Pursuing Sarah (Sarah Series Book 2)

by Julieann Dove

  When I got there, it had gone from yelling to pushing, to shoving shoulders like a fight of macho egos. “Hey guys, what’s going on?”

  My voice shook and felt as though it were being transmitted through a megaphone. Neither one paid any attention to me.

  “You’ve always been a jerk, Michael.”

  “I don’t know what your problem is, Carter. Not getting any lately? I heard Michelle is giving it away. In exchange for her kid not to get detention.”

  That’s what did it. Carter slugged him in the jaw. Michael stumbled back and grabbed his face. Before he could reload and come at Carter, I pushed myself between them. “Guys, stop it. I mean it!”

  Carter shook his hand and paced around like a runner having just completed a marathon in record time—shaking off the adrenaline. Michael readjusted his jaw and stared death beams at Carter.

  My hands pressed on each of their chests. “Just go home. Both of you. Michael, let me see your face first.”

  Carter picked up his briefcase and walked off as I studied Michael’s cheek.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  I had a sinking feeling it was Liz’s loose lips. Why did the only other friend I had in the world have legs and lips that never shut? Especially when something juicy was resting freshly in her brain. It was sure to leak.

  “You all have always had issues. Now stop moving so I can see your face.”

  He stopped and looked in my eyes. I tried not to get caught there again. “It looks fine. There’s no visible cut. You’ll be sore, no doubt. Might want to get some ice on that when you get home.”

  “Did you say anything, Sarah?”

  I bent my head down. “Not to Carter.”

  “Sarah!”

  “Well, the guilt was getting to me, Michael!”

  “You’re not guilty of anything—I am! And I feel like crap. I have all night and day.” He shielded his eyes. “I couldn’t even look Maggie in the face this morning.”

  “That’s a good sign.” I smiled.

  “Oh, is it now? I kiss you, betray my wife, and get slugged by Carter. At least something good is happening.”

  “It’s good that you feel like crap.”

  “Yeah, I’ve generally been feeling like that for the past two years. But okay.”

  “Did you mean it, Michael?”

  “What?”

  He was really going to make me ask? The question that’d plagued me since it happened. And I had no idea why. “The kiss—did you mean it? Or was it a knee-jerk reaction to two years of on-the-rocks with Maggie, or the fact beer and a movie was just taken away from you? And it just boiled down to…to…kissing me? Because I was in the middle of the runway when your hormones strayed? Really could’ve been anyone.” I shrugged. “It could’ve been Mrs. Wilkins, all things considered. Had she been in my kitchen at that particular time, that is.”

  He leaned against his car and hid his eyes. “Really? Mrs. Wilkins, the woman who teaches keyboarding and has been here since the first Tandy was manufactured?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “It could happen.”

  “I doubt with Mrs. Wilkins.” He rubbed his jaw, massaging it a little.

  Okay, so back to bad. Not so good anymore.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing, Sarah. I think I’ve always been attracted to you, and now that all me and Maggie do is fight, and she’s so distracted…and caked with mashed sweet potatoes and slobber. Not that I don’t appreciate what she does for Charlie, but I’m just so damned lonely. She curls up every evening with a book. It’s like I don’t even exist in the house, if I’m not being asked to take out the trash or change a light bulb.” He sighed. “I have no idea what last night was about with you.”

  I leaned up against the car next to him. The parking lot was empty. “I’m sorry home life is like that. It’s normal to feel that way—unwanted and unseen, especially when she doesn’t want to get close.” Maggie confessed she just doesn’t feel attracted to him lately. She was going to see her gynecologist about why her hormones are so freaky. I believe the way she described it was she’d rather chew glass than to feel his naked body near her.

  “And I guess it’s normal to do what you did. I guess it is. But, please just take stock of what you have and what you’d lose.” I stood to face him. “Get counseling, Michael. Your marriage deserves it. Charlie deserves it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “It’s not a suggestion, Michael. Do it. Maggie and you will get a lot from it.”

  “Fine.” He looked at me. “I’ll do it.”

