It was barely a smile, but I took it as a victory.
Then she looked down at her suitcase.
“Can I come in?”
I stepped aside immediately.
“Sarah, you could arrive carrying a live alligator, and I’d still let you escape this weather first.”
“Please don’t say that. I’m not emotionally prepared to share a house with an alligator.”
“Good. Neither am I. I can barely manage my laundry.”
She laughed quietly.
Then the expression disappeared from her face, and I saw how frightened she really was.
I carried her luggage inside, found her a dry towel, and turned up the heat.
Sarah was forty-seven, elegant without trying, and possessed the kind of calm voice that could make an angry person lower theirs without realizing why. When I dated her daughter, Jenna, I had always admired that about her.
I had also spent two years trying very hard not to notice how beautiful she was.
