Tell Me Not to Love You novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Appraisers

I got home from the bakery at noon with my legs shaking from no sleep and found two strangers measuring my porch.

One held a laser measure and the other held a clipboard.

Both wore the kind of navy jackets that people wear when they are not going to be anyone's friend.

A white van sat at the gate with a camera on a tripod in the back.

"Can I help you?" I said.

"Just finishing the exterior," the one with the clipboard said, without looking up.

"We're not valuing the cottage. That's carved out of the survey. The boathouse and the ravine too."

"Valuing for what?"

He looked at me then, a quick flat look, and went back to his page.

"Ask the family, miss."

I stood there with my bag of day-old rye and watched them walk up the drive toward the big house.

Garrick found me on the lawn twenty minutes later.

He must have seen me from a window, because he came out without a coat and slowed down when he saw my face.

"Who are those men?" I said.

"Insurance."

"They said valuing."

"Insurance people value things," he said. "That's their whole hobby."

"You're lying badly."

He closed his eyes.

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I had one rule before any of the others, Garrick."

I held up a finger.

"I will not be a secret, and I will not be lied to."

"I'm not lying about us."

"You're lying about something."

A gardener went by with a wheelbarrow and tipped his cap, and Garrick waited until the squeak of it faded.

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