conrad's little secret."

She set the pillow on the window seat and joined me.

"Conrad's?"

"He went to a growers' dinner in Fresno, years ago, and he hired a man to take pictures of the farms he liked." She smiled at the gate. "He came home talking about your family's almonds all winter. He'd never tell you. A boy who plans to meet a girl is embarrassed to say so."

"He told me he got lost."

"Of course he did." She patted my arm. "He was twenty-nine and terrified of you."

It was a warm, easy answer, and I wanted it to be true.

Lillian tucked the blanket back around my shoulders and gave me the east guest room, at the far end of the house from Conrad's wing.

"You're safe here," she said at the door. "I'll lock the house myself."

I thanked her and meant it.

I lay in a clean bed in a quiet room and couldn't sleep.

At two in the morning I got up, pulled on Joaquin's old jacket over my jersey, and let myself out through the kitchen.

The harvest never stopped for anyone's heartbreak.

A line of light showed under the cellar door.

I had the key, so I unlocked it and went down the stone steps into the cold.

Wyatt stood between two rows of barrels with a lamp hung on a hook and a glass in his hand.

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