Ellie Monroe's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Chris stopped on the porch step and looked back at her. Rain ran off the gutter behind him. Ellie stood in the doorway of her ruined manor, scarf wrung out in her hands, and waited for him to laugh at the question. He didn't. "Spare room," he said. He rubbed his jaw. "I've got one. Down by the lake. It's small." "Small is dry," Ellie said. "Dry is all I want tonight." He nodded and waved her toward his truck. She grabbed her swollen notebook and her broken suitcase, the twine already loose again. Chris took the suitcase from her without asking. He carried it like it weighed nothing. His cabin sat at the water's edge. It was tiny, with a steep shingled roof and a little chimney puffing smoke. A porch wrapped the front. Warm light glowed in the windows. After weeks of tarps and open beams, the sight of a whole, tight roof made Ellie's throat ache. "It's not much," Chris said, pushing the door open. "It's perfect," she said, and meant it. Inside, the air was warm and smelled of cut cedar. He set her suitcase down and lit a lamp. The spare room held a narrow bed, a small desk, a wool blanket folded at the foot. Ellie touched the blanket. Dry. Every inch of it dry. "Thank you," she said. "I mean it. I don't say that to strangers." "I'm not much of a stranger now." He leaned on the doorframe. "You held my ladder in the rain. That counts." She laughed, tired and real. Then she sat on the edge of the bed and opened her ruined notebook. The pages had dried stiff and curled. Her romance draft was gone, the ink bled into gray clouds. Chris saw her face fall. "That your book?" "It was." He left and came back with a fresh notebook, plain and cheap, and a pencil. "Desk's yours while you're here. Write it again. You'll remember the good parts." Ellie took it. The kindness landed harder than the cold had. She looked at this handyman who fixed roofs and handed strangers blank pages, and something shifted in her chest she didn't want to name yet. "About the roof," Chris said at the door. "You've got maybe two weeks. I'll draw up what a real rebuild needs tomorrow. Wood, hands, cost." He paused. "You should know now. It's more than you think." "How much more?" "Enough that we'll both have to get creative." He said it plainly. Then he wished her goodnight and shut the door. Ellie lay back on the dry bed and listened to the lake instead of the rain. She was safe tonight. But tomorrow a number was coming, one she couldn't pay, and the man who'd saved her would be the one to say it out loud.