Coming Home to Greenleigh

Chapter 8

Thanks so much for the reads and follows! You guys are the best. :) I'm working hard on this draft and will try to upload weekly even if it kills me. LOL. Because I am actively writing this story, it means a lot to me when people vote on chapters so that I know when things are working. If y'all could tell me what works for you and what you want to experience with Shawn and Elisabeth...it would really help me to know! Feel free to comment or message my inbox! Thank you! And now back to your regularly scheduled programming....

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He was an idiot, he decided. Shawn sat in his car, not moving, watching Elisabeth's shadow slanted across the curtains of her office. He was parked just down the street, and he had a clear view of the brightly lit front room from where he sat. He shivered. It was a clear night, perfect for a hard frost, the first one that autumn.

"I must be out of my mind." He made the comment aloud, his gaze not moving from the slim figure behind the bulky shape of her desk. Was she working? She was very still.

He had every chance to tell her what he had come to say, and yet he had let it slip by. And now he was sitting here like a schoolboy unable to get up the courage to knock on the door of his girlfriend's house.

She was so thin. He had seen the inside of her refrigerator when he had gone to get the milk for his tea. It looked like it had a crisper full of vegetables, but not much else. Old Mrs. McPherson next door probably gave her a lot of garden produce, he suspected. There had been a block of cheese, and some multi-grain bread. Shawn considered the petite form who had stood at the door waving good-bye. She was definitely thinner than he had remembered.

He had seen the bills when he had gone into her office, thinking to make himself comfortable on one of the old sofas in there. He had even thought that maybe he could persuade her to start a fire in the fireplace. They had spent many a romantic evening snuggled up in front of the fireplace, and he half-wondered whether a roaring fireplace might break the ice between them. But then as he was depositing the files on her desk, he saw the stubs of those bills. He shuddered. Poor Bethie. It was worse than he had imagined. He knew that she was not doing well for money, but he had not suspected just how badly.

Shawn leaned back in his seat and stretched, his eyes still fixed on the shadowy figure silhouetted against the window. While she had been upstairs changing, he had taken the liberty of trying to decipher the neat figures scribbled on the water bill, and realized that she was trying to see what part of the household budget could be cut back in order to make the payment in time. He realized then that he could not stay in the front room, where the bills would be lying in silent wait for her when she came downstairs.

He had been reluctant to enter the kitchen, the place where he had spent so many hours lounging about with Elisabeth, thinking dreamily of the day when they would be together in their own little kitchen. He did not think he could stand to see it. But Shawn surprised himself when he walked in. It felt like coming home. He had seen the tool box and the tools scattered about the floor, and had surmised what had happened. It did not surprise him that the old place was in need of repairs, and now that he had seen how close she was to losing her grip on the bills, he knew that she surely couldn't afford to maintain the house properly. And yet the thought of his Bethie trudging about the house with a broken toolbox was both endearing and absurd. The Bethie that he remembered did not fix water tanks.

Shawn had been determined to speak to Elisabeth about the Stewarts. He felt obliged to tell her that Bob Stewart was a friend of his father's, and that he had offered to lend a hand in the divorce without knowing anything about Elisabeth's involvement. He knew he could have telephoned her, but it somehow seemed crass to discuss the matter at a distance, and her home was such a short detour for him. And in the office there were just too many interruptions. But he knew he had to tell her, to make sure that it was not a shock to her to find herself opposing him in the courtroom.