“That was the whole point.” He pulled her closer so that her head rested on his chest. They used to take naps like this when she was a baby. She was getting bigger now, and it made him realize how much time he had missed with her while he was trying to advance his career. But that was over now. Everything he did from now on had to be for her.
He rubbed her back until her breathing was slow and even. He thought she had fallen asleep until she said, “Daddy? Who was that lady in the park?”
He should have known that question was coming.
“My wife.”
She sat up and frowned at him.
Shit.
He always said the wrong thing. “I-I mean…” It was the truth. He didn’t want to lie to her. “I married Belinda before your mommy brought you to me. But she had to go away and I haven’t seen her in a very long time.”
He watched her process that, her little forehead scrunched. “Don’t married people live in the same house?”
“They’re supposed to, but Belinda and I never did things the right way.”
“Are you going to live with her now?”
“No, honey. She’s not going to be my wife much longer.”
“Oh.” An almost sad look crossed Ruby’s face. “She’s very pretty.”
“You think so?”
Pretty wasn’t the right word for it. Belinda was suggestive and stimulating and sensual and a dozen other things. She was the stuff pinup girls were made of.
He wasn’t sure if it was the dark-red hair that fell softly around her shoulders. Or her skin that was somewhere between bronze and tan. Or those brilliantly colored dark-green eyes or those brightly colored femme fatale clothes that did it to him, but once he’d locked eyes with her five years ago it was all over for him.
“Yeah. Why did she run away from you? Was she scared?”
He didn’t know how to explain it to her. There had been terror on Belinda’s face. She’d run from him today like she’d run from him five years ago. It seemed like running was what she was best at.
“I don’t know, baby. I think she might have been surprised to see me.”
“Oh.” She looked away from him, seeming lost in thought for the moment. “Was she mean to you? Is that why you don’t live with her?”
We don’t live together because she didn’t want anything to do with you. But he didn’t say that. That was the hardest thing for him to accept. He thought she loved him. He thought that despite her wild energy, despite her restlessness, she would always stick by him. Because when he looked at Belinda he felt a certain sense of rightness. He felt at home with her. It wasn’t like it was with Bethany. He never expected her to take off at the first sign of trouble.
“We just didn’t like the same things.”
She nodded as if she understood the complexity of adult relationships. “I won’t like her for you, Daddy.” She lay back on his chest and cuddled into him.
“Such a loyal kid,” he said to her as he kissed her forehead. A few minutes later they were asleep.
*
Belinda sat at the small desk she kept in her bedroom blankly staring at her laptop screen that afternoon. She told herself that she was going to order stock for the fall collection for Size Me Up. She was going to do something productive to take her mind off the shitstorm that had just entered her life. But she was failing miserably. Instead she’d spent the past few hours replaying the incident over and over in her head.
Cherri had been so good to her. She walked her inside, put on a pot of coffee, and urged her to take a nice long hot bath. The only thing she didn’t do was ask questions, and Belinda was grateful for that. Cherri should have asked questions. She should have demanded to know every detail. She should have been pissed at Belinda for keeping this secret for so long. They were best friends. She had the right to know, but she said nothing. She just kissed her cheek and told her to call her if she needed her. Belinda glanced at her phone, thinking about picking it up and calling her friend, but it was hard to talk about Carter. Just thinking about him caused the back of her throat to burn. But she wouldn’t cry.
Big girls don’t cry.
What bullshit.
She had cried for him enough those first few weeks after their marriage ended. She had cried for him until she was all cried out and she hated herself for it. She swore that she would never cry for a man again. She told herself the only person worth loving besides her friends and family was herself. And for so many years she had kept that promise. Until this year. When she turned thirty. When she watched both of her best friends get married. When she saw Cherri with her baby. When she saw Ellis and Mike so happy that they failed to realize that there was anybody else in the room.
She hated herself for feeling that little bit of jealousy. She hated herself for feeling left out. For thinking about Carter and what could have been, for feeling like there was something missing in her life. It was why she was dating again, but in the back of her mind she knew she could never really have what Ellis and Cherri had.
Not while she was still married to Carter.
She was still his wife.
That thought never left the back of her mind. So she spent the past four years in Durant staying still. Not looking back. Not moving forward. Secretly wishing that her mistake would just undo itself. Maybe it was a good thing that he’d showed up. It was time she put him in her past. It was way past time. It was time she came clean about him to everybody.
Carter had entered her life when she was in a weird space. Ellis was so busy in law school that they went months without speaking. Belinda was on the other side of the country, away from her parents, her friends, and her hometown. In a new job. In a place where she didn’t know anybody. She was having a hard time adjusting, and then Carter came along …
She knew he was all wrong for her when she met him. He was too put-together. Too quiet. Too handsome. Too aloof. Too-too everything.
Too good for her according to some’s standards.
And she was too much for him, for his family. She never fit neatly into his life. His parents hated her. His friends laughed at her behind her back. But she married him anyway. She jumped into marriage with both feet because she loved him that much. And she had actually thought that love could conquer all.
