Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (14 page)

“But you didn’t make a play for Brad, did you?”

“No, of course not! How can you even say that? Oh, this is so awful!” Jennifer stood, waving her hands around like she was trying to catch flies. “I would never do anything to try to attract Brad Hanes or any married man. Why would I do that? Ashley’s my friend. I really care about her, Patsy; you know I do.”

Suddenly she folded back onto the couch. “Okay, I might have flirted with him a little bit,” she mumbled through her tears. “I don’t know if I did or not. He’s really handsome, and he was being so nice and sort of saying things to me in a way that I haven’t heard for years. Oh, Patsy, I’m afraid I made him think I wanted him to touch me! And even worse, maybe I did!”

“You didn’t.”

“I might have. I used to watch him all the time at school. I had a big crush on him when I was a junior. Even when I was away at college, I still thought about him sometimes. I really did, Patsy. I thought about him even after I heard he’d married Ashley. And every time I’ve seen him since I came back to Deepwater Cove, I’ve felt this little thing inside. And maybe whatever that was came out this morning. Maybe I flirted with a married man. My friend’s husband.”

She was on her feet again, pacing back and forth. “How could I have done that? What if Brad says something to Ashley about it? Or what if Ashley asks me what happened?”

“That’s enough drama, Jennifer,” Patsy said. She stood and took the younger woman by the shoulders. “I’ve had about all the theatrics I can handle for one day. Now, sit down.”

With only the slightest pressure, she dropped Jennifer back onto the couch. Resisting the urge to grab a Christmas tree cookie studded with red hots, Patsy seated herself nearby and tried to figure out what on earth she could say. For about the millionth time in her life, she wished the Lord would just open up a cloud and step out and talk to her.

Taking a deep breath, she laid a hand on Jennifer’s thin arm. “First of all,” she said as calmly as she could, “nothing happened between you and Brad Hanes. There are too many
maybe
s in this situation for anyone to get all upset. You were trying to do the right thing, and for all you know, he was too.”

Jennifer sniffled. “I hope so.”

“Second, you need to realize that being a single woman is not the worst thing in the world. I’ve done it for plenty of years, and I’ve been happy more or less the whole time. I have friends enough to run me ragged. I get all the hugs I need by doing much hugging myself. If people don’t want to hug back, that’s fine. But if they see Patsy Pringle, they might as well accept that they’re going to get squeezed.”

“Yeah.” Jennifer’s voice came out as a whimper.

“Now, I know what I’m talking about is not the same thing as having a husband and children. I don’t pretend it is. Single is single, and sometimes it’s lonely. But from what I’ve heard in the beauty shop, marriage can be a lonely existence too. Being married will not automatically make you happy. It won’t guarantee you protection. It won’t even promise warm arms in bed at night. Believe you me, honey, I’ve listened to plenty of sad tales about a husband and wife sleeping in separate rooms. You know as well as I do what the source of real happiness is. True joy only comes from God.”

Nodding, Jennifer blotted the last of her tears. “I know that, Patsy. I do. I’ve just been so caught up in my own fears and worries. I started questioning everything.”

“You don’t ever have to question God. You’ve been hurt pretty badly, and now it’s time to start healing.” Letting out a breath, Patsy glanced down at the cookie platter. It was disturbingly diminished.

“Well,” she said, “you and I can probably read Ashley’s necklace orders and start packaging them, can’t we? Let’s go on down to the basement.”

“There’s one more thing about this morning.”

“All right.” Finding herself in prayer once again, Patsy carefully rewrapped the cookie platter. “What else happened?”

“Cody. He saw Brad and me.”

“In the office?”

“In the dark.”

Breaking into a sweat, Patsy grabbed a magazine off the coffee table and began to fan herself. The wool sweater had definitely been a bad idea. But Jennifer was gazing out the window, her expression calm for the first time in a long while.

“Cody offered to protect me,” she told Patsy softly. “He would have too. After Brad left, Cody helped me clean up the mess Yappy had made on the rugs. And then he told me he loved me and wanted to marry me, just like he always does.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Jennifer leaned over and rested her head on Patsy’s shoulder. “I won’t marry Cody, you know. He’s not ready. Maybe he never will be. And I’m way too impatient and emotional. It wouldn’t work out well. But, Patsy, I do love Cody Goss. I love him with all my heart. I believe he’s the best friend anyone could ever have.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

S
he hated him. There were few things Ashley felt certain of in her life, but this was one. She hated her husband.

