Her Perfect Life

by Hinze, Vicki

  “I’ll bet you $3.00 it’s about girls,” Molly said.

  She was likely right. Through the years, C.D. had always been charming and women had fawned over him. They still did. If Katie were a guy wanting girl advice, she’d go to C.D. “Sucker bet,” she told Molly.

  Ever curious, Molly skirted a couple beds and got closer to them.

  Jake noticed. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be working over there by Mom?”

  “I’m going.” Molly marched back toward Katie, wearing a disgusted look.

  Katie lifted her eyebrows, amused. Molly clearly didn’t much like being caught red-handed at trying to eavesdrop.

  C.D. bit back a smile, but it still shone in his eyes. And Katie felt that same sense of contentment that she always felt when the four of them were together. She took a drink of water from her bottle, then pinched herself.

  Molly had dirt smeared on her cheek. “Why do you always do that?”

  “Do what, honey?” Katie put down her spade and reached for a handful of mulch.

  “Pinch your arm. You just did it again.” Molly looked closer. “There’s three bruises on it.” Suspicion filled her eyes. “Why are you hurting yourself?”

  “I’m not,” Katie assured her.

  “You are, Mom,” Molly insisted. “Why?”

  Katie started to evade, but then thought better of it. Kids had a built-in radar on lying and Molly’s was developed more than most because of her gift. Katie wasn’t going to damage the good they had going over something that made her just a little uncomfortable to talk about out loud. “When I’m really happy, I pinch myself to make sure I’m awake,” she said. “That’s all.”

  “You’re making sure you’re not really in that prison and this isn’t a dream,” Molly expounded and clarified.

  Katie nodded.

  “Okay.” Molly accepted that and went back to the greenhouse.

  Katie watched her walk away. Sometimes, when her life was going well, it was hard to believe it was real. Oh, there were challenges, sure. Like a shortage of plywood due to the previous summer’s hurricane putting pressure on meeting the demand, and one of their key suppliers missing a delivery date. But those things were more of a nuisance than a pain. They certainly weren’t critical.

  The press had made an ordeal out of Sam and Blair’s wedding—actually, out of Katie attending Sam and Blair’s wedding—and it was an odd day at the garden center that at least one reporter didn’t show up. But they were largely respectful and some were very kind. Katie hadn’t seen the blond TV reporter who’d asked her about rape the day of the divorce hearing. She often wondered if the woman still worked for Channel 3, but didn’t care enough to look to see.

  Switching from water, she poured herself a glass of lemonade from the cooler, and sat down under an old oak. Jake and C.D. were still talking. “And men go on about women gabbing?” She muttered and sipped at the tart lemonade.

  Life was going well, and it would be even better if the nightmares would stop. But at least once a week, Katie dreamed of Ustead and his cruelties. For the past few weeks, she most often had dreamed about the night General Amid had shot and killed Ustead, and left Katie crouched on the interrogation room floor splattered in his blood.

  It was late afternoon, hot and humid, but a cold shiver raced up Katie’s spine. Maybe the nightmares would never stop. Maybe she’d always wake up in a cold sweat, shaking. Maybe it’d take the rest of her life to keep reminding herself that the ordeal was over.

  But she hoped not. Dear God, she hoped not.

  Squinting against the sun, she watched Molly working in the greenhouse, singing and planting seeds, and Jake and C.D. still in deep conversation, but now they’d moved over to the compost pile.

  That which is endured is conquered.

  She hoped the nightmares would stop. But if they didn’t, she could endure them. She could follow Judge Haines’s advice. Live well. It’s the best revenge. Because, these days, even when she was asleep and caught up in a nightmare, she was still aware of all the blessings in her life, all the good.

  Mercy had come . . . again. And again.

  And that held true in spite of her tri-weekly trips to the pier parking lot—she couldn’t call them trips to the beach, since she still hadn’t been able to make herself step onto the sand. Yet she had seen progress. This week, she’d let go of the car and made it to the edge of the asphalt parking lot. Still, that weathered and worn pier that led to the sand and on to the water’s edge…

  Well, it reminded her of a bridge to her past and, so far, she just couldn’t step onto it.

