Linny's Sweet Dream List (2 page)

Johnny Cash was singing as Buck walked into the kitchen, the air drifting around him smelling of sandalwood soap and clean man. He kissed her on the top of her head, and she smiled as she flipped the omelet. While he clunked around in the garage collecting his coolers, rods, and fishing gear, she slipped the egg-white omelet, turkey bacon, and whole wheat toast onto a plate and set it on the kitchen table. Mug in hand, she pulled up a chair and sat down, feeling a sense of peace steal over her.

With comb tracks still in his wet hair, Buck slid into his seat, looking sharp in the faded pink golf shirt that she kept trying to put in the Goodwill pile and he kept retrieving. “Everything we eat is so danged healthy,” he'd grumbled as he wolfed it down. “What does a man have to do to get some biscuits with gravy and home fries?”

“Get better numbers at the doctor's?” she'd suggested, but he'd picked up his tablet and was studying the fishing report. Linny smiled wryly. When he was going fishing not much else got through. In his mind he was probably already flying down the glittering water in his beloved boat, heading out to the ocean, roaring with laughter at a joke made by one of his merry men, and hooking the big one that got away last time.

Barefooted, she walked out with him and breathed in the earthy scent of the warm August morning. Leaning against the side of the Caddy, Linny half smiled as she watched him finish loading the SUV that served as his work and weekend truck.

As he closed the cargo door, he'd pulled her into an extravagant hug, and lifted her feet off the ground. He nuzzled her neck and kissed her, hard. “Be good, baby,” he said, his gaze holding hers. “I'll be home before you know it, and I'm going to do better. I'll change, I promise.” Stepping into the car, he switched on the ignition. She heard a Jimmy Buffett song. Buck's radio stayed tuned to Radio Margaritaville.

Linny shook her head as she waved. Her husband was a pirate, Puck, and King of the Good Ole Boys Who'd Done Well. He was a rascal, but he practically shimmered with his delight in life. When he kissed her like that, she felt every cell in her body respond, believed every word he told her, and remembered why she'd married him.

Back in the kitchen she sipped her cooling coffee and thought as she scrubbed stuck-on egg out of the cast iron skillet. She'd best curb her optimism. Marriage with Buck could have as many highs, lows and whipsaw turns as one of those adrenaline rides at the State Fair. He could give her an exhilarating top-of-the-world high, but the free fall drops that sometimes came afterward could break her heart.

F
our days later, the freshly widowed Linny had worn a black linen dress and her grandmother's pearls as she gritted her teeth and listened to mourners carry on about what a prince Buck had been. Today, she was back home in Raleigh, at the dump wrestling recycling containers from the trunk of the Volvo. Warm dregs from the not quite empty booze bottles dribbled down her leg and into her sneaker. Gross. She swiped at the drip with her hand, and grimaced as she rubbed it on her grubby shorts.

At the open steel doors of the glass section, she tossed in the first of many empty bottles, trying not to breathe in the eau de stale alcohol as she silently cursed the skanky former tenants of her new home-sweet-home. The crash of the bottle breaking was so satisfying that she threw the next one harder. Bottle throwing probably worked better than therapy. It was cheaper, too, which was good, given the uncertain state of her finances.

From the corner of her eye, Linny saw a red truck pull up. Did she hear opera music? Nah. Couldn't be. Those were the wrong tunes for the dump. The man, who was wearing jeans and work boots, lifted recycling bins from the truck bed. He looked like a Blake Shelton fan, not an opera buff. Glancing around, she saw that they were the only two souls in the recycling area. He looked wholesome, but so did axe murderers. She'd watch him from the corner of her eye.

Linny wound up pitcher-style for the next toss. She was tired to her bones and running on fumes, but still, launching bottles with a vengeance felt good. Buck said the fishing tournament was “to strengthen business contacts and build teamwork.” So that's what they called it these days. The swashbuckler with the killer smile on the dark rum label looked a little like Buck. Shaking her head in disgust, she slung the bottle into the dumpster.

This was the second time she'd been widowed, and she wasn't even forty. No one her age should be so familiar with the process of burying husbands. All she wanted was a normal life. Nothing fancy, just the basics—a nice husband to eat supper with each night and sleep beside, a child or two, a little house, a secure future. Was that too much to ask? The vodka bottle with the dancing Cossack on it glittered like diamonds when it shattered.

Linny drove under the speed limit, studied
Consumer Reports
before she bought anything big, and subscribed to
Prevention
magazine. Still, husband number one—her beloved Andy—died after a brown recluse spider bite three years ago at age thirty-five, and now Buck was dead. Conscientiousness and planning were no guarantees of safe passage.

Linny groaned aloud at her stupidity. Why had she married Buck in the first place? What a lunk-headed decision. Any woman in her right mind should have known that a golden boy with a Matt Damon smile and driving a vintage Cadillac convertible would be trouble. “But no, not me,” she muttered as she tossed.

