On Our 6th Anniversary, My Husband Gave My Home to Her novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Man Outside 1807

Keaton's POV

I came off a twelve-hour shift at seven in the morning and found a man asleep against my front door.

Grady Lindell sat on the corridor carpet in his navy overcoat with his legs out in front of him.

He had a small wooden box in his lap and a bunch of grocery-store roses on the floor.

I stood over him with my keys in my hand.

I'd spent the whole night in the ER putting a stranger's finger back on and I had nothing left for this.

"Mr. Lindell."

He woke with a jerk.

"Where is she?"

"Inside. Asleep."

"I need to see her."

"No, you don't."

"I've been here since midnight." His eyes were swollen. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Then you'll be here when the neighbors come out for work," I said. "Good. They'd like to see you."

He pushed himself up against the wall.

"You think you're better than me."

"I don't think about you at all."

That was a lie.

I had thought about him every hour since Sunday night, when I stood in a kitchen and heard her say the word pregnant.

He looked at me for a long time.

"She'll forgive me," he said.

I waited.

"Six years. Every fight, she comes around. She always does." He gave a short, wet laugh. "She'll sit on that couch of yours until she's cold and she'll want to come home."

It landed harder than it should have.

Because I had been afraid of exactly that since the moment she put her mouth on mine.

The door opened behind me.

Claire stood there in my gray T-shirt, barefoot, with her hair down.

She looked at Grady, and then at the flowers.

"You've been out here all night," she said.

"Claire." He held out the wooden box. "Please."

She took the lid off.

Inside, on a bed of folded tissue, lay a man's steel watch with a cracked leather strap.

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