What a big dumbass you were.
Now Carter was back. Back with the little girl who’d changed everything for them. She didn’t know why she was so shocked by his presence but she was. It had been four years since they had spoken. Four years of silence. Four years of waiting for him to reappear in her life and finally put an end to a marriage he clearly didn’t want.
But why now, she kept asking herself. He must be ready to remarry. Maybe he was ready to make it official with Bethany, his first wife, the mother of their child. It made sense. Bethany fit into his life. She was everything Belinda wasn’t.
Instead of feeling sadness about the end of her marriage, she was feeling pissed at herself. She should have been the one to do it. She should have been the one to end the marriage. She should have taken the steps to end it years ago. But she couldn’t bring herself to. The breakup of their marriage was not her fault. Or maybe it was. It was her fault she had married a stranger.
“Pudge?” Belinda turned away from her computer as she heard her mother’s voice calling to her from downstairs.
“Bill Junior?” Her father’s voice came from much closer. “You up here?”
Her parents were there? She wasn’t sure she could survive a visit from them today. She loved them, but she just didn’t know if she had it in her.
“I’m in here,” she called back to them. She left her desk to open her bedroom door only to find that her father had beaten her there.
He stood there for a moment, seeming not to know what to say to her. “You all right, Junior?” he asked in his Texas twang. “Your friend Apple called me at work. Told me I should check on you.”
“Apple?” She shook her head. “Her name is Cherri, Dad. And
she called you?”
“Yes!” Her mother came bursting through the door. “She called and we came right over.”
Belinda stood there a little stunned by the news. Cherri had called them? She wasn’t sure if she wanted to thank her friend for her thoughtfulness or choke her for the same reason.
She blinked at her parents. They blinked back at her, twin expressions of concern on their faces.
All six feet of her mother came at her, cupping her face in her hands and peppering kisses all over her. “What’s the matter with my baby?” Carmina purred at her. She placed her hand on Belinda’s stomach and gave a rub. “Do you have a bellyache? You know you cannot eat ice cream and such things, Pudge. It always makes you bloated and gives you the toots. And when you get bloated you get cranky. No wonder why Cherri called.”
“Mamá! I am not five!”
Carmina went right on as if she didn’t hear her. “It runs on my side of the family, you know. My mother! She could never eat ice cream, or yogurt, or cheese. Fresh cheese was the worst. Sometimes she could handle Parmesan and for some reason she could have goat’s milk with no problem. You know what I heard on the news, Pudge? There is actually such a thing as camel’s milk. Can you believe that! Milk from a camel. I wonder how ice cream would taste from camel’s milk, or goat’s milk for that matter. I should try it sometime. I have that ice cream maker your Nana Mary gave me ten years ago. We could try it. You can come over and put on the apron I made in my embroidery class. And we could put fresh strawberries in it or chocolate or—”
“Carmina!” Bill barked. “Would you shut up about ice cream? We’re here for Bill Junior.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up! You shut up. I know why we are here. I am talking to our daughter, who didn’t call me after her date last night and kept me up all night with worry.”
He took off his hat and twisted it in his hands, his frustration palpable. “Can’t you just find out what’s wrong with her? Her friend Celery doesn’t call every day.”
“Her name is Cherri, Dad! Short for Charlotte. You’ve known her for three years.”
“Oh, Pudge!” her mother scolded. “Don’t you raise your voice to your father.” She left Belinda and looped her arms around her husband, smoothing kisses along his jaw. “He’s been so worried about you. Your friend Cherri called him at work. She called me on my cell phone, too, but you know I can never remember to turn it on. Your father has to do it for me, but today he left for work early and forgot so I didn’t know she had called me until we were on our way here.”
“Carmina,” Bill growled in his low voice.
She sighed. “I was having lunch with your father in his office. We do that sometimes. Did you know that? We have lunch together in his office. He likes for me to spend the afternoons with him and I like to go because I have to! If I don’t go in there with those smelly plug-in things, your father’s office will smell like sweaty socks. Those boys he coaches smell just horrible after practice. I don’t know how he deals with them.”
“Why did your friend call us?” Bill interrupted, finally tired of waiting for his wife to get to the point. “What’s wrong with you? Your face is all pale and stuff. You don’t ever get sick. You take after me that way.”
“Yes. Tell Mamá what’s wrong, Pudge? I had to ride all the way over here in your father’s dirty pickup truck. I swear he finds every inch of mud in the city and drives through it. I got mud on my pants. These are linen pants. Do you know how hard it is going to be to get the dirt out of here? I—”
“If you don’t stop complaining about your damn pants … I’ll buy you a new pair if the mud doesn’t come out.”
“I don’t want a new pair. You can’t buy me another pair. These were custom-made in Italy.”
Belinda plopped herself facedown on her bed as her parents argued.
She just wished they would shut up sometimes.