  I smiled. “Thanks.” I kicked at a rock. “Now I’ve got to get my little girl from preschool. Go home and kiss your wife. Something unexpected might just happen when you do.”

  He grinned and grabbed his jaw with a wince.

  “It’ll blow over with Carter. I’ll talk to him.”

  We said good-bye and I felt he was on the right path. Now to set some more people straight: Liz for her big mouth, and Carter for his big, busy body. Sure, he can slug Michael for kissing me, but he wants to bump and grind with Michelle for insulting me to my face?

  “Liz Macarowski, where are you?” I shouted as I pulled open her back door. The creak was ear-piercing.

  I caught sight of her coming from the living room and began to tear into her. How dare she betray my confidence? It only took her, by my calculations, two minutes after I left the lounge, to shout out what I’d sold her into secrecy.

  “Sarah—”

  “No, you listen to me. When I said not to say anything to your stray cat, that included Carter Williams. Or should I’ve specified?”

  “Sarah—”

  “I mean, he just punched Michael in the parking lot. Thank goodness all the students had left for the day. I can see that whole mess tomorrow, explaining why the principal is a hothead.”

  “Sarah—” She put up her hand and came closer.

  “The fact is Michael feels awful about the kiss. It wasn’t directed at me intentionally. Although he did say something about an attraction. But please, they’re just having some problems. It’ll rectify itself, and soon it will all be a memory—a weird one, and one that only we know about, but a memory no less.” I paced quickly, pulling at my lower lip and thinking everything on my mind out loud. “Then, and here is the best part of the guilt eating me inside out, I kind of liked it. I mean not that it was Michael and he was single-handedly cheating on Maggie, but I liked feeling someone lean in and I liked—”

  “Sarah!” Liz threw up her hands.

  Before she could say anything else, Carter walked in from the other room. My jaw hit the floor. “Carter!”

  “Yeah.” His hands were deep in his pockets and his head was hung.

  “Oh my gosh.” I grabbed my mouth. “What did you hear?”

  Why was I asking? I knew what I said. At least I was trying to replay it to find out what exactly I let slip from my imaginary mind. The one that liked the kiss and was trying to explain why.

  With head still low, his eyes found mine. “You liked it?”

  He said it in a hurt way. Like a gut punch, or the way someone looks at you as you pull the dagger out of their back, hoping they didn’t feel a thing by the ten-inch incision. But why did he feel bad?

  I swallowed. “Not like that. I mean, not that it was Michael.”

  Liz fell into a chair at her tiny table in the kitchen. There was a week’s worth of mail spread over the surface. She began biting her nail, looking at me. “I feel like crap.”

  “I’m glad I hit him.”

  “Yeah, it helped everything. What were you thinking, Carter?”

  “There’s something about him that rubs me wrong, that’s all.”

  “Clearly. It makes some of our get-togethers a bit frigid at times.”

  “Sorry.” His head lowered.

  I grabbed a pile of clothes from a chair and threw them on the table and sat next to Liz. She was being annoyingly quiet. Figures. She only spilled
her guts when I was out of the room.

  “Liz, I want you to fix me up for the camping trip.”

  “Excuse me? I thought you were on the fence to go.”

  “Well, this little incident has taught me a lot of things. One is that I need some serious physical contact. If I wait much longer to go out with a guy, the first one I do go out with I might jump before he tells me his name.” I shook my head. “No, I need to dip a toe. Get ready for the dating scene. The camping trip will be a good time. This way I won’t have the option to bail early when I feel guilty about Rose being babysat while I’m keeping company with a man. She’ll be at Aunt Heidi’s and I’ll be in dating bootcamp.” I looked at Liz sternly. “Just make sure he is one heck of a guy. Should be easy for you. You have a plentiful directory of eligibles.” I cut her a look. “But make him a gentleman. I don’t want to be pimped out or anything. And while I’m putting a wish list together, make him a hard worker, a funny guy, someone with wit, and one who cooks. I’d like a break every now and then.”

  Liz smiled and rubbed her hands together. “This is going to be fun. I’ve wanted to fix you up for so long.”

