Chapter 14: Under Bea's Roof

Betsy's POV

The hospital kept Bea overnight, and Carmela refused to leave her side.

"Go home," Bea told us from the pillows. "Light the stove. The cottage key is under the plaster gull."

"Grandma, I won't leave you."

"You will. Your mother-in-law and I are going to watch a game show and disagree about everything."

Carmela sat in the visitor chair with her handbag on her knees and did not argue.

Bea crooked a finger at Don.

"Betsy is not to be alone in that house tonight. You come inside. I'm saying so out loud, so nobody can say I didn't."

Don looked at me, not at her.

He waited.

"Fine," I said.

It was a dark drive back to Harbor Point, and neither of us spoke.

The cottage was freezing.

Don knelt in front of the iron stove with a box of matches and a pile of kindling.

The first match went out.

So did the second.

"You've built a hundred-million-dollar company," I said from the doorway, "and you can't light a fire."

"I had people for the fire."

I laughed.

It came out of me before I could stop it, the first real one since the party.

He turned around on his knees with soot on his cheek and looked at me.

"Do that again," he said.

I crossed the room, took the matches and lit it on the first try.

The flame caught.

We stood beside the stove and warmed our hands, and the room slowly grew a small gold edge.

I could feel him without touching him.

His shoulder was a hand's width from mine.

"You said you'd keep count," I said.

"One kiss."

"What else have you counted?"

He took a breath.

"The freckle behind your left ear. I found it in the study."

"That's it?"

"No," Don said. "Three years of your door. It's just across the hall from my bedroom."

My throat tightened.

"You never knocked."

"I stood outside it a hundred times."

"A hundred?"

"I always thought, she's asleep. She doesn't want me. I never asked."

I turned toward him in the firelight.

"I'm asking you now."

I took his hand and put it on the first button of my cardigan.

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