0778318435 (A) by Tiffany Reisz

Author:Tiffany Reisz
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-10-25T22:00:00+00:00

22

A Houseguest

Two Years Later

NORA’S FIRST THOUGHT upon waking was, There is a teenage boy in my house.

She lay in bed and thought about that thought, thought about what to do with it and him. He appeared to be sound asleep and dreaming. No reason to disturb him yet, so Nora let him be.

In her kitchen she brewed a pot of coffee. While she waited she checked her hotline phone. No missed calls. No messages. So the silent treatment would continue. Fine. If that’s what Kingsley wanted, who was she to argue? Without him calling her all the time and pouting until she took on this rich new client and that important new client, she’d actually gotten to spend a little time in her house.

Her house. All hers. Although she’d lived in the house for over a year, she still couldn’t believe it was hers. Kingsley hated her house as much as she loved it. He’d pitched a full-blown French fit when she’d told him she was moving out the day after she paid the down payment in cash and signed the contract. Having both his submissive and his dominant under the same roof was convenient for Kingsley but confining for her. She wanted her privacy, she’d told Kingsley. Needed it to save her sanity. And it was his own fault she’d bought the house anyway. He’d sent her all the way to Westport, Connecticut, for a session with a client, the dean of a small liberal arts college right outside of town. After her session with him, she’d taken a wrong turn and found herself in a residential neighborhood. When she saw a Catholic church on the corner, she’d stopped to ask directions. She’d done it instinctively, sought advice and help inside the church. The secretary had drawn her a map to the interstate on the back of a pamphlet with the title “You Can Go Home Again—A Roadmap for Lapsed Catholics.” When she asked the secretary how she’d guessed Nora was a lapsed Catholic, the older woman had smiled and said, “You started to dip your fingers in the holy water when you walked in and you stopped yourself.”

“An old habit,” Nora had said, guilty as charged.

“He misses you, you know,” the woman said as Nora started out of the office with her roadmap.

Nora froze, the words chilling her to the bone.

“He’s better off without me,” Nora told her. “Whether he knows that or not, he is.”

“God isn’t better off without any of His children in His life and His church. He wants them all home, even His prodigals. Especially His prodigals.”

Nora had given her a smile, a sad smile although she hadn’t planned on being sad that day.

“I wasn’t talking about God.”

The neighborhood St. Luke’s belonged to was a quaint and lovely one, the day around her bright and shining, so Nora went for a walk. She lived most of her life at night and indoors. Sunlight had become a rare luxury, and she needed more of it. Griffin wanted her to go to Miami with him soon, and she considered the offer as she walked.

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