C&CM01 - Who Hates Marigold Flowers? by Barton Sara M

Author:Barton, Sara M [Barton, Sara M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: amazon, cThriller
ISBN: 1793240132
Amazon: B01LKQON3M
Publisher: Sara M. Barton
Published: 2016-09-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“No, it’s not that.” I paused, parsing my words carefully. “It needs...it needs something from you, something of you. You’ve got furniture here, but no books, no souvenirs from your trips around the world.”

He stared at me, for just a moment or two, and then he softly smiled. “I guess I was well-trained. I learned to let Deirdre make all the decorating decisions, in order to keep the peace.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mortified, I realized to my horror that I had hit a nerve. It was hard to ignore the reality that this man was a stranger to me. What right did I have to intrude on the secrets of his past? It hadn’t occurred to me that his ex-wife was the majordomo of the household, chief decision-maker in all things relating to the home they shared, but given her obvious penchant for controlling everyone around her, I really should have figured it out for myself.

“Don’t be sorry.” Lincoln brushed my concern away with a good-natured shrug. If Deirdre had been so determined to control every aspect of their home life, the least I could do was give him the chance to recover his inner man in his own time, at his own pace, and offer my support.

“It’s hard to restart your life, isn’t it?” I commiserated. “Just when you get used to the status quo, everything changes and you’re supposed to change with it.”

“After being married for so long, the last thing I expected was to be living on my own again. That was something that required some adjusting. I guess I’m still adjusting.”

“It takes time.” I offered encouragingly, even as he seemed to slip away mentally to some place I couldn’t follow. Was he taking inventory of what his life had become or wishing for what had been? The awkward silence grew as we sat there, side by side. At last, Lincoln stretched out his arms, fully extending his long, thin fingers, as if he was trying to get rid of all the tension in them, and then reluctantly rose to his full height.

“Let me show you the bedroom where you’ll be sleeping,” he said. Waiting for me to get out of my chair, he stood there briefly, a man with one foot still caught in the past and the other blindly tripping over the future. I had seen the symptoms in other men going through divorce. For a heart torn by the unexpected sorrow of parting, only time, and eventually a new love, could heal the ache. “It’s this way.”

He flipped a wall switch on as he led me into a starkly furnished room with only a white queen-sized cast iron bed, a walnut washstand, and an Eastlake chest. A small antique lamp with a red glass shade gave off a warm glow atop the washstand and the blue quilt was a cheerful touch, but these were not enough to distract the eye from the overabundance of beige walls and carpet. “I haven’t gotten around to decorating this room.

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