Meddling in Manhattan

by Kirsten Osbourne

  "Children would make you happier!"

  Jake looked back and forth between mother and daughter. "Addie has the right to choose her own path, Mrs. Myers. You can't expect her to do everything you did, simply because you did it that way."

  "Well, I never!" Carolyn looked more than a little offended by her son-in-law's words.

  Billy sighed. "Carolyn? Let it go. She has the right to be a store owner or a stay at home mom. She also has the right to take up featherweight boxing if she wants to. We raised her right, and now she gets to make her own decisions."

  Carolyn obviously didn't like her husband's answer, but she didn't say anything else. Addie was relieved. Her mother usually went on and on about how she was doing things wrong, but this time she'd had two defenders.

  "The food really is wonderful, Mrs. Myers," Jake said again. "Would you mind if we took a bit of it home for lunches this week?" He knew he was being obvious, but maybe she wouldn't say anything. He certainly didn't want to be on her 'poop list' as Addie so eloquently put it.

  Carolyn shook her head. "Of course not." She never had been, nor would she ever be a woman who turned down a guest in her home.

  Billy winked at Jake and mouthed the words, "Thank you."

  Jake pretended not to see it as he continued eating.

  Once lunch was over, Jake stood. "We should go," he said.

  "Can we take ten minutes for me to help Mom with the dishes?" Addie asked. She knew Jake was in a hurry to get back to work, but she really didn't want to upset her mother by just taking off either. In her mother's house all the women helped with the cooking, and all the women helped with the dishes. As a child she'd often protested that the boys should help too, but it had gotten her nowhere, so she'd just learned to accept it as her lot in life.

  Jake nodded reluctantly. "But then I've got to get back to work."

  "I'll be ready after the dishes." Addie got to her feet and hurried around the kitchen, gathering dishes and putting them into the sink to rinse and get into the dishwasher.

  Carolyn got to her feet, helping her daughter. "You aren't spending your Sunday off together?" she asked with a frown.

  "We spent half the day together. He'll work the other half. I've got some paperwork to do for the store. We're a good team, because we both work so hard." Addie knew it was true. Lachele had picked a good man for her. She would have gone crazy being married to Scott.

  Carolyn shook her head. "I really don't know how you do it. You're newlyweds. You should be spending every moment you can together."

  Addie agreed with her mother, so she said nothing. They needed more time together, but they weren't going to get it. "He takes a week off every month, and we'll have more time together then. I may arrange my schedule to do the same. Or at least plan a couple of days off during his week off."

  "I guess if he wants to keep making the kind of money he does, he needs to work that hard."

  Addie frowned. "You know that sounds like he's incredibly money-driven, and I just don't think that's the case. I think he loves his work so much that he's just driven to do it. He needs to work like other people need air. I've never seen anything like it."

  Carolyn frowned. "You really believe that?"

  "I really do!"

  *****

  As soon as they arrived home, Jake returned to his computer, immediately going back to work. Addie stowed the leftovers in the refrigerator. She'd serve them for dinner the next night. There really was enough for a couple of more meals, and her mother had halved the leftovers with her. Addie shook her head. Someday her mother would learn that she was no longer cooking for a family of nine!

  She settled on the couch with her laptop and went through the weekly reports for the store, making the orders that needed to be made. After a while, she glanced up and saw Jake watching her. "Is everything all right?"

  He got up and moved to the couch beside her, his arm going around her shoulders. He waited for her to flinch away, but when she didn't, he pulled her close. "Do you have a lot more work to do?"

  She shook her head. "I'm just finishing up. Why?"

  He took the computer from her lap and placed it on the small coffee table. "I just want to talk for a minute, if you don't mind."

  "Not at all." Why was he paying attention to her instead of his computer? "What's up?"

  "Well, first, I just want to say I'm sorry one more time. After spending two days with you, I knew you cared for me even without knowing about the money I made. Telling you before we came home would have been ideal. I shouldn't have waited."

