“There was more than one minor altercation, Bob.” She gave him a stern reproach with her eyes. “Why this sudden urge to check out my workers? You never showed an interest in anyone who volunteered out here before. Why is Daniel any different from the fifty other people I have had on the site?” She paused and nodded. “Is it because Clarissa found this one so charming? Is that what’s got you worried?”
Bob frowned at her. “You know me better than that. And this isn’t about Clarissa, it’s about you.”
“Yes, I do know you, Bob. Your jealous tirades were the talk of the town when we were married.”
“Jesus! Why are you being so hostile about this?” He placed his hands on his hips. “I came up here to make sure you’re all right, and all I get is shit for it.”
Pamela took another deep calming breath. She couldn’t let him get to her, she reminded herself. “I’m sorry. But there is nothing to worry about as far as Daniel is concerned.”
“Then just think about it. Call me when you’re ready and I will run a background check on the guy. What harm could come of it?”
Pamela said nothing. She nodded and kept the fake smile on her face.
“Oh, the other reason I came out here was to talk to you about this big benefit the Louisiana Bar Association is hosting next weekend for Gulf Oil Spill Relief. It’s at the new Roosevelt Hotel in the city. I think it could be a good opportunity for you to network your facility. There will be a lot of wealthy people attending, and I thought maybe you could pick up a few patrons. It’s black tie, so you will need a nice dress.” He examined her dirty blue jeans and stained T-shirt. “Do you even own a dress?” he asked.
“I’ll find something to wear, don’t worry.”
“It’s next Saturday at seven. I’ll leave two tickets at the door so you can bring Carol with you.”
“She would like that. Thanks, Bob.”
He looked around the porch and then nodded his head. “I’m sure you have animals to feed or something else to do.” He took a step backwards. “I’ll see you next Saturday. And please think about letting me look into this handyman of yours.”
Pamela opened her mouth to protest.
Bob raised his hand, silencing her. “I know, but if you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. I don’t want to see anything happen to you, P.A.”
She took a step toward him. “I’m not your problem anymore, remember?”
He reached up and took a strand of blond hair that had fallen from her ponytail. “We’ll never be completely free of each other, you know that. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if we had stayed together.”
Pamela raised her chin. “You’re the one that wanted out, Bob. You couldn’t stand the idea of having a sick wife, wondering what people would think of you for marrying a woman with lupus. You always worried about how you would explain my absences from all those political fundraisers you attended. You thought my disease would become more important than your career.”
He let her blond hair fall from his fingers. “You haven’t changed, have you, Pamela? Still trying to bait me with your cool condescension.” He headed down the steps. “I’ll see you next Saturday,” he added over his shoulder as he walked away.
Pamela turned and went inside her front door, slamming it behind her. She walked over to the large wire cage by the window and took a napping Louis out of his sleeping sack and held him against her chest. The small bundle of brown and gray fur cuddled against her skin, instantly calming the swirling frustration inside of her. All the pain she had experienced during their marriage returned whenever Bob came to visit. It was as if the years apart had vanished into thin air, and she was once again a lonely housewife filled with a desperate desire to escape her troubled existence. Holding Louis against her, she went over and sat down on her couch. Summoning every ounce of control she possessed, she pushed all of her unhappy memories back into the darkest corners of her mind and focused her concentration on the warm little squirrel nestled in her hands.
* * * *
The following morning, Carol sauntered in the front door. She was dressed in a dark blue pantsuit and had applied a light touch of make up to her round face. In her hands were two grande Starbucks coffee cups.
“I got our usual chocolate mocha lattes,” she announced as she walked over to Pamela.
Pamela put the last of the baby squirrels she had been feeding back into its little container and got up from the floor. She stretched uncomfortably, feeling the joints in her body ache at the idea of movement.
“You look nice,” Pamela commented as she took in Carol’s outfit.
