Page 75 of That Reilly Boy
Her sigh is loud through my phone’s speaker. “I don’t think I’m comfortable staying at Colleen Reilly’s house, you know?”
“You can just call her your mother-in-law now.”
“Whatever I call her, I know she’ll hate having me there. The idea of it is like a lead weight in my stomach.”
It’s my turn to sigh, and I rub the spot between my eyebrows with my thumb. I understand what she’s saying, but I don’t see any way around it.
“I’m closed Thursday and Friday, too,” she says. “Maybe I should just come back to Boston.”
“I already promised Daisy and AJ I’d be there for the holiday.”
“I don’t—” She cuts off whatever she’s about to say and falls silent.
I wonder if it feels worse because I’m not there. Without me at her side, it might feel like nothing’s really changed. Four generations of animosity can’t be shaken off by a ring on her finger. But if I’m there, she might be more confident about it.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, even though it’s not. “I’ll be back tomorrow and we can talk about it. We’ll figure it out together.”
“That sounds good,” she says, and I can hear the relief in her voice.
Her relief sticks with me long after the call ends. Cara really doesn’t want to stay at Colleen’s. I know my mom, and she’ll be nice, but maybe nice isn’t enough. There’s still going to be a low-key negative vibe in the air.
The problem of the optics stays in the back of my mind as I finish out my workday, and then it keeps me from getting a good night’s sleep.
Maybe the feud is enough? The people of Sumac Falls might believe neither Colleen nor Gin will welcome the other’s child into their home, and they can make it clear they haven’t had time to find a place of their own yet—unless Gin’s told everybody about his intent to buy the house. Then people might believe they’re waiting until it’s official.
It feels weak, though. We’re supposedly so madly in love we had to get married immediately, but we sleep separately under our mothers’ roofs like teenagers?
That doesn’t work for me.
By the time I drive into Sumac Falls the next night, I feel mostly prepared for the drama I’m about to unleash on the Gamble household.
“I guess we’re doing this,” I tell Penny as I pull into their driveway and park behind Cara’s car. “I know it’s going to be rough, but we’re in this together, right?”
She just rolls her eyes at me, sighs, and then rests her chin on her paws. Hopefully seeing Cara again will help ease the anxiety of being in a strange house. And I won’t leave her here alone. She’ll be with me or with Cara at all times.
That doesn’t make it any easier for me to unclench my fingers from the steering wheel and get out of the car.
I swore I wouldn’t step foot on this property until I owned it, but that was before Gin’s stubbornness changed the rules of the game. I might not have taken Marcus Gamble’s house—yet—but I married his daughter.
My wife is inside that house, and her family can’t keep me away from her anymore.
Chapter Forty-Six
Cara
The last pan had just been dried and put away when we hear a car door close, and it’s obviously in our driveway. We look at each other, but it’s clear neither of us were expecting company.
“I’ll get it. It’s probably Mel,” I tell Gin, even though I know Mel always texts me first when she’s coming over—mostly so I can meet her out on the porch and decrease the chances of her having to make small talk with my mother.
I’m halfway to the front door when I hear the car door close again. Or maybe it’s a second door closing, like if the driver had to go around to the passenger side and get his dog out of her booster seat, for example.
There’s no way he would come here, I think as I force my feet to keep moving. I knew he was coming back to Sumac Falls tonight. I’d thought about nothing but that since getting into the hired car outside his apartment building Monday morning. But I assumed he would go to Colleen’s and let me know he was back in town.
When I open the door and find Hayden on my porch with Penny tucked under one arm and a duffel bag slung over the other, my stomach drops.
“Hi, honey. I’m home,” he says as if this is all a big joke to him.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure my mother didn’t follow me to the door, and then step closer to him. “What the hell are you doing?”
