Love Rents A Room
Chapter 181: The Passage Of Time

Chapter 181: The Passage Of Time

Joanne’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. "No. You can’t."

The clerk blinked. "Can’t?"

Joanne’s eyes stayed on the parcel. "Can you name the cost of a broken heart?"

The clerk didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

Joanne slid the parcel across the counter. The moment it left her fingers, she felt the loss—like a string inside her had been severed. A whisper inside her screamed to take it back. Hold on. Just one more day. What if he comes?

But she didn’t move.

This was for the best. For her sanity. For his future. For the life he had chosen. For the child that was his now.

She took a step back. Then another.

And then she turned.

She didn’t look back.

Not this time.

She let out a deep breath, stepping out. The wind had turned cold. Fall was approaching.

Another winter... alone...

She could only sigh. After all, she was used to being alone.

-----

The days turned. Slowly, gently. The world didn’t end, though it had felt like it might.

Autumn deepened into a blaze of copper and gold, the air crisp and biting, curling around her coat collar as she walked between the barn and the house. Her breath was visible in the mornings, her hands always cold despite the gloves. The trees stood tall in their fiery cloaks, only to strip themselves bare by November. The wind whistled sharper now, hinting at the long, unforgiving winter ahead.

And Joanne endured.

Some days were easier than others. On some, she laughed without guilt. On others, she’d catch herself staring at the driveway, waiting for headlights that would never come.

It came in waves.

Sometimes, the grief was gentle, a memory brushing against her like wind against a curtain. Other times, it knocked her down. A smell. A song. A shadow in the window at dusk. It was always him. Still him.

She’d lie awake some nights, Fluffy curled beside her, one hand pressed flat against the sheets beside her as though holding space for the man who once filled it.

But she didn’t break.

She worked.

Shamrock Logistics was growing—fast, efficiently, profitably. The contracts she’d secured before summer paid off. More employees joined. Her decisions mattered. People looked to her for answers, and she gave them.

The farm thrived, too. Her hands were always busy—repairing fences, checking livestock, organizing deliveries. The rhythm of rural life pulsed steady beneath her, and she found comfort in its honesty.

No deceit in a frostbitten leaf. No betrayal in the stubborn soil.

That morning, she sat in the kitchen in her wool socks, a chipped mug of tea in her hands, steam curling into the quiet. She opened her laptop and did what she found herself doing more often than she liked to admit. She checked the news on Winchester Logistics.

It wasn’t entirely out of her unwavering love for Philip Winchester—though she did love him, in that quiet, unshakable way. He called her often. They spoke of stocks and management, of the expansion of Winchester Logistics in East Asia, of Shamrock’s numbers. But never of Jeffrey.

They both avoided that name like a blade at their throats.

Still, she looked.

The truth was, she wanted to see how Jeffrey was handling the company. The company that was built from the ground up by Philip Winchester—a towering figure who had crafted a logistics empire with vision, grit, and sheer will. That legacy now lay in Jeffrey’s hands.

To Joanne, that meant something.

She’d watch the way he handled crises, how he made strategic shifts, how he restructured. It wasn’t obsession. It was... care. Silent care. Distant pride, maybe. And a foolish, aching love that refused to die.

A week before, she’d received a package in the mail—a hand-knitted sweater from Christina Winchester. It was made from the wool Joanne had gifted her back in summer. She remembered Jeffrey telling her once, in that offhand, nostalgic tone of his, that his grandmother knitted sweaters for all the grandchildren each Christmas.

And now—there was one for her.

She sat there for a long while, fingers tracing the ribbed cuffs, eyes blurry. She didn’t know what to make of it. A gesture of inclusion? A remnant of the life she almost had? Either way, she was honored. Touched, in ways she couldn’t quite voice.

Outside, the air was sharp. Bitter winds swept through the land, and frost clung to the barn doors. It was January now.

Her life was full, but not whole.

Fiona’s due date approached, and she was busy preparing things in town to help Liam and Fiona when the time came. There was excitement of new life and new beginnings stunned her with awe. She had felt the kicks of the baby and it was miracles like that grounded her to reality.

But at times, it stood in stark contrast to the stillness in her own heart.

She missed him.

God, she missed him.

But she also stood on her own two feet. She kept the heat running, the animals fed, her team in check, her books balanced.

When Liam grumbled about her not sleeping enough, she smiled and said, "I will. Just not today."

Joanne still wore the coat Jeffrey once complimented. She still kept the four leaf clover he gave her, pressed in a book on the kitchen shelf. But she no longer waited by the window.

He had made a choice.

And so had she.

She chose to survive. To keep breathing, even when it hurt. To keep loving him, quietly, without hope or expectation. And to keep living.

Because life, despite everything, went on.

Even without him in it.

Lately, Joanne had been noticing something.

It had started subtly—just a few tremors under the surface. But now, the pattern was hard to ignore. Winchester Logistics was moving in a direction she couldn’t predict.

She followed the numbers. She always did. Stock performance. Freight capacity reports. Changes in executive leadership. And it was all... off.

The first real red flag came in December. The company had announced a major acquisition—an aging regional freight company on the West Coast with declining revenue and mounting debt. Joanne remembered staring at the press release, reading it twice.

Why would they acquire a legacy fleet known for compliance violations and outdated infrastructure, just when fuel prices were spiking and demand was volatile?

The board called it "a strategic move to consolidate market presence in the western corridor." But to Joanne, it looked more like a vanity project—or worse, a blind gamble.

That was the beginning.

Then came the strange shuffle in the C-suite.

Heather.

Heather—the mother of his child—was taking on a leadership role. Chief Strategy Officer, they said. Publicly, the appointment was framed as forward-thinking and fresh: "a new generation of strategic vision." But anyone who’d worked in logistics could see the red flags. Heather had no background in supply chain management, procurement, fleet operations—nothing.

What kind of strategy could she bring?

And the strangest part was... no one was stopping it. Not Philip. Not the shareholders. And certainly not Jeffrey.

Why?

Was he that in love? Or that distracted?