Pursuing Sarah (Sarah Series Book 2)

by Julieann Dove

  “Liz, don’t start. He didn’t mean it.”

  “What one says when one is drunk is only what one has been thinking about while one’s sober. That’s all I’m saying.” She waved her hand and snubbed her nose.

  “How silly.” I swatted at the notion.

  “I study men, Sarah. I know things.”

  “I know things, too.”

  “And when was your last date?”

  “No fair. He said he was drunk. And I believe him.”

  “Then his plan worked. No foul, no harm. He was testing you.”

  “And had I said yes?”

  “You would be planning on sharing his sleeping bag for the trip.”

  I shook my head. “You are full of it, Liz.”

  Just then Carter poked his head in. “Say Sarah, are we still on for six this evening? I’ve had my mind on nothing but your dinner all day. Mom’s looking forward to it, too.”

  Liz glanced at me and smiled.

  “Uh, sure. Six.”

  He smiled that boyish smile that I could get trapped in and slid out. Before Liz could say anything, I put up my hand. “No comment, please. I’m just taking dinner over to his mom and that’s going to be that. Liz! He likes my meatloaf.”

  “So that’s what we’re calling it these days?”

  I bit my lip and cleared my desk to leave and go home and cook. I hated that Liz had my mind going in a couple different directions.

  I knocked on Carter’s door at 5:45. Rose helped me carry in the rolls, and I balanced the meatloaf platter and potatoes while weaving myself underneath his arm as he held it open for us.

  “I’ll go get the rest of the stuff,” he called out.

  “Great. It’s all on the front seat.”

  Carter’s mom, Jean Williams, greeted us with a beaming smile and outstretched arms. She looked like your typical mom, not that I ever had one to compare. Her short figure was well-rounded, settled from all the good food I bet she made, she smelled as if she just got out of the shower with pretty cologne, and her blouse had a million flowers on it. Her hair had already turned white, telling me she must’ve had Carter later in life.

  “Let me help. For goodness’ sakes, I can’t believe you’re going to all this trouble. The least he could do is let you stay in your own kitchen and we could come to you.”

  That did make sense, but I was hoping to drop the food off and sort of run. I loved Jean to death—all three times I’ve met her—but I didn’t know what went beyond the “so you’re the school counselor.” And “so you’re Carter’s mom.”

  “That’s okay. I’m just going to sauté the Brussel sprouts and leave you two at it.”

  Her mouth turned into a perfect shaped O. “I won’t hear anything of it. Now, why on earth can’t you stay? You make a feast like this, and leave?” She set down the meatloaf and helped Rose take out the rolls from the linen I had them tucked in.

  “We don’t want to intrude.”

  I saw her pinch Rose’s cheeks. “What a most enchanting girl you’re becoming. Just last year, you were this tall.” She held up her hand.

  Rose’s dimples danced on her cheeks, while she tucked her chin to her chest. Just then Carter came in, carrying the rest of the bags. Leave it to a guy to strike up a hernia, just so he can make it in one trip.

  “Do I smell peach cobbler?”

  I snatched one of the bags from his arms. “No, I don’t think it’s possible you smell it. But I guess you could’ve been snooping.”

  “Carter.” His mom smacked him on the arm. “Is this lovely lady still single, and you haven’t taken notice? I do declare.”

  “Mom,” he said, giving her the eye.

  My breathing became hurried, and I turned his oven on to keep the meat warm, not wanting either one of them to think I heard that. Rose giggled.

  “Fine cook like this, and a lovely little girl.” She turned her attention to me. “I forget dear, what is your story? My mind is slipping so these days.”

  “Um, my story?”

  “Yes, of why you’re single?” She tilted her head. “Widow? Divorced? I plumb can’t remember.”

  I dropped a pan I’d just taken out of Carter’s cabinet. It’s a good thing I know the layout of things. Seeing as when it’s his turn to cook, I usually end up doing most of it.

  “And just look—she knows your kitchen better than you, Carter.”

  “We eat here once a month, Mom.”

  “Who? You and Sarah?”

  “All of us. Remember? Liz, Maggie, and Michael.”

