“Hey. What’re you doing?” She sounded flat. Bored. Like she didn’t have the faintest interest but had gotten so used to asking she couldn’t be bothered to do otherwise.
Accurate, really.
“Just taking a breather,” Nick said. “I had a hard day at the mill.”
Her watery blue gaze swept up and down.
He toed Aubrey’s letter under the bed. After six years of separation, Tansy counted as his wife in nothing but name, and he had no reason to hide. But he would’ve rather stripped naked than let her see, so he schooled his expression to nothingness. “You’re home late. Where were you?”
She shrugged.
He knew what that meant—she’d been out indulging in one of the flings she would manage to forget before the day ended. Meanwhile, he’d been holed up in his bedroom like a lovesick teenager, reading a decades-old letter from a girl he’d never deserved.
“Did Paige tell you about her internship?” Tansy said. “There’s a fee.”
Nick tensed. “A fee?”
“Yep. She needs money.”
A headache materialized behind his eyes. “All right. But I’m already pulling overtime at work. Six shifts a week is all they’ll let me take.”
Tired judgment weighted her gaze. “I’m not asking for me. It’s for ourdaughter. You know, the one you impregnated me with and agreed to help raise.”
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, but Tansy was right. She usually was. “Yeah. Okay. How much does she need?”
“Four hundred dollars.”
He nearly choked. “Fourhundred? For an internship? I thought Paige was supposed to be working for them, not the other way around.”
She crossed her arms. “This is her ticket to a good college, Nick. It’s the most presumptuous internship in Henderson. So yeah, it costs money. Like most things.”
“Prestigious,” he corrected, without thinking. “The mostprestigiousinternship in Henderson.”
Tansy huffed. “Whatever.”
Silence hung between them. Nick held her gaze, but his awareness pulsed somewhere low, alongside the letter and liquor he’d shoved beneath the bed. He imagined he might shove his failings under there, too, and maybe the dull, anxious thud that invaded his chest whenever he confronted the familiar disdain in Tansy’s eyes.
Two more years. Then the bond they’d forged on the night they’d accidentally made a child together would cease to exist. They would no longer be bound to each other, or to this house. Yet the weight of the coming years bore down, an ever-present load on his shoulders.
He cleared his throat. “What happened to the extra three hundred I gave you last week?”
“Gone. It’s not like our refrigerator just fills itself.”
He sighed. But he already knew he’d find the money somewhere. Of course he would. He would lie down in front of a screaming train if it meant getting his daughter into a good college and helping her build the life she wanted. That was why he stayed, after all. Why he did anything.
For Paige. His precious baby girl. His only real family.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll figure it out. Just... give me a few days, okay?”
Tansy’s expression didn’t flicker. “Great.”
Without another word, she walked off, leaving him to find a towel and blot the rainwater from the carpet himself.
Later, in the dark, while Tansy snored down the hall, Nick laced his fingers beneath his head and stared at the ceiling. Incessant rain beat on the shadowed windowpanes.
Four hundred dollars. Where would he find that much on short notice? Maybe he could ask Jackson for a loan—with no family to support, the guy had managed to accumulate a decent-sized savings—but he hated relying on his best friend.
No, he’d rather handle it himself.