  She nodded. "Thank you for saying that. I've felt like you didn't think you could trust me, even after the honeymoon, when I feel like I told you everything."

  He sighed, pulling her closer and kissing her forehead. "Not at all. I'm sorry I made you feel that way."

  "I forgive you." For the first time since she'd discovered who he really was, she felt like she could move on past it. He was saying all the right things. She believed he really meant them.

  "I also wanted to talk about this apartment. Did you sign a long lease?"

  "No, I just subleased for two months from a friend. I didn't know where we'd end up, and I didn't feel like I had the right to make the decision for us, but Dr. Lachele had given me the impression we'd be living here in Manhattan. So I figured I needed to find us a spot. We couldn't keep living with my three roommates, especially since I shared a room with Danielle!"

  "Well, this place is pretty small. Would you be willing to look at larger places on my next week off? I'd love to have an office to write in. Then I wouldn't feel like I'm taking up the whole living room. You'd feel like you could make a little more noise, I'm sure." He watched her carefully for a response.

  She nodded. "I think that's a really good idea. We could get a two or even three bedroom place. Do you want to keep living in an apartment or try to find a house?"

  "An apartment for now, I think. Neither of us has time to think about maintaining a lawn or anything." He turned to her more fully on the couch. "I hope you didn't mind leaving your parents so quickly. I had this idea for a way I could fix the last scene of my book."

  "You finished? Really?"

  He nodded. "Well, I still have to edit it, and I'll add several thousand more words in edits, but I finished the first draft, which for me is the hardest part."

  "You edit your own book? Don't you have an editor?" It didn't make sense to her that he would have to go through the slow process of editing his own work when she knew he must have someone who was paid to do it.

  "I do have an editor, but I still edit my own book first. I tend to skimp on details in the first draft, and then I go back and add them." He shrugged. "I'll spend the next week or so in edits, and then I'll be done with this one."

  "Will you take some time off when you're done?"

  He nodded. "Yeah, I take at least a week off between books. I need to go back to Montana and get the rest of my stuff from my house there. I'll leave the furniture, but I need my books and stuff. Which is another reason why we need a bigger place. I need room for my books!"

  She laughed. "Sounds to me like you might need a Kindle!"

  "Don't we all?" He cupped her face in his hands, leaning over to kiss her softly. "I'm so happy to hear you laugh again. I thought I'd blown it for us."

  "I wasn't sure." She looked straight into his eyes. "I was really hurt, but I don't want our relationship to be over. Do you want me to take a couple of days off work and go to Montana with you? We could always shop for apartments when we were done."

  "Would you mind? I'd love for you to get to know Scott and Savannah better. And Kaeden too, I guess, but right now? He just poops a lot."

  She giggled. "Most babies do. I would love to go with you."

  He leaned over and kissed her again, this time more passionately. His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her close. "Wanna know what I'd love to do?"

  "What?"

  He stood and helped her to her feet, keep
ing her hand in his as he headed to the bedroom. He pulled off his shirt and sat on the bed, facing her. She stood in front of him. "I'll give you three guesses." His hands went to her shirt, and he started unbuttoning it before pushing it off her shoulders.

  "You're tired and want to take a nap?" she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

  "No. Two more tries." His unzipped her slacks and pushed them down off her hips.

  "You want to read in bed naked? I'd let you read your book to me!" That sounded like a terrific idea to her.

  "One more guess!" He unclasped her bra and dropped it to the floor.

  "Um...You want to draw smiley faces on my belly?"

  "Nope. Wrong three times. Now you have to pay the penalty!"

  She frowned. "Oh no. What could that penalty be?"

  "Why don't I show you?" He pulled her down onto the bed with him.

  Chapter Seven

  Addie started to live for the day Jake's edits were done. Always she'd lived for her store, but she found she craved his attention. He finished the edits on Friday the following week, so Addie arranged to take the following week off for their trip to Montana and apartment hunting. They'd already been married four weeks when they got on the plane to pack up his things.

