LITMIR.BIZ

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being a married man more than he had ever thought possible.

      In one all-too-quick swoop his orderly world had fallen into a state of formless chaos, and he absolutely hated it. He felt directionless. When he and Claire had been together, his life had had purpose, he’d had goals. Now he was just blindly going from one end of the day to the other. He still showed up for work at the furniture store every morning, but he lacked his usual energy, feeling lost and so alone that he literally ached.

      Without Claire, absolutely nothing seemed to make any sense to him anymore.

      Initially, as he had walked back to his truck right after Claire had thrown him out, his own anger at what he felt was her uncalled-for reaction to his late arrival continued to grow—along with his confusion. Why had she blown a gasket? After all, he’d just been playing poker with some of the guys he’d met at the wedding, not playing around with some little flirt.

      He knew lots of men who took any opportunity to cheat on their wives, claiming that marriage hemmed them in, and that they needed something besides the “same old piece of stale cake” to get their adrenaline flowing.

      But he wasn’t like that. And he certainly didn’t feel that way about his marriage.

      The moment that he had first laid eyes on Claire in that cute little sundress she’d been wearing the day they met, peering into the show window of the furniture store where he worked, he had fallen for her like the proverbial ton of bricks. He’d even taken the initiative and gone outside the store to tell her that the set she was looking at was on sale. It really wasn’t. He’d made that up just to have an excuse to talk to her.

      Had she actually wanted to buy that set, he would have had to come up with the difference out of his own pocket, but he was so taken with her, he would have done it and gladly. The way he saw it, it would have been more than worth it to him.

      From that day forward, Claire Strickland had always been the only girl for him. He’d loved her so much, he’d been willing to wait until she graduated from college before they got married. In fact, he’d insisted on it. First the degree, then the ring. Because it was best for her, and he didn’t want to be the reason she had dropped out of college. From the first moment he met her, it had always been about what was best for her. He felt that she brought out the best in him.

      And now he had lost her...and he wasn’t even sure why.

      He could still see that look on her face as she’d pushed him out of the room. She’d been so angry at him, and he hadn’t done anything to warrant that degree of fury. One of the men in the game had actually bet and lost the house he was living in. Now that was stupid.

      What would have been her reaction if he’d done something like that?

      Trying to be optimistic, Levi had hoped that whatever had gotten her angry to this degree would blow over once they got back home.

      But when they did get back home—she’d had her grandmother drive her and Bekka home while he’d driven himself—he’d found that his belongings had all been thrown out on the lawn in front of their apartment.

      This, in addition to having thrown her wedding ring at him, made the message clear.

      It was over.

      Except that he didn’t want it to be.

      Desperate, thinking that maybe she needed a little bit of time to come around, he gave Claire her space. By definition, that required his staying out of her way, so he’d bedded down in the storeroom at the furniture store. He alternated between that and spending the night in his truck. It was August so at least he didn’t have to worry about cold weather. But that was small consolation in the face of what was going on in his life.

      With each passing day, he kept hoping that Claire would relent and take him back. But she never came to the store, never answered the phone when he called, even though he called her at least three times a day, if not more. For all intents and purposes, Claire was acting as if he didn’t exist.

      And it was killing him.

      Frustrated, Levi decided that enough was enough and went to the apartment where they’d lived for the past two years for a face-to-face confrontation with Claire.

      But as he drove up, he saw that there were no lights on in the window to greet him, and he had a very uneasy feeling as he unlocked the front door.

      Holding his breath, praying he was wrong, Levi cautiously walked in.

      “Claire? Claire, it’s me. Levi. Your husband,” he added uncertainly. Nothing but silence answered him. “Claire,” he called out, “where are you?”

      Still nothing. Nothing but the hollow echo of his own voice.

      Growing progressively more agitated as well as aggravated, Levi went from room to small room, looking for his wife, for his baby. Finding neither.

      “Come on, Claire, this isn’t funny anymore. Where are you?”

      Nervous now, he debated calling Claire’s parents. He didn’t want to worry them, but then on the other hand, there might be a chance that they knew where their daughter and granddaughter were.

      They might even be staying with her parents, for that matter.

      He took out his cell phone and was all set to press the appropriate numbers on the keypad, but then he paused, thinking. Maybe calling her parents wasn’t such a good idea after all.

      Claire’s parents, Peter and Donna Strickland, had initially been very hesitant about their daughter getting involved with someone who was several years older than she was and who didn’t have a college education. It had taken him a bit of doing to win them over.

      But after her parents saw how much he really loved their youngest daughter, how he’d treated her as if she were made out of pure spun gold, they came around and gave their blessings. The older couple, who had been going strong for the past thirty years, had one of those rare, really happy marriages and according to Peter Strickland, they saw no reason why Claire and he couldn’t have one, too.

      If he called them, asking after Claire, then her parents would realize that they were having marital problems. He had a feeling that Claire wouldn’t tell her parents what was going on. Because if she did, it was as good as admitting that their initial concerns about her getting married had been right. That he wasn’t good enough for her. And even though she might actually believe that, he knew Claire well enough to know that she wouldn’t readily admit that fact to her parents.

      Who did that leave? he thought as he wandered around the empty apartment.

      There were her two older sisters, Hadley and Tessa, but they were both professional career women who lived and worked in Bozeman, Montana, too. If Claire called either one of them, asking to be taken in, that would be as good as admitting failure, and she wouldn’t do that. There was just the slightest bit of competitiveness among the sisters—at least as far as Claire was concerned.

      No, she wouldn’t call either one of her sisters, either. She would have rather died than allow her sisters to know that her marriage was in jeopardy.

      But she had to call somebody, Levi reasoned. Claire couldn’t opt to go it alone. She had the baby to think of.

      The answer suddenly came to him. Of course. Claire would have turned to her grandparents for emotional support.

      Her grandmother, Melba, was a lively, full-steam-ahead woman who had raised four children, including Claire’s father, and had still managed to be a businesswoman. She and her husband, Gene, ran the Strickland Boarding House, where he and Claire had stayed when they’d attended the wedding that had ultimately torn them apart.

      Claire admired her grandmother, so it was only natural that she would turn to the older woman. And, as he recalled, the crusty Gene Strickland really doted on his granddaughter and her baby girl, too.

      Levi was by nature a private person. He had never gone to anyone with his hat in his hand before, pleading his case,

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