“I have to meet with a new client this morning. I thought I would stop by and deliver one of these before heading over to the office.” Carol handed Pamela the large coffee cup.
Pamela noticed the bags under Carol’s eyes. “Another late night with Ian.”
Carol nodded and held up her grande cup of coffee. “Hence the extra shot of espresso.” She took a seat on one of the stools next to the kitchen counter. “God, that man’s relentless in bed,” she added, smiling.
“Carol!” Pamela shouted, trying to look offended. “I have known you since you were five years old, and to hear you discuss your sex life is rather disturbing.”
“Want details?”
“No!” Pamela asserted as she leaned on the counter across from Carol.
“All right,” Carol acquiesced. “But I thought you might like to live vicariously through me since you haven’t had sex since that weirdo, Walden.” She took a sip of her coffee.
“Walden was a nice guy. Just because he was a funeral director, you thought he was a weirdo,” Pamela defended. “Anyway, he was just what I needed after the divorce.”
“He looked like a gerbil. And that laugh.” Carol feigned a shiver. “It reminded me of that peacock you took in three years ago, the one that kept loosing its feathers. That bird always sounded like a woman screaming for her life.”
Pamela gave Carol a withering glance and then took a sip from her coffee.
“All right, I’ll change the subject. Tell me what happened after I left the other day with the gigolo and the shoe hoarder,” Carol demanded.
“Nothing.” Pamela looked down into her coffee and prayed she sounded convincing enough to avoid further questioning.
“I find that hard to believe. The slut didn’t drag his ass down to the local Motel 6 for a quickie?”
“Visually descriptive, but no.” Pamela put her coffee down on the counter in front of her. “Clarissa left after she got her pictures. Then Daniel went back to work on the roof.” She turned to the kitchen cabinets behind her.
“So, if nothing happened, why do you look guilty?”
Pamela spun around to face her. “I hate it when you do that!”
Carol raised her dark brows, feigning innocence. “Do what?”
“Interrogate me as though I have something to hide.”
Carol snickered. “You always have something to hide. You never tell anyone what you are thinking or feeling. You keep everything bottled up inside of you.”
Pamela ran her hand up and down the side of the white coffee cup in front of her. “I don’t keep things bottled up inside of me.” She picked at the paper rim of the grande Starbucks cup.
“Pamie, one day you’re gonna blow and take half the Gulf Coast with you. You keep more bullshit hidden away inside of you than a pregnant nun in a cloister.”
“Colorful.”
“Thank you.” Carol smiled, looking pleased. “So tell me, what is going on between you and Daniel?”
Pamela threw her hands in the air. “Nothing is going on!” she shouted.
Carol leaned over the counter. “You’re overreacting. Whenever you overreact, you have something to hide. If nothing were going on between you two, you would just tell me to shut up and go feed something. But you’re standing there fidgeting.” She grinned. “And you never fidget.”
“You’ve been watching too many det
ective shows on television,” Pamela asserted as she watched Carol’s pale blue eyes continue to stare at her. “Oh, all right.” She rolled her eyes. “After Clarissa left the other day, Daniel found a flying squirrel under a roof tile, near the chimney, and brought it to me.”
“Interesting, but I’m assuming there is more.” Carol made a rolling motion with her hand. “Let’s hear the rest of it,” she directed.
“He told me that Clarissa had hit on him. We had an argument about his brazen attempt at flirting with the woman, and then he left.”
“Brazen attempt at flirting? Boy, have you got it bad. What else?”
“Nothing.” Pamela’s voice cracked. “Nothing else happened. He left and now I have a flying squirrel in the kitchen.” She started nervously playing with the cup of coffee in front of her.
Carol continued to stare. “What else?” she pressed.
Pamela shifted back and forth, from one foot to the other, until she could not take Carol’s eyes on her any longer. “All right, he kissed me!” Pamela shouted. “There, happy?!”
“Don’t ever murder anyone; you’d snap like a dried twig under interrogation,” Carol joked as she picked up her coffee.
