One Last Weekend Read Free

past her, retracing the route to the kitchen.
    â€œTwenty-five pounds, Joanna?” he asked. “We’re spending the weekend, not burrowing in for the winter!”
    â€œI might stay,” she heard herself say. “Start that novel I’ve been wanting to write.”
    The dog-food bag thunked to the kitchen floor, and Teague appeared in the doorway. For the first time, Joanna noticed that he’d exchanged his suit for jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. In those clothes, with his hair damp and curling around his ears, he looked younger, more like the Teague Darby she’d known and loved.
    â€œWe agreed to sell the cottage,” he reminded her.
    â€œNo,” Joanna said mildly, “we didn’t agree. You said we should sell it and split the proceeds, and I said I wasn’t so sure. I think Sammy and I could be very happy here.” She looked down at the dog. His fur was curling, too, just like Teague’s hair, and he seemed so pathetically happy to be home.
    â€œNot that again,” Teague said.
    â€œYou travel a lot,” Joanna pointed out. “He’d be with me most of the time anyway.”
    Some of the tension in Teague’s shoulders eased. “Maybe I’d like to live here,” he said. “I could build my boat.”
    â€œYou’ll never build that boat,” Joanna said.
    â€œYou’ll never write a novel,” Teague retorted, “so I guess we’re even.”
    Sammy made a soft, mournful sound.
    â€œLet’s not argue,” Joanna said. “We ought to be able to be civil to each other for a weekend.”
    â€œCivil,” Teague replied. “We ought to be able to manage that. We’ve been ‘civil’ for months—when we’ve spoken at all.”
    Joanna felt cold, even though she was standing close to a blazing fire. She turned her head so Teague wouldn’t see the tears that sprang to her eyes.
    â€œChange your clothes, Joanna,” Teague said after a long time, and much more gently. “You’ll catch your death if you don’t.”
    She nodded without looking at him and scurried into their bedroom.
    Her wardrobe choices were limited, but she found a set of gray sweats and pulled them on. When she got to the kitchen, Teague had already opened a bottle of wine and busied himself making salad. Sammy was crunching away on a large serving of kibble.
    Outside, the wind howled off the nearby water, and the lights flickered as Teague poured wine for them both—a Sauvignon Blanc, to complement the lobster topping their salads.
    â€œI didn’t know you still wanted to write a novel,” Teague said.
    â€œI didn’t know you still wanted to build a boat,” Joanna replied. She sat down at the table, and Teague took his usual place directly across from her.
    â€œWhy a novel?” Teague asked thoughtfully. “Your cookbooks are best-sellers—you were even offered your own show on the Food Network.”
    â€œWhy build a boat?” Joanna inquired, taking a sip of her wine. “You can certainly afford to buy one.”
    â€œI asked you first,” Teague said, watching her over the rim of his wineglass. She wondered what he was thinking—that she ought to get a face-lift? Maybe have some lipo?
    Her spine stiffened. “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” she said. Weren’t you listening at all, back when we used to talk about our dreams? “And this cottage would be the perfect place to do it.”
    â€œIt would also be the perfect place to build a boat.”
    The lights went out, then flared on again.
    Thunder rolled over the roof.
    Sammy went right on crunching his kibble. He’d never been afraid of storms.
    â€œRemember how Caitlin used to squirm under the blankets with us in the middle of the night when the weather was like this?” Teague asked. He’d set down his wineglass and taken up his fork, but it was suspended