Page 4 of Make You Stay

“Do you think we should ask Chloe if she wants to join us?”

My daughter’s question startles me, my eyes widening in shock. “Why?”

Emily shrugs, staring at the floor. “She just lost her mom, and she’s all alone next door.”

“She’s fine,” I mutter, refusing to feel sympathy for the woman who couldn’t manage to visit her mother when she was onthisside of the dirt.

“I spoke with her at the restaurant,” Natalie pipes in, sitting cross-legged on the floor as she braids Mia’s hair. “She’s really nice. Funny, just like Betsey.”

“She’s nothing like Betsey.” I refuse to budge an inch where this woman is concerned. Maybe she didn’t give a damn about Betsey, but I did.

“How would you know, Dad? You didn’t even speak to her,” Natalie retorts, fixing me with her green gaze.

I hate how this girl always calls me on the carpet.

Just like her mother.

“Can we watch a movie?” Mia asks, harrumphing out her impatience.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a while.” Leave it to my six-year-old to throw her dad a lifeline.

Anything to get us off the topic of Chloe Strickland.

That is one woman I have no desire to discuss.

Ever.

All I can hope is that by some magic, she up and disappears in the middle of the night, never to be seen again.

Chapter 2

Chloe

It’s after nine when I finally cave to the cold, my teeth chattering even under the pile of blankets. I’m a native New Yorker and used to frigid temperatures, but my heat operated via a thermostat, not some mammoth stove that looked ready to explode.

I may be a chickenshit, but I wasn’t tempting fate after the day I had yesterday. It’s bad enough I barely made the funeral service after missing every turn and almost sliding off the side of a mountain en route to Asheville.

So, after the party Betsey had organized to celebrate her life, I returned to her house—myhouse now, at least according to the will.

Then I downed a shot of vodka and crawled into bed in the guest room.

I suppose I figured the house would remain a certain temperature, what with insulation and such.

It did, too. The same temperature as an igloo. Possibly a few degrees lower.

After shooting the stove a glare, I pad past it into the kitchen. At least I can figure out how to work the coffeemaker. Thank God for small favors.

The sheer amount of space around me is shocking after a lifetime in Manhattan. My apartment is tiny, but it’s in a highly desirable area of Tribeca. I’m close to everything. The pulse of humanity is right outside my door.

Here, even with ample room, I feel like a caged animal.

Hell, I can’t even figure out how to work the stove, and I’m sure my new neighbor won’t offer any assistance. It was impossible to miss his glare or the cold vibes he tossed in my direction at Betsey’s funeral.

I get it. To these people, I’m an outsider. A damn Yankee. A prissy and highfaluting woman from the big city come down here to flaunt my life in their faces.

They couldn’t be more wrong. I’m actually falling apart, even though I have no plan on lettingthemknow that fact.

Not that they’d care, regardless. My welcome was chillier than the interior of this house.

---