Playing With Fire

by Ruth Staunton

  Stacy bounced into the shop around 5:30 just as Glory was finishing up her last client of the day. Stacy grabbed a soda from the fridge and flopped down in an empty chair to wait. “What’s up, girlfriend?” she asked as the door closed behind the departing client.

  Glory didn’t answer immediately. She walked around the chair where Stacy was sitting and settled against the counter said that they were face-to-face. “There’s no good way to say this so I’m just going to blurt it on out. The lawman’s cheating on you, kid.”

  “Oh, God,” Stacy said.

  Glory was at her side before she could go any further. “It’s okay, Stace. Don’t you worry about him. Don’t even give that bastard a second thought.”

  “Not you too,” Stacy went on, ignoring Glory’s attempts at sympathy. “Why can’t anybody in the town believe that they’re just friends? Is it that utterly impossible for a man and woman to be friends without having an affair?”

  “Of course they can,” Glory said, “but honey there seems to be a lot more than just a friendship going on here. He’s over there nearly every night, sometimes late. He’s barely ever with you anymore.”

  “He’s busy,” Stacy replied, “and he’s helping Gail with Nicky. How is that such a crime? Nicky’s his godson. What else is he supposed to do?”

  “I know he loves the boy,” Glory conceded, “but you know as well as I do sometimes that helping thing is just an awfully good cover.”

  “Not for Cade,” Stacy said confidently. “He’s not like that.”

  Glory snorted, rolling her eyes.” All men are like that.”

  “Most men, maybe,” Stacy countered, “not Cade. Besides, this ain’t my first rodeo, girl. Do you really think I’d miss him: tricks I’ve tried myself? I’m pretty good at the game myself, remember?”

  “You are,” Glory agreed, “but love has a way of making a person blind.” Stacy opened her mouth to protest, but Glory cut her off. “Don’t even bother arguing that you’re not in love. Whatever else may or may not be going on, that much is as plain as the nose on your face. You’ve got it bad, girl.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Stacy asked.

  Glory laughed out loud. “Oh yeah, it’s obvious. I’m glad for you, but I just don’t want to see you do anything stupid. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I’m a big girl, Glory,” Stacy assured her. “I can take care of myself. If he were sleeping around on me, I’d kick his ass every day of the week and twice on Sunday, but he’s not.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Glory replied.

  “I am,” Stacy told her. “Trust me.”

  Her confidence didn’t stop the rumors though. They went on and on for weeks, dogging her everywhere she went. Cade wasn’t oblivious either, but he assured her they were ridiculous and told her to ignore them. That’s what he was doing. Stacy tried to do the same; she really did, but after weeks of near constant gossip with Cade as busy as ever, even her confidence began to erode. Was Glory right? Was she being stupid? Had love made her blind? It never had before. She’d never been the type to be swayed by romantic notions and silly emotions. She’d been ‘the other woman’ more than a few times herself. She knew the signs. Didn’t she? Besides, Cade had made his feelings on the subject very clear. He didn’t share… ever. Surely, if that applied to her, it applied to him as well. Didn’t it?

  These thoughts swirled through her mind as she made her way through the grocery store, picking up ingredients for a seven layer salad she wanted to take to Linda’s later that evening. Nicky had a baseball game so she was meeting Cade at the game, and they were going over to Linda’s for the party. For the first time in a week, she’d have him relatively alone. Granted, they would be in the middle of a crowd and not exactly private, but for once, he wasn’t working or helping Nicky. It wasn’t perfect, but at this point, she’d take what she could get.

