My Groom Never Showed, So I Cursed Him for Eleven Months novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: After Nine

At midnight Donal is in her kitchen eating her stew standing up, she cleans a cut on his burned arm, and the first near-miss ends on her mocking line.

I couldn't sleep, so at midnight I went down to start the bread.

The kitchen was dark except for the light over the stove.

A man stood at my counter with his back to me, eating lamb stew out of the pot with a wooden spoon.

He was in his shirtsleeves, and his tie was off.

I had known for ten months that someone ate my leftovers every night.

I had never said a word, because I'd thought I knew who it was, and it seemed rude to be right.

"It's cold," I said.

Donal Dalton turned around slowly, with the spoon still in his hand.

"It's better cold," he said.

"It's better hot. Sit down and I'll heat it."

"Staff don't sit," he said.

He said it perfectly seriously, and I stared at him.

"Those are my rules."

"I know. I've been abiding by them." He put the spoon down. "The kitchen closes at nine, Miss Finnegan. I'm trespassing."

"You own the house."

"You wrote the rule."

I laughed, and I hadn't meant to.

It came out short and surprised in the empty room.

His expression softened, very slightly, at the corner of his mouth.

I took the pot from him and set it on the burner, because it was easier than looking at that mouth.

"Eat at the table like a person," I said.

"I eat here because it's the only room in this house I like."

He said it flatly, to the pot, and I did not answer.

I wanted to ask what he liked about it, and I did not ask.

I got down a loaf from the rack to cut him a slice, and he reached for the knife at the same moment.

It slid.

I heard the small wet sound before I saw the blood.

He had caught the blade across the heel of his left hand, a clean, shallow line that welled up fast.

"It's nothing," he said.

"It's bleeding on my bread."

I took his wrist and pulled him to the sink.

I had never touched him before except for the one second in the church, and then I'd only touched his palm.

This was his forearm.

The scar ran from his wrist halfway to the elbow, the skin tight and smooth and darker than the rest of him.

My thumb lay across it while I held his hand under the tap.

It was warm.

I had thought it would feel like damage, and it felt like skin.

"Boat shed," he said quietly, over my head. "I was nineteen."

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"No."

"I didn't ask if it hurt now."

"No," he said. "It did then."

The water ran pink and then clear.

I got a clean towel and pressed it flat against the cut, and held his hand in both of mine.

The cut had stopped bleeding.

I didn't let go, and he didn't take his hand back.

He was standing close enough that I could smell salt and soap and a little whiskey.

I looked at the towel so I wouldn't look up.

On the counter beside us the glass he'd been drinking from slid in his other hand and clicked down hard against the marble.

His breathing had gotten slow and deliberate.

I told myself he was tired.

It was past midnight, and he was a man who'd been up since five, and that was all it was.

My ledger sat on the shelf over the stove where I always kept it.

His eyes went to it and stayed there.

"What's that?"

"What I owe you."

"I see." He nodded at the corner of it, where a bit of cardboard stuck out of the cover. "And that?"

"The postcard."

I let go of his hand to take down the book, and he put the towel on the counter himself.

I opened the cover.

The card was taped inside, flat and a little yellow.

It showed a beach with palm trees and the word Fort Myers across it in orange.

I'm sorry. Don't wait. C.

It was printed in block capitals, all the same height, and it was postmarked three days after the wedding.

"I always thought that was odd," I said. "He never wrote capitals. He said they looked like shouting."

Donal read it for a long time.

"A man running might not want to be known by his hand," he said.

"That's what I told myself."

"Hm," Donal said.

It was all he said, and he didn't look at me.

I shut the book.

For a moment neither of us moved.

The light over the stove hummed, and he stood close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my nightshirt.

He lifted his good hand, slowly, toward my face.

I should have stepped back.

"Kitchen's closed, boss," I said.

It came out light and fast.

His hand stopped in the air.

For a second he looked at me, and his jaw moved.

Then he let his hand drop and gave a short breath that was almost a laugh.

"So it is."

He took his jacket off the back of the chair and went to the door.

Under the lintel he stopped, with his back to me.

"Bring me the ledger tomorrow," he said. "I want to see exactly what you think you owe."

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