Page 3 of The Guest Cottage
“We talked him out of it,” Aston said with satisfaction. “Stay with the business, and the money will still be yours.”
What he meant was that she needed to go on playing the inconsolable wife. “It doesn’t matter.” She had her own accounts, in her name only. She neither needed nor wanted the Heddings’ money. There were many things she’d let slide over the years, but she’d always protected herself financially.
Maybe she’d retained some survival instincts after all.
The door opened, and Marlow stepped out. It didn’t matter that they were both hissing quiet demands at her. Or that she’d left her umbrella in the car and her upswept hair was immediately soaked by the downpour.
It didn’t matter that others looked on in shock as she walked away, backbone straight and head held high.
Slowly, she inhaled. Fresh air. Freedom.
A new beginning.
It was time to return to her roots.
* * *
He answered on the second ring with a simple, “Hello.”
“Mr. Easton?” Anticipation made her breathless as she loaded the last box of personal items into her Lexus SUV and closed the door. “It’s Marlow Heddings.”
“I recognized the number.”
He had the deepest, darkest voice, no-nonsense and without inflection. She’d only called him . . . what? Five or six times over the past two months? Ugh, he probably thought she was stringing him along.Please, please, please, she thought. “The property I was interested in renting . . . Is it still available?”
“It is.”
Breath left her in a whoosh. “I want it.”
After the briefest pause, he said, “There’ve been two other interested parties, so I can’t continue to hold it.”
“No, I mean I want itnow. Today.” Sunrise turned the sky from dark purple to mauve. Sometime during the night, the storm had blown through, leaving everything wet and fresh, renewed. “I’ll be on my way to you in the next few minutes.”
“From Illinois?”
“Glencoe, yes. I think it’s something like a six- or seven-hour drive, so I’ll have to stop a few times, but it’s barely dawn now. I’ll definitely be there before the end of the day.” She wasn’t certain of the exact travel time because the town barely showed on the map. With no more than four hundred people living there, it would be an escape from everything familiar and just what she’d been looking for.
Mr. Easton greeted her news with silence. Whether it came of disbelief or surprise, she had no idea.
“Will that be a problem? When last we spoke, you said you had immediate occupancy.”
“Same day is a little more immediate than I expected.”
Marlowe stopped, her heart stuttering to a near standstill. The steady drip-drip-drip of rainwater from the trees mingled with the sounds of birds rejoicing and the distant bark of a dog. It could be a new and exciting day—unless he altered her plans.
The very idea got her talking fast. “Did you do the credit report? The background check? Is there something else you need?” She hadn’t slept after the funeral yesterday. No, she’d finished packing everything she might need to begin anew, and nothing else. She meant to leave behind her old life.
A pre-arranged estate manager would sell the rest of the belongings in the house, including Dylan’s things. The house had already been listed for a respectable sum, and the realtor could show it without her.
She was free and clear. All she needed now was a place to stay.
Ready to convince him, Marlow opened the driver’s side door and got behind the wheel. “I’d like to pay you upfront for six months, but I’m happy to rent the place—”Indefinitely. Shaking her head, she amended her first, possibly overwhelming word choice, to the less ambitious, “For as long as it’s available.”
“Not just for the summer?”
God, she was botching this. “Is it only available in the summer?”
Another stretch of silence, and then, “It’s available beyond that. You’re sure you’ll be here today?”
