by Elise Faber
“Dad will be so impressed at the next game he comes to, buddy,” I said. “You’ve improved so much.”
“Yeah.”
Max reached for the remote, turned off the TV, and stood. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” He said goodbye to Justin and Kelly and goodnight to his sister before heading up the stairs.
“I’m tired” were words I’d never heard him utter before.
He was a fighter of sleep, not an acceptor. Always had been.
Which meant he was upset. Certainly about his dad, but what if it was something else as well?
“I—”
“Go,” Kelly said. “We need to head home anyway.” She scooped up Allie and pulled her in for a hug. “Go brush away those sugar bugs on your teeth, and I’ll see if I can pick you up from Girl Scouts tomorrow, deal?”
“Yes!” Allie fist-pumped then sprinted upstairs to her bathroom.
“You don’t have—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” my sister said. “I’ve got auntie privileges, and indoctrinating Allie to horses is one of them.” Her voice dropped. “But I have sister privileges too, which means we need to talk about what’s going on with Rob. Things aren’t right between you two.”
I sighed and dropped my head forward, staring at the one nice pair of flats that Rocco hadn’t managed to destroy—probably since he was still uncomfortable and moving quite slow with the cast and cone of shame.
But staring at the blue leather didn’t make the truth any less obvious.
“They’re not right,” I said. “We’re not in a good place.”
“Have you . . . well, tried to talk about it?”
My eyes flew up, locked with hers. “All I’ve done is try to get through to him, but there’s nothing there in return. No understanding, no support! He didn’t want me to go to New York. He hates the blog. He hates that I’ve found something to spend time on that’s not devoted solely to him.” My chest heaved. “It’s—I just don’t know what to do. I probably won’t even get the show, but how could he begrudge me the chance? This is the one thing I’ve always wanted . . .”
“I know, Miss.”
“Culinary school was too expensive when I had the chance.” I leaned back against the wall, rattling the framed pictures of Rob and me and the kids—happy, cuddling, giggling—that lined the hallway. “Then I had to drop out of college to work and pay to put Rob through the academy.” My hands were fists, and I smacked one against my thigh. “I did it because I loved him, because I wanted the chance for him to do what he loved. So, after everything we’ve been through, how could he begrudge me that?”
Abby squawked in Kelly’s arms, and I jumped, having completely forgotten that she and Justin were still in the room.
This is why I bottled things up. This is why I didn’t vent about the really big stuff to other people and especially not to Kel. Once the statements were out there, I couldn’t take them back. They were always there, tainting future interactions, influencing how they would relate to Rob.
I didn’t want to ruin their relationship with him.
I didn’t want to badmouth him to them.
I just . . . wanted my husband back.
Justin’s expression was fierce. “I’ll pay for you to go to culinary school if you don’t get the job.” He reached over and pulled me into a hug. “And if you do get the job, you can film at the ranch. I’ll get a babysitter to help with the kids.” He leaned back. “God knows, we’re going to need all hands on deck as it is.”
“You don’t have to—”
Justin snagged Abby from Kel’s arms. “We’re here for you, Melissa. We’re family, and that means we have your back, Rob be damned.” He glanced at Kelly. “I’ll get her settled. Come out when you’re ready.”
He slipped out the front door, closing it quickly behind him and limiting the rush of cold autumn air into the warm house.
Abby’s jacket was on the bench by the front door, as well as the diaper bag. I scooped up both and handed them to Kel.
She was looking at me sadly. “Is it really that bad?”
I nodded.
“Damn.”
Silence. Then, “I know.”
“I thought you guys had it all figured out.”
My laugh was brittle. “Believe me, I did too.”
She played with the zipper on Abby’s purple coat. Pulling it up, down, up, down. “What happened?”
“I wish I could say I knew exactly what.” My hands found the hem of my shirt, and I ran my fingers over the threads forming the seam. “He was promoted to detective six months ago, you know, and he’s just been different.”
“Different how?”
“Distant? I try to talk to him, and he seems unavailable. Longer hours.”
“Do you think the job is getting to him?”
“That and—” Oh God, was I seriously going to confide in my sister about this? It was so . . . embarrassing, I guess, that my husband might be cheating on me.
What kind of woman did that make me? What kind of wife?
Kel’s hands froze. “What?”
“I think he’s having an affair.”
21
My sister’s eyes met mine, and there was a shadow in them.
A shadow that made my stomach drop.
“You know something,” I said and, yes, there was accusation in my tone, but she was my sister. And if she knew something but hadn’t said—
“I don’t know anything.” Kelly winced. “Okay, there was a rumor, but that was it. I heard it once and never again.” She shrugged, bit her lip. “I just assumed it was small-town gossip at its best.”
Damn.
I slumped back against the console table in the hall, the one that Rocco always managed to knock over. Probably because two of the legs were wobbly, I remembered . . . right before I almost went ass over teakettle two feet from the front door.
“Easy,” Kel said, in that calming voice of hers. The one that made even the most rambunctious of horses settle. “Everything is—”
“It’s not small-town life. Not—” I broke off. “Not after everything I’ve heard and seen.”
