Wedding Bands

by Ev Bishop

  Ah, so he had looked over the Kendall file, after all.

  “And about that house of yours. Don’t mix business with personal. You work at the firm, so quit at the firm. You want to wriggle out of your debt or your mortgage with your mother and me? Put up a For Sale sign and hope you can unload it. Then you can pay me back, pay Nina out, or keep paying monthly alimony. Not my business. Miss a payment to me in the meantime though, and I’ll start the paperwork to foreclose.”

  “You would.”

  “Yep, son, I would.” Duncan sat back down, rolled his white shirtsleeves up over his hairy forearms, then perched a pair of reading glasses on his nose. He peered up at Callum over the rim of those spectacles. “Was there anything else?”

  Callum knew a dismissal when he heard one, gave a curt nod, and headed for the door. He turned back when he reached it, however, conscious of eyes on his back. Sure enough, Duncan had been watching him go.

  “What now?” his father asked.

  “I’m taking a personal day.”

  Duncan didn’t speak for a good long time. Finally he raised his hand and waved it once. “Of course you are.”

  Callum opened his mouth to say one more thing, but Duncan had dropped his gaze and returned to work, his pen moving calmly and quickly across the page like his concentration on his task hadn’t been interrupted in the least.

  Chapter 23

  Jo looked out at the heavy snowflakes swirling in slow motion and was beyond grateful that Samantha had agreed that using the small amount of cash left to each of them to fix the floors made sense. She was also pleased to have found a decent part-time job. It only paid a few bucks more than minimum wage, but she lived simply and for the time being had no rent and no mortgage. It would be fine—and the best part, of course, was the type of job it was. Imagine getting paid to point people to the best places to fish—and imagine what she’d learn from Eddie, the old timer who ran the Hook and Lure. And, if, if, if—so many big ifs!—if she actually did get the bed-and-breakfast off the ground, she could advertise her own business there. She’d already asked.

  “I wish you’d stop grinning like the cat who ate the canary,” Samantha snapped. “You look like you’ve turned into a total nutter instead of just a partial one.”

  “Nice,” Jo said. “Real nice.” But Samantha’s bark couldn’t ruin her day. She was probably just feeling threatened.

  “The dump does look half decent,” Samantha muttered a moment later with narrowed eyes and a frown, confirming Jo’s suspicions. She took a seat at the bright yellow kitchen table, and as she did Jo noticed something that gave her pause. Sam’s eyes were wet.

  Samantha wasn’t a crier. It was a point of pride for her actually. “What’s the point?” Samantha always said. “All those years boohooing didn’t help us when we were kids, don’t see how it’d help now.”

  Jo didn’t know if she herself was naturally a crier or not, but years of following her big sister’s lead made her feel weak when she succumbed to tears—and horribly uncomfortable when others did. What was she supposed to do? What should she say?

  “Are you crying?” she asked unhelpfully.

  Samantha glowered and her jaw tightened. “No, I’m not crying.”

  Jo tried a ginger pat pat on Samantha’s shoulder.

  Sam yanked away, which Jo would’ve taken as a positive sign, except that Samantha made a furtive wiping motion at her right eye like she was trying to obliterate an errant tear.

  “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

  Samantha whipped around to face Jo again. “Seriously? That’s all you’ve got? I’m distraught here and you’re like, hyuk, hyuk, hyuk?”

  Jo settled into one of the chairs across from Samantha. “That’s better. Now that you’re back to your usual soft and gentle self, tell me. What the hell was that about?”

  Samantha let out a heavy sigh. “I just feel badly.”

  “About what?”

  “I know you want this, Jo—and I know why.”

  “So enlighten me.”

  A touch of a smirk lifted Samantha’s mouth. “You know I will.”

  Jo nodded glumly.

  “You want to create a cozy, close-knit place where everybody knows your name thing—”

  “You make me sound like someone off that old TV show ‘Cheers.’”

