Two Against the Odds. Joan Kilby

gruffly. “Sometimes women read stuff into things that guys don’t mean.”

      “No, but—”

      “Did he tell you to leave?”

      “I told you, I left him. I share the blame, I do.” She waved a veined hand weighted with silver rings. “But I’m ready to try again. Only he has a whole new life and there doesn’t seem to be any place in it for me.” Her large gray eyes swam with tears. “He doesn’t care if I’m here or not. He won’t talk to me, barely looks at me. Forty years of marriage and it’s over. I’m pretty sure there’s another woman. I don’t know what to do.”

      Rafe just nodded. Why was she confiding in him? He was no marriage counselor.

      “If I was your husband,” he improvised, hoping that a solution would shut her up. “I’d want you to prove you would never go away again before I took you back.”

      Hetty blinked away moisture. “How can I do that?”

      “By going home and staying put. By not running off to your daughter’s house. It takes time to win back trust.”

      Hetty stared. “For a young man you’re very wise.”

      She started sorting again. After ten minutes she put down the receipts. “He’s got to meet me halfway. Talk to me, for a start. Listen to how I feel.”

      Rafe grunted. His calculator clicked steadily.

      Hetty’s voice flowed on.

      THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when Lexie entered an hour later. Odd. Her mother liked to chat. She’d thought Hetty would be talking Rafe’s ear off. Peering into the living room, she could see that Rafe was alone, his back to her, bent over the table. His computer sat idle.

      She dropped her purse on the hall table and kicked off her shoes. “I’m back. Where’s Mum?”

      He straightened and glanced over his shoulder, brushing a thick strand of black hair out of his eyes. “No idea. She said something but I wasn’t listening. I think she left.”

      He was working on the skeleton clock. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up over forearms smattered with dark hair. His hands were well shaped, his long fingers delicately manipulating the inner workings with a tiny screwdriver and tweezers.

      She sank into the chair next to him.

      “I replaced a spring, tightened a few things.” He sat back. From the compartment at the bottom of the base he took the small key and inserted it into the keyhole. He turned it a few times and listened.

      The clock started to tick.

      Rafe grunted with satisfaction and glanced sideways at her.

      Lexie’s eyes blurred. The clock wasn’t going to help her finish her portrait or do her taxes but it felt like the first thing that had gone right in days. Maybe weeks. “You did it.”

      As if he’d fixed her life.

      Without stopping to think she leaned over, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.