Red lipstick on his collar.
She’s not important.
My kids are.
“What did you hear? What have you seen?” Steel in that tone now, and while I appreciated the layer of I’m-gonna-cut-a-bitch, there I was again, sharing too much information. Unfairly influencing.
“Anyway,” I said. “He hasn’t come out explicitly and confirmed anything, but he’s not here. He says he’s on a case, but he doesn’t respond to my messages, doesn’t pick up when I call.” I sighed, deciding to just let it all come out. The damage was already done. “He has another phone with text messages from a woman named Celeste. Add in bright red lipstick on his collar . . .”
A bright red that didn’t match my skin tone, but that wasn’t exactly the point now, was it?
“Celeste McDermot?”
My eyes flashed up. “I don’t know,” I said. “Why?”
“Because last I heard there was a Celeste at the station. A transfer from Denver who was looking to get her teeth into some real case work.”
I frowned. “What kind of case work is there in Darlington? Stolen cows? A run-over mailbox?”
Kel shrugged. “I haven’t heard anything else. Maybe she was on desk duty or something in Denver and wanted to actually patrol, or something.”
“Well, I don’t think patrolling involves calling my husband baby, do you?”
“No,” Kel said. “It doesn’t.”
We fell silent.
I opened my mouth, to say what, I really had no idea. I’d felt this way since I saw the first text, as though the foundation of my life had been shaken off its piers.
And I guess that wasn’t surprising.
My life and Rob’s had been intertwined forever . . . or, well, since grade school.
He’d been there through my mother’s various abandonments—when she wo
uld take our money and disappear to gamble it away. I’d gotten smarter as time went on, trying to hide the cash I’d earned from odd jobs, from my shifts at the diner in little caches throughout the house.
But she’d always found them.
And when nineteen-year-old Rob had let me hide it at his apartment, tucked in a shoebox under his bed, my mother had cleaned out Kelly’s bank account.
Classy, she was.
It had been a while now, thankfully, since I had seen or heard from her. My mother may be dead, for all I knew.
How horrible of a person did that make me for not caring what had happened to her?
I should have compassion for a troubled woman, abandoned by a deadbeat husband, two mouths to feed, and no money.
Except, I remembered.
I remembered her turning the donations away, not caring to accept food for us and only wanting cash. I remembered coming home to find the house torn to shreds because she’d been searching for more money.
I remembered my stomach growling and trying to stretch food so that Kel wouldn’t be hungry.
I remembered having to figure out how to pay bills, taking cash directly to the power company and the city offices just so we’d have electricity and water.
I remembered mowing every lawn in our neighborhood, delivering the paper, babysitting, working at the diner.
I remembered it all.
But most of all, the hardest, most piercing memory of that time is me trying every single damned thing I could do to make her love us.
It hadn’t worked.
And now, I guess, I had a husband who felt the same way.
Kel hugged me tight. “I love you, you know that, right?”
I sniffed, nodded. “Yup.” I forced a laugh. “And you’re not so bad yourself.”
She pulled back, cupped my cheek. “I need to get out there.”
“Go,” I said and opened the door. “Take care of them. Don’t worry about me.”
Kel squeezed my hand as she passed. “Someone has to.”
22
“Just you and me, kid,” I told Rocco a few days later.
His tail thumped in response, bouncing against the couch cushion. I’d had a “no pets on the furniture” policy when we’d first gotten him.
I snorted. Yeah, which had lasted all of a couple of hours.
But on this night, cool air creeping into the house and the heater not making headway on the chill in my bones, I was happy to have the little fluffball of energy next to me.
Even if I’d had to lift him onto the couch.
His leg was healing, but his injuries had definitely taken their toll. He moved a little slower, a little more painfully.
Yay, another thing to feel guilty about.
Dr. Johnson said that he would be stiff and sore for a while, but by the time six weeks rolled around, it would be a challenge to keep him calm. I’d even seen glimpses of that deadly propeller tail and pair of mischievous eyes in the exam room.
But two weeks in, another X-ray to make sure the bones were setting properly, and a fresh, smaller cast, and there was still no sign of his former puppy exuberance. He was more careful, more guarded, and less of an innocent goof.
“So rom-com or action?” I asked, picking up the remote and scanning through the movies available for free.
Allie and Max were having a sleepover at Kelly and Justin’s. They were watching the latest kids’ flick, not even out in theaters yet, since Justin apparently knew someone in Hollywood who was a big-time producer.
Food TV and Hollywood. Kel had jumped a few degrees in social circles when she’d married Justin.
Not that anyone would know if they ever met him outside of the office. He wore T-shirts and cargo pants.
Cargo pants.
With like a hundred and seventy pockets.
As a former military medic, he said he needed to be prepared, but I rather thought that his affinity for cargo pants was like women with dresses that had pockets.
I love your dress.
Thanks! It has pockets!
Snorting, I made my selection. “Romance,” I announced to Rocco.
