At Peace (49 page)

Hi Mawdy,

We left. We didn’t wake you.
Joe said to let you sleep. Call us, you need anything. Love you to
pieces.

xoxoxoxox Kate

PS: Coffee’s made, just flip the switch.

PPSS: Joe made it.

I gritted my teeth.

Fucking
Joe.

Under that:

Hey Momalicious,

I’ll keep my phone with me, even on the
boat.

Love you.

xxooxxooxxoo Keirry

PS: Joe gave us each a hundred
dollars! Isn’t that
cool
?

PPSS: Don’t forget to go get Mooch.

Fucking,
fucking
Joe!

He was buying Keira which would work in a
flash and the bastard knew it.

I pulled in breath and, instead of screaming,
I sighed, dropped the note and flipped the switch on the
coffeemaker.

Bobbie had given me until Monday off paid
which was nice. Being hourly, she didn’t have to do that.

However she had also talked to me a couple of
weeks ago about making me a manager. That salary would mean I’d get
paid regularly what I got paid overtime which would be good, having
that kind of money steady. But it also came with a load of
responsibility which meant I’d still be working the overtime and
have a bunch of headaches to go with it.

But she was through, she told me. She’d
opened the garden center thirty years ago and she was plum tuckered
out, (her words).

“Gotta take a break and you’re the only one I
ever hired I can trust with the place. So, now’s my time. If you
take the promotion, I get to have my time,” she said and, I had to
admit, since I liked her despite her being ornery (or because of
it), I wanted her to have that time. Not to mention the steady
pay.

But she still hadn’t hired anyone to replace
my part-time work. So if I became the manager, that meant I had to
get trained to do what Bobbie did, none of which I knew how to do,
and also find someone else and train them. Not to mention, there
was a reason Bobbie didn’t trust anyone else who worked there. Most
of them were good but it was just a job, they weren’t like me, what
they did was not something they loved. The others who worked there,
they were pains in the asses, even for me and the rest of the crew,
and I didn’t have to supervise them and I didn’t relish the idea of
doing it.

And on top of that, Mrs. Cousin’s yard that
I’d redesigned and planted had gone over great. Mrs. Cousin loved
it so much she showed it off and told all her friends all about me.
Now I had two of her friends and her neighbor who all wanted me to
work in their gardens, planting fall flowers and setting it up with
bulbs for spring then coming back and sorting it out for the
summer. Mrs. Cousin wanted me back too.

This meant I was working forty-five to fifty
hour weeks and I had a shitload of other work. Money was coming in
which was good and it didn’t feel like work which was also good.
But I could feel burnout coming. I knew it.

And, on top of that, what was next for
me?

I thought through this as I slid the lever to
turn the flow of coffee off and got myself a cup then slid the
lever back to let the rest of the coffee fill.

Mike was ready to take it to the next level.
I knew it. I fucked that up, I’d lose him. I knew that too. He
might be a nice guy but he also wasn’t one you messed about and I
didn’t want to be the type of woman who messed a man about. He was
going to lose patience and I sensed that was soon.

And, Sam was gone. Gone. There was nothing to
be close for anymore, not even four hours away close.

And Daniel Hart was out there. He’d murdered
my husband and my brother and he thought, even doing that, he could
toy with me. He’d do it still, I knew it. I just didn’t know what
I’d do when he did. My choices were to unravel or go berserk, hunt
him down and shoot him in the head. Neither were good for my girls
(or for me, for that matter).

Joe was a wildcard and an infuriating one.
I had no idea what was happening there but I knew what
wasn’t
going to happen. I also knew I
needed to let him in on my feelings about that and I needed to do
it soon.

At that thought, I took a sip of coffee,
looked out the window toward his house and stared.

There was a dumpster in his front drive and a
man was walking from the house to the dumpster carrying Joe’s old
carpet, rolled up and tossed over his shoulder. He got to the
dumpster, did a hitch with his body and the carpet went into the
dumpster, creating a cloud of dust.

What on earth?

I was so enthralled by watching this, I
jumped as my phone rang and then I reached out to it, not taking my
eyes from the window as I watched the man walk back into Joe’s
house.

“Hello?”

