Donovan heard through the grapevine that things had gone from bad to worse for Becca. She hadn’t said anything about their fight, but couldn’t hide that the stress of the situation was getting the best of her. Katie from the office stopped to talk to Donovan in the coffee shop on Saturday morning. “You need to remind your wife that she has sick days.”

“She’s in one of those moods where she is not listening to me right now,” he confessed.

In the days before they dated, both of them expected arguments. Couples do. What never crossed his mind was the possibility of him taking his worst side and giving it all to Becca in one fell swoop. As he explained what happened to his grandmother, Donovan said, “I wouldn’t be talking to me either.” 

He drove by Becca’s house a couple times and saw the dim light from her bedroom, but never stopped in. After the third pass by, Jadine Renton waved him down. From there she told him the truth as she saw it. He was acting like a teenager and needed to man up and go apologize to his wife. She was right.

Jadine figured out there was more to the problem when Donovan knocked, and Becca didn’t open the door.

“Married people don’t have to knock to enter their own houses.” She had been watching from the front gate.

“I lost my key,” Donovan told her a bold-faced lie.

“Or you didn’t know she left a half hour ago with Abigail Cahill to go to Great Falls.”

“You could have said something before you watched me make a fool of myself,” Donovan griped.

“And miss out on the opportunity to find out what the Sam Hill is happening,” Jadine crowed.

Donovan may have growled. His mood darkened. He wanted his wife at home with him where she belonged. She had responded to his text with a polite, “Thank you for checking on me.” However, he knew that the longer they were apart, the more time she had to build an argument towards regretting she married him.

Jadine’s smile faded into a look of authentic concern. The transformation happened so quickly Donovan felt a little guilty. “It’s nothing that won’t solve itself.”

“Or, it’s something I can help you with.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re never going to find your wife without some help. She’s had an army of women coming in and out of here. Fort Knox needs the support that wife of yours has had this past couple of days.”

He never thought it possible, but he was living it, so it had to be true. The same Jadine Renton who had antagonized Donovan for his entire life became an ally.

––––––––

NOTHING ANYBODY TOLD him prepared him for what he saw when he walked into the community cooking class and saw his wife looking worse than the time she caught the flu and stayed in bed for a week before letting anyone know she was sick. It had only been three days since he’d seen her, and she looked like she easily lost five pounds. Despite her eyes widening in what he at first thought was surprise when she saw him, he saw the haggardness in her face. Fatigue gave way to fear, and she beelined for the bathroom.

This was not good. Not good at all. Nothing his grandmother said to him prepared him for what he had to do. She said, “You need to go and admit why you behaved so poorly to her. And after that, you apologize. And, you apologize every day after that until she believes you.”

“Why do I always have to be the one that apologizes,” he argued. He knew why. What he really wanted to know was when was it going to be Becca’s turn to mess up? It was like the woman was always one step ahead of him. “Son, love is being brave enough to make mistakes and trusting that the other person will forgive you. It grows when you’ve watered the seed by admitting your faults. If you had listened to your heart years ago, you’d have married Becca because you loved her. This is life’s way of teaching you to listen to love and not your fears.”

And she was right. He feared that she’d realize that someone out there was better than him. That this stranger would not only admit that he loved her, but he'd also tell her that he loved her without provocation from an inheritance. It only took the pressure of a child to push Donovan to admit his fears in the form of accusations.

The room of women and the chef stared at Donovan as he watched Becca run. In her absence their eyes accused him. “You did this to her.” Then they challenged him, “How are you going to fix this?”

Donovan stood outside the bathroom door and mentally rehearsed his first apology. Before she had time to say anything he’d say, “I came to say I’m sorry. This way she’d know he wasn’t angry with her.”

However, when Becca opened the door, his mind blanked. Dark circles had formed around her eyes, and her skin tone went from pink to a pale white, and then a shade of green in a matter of seconds.

Becca’s parting words, “Maybe the ranch dressing wasn’t such a good idea after all,” was his first hint that perhaps her silence wasn’t anger as much as a retreat.