Unable to sleep, lying in bed as the sunlight crept up the slats of the window blinds one by one, Ashley stared at the white ceiling. Brad and Mr. Moore had repaired it together, replacing a patch of stained wallboard that had been saturated by a leak and then painting the whole thing bright white. She had felt proud of Brad that day. He and Mr. Moore had stood in the bedroom, elbowing each other and talking about secret plans for the community Thanksgiving. Mrs. Moore sent down a plate of leftover lasagna, and Ashley and Brad had eaten it together before she left for work. At least she would have
one
happy memory of her wasted marriage.

“Browf?”
The muffled sound came from the living room.
“Brrrr. Wowf, wowf?”

Yappy was awake. How long would it take for Brad to rouse himself from his hangover stupor and take the dog outside? Ashley stiffened as she heard her husband moving around on the sofa in the living room.

“What do you want?” he murmured in a gentle voice. “You need to go out? Aw, what a fine boy. Good dog, Yappy. That’s the way to tell me.”

The front door opened. A string of curse words announced Brad’s realization that a snowstorm had blown in overnight. Ashley shut her eyes, as if that could somehow block her ears as well. Brad’s foul mouth was one more thing she hated about her husband. When Mr. Moore was around, he never talked that way. But in his own home, around his own wife, the man had no qualms about saying whatever he wanted.

Not that she cared anymore.

The night before, the new snowfall had surprised Ashley. She had made a scary drive home from work on the windswept road as gusts of white drifted in the beams from her headlights. She hadn’t expected another snow so soon after the previous evening’s light dusting. Evidently no one had. The plows hadn’t even gotten out, and her car was one of the first to mark a trail down the pavement.

“Come on in, boy!” Brad’s voice again took on that loving tone Ashley rarely heard directed at herself these days. “What a good boy you are, Yappy. Right in the snow, too. Now that’s what I call smart.”

“Broof!”
Yappy’s toenails clicked happily on the patch of tiles in front of the door.
“Broof-roof! Yow-row-row! Brow-oooo!”

Brad laughed. “Let’s get you some breakfast. Make me a pot of coffee, too. Man, what a night we had, huh? Look at that mess we made.”

We?

Did Brad include the dog in his offenses … or had there been someone else in the house with her husband?

Ashley recalled slipping into the living room just before midnight. How she had hoped to find Brad in their bed waiting for her! It had been such an awful day—waking up alone, taking part of her paycheck to her parents and suddenly bursting into tears right in front of them, frantically trying to finish mailing the last of her bead orders while Patsy and Jennifer gabbed, working countless hours at the country club restaurant, and finally steering back home through the snow, fearful she would run the car into the ditch at any moment.

She and Brad hadn’t spoken at all that day. Usually they called each other once or twice to touch base. At the start of their romance, she remembered, their messages had been furtive whispers of love and desire. She had saved every voice mail and text message from him. Those days were certainly over. Even so, when Ashley opened the door that night, she had held every hope that her husband might have returned home, climbed into their bed, and gone to sleep on his pillow beside hers.

But no. There he lay on the sofa, beer cans scattered across the floor around him, the television still blaring. And worst of all—in fact, the killing blow—had been the magazine lying open on Brad’s chest.

Porn!

As she recalled the photograph on the cover, Ashley had to grit her teeth to keep from crying. That—or racing into the kitchen and stabbing the creep to death with a butcher knife.

How dare he? How
dare
he!

Oh, she hated him. She despised him. She couldn’t wait until he was out of the house so she could throw his clothes into a bag, chuck it out in the snow, and lock the door.
Get out of my life!
she would shout if he even came near her today.
Never touch me again! I hate you. I hate you!

Whistling the
Andy Griffith Show
theme song, Brad strolled into the bedroom. Her eyes just above the blanket, Ashley watched him strip off his jeans, underwear, and T-shirt, then sniff under his armpits and make a face.

Then he looked at the bed. Stark naked, he gave a start. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Did you think I ran away too?”