  “Liz wasn’t your type.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “Then why were you dating her?”

  The million-dollar question, though I thought it was past tense. I preferred to think of it as rebounding. It was before me, anyway. Right after Paige, his dirty, low-down ex-wife, left him.

  “I told you when you came to visit and she was staying here, I wasn’t really seeing Liz. I was just messing around.”

  “Messing around? What exactly does messing around mean? My generation didn’t mess around. We dated. We committed. We married. Who messed around? Are you some sort of gigolo?”

  I turned the water on high and banged a spoon against the pan. I really didn’t want my daughter to become aware of messing around and its true multiple meanings. She was busily playing a learning game on her iPad at the table.

  “Whatever. I didn’t think she was your type.”

  Dinner was surprisingly nice. Much different than the before-dinner show. Luckily, I never had to answer her question about my story. Jean was too busy needling Carter about his mess of a life, and looking at Rose’s progress on her word searching game. I quietly asked Rose a couple times to leave her alone, but the woman wouldn’t dream of it. She loved being pulled on, and asked a million questions by my curious child. A true grandmother, indeed. Great, now I needed a man to be Rose’s dad, and a grandmother. Hopefully they’d come into my life as a pair. Sooner rather than later.

  We actually ate at Carter’s dining room table, with napkins and the food in bowls. Rose and I usually hover around the kitchen, eating from the counter or on the sofa, or rather me at the sofa, and Rose on the coffee table. We’ve eaten like this since she graduated from the high chair. Our table is only cleared off when the group dinners rotate to my house. And I shove everything in a basket and store it beside the hutch until everyone leaves.

  Jean interrogated me about my life goals while Carter did funny skits with his food to make Rose laugh. There, for a moment, I got to see what a real family looked like. It was sobering. Something I wanted for Rose. I watched Carter and wondered for a brief second what he ever saw in Paige, his ex-wife. I knew her from school, and she was certainly no peach back then. Bossy, controlling, and not kind. Carter was none of those things. Then I imagined him in a different way. The way Liz was trying to paint him earlier. As though he liked me. Was there any truth to it? He did, after all, invite me over to eat with his mom. Minus the “you cook” portion of the scenario, something could be read between the lines. Rose simply adored him.

  Then came the knock on the door. Just as Jean was squeezing Rose’s cheeks and saying what a pretty little girl she was, as grandmothers do, I suppose, Carter sprung to the door and let in Michelle Wayne. Like you would a stray animal, wandering the streets, searching for the dimwit who would actually open the door. This time the dimwit was Carter. The only thing I know about Michelle was that I didn’t care for her. She was new to Calvert, and when her delinquent son was sent to my office for cussing a teacher—poor Mrs. Wilkins, no less (a woman who rescued cats and bought coats for the homeless every winter), now crying in front of twenty kids—Michelle Wayne had the audacity to tell me her son was just doing what any normal kid does when they get a failing grade. Ha! It seems she doesn’t buy into the fact I’m trained to see between the lines of normality and just a mean bully. After she grabbed her son and dragged him from my office, she looked back and told me to mind my own busines
s. What a real treat it was to see her here tonight.

  “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Michelle.” Carter held on to her arm as though she were an Oscar being presented, and not the low-down stray I clearly knew her to be. A smell even wafted by me when he said it. A cheap cologne she probably bathed in from the free tester at Clyne’s drugstore before she came over.

  I grabbed my plate and headed for the kitchen. I heard Jean say a few words to her. Rose was on my heels, bringing her cup. I washed it out and set it next to the sink.

  Carter came in. “What’s up, Sarah? Why did you run in the other direction the second I introduced Michelle? I played it off that you might’ve choked on a bone in the beans, but what gives?”

  “What? You know what happened last week with that woman!” I told him about it because I was afraid she would report me for saying a few choice words when she walked out.

  He waved his hand. “That’s in the past. I’m sure she doesn’t even remember you calling her a non-educated baboon. Or whatever. Did it involve whales or baboons? I can’t really remember.”

