Chapter 12: An Invitation

Hugh's POV

I woke before she did, and I lay still and watched her sleep.

She slept on her stomach with one arm flung over the pillow, and the envelope of money was under her cheek.

She had not let go of it all night.

I had wanted this for two years.

I had not wanted it like this.

I had wanted Dale Brandwell on his knees in front of a room full of people.

I had spent two years parked on dark roads with a camera to get him there.

I had never once pictured a woman in a green dress walking out of my restaurant with her back straight.

She had cost me my plan.

She had also walked into that dinner and taken the ring out of a widow's hand.

That had done what two years of lawyer's letters hadn't.

She had made them nervous.

I got up quietly and made coffee in the little kitchenette.

When I turned around she was sitting up in the bed with the sheet held to her chest.

"You were looking at me," she said.

"I was."

"Don't."

"You'll have to be more specific."

She took the coffee and drank half of it.

Her hair stuck up on one side, and there was a pillow crease on her cheek.

I wanted to cross the room and kiss it.

"I owe you the whole story," I said.

"Yes."

"I need you to hear it before we talk about Friday."

"What's Friday?"

"Gail will hold another dinner. She always does when she's frightened.

"A family dinner, in public, with everyone smiling."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"She's going to fix this the way she fixes everything. She'll put all of you at one table and pretend."

"Then we let her."

"That's what I was going to say."

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