  And that she couldn’t figure out exactly why really got on her nerves.

  “My God, Katie.”

  She looked toward the voice and saw Sam.

  “Dad’s here!” Jake called to Molly. “Get your stuff.”

  C.D. started walking toward them.

  “Hi, Sam.” Katie smiled at him. “As you heard, the kids are getting their things.”

  He didn’t say a word, just stared at her, and tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” Katie stood up and dusted the grass and dirt from her bottom.

  “Nothing.” He paused and swiped at his eyes. “Sitting there… You just looked exactly as you did the very first time I saw you.” He looked bemused. “I knew then I would love you forever.”

  She smiled. “I love you, too, Sam.”

  C.D. didn’t look at Katie. He was transfixed by the raw hunger in Sam’s eyes, and infuriated by it. What exactly was the man doing?

  “Katie,” Sam said. “Honey, we need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About us.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I—I think I made a mistake.”

  C.D. wasn’t sure what to do, but he couldn’t stay put and not lay Sam out in the grass. Not just for what he was doing to Katie, but for what he was doing to Blair and the kids. The crazy, selfish jerk was flipping women again—or trying to. “Jake, tell Katie I had to go to the bar.”

  “Okay.” Jake frowned. “Are you mad at her?”

  “No, champ.” C.D. walked away. He wasn’t mad at Katie, but he was totally steamed at Sam.

  “Two bucks says he’s majorly ticked off,” Molly said.

  Jake looked at her, then at his mother and his father. His dad looked upset. Really upset. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” Molly craned her neck to see what Jake saw.

  “Dad’s sorry he divorced mom.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m not.” Jake was not happy. “Look at Dad.”

  “Oh, man.” Molly groaned from the bone out. “He’s gonna mess everything up.”

  Sam turned away from the kids, who stood staring a short distance away, hopefully out of earshot. “Katie, I blew it. Can we go back? Can we just go back and be a family again?”

  “What about Blair?” Katie asked. “Sam, I know you love her.”

  “I do, but she’s not… you.”

  “I’m not her, either,” Katie reminded him. “What has gotten into you, Sam?” Katie didn’t know what to think, how to feel. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re so interested in getting back with me again all of a sudden, but I’m going to put it down to synapse misfires in your brain. Think about it. Remember it as it really was. Good grief, Sam, the good times between you and me weren’t that good. Actually, I’d venture to say your most terrible times with Blair are better than your best times with me.”

  “How can you say that?” He shuffled, stared at her. “Katie, you can’t believe that’s true.”

  “I do believe it.” She hiked her chin. “For pity’s sake, Sam. I know it.”

  “We were happy.”

  “Yes, at times. But there’s one thing we weren’t. We’ve talked about it, Sam, and we both know it’s true.”

  “What?” He frowned. “We can fix it. If we know what’s wrong, we can fix it.”

  “No, honey, we can’t.” Katie lowere
d her voice. The last thing she wanted was for the kids to hear any of this. “I’m not in love with you, Sam. I’ve never been in love with you, and you’ve never been in love with me.” She grunted. “We care more about each other since the divorce than we ever did when we were married.” She lifted a hand. “You know it’s true.”

  He stilled. Spent a long, drawn out minute thinking about it and looked totally stunned, and then ashamed. “You’re right,” he said, as if the realization had come slowly then manifested in a crushing blow that hit him blazingly fast. “Of course, you’re right.” He looked stricken. “What am I doing? What was I thinking?”

  “Hey, you can admit you had a wickedly weak moment where the past snagged your sense, but let’s don’t trash the ex in the process of regaining our wits, okay?”