  I gave him the eye. “You know what I said. And so does she. What is she doing here, Carter?” I felt as though our happy place had been infiltrated with slimy backwash. Normal kid, my butt. Mrs. Wilkins stayed until six that afternoon, getting shoulder rubs from me and other staff members.

  “Don’t get mad. But we kind of went out after she came in and snitched on you.”

  “Carter!!”

  “What? I knew it wasn’t true. But come on, Sarah. Have you seen those eyes?”

  Eyes? Didn’t he mean boobs? She had them on display like rental bowling balls.

  “Come on, Carter. You can do better than that.”

  “I’m sorry. I just invited her for dessert. Don’t be angry.” His frown stretched dramatically across his face.

  “I’m leaving.” I wiped Rose’s face and tossed the napkin in the trash. “Tell your mom I had to go.”

  “Sarah—”

  I grabbed my keys and Rose’s hand and went out the side door. I tried not to be upset. I didn’t want to ruin what was left of Rose’s evening with a bunch of under-the-breath cursing. But it was hard to believe Carter wasn’t any more loyal than that. Family dinner finished. Family dream annihilated. Who cares? It’s obvious I’m the only one who was delusional at the table, anyway. Well, now there’s Michelle. And her delusions are welcomed. Her and her nasty-smelling perfume—poor Jean would have to wear a gas mask just to eat the cobbler.

  I had just tucked in Rose and managed to avoid the new subject of our desperately missing family member—a grandmother. She wanted to know why she didn’t have at least one of them. It seems Jean reminded her of Angie’s grandmother. She was visiting from Montana and had taken the little girls for ice cream and putt-putt. I needed to get Rose a dad, a grandma, and a puppy really soon.

  I was delving into my carton of rocky road, when I heard my phone ping. I checked it on the nightstand to see it was a message from Carter.

  I’m outside your back door. Let me in, please. P.S. I have peach cobbler.

  Yeah, my peach cobbler. The one I was looking forward to through dinner. And then that Michelle ate it, I was certain. And enjoyed it, no doubt. I’d even gone to the farmers’ market out past town to get the ripe peaches. Miller’s Farm is a bit pricier than Jenson’s but at least you know the fruits and vegetables are grown a stone’s throw away from where they’re sold—not trucked in from a refrigerated truck from Florida.

  I sighed and threw on my robe.

  “Carter, what on earth are you doing here?” I held open the back door as he came inside.

  “You left without eating dessert.”

  I stared at him, trying to make my eyebrows resemble the Grinch—sharp and menacing. His stupid magnetic smile was working overtime to get me to relax my you’re-on-my-poop-list look. Finally, I caved. Not completely, though. I backed up and walked to my room, where I knew my ice cream was melting.

  “Don’t tell me you waited until now, thought about me not getting cobbler, then drove it over. There’s something more to this.” There always was.

  He jumped on my bed and stretched out, staring at the ceiling. Been here, done this. Every time he dumps a girl, gets dumped, or is thinking of dumping, he comes over and asks my opinion. As if it ever matters to him. I’m not sure why he keeps coming over to never heed a word of advice I give.

  “My mother.” He sighed.

  I grabbed my ice cream and sat down on my bed, eating it. Shrink mode commence.

  “What about your mother? She’s a lovely lady. Intuitive, funny, caring…if I had a mom, I’d want her to be somewhat like Jean.”

  He pressed his eyes shut. “She didn’t like Michelle.”

  “Has good taste,” I continued with all the adjectives I admired about his mother. “Did I mention, intuitive?” I smiled.

  “She was upset you left, by the way.”

  “Did you tell her why?”

  “Yeah, I said, ‘Since Michelle is here, Sarah left, Mom.’”

  “Well, it’s the truth. You know how I feel about her, Carter.”

  “She was having a bad day, Sarah. Her kid is bad. His dad doesn’t want him. It’s just Michelle, and she’s doing her best.”

  I rolled my eyes and took another bite. It was becoming more soupy and less frozen. The peanuts were sinking to the bottom of the carton.

  He rolled over to his side and looked at me. I suddenly felt the need to pull at the front of my robe.

  “Mom, however, went on and on about you.”

