Page 48 of Forever Endeavor

CHAPTER 16

Billie

Back at the cabin, Billie paced the floor. Maybe it was sneaky to seek out Sonny’s ex, but surely he had to know her intentions were good. Never did she imagine running into Cruella would make everything infinitely worse.

She practiced begging for his forgiveness. “Sonny, I did what I had to do and…”Nah, too flippant.“Sonny, I’m sorry, but I only did it because someone needed to put that bitch in her place.”Definitely not.“Because you deserve better…?”No, that’s not it.“Because I care about you. I mean, I really like you. Like a lot. More than I thought I could—”

“You done?” Sonny’s voice boomed through the screen door.

Billie spun around, heart in throat, foot in mouth. “I didn’t know…you weren’t meant to, I mean, I was just trying to come up with a…uh, how much of that did you hear?”

“Plenty.” As he came inside, she tried to gauge how far his anger needle was pushed into the red zone of fury. “What the hell, Billie? You went behind my back and tracked down my ex-wife?”

“I—I’m sorry. I swear, I was only trying to help.”

“How’d you find her? Did Cal tell you?”

She shook her head. “No, not Cal. But this isn’t a big town and it wasn’t all that hard. I thought if I could talk some sense into Melissa about the house, maybe she’d see the light.”

The hardened look on his face began to soften. “And that’s all there is to it?”

“I also wanted her to know that someone has your back. If she’s trying to get to you, she’s gonna have to go through me first.”

A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Anything else?”

Billie’s shoulders drooped. “All right, I confess I was more than a little curious about the woman you married,” she said sheepishly. “I thought that by filling in more about what happened in the past, we could maybe work on fixing some of those things together.”

He pulled out the chair from her writing desk. “Have a seat.”

Warily, she plunked down, and Sonny sat in a chair beside her. “First of all, you don’t need to fight my battles for me and secondly, the past is in the past. As much as we’d both love to re-write history, we sure as hell can’t change the way it all went down.”

“I know that. Still, I wish—”

“I get it. Believe me, if I had half a chance to creep your jackass ex, I’d probably do the same thing.”

She brightened. “Really?”

“Sure. And he’d be lucky if I only gave him a piece of my mind.”

A fantasy of Sonny pounding her ex into ground beef flashed in her mind, instantly lifting her spirits. “So, what happened with Melissa after I left?”

“It stayed relatively calm. I think you succeeded in rattling her cage.”

“Did I really?”

“Simmer down, it’s not like you brokered peace in the Middle East. She still wants the house, but at least now she says she’s willing to offer up some compensation in return.”

Billie folded her arms. “That’s something, I guess. Unless the goal is still to get her to reconsider.”

“I don’t think there’s much hope in that.Time is running out.”

“Why are you giving in? Why don’t you fight for what you want?”

“I never said I was giving in. I’m considering the offer, that’s all.”

“My advice? Think long and hard if that house is really worth keeping.” She got up from the chair and began pacing again. “When my publisher convinced me to take a working vacation, she pointed out that my house is a memory trap. And she’s right. I hate walking through the door and being hit with the instant recall that’s where my marriage died.”

“Then why not sell it?”

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