Page 135 of Faultlines
“Coffee’s almost ready. I haven’t seen Ellie yet, but I hear her moving around upstairs. There’s a faint thumping like a restless reindeer.”
She heads straight for the coffee pot, where I set her favorite creamer, knowing she’d go looking for it.
As we wait for Ellie to come downstairs, I linger in the living room doorway, studying the Christmas tree. Its branches are filled with ornaments we’ve collected over the course of our marriage. Some are handmade keepsakes from Ellie’s preschool years, lopsided and dusted with glitter. Others are delicate glass ornaments from our first Christmas as husband and wife. A few are so old the paint has chipped, and I can’t remember where they came from anymore.
Gifts lay scattered under the tree, and stockings dangle from the mantle. Everything looks as it has every Christmas morning for years.
Just as Claire appears beside me, Ellie bursts into the room, years of practiced Christmas-morning patience forgotten.
“Can we start now?” she asks.
I laugh. “It’s only eight o’clock.”
“So?” She throws both hands into the air in a dramatic gesture that makes her long hair fly. “It was dark when I woke up. I’ve been waiting forever!”
“Because you woke up at five,” I say.
“Exactly! Forever!” she says, throwing her hands in the air.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
STRUCTURAL REHABILITATION
Claire
“I found a baby goat in Nadine’s bedroom.”
I pause with one hand on my office door. “I’m sorry, what?”
Marisol pinches the bridge of her nose. “Apparently, Nadine thought it looked lonely and decided Juniper House should be more... inclusive.”
I stare at her for a long moment, then settle at my computer and pull up my email. Some questions are better left unanswered.
“Do you know what you’re wearing tonight?” she asks with a suspicious grin.
I continue typing on my computer. “Clothes.”
“Very specific.”
“It is a business meeting.”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”
I glance up. “You’re thinking it.”
“I am absolutely thinking it,” she says, her grin widening.
“What do you want?”
She drops a folder onto my desk. “Daniel Mercer.”
“What about him?”
“He’s worth more money than some small countries.”
“Good for him.”
“He specifically requested this dinner just with you.”
