Darker Shades of Elise novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Ansel's Garage

I drove home with the radio off and my blouse buttoned wrong.

Ansel Doyle was on my back porch on one knee, screwing a new deadbolt into my kitchen door.

A drill lay on the boards next to a thermos, and he didn't look up.

"I said Saturday," I said.

"I got bored."

"You can't just break into my house to fix it."

"I'm not in your house, I'm in your doorframe."

He stood, and the porch got smaller.

Up close he was bigger than he looked over the hedge.

He was broad through the shoulders, with a scar through his left eyebrow and sawdust on his forearms.

His eyes dropped to my collar.

"Your buttons are off by one," he said quietly.

I looked down.

My face went hot, and then I was crying, which I hadn't done in front of Rafe, or Maribeth, or anyone in a week.

Ansel put down the drill.

He didn't touch me.

"Come on," he said. "My garage has a heater, and nobody can see in."

His garage was bigger than my kitchen, with a long workbench down one wall.

Monitors were stacked on a shelf, cables hung everywhere, and a kettle sat on a hot plate.

He put a mug of tea in my hands and leaned on the bench.

"You don't have to tell me," he said.

"Somebody's sending me videos."

It came out flat and fast.

"Of what?"

"Me."

I looked at the tea.

"With a man who isn't my husband."

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