Chapter Twenty-One

Get in Out of the Rain

When Elizabeth pulled into her garage, Mark was standing outside her front door, dripping wet and looking livid.

She didn’t need any of his attitude. Not after the trip she’d just had from the gallery opening. The sky was shedding rain in torrents, and her windshield wipers couldn’t move fast enough to deal with the low visibility. Her car had swerved and skidded across the highway, threatened with flying objects that just missed crashing into her vehicle by inches.

The radio announcer was scaring the shit out of her, calling for all beach residents to evacuate in the path of one of the most dangerous hurricanes Jacksonville had ever experienced. Well, it was too late for her to board up or flee from the hurricane or from Mark’s anger. She was going to have to take her chances and face them both.

“Where have you been, Bitsy? You kept me waiting long enough,” Mark called out. “You forgot to give me the key. You said you wanted to talk, so here I am.”

“Let’s get in out of the rain,” Bitsy suggested, annoyed.

Mark followed Elizabeth into the garage, and they rushed into the house together before she had a chance to shut the garage door.

“I was a little preoccupied,” Bitsy explained. “I had to close the gallery and put the checks in the safe. We got scads of money, darling. This was the most profitable night I’ve had since I opened Diamond’s.”

“I don’t care about your gallery,” Mark snapped. “I want to make it perfectly clear that it’s over between us. I tried to tell you at the gallery, but you were too busy falling all over the homeless lawn man.”

“I don’t even care if he is homeless. I don’t care if he lives in a clam shell. He’s my gravy ticket.”

“What you do with your life is no longer my concern. This relationship is over. I have a family to think about. I thought I’d give you the courtesy of telling you in person. I feel I owe you that much. Now I have to go home to my wife.”

“Darling,” Bitsy said, her voice level but her anger rising with each breath, “you know you don’t mean that. I’m not ready for this relationship to end. Here, let me get you out of those wet clothes.”