  She was in the meat department picking up bacon when the two women she had overheard earlier in the week at the diner came around her, heads huddled together, chattering away like schoolgirls. They were near cookie-cutter copies of one another, one dark-haired and one blonde. Either could have posed easily for a photo shoot on the modern suburban ‘soccer mom’, right down to the perfect, cutesy monogrammed purses. The blonde’s was an oversized canvas affair with a large pink M emblazoned in the center. Her name was probably Mitsy or Muffy or something equally horrendous. Stacy didn’t recognize them, but she wasn’t that surprised. They weren’t exactly the type to frequent a mobile home manufacturer or a bar. It didn’t matter in any case. She hated them on sight. She selected a packet of bacon and dropped it into her shopping cart and began to turn down an aisle in search of refried beans, but the soccer moms’ conversation stopped her in her tracks.

  “My neighbor’s secret admirer was back,” the blonde said.

  “Oh really?” The dark-haired one replied, with a sickeningly snide look that made Stacy want to slap it right off her face.

  “Uh, huh,” the blonde continued, “every night this week. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling. Everyone in town knows his truck. He’s a cop, for goodness sakes. You know he’s still stringing that other poor girl along. That’s the saddest part. Everyone in town knows what’s going on except her. Can you believe he’s actually got her believing that he’s only helping the little boy?” She snorted disbelievingly. “Since when does helping the kid involve him sneaking out of the house at 6 AM?”

  “No,” her companion gasped. “He didn’t.”

  “Oh yes, he did,” the blonde told her.

  The other woman shrugged. “Well, from what I hear, the girlfriend isn’t exactly the innocent type either. She’s been known to sleep around with married men before. Seems like plenty justice to me.”

  Stacy felt riveted to the floor. Her stomach had turned to ice and her head was spinning. He was spending the night at Gail’s. She wanted to deny it, to say it was impossible, but it made a sickening amount of sense. After all, how many times had she asked if they could get together after he got done helping Nicky only to have Cade make some kind of excuse? Now that she thought about it, the excuses didn’t make sense. How late could he possibly be helping a nine-year-old with a summer project? He’d made a fool out of her, and worse yet, she had let him. She’d even defended him. No wonder the whole town was talking. She was the laughingstock of the whole community.

  She brought those files to a halt by sheer force of will. Drawing herself together, she walked away with two thoughts fixed firmly in her mind. One, she had to finish her shopping and get out of this store as quickly as possible before she fell apart and made an even bigger fool of herself. Two, she was going to kill Cade Dawson.

  Chapter 11

  By some miracle she didn’t understand but was incredibly grateful for, Stacy managed to make it to her car before she fell completely apart. Well, almost to the car; she had tossed the groceries in the backseat blindly, fighting furiously against the sheen of tears that was threatening to blind her. She fumbled with driver-side door and slid in without any real consciousness of what she was doing, slamming the door behind her like a safety shield. Then, and only then, did she lay her head on the steering wheel and give way to her tears. They came at her like rushing waves, flooding over her faster than she had the strength or energy to control, her body shaking with the strength of the sobs. For a long time, she was too far caught in the strength of the emotion to even form coherent thoughts, and when those thoughts finally came, they all seem to center around one horrible painful question: why?

  Why her? What had she done to deserve this? Okay, maybe that was a stupid question. She wasn’t a saint by any means. She had affairs herself on more than one occasion. Maybe this was all some terrible sick sense of karmic justice. Maybe the soccer mom was right. Maybe she deserved just what she got, but how could he do this to her? After all his talk of honesty and respect, he’d flaunted their relationship right under her nose. He’d made her a laughingstock of the en
tire town. He played her for the worst kind of fool. How could he do such a thing? Had everything he told her about himself and what he believed been a lie? It hadn’t felt like it at the time, not at all. He’d had her completely fooled. That was perhaps the worst part. She was normally a damned good judge of character. For most of her life, she had proven true the old adage that you couldn’t con a con. She could normally spot a lie at 20 paces, but Cade had flown all in the face of that. She’d fallen for the act, hook, line and sinker. She was such a fool. She’d honestly believed that he cared about her.