Pamela watched in astonishment as Carol then reached for an old newspaper on the counter and started gleaning the front page.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Pamela finally asked, unable to tolerate Carol’s continued casual indifference.
“He kissed you.” She shrugged, never looking up from the newspaper. “That’s all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Pamela responded, surprised by her cool reply.
“Hardly!” Carol rolled her eyes. “Let me know when he rips your clothes off and carries you to bed.” She picked up her coffee, got up from the stool, and went over the couch. “So, any other wildlife come in besides the flying squirrel?” she asked as she took a seat on the couch.
The sound of a car coming down the drive made the two women turn their attention to the front door. The dogs outside started barking incessantly.
Carol put her coffee down on the table in front of her, got up from the couch, and quickly made her way to the door. “Maybe it’s Imelda back for some of your boyfriend.”
Pamela shook her head and immediately regretted ever telling the young woman about Daniel.
When the two stepped outside, they saw Daniel’s blue Jeep pulled up next to Carol’s green Nissan Sentra.
“I bet he’s come to take you to the local Motel 6,” Carol mumbled, nudging Pamela with her elbow.
Daniel stood up in the Jeep and threw a handful of dog biscuits to the barking strays gathered around his car. The dogs instantly went for the treats on the ground and let Daniel step away from his car, unscathed.
“Good looking and resourceful,” Carol murmured next to Pamela. “I say jump his bones ASAP before that crazy bitch tries to dig those Manolo Blahnik’s into him.”
The dogs were still crunching away on their biscuits when Daniel came bounding up the steps, grinning like a child on Christmas morning.
“I think I should get going,” Carol stated before Daniel had even made it on to the porch.
“Don’t feel you have to rush off because of me,” Daniel said, half laughing at Carol.
Carol pulled her car keys out from her pocket. “I would love to hang around and watch you two drooling over each other but I have to go into the office today and pretend to be a real accountant for a few hours.”
“Carol, wait,” Pamela pleaded. “I have some things to discuss with you.”
Carol eyed her suspiciously. “You’ve got two minutes.”
Pamela glanced from Carol to Daniel. “Well, for starters, Bob came by yesterday and wants us to go to this big oil spill benefit in New Orleans next Saturday.”
Carol shook her head. “Can’t make it.” She pointed to Daniel. “Take your boyfriend.”
Daniel looked from Carol to Pamela. “You told her I was your boyfriend?”
“No,” Pamela replied, shaking her head.
“She told me that you found a flying squirrel and then you kissed her,” Carol clarified.
“Carol!”
“What?” Carol shrugged. “You did tell me that.”
“So does that make me your boyfriend?” Daniel asked, smiling.
“Technically, it makes you interested in becoming her boyfriend,” Carol explained. “I don’t think it actually becomes official until you two…” She raised her eyebrows and grinded her hips suggestively. “You know?”
“Oh, God,” Pamela whispered.
Daniel smiled as he shook his head at Carol. “Perhaps I should take her out on a date first,” he proposed.
“Absolutely! A nice dinner at some place that uses real silverware on the table,” Carol offered.
“Would you two please stop?” Pamela begged.
“Or I could pick up something and bring it here,” Daniel suggested. “Since she probably won’t want to leave her babies for an entire evening.”
“Ah, bringing food to the lady, nice touch.” Carol gave Daniel the thumbs up sign.
“Enough!” Pamela cried out as she ushered Carol off the porch.
“Should I bring flowers and wine with the food?” Daniel asked Carol as Pamela pulled her to her green Sentra.
“Definitely,” Carol shouted. “She likes Merlot and daisies!”
Pamela stood in the drive and watched as Carol’s car disappeared around the bend in the road. She didn’t want to turn and see Daniel standing there, grinning at her. But she knew there was no way around the inevitable conversation, so she took a deep breath and folded her arms across her chest. She finally mustered up the nerve to turn and face the porch, but was surprised to see that Daniel wasn’t there. She looked around the cottage but he was nowhere to be found. Relieved, she walked back up the porch steps and inside her cottage door.