His tail thumped again.
“Glad you agree.”
He sighed.
“Always a critic,” I muttered. And now I was having a conversation with a dog. Great.
Still, I scratched his head, settled back with some sea salt and garlic butter popcorn, and lost myself in the movie.
The boy and girl met, fell in love before the girl messed up, causing the boy to leave, and they’d just about gotten back together before my eyes got too heavy and I drifted off.
I woke sometime later, the house dark and cold, Rocco snoring next to me.
I couldn’t tell what had woken me. A creak? A buzz? I glanced at my phone and the screen was blank of notifications. All I saw was the picture of the four of us—Rob, Allie, Max, and me—acting crazy and covered in white after a flour fight while making some pie. Kel had taken the picture, and I’d always loved how happy and carefree we’d been in that moment.
But the picture wasn’t why I was awake.
Creak.
That wasn’t the house settling, that was the loose board in the hallway.
Rocco was suddenly awake, his hackles coming up, a deep growl resonating out of his chest before he burst from the couch and took off down the hall.
His reaction finally made me move. I unlocked my phone, dialed 9-1-1, and found the nearest weapon.
Never more had I wished for a gun in the house, but aside from Rob’s service weapon, I didn’t normally like having any firearms at home.
Rocco’s nails scratched against the floor, his cast making a scraping noise as he turned the corner. I heard a male grunt and a crash before Rocco made a high-pitched squeal of pain.
My heart dropped, and I clutched the lamp tighter as dispatch picked up.
I rattled off my address. “Someone has broken into my house. They’re still here—” Rocco gave a ferocious bark before crying out again. Shit. Shit. “Hurry!”
Then I did what was probably—no, was certainly—a really stupid thing. I hung up the phone and took off into the hallway, lamp raised.
But all I saw was the front door slamming closed.
I flicked on the lights, swiveled around behind me, afraid someone was going to sneak behind me, like in the movies.
The house was still. Quiet.
Rocco whined.
“Oh, honey,” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “You did so good, buddy.” I crouched and set the lamp down, seeing his crumpled form and the pain shading his black eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
I needed to move him. I was scared to hurt him more than the man had already done, but he was right in the path of the door and shards of glass were all around. Wincing when one bit into the bottom of my bare foot, I carefully slid my arms under his body and lifted.
He whined.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.” I moved as gently as I could, hardly noticing the pain in my feet as more glass sliced through my skin.
I was just setting him on the couch when I heard the sirens and screeching tires as the—two, by the sound of it—cruisers pulled into my driveway.
“Police!” they shouted through the front door.
Rocco growled.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “I’m here!” I yelled. “In the family room.”
The front door banged open, and footsteps pounded down the hall.
One of the officers—McMann, I thought his name was—came into the room, while several of the others fanned out to presumably search the house.
“I think he’s gone,” I said.
McMann nodded. “We’ll check anyway.”
“Okay,” I said.
We waited in silence for a few minutes. Finally footsteps came down the stairs, and a gruff voice declared. “All clear.”
I glanced away from Rocco and saw McMann, two officers I didn’t know by name, and Hayden, one of Rob’s close friend
s and a regular visitor to our house.
Or used to be. Before he’d gotten married and found a wife who was able to keep the self-professed worst-chef-in-Darlington in edible food.
“Melissa, are you okay?” he asked, crouching down in front of me.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I know you have to question me, but can I please call Dr. Johnson first? I’m worried about Rocco and—”
My voice broke, but I took a breath and forced it to steady out.
“I want him to be seen as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Hayden said. “Where are the kids?”
“Kel’s,” I said.
He released a sigh of relief. “Good night for it.”
I nodded and stood. Then nearly collapsed back down with the first step.
Now that I’d noticed it, my feet burned horribly. I glanced down and saw blood staining the carpet.
“You’re hurt,” Hayden said, reaching to steady me.
“Just a few cuts from the glass,” I said, limping toward the kitchen. “I’d forgotten.”
“Wait—”
I didn’t. I knew Dr. Johnson’s card was somewhere, and he’d written his cell on it. I’d taken it from the car and put it with a stack of papers that I needed to sort through but never seemed to find the time. The vet office would be closed, so I needed his cell number.
“Miss, stop,” Hayden began. “You’re getting blood all over—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, rifling through the stack and sighing with relief when I saw the card near the top.
“Find what you’re looking for?”
I nodded, held up the card.
“Good.” Hayden swept me off my feet, nodded at McMann. “Call an ambulance.” I started to protest the last, but he cut me off as he set me gently on the couch. “Your feet are sliced to ribbons,” he gritted out. “Now sit and don’t move. I’ll grab your cell.”
Rocco eyed Hayden a little warily but didn’t growl again. He seemed to realize that the officers were the good guys, there to help.
Or maybe he recognized their uniforms because Rob used to wear one so often.
Hayden handed me the phone then crossed back over to McMann and the others. They began to discuss perimeters, patrols, and paperwork as I dialed Dr. Johnson’s number.
