“We’re going home.” He nodded to Mr. Goodall.
The crew let out very manly yells, shaking the rafters of the small house he’d bought with the plan to flip it.
“Get back to work!” he yelled good-naturedly.
They laughed but went on their way.
Goodall smacked his back again. “Call me tomorrow, and we’ll go over all the paperwork. I have another stop to make today.” His eyes twinkled in a way that said he was up to something.
Cash nodded.
Soon it was just him, Jennifer, and a cameraman. “I just need a quick sound bite,” she said.
Cash drew in a breath. “It was Maggie, wasn’t it?”
Jennifer pressed her lips. “Thad? Why don’t you wait outside for a minute?”
Thad swung the camera off his shoulder. He left without a word. Camera operator was a good job for him if he spoke this much all the time.
“How is she?” he asked, not daring to say her name for fear it would crumble the parts of him barely holding it together.
Jennifer glared at first. She was fierce and protective of her friend.
Cash couldn’t blame her. He silently pleaded with her to be truthful. “Just a sound bite would do.”
She blew out a breath, making her lips flap. “Fine. She’s hurting and mad and doing her best to hold it together. You are a horrible husband.” She poked him in the shoulder. “And you don’t deserve her, so I don’t know why I’m telling you that if you called, she’d come back.”
It was his turn to blow out air. Her words hit him square in the gut.
She squinted at him. “Have you lost weight?”
He chuckled, thinking of the frozen waffle he’d taken three bites of that morning. “I don’t eat well now.”
She sniffed. “Serves you right.” Softening, she added. “But seriously. Call her.”
He lifted a noncommittal shoulder.
She called Thad back in, and he gave her a quote she could use on the news that night. He worked until quitting time and then stayed long enough to make sure the house was secure. It was small and in a good neighborhood. It should sell well.
But it didn’t feel like a home. Not to him.
He made his way out to his truck and then drove slowly to the homestead. He both wanted to see the place and didn’t want to see it, knowing it was full of Maggie.
The dirt road was just as bumpy as before. His memories of this place felt like they came from another time or dimension, and he was headed back in. He didn’t know if he’d survive a round trip, but he had to see the place.
He pulled up, noting that his trailer was still here. He thought Murdock would have hauled it off and impounded it first thing. Paint cans and buckets of sheetrock mud were piled on the porch. The woods were full of chirping and chattering and the rustling of leaves, but none of it held the same magical quality that it did when Maggie was here.
“I’m glutton for punishment,” he mumbled as he pushed open the half-painted door. Maggie’s brush was still in the plastic bag, as if she’d just set it there an hour ago.
He shook off the ghost and made his way inside. The banister was in the almost-finished state his guys had left it. The smell of fresh-cut wood lingered. He trailed his hands along the finely sanded wood as he walked into the family room. This was the space where he’d imagined a Christmas tree and a baby swing.
Closing his eyes, he drew in air, desperate to expand his lungs and relieve the tension and loss binding him. He closed his eyes, trying to bring up Maggie in his mind. It wasn’t difficult. He easily saw the way the light bounced off her hair. The way her nose wrinkled when she laughed. The smell of fresh-baked bread that …
Wait …
He sniffed again. There really was the smell of fresh bread in the air. “Where …?” Following his nose, he headed for the kitchen.
A mixing bowl clinked against the counter, and the sound of water boiling met him before he hit the threshold. With his heart lifting so fast it was painful, he shoved into the room and came up short at the sight of Maggie wearing that frilly apron, pulling loaf pans from the oven.