  “Dibs on being Carla,” Samantha said and returned to her main point without missing a beat. “I get it. I want that, too. Who wouldn’t?”

  “You would want to be Carla. I’m Woody.”

  “You are. You’re so right!” Samantha actually looked proud.

  Jo raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “I was joking—but seriously, why can’t we create a home here, a niche? Together. It will be great. You’re wrong that a person can’t just decide to build themselves a home and a life and have it work out.”

  Samantha pursed her lips. “Really?”

  “I’m not forgetting about Devin, but good grief, if everyone quit trying to make their dreams come true because of some heartbreak or disappointments, no one would ever achieve or do anything. You’ve got to get back on the horse.”

  “Bah,” said Samantha. “I hate horses.”

  “You’re hopeless. And if you’d be honest—dead, cold, completely hardcore truthful—you’d admit this place could totally be all that I envision.”

  “Maybe, but also maybe not. And you don’t have the money to pull it off. You just don’t. We don’t. Even if this place belonged solely to you, free and clear, and it was just a matter of start up costs, I wouldn’t lend them to you.”

  Jo studied her fingernails. “Harsh,” she said, finally glancing up.

  Samantha’s green eyes were sad. “It’s not because of your disaster with Devin, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “It’s not. I know it’s not personal. We just view the world differently.”

  “So you’ll be okay when Callum calls?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Callum will contact you to set up a meeting. He’s going to tell you we’re listing the property. There’s no other choice—unless you really want to take it to court, and you’ll lose, Jo. We both will. It will just cost bags more money, take years of our lives—to get the same verdict.”

  The phone rang practically the instant the words were out of Samantha’s mouth.

  Jo picked it up—and yes, it was Callum. And yes, he was calling to set up a meeting. Jo agreed on a time, then asked if he needed or wanted to talk to Samantha. She thought she heard him start to say it wasn’t necessary, but she was already passing the phone to Samantha. She didn’t want to talk to him for another minute, and she couldn’t bear to sit still in the house another second either—the house that felt more like home than any other place she’d ever lived that was really, truly going to pass out of her hands and into someone else’s. And Samantha? Well, she needed a break from her, too. Yes, she understood where she was coming from, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. Not at all.

  “Jo?” Samantha’s voice trailed after her.

  Jo hesitated in the entranceway, but only because it was near freezing and she needed to throw on a jacket. “The meeting’s at ten tomorrow morning. I know. Let yourself out, okay? I’ll see you then.”

  If Samantha answered, Jo didn’t hear her. She grabbed her rod, whistled for Hoover, and slammed the door behind her.

  *

  Clouds, low and dark, had rolled in during the night. A steady, driving rain, icy-cold and penetrating, wouldn’t let up. It was the only thing she disliked about Greenridge—how it would snow, rain away the snow, then snow again. Visibility was nil, and even though it was supposed to be daylight, someone had forgotten to notify the sky. It could easily have been approaching night. Ahead of Jo on the road, some idiot cut off some jackass who was going way too fast for the conditions. There was a brief flare up of horns and road-rage gestures.

  So far the whole day fit her mood. Fit her luck. Fit ev
erything, Jo thought, noticing with irritation that even though she was plenty early, Samantha had still beat her there. And so had a little lime green Mazda sporting Realtor decals.

  Jo’s finger caught in her seatbelt as she was unbuckling. She pretended it was the smarting pain that triggered tears.

  She opened her door, but didn’t climb out right away. Instead she tilted her head back, and willed the stupid sea of saline to stay put. She wasn’t going to walk into Callum’s office wearing her disappointment and sadness like a big, red I-just-cried clown nose.

  When she had a tight line on her composure again, she climbed out of her truck—and sunk past the rim of her shoe in a puddle of slushy goop. Awesome. The day just kept getting better and better.

  Callum’s secretary was nowhere in sight, but his door was ajar. Jo made her way toward it, then froze as she heard her name, coming not from Callum or Samantha, but from someone else’s mouth altogether. Jo assumed it was the realtor who owned the green car. And she didn’t like the woman’s tone, or her dismissive laugh, one bit.