  When they landed, Scott and Savannah were waiting at the airport with Kaeden sleeping in his car seat at the back of the SUV. Jake climbed into the back seat and let Addie sit in the middle with Kaeden. "You staying at your old house, Jake?" Scott asked.

  "Yeah. We have too much to get done to do anything else." Jake sighed. "This isn't just a fun trip." He wished it was though. He wished they were staying with Scott and Savannah, so the two women could get to know one another better. It would be nice if they were as close as he and Scott were.

  Savannah turned and looked at Addie. "Do you want to come to supper tonight? Or do you want us to go to a grocery store so you'll have food there? You'll be surprised at the lack of delivery places here."

  Addie smiled. "I know New Yorkers are blessed with more delivery places than the rest of the country. I don't mind cooking, but I'd love to come over as well. It would be nice to get to know you and Scott better." She loved what she knew of Savannah.

  "Well, why don't we drop you off to get started? We took Scott's truck to Jake's house, so you'll have something to drive while you're here."

  "Thanks for that," Jake said. "We could have rented a car, but this makes it a bit easier. We won't have to take load after load of boxes to be shipped. We can just do it all in one or two trips with the truck."

  "My truck is your truck. You wreck it? You buy me a new one. Heck, just wreck it toward the end of your time here. I need a new truck anyway." Because they were sitting at a stoplight, Scott looked in the rearview mirror at his friend to see his reaction.

  "I'll buy you an old beat up truck!" Jake told him. "Maybe I can find one like you drove in high school."

  Scott laughed. "Oh yeah, that would be awesome. Remember that time we were driving up and down drag and my truck died, and you had to get out and push?"

  Jake rolled his eyes. "I was trying to flirt with girls out the window, and the next thing I knew they were at the next light, and we were still sitting there like a couple of morons." He'd been mortified at the time, but he had no problem laughing about it now.

  Addie looked at Jake. "You were flirting with girls?" She tried to sound angry with him, but she couldn't help but smile at the picture of the two men stranded while the girls went on.

  "Don't worry, baby. We were barely sixteen, so you'd have been about nine. It doesn't count if you were pre-pubescent." Jake winked at her.

  Savannah turned around from the front seat and looked at Addie. "Scott uses that line with me, too. We'll show them differently later."

  Addie grinned. She and Savanna had spoken on the phone several times, and she was happy to be able to call the other woman a friend. She looked forward to having some face to face time with her, and not just phone, texts, and internet. Sometimes you just needed to be able to touch someone.

  "We're really thankful you're willing to cook tonight. It'll save me from having to spend the time. I think we're going to be way too busy to think about eating. Jake says there's only one restaurant to speak of in town." It was mind boggling to Addie to think about actually living in a place that had so little, but she guessed she could see the appeal of a small town. It would be nice to occasionally run into people she knew around town.

  Savannah nodded. "The diner. There's this waitress who acts like she owns the guys. I think they dated every female within a two hundred mile radius." She made a face. "I went for an in-service training, and the teacher I was taking over for? Her sister dated Scott, but she didn't. I couldn't believe he'd actually missed a girl in the state of Montana!"

  Addie looked at Jake. "Did you have the same number of girls hanging off you as Scott did?"

  Jake shook his head. "It was harder to get girls when you were on the tennis team and in the chess club. Scott was a football player."

  "Oh, well, I only liked football players if they were in the chess club too. I was a nerd in high school. I wanted to date the guy who would have a job someday and not a concussion," Addie told them.

  Savannah laughed. "Dr. Lachele really does know what she's doing! Being married to Jake would make me crazy, and I sure couldn't see you giving up your store for Scott. Or him being willing to let you run it instead of being home to cook his dinner every night."

  "I'm still reserving judgment," Addie said with a grin.

  "Hey, you've made it through a month, and you're sitting in a car with each other without wanting to kill anyone. That's pretty impressive!" Scott interjected from the front.

