No Matter What

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Awesome!” Trevor declared with enthusiasm. Keys rattled. “Did you keep up the insurance?”

  Richard’s shoulders shook. Okay, a sense of humor was buried deep in there somewhere. Not dead after all. “Yes,” he said. “You’re good to go.”

  “Awesome,” Trevor repeated, and went.

  Richard stood staring at the clothes swirling in the washer—still no soap—and wondered if he’d always been this lonely.

  * * *

  “WE HAVE TO GET THEM BACK together,” Cait said passionately. “But Mom is so-o stubborn.”

  “Dad is, too.” Trevor took a slurp of his milk shake. He’d called her the minute he left and she’d come running out of her house as he was pulling up. He was always hungry, but tonight even she decided some French fries and a root beer float would be good, so they’d gone to Tastee’s. He almost wished now they had left town, maybe driven to Marysville or someplace, because everyone working the counter went to their school. And they’d all looked funny at Trevor and at Cait especially, and now were whispering and sneaking looks toward their table.

  Cait, he saw, wasn’t paying any attention. First he thought she hadn’t noticed, but then he realized that she was probably already used to people whispering about her. He didn’t get it that much, but it must happen to her every day now that the word was out. There was probably even an element of meanness in it, with her mom being Vice Principal for discipline.

  “Don’t worry about them,” she said suddenly, jerking her head toward the cretins behind the counter. She stared a challenge at them, and they hurried to look busy.

  “I still can’t tell you’re pregnant,” Trevor said.

  She shrugged and picked up a French fry. “I’m having trouble with the snaps on my jeans. I’ve had to ditch a couple pairs of skinny jeans.”

  “Oh.” While he ate, he made a cautious survey of what he could see of her, sitting on the other side of the table. She had really great breasts—too big, she’d told him in disgust, for a ballerina. She might get by with them in modern dance, but probably not. Would they get even bigger as the pregnancy went along…?

  Trevor frowned. He did like Cait. A lot. But the more he thought about it, the weirder the idea of the two of them together seemed. Given the baby, and their parents. He’d pretty much resolved to stay friends, at least until… He didn’t know. Maybe when they were both in college. If the chance came.

  “Forget me,” she said impatiently. “What about Mom and your dad?”

  “I don’t know.” He vented his frustration on the wrapping he was wadding in his hands. “They’re being stupid.”

  “Maybe.” Cait bent her head. “But, see, my father really did a number on Mom. She hasn’t had a serious guy friend since.”

  “You’ve never said anything about your dad.”

  She jerked her shoulders. “I haven’t even seen him in…I don’t know, like four years? He pays child support because he’s an attorney, and wouldn’t it look bad if the authorities had to track him down as a deadbeat dad. I think he wanted a boy.”

  She told him stuff then, about how her father was Colton Callahan the Third, and how once he’d remarried and had a son—Colton the Fourth, believe it or not—he’d lost interest in her. “I guess I didn’t cut it. Unless they’d named me Colton, and I doubt Mom would have gone for that.”

  “He sounds like an…” Don’t say it. The guy is her father.

  “I don’t like to think about him,” she said quickly. “And he’s not the point, anyway. Only that Mom maybe had a hard time trusting that your father really wanted her. You know?”

  Trevor leaned back in the booth, thinking. “It might be the same for my dad. Mom really messed with him. She’s…um…I’ve told you about her.”

  Except for Dad, Cait was the only one he’d told. About walking in on her and his coach, about the things she’d admitted to and even about Trevor’s realization that she’d probably screwed around on his dad, too. “I used to think it was weird he hadn’t married again. If he ever got close, I never knew.” He grimaced. “Not that I probably would have. I mean, we talked, but we’d go four or five months at a time without seeing each other.”

  “So they’re both afraid to trust each other.”

  This was uneasy territory for Trevor. Only girls talked about relationships and things like trust. He shifted in his seat. “I guess,” he said finally. “It might be something like that.”

  “If your dad won’t call, do you think he’d do something like send her flowers and an apology? Write a note?”

  “He’s being really stubborn.”

  Frowning fiercely, Cait scooped up a gob of the melting ice cream and sucked it up. “Well, then,” she announced, “we have to trick them.”

  Alarmed, Trevor stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  She told him.

  * * *

  WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG, Molly was sitting at the breakfast bar immersed in the never-ending paperwork—state employees apparently did nothing but issue reams more of it. She sighed, rubbed her eyes and got to her feet.

  She opened the front door to see a huge bouquet of flowers. A gorgeous bouquet, held at eye level. Lilies and roses and Queen Anne’s lace. She breathed in the scent of the Asian lilies and realized that a gawky kid was holding the arrangement out to her.

  “For Molly Callahan.”

  “Thank you. Who…?” she asked, accepting it.

  “There’s a card.” He bounded down the steps, cut across the lawn and jumped into a white delivery van.

  “Well.” Molly bumped the door shut with her hip.

  “Who is it, Mom?” asked Cait, who was sitting on the living room sofa painting her toenails.

  Molly detoured into the living room. “Somebody sent flowers.”

