When Love Runs Dry novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: The Bracelet

I stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind me, so Opal wouldn't wake.

The boards were cold through my socks.

"Do you know what they told me?" Tobias said. "The nurse. When I woke up after surgery."

"No."

"She said, we called your wife, Mr. Spaulding. She said you have the wrong number." He laughed with no sound.

"The whole floor knew. The nurses looked at me like a dog someone left at a gas station."

"I'm sorry that was embarrassing for you."

"Embarrassing?" He stepped closer. "I could have died, Meredith."

"Delaney was there."

"That's not the point."

"It's exactly the point." I folded my arms against the cold. "You want to talk about the hospital? Let's talk about the hospital."

He stopped.

"Three years ago you started not coming home," I said. "I didn't know where you were. So I found out."

"Mere..."

"The Waldorf, two in the morning. I sat in the lobby in my pajamas under my coat."

"You came down and told the front desk I was a family member who wasn't well."

He looked at the porch rail.

"The Mayflower Inn. You were in the bar with her. You walked past me like I was a waiter."

"I called you forty times one night. You know what you texted back? 'Stop. You're making Delaney uncomfortable.'"

"I don't remember that."

"I do. I have it."

A dog barked somewhere down the hill.

"The foundation gala, last spring," I said. "Your own gala. Our name on the banner."

"A woman from the board asked you who I was. You said, 'Oh, a family friend.'"

He closed his eyes.

"Then you went and danced with Delaney, and I helped the caterers stack chairs because I didn't know where else to stand."

"I was an idiot."

Keep reading free with an account. Start When Love Runs Dry from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.