The Stand-In Wife and His Only Obsession novel · Chapter 31 of 32

Chapter 31: Litchfield Again

We drove up on Saturday.

Lucas drove. Exactly the speed limit. Both hands on the wheel.

He passed one minivan on the Saw Mill and apologized to it.

The gate had a new code.

He'd changed it the week after the gala, with Gran standing beside him in her fleece vest.

"Your grandfather's regiment number," I said. "You finally did it."

"Gran did it," he said. "She said the man didn't win. He lost. So we're allowed."

He punched in the new numbers without shielding them from me.

The new code was my birthday.

【The gate code is HER BIRTHDAY. I can't. I physically cannot.】

【Twenty years of the old code and he changes it to her. Somebody hold me.】

Gran met us on the porch with a pitcher of iced tea and a deck of cards already in her hand.

"Kitty called," she said. "She asked if she could come up this afternoon. I said yes. I hope you don't mind, Lucas. It's your house too."

Lucas looked at me.

"It's up to you," I said.

He thought about it for a long moment.

"She can come," he said.

Kitty drove up at three in a rented car.

Not gray. Red. I noticed.

She got out with a pie in a dish with a dish towel over it.

She stood at the bottom of the porch steps and didn't come up.

"I baked it," she said. "It's not very good. I've never baked anything."

"Then you'll fit right in," Lucas said. "Nobody in this house can cook."

She almost laughed.

Then she looked at him properly.

"I told a million people you were a monster," she said. "I told my sister to run from you. I walked around a sideboard so I wouldn't have to pass you."

"I remember."

"You stepped back against the wall to let me by." Her voice shook. "You were the only man in either of my lives who never once lied to me. I'm sorry, Lucas."

He came down the steps.

He took the pie out of her hands.

"Thank you," he said. "Come in. Gran's going to take all your money."

She turned to Gran.

"I said you were cold," Kitty said. "In my first life. I told everyone. I never once sat down and played cards with you."

Gran held out the deck.

"Then sit down now, dear. A dollar a point."

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