  I tried not to smile. “Did she, now?”

  “Yeah, then she went on about how she wants me to sign the divorce papers.”

  “Carter, you said you signed them.” My mouth hung open.

  “I know. I didn’t want Maggie on my case about it.” She’s been the on-call therapist to him on days I’m unavailable.

  “You haven’t been together in two years. Don’t you think it’s about time? What does Paige think?”

  He rolled on his back again. “Let’s see, last time I talked to her, she said Jake was ‘the one.’”

  “Jake?”

  “Her new man. She trades them in every three months. I should feel proud of the fact I lasted twenty months with her, I guess. Let’s see, does that make me seven times the man for all these chumps she’s dating?”

  Story has it that after Carter and Paige married, she moved him back here to Calvert. Where he secured a principal’s job and town chair. She waited until the loan papers were signed on their two-story colonial and the final payment on his SUV was paid before she dumped him. He’s between living in denial she’s gone and not able to leave because of his employment contract.

  “That’s something to hang your hat on, I suppose.” Paige was a class-A twit.

  He rolled back to his side and picked at my chenille bedspread. “You know we dated for a year, stayed married almost two, and it all dissolved in a five-minute tirade from her saying she was suffocating. I was suffocating her.” He pounded his chest. “The house…the town…you name it. She couldn’t breathe.”

  “I know Paige. It sounds about right. I don’t think she’ll ever settle down. It would require her to take time and reflect who she really is. And the reflection in that mirror is no pretty sight.” I imagine the girl kicks litters of puppies just for fun. That, or they might get more attention than her, and that doesn’t happen in Paige-world.

  “Mom says I need to sell the house. Says she hates the décor.” He flailed his arms demonstratively.

  Paige liked a lot of pink and orange. Even his oven mitts were fuchsia. I’m sure he had to explain why to his girlfriends a lot.

  “I think your mom is right. You need to find your own identity without Paige. Then you’ll feel ready to sign the papers. It will close a door to your past, and free you for a new future. With oven mitts that don’t require sunglasses to use. And those heart-shaped canisters. Come on, Carter. You can’t even
get to the bottom of them when all the sugar runs out.” I hit him on the leg.

  “Paige found those online. She had to have them. What do I care? I don’t cook.”

  “So why are they still there? I hate them.”

  “Okay, so I’ll pitch them. Good grief.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Atta boy! And while you’re at it, what about—”

  “Why don’t you just come over and have at it?”

  I smiled. “Sounds like a plan. And I promise, you’ll feel different about things. When things around you begin to change, you’ll be ready to move on.”

  “You really think so? You don’t think this is a phase, and she’s coming back? I mean, what if I sell the house, get rid of her junk, then she comes back and freaks out?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think that’s likely.”

  I have a mutual Facebook friend and I stalk Paige sometimes. Mainly to study what Carter saw in her. Anyway, she’s traveling with some guy and every picture she posts is them kissing. Poor Carter is so blind to her disinterest in him. I see it all over her face in those poses…Carter who?

  “Okay, I guess. I’ll list the house. It’s too much for me to take care of anyway. Do you know we bought it because we talked about having kids? She wanted two. And then I realized when she left, will I ever have kids? You know how I love kids, Sarah.”

  “I know, Carter. And you will. And the house won’t make or take them away. You need to separate yourself from things that remind you of Paige. That’s the objective here.”

  “If you think that’s best.”

  I looked at him. He was so vulnerable. So hurt. Even after two years. No wonder he goes through women as though speed dating is a sport.

  “Why exactly are we here?” asked Liz.

  I cut my eyes at her. “Because Carter is trying to move forward. And a new house is step one.”

  It was a three-bedroom, two-and-half-bath over on Lithum Street. The siding was gray and the shutters were maroon. There was a lovely blue spruce in the front. I imagined it would look beautiful decorated in white lights during the winter. His realtor said if he didn’t move quickly, it’d be sold by the weekend. Something about the mature landscaping, the proximity to downtown, and the fenced backyard. All of which did nothing for him, but he heeded her advice, put in an offer, placed his for sale, and waited for the tides to change for his newfound freedom.