My Husband Left Me in Labor for My Best Friend and Her Baby novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Fleet Operations

The following Friday Ward drove me to the bank, because Norm's truck had a flat and Ward had a rental car with a full tank.

I carried the cashier's check in my coat pocket and kept putting my hand on it.

Fifty-eight thousand, four hundred dollars was in my pocket.

I watched the teller stamp it and slide the receipt under the glass, and my eyes burned.

Ward stood two steps behind me and didn't say anything.

He never said the right thing at me.

He just stood where I could feel him.

Outside, on the bank steps, my knee gave a little.

It was six weeks since the surgery, and the scar pulled when I took stairs fast.

His hand caught my elbow before I knew I was falling.

He didn't let go.

"I'm fine," I said.

"I know."

His thumb moved once across the inside of my arm, and then he took his hand away and put it in his pocket.

My arm stayed warm where he had held it.

I told myself it was the cold.

In the car I turned the heat up.

He pulled out of the lot, and his phone lit on the dashboard.

The screen said FLEET OPS MUSKEGON.

He reached to silence it and hit the wrong button, and the voicemail played through the speakers.

"Ward, it's Fleet Operations. We're holding the shore engineer position at the cable depot through the hearing. Days only, home every night. I need your yes by the thirteenth, or it goes to the next man on the list."

The message ended.

The heater ticked.

"Ward," I said.

"It's nothing."

"A job where you're home every night is nothing."

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