She found Daniel standing at her kitchen table with an open container in front of him. He didn’t seem to notice as she walked in the room. Instead, he was preoccupied with something cupped in his hands.
“Couldn’t wait to see how my girl was doing,” he declared.
She stood for a moment and watched, a little mystified, at how the man’s muscular body curled around the creature as he pulled his cupped hands close to his chest. His shoulders, back, and neck reflexively encircled the contents of his hand, as if to shield the helpless animal from any further harm.
“Has she been eating?” he asked as he glanced over at Pamela.
“Not as well as I would like. She wasn’t too interested in her plate of mealworms and fruit this morning.”
Daniel carefully placed the groggy brown and white squirrel back in her container and closed the lid. Putting the container back amid the pile on the table, he then turned and looked at Pamela. He smiled and slowly walked across the room to her side, then reached his hands around her back and pulled her into his arms.
“So now that I’m your boyfriend, I guess I can do this,” he whispered as he leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
Pamela’s first instinct was to pull back and slap him across the face, but then another kind of instinct took over. She felt her arms reach up about his neck as her body slid in closer to his.
Daniel responded to her submission by deepening his kiss. He let his hands travel the length of her back.
Pamela quickly pulled away. She took a step back out of his arms, leaving Daniel confused.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What are we doing?”
“I think it’s called dating,” he answered with a grin.
“Dating or mating? I think you have the two confused.”
“No, I don’t,” he affirmed. “Trust me, I know the difference. If we had been mating, we wouldn’t be standing in the living room.”
She took another step back from him. “Perhaps we shouldn’t do this. Neither one of us has a very good track record with the opposite sex, and our becoming involved
might make our working relationship difficult.”
He placed his hand on his hip and shook his head. “You need to stop analyzing this, Pamela. What we were as individuals is not what we will be as a couple. People change people no matter how short, or how long, a relationship lasts. Why don’t we just enjoy what we have now and see what happens?” He paused and smiled at her. “Just consider me a new type of wildlife that you are eager to learn everything about.”
Pamela scowled at him. “I don’t end up in bed with my wildlife.”
Daniel raised his dark brows. “Have you been thinking about how we would be in bed together?”
She felt her cheeks blush over. “Perhaps you should get to work on my roof before this,” she motioned to Daniel, “gets out of hand.”
“Am I moving too fast for you?” he asked as his eyes probed hers.
Pamela stood for a moment and considered the question. “Daniel, I think at my age moving too fast is more a necessity than a problem.”
He laughed. “You’re not old, Pamela.”
“I’m older than you.” She shrugged. “Perhaps too old.”
“I don’t care about your age.” He reached out and pulled her back into his arms. “It’s not the age of the wine that matters. It’s the taste.”
“You can’t compare people to wine, Daniel.”
“Relationships are not right or wrong because of someone’s age. We are both over twenty-one and free to choose who we want to be with.”
She looked down at the hardwood floor beneath her feet. “Even if the woman you want to be with is broken?”
He cupped his hands around her beautiful face and brought his lips within inches of hers. “You will never be broken to me.”
Her eyes eagerly searched his. “I wish I could believe you,” she whispered.
“How can I prove it to you?”
Pamela sighed as she felt that familiar nagging feeling of doubt rise from her gut. No man could ever prove his sincerity as far as she was concerned. Trust was a commodity she had stopped investing in years ago.
She took a step back from Daniel. “The roof is waiting,” she said in a firm voice.
Daniel stared into her eyes and Pamela thought she saw a glimmer of hurt linger in his dark orbs. He smiled and the serious mood lifted between them. He nodded to her. “I’ll get right on it, boss lady,” he cheekily replied.
Broken Wings Page 9
