Page 90 of Best Kept Secret

Then she looked down at her watch and said, “Oh no. I’m going to be late for church. It was nice meeting you, Hudson. Bye now.”

She brushed past him with surprising speed and headed toward the parking lot.

“Wait! I still don’t know your name,” he called after her.

She flapped her hand with nary a backward glance. Then she unlocked the door of a big white pick-up truck and hopped inside.

He watched her pull out of the parking space and drive away, handling the rig like a pro. He considered waiting around to see if Kelsey showed up, but then he realized it was probably a bad idea. With his luck, one of the renters would report him, and the cops would ticket him for loitering. He hadn’t found Kelsey, but he’d been given solid advice from her spry, eighty-something-year-old neighbor, so that was something.

He drove away feeling better than when he’d arrived and with a new determination. He was going to fix this. He was going to get his life in order, starting with finding a new house for him and Annie. Then he would convince Kelsey to forgive him.

He simply had to.

Twenty-Seven

Forgiveness. Kelsey had been rolling the word around in her head, but she still hadn’t put it into practice. After hiding out at Stacy’s house, she’d returned to her apartment on Sunday night with the intention of going straight to bed. However, her next-door neighbor Alice, who was outside watering the potted plants by her front door, intercepted her.

“There you are,” Alice said, giving her a bright smile.

Kelsey attempted to return it, even though she didn’t feel like smiling. She usually enjoyed talking to Alice, but tonight she wanted to pull the covers over her head and sink into sleep, something she hadn’t gotten much of in the past two days.

“You’re up late,” she remarked.

“I was waiting for you to get home.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened with surprise. “How come?”

Alice set down the watering can and wiped her hands on her pants. “A gentleman came by to see you earlier.”

“Hudson.” Just saying his name brought up a myriad of emotions.

“He seemed like a nice young man.”

“I thought so too, until…” She stopped herself from sharing the sordid details of his betrayal.

“Handsome too,” Alice said as if Kelsey hadn’t even spoken.

“Yes.” She couldn’t take that away from him no matter what he’d done. “Did he say what he wanted?”

“Oh, we had a nice, long chat.”

Kelsey’s brows raised to the sky. “You did?”

“Um-hmm. I told him all about my Freddie and how we used to fuss and fight.”

It was hard to imagine Hudson engaged in conversation with Alice, especially of a personal nature. Had he told her what had happened between them? Then again, Alice had that grandmotherly way about her that could be comforting…

“I didn’t tell him how Freddie and I used to make up, though,” Alice said and belted out a laugh.

Kelsey couldn’t help but smile when Alice laughed. She was so unselfconscious about it, like she didn’t care how loud she was or who heard her.

“The poor boy seemed upset, so I tried to cheer him up.”

Upset seemed too mild a word, given the situation. Still, Kelsey felt a twinge in her chest at the thought that he might be feeling as rotten as she did.

“He knows he messed up. Make no mistake about that.”

A large lump in Kelsey’s throat prevented her from speaking, so she nodded instead.