The Years Between Us by Vercier Stephanie & Vercier Stephanie

Author:Vercier, Stephanie & Vercier, Stephanie [Vercier, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

LUKE

I’d started the repair job of the dry rot on the deck, then had an important conference call and gotten a lot of work done on the Texas project I’d been putting a good number of hours in on. I had this sense of satisfaction that I related to getting all of that done, but working on some rudimentary coding, I realized that gratification was actually about David. He looked like he wanted to piss his pants when I’d told him to stay away from Claudia. And while I’m not the kind of guy who gets off on putting fear into someone or getting into pissing matches, it still felt good because I knew David had done something to hurt her. He deserved to be at least a little worried, deserved to know that if he laid one finger on her that I’d have no problem in beating his ass to the ground.

But now that it’s time to head into town and pick Claudia up from work, I wonder if she’d see it the same way or if she’d have preferred I left it alone and not agitated things that she might have already settled. But what’s done is done, and there’s no going back. Maybe I’ll tell her, and maybe I won’t. Maybe it’s just better left alone.

I pull my truck into one of the spaces just outside The Nut Monger. While I’d still made the Tesla available to her, she’d told me it made her too anxious driving such an expensive car. So, more often than not, I pick Claudia up unless she has some kind of plan with Dani, but my daughter being joined to her boyfriend’s hip means it’s generally just me. And I’m not complaining. Besides the mornings that I’m able to wake up to her—when Dani spends the night with Carlos—one of my favorite things is walking into the store and seeing her behind the counter or talking with a customer or dealing with some issue over the phone. She’s in her own element at work, and I can see why Rhonda loves having her here so much.

But when I open the door today and walk in, Rhonda is behind the counter with Claudia, and the woman I’ve fallen in love with is putting on a smile, but it’s not a real one. That much I can tell.

“Well, nice to see you today, Luke,” Rhonda says as I walk up to the counter.

“You too, Rhonda.” I do have some trouble giving her direct eye contact since it was her son I’d gone after earlier. “How’s business?”

“Kind of slow today,” she says, looking over at Claudia.

“I’ll just grab my stuff, Luke,” Claudia says quietly, getting up from the stool behind the counter and picking up a light sweater, her purse and a grocery bag.

“Do some grocery shopping?” I ask lightheartedly.

She just looks at me like she has no idea what I mean by that, her body tense.

“The bag.” I point at it with both my finger and my eyes.

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