Remember Me? (Book 1) COMPLETED

Packing

NICK

Tori was just coming up the steps from the garage when Shane called me. I picked up. "Hey, Shane," I said. "I got the text that your flight landed. You need me to pick you up?"

"No, I rented a car," he answered. "I'm already on the road. Be there in five."

"Perfect."

I hung up the call and turned to my wife, who had paused to hang up her keys beside mine under the wooden placard that read "Home." Whatever relief I had felt hearing my brother on the other side of the line immediately disappeared when I caught her gaze. I quickly spun away to the coffeemaker.

"I didn't see you today," she started, the chain of her purse clinking as she dropped it on the counter. "Everything go okay?"

I busied myself with filling the carafe with water. "Fine."

"Did... did you happen to see Katherine at all?"

Her voice was hesitant, if guarded, and my hand tightened around the handle of the coffee pot as if I might chuck it across the room. I forced myself to take a breath, and poured the water into the coffeemaker. In the stillness, crickets chirped outside, the sun drawing closer to the horizon, and I could almost hear my wife's worry, her jealousy, and when I turned, I could see the ire blazing in her sea-glass eyes.

"Well, did you?" She asked, this time lifting her chin slightly.

I laughed derisively. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Hurt flashed across her features, instantly overtaken by a burst of anger. "She shouldn't be here."

"By all appearances, it looks like you shouldn't be here either," I said, stepping forward until there was only the island between us. "Why don't you take the next flight to Pennsylvania and send me the divorce papers while you're at it?"

Tori gasped, eyes widening in shock.

Her expression, so full of surprise, was so sincere I almost believed it. But I knew better than to trust the snake I had made my bed with. Isn't this, after all, what I deserved for what I did before?

"Give up the act, Tori," I snapped. "I know you're with Chase. I know you've been seeing him, that your relationship with him is more than business. Should I have expected anything better from us given how we started?"

Tori's face had shifted from pink to red, and now to white. Her lips parted and she took in a shuddering breath. "Is this really what you think of me?"

"What I think?" I raked a hand through my hair, tugging at the ends. "No, this is what I know. And before you leave, you're going to tell me everything."

The doorbell interrupted any reply.

"Not a word to Shane," I warned her, then went to answer the door.

I paused a moment in the foyer, taking a deep breath to still my heartbeat drumming in my ears, and turned the doorknob.

"Hey, Nick!"

"Hey, Shane," I said, smiling, "Come on in."

He stepped into the foyer, followed by a three-year-old girl with a Hello Kitty backpack.

"This is my daughter, Jessie," he said, hoisting her up into his arms, where she immediately nestled onto his shoulder. He laughed, patting her dark-brown hair. "She'll be out any minute now."

Guilt struck me like a baseball bat when I saw his little girl. How had I forgotten about her and made him come so far? California to Alabama was no easy ride, especially as a widower with a toddler.