Mustang Sassy (29 page)

“Well, it was green and leafy, and I was pretty sure you’d know what to do with it.”

Libby laughed softly. Sass turned away when she saw Libby wipe her cheek before she bent down to put the kale away in the fridge drawer.

“Libby?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry I suck.”

“What?”

“I pretty much suck as a friend. I’m, ah…sorry about that.”

“You don’t suck as a friend.”

“Yeah. I do.” Sass held up her hands before Libby could say anything to refute her. “The only thing I can’t figure out is why you’ve stuck with me for so long.”

Libby didn’t answer right away while she grabbed two glasses from her cupboard, placed them on the counter, and poured iced tea into each. She took a long drink from her glass and then said, “The truth is, when we were kids, I didn’t like you very much.”

Sass choked on her iced tea. It was not what she’d expected to hear.

“You were kind of mean to me. Remember when Mom babysat you after your mom died? Well, she told me I had to make an effort. She’d said you were only mean because you were sad.”

Sass’s chest ached as if a two-ton truck sat on top of her.

“But then two things happened.”

“What?” Sass whispered.

“Don’t you remember?”

Sass shook her head.

“Some kids were making fun of me at school. Older kids. They’d been doing it from the beginning of the school year. One day, you overheard them and you marched over and threatened to kick their asses.” She laughed. “You were this shrimpy, little nine year-old kid, and a girl to boot. But you were the toughest kid around.”

Sass shrugged. “I don’t like bullies. That’s not much to base a friendship on.”

“That was only the start.” Libby finished her iced tea and set the glass down on the counter. “Then there was that summer when we turned ten.”

Sass frowned. She had a vague memory of Libby hanging around the shop that year. A lot. She remembered feeling annoyed about it at first but then at some point it just became the way things were.

“It was right after my dad left us.” Libby smiled at the memory but her eyes looked weird and glassy. “I was so lonely. I’d show up at the shop pretty much every day. We’d play in the back, in the old wrecks, and we’d make up stories about when we were grown up, about the cars we’d have. You were going to drive a Corvette and I was going to drive a Firebird.”

“And we were going to find a house together and adopt five kids.”

Libby laughed. “Yeah, ’cuz boys were gross.”

Sass laughed, too.

“I couldn’t have gotten through that time without you.”

Sass played with the ring of moisture her glass had left on the counter. With a sigh, she finally said, “That was a long time ago. I’ve pretty much sucked ever since.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey!”

Libby laughed and lightly shoved Sass. “That’s because you’ve always been more like a sister to me than a friend. There was even a time when I wished my mom and your dad would get together. Then we could have been sisters for real.”

Sass wrinkled her nose. What would that have been like? Why had that thought never crossed her mind?

Their conversation was interrupted by a woman’s voice calling from the other room. “Libby? Who’s that you’re talking to?”

“It’s just me, Mrs. Morrison,” Sass called.

“Who?”

“Sass. Sass Hogan.”

Mrs. Morrison didn’t reply.

“You’d better go, Sass.”

Sass made her way to the front door. “Lib? If there’s anything you need, you let me know, okay?”

Libby smiled. “Okay.”

…

The next day, Sass operated inside some weird fog, her thoughts still fixated on her conversation with Libby. They’d had a lot of fun as kids, both at Libby’s place and here in the yard. They’d spent hours playing in the old wrecks and dreaming. Some of those dreams had even come true.

When she finally emerged from the hazy memories of childhood, she caught Jordan studying her in a way that reminded her of the day he’d drawn her portrait out at the cabin.

That had been a good day. She smiled in remembrance and then caught herself.

No. It wasn’t a good day. The man had lied and used her. Not good. Bad.

But damn if her body didn’t want to remember it that way.

After work, Sass went home, taped her hands and decided the best thing for her was to spend a little one on one time with the speed bag. No sooner had she started getting into her rhythm than Mary-Lynn interrupted her.

“I bet that feels good.”

“Yep,” Sass said but her combination was off with Mary-Lynn watching and the bag swung askew.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, sweets, but if I’d ever had a daughter, I’d have wanted her to be strong like you.”

Sass caught the bag and stared at the blond woman at the door of the den. “Yeah, right. I doubt you’d want her to be anything like me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m…” Sass turned and gave the bag a hard cross. “I’m about as non-feminine as you can get.”

“There’s nothing that says a woman can’t be both strong and feminine.”

“Right.”

Mary-Lynn wandered into the room and touched the bag. “Can I try?”

“Be my guest.”

Even with heels on, Mary-Lynn was shorter than her so the bag hung a little too high. Yet Sass was astonished at the force of Mary-Lynn’s punch.

“Heavens!” The woman laughed. “That is fun!” She gave it a couple more good whacks and then side stepped to get out of Sass’s way. “I’d love for you to show me how to do it properly sometime.”

“Right,” Sass muttered as she started to pound away on the bag again.

“And,” Mary-Lynn raised her voice to be heard above Sass’s punches, “if you ever want advice on the feminine thing, you know where to find me.”

After Mary-Lynn left, Sass said, “As if that would ever happen.” Then she gave the bag a hard left jab, caught it, turned around, and frowned when she saw the empty door.

Chapter Twenty-three

There was no way Sass was going to sit down to a “family meal” with Buck and Mary-Lynn. It just felt so…weird. So she grabbed a banana and made a sandwich and then headed out to Chesterville. She hadn’t seen Millie in eons and if ever Sass needed the voice of sanity and reason, it was now.

When she arrived, Millie was seated at her table in the dining room and Sass pulled up a chair to join them.

“Sass,” Millie whispered, “they seem to be a little short-staffed tonight. Would you mind helping Mrs. Ford?”

“Of course not,” Sass said. She pulled her chair closer to Mrs. Ford, who sat to the right of Millie. For the umpteenth time, she said, “Hi, Mrs. Ford, I’m Sass.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Ford whispered in that wavering, uncertain voice of hers.

Millie placed her hand on Mrs. Ford’s. “Sass is going to help you with dinner.”

“Is it dinnertime?”

“Yes,” Sass said as she picked up the woman’s fork and knife and cut a piece of pork cutlet. “And it’s your favorite.”

“This is my favorite?”

“Yes,” Sass said as she brought a forkful up to Mrs. Ford’s mouth. “It smells delicious.”

“Oh,” the woman said again as she opened her mouth to eat.

Throughout dinner, Millie complained quietly to Sass about the new administration at the lodge. How in the last few weeks, the facility had become dangerously understaffed and how some of the residents were coming down to dinner only to eat cold food or nothing at all. It was terrible