  It’s true. She used to call me all the time to go to the city and go out. I just never felt ready. And then there was the low self-esteem. When I felt flabby, ugly, and “oh, I have a daughter…without a dad,” you kind of feel like you’re in another category when having a child creeps into your profile. The guy worries why the baby daddy didn’t want you. Wonders whether the child is a devil spawn, and they don’t want the responsibility. You name it, it’s kept me away from the dating scene for four plus years. And there’s the fact I’m damaged goods…or divorced, as I refer to it. Been there, done that. And everyone is always wondering who the fault of the divorce was. And you spend the next date on the whole tale of woes of why it wasn’t your fault. Or actually it was because you only knew the guy for a couple of months before the ring slid on your finger, and the lies piled up in the closet, along with all the other skeletons.

  “Bring it on.” I smiled and winked at her. “And you…” I looked at Carter. “Keep your fists in your pockets.”

  He grinned and shook his head.

  “Now, I’m off to get my daughter and scan the fashion websites for what’s in and what’s out. I’m super psyched for this trip.

  Aunt Heidi had picked Rose up, and I was hyperventilating while stuffing things in my bags. The last time I was with another guy was the last camping trip. It took forever to commit to go with him, and it took a year to recover from the debacle. I go through stages of feeling guilty for taking time from Rose to work on a relationship. I wish it were easier to be a single parent. Hopefully things would change this weekend. I asked Liz every day what he was like, and she did her normal avoidance of me—smiling in a sheepish way and pulling pretend zippers off her lips.

  The door knock made my stomach clench. All I asked of Liz was to make him single (long story), charming, and funny. Surely her roster of men had one of these gems on it. This could be it. This could be the first date we remember and recount for years to come. I took a deep breath, smoothed out my favorite yellow top, and opened the door.

  “Before you kill me, don’t.”

  Liz’s brow was folded and her lips were twisted after she uttered the words. She was even tugging at her fingers.

  “What are you talking about?” My posture fell. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t find someone. Liz!” I hit her on the arm. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

  “Blame Carter.”

  “Carter? What does he have to do with anything?”

  She spoke with speed. I tried to hang on to interpret. “He told me he had the perfect guy for you. And I wasn’t to worry about finding you a degenerate from my harem of men. As if. I have prime stock.” She rested her hand on her tiny hip. “But still, he begged. And I gave in.”

  “What?” I felt my head jut forward. “You let Carter pick out a guy for me? Are you crazy? Do you know the guys he hangs out with, Liz?”

  For all I knew, Carter would bring a drinking buddy for himself and pass him off as a guy for me. He probably belched and smashed beer cans on his forehead. Socially, Carter wasn’t the most mature. Professionally was a different story.

  “Have you seen him?”

  Liz bit her lip and looked at her feet. “Uh, yeah.”

  Just then Carter busted in the back door. “Ladies, if you don’t mind. We’re all waiting out here. We’ve got to get cracking if we plan to set up our tents before nightfall.”

  “Carter!” I shouted.

  His eyebrow rose. “No time to talk, Sarah. Shake a leg.”

  I looked at Liz before I hoisted my bag across my back. “I swear, Liz, if I survive this trip, I’m slipping you cow testicles in your hamburger.”

  “Gross.”

  Awkward ride up the mountain. Randy, my surprise date, stared out the window and gripped the door lever with white knuckles. I watched from the backseat of Carter’s Jeep and made small talk with his blonde weekend guest. Seeing as she was sitting next to me. Randy tends to get car sick and needed to ride shotgun. I tried not to sneer at Carter in his rearview mirror. I signaled Liz a few times, as she followed us in her Subaru.

  I tried to sum up the man Carter paired me with for the weekend, and ask the question of why. I’m no staunch snob—I know beauty is skin-deep. But really, an orange polyester jacket? Zipped up? It was eighty-two degrees. When Carter teased him, his response was that it was for hunters to recognize him as more than wildlife to shoot, and the fibers were scented with mosquito repellent. He was covered on all angles.