She snorted as she glanced at the happy hula girl on the label of the Ronrico rum bottle—she was probably so carefree because she was an unmarried girl in an island home. She didn't have to tidy up the story about the seedy circumstances of her most recent husband's death or clean up the mess he'd left for her.

Linny suspected she'd made a mistake shortly after the ink was dry on the marriage certificate. At the Royal Palms Hotel, her brand-new husband made eyes at the young concierge who was giving them details of their honeymoon package. Linny had tried to explain it away. She was jittery and tired from all the excitement. Buck was just being friendly.

But on the sugary pink beach the next day, under the cover of a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, she'd pretended to thumb through a magazine and watched Buck's eyes follow bikini-clad women as they strolled down the beach.

Linny paused and pushed back her bangs. It had made no sense. During their courtship Buck had never glanced at other women. She married him, and he turned into Cassanova.

“Stupid . . .” Linny started to berate herself yet again, but paused her frenzied tossing and snapped the rubber band on her wrist. She
modified her self-talk,
a concept she'd read about in the latest self-help book she'd loaded on her tablet after Buck died—peace goddess and healer Indigo Merriweather's best seller,
Snap Out Of It and Boogaloo with Your Inner Goddess.

With the sleeve of her shirt, she wiped the sweat dripping down her forehead, and continued her internal pep talk.
I cha-cha toward courage with my cheetah goddess.
Glancing around to make sure no one was looking, she gave herself a little hug the way Indigo had suggested in Chapter 1. She'd weathered other setbacks, and she'd weather this one. She needed to stop beating herself up. As George Dickel and Jack Daniels exploded into shining shards of amber, she felt a fresh surge of resolve.

She flung the last bottle high and hard, but her fingers were slick and the bottle got away from her. Instead of the tinkling of breaking glass, she heard an oddly muffled thud and, a beat later, a crack.

A man's voice rang out. “What in the h . . . ?”

Linny's heart pounded in panic as she raced around the side of the dumpster. It was the man from the truck, pressing a hand to his head. Her heart hammered. If another man died on her watch, she'd really be in trouble.

“Oh, my goodness!” Linny gasped and squinted as she tried to assess the man's injuries. “Are you okay? I am so sorry!”

The man grimaced, took off his sunglasses and cap, and gingerly touched a spot on his head. “I'm okay.”

Her heart pounded. “Are you sure? Let me see you.” Linny stepped closer to the man, and gave him a quick once-over. No bones jutting out and no blood seeping through. That was good. Clean-shaven and solidly built, he wore an NC State Wolfpack shirt. With his farmer's tan and smile lines that fanned out around his eyes, he looked like he spent a lot of time outdoors. A small goose egg rose atop his salt and pepper hair. She winced. “That must have hurt.”

“I'm fine,” the man said, eying her warily.

But what if he wasn't fine? She rubbed her sweaty palms on the sides of her shorts and tried to remember basic first aid. Did a concussion dilate or constrict pupils? “Let me check your eyes.” She stood right in front of him, and peered intently at him, but got sidetracked in her inspection. Luxurious dark lashes framed intelligent eyes that were as green as pine trees.
Gracious.

She must have looked confused, because his lips twitched and he asked, “Am I going to make it, doc?”

“We need to get you to an emergency room,” she said firmly, all the while doing frantic math in her head about the cost of an ER visit. How would she pay for that now?

“I'm not going.” The man pulled his cap back on his head. “No need.”

Vibrant men up and died unexpectedly all the time. She gave an involuntary shudder, pictured Buck's body, and then—with a staggering wave of sadness—Andy's. “What if you go to sleep and then never wake up?” She spoke rapidly, unaware of the tears trickling down her cheeks until she tasted them.

His expression softening, he held up a hand. “Slow down. I'm fine. I've got a hard head.”

She brushed away the tears. The after effects of adrenaline made her knees turn to jelly, and as she leaned back against his truck, she noticed a shimmering web of glass on the windshield. “What happened to your truck?”

“Got hit by a bird—a Wild Turkey.” he said wryly, as he gingerly picked the Wild Turkey bottle from the cracked safety glass, and chucked it into the dumpster. “You got a two-fer.”

She was bewildered, and then it dawned on her. “I hit you and your truck?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Your throwing arm is good, but you need to work on the wild pitches.”

She put a hand to her mouth, her panic returning. “I'm so sorry!”

“Nah.” He waved her off toward her car. “It was cracked already.”

Glancing at the shiny truck, Linny peered closely at the windshield and saw a small preexisting crack beside the big new one. “Please. Let me pay for the windshield.”

“No. No big deal.”