“Vi, honey?”

My eyes dropped to the sink.

“Bea,” I whispered.

Tim’s Mom.

“Oh honey,” Bea whispered back and I put my
coffee cup down and clutched the sink.

She heard my breath hitch.

“Oh honey,” she whispered again then I sucked
in another breath, this time without the hitch and she went on. “We
wanted to go, Dad and me, but I couldn’t face her. Dad said that
Sam’d understand, knowin’ how it was, but I felt so bad and I
wanted to see you and the girls.”

I understood this. My mother had been hideous
to Bea and Dad, what I called Tim’s father Gary because he refused
to respond to me calling him anything else. My Mom had been so
hideous I remembered it like it was yesterday.

When it was all going down, when I found out
I was pregnant and we had that awful family meeting where Bea and
Gary were trying to talk my Dad and Mom into understanding and
finding ways to help us out, my mother had been ice cold and
downright ugly. Mom honed right in on Bea’s frailties and the
things Mom said, the way Bea was, Bea felt small, insignificant,
worthless and she did because Mom wanted her too. Mom was such a
bitch she was almost gleeful, making Bea feel that way.

Right in the middle of it, Gary had grabbed
Bea’s hand, pulled her off my parents’ couch, tipped his head at
Tim who’d grabbed my hand, we all walked out and that was the last
I saw of them for three years. They didn’t come to my wedding. They
didn’t come to the hospital when Kate and Keira were born. They
only came at Sam’s urging to Kate’s birthday party and that, too,
had not been pretty (so we didn’t see them again for another two
years).

Bea had never forgotten. She was sensitive
but it was also that bad.

“I understand,” I told her.

“I figured you’d be… you’d… everyone would
want a piece of you. I wanted to wait until later so we could spend
some time. Dad and I, we’re gonna come down, stay the weekend, is
that okay?”

My heart leapt then sank.

“Oh Bea, the girls are at the lake. I wanted
them to have something fun and normal.”

“Next weekend then,” she said instantly.

I nodded. “Yes, I’d like that and the
girls’ll love it.”

“Good,” she replied softly then she hesitated
and said, too casually, “Pam called.”

Oh shit!

My head came up and my eyes saw the man
walking out with more carpet.

“Bea –” I started.

She cut me off. “Says his name is Joe.”

“Oh Bea, it isn’t –”

“She liked him.”

Fuck!

My mouth got tight, so tight I stayed silent.
Then again, I didn’t know what to say.

Bea went on. “Said he’s real good with the
girls, sweet to you. Big man, she said, a man you don’t mess
with.”

“Bea, let me –”

Her whisper interrupted me. “I’m glad,
honey.” I closed my eyes and she continued. “Dad and me, we’ve been
worried, you down there all alone. We know you wouldn’t tell us,
worry us, if it was still happening. What Pam said about this Joe,
well, me and Dad, we’re both glad.”

I didn’t speak because what could I say?

“Will we meet him when we’re there?”

No they would
not
.

“He’s out of town a lot,” I told her, hoping
he would be and willing to buy him a ticket to Timbuktu, drug him
and put him on a plane if he wasn’t.

“How does he look after you and the girls if
he’s out of town?” she asked, her voice rising a bit, she was
getting scared.

“There’s a guy across the street, a cop, a
lot like Tim, good man. They take turns looking out for us,” I
assured her.

“That’s good,” she replied, her voice
settling.

The man with the carpet had disappeared into
Joe’s house but I saw an SUV on the street, I focused on it and my
breath caught in my throat.

Mike.

“Bea, I think I have to go,” I said into the
phone, not wanting to, wanting to talk to her. I hadn’t had a good
talk with my mother-in-law in ages and now, with Sam dying, it was
the kind of time she was at her best. She might be timid and
sensitive, but she was a great mother-in-law, a better Mom, a
stellar Grandma and a good friend.

“That’s okay,” she told me. “We’ll make a
reservation in that hotel by the highway.”

“You can stay here, have Kate’s bed,” I told
her as I watched Mike pull into my drive. “She’ll bunk with
Keira.”

“Oh, we couldn’t.”

“You did when you were here before.”