  “You guys just don’t get her.” Now it was Callum speaking. Oh, that was rich. She inched closer, dying to know what it was that mystery woman and Sam supposedly didn’t get about her—that Callum supposedly did. “So she’s a bit of a dreamer. It’s not like she has any control over that side of her personality. She can’t help herself.”

  The realtor—Jo’s mind created a gym-fit body and highly made-up face to go with the high-pitched, bossy voice—snorted with derisive laughter. “Isn’t it her job, if she actually wants to run a business, to curb her imagination and look at facts?”

  Jo added to her inner picture. The realtor had an upturned, bulbous nose—quite unlike anything seen on a human’s face before, decidedly pig-like, in fact.

  Callum spoke again and Jo could almost see him shaking his head. “Part of the charm of the place would be what her creativity added to it. She’s in the planning stages. It’s not her fault if she got a bit carried away. She feels before she thinks.”

  “It is problematic if she tells every Tom, Dick, and Harry what her so-called plans are before she even owns the place—no, worse, when she knows full well she’ll never own the place!”

  Samantha was horribly silent throughout the exchange—probably because she agreed with the awful busybody. Jo pressed her teeth into the knuckles of her clenched fist, and leaned against the wall to steady herself.

  “So what? So she acts on her heart before her brain kicks in—”

  Jo didn’t want to hear another word, but she was paralyzed. This was Callum’s idea of defending her? Holy crap, what would he say if he wanted to make her look like the most incapable, inept, absolute loser of a deluded never-stand-a-chance business wannabe?

  “To not calculate every frigging line, starting with hello—it’s refreshing, that’s what, and you should try it sometime. You’re only sniffing around the property because there’s a buck to be made, a buck you won’t see if Jo and Samantha don’t sell.”

  “Look, I came by because I thought you could be an adult and give me some information. That’s what adults do, they take their careers seriously. Sue me.”

  Callum muttered something like, “Wish I could.”

  There was an explosive exhale, the bitchy realtor or Callum? And why on earth was Samantha still being so quiet? Had they knocked her unconscious or something? Jo had never witnessed a conversation where Samantha let more than three lines pass before jumping in with her own contribution.

  “You’re an ass. Thank God we’re over.”

  “Ah, Nina, finally—something we agree on.”

  Nina. As in Callum’s infamous ex? Jo’s curiosity was less intense than she would have expected.

  “I don’t have any actual power—as you so love to point out—but for what it’s worth, I’m going to suggest the Kendall sisters go with absolutely any realtor in town besides you.”

  “Typical,” Nina said. “Even now it’s about your petty personal issues. I’d make them the most money of anyone off that godforsaken lump of land, but you’d rather make it all about you.”

  “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”

  Nina didn’t bother to say good-bye. The partially cracked door flew open all the way, and she stormed through—a flap of expensive overcoat, a clack of heels, and a wave of some delicious, pricey perfume. Jo felt like she’d been hit by a truck.

  Mercifully, Nina didn’t notice her cowering in the corner by the shelf of cooking magazines, just continued her furious departure through the waiting room and out into the main hall.

  Jo remained huddled against the wall, but made a decision. No way was she keeping the ten o’clock. She didn’t need to see Callum. He and Samantha could mail her any documents that needed signed—oh shit, think of the devil. Samantha’s voice floated up from the hallway Nina had just exited into, making Jo jump. She said good-bye to someone, and then she was in the room, looking at Jo oddly.

  “Uh, Jo? What’s up?”

  Jo tried to unstick herself from the wall casually. Samantha’s silence in the office finally made sense. She hadn’t been present.

  “I, um, I’m feeling really sick all of a sudden.”

  “You look it. You’re totally green.” Samantha rushed over and offered an arm.

  Jo waved her away. “I’m . . . I’ll be all right. Just need some air.”

  “Is it something you ate?”