  He’d made her believe his old-fashioned chivalry act. She’d honestly felt guilty about the way she played around with Jason. Cade’s hurt had seemed so real. He’d given her the spanking of her life, and worse yet, she’d let him. Hell, she had more than let him; she’d asked for it. He’d made her believe she was wrong, enough that she had not only accepted him beating her, but actually actively participated in the process. When all the while, he was doing the same and worse right under her nose, and he had her so brainwashed she couldn’t even see it. He’d probably been gloating and getting his rocks off on her humiliation and his control of her the entire time. She was such an idiot.

  Stacy had no idea how long she sat there, having a complete breakdown in her car in the far corner of the grocery store parking lot. All sense of time seemed to have melted away. She felt like she was slowly bleeding out from a fatal wound no one could see but her. There was a great, gaping hole in the middle of her chest where her heart had been but no one else knew it.

  When the torrent of grief finally stopped and she came back to herself, she realized she was going to have to hurry if she was going to make it to Nicky’s ballgame on time. She considered not going. Cade was the last person in the world she wanted to see right now. In fact, at this moment, she didn’t care if she ever saw him again. He could fall off the face of the earth as far as she was concerned. All she wanted to do was go home, curl up in her bed, and ignore the rest of the world. She didn’t care if she never saw another human being as long as she lived, especially not another man. She was swearing off the species for the rest of her life, but then there was Nicky. He wasn’t a man, not yet anyway. He was just a little boy, and he was expecting her to be there. She had vowed long ago that she would never be one of those no-show adults. She had had far too many of them in her own life growing up. There had been far too many school programs where she had craned her neck searching the auditorium for her parents who had been too busy and too caught up in their own lives to remember their promises to her. She couldn’t do that to Nicky, no matter how badly she was hurting. It wasn’t his fault that his godfather was a lying son of a bitch, or that his mother was a sneaky bitch. She would put on a brave face for Nicky’s sake, but God help Gail or Cade if they were stupid enough to get in her way.

  Somehow, she made it through the drive home and showered and dressed on autopilot. She felt like a ghost moving through her own house. She thanked her lucky stars that she had made the salad for Linda’s party a million times and could do it without much conscious thought. She wasn’t going to the party with Cade. There was no way in hell she could get through that, but she could drop the salad off on her way back from the ballgame and make some kind of excuse. Then, she’d come home, get herself together, and figure out just exactly what to say to that asshole lawman when she got him alone.

  Fortified with a plan, she loaded Linda’s salad into the car and slid behind the wheel, checking her reflection one last time in the mirror on the visor to be sure that the aftereffects of her crying jag had disappeared. She’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction of going out in public looking like death warmed over. He’d embarrassed her enough already; she’d be damned if she was going to let him add insult to injury like that.

  The short drive from her house to the recreation league ball field passed all too quickly. The game had already started and the grassy area that served as a makeshift parking lot was crowded, but for once, Stacy didn’t mind. Today, she would be perfectly happy to disappear into the crowd and get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. She’d make sure to say hi to Nicky so he would know she was there, but she’d rather avoid his mother and Cade at all costs.

  It was just her luck that Cade was waiting for her just inside the entrance gate. He bent to kiss her, but she turned away, letting the kiss land on her cheek instead. Cade shot her surprised look, raising his eyebrows. She ignored him and moved to the bleachers before he could take her arm or put his arm around her as he normally would have. She deliberately chose a seat in a crowded section of the bleachers in hopes that Cade would be forced to sit somewhere else, but the man to her left noticed Cade following her and politely slid over to make room. Stacy sat stiffly, not speaking or making any move to lean into him. Thankfully, Cade seemed to be responding to her back off message and didn’t make a move to get closer to her. It was good for him that he was. She might have broken his fingers if he tried to touch her. He looked confused and hurt, but she didn’t care. Let him have a taste of his own medicine for a change. She tried to concentrate on the game, but his mere presence was unnerving. She felt like a match poised to strike. Every nerve in her body was revved for attack. She might explode at the slightest movement.