She was silent while I watched Mike get
out of his car, his eyes on my house and then I felt that sock in
my gut when I saw he was angry, very,
very
angry.

Then Bea said silently in my ear, “That was
before Joe.”

I blinked, unable to keep track of Mike, Mike
being inexplicably angry, Joe’s carpet removal, Joe’s truck in his
drive and Bea.

“What?” I asked.

“He might not like –”

“You’re stayin’ here.”

“We’ll wait to meet Joe.”

“It isn’t like that.”

“That’s not what Pam says.”

“But –”

Mike was walking to the front door and my
heart was skipping a beat.

“I’ll make him my chocolate cream pie, win
him over,” Bea decided.

Yeah, like chocolate cream pie could win Joe
over. My cupcakes, pancakes and risotto hadn’t made a dent in his
armor. Bea’s chocolate cream pie was the bomb but Joe Callahan was
unwinnable.

“Bea –”

My doorbell rang and it sounded loud, louder
than it ever sounded, too loud and I jumped.

“You’ve gotta go,” Bea told me.

“I –”

“See you soon, honey.”

I was walking to the door as I said, “Bea
–”

“Give my babies squeezes.”

I sighed then I hit the alarm code in the
panel by the door.

“Give Dad a squeeze.”

“Of course, honey. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I hit the button on the phone for off,
unlocked the door and opened it to face my next drama.

And drama it was, for I’d forgotten I was
wearing Joe’s shirt.

This was bad, I knew it because Mike’s eyes
went from top to toe and his face went from angry to enraged.

“Mike –”

He cut me off too, by putting his hand in my
belly, pushing me into the house, keeping his hand there even after
he stepped in and closed the door.

Then he dropped his hand and stared down at
me.

“Mike –”

I cut myself off when his hand came up, palm
out and facing me and I waited. He dropped his hand, looked away
and a muscle in his jaw jerked.

Then he looked back at me.

“Been patient,” he said softly, I opened my
mouth to speak, he shook his head and I closed my mouth. “Please
tell me, while you been draggin’ me along, you didn’t start fuckin’
him again.”

“I wasn’t dragging you along,” I
whispered.

“Yeah, sweetheart, you were.”

I always liked it when he called me
sweetheart but the way he did it then, I didn’t like.

“No, Mike, I wasn’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’ve been honest with you.”

“You fuckin’ him again?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” I answered.

“Why you wearin’ his shirt?”

I considered lying, telling him it was Tim’s
but Mike and I weren’t about that and, I pulled this through, I
didn’t want to do it by making us about that.

“
It’s comfortable.” At least this was
true.

“He take you to the funeral?” Mike asked and
how he knew that I didn’t know.

I nodded. “Only because Kate asked him
to.”

“You wouldn’t let me do it, but you let
him?”

“Mike, Kate asked him to.”

“
And I asked
you
to let me do it.”

“Honestly,” I whispered, beginning to lose
it, beginning to wonder why I cared, beginning to wonder why I
fucking got out of bed at the same time throwing the phone on the
couch. “I don’t have the energy for this.”

“I know life’s shit for you now, Violet, but
serious to God, this shit is fucked.”

“What shit?” I asked.

“You bein’ with me but him takin’ you to the
funeral and him leavin’ your house the morning after.”

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“
Tina Blackstone stopped by the Station,
felt the boys needed donuts, even though the bitch has never done
that before in her fuckin’ life. Brought three dozen of them from
Hilligoss, stayed while the boys ate, ran her mouth, enjoyed doin’
it.”

That bitch!

I stared at Mike a minute, allowing my blood
pressure to drop.

Then, deciding to deal with Tina later, I
affirmed, “He spent the night.”

“But he didn’t fuck you?”

“
No, Mike,” I told him, losing patience, it
was slipping away and it was doing it fast, “he didn’t fuck me.
Kate’s attached to him, she asked him to spend the night. She’s
feelin’ a bit unsafe, seein’ as her father and uncle have been
murdered by the man who’s stalking me. So we got home in the middle
of the night and she wanted him to stay. He did. This morning he
made sure the girls got off safe with Dane and his folks and he
left. I didn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t even say good-bye to
my babies.”