by Ann Charles
“I’m okay.” I opted not to tell her about my trip to the police station right before her date or anything about the albino that had me jumping at shadows. I’d catch her up when she wasn’t about to go enjoy an evening off from me and my problems.
“It’s time for life to go on now,” I added.
She squeezed my shoulder. “Jane would want that from us.”
I nodded, wondering if I should give Mona a call to see how she was doing or leave her be for the night. Her sobs when she’d first heard the news of Jane’s death last week still echoed in my head and tore at my heart.
“The kids are upstairs playing Yahtzee,” Aunt Zoe said. “Have a fun night.”
“You, too.” I followed her to the front door and closed it behind her.
I shucked my shoes and climbed the stairs, following the sound of kids giggling to my bedroom. There, both Addy and Layne sat on the wood floor playing the dice game.
“Why are you two in my room?”
Layne didn’t even look up. “It’s more fun to dump the dice on your floor than our carpet.”
Addy smiled at me, her jaw working the bubble gum in her mouth. “Hi, Mama. Did you have fun at your friend’s party?”
I hadn’t told my kids yet about Jane’s death, so I’d lied about her service, telling them instead that I had a fancy dress party to attend for work.
There were times in life I scared my kids with the truth, especially when it came to chasing a ball into a busy street or getting their hands too close to moving ranch machinery. But the murder of my boss wasn’t one of those truth-needed moments.
“The party was okay,” I told them while tossing my shoes in the closet, frowning at a couple of small chicken feathers floating about in there. “I’m glad to be home with you two, though.”
Layne eyed my dress. “You look really pretty, Mom.”
“Thanks, sweetie. I love you, too.”
“Did you go to the party with a man?” he asked, feigning disinterest.
Layne had male-replacement issues, as in he feared that allowing another man to come into my life would erase my need for him. No matter how many times I tried to explain how incorrect that whole notion was, he couldn’t shake his dislike for any guy who took more than a casual interest in me.
This was one reason I was being so careful with Doc. At the moment, Layne viewed Doc as my friend and was beginning to warm up to him. If he found out in this early stage of their friendship that Doc was my boyfriend—that word still made me grin like an idiot—the temperature between them would drop to freezing overnight.
“I went to the party with Mr. Harvey.”
Layne admired Harvey for his worm catching abilities. Plus, with our age difference, Harvey was no threat.
I walked over to my dresser and grabbed a pink knit shirt and some yoga pants from my drawer. I had a while until Doc would show up on my doorstep, since he said he’d be working late down by Mount Rushmore, so no need to dress up to bake a frozen pizza.
“You should leave that dress on for dinner tonight, Mom,” Addy said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Please. You look so beautiful in it.”
“Thank you, Addy, but I’m not wearing this dress all night. I’m going to take a quick shower; then I’ll throw something together for dinner.”
“Will you make my favorite?” Addy asked.
“Lasagna?”
She nodded.
“That will take too long.” And a lot more work than I was willing to put into dinner. “How about a frozen pizza instead?”
“Maybe I could help you with the lasagna.”
“Are you even listening to me, Adelynn? And where are your glasses? You’re supposed to be wearing them all of the time.” As much as they’d cost, I wanted to see them on her face 24/7.
“They hurt my ears.”
“That’s because you’re not wearing them enough. You better have them on when I get back.” I ignored her protests and headed for the bathroom. “I’ll be done shortly. Stay out of trouble.”
There was something about death that made me need to wash my hair. I scrubbed shampoo into it twice and conditioned the hell out of my barely manageable curls. In the post-shower steam, I threw on my shirt and yoga pants and combed my fingers through my wet mophead. I had a couple of hours to get gussied up for Doc.
The doorbell rang as if it’d heard me.
I froze, staring at the steamed up mirror. Crud! Doc was early.
“I’ll get it, Mom,” Addy called. I could hear her feet pounding down the stairs.
