While He Built Her Home novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Bag

Jared's POV

By six o'clock the cars were gone from Linden Court.

The trucks left last, one at a time, with their headlights on in the dusk.

I stood in Brynn's front hall with my duffel bag at my feet and counted them.

I had never thought of my company's trucks as something that could be turned on me.

Brynn was in the kitchen.

She had the cake box open on the counter and was cutting the cake into squares, very neatly, one square after another.

"We can fix this," she said without looking up. "Tomorrow I'll call the board. I'll say I was under stress."

"Brynn."

"People forget, Jared. In a month nobody will remember the pins or the notebook."

"Val's pregnant."

"I heard."

She laid the knife down.

"It's too early to be sure of anything. Women lose them all the time."

I looked at her.

I had been looking at her for a week, in this kitchen, over her coffee and her soft sweaters, and I had liked what I saw.

She had listened to me.

She had laughed at the jokes I made about Val's lamps, and said I was the only one who understood how it felt to be stuck.

I had told her things about my marriage that I had never said out loud.

She had written every one of them down.

"You told me the doctors said she couldn't," I said.

"I told you what I believed."

"You said you'd read her chart."

"I read what Val showed me."

"She never showed you a chart. She never had one."

Keep reading free with an account. Start While He Built Her Home from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.