  “Wow.” Cait took a wide-eyed look, blew on her toes and carefully set her feet on the floor. “Those must have cost a bunch.” Then she cackled. “That’s a pun. Get it?”

  “I get it.”

  “Who are they from?”

  “I don’t know.” Molly set the enormous arrangement in the center of the coffee table and extracted a small white envelope clipped to the cream-colored ceramic vase. With Cait watching avidly, Molly opened it.

  The dark scrawl was unfamiliar, but then she’d never seen more than Richard’s signature. And this was signed “Love, Richard.”

  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.

  And then the “love” part.

  “Can I see?” Cait waggled an impatient hand.

  Numb, Molly handed over the small card.

  “That’s really nice,” Cait said after a minute. “Are you going to call him?” Inexplicably, she sounded nervous, or as if she didn’t really want her mother to call. Despite all the lecturing about how she should talk to Richard, was it possible Cait was happy the two of them had broken up?

  It was possible, Molly admitted. Teenagers were, by their very nature, selfish. Then she winced. Not her favorite word right now.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It was nice of him, though. They smell glorious.”

  “I wonder how much they did cost.”

  “What? You want to be sure he wasn’t stingy?”

  “No. I just… Um, I’ve never gotten flowers, so I didn’t have any idea. That’s all.”

  Molly’s eyes narrowed. Something was going on. Cait was a lousy liar. But Molly couldn’t imagine what she could have to do with the floral arrangement. The handwriting definitely wasn’t hers. It was distinctly masculine. And why would Cait do something like this anyway? It didn’t make sense.

  “Well, we might as well enjoy them. I suppose I could write him a thank-you note.”

  “That would be polite,” her never-prim daughter said primly.

  Had she and Trevor bludgeoned Richard into sending flowers? Cait, at least, could be annoyingly persistent. So maybe.

  I didn’t mean it.

  The words stuck with her for the rest of the evening and were still on
her mind when she went to bed. Which part hadn’t he meant? That she’d be tormenting all of them if she kept the baby? That she was selfish?

  Did it matter now?

  It was an exceedingly handsome apology. She was surprised by it, on several levels. As furious as he’d been, she hadn’t expected an apology at all. And flowers didn’t seem to be his style. He’d been kind, thoughtful, passionate, even tender, but never romantic.

  So I’m obsessing about it. Sue me. No one had ever sent her flowers before. Colt had brought home a small bouquet a few times, when they were first married, but they were the kind you picked up at the grocery store or a stand in a vacant lot right before Valentine’s Day. Either he wasn’t romantic, either, or she didn’t bring that out in men.

  Probably the latter. Delicate, pretty, petite women stirred those kinds of feelings in men, not hefty Amazons.

  The next day she wrote and mailed a quick note. Thank you for the lovely apology. Accepted. She hesitated for a long time over the salutation, but finally added, Love, Molly. She told herself it was appropriate considering he’d signed his note with “love.”

  That very evening she had to attend the school board meeting to be available to discuss concerns about union demands for improved benefits for classified employees. The meeting droned on, mostly focused on changes in the elementary school gifted program. By the time she walked in the door, she was dragging. She bet she wasn’t the only person there to resent the huge waste of time this close to the holidays.

  “Cait?”

  No answer. Which probably only meant her beloved daughter had earbuds deafening her to anything but some kind of alternative rock. But when Molly went upstairs, she found Cait’s bedroom empty. She frowned, but it was only nine-thirty. Their unofficial curfew for school nights was ten, unless something special—and previously discussed—was happening. Molly went back downstairs and put the teakettle on.

  The doorbell surprised her. Had Cait lost her key? Molly hurried to the front of the house and opened the door.

  Richard loomed on her porch. Surprise robbed her of breath. He looked so good—every cliché of tall, dark and handsome. He must have changed after work, and now wore jeans, a heavy sweater and down vest, increasing his bulk. His expression, though, was closed, his dark eyebrows drawn together.

  “Richard?”

  “I’m here for Trevor,” he said. “He left me a message saying something was wrong with his car.”

  “But…he’s not here. Neither is Cait.” Illogically, she craned her neck to look past him. The only vehicle at the curb for fifty feet either way was Richard’s pickup. “I don’t know where they are,” she added.

  “Cait didn’t say?”

  “No, I had a school board meeting this evening.” She saw the visible puff of his breath and realized how cold it was tonight. “Please, come in,” she said, stepping back.

  He did, and shut the door behind him. His presence became even more overwhelming in the close confines of the entry.

  Rattled, Molly tried to focus. “When I got home, Cait wasn’t here. I didn’t see a note.”

  “Can you check?” he asked.

  “I thought I had, but I’ll look again.”

  The teakettle whistled, and she jumped. “Excuse me.” It was no surprise when he followed her to the kitchen and watched as she poured her tea. Wondering if she should offer him a cup, she stole a glance at his face and decided. No. He wasn’t here to chat with her.

  There was no note affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet or on the breakfast bar. “Wait! My phone.” On the way back to the entry, her eye was caught by the arrangement of roses and lilies. She saw that Richard was eyeing the flowers. “By the way, thank you.”