  “I don’t know, maybe—or a flu.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. I should’ve just called, shouldn’t have come in. You keep the meeting with Callum, let him know it’s all decided, and—”

  Typical of the whole blooming day, Callum picked that moment to hear their voices and step out of his office.

  “Hey, you two. I’m ready for you. Come on in.”

  Eyes focused on the floor, Jo shook her head and gently pushed Samantha forward.

  Samantha held her ground, didn’t budge. “No, I think we should do this together. If you’re too sick, we’ll reschedule.” She glanced at Callum as if to confirm this as a possibility.

  “Of course we can reschedule, absolutely. No problem.”

  Jo shook her head again. It was worse than pointless to put it off. If they wouldn’t go through it without her, she might as well suffer but be done with it. “No, it’s fine. It’s fine. Just show me where to sign.”

  Chapter 24

  Callum paced his office, replaying every minute of his meeting with Jo and Samantha again and again. But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t bear how Jo treated him so coldly—no, worse than coldly. She acted like he wasn’t there—no, that wasn’t quite it either. She answered his questions politely, spoke when answered to, wished him well and thanked him courteously for his time when she left—

  Yes, that was it. That’s what felt so off. She treated him like someone she’d just met, barely knew—like a lawyer hired to take care of a fairly straight forward estate, so long as it wasn’t contested, which, yes, technically, is exactly what he was, but still . . .

  Her eyes haunted him. He’d always known they changed color with her mood—but he’d never seen her in such a bad one. They’d been a flat muddy brown, devoid of even a trace of their usual amber sparkle.

  Maybe his mistake had been in trying to encourage her to think about the possibilities about what she could do with the money once her uncle’s property sold.

  “You could buy a nice little house, maybe one with a guest room or an in-law suite. You could start out with a miniature of your bed-and-breakfast idea and grow from there.”

  He’d actually felt a stab of physical pain, her glare was so piercing. He definitely should’ve expressed his regrets and left it at that, not attempted to problem solve.

  “I’m sorry, Jo,” he’d said. “I know this feels like a big loss right now. I know how it feels to have a dream die.”

  “It doesn’t feel like a big loss, Callum. It is a big loss.
And maybe some people find comfort in discussing things in poetical terms like losing dreams and finding them, but right now I’m not one of them. I’m devastated that my uncle’s home will go to strangers. Coming into money too late to save it is no consolation—and it’s also none of your business.”

  His face burned remembering her expression. He’d looked to Samantha for help, but she’d just shrugged and looked away, feeling, maybe, as guilty as he did.

  Because that was the thing. If he had nudged Samantha harder to reconsider, maybe she would have.

  He stopped pacing and hung his head. The problem was that would’ve been poor counsel. Nina, as ever, was wrong about him. He did take his career, albeit his soon-to-be-caput career, seriously. He would never advise clients to do something that wasn’t in their best interest. Jo, no matter how wonderful her dreams were or how good the potential for profit was on paper, didn’t have the capital to get her plan off the ground. If she held that against him, wouldn’t forgive him for not jumping in with her on it, well, what could he do about it?

  Chapter 25

  The front lawn was immaculate and well tended, despite it being the time of year most people ignored their yards. The decorative shrubs were wrapped in burlap that remained, regardless of how battered it was by the heavy rains, resilient and protective. The flowerbeds were mulched, and the grass was short and brilliantly green, no doubt mowed the very last day of the season. It was amazing how even in winter, unless snow covered it, Greenridge was, well, green.

  Callum stood on the equally clean walkway—no cracks, no weeds, no debris soiling the first impression of the mighty Archer house—and knew that inside, the house would be equally pristine. Appearances were very important to his father and no one could argue: Duncan Archer’s home was beautifully appointed inside and out, and to some, may have even seemed welcoming. As if to further perpetrate this falsehood, a large hurricane lamp, complete with a glowing electric candle, sat amidst an arrangement of various evergreen boughs, holly with red berries, and cheerful ribbon by the front entranceway.