Free Do Not Disturb by Christie Ridgway Page A

happened?” she whispered.
    Judd shook his head, taking a long, assessing look at her. Beth’s face was pale and her skin appeared tightly stretched across her cheekbones. But even obviously exhausted, she looked a decade younger than thirty-four. He’d always wondered if her glow was the result of the sea air or the spell of Stephen Whitney.
    After a moment she sighed, then set the cat on the floor and dropped into her chair. She doctored her coffee with a generous dollop of cream, and then pushed the pitcher toward Judd, as she always did.
    He ignored it, as he always did.
    She laughed, the sound forced. “Why do I always do that? I know you drink yours black.”
    He decided against pointing out the obvious—that it was Stephen who took his coffee with cream.
    Before he could even take a sip from his mug, she popped up from her chair. “I have a million things to do. List upon list. Look!”
    She hurried over to the counter to grab a sheaf of papers, her movements jerky. “But I suppose it will be good to keep busy, don’t you think? Lainey says Cooper will help her with Stephen’s personal things—they’ll do that as soon as Katie goes back to school. I said I’d take care of the art show and I’m sure it will be twice as much trouble to cancel as it was to put it on.”
    Judd nodded. Each September, Whitney showed his year’s worth of paintings. But those canvases had been burned and, yesterday, the ashes thrown into the sea.
    Beth frowned down at the papers in her hand, chattering away in a manner totally unlike herself. “This would have been the twentieth year. We only canceled it one other time, when there was a wildfire in the Lucias and everyone in the area was forced to evacuate. Lainey was six months along with Katie and I…I wasn’t well.”
    She whirled back to the counter. “But you don’t want to hear about all that. Excuse me, excuse me a moment.” With that, she threw down the papers and disappeared from the kitchen. He heard the bathroom door slam shut.
    Staring after her, Judd rose from his chair. Damn it ! What was he supposed to do now? Go to her? Leave?
    It flooded him then, a hot rush of the kind of frustration he hadn’t felt in years. His fists clenched, and he struck out with his foot, kicking the leg of his empty chair. It skidded wildy across the floor…and did nothing to calm his mood.
    Damn, damn, damn it! Already he was losing what he’d worked so hard for.
    His mornings with Beth, more important Beth herself, had become integral to the life he’d built for himself here. She was part of the cure that had healed his soul, she was part of the balance he’d finally found with the universe. He’d accepted that the artist’s death would upset that equilibrium some, but he wasn’t prepared for things to change with Beth.
    He’d been so content with how it was between them.
    At the back of the house, he heard the door reopen. Beth’s footsteps were usually light and steady, but now they dragged—as if grief, or maybe Stephen, were holding her back. The sound pulled at him—no, it tore at him—and he started for the door. He needed to get away, he thought with sudden anxiety. He needed to do anything but witness the misery on her face.
    Maybe through some meditation he could recover—
    â€œJudd. Judd, please. Please, don’t go.”
    Her voice stopped him before he made it out of the kitchen. He gripped the doorjamb, struggling with himself. He’d miscalculated her readiness to get back to normal, that’s all. If he went away now, if he came back another day, a later day, then they’d be able to regain their comfortable harmony.
    â€œJudd, please,” she whispered.
    But he couldn’t leave her, not when she said his name like that.
    He turned. From across the kitchen, she was looking at him, her eyelashes spiky and wet. She was so