  Now, on to his features. Although I studied most of his profile from the backseat, I could imagine the other half sort of matched. His nose seemed narrow, his eyes inset—in fact, his sockets looked like deep caves for his brown eyes to set in comfortably. His cheeks had dark scruff on them, as though shaving wasn’t as important as the bug repellent getting soaked in fibers of his coat. And his hair…it was dark, with a few threads of gray, and thinning at the hairlines. Yeah, I can see where Carter saw my name written all over him. In fact, I was going to ask Carter where he found him. I don’t recall ever seeing this guy around town, let alone hanging out with him.

  The car ride was only the beginning of the fun I’d remember not having. Again. We got out at our usual spot and I drew in a healthy amount of fresh air. It would take only five hundred more of these to get me to the night. Who knows, maybe Randy would turn into a party animal once we landed safely out of the car. Yeah, I sort of doubted it.

  “Where is the cabin, Carter?” He looked around at our usual campsite. The bridge of his nose looked painfully captive underneath his horn-rimmed glasses.

  “What, man? There’s no cabin. We have tents. Don’t worry. I brought you and Sarah one. No fear there.”

  I stole a look at Carter.

  “No cabin? I thought you said we were camping.” He looked left and right, as if Carter was hiding one somewhere. His boney knuckles were folded into fists resting on the waistline of his cargo shorts.

  I dragged the tents from Carter’s back passenger area. No sense in waiting for my knight. He was still looking for the castle equipped with indoor plumbing and air conditioning.

  Liz came over and helped. I managed to get a look at her guy. The short-sleeve shirt he wore looked worn out, having to bulge in so many areas—the arms, the chest… And the hair…seriously? Did he go to the salon to get that perfect ratio of honey-dipped blond and chestnut brown? The teeth…now those were some teeth—so bright and straight. He looked like a snapshot every time he flashed me a smile and carried Liz’s botanical luggage from her backseat.

  “He looks like a total loser. Where in the world did you get him?” I hit my head. “Of course, he’s mine, isn’t he? This is where you laugh and say you were punking me with Randy. Then I take what’s-his-name, and you take Randy. Who is secretly a Chippendale and I’m not jealous in the least that you will benefit f
rom his midnight lap dances.”

  Liz frowned. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Carter told me Randy was perfect for you.”

  “Perfect?” My voice got really loud. “Perfect?”

  Carter came over. “Are you all talking about Randy? I thought I heard the word perfect.”

  “No, I’m actually approving the plan to later take you in the middle of the lake and tie cinder blocks to your ankles.” I hit him on the shoulder. “Are you kidding with Randy? Where in the world did you find him, Carter? At the bus station, looking for his lost cat, Snowball? Because his mommy didn’t have the heart to tell him he got hit while he was at work. Because she’d know. Because he still lives at home.”

  “Sarah, be nice. I did a thorough check of this guy.”

  “What, did it take you all of a minute? I’m guessing he pays for everything cash out of his piggy bank. There is no credit to check. Only personal references from aunts and uncles. And a criminal check? Really? Does wearing blazing orange, dipped in stink, qualify as a crime? If not, it should.”

  “He lives at home because it saves on rent, Sarah.”

  “Unbelievable! And you think he’s perfect for me?”

  “You’re welcome.” He grabbed a tent and winked at me.

  “I’m gonna kill him, Liz.”

  “Just try to relax, honey. Have a good time. You deserve time away.”

  “I’ll try. I just need to change my mindset of this trip, that’s all.” I grunted a little when I said it. So much for budding new love. This would be a test to make it through.

  She leaned in. “You never know, maybe Randy has a wild side.”

  “I’m going to make a stab at that statement and just say I think the wild scares the wild right out of him. If there were any in the first place.”

  Where were the mindless games you could play on your phone when you needed it? I must’ve tried to find cell reception every other minute. As if raising my hand to the sky would really improve my chances of playing Solitaire or Candy Crush. Two games which I’ve mastered due to all the solitary in my life, brought to me by all the crushing faults of reality. I usually play them in bed, after Rose has gone to sleep, between commercials to shows that are mindless drivel themselves. Lately I can’t even watch shows with couples in them…let alone hanky-panky scenes. Living vicariously through these people isn’t cutting it lately.