  “Thank you?” There was something strange in his voice, but she was in the act of digging her cell phone out of her purse.

  “I set it to vibrate while I was in the meeting,” Molly explained.

  No messages, but one text had arrived.

  Mom we had an accident. Okay but at ER.

  Heart pounding, she held out her phone to Richard, who looked at it and swore.

  “If this was Trevor’s fault, I swear I’m yanking the car again.” His dark eyes met hers. “Damn it, Cait’s pregnant, and he couldn’t drive more carefully than this? Listen, I’ll run up there and call you when I know something.”

  “I’m going, too.” She shoved her feet in shoes and grabbed a parka. “Hold on, let me make sure I turned off the stove.” When she got back, she asked, “Would you rather I take my own car?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said brusquely.

  He waited while she locked up, and then opened the passenger side of his truck for her. The drive to the hospital was short and silent until he was pulling into a parking slot near the emergency room entrance.

  “What were you thanking me for?” he asked. He set the brake.

  “The flowers.” She’d spoken into the sudden silence after he had turned off the engine. When he didn’t say anything immediately, her heart stuttered. “I thought… That is…”

  “That I sent them?” he said slowly.

  “There was a card.” Oh, Lord, this was embarrassing. She knew her cheeks were heating, hoped he couldn’t tell in the diffused lighting of the parking lot.

  “Let’s go in,” he said.

  His stride was so long, she had to hustle to keep up. She heard the beep as the doors locked behind them. “I must have a secret admirer,” she said lightly and probably unconvincingly. Who would have done this?

  Richard didn’t respond. The glass doors slid open and they walked in. Molly frantically searched the waiting room, but didn’t see either Cait or Trevor. Half a dozen people sat waiting—an exhausted-looking mother with two children, one held slumped against her shoulder, a man with a hand wrapped in a bloody bandage, a young Hispanic couple, the woman wearing one of those paper masks.

  She and Richard went straight to the reception desk.

  “Caitlyn Callahan?” Molly said, hearing her voice high and desperate. “I’m her mother.”

  Richard’s hand settled, warm and reassuring, on her back. “Or Trevor Ward. I’m his father.”

  The woman peered at her computer monitor and then leafed through several file folders that were in a graduated wooden rack. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t see either name. Are you sure they came here?”

  Molly couldn’t seem to get a word out.

  “No. No, we assumed. Excuse us,” Richard said.

  He steered Molly away, to a quiet corner. “I tried calling him and he didn’t answer.”

  “Let me try Cait. I don’t know why I didn’t.” As she was lifting the phone out of her purse, it vibrated. New text.

  Mom were okay didn’t go to ER sorry if i scared you.

  Looking over her shoulder, Richard growled. “All right, what the hell is going on?”

  Molly was feeling shaky. “I could be wrong, but…I think we’ve been set up.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “SET UP?” RICHARD ECHOED.

  “Give me a minute.” Molly sounded grim.

  He watched as she typed a text on her phone. She turned it so he could see what she’d written before she touched Send.

  Did you pay for half the flowers?

  He liked that she bothered with the question mark.

  When he suggested going out to the pickup, she shook her head. “Wait.”

  The response came no more than a minute or two later.

  Ummm yes you mad

  She typed:

  Yes

  No punctuation this time.

  “Please take me home.”

  She didn’t say a word on the way. Richard used the time to think.

  Trevor’s car still wasn’t outside Molly’s house. This time, Richard pulled to the curb, set the brake and looked at her. “May I come in?”

  She didn’t seem to want to meet his eyes, but finally gave an awkward shrug. “Fine. I suppose we’d better talk abo
ut this.”

  “Cait?” she called, the minute she’d opened the front door.

  No answer.

  “She’s past her curfew,” Molly muttered.

  Richard grunted a laugh. “If only that was the worst thing she ever did.”

  Molly huffed. “Do you want a cup of something?”

  No, but he said, “Please.” It gave him an excuse to stay longer. As he leaned against the counter in the kitchen and watched her refill the teakettle and put it back on the stove, he felt something inside himself relax. This felt…normal. Plus, he loved the sight of Molly, even if she was stomping around and emitting occasional sounds that sounded like compressed steam.

  “Hey,” he finally said in amusement. “They’re good kids. They were trying to help.”

  “They don’t understand.”

  Okay, his relaxed pose was more pretense than reality. Tension coiled in his gut. “Do you?” he asked after a minute.

  Molly gave him a quick glance. Her eyes weren’t soft; they stormed with emotion. “I suppose I do owe you an explanation.”

  “I owe you one, too.”

  The kettle let out a first squawk, and she occupied herself pouring two cups of tea. She added sugar then handed him his cup. Taking a saucer, he presumed for the tea bags, she led the way to the dining room table. He understood that she needed the formality of sitting across from each other instead of more comfortably on the sofa.

  He sat and put down his cup. “Me first, I think.”

  Molly bit her lip, then nodded. Head slightly bent, she seemed to be concentrating on the unnecessary act of stirring her tea.

  “I was angry,” Richard said abruptly. “Mostly, I was hurt that you hadn’t talked to me. It doesn’t say anything good about me, but I think I wanted to hurt you.”