She snatched her purse from the car and searched her wallet, pulling out a crumpled five and three ones.
Dang.
She wouldn't insult him by offering that. “I'm sending you a check,” she said firmly, and held a pen to a scrap of paper ready to get his address. “Let me get your name and address.”

He waved her away and turned to go, but his eyes flickered down her shirt, and he suppressed a grin.

The wave of gratitude she felt suddenly receded. Was he an ogler like Buck? She wanted to say something snappy, like, ‘Eyes up here, buddy,' but restraint was in order—she'd just hit him with a bottle, after all. Turning on her heel, she shoved her wallet back in her purse and called over her shoulder in what she hoped was a chilly, formal tone. “Again, I'm sorry.” As she wedged the bins back in the trunk, she saw the man gazing at her with an amused smile. What was so funny? She snapped the rubber band, muttering, “I two-step toward tranquility with the tigress goddess.”

Slipping into the driver's seat, she slammed the car door. As she jerked on her seatbelt, she glimpsed the slogan on her T-shirt. Her face flamed. Good Lord, she wore the “I'm Too Sexy for My Skin” shirt that Kate had given her as a gag gift for her thirty-fifth birthday. She was so tired, she'd grabbed it from the F
OR
G
OODWILL
box without a glance.

What the heck. This good girl was feeling crazy. If he thought she'd seriously wear that shirt, she might as well play the part. Linny stepped on the gas, and for the first time in her life, sprayed gravel as she fishtailed out of the county landfill. It felt good. She liked peeling out, and might start doing it more often. Maybe she'd trade in the Volvo for a muscle car. She smiled, and rolled down the window.

On the way to her mother's house, Linny called her sister. Kate's lilting hello made her feel better. “I just hit a man in the head with a bottle,” she announced.

“Wow,” Kate said in the extra mellow voice she got after she did her Tai Chi, “He okay?”

Linny breathed out as it dawned on her that she could have badly hurt the man. “I think so.”

“Good to hear,” Kate said with her usual equanimity. “I'll be out tomorrow morning to help you size up repairs. I'm also going to bring sage stick bundles and we can smudge the place. Get rid of any bad energy, cleanse the karma.”

Her sister had taken one too many trips to Santa Fe. But then again, she herself was currently two-stepping with a tigress. She'd take any help she could get. “Okay.”

Kate paused a beat. “I know it may be too soon, but I think you need a dog to keep you company. So many dogs at the animal shelter need homes.”

“I don't need a dog,” Linny said firmly. She felt a flash of apprehension, though. Kate's ideas had an uncanny way of materializing. “There's too much going on right now.”

Her sister's voice was even. “I understand.”

Linny thought about her sister's sweet heart. Yesterday morning, she'd called Kate in a panic after Buck's slick-haired partners showed up at the door to give her
twenty-four hours to vacate,
so they could put their home on the market. Kate had flown to her side, dubbing the partners the
Shark Brothers.
After a quick discussion, they decided not to involve her attorney. If those sleazeballs wanted her out of the house, Linny sure as heck didn't want to stay there. She and Kate had rocketed into action; between the two of them, they'd called sixteen apartment complexes, but none had any vacancies. “All the people who still can't get home loans are renting,” Kate grumbled, before hitting on the idea of Mama's trailer. It was definitely a temporary solution, but workable. Right now, Linny desperately needed workable.

Her voice choked with emotion. “Thanks for saving me yesterday, Kate.”

“No biggie,” her sister assured her. “Best to get out of that haunted house.”

“Just Thursday, I was making a list of the pros and cons for staying married. I was going great guns on the cons . . .” she trailed off.

“Well, you couldn't very well have stayed married to an unfaithful man,” Kate said, sounding reasonable.

“I know.” Linny's voice was small, and she paused. “So, am I supposed to call the place a trailer, a mobile home, or a house?”

Kate said quietly, “For now, I think you call it home.”

 

Linny bumped down the dirt road that led to her mother's farm and pulled up behind the carport of Dottie's tidy brick ranch house. Wincing, she saw the I B
RAKE
FOR
Y
ARD
S
ALES
sticker on the bumper of her mother's Buick.
Hoo boy.
She took a breath, and walked up the paver stones, noting the freshly mown lawn, perfectly pruned azaleas and dandelion-free yard. Outward appearances could be deceiving.

Dottie answered her knock and gave her a hug. “Hey, there.” Her eyes flickered over Linny's
Too Sexy for My Skin
shirt, and her lips pursed.

Linny ignored her mother's look. “Hey, Mama.” As usual, Dottie wore clothes that were usually worn by women twenty years her senior. Today, she had on a mauve zip-up housecoat and pink tennis shoes. Twenty years ago, she'd had her colors analyzed at The Baptist Women's Conference in the mountains, and still took her
Spring
designation very seriously. Linny peered at her. Did her mother's hair also have a pinkish tint to it yet again? “Did you find the keys?” Linny asked.