The house is no more mine than the land it sits on. Some part of me still feels like I've earned the right to call it home anyway. I preserved the past for her. Secured the future for her. I've bled for every inch of it. What better reason would I need to call it mine, same as it's hers?
She'll get used to having me around eventually. She'll figure out soon enough that she needs me, and there's no better time than right now to start proving it. She's clearly exhausted, in no shape to drive another mile. There's no way I'm letting her white knuckle that car down the twisting gravel and narrow lanes leading up to the house. In her current state, she'd put that death trap straight into a ditch before she made it halfway there.
Diane's coffee could put hair on a man's chest, but even that ha
