“You’re going to help me rebuild the house?”
“If you’ll have me,” Spencer replied.
She frowned as she looked down at the card once more. “I’ll have you.”
How he wished those words were said for a different reason. But he could wait.
No, we can’t,his bear said.
But Meryl, like the house, was worth time and patience. Because the reward would be everything.
Chapter Three – Meryl
Meryl folded her arms, the notebook pressed against her chest, as she watched Spencer’s truck disappear down the gravel drive. She didn’t move until the red taillights vanished around the bend, swallowed by the thick pines crowding the narrow lane.
Then the silence rushed back in and made Pine Cottage feel twice as big.
The wind moved through the trees, making the branches sway against the darkening sky. Without Spencer’s solid presence beside her, the house loomed behind her, as if waiting.
Waiting for what, exactly?
Meryl turned to face it. The doorway gaped open, revealing the dim hallway beyond.
“Right,” she said aloud, her voice sounding thin in the empty air. “It’s just a house.”
But as she stepped back over the threshold, the floorboard creaked beneath her weight, and she froze. Spencer’s warning came back to her at once.
Test before you step.
The crawl space.
She moved more cautiously then, testing each board as she made her way down the hall. In the fading light, the dust sheets over the furniture looked oddly human, all sloped shoulders and bowed heads.
Meryl swallowed hard as a sudden sense of overwhelm rose up in her. This was too much. The sagging porch. The rotten boards. The water damage. The kitchen that needed so much work. All of it crowded in on her at once now that he was gone.
She hadn’t asked for this. Hadn’t wanted a broken-down cottage in the middle of nowhere. Hadn’t wanted the responsibility of old walls and hidden rot.
She leaned against the staircase banister, solid, Spencer had said, and let her head drop forward.
Just for a moment.
Just one moment of admitting how overwhelmed she felt.
“Oh, Hilda. I can’t do this,” she whispered.
The house gave a low creak somewhere above her, settling into itself.
For one horrible second, she thought she might cry. Her throat tightened, and her control slipped in a way she hated.
Hated because it made her feel powerless. She refused to give in to that.
One night, she told herself. She just had to get through one night. She did not need to solve the whole house problem tonight. She did not need to decide the rest of her life tonight. All she needed was somewhere safe to sleep, something to eat, and a plan for the morning.
That was all.
Meryl straightened, scrubbed under her eyes with the heel of her hand, and flipped open her notebook to a fresh page.
PRIORITIES
