“Hi, honey!” I said. “Do you want some chicken stew and biscuits?” I’d popped some biscuits into the oven before my shower and I could smell the buttery scent through the house.
I leaned up and gave him a kiss. He turned at the last moment. His face was ruddy, almost looked windburned, his cheeks cold under my lips. I stepped back, startled.
“Where’s your car?” he said.
“It broke down. I tried to call you. Bob Irvine drove me home.”
“You should’ve called a cab.”
“I didn’t think about it. He offered, and—”
“You’re my wife, carrying my child. Do you know how this looks?”
I didn’t understand what was wrong. I thought he liked Bob Irvine. “I was careful. I didn’t stress out the baby or anything.”
“God, for a smart girl you can be really stupid sometimes, Lindsey.”
My mouth opened, the pain so quick and sharp under my ribs it was as though the baby had kicked me, but she hadn’t moved. “That’s really mean.” My cheeks felt hot as I remembered all the mistakes I’d made lately. Was this what he really thought of me?
He pushed past me in the hallway, almost knocking me into the wall, and I caught the smell of whiskey. But that couldn’t be right—he was working all day. I hesitated, then followed him into the kitchen, watched as he took a beer out of the fridge. His balance was unsteady.
“Have you been drinking?” He liked to go to the pub after work with his crew if they’d had a hard day—and he’d had a lot of them recently—but he didn’t have more than two beers and always called and checked that I was okay first.
He turned around, opened the can. “I never want to see you getting out of another man’s truck again. I saw the way you smiled at him, your flirty little good-bye.”
“Were you watching me?” I hadn’t seen his truck in the driveway or on the road. Maybe he’d come home early, then left again. But why would he do that?
“You’ve had too many kilometers on your car. Where have you been going every day?”
“Sometimes I just drive around. I get bored.” Andrew had asked me about my day before, liked to hear everything I did and who I saw, but I thought he was just interested. I had no idea he’d been checking my kilometers. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t right, but the look on his face was scaring me, the way he was leaning against the counter, his hands gripping the edge.
“You had lunch with Samantha at the pub yesterday.”
He looked so angry, almost accusing. I was starting to get upset too. I didn’t like being spoken to this way, didn’t like feeling as if I was in trouble—and didn’t even know why.
“I told you we had lunch.” I rarely saw my friends anymore. Most of them were in college, or moved away with boyfriends, and Andrew didn’t seem to like the ones who’d stayed in town. When Samantha called, I’d jumped at the chance to meet with a girlfriend and chat.
“You didn’t mention it was at a bar, Lindsey. You’re about to be a mother.”
“I wasn’t drinking. I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”
“Peter’s wife used to go to the pub too.” He was holding my gaze steady. “You remember what happened to her.” Peter was one of his workers. One I didn’t particularly like. I usually avoided him when I came to the job site. He’d caught his wife cheating and divorced her, got the kids and the house. I couldn’t believe Andrew didn’t trust me. How could he threaten me like this?
“I would never cheat on you, Andrew.”
“You better not.” He took a long swallow of his beer, still holding eye contact.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you don’t get rides with other men.”
My pulse was racing. I’d seen Andrew get frustrated, seen him come home in bad moods where he went into his office for hours or sat and stared at the TV, but he’d never been cruel or vindictive. I felt as though a stranger had walked into our house.
“Maybe I should stay at my parents’s tonight.”
“You’re not going anywhere. The roads are bad.”
The baby was shifting and rolling. I imagined my heartbeat, how loud it must be. Stress was bad. I had to stay calm. I curved my hand over my belly. Shush, little baby. Shush.
Andrew’s gaze was focused on my stomach. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Lindsey. You need to be more careful. I don’t want anything to happen to the baby, understand?”
No. That wasn’t what he was saying at all. I saw it in his face. The warning. He wasn’t just threatening that he might divorce me. This was a threat of something far more serious. Something I couldn’t even fathom, but it was thick and dark and dangerous.