  “Okay.” He blushed and color flooded his neck and face. “I’m sorry, Katie,” he said shakily, clearly uneasy and embarrassed. “I guess it was just seeing you sitting there like that. It took me right back to the way I felt about you that day and I didn’t stop to think about anything in between. I just reacted to it.”

  “No problem.” It wasn’t. She had flashbacks all the time and understood them better than she wished. She cleared her throat. “But I wouldn’t mention it to Blair. She might not be quite as understanding.”

  “No, I’m sure she wouldn’t be.”

  Katie squinted against the sun. “You know, I should thank you.”

  “For that?”

  She nodded. “I think somewhere down deep, I wanted that to happen. I wanted to go back, but we can only go forward. I knew that in my head, but my heart wasn’t convinced. Now, it is. You’re married to the right woman, Sam.”

  “Are you going to marry C.D.?”

  She motioned for the kids to come on over. “I don’t know. He’s never been married, and I don’t think he’s much interested in that. But I’ll be with him.” She smiled. “I walk in his soul.”

  “Wow.” Sam hiked his eyebrows. “That’s good.”

  “Yeah. It makes me sappy and my heart flips every time I think it.” She sighed contentedly. “I think it a lot.”

  Molly whispered to Jake. “Two bucks says he tells Mom that as soon as we get home.”

  “Sucker bet.” Jake blew out a slow breath. “Man, I’m glad Mom didn’t let Dad mess things up. C.D. would have been nuts.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a secret, and you slip.” Jake warned her. “But you better not slip at home and tell Mom anything about what Dad said here. She’ll leave him.”

  “I swear I won’t tell.” Molly crossed her heart. “I don’t want her to ever leave.”

  Walking to the car, their voices carried back to Katie on the breeze, and she crossed her heart, too. She looked around for C.D. but he was gone. “Jake?” She called him just as he was getting into the car. “Where’s C.D.?”

  “He said to tell you he had to go to the bar.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  Jake ran back to her. “I don’t think so, Mom. He was pretty ticked off.”

  “About what?”

  “He heard what Dad told you.” Jake frowned. “I guess he thought you were going to go back to Dad.”

  “Oh, no.” Katie couldn’t believe it. “Jake, don’t you dare mention a word of this to Blair. Your dad was just—”

  “I know. He just got caught up in the moment. He didn’t mean it.”

  “Exactly.” No protecting her pride with this one.

  “C.D. was hurt, Mom. I said he was ticked, but he wasn’t. He was hurt real bad.”

  Katie nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Jake gave her a shrug. “Yeah, but will he talk to you?”

  “He might not talk, but he will listen.” God, she hoped he’d listen. She wouldn’t force him. Never again in her life would she force anything on anyone.

  “Ask him to marry you,” Jake suggested. “That’ll shock him into listening, and then you can say anything. He won’t be able to move.” Jake gave her a wide, toothy grin, then ran back to the car.

  Marry her? Would C.D. marry her?

  Katie thought about it all the way over to the bar. Half the time she decided she should ask him. All he could say was no. But if he did say no, then the odds were good it would botch what they had now, and that was as close to perfection as mortals could get. She didn’t want to mess it up or to lose it.

  The risks were astronomical.

  Oh, man. She didn’t know if she could propose to him, anyway. Marriage? With nightmares and skeletons in her closet she’d never be willing to drag out and pick bare-bone clean. How could anyone live with all that?

  But this wasn’t anyone. It was C.D. Her C.D. And he already lived with it, and he seemed to like living with it.

  She burst into the bar, short-winded from nerves not from the run from her cottage.

  He stood behind the bar, looked and saw it was her, then turned away.

  She forced herself to slow down and walk over to him. “C.D.?”

  “Yeah?” He didn’t look back, across the bar.

  “Are you upset about something?”

  “I don’t know, Katie. Should I be upset about something?”

  She tried walking around the bar to get close to him, but it was locked. Well, if you can’t go around… She backed up to the bar, hoisted herself over, and dropped down to the floor behind it next to him. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I expected as much.” His jaw ticked. “It’s okay. I heard enough to figure out what’s going on.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah.” He blinked hard and fast. “You do what you need to do, Katie. I understand.”

