The Cold Breakfast Bride novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Two Heartbeats

The whole line went quiet.

Not quiet like people being polite.

Quiet like wolves listening.

I put the snickerdoodle in Ruthie's hand and closed her fingers around it.

"Because I ate two breakfasts," I said.

"No, you didn't. You throw up breakfast. I heard you."

The waitress blew her whistle so loud a crow left the roof.

"Next! Who's next? Burritos are getting cold, and the boss hates cold!"

The line started moving again.

Every wolf in it was still breathing in my direction.

Abel's truck pulled in five minutes later.

He got out and Ruthie ran to him, shouting before she reached him.

"Daddy, Jess smells like two people and she won't say why!"

He stopped.

He looked across the lot at me.

He'd been standing next to me every day for two weeks.

He'd known.

I saw it in his face, and I saw him decide not to make me say it there.

"Ruthie," he said. "Go sit in the cab and eat your cookie."

"But..."

"Cab."

She went, dragging her feet.

I untied my apron.

"Reefer," I said to the waitress. "Five minutes."

"Take ten, boss."

The trailer was cold and dim and humming.

Wilder beef hung on hooks along one wall.

Eggs stood in flats on the steel shelves, and our breath came out white.

Abel came in after me and pulled the door almost shut.

A thin stripe of September sun cut across the floor between us.

"You knew," I said.

"Since the first morning."

"And you didn't say anything."

"It wasn't mine to say."

I leaned back against the shelves.

The cold went straight through my jacket.

"Six weeks when I left," I said. "Eight now. It's his."

"I figured."

"He doesn't know."

"I figured that, too."

"I'm not telling him."

Abel didn't argue.

He didn't say I had to.

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