“I saw Carter in the park today,” she lifted her head and blurted out when the argument started getting louder. “You know, Carter. The man I married after knowing him a month. I got so flustered I fell in the lake at Elder Park. That’s why Cherri called you.”
The room went silent, and for a split second it was bliss.
But then she came back to reality. Her parents just stood there staring at her. This was the one thing they never talked about. Her mistake with Carter. How she disappointed them as their only child when she ran off and got married without telling them. She knew she had hurt them. And she knew they silently said I told you so when she came running back to them after six weeks of marriage.
Neither one of them said much of anything to her about it. She knew why. She was their only child. They just wanted her to be happy. But sometimes she wished they had told her what a big ass she had been. It would have lessened her guilt.
“What does he want?” She watched as her father’s jaw grew tight. His nostrils flared just a bit.
Carmina stared at her with an open mouth and looked back at Belinda. “Well, Pudge, what does he want?”
She was almost afraid to tell them. She thought they had known, but how could they? Once she came home to nurse her wounds she never said another word about the man she married. “He said he’s being trying to contact me. I think he wants a divorce.”
“A divorce!” Bill snapped. “You two aren’t divorced? What the hell have you been doing these past four years?” He let out a long stream of curses.
“William,” Carmina said in a hushed voice. “She doesn’t need you barking at her right now. Go to the store and bring us back some cookie dough.” She looked at Belinda and squeezed her cheek. “I know my Pudge. Cookies will make you feel better, won’t they, beauty?” She looked at her husband. “And the drive will make you feel better. Now go.”
But for once Belinda didn’t want to avoid this confrontation with her parents. They never spoke of how they felt about what she did. Maybe it was time they did. Maybe it was time they cleared the air. For once she didn’t want Carter being the elephant in the room. “But, Mamá—”
“Hush,” she said firmly. “It’s okay now. Everything is going to be okay.”
Belinda looked at her mother wanting to believe that, but this time it wasn’t true.
CHAPTER 4
I can’t go for that …
“Daddy? My feet hurt,” Ruby said as they walked up to his new firm.
“Did you step on something?” he asked her absently as he unlocked the door. They were there to pick up a file he had forgotten before he took her out to lunch. He had been distracted for the past few days. Absentminded. He was falling behind on his projects. He had misplaced his keys three times. He had even forgotten to give Ruby breakfast once.
And it was all Belinda’s fault.
He thought about her constantly. About their short marriage, their breakup, how his life had changed so much in the past five years. Seeing her again reminded him how angry he was with her.
But anger wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He had to make a fresh start for Ruby. He couldn’t do that if he was still legally, emotionally, or mentally attached to Belinda.
“I didn’t step on anything. My shoes squish my feet.”
“Oh.” He stopped in his tracks and for the first time that day focused fully on his daughter. She wore cute little red shoes, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember the last time he’d bought her a new pair.
Guilt eased into his chest.
“Are all your shoes bothering you?” he asked, hoping she would say no.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I think maybe you should buy me some new ones.”
Ass. Can’t even remember to get your kid new shoes.
“I’ll do that today,” he promised. “Right after we get this file. Okay?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, Ruby, but you need to tell Daddy these things sooner. Sometimes I forget that you’re growing.”
She nodded again and looked up at him with understanding. She was so serio
us, his little girl. Such a little adult. For once he just wanted her to act like a kid. To whine and complain. To be a brat. But she never was. She never giggled or was silly. She wasn’t loud. She never bothered him, and it caused him to think he was screwing up this parenthood thing.
“Let’s hurry up and grab the file so we can get you some shoes.”
They entered the building. His new firm was tiny compared with where he had come from, just him and Steven. Before he moved here he hadn’t seen his old friend in years, since after his first wedding to Bethany where Steven served as his best man. They had been so close in college, at times he felt much more at home with his friend’s family than his own. But something changed between them when he moved back west. They lost touch, only exchanging a few brief emails a year. His old friend barely knew his daughter, or half the stuff that had gone in his life for the past few years. Carter felt guilty about losing touch with the man who had once felt like his brother.
He was grateful Steven asked him to join his firm. It was the change he needed. They weren’t designing multimillion-dollar opera houses, but they did good solid work. Carter was currently making plans for a new restaurant while Steven was designing a motel that was going to be built on the outskirts of town. The work would always be steady here. People in Durant wanted to use local businesses, which initially surprised Carter. New York City was less than two hours away and world-class architects could be found by the dozens, but these people were loyal and a hell of a lot less fussy than his San Francisco clients. They also didn’t require three-hour dinners and weeks of wooing before they made a decision or mind that he had to conduct all his meetings before Ruby got out of school.
He thought he would miss the huge jobs he was so used to working on for the past ten years, but he was surprisingly content with his new work. It allowed him to spend more time with Ruby. He refused to get a babysitter, determined to do it right this time. But it was hard to juggle things. She spent a lot of time in his office with him. Sometimes when he couldn’t help it he had to put her in the afternoon program at her school, even though he knew she didn’t like it. But he was raising her completely alone. He didn’t have any other choice.
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