He Married My Best Friend While I Gave Birth, So I Left novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Barn

At ten that night I put Poppy down, and I went out to the barn.

The light was on in the cider room.

Byron was cleaning a press that did not need cleaning, in a flannel shirt with the sleeves pushed up.

He saw me in the doorway and put the rag down.

"Is she asleep?"

"She's out. I left the monitor on the porch rail."

"You should be in bed."

"I'm eight days out of delivery," I said. "I've been in bed. I want to ask you something."

"Ask."

"Your mother holds your land. She'd take every tree if you let her. Why did you stand up in that room?"

He wiped his hands on his jeans.

"Because you were standing alone," he said.

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

"I thought you'd side with the family in the end," I said. "I'd been waiting for it since Monday. I thought every time you said something kind, a bill was coming."

"Lacey."

"I was wrong, and I'm saying so."

He didn't move.

I crossed the concrete floor until I was close enough to smell woodsmoke and apples on him.

"And you were wrong, too," I said. "You think I stayed with Brady for the name and the money."

His eyes went to my face.

"Who told you I thought that?"

"Nobody. I saw it when you looked at me in the hospital, the first time you came to Alder Street, every dinner. You look at me like I'm somebody who chose well."

"I think you're somebody who loved a man who didn't deserve it," said Byron, and his voice was rough. "I never thought it was the money."

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