My Substitute Wife Is Not on the Return Manifest novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Storm Rule
The storm hits and Signe counts her breaths alone until Dane comes home soaked and sits against the door; the old rule that nobody sleeps alone on a storm night brings the first touch, and he says he read the file before he left the dock and will not agree to the divorce.
The storm reached Falmouth a little after ten that night.
The power went out at eleven.
Signe was sitting on the bottom stair with a flashlight in her lap and a half-packed box beside her.
Rain hit the windows in long hard sheets.
Over the harbor a helicopter went by on a storm patrol, and the whole house hummed with it.
She put her hand on her knee and counted three slow breaths.
On the third one the sound moved off toward the water.
She had been eight years old the first time she heard it, with salt water in her lungs and a rope burning her hands.
She had never told Dane why she counted.
He had simply noticed the first stormy night they were married and sat down beside her without asking.
The rule had started that night, at the lighthouse reception, when she had said she could not sleep alone in a storm.
"Then nobody sleeps alone on a storm night," he had said. "That's the deal."
Three years he had kept it.
Last night he had not come home until after four.
The front door opened a little before one.
Wind pushed through the hall and blew her papers off the box.
Dane stepped in, shut the door with his shoulder and stood in the dark with water running off his jacket.
He did not come any farther than the mat.
"You're soaked," Signe said.
"I know."
"Take it off before you drip on the floor."
He took off the jacket and hung it up, and then he did not seem to know what to do with his hands.
He sat down on the floor with his back against the door.
Signe stayed on the stair, six feet away.
"You broke the rule last night," she said.
"I did."
"It was a storm warning and you left me at a locked terminal."
"I know what I did."
"You kept that rule for three years," she said. "You can't keep it for a wife you're leaving."
"I'm not the one leaving."
His voice was low and flat. He tilted his head to hear her answer.
She did not give one. Another helicopter was coming in over the roofs, lower than the first, and it was already in her chest.
She shut her eyes.
One.
The windows rattled.
Two.
She heard him get up.
Three.
The floor creaked and a shape crossed the dark toward her. He sat down on the step beside her and did not say a word.
When the noise came overhead again her whole body locked, and his hand settled flat between her shoulder blades.
It was warm through her sweater.
It was the first time he had touched her in two weeks.
It was his left hand, the one with the wedding ring, and it did not move.
"Breathe," he said quietly. "I've got you."
She breathed.
Under her ribs her heart slammed, and she told herself it was only the engine noise.
His hand stayed where it was after the helicopter had gone.
Neither of them moved it.
The rain had thinned to a steady drumming on the roof.
His shoulder was cold and wet against hers, and she could smell salt and fuel on him.
"Where did you take Brooke?" Signe asked.
"Home. Her mother's house."
"Did she thank you?"
He didn't answer.
"Did you sit with her until she was calm?"
"For a while."
"And you called that a mission."
"Signe."
"I'm only asking what the log would say."
She felt him breathe out.
His hand dropped away from her back, and the place where it had been went cold at once.
"I read it," he said.
She turned her head.
"The file in the flight bag. I read it in the car, at the dock, while I waited for her to come up the ramp."
"You texted me that you didn't need to."
"I lied." He tapped his watch twice, though she doubted he could see it in the dark. "Every page. The petition, the transfer, the base form."
"Then why did you sign it?"
"Because you put it in front of me," he said. "Because you never ask me for anything, and I thought if you'd gone to this trouble you must really want it."
"I do."
"I know. I heard you."
He stood up and took a flashlight off the hall table.
He looked down at her in the weak white beam, and his face was steady in a way she had never seen.
"I'm not agreeing to the hearing date," he said. "My lawyer files the objection tomorrow."
← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend