She bent to retrieve her briefcase. By the time she straightened, Ken had walked around the table.
“Care to come by my place for that dessert?”
He didn’t look quite as confident as he usually did. Which surprised her. She tried to formulate some type of reply in her head, but after several seconds realized that the longer she waited to say something, the more awkward it was going to be for both of them. She settled for simple and direct. “No, thanks.”
He nodded, his mouth tightening ever so slightly. “I didn’t think so, but figured it was worth asking.”
He offered his hand, and she took it without hesitation. “Thanks, Ken, for helping tonight.”
Again, his mouth tightened briefly. “It’s a good product, Lexie. In time, it will outsell its competitors. Can I see you to your car?”
She had barely declined his offer when he tossed his jacket over his shoulder and, with one hand tucked into a pants pocket, strolled toward the front door. Several women a few tables over watched with interest. For a moment, Lexie envied them.
What did they see that she didn’t? She was twenty-seven, not ninety-seven. Sex was a healthy part of being an adult—one of the few perks, when you came right down to it. But in the eleven months since she and Dan had gone their separate ways, she’d had sex only one time. With a stranger who hadn’t stayed a stranger. Her abdominal muscles tensed at the memory of all the things they’d done that night. But more than the mechanics of sex, she’d been able to do something she hadn’t done in months—she had cried. He’d held her while she sobbed, never asking why, seeming to understand that her pain couldn’t be mollified with words.
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
Lexie realized she had no idea how long the busboy had been standing there looking at her.
“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. Ducking her head, she moved away from the table. She had to stop thinking about that night, glorifying it as something more than it had been. Pity sex. That’s all it could have been for him. What was more embarrassing and depressing than that? To know a man had taken you to bed because he felt sorry for you?
After leaving the restaurant, she dropped last month’s expense account report into the box in front of the post office, and then took Alligator Creek Road toward home.
Temperatures had taken a hard dive into the high thirties—uncommon for early December in central Florida. A misting rain forced her to turn on the windshield wipers. She was used to the fifteen-minute drive, having moved out to Riverhouse, her grandparents’ old weekend retreat on the river, when she and Dan had separated. She’d expected the move to be a temporary one, lasting only until Dan vacated the house in town.
The majority of the land out this way belonged to the state now, so she was unlikely to see another car at this time of night. The dense line of vegetation, mostly palmettos and scrub oaks, with a few slash pines mixed in, formed a wall on either side.
Usually the drive relaxed her, but not tonight. She couldn’t seem to quite let go of her irritation over Dan’s interruption, or her uncertainty over the dinner meeting’s success.
Her headlights skimmed across a small family of armadillos that had wandered out of the undergrowth toward the road. Braking, she hit the horn and watched them scatter back into the brush.
She had just stopped in front of the house when her cell phone went off again. She checked the message screen.
paprs signd last dink
“Do you really think I’m that stupid, Dan?”
That was a fatal drawback to text messaging—you couldn’t really tell with any certainty the condition of the person on the other end. But the dropped letters in his message suggested that Dan was at least on his way to being drunk.
She should never have answered the first text message, she realized. As soon as she had, she’d given him what he really wanted from her. Not to be ignored.
Which was exactly what she needed to do. She reached for her briefcase and then paused, staring down at the phone she still held in her left hand.
But what if he wasn’t screwing with her? What if this time was different? What if he had signed the amended property settlement? She’d heard talk about his seeing a woman. Maybe he had finally started to move on.
She glanced through the rain-pocked window toward the front door of Riverhouse, wanting a hot shower and a soft bed. Wanting to forget about her ex-husband and legal documents. She wanted the mindless oblivion of sleep.
Lexie rubbed her forehead. No. As much as she would like to believe this time might be different, it would be like all the others. She’d lost count of the times he’d agreed to sign the papers, only to refuse when they were face-to-face.
She flipped the phone back open and, after briefly debating what her response should be, settled for being brutally frank. F off
She’d wanted to say that for months now, but hadn’t. Partially because she wanted to keep things as civilized as possible between them, figuring as long as she played nice, Dan would also. Boy had she been wrong.
She was reaching for her briefcase again when the phone vibrated in her hand. Startled, she dropped it on the floorboard. As she picked it up and straightened, she read the screen.
Pick up tnight Or brn them n house.
“You wouldn’t dare!” Lexie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Calm down. Just a head game. That’s all the threat was. He might burn the papers, but he wouldn’t burn the house. He wasn’t quite that crazy.
As she sat there in the dark, though, she realized that she was wrong. Drunk and mad, Dan might be capable of almost anything.
“Okay, Dan. We’ll play it your way one last time.”
She tossed the phone on the seat and turned the key in the ignition. If the papers weren’t signed, that was it. She’d kept her mouth shut for way too long. But no more.
Ten minutes later, Lexie paused at the end of the driveway leading down to the Victorian that she’d once shared with Dan. This house and Riverhouse had passed into her hands nearly four years ago with the death of her grandparents. Just the thought of losing it frightened her. As Dan had known it would.
Unlike most in the neighborhood, the large home with its deep, wraparound porch sat well off the boulevard. Several ancient live oaks blocked the view of the house from the road, their dark limbs so low-slung they appeared to rest on the lawn before rising skyward. As a child, she had spent summers crawling on those sturdy branches, climbing upward to where a thick bounty of leaves had made her invisible. At least once, when her mother had come to collect Lexie at summer’s end, she’d sought refuge there.
And there had been unpleasant consequences for that action.
Lexie took her foot off the brake and let the car creep down the brick drive. Some lessons stayed with you for a lifetime. Avoidance was an option, but it was rarely a solution.
The front light wasn’t on, and large, dense hedges blocked any light from neighboring homes, making the yard extremely dark. A lamp in the foyer and the one in Dan’s office were on, though.
With the rain having increased to a steady drum on the car roof, Lexie removed her coat before getting out. She held it over her head as she made a run for the door. Her eyes darted toward the wide set of stairs that climbed from the brick walkway to the porch, but just as quickly she looked away. She couldn’t go up them. She would never use those stairs again.
As she started for the back of the house, she saw movement, a shadow, just inside the front door. He must have seen her headlights. He’d know to meet her at the back door.
Lexie sprinted across the thick St. Augustine grass, now slick with rain, and ducked under the back porch covering. She shook the dampness off her jacket. Shoving her arms back into the sleeves,