My Husband Demanded a Paternity Test over Our Daughter's Red Hair, So I Left Him an Empty House novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Dinner at the Lake

Rory's house stood back from the water on a rise of grass.

It was a low cabin with a green door and a neat woodpile.

Smoke came up from a grill on the porch.

Kate got out of the van, sniffed, and said, "If that's trout, I'm marrying someone."

"It's trout," Rory called from the steps. "You're welcome to the cornbread, too."

He was wearing a clean flannel shirt and had combed his hair. It had been done carefully, with water.

I handed June to Daniel.

He took her without a word, and Rory's eyes followed her all the way across the grass.

"Rory," I said. "Could I walk down to the dock with you? Just a minute."

He looked at me, then at Daniel.

"Sure," he said.

We walked out over the boards to the end.

The lake was bright with late sun, and the last canoes were stacked upside down on the rack.

"Judith told me something," I said. "At the hospital. She said to ask what you said to her in June, when she told you she was expecting."

He closed his eyes.

"I figured she might."

"You don't have to..."

"I want to." He opened them. "She told me on this dock. I was twenty-six, and I had two hundred and twelve dollars and a truck with no reverse."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Marry me.'"

I stayed quiet.

"That night. I got down on one knee on those boards, and she cried, and said yes." He rubbed his jaw. "I went to her father's porch the next morning. He told me to leave his property. I went back three times."

"And in July she said she'd lost it."

"And that her family said it was over." He looked at his hands. "She didn't tell you I told her to get rid of it. Did she?"

"She told me to ask."

"Well, now you have." He shook his head slowly. "I'll tell you the other thing, so you hear it from me. I drank back then. Not every day. Enough. I quit at thirty, when I figured out I was good at it."

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