  "We've never tried to kill each other!" Jake said proudly. He really did feel like it was an accomplishment.

  "We never tried, but I did think about breaking a vase over his head a few times," Savannah said.

  Addie suppressed a giggle. "Did he deserve it?" She was sure he had, but it would be nice to hear Scott's side of things.

  "Oh, more than!" Scott answered. "She's a saint for putting up with me!"

  "Well, I wasn't perfect either. No one is." Savannah smiled at Scott. "Now that we're through the first year, I think we're going to be just fine."

  "Until I do something so stupid you want to hit me over the head with a vase again?"

  Jake shook his head. "Well, stop doing stupid things then! Oh, wait...forgot who I'm talking to!"

  "Jake?" Scott asked.

  "Yeah?"

  "You're a freak."

  "Oh, I wish I had a best friend like that," Addie said to Savannah. "I can just feel the love."

  "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all could?" Savannah asked.

  *****

  Addie wasn't certain what she expected when they pulled up to Scott and Savannah's home a few hours later, but it wasn't the big old ranch house that stood proudly in the middle of several outbuildings. It was pretty, in an old-fashioned rustic kind of way, but it was surprising to Addie, who loved New York with everything inside her, that another girl from Manhattan could be so happy in Montana.

  Once they were inside, Savannah gave Addie a quick tour of the house. "This house is certainly full of history," Addie said.

  Savannah laughed. "Yeah, it's old, but I think it's such a beautiful place. I've only been here for a year, but already I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Scott's great-grandfather built it."

  "It's a wonderful place to raise children," Addie said honestly.

  "Do you still think you'll put off having children until you've been married for a year?"

  "Oh, at least. I put in a lot of hours in my store, and Jake's so involved in his writing. I can just see leaving him home alone with a baby, and him not even noticing that the baby cried." Addie sighed. "He sure is good at tuning out the world around him. I'm sure it's a skill he needed to learn, but it's crazy."

  "You'll need to hire a nanny if you want to keep working. Jake
will never be able to do his share." Savannah opened the door to the baby's room. "He's a good man, but he sure doesn't notice the world around him."

  Addie sighed as she looked at the walls. "This is beautiful! Did you quilt this yourself?" she asked, referring to a Sesame Street wall hanging.

  "Dr. Lachele did. She said she's going to make something special for each of her Matchrimony munchkins." Savannah laughed. "At first she kept calling Kaeden her first Matchrimony grandbaby, and then she decided Matchrimony munchkins has a better ring to it. She's never gone back."

  "I haven't had to call Dr. Lachele yet. We had a hard time for a little while, but we worked through it." Addie prided herself on not needing the counselor's help. They were doing just fine by themselves.

  Savannah raised an eyebrow. "You will. Trust me. She's free for your first year. You might as well take advantage."

  "We really haven't needed her." Addie hadn't told anyone about the way Jake had deceived her about his success as a writer, and she didn't plan to start with Savannah. They'd worked through it, and that was really all that mattered.

  "Have you guys said the 'L' word yet?"

  Addie shook her head. "We've only been married a month. I'm not ready to say it or hear it!" Sure, she enjoyed their time together. She loved the sex. But love? She was a long way from love!

  "You really believe that?" Savannah asked. "If Jake said he loved you, you'd reject it?"

  "Well, no, but I don't know how I'd respond. I mean, he's a great guy, and I like being around him. He's a good husband to me, but that doesn't mean I love him." Addie shrugged. "I'd probably say, 'Thank you.'"

  "Do you resent the time he spends at the computer?"

  "Just a little," Addie responded. "I work a lot of hours as well."

  "Do you live for your days off together?"

  "That doesn't mean anything!" Addie protested.

  "You love him. I'd be willing to bet he loves you too, but just hasn't said it yet." Savannah closed the door to Kaeden's room and headed back down the stairs. "Is Jake going to sell his parents' house? You guys would always be welcome to stay here when you come to visit."