As I dug through my makeup drawer for some quick fixes, I heard the front door shut then the sound of a deep voice opposite Addy’s excited tone.
I raced to my bedroom and kicked Layne out, telling him to go downstairs and help his sister entertain our company, and closed the door behind him. One look at my curls in the mirror and I squawked. I had some serious work to do taming my outer shrew with very little time to make it happen.
Fifteen minutes later, I cruised downstairs, my heart beating fast for fear that my children had somehow scared Doc off. With his being a bachelor for decades, his daily lifestyle didn’t include sticky floors, dirty finger smudges, and chicken feathers.
The sound of Addy’s giggles coming from the kitchen lit a flame of hope in my chest.
I took a deep breath and then breezed into the kitchen, only to slam to a stop at the sight of Jeff Wymonds sitting at a candlelit kitchen table. And by candlelit, I meant there was just a single candle sitting there flickering in the bright room—no plates set, no silverware lined up, nothing.
“What’s with the candle?” I asked. If he said the word séance, I was going back up to my room and barring the door.
Jeff leaned back in the kitchen chair and eyed me up and down, getting stuck in the down position, as usual. Jeff was a hips and butt kind of guy, which made me wonder if he used to be a dog in his past life.
Finally his eyes returned northward. “You look hot with your hair all gelled like that, Violet Parker.”
The ex-high school football player couldn’t seem to get through his blond head that my name was just Violet, not a hyphenated name that rolled all together. Personally, I thought he’d taken too many hits to the noggin on the playing field, but he was nice underneath the bravado, and he loved his kids, so I put up with his lack of social graces.
“Thanks for inviting me over for dinner,” he said.
What? I turned to my matchmaking daughter, my mother glare on HIGH. So that’s why she wanted me to keep wearing my black dress.
Addy avoided my laser beams, stirring something in a big pot on the stove with her arm that was cast-free as of last week. As happy as I was to see her rebuilding her strength in the arm she’d broken back in July, I was less than thrilled with her motivation.
“What are we having tonight, Adelynn Renee?” I used her full name as I always did when she was in trouble. At least she was wearing her glasses now.
“Spaghetti,” she said while she stirred.
I walked over and peeked in the pot.
“Honey, you need to heat the water before putting the noodles in. Here, let me finish.” I nudged her aside.
The last thing I wanted to do tonight was listen to Jeff complain about his soon-to-be-ex wife who’d left him for another woman, or try to lure me out of my pants using his redneck-style bait—much of which revolved around how huge his tires were. But I couldn’t be rude to a man who also happened to be a client, so I decided to rush through this one-course dinner and kick Jeff out of here before Doc made it back from his client’s place.
“What did the insurance company say about your garage?” I asked him.
“They’re going to pay for a new roof.”
“Good.” Jeff’s garage roof had been a casualty at my first open house. The fire department had a nickname for me, too, now—”Four-Alarm Parker.”
“At least the bitch kept the insurance bills paid up. She killed
our credit, though.”
There was the ex-wife crack. I chose to ignore it. “Good. We can promote a new garage roof on the listing.”
I glanced out the back window at Addy, Layne, and Kelly, Jeff’s daughter and Addy’s best friend. The three of them were lying on the ground staring up at the sky. I envied their lack of worries about jobs, money, and killer albinos.
Addy’s attempts to get me together with Jeff stemmed from her desire to have a sister, and Kelly could provide instant sisterhood without any messy babies. While she had a good idea with avoiding those messy babies, she just didn’t understand that there was more to living with Jeff than her having a permanent slumber party pal. Someone had to cook his dinner and play dutiful wife: I burned most everything that couldn’t be microwaved and I had authority issues. Sex with him was out of the question, no matter how drunk I got.
“Did I tell you that the bitch wants alimony? Can you believe that shit?”
His sticky situation with his ex-wife was yet another reason I had no desire to hook up with him.
“That really sucks, Jeff. Maybe we can get your house sold soon and you can throw some money at her to see if that satisfies her.”