  Jake had been wrong. C.D. wasn’t hurt. He was devastated. He thought she was leaving him to go back to Sam, and he was devastated.

  “Marry me, C.D.”

  He went statue still. “What?”

  “Marry me,” she said again. “You love me, I love you, we’re happy. Let’s get married.”

  He glared at her. “Need a buffer between you and Sam, eh?”

  “No, I don’t.” She couldn’t blame him for thinking that. But it was really important that she straighten him out fast. “I don’t need to marry you.”

  He still didn’t turn to face her. “Then why bother?”

  She stared at his back. “I want to marry you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we love each other. It’s the next natural step.”

  He turned around and glared at her. “Do not lie to me, Katie. Not now, and never about this.”

  No grace. No mercy. Courage, Katie. Courage. “Okay, you’re right. I wasn’t being honest.”

  “Really bad time to pull that.”

  “Is there ever a good time?”

  “No, but some times are worse than others.” He pulled a beer out of the cooler and popped the top. “This is very bad time.”

  She stepped closer, took the bottle of beer from his hand and put it on the bar beside the gold plaque dedicated to her memory. “Marry me because I’m in love with you, C.D. Marry me because the idea of not marrying me makes you miserable. Marry me because you know that you walk forever in my soul, too. Sam was right. I’ve always been in love with you. Always. I just didn’t know it because I’ve never in my life felt that way about another man—not even the one I married. I love you, C.D. I want to live with you the rest of my life. Marry me.”

  “I’ve already promised to be with you until my last breath,” he reminded her.

  She looked up at him and searched his eyes. His anger was fading, yet the tension in him still had him coiled. “So it’s marriage you’re opposing, not marriage to me, right?”

  “I haven’t opposed anything,” he corrected her, then put his hands on her shoulders. “I just don’t think you’re ready, Angel.”

  “Because…”

  He kissed the worry from her face. “I’ll tell you
what. The day you walk on the sand, I’ll know you’re ready, and I swear, Katie, I’ll be waiting.” He let his thumb slide along her jaw. “For me, that day can’t come soon enough.”

  She thought about what he’d said for a long time. “You know, I hate it when you’re right, C.D.”

  He smiled. “I know.”

  “You thought I was going to leave you for Sam.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Never happen.” She kissed him, then turned to walk away. “I’m going to the cottage.”

  Wearing his relief, he nodded. “You need to think.”

  “Quit doing that.”

  “What?”

  “Telling me what I’m getting ready to tell you.” She groused. “Between you and Molly, someone’s always in my head.”

  “Sorry.” He grabbed her back and hugged her. “I’ll give you some time, then come and answer your questions.”

  “What questions?” She didn’t have any questions.

  He winked.

  Katie started to complain, but saved her breath. If it turned out he was right, it’d be that many fewer words she’d have to eat.

  Katie showered, scrubbing off the grime. Then she shampooed and conditioned her hair, and then shaved her legs. “You’re dawdling,” she told herself. “You could have been finished with all this fifteen minutes ago. You’re avoiding thinking, messing around with busy stuff.”

  She put the razor back in its little holder attached to the marble shower wall. “Either you want to think, or you don’t,” she told herself. “So which is it?”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she let the water flowing through the showerhead beat down on her back. “I’m losing it. C.D. must be right because I’m now not only refusing to think, I’m blistering my own ears for refusing to think.”

  She rinsed off the last of the cotton-scented shower gel and grabbed a towel, then dried off. “He thinks you’ve got questions. You’ve got no questions.”

  Why did he pull out the Lotus the day of the divorce hearing?

  What difference could that possibly make? She slathered lotion onto her skin. It made no difference to her, but it must have meant something to him. He said he preferred driving the Hummer, so why did he choose to drive the Lotus that particular day? He hadn’t driven it once before or since.