For a moment, he didn’t speak. Yappy leaped onto the bed and began to lick Ashley’s cheek. “Stop,” she muttered, pushing the dog away. “Make him stop. I’m trying to sleep.”

“Come here, Yappy,” Brad said. When the pup didn’t obey, he reached over and lifted the ball of brown fluff into his arms. “He’s just trying to say hello.”

“Shut up, Brad,” she snarled.

“What?”

“Get out of my sight.”

“What’s your problem, Ash? I came home, didn’t I? You ought to be glad about that.”

“Glad? Are you kidding?” She rose in the bed and hurled the disgusting magazine she had taken from him while he slept. “I’m supposed to be grateful because a man who reads this kind of filth is my husband?”

Brad dodged the magazine, but he wasn’t ready when his wife launched herself across the floor at him. “Get out of this house, you drunk! You sleazeball! You creep! You make me sick.”

Grabbing his arms, she pushed him hard. Brad was easily twice as strong as Ashley, but she knew she had the advantage. His hangover would have blurred his vision and given him a headache. With all her energy, she shoved him out of the bedroom toward the front door.

“What are you doing? Are you nuts?” He tried to hold firm against her. When he swayed to one side, she grabbed the doorknob.

“I hope I never see you again!” Ramming her shoulder into her husband’s solar plexus, she knocked him backward onto the snow-covered stoop. As he tried to get to his feet, she slammed the door. Where was the key? Wait, the dead bolt. Why couldn’t she find it?

There!

Breathing hard, she leaned back against the door.
Gone
. Out of her sight. Out of her life. Thank goodness!

“Ashley!” With a thud that rattled the windows, he kicked the door. The frame cracked and buckled. “Ashley, open this door right now!”

She leaped aside just as he landed another blow and the entire door crashed into the room. Totally bare and pale from the cold air, Brad lunged after her. “You threw me out in the snow!” he shouted.

“I hate you!” She ran back into the bedroom—suddenly afraid of him yet furious at the same time. “Get away from me. Go find one of your bar hussies! You can stay with her!”

Panting, Brad snatched up his jeans and stepped into them. “I’m married to you!” he hollered, pointing a finger as he stalked toward his wife. “The worst mistake of my life.”

“I’m no mistake! I’m responsible and loving and caring. You’re the drunken loser in this marriage! I don’t even know why I liked you to begin with.”

At that, he stiffened. “You don’t? Have you forgotten who I am? I can have any girl I want.”

“What’s stopping you?” she cried, grabbing the magazine from the floor. “How about
her
?” She ripped out a page, wadded it into a ball, and flung it at him. “Or this one? She’s awfully cute, isn’t she? Or maybe you like Miss December better?”

He didn’t move as the crumpled paper wads hit him in the chest. Ashley threw the magazine to the floor and stomped on it. “I’m not good enough for you, am I? That’s what you’re trying to tell me, so why don’t you just say it out loud? You hate me as much as I hate you. You want some sexy bar hopper in your bed! Or some nude model! You don’t want a wife who loves you and works hard and does everything she can to make you happy. You’d rather get drunk and lust after imaginary women in magazines. You’d rather look at them than hold your own wife!”

“How can I hold you, Ashley?” he asked. “You’re never here.”

“Neither are you. You’re always at Larry’s.”

“You’re always at work.”

“I have to work, because you drove your brand-new truck into a ditch and now we have to make payments on it. I’m carrying trays of food half my weight for a vehicle that is gone—wrecked by a drunk.”

“Don’t talk about that truck.”

“Why, because it reminds you what a loser you turned into after your brilliant high school career? That was the peak of your life, Brad. You’ll never be anything better than you were back then.”

“Stop,” he barked. “Don’t say that. That’s not fair.”

“What have you done lately that amounts to anything? Hang drywall in a condo? Slap mud on a few lengths of tape? Wow. I’m so impressed.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the wrinkled magazine on the floor. For a moment, Ashley thought she had truly wounded her husband, and a tinge of regret crept into her heart.

But then he lifted his head and said with a sneer, “Why shouldn’t I read whatever I want? You’re always too busy with your
beads
to spend time with your husband. If someone had told me three years ago that my whole life would come unglued because of beads, I’d have laughed in their face.”