“She’ll never be satisfied. I knew that from the start, but she had such a cute ass in her cheerleading outfit.”
And we were back to butts. I switched to talking about the weather while the spaghetti cooked.
I was carting the pot to the sink when the doorbell rang again.
It was too early for Doc, so that was probably Harvey. He must have seen Jeff’s car in the drive when he stopped over at his girlfriend’s, Miss Geary, our sultry neighborhood sexpot.
Harvey knew all about Jeff Wymonds and his preference for butts. He probably came to watch me dodge and weave Jeff’s hands.
“Will you get that, Jeff?” I asked, not wanting to stop pouring.
“Sure.” He disappeared through the kitchen archway.
I heard the sound of footfalls returning as I put the empty pot in the sink and reached for Aunt Zoe’s homemade spaghetti bowl.
“Maybe you could help me with some money problems I’m having thanks to the bitch I’m divorcing,” I heard Jeff say.
Was he really going to borrow money from Harvey? My inner Realtor perked up. How much cash was Harvey supposed to receive from that uncle with the mule? Enough to buy a place in town and worry about selling the ranch later?
I grabbed the bowl from up high and pulled it toward the shelf edge. A big plate next to it teetered, threatening to come down on my head.
“Yikes,” I said, trying not to drop the spaghetti bowl while stopping the plate from falling.
“Here,” Doc said, catching the plate.
Doc? I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Let me help.” He took the bowl from my hands.
I looked up into his dark eyes, unable to read his reaction to Jeff greeting him at my door. “Hi, Doc.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything by stopping by.”
“Well, I … uh … Addy …” I trailed off, wanting to tell Doc the truth but not wanting to hurt Jeff’s feelings.
“Violet and I are celebrating some good news of mine with a dinner date,” Jeff explained to Doc.
Shit.
“A date.” Doc’s focus shifted from Jeff, to the candle on the table, to me. “How romantic.”
Chapter Four
Over the years, one of my problems with having potential and actual boyfriends was that they tended to show up at the worst possible moments.
Like when that boy from my Music of the Ages college class caught me in bed next to his nearly naked Australian roommate, who’d invited me over to blow on his didgeridoo.
Or when that cute parole officer from my mom’s bicycle club pedaled by while I was being handcuffed alongside a Pennington County Sheriff’s SUV.
Or when Doc stopped by the house while I was making a candlelit dinner for an oversexed, wanna-be baby-daddy in my aunt’s kitchen.
My track record with men had a lot of crashes and burns. As I stood there trying to gauge Doc’s reaction to my situation, I crossed my fingers that tonight wouldn’t end with any hearts exploding into pieces. Especially mine.
“It’s not really a dinner date,” I explained. “More of a celebration meal.” Without looking at Jeff, I added, “Will you join us?”
When that didn’t make any cracks in Doc’s stony expression, I took the plate and bowl back from him and set them on the counter. Then I grabbed a stack of plates from the cupboard and handed them to him. “Please set the table.”
Without giving him a chance to refuse, I took the spaghetti bowl over to the stove.
The screen door crashed open and two bundles of energy in the form of little girls shot inside.
“Dad,” Kelly ran up to Jeff, her eyes wide, matching her smile. “Look what Addy found.”
Addy followed on her heels, holding something cupped in her hands.
Jeff gave the two his full attention. “What do you have there, Addy-girl?”
I joined the trio to see what my daughter had in her hands. Addy wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up, and her usual “finds” were not allowed in the kitchen—Elvis the chicken included.
Addy opened her hands a crack and a squeak came from inside.
I jumped back. “No! Take it outside.”
“Mom, you didn’t even see it.”
“I don’t care.” I pointed at the back door, where Layne stood frowning back and forth between Jeff and Doc. “That thing squeaks. It does not belong in this house. Outside now, Adelynn Renee.”
Jeff cupped his hands around Addy’s. “Come on, Addy-girl, let’s take it out back and see if we can find something to put it in.”
