I Slept With a Stranger at the Wedding, and Monday He Was My Boss novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Pantry

On Wednesday night, at five minutes to midnight, my phone buzzed on the pantry shelf and Brady's name lit up the dark.

I had come down for a glass of milk.

Lottie had been asleep since eight, and Dane had gone out to check the pump house, and Marlene's light had gone off an hour ago.

I stood in the pantry in my sleep shirt with the door pulled to, and I answered.

"What."

"Hey, babe." His voice was warm and slow, the voice he used when he wanted something.

"I need my gray sweatshirt back.

"The Aggies one.

"It's at your place."

"It's in a trash bag on your tailgate," I said.

"I put it there Sunday."

"Come on.

"Don't be like that."

"Be like what?"

"Dramatic.

"It was a text, Katrina.

"I didn't want a scene."

"You wanted a scene so you could watch it," I said.

"You turned around and watched me leave with a man you've never met."

"Who was he?"

I closed my eyes.

"Why do you care?"

"I'm just asking.

"You're living out there now, right?

"At the Kneuppers'?

"How's the little girl?

"Is she still not talking?"

I stopped breathing.

I had never told him Lottie didn't talk.

I had not said her name, or that she was a girl, or that the house was the Kneuppers'.

"Brady," I said.

"How do you know that?"

"Everybody knows that," he said, too fast.

"It's a small town.

"Look, I'll come by for the sweatshirt.

"Tomorrow, after work."

"You won't come by.

"You'll stay off this property."

"Or what?" he said.

"Or I tell your boss what you owe me for the truck," I said.

The pantry door opened.

Dane stood there in his work boots with a flashlight in one hand, with dust on his shirt and his hat pushed back.

He had come in from the pump house in the dark and he had heard every word.

He took the phone out of my hand.

I let him.

He put it to his ear and said, in a voice I had not heard from him, level and cold, "Brady, it's Dane.

"If you set foot on this property without a delivery ticket, you're fired.

"And if you call Miss Pfluger again, I'll have the sheriff on your porch before you hang up."

He pressed the red button.

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