  Cade dropped a gentle hand on her arm, a slight, unconscious movement. It burned her raw nerves like fire. She shrugged him off irritably. From the corner of her eye, she saw him draw away, stung. Served him right, the bastard.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, a long moment later.

  “Oh, gee, I don’t know,” she said icily. “What could possibly be wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “That’s why I’m asking, and please watch your tone, we’re in public.”

  Stacy was on her feet before she realized she was moving. “What’s the matter, lawman?” She said, getting louder and more forceful with each word until she was shouting each word at him like a bullet. “Are you afraid I might embarrass you?” She laughed, bitter and humorless. “I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that considering the whole damn town knows you’re fucking your best friend’s widow.” He would have made a damned good actor. He actually looked shell-shocked. “Don’t look so surprised, Cade, even a stupid little trailer park broad like me was bound to figure out the truth sometime.”

  She swung away and made to flee, but he caught her arm. “Wait, Stacy…” That was all he got out before she rounded and punched him as hard as she could, right in his lying mouth. The blow split his lip and drew blood, which gave her a small measure of satisfaction.

  “Get your hands off me, you son of a bitch,” she spat, snatching her arm away. “Touch me again and I’ll break your fucking arm. Stay the hell away from me.” This time when she fled he let her go.

  Stacy had very little memory of her drive home. She had a vague memory of shoving the bowl of salad at a shocked Linda. She thought Linda might have tried to talk to her, but none of the words made sense. The continual throbbing in her head and the pulsing ache in her chest muddled everything. The rest of the weekend passed in a haze of ice cream, vodka, black and white movies, and tears–oceans of tears. The phone rang intermittently, Linda, Glory, even Cade–the bastard–called. She ignored them all. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She wanted them to go away. She wanted everyone to just go away.

  She called in sick Monday and Tuesday. It wasn’t a lie, she reasoned. She was heartsick. It was a condition she hadn’t experienced in years, and one she’d sworn never to go through again. After spending much of her childhood chasing her parents’ love and approval, only to come up short time and time again and be slapped in the face with disappointment and heartbreak, she’d sworn never to let anyone hurt her like that again. Until now, she’d been as good as her word. Cade had been the first to matter enough to hurt her that much. It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again.

  By Wednesday, she knew she had to pull herself together to get back to work. H
er bosses were likely to send out a search party otherwise, and God only knew what shape the office would be in. It would probably take her a week to find anything. The Bowron brothers might be great salesmen, but they had the organizational skills of a gnat. She doubted a tornado could wreak the havoc in her office that they likely had. Besides, this was her life now, and she might as well get used to it.

  Once she got herself moving, returning to work turned out to be far easier than she had expected. Her office was, as predicted, a complete wreck. It took her the better part of two days to set it to rights. The upside to that was the mess kept her so busy she didn’t have time to mope. Then, there was the updating of accounts, recording all the sales or payments that had come in during her absence. It wasn’t her favorite task, but this week she welcomed it. Any distraction was a good one at this point. The ache was still there, throbbing at unexpected moments, but as the days went by it slowly got easier to breathe. Days slid by, running into each other unnoticed. There were still nights when she cried, but for the most part, she put one foot in front of the other until she could finally do it without even thinking about it anymore. One day she looked up and realized days had turned into weeks and she hadn’t even noticed. Somehow, someway, she was getting on with her life. She might have continued that way for the foreseeable future had it not been for Nicky.

  The call came one Saturday afternoon as she was gearing up for a Duke movie marathon. She was surprised and slightly annoyed when her cell phone rang. She punched the pause button on the remote and picked up the phone.

  “Stacy, it’s Linda,” the caller said when she answered.

  “Linda?” Stacy said, surprised. “I thought you had to work today.” Though their relationship had been strained at first when she had broken it off with Cade, the two women had remained friends, in large part due to Stacy’s determination. She didn’t have that many girlfriends, and she wasn’t about to let Cade take Linda away from her. He might have introduced them, but they were friends in their own right now, and if Stacy had anything to say about it, were going to remain so.