They walked together toward the back door. Layne moved out of the way to let the trio go by.
“Supper’s almost ready,” I called as the screen door closed behind them.
I glanced over at Doc and caught him frowning at the chair where Jeff had been a moment before. I could only imagine what he was thinking, and nothing I came up with helped my cause.
“Mom,” Layne said. “I think I need a bandage.” He raised his knee for me to see.
A scrape above his shin oozed blood between a smudge of dirt and a couple pieces of grass.
“Oh, honey, are you okay?” My knees popped as I squatted before him to inspect it.
“Mom, I’m fine.” His face darkened as he looked over at Doc. “Don’t treat me like a baby. I just need something to stop the bleeding.”
“You also need to clean it first. Go upstairs to the bathroom. I’ll be right there.”
Layne avoided making eye contact with Doc as he passed.
I stood and turned back to Doc, who now watched Jeff and the girls out the window, the crease still in place between his brows.
I opened my mouth to apologize for Jeff, Addy’s critter, Layne’s stiffness, and anything else I could throw in to smooth things over, but Doc spoke first. “He’s really good with kids.”
“Jeff?” At Doc’s nod, I continued, “He’d better be; he has two of his own.”
Doc looked over at me, his gaze guarded. “He’s really good with your kids.”
His comment hung between us, my brain picking up on the undercurrents rolling off him. I needed to tiptoe through this field of land mines.
“Jeff does okay,” I said, “especially with Addy, since she’s into the same things as Kelly. Plus, we take turns babysitting.”
“Mom! Are you coming or not?” Layne hollered from upstairs.
“One minute,” I called back. “Listen, Doc, this whole thing with—”
“Mom, I got blood on Aunt Zoe’s shower curtain.”
Crap! She’d just bought that one last week.
I touched Doc’s arm, wishing he would wrap it around me and tell me everything was fine and dandy. “I’ll be right back.”
Upstairs, Layne sat on the sink counter swinging his legs, thumping
the cupboards with his heels.
“Layne, stop kicking. You’re getting dirt on the cupboard doors.” I pulled open the drawer where Aunt Zoe kept her first aid supplies. “Here,” I tossed him an old rag. “Get this wet.”
“Why is he here?”
I faked nonchalance, wondering if Layne had picked up on the vibes between Doc and me. “Who?”
“Jeff.”
Whew! “Addy asked Kelly and him to join us for dinner.”
“He always stares at your butt.”
Tell me about it. I took the washrag and dabbed at his knee. “He’s probably just checking for chicken feathers. You know how Elvis is always roosting on my stuff.”
“I don’t think so, Mom. I think he wants to have a baby with you.”
That stopped me mid-dab. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Addy says you’re going to let her name the baby.”
Wow. I grabbed the counter to ground myself. After raising two kids on my own, just thinking about having a baby made me feel like jumping out the bathroom window, shimmying down the ivy lattice, and running for the hills … well, deeper into them anyway.
Apparently, the previous talk I’d had with Addy on the subject of Jeff and me and matrimony had bounced right off her bubble-gum-filled brain.
“Layne, I’m not going to have a baby with Jeff.” Cross my heart and hope to die.
“Are you gonna have one with Doc?”
“No.” I’d learned my lesson about having kids with hot guys who had relationship issues, and while Doc showed potential for a long-term plan, he’d left his last girlfriend as soon as she’d brought up marriage.
“Why is he here then?”
I returned to dabbing and cleaning. “Layne, there is something that you need to understand. I have friends who are boys, just like I have friends who are girls.”
“So Kelly’s dad is just your friend?”
“Yes.”
“And Doc is, too?”
No. I hesitated. Lying outright to my son about Doc weighed heavy on my conscience for multiple reasons, especially when I expected the truth from Layne in return.
“Doc is a really good friend.” I hoped that would suffice, but in case it didn’t, I changed the subject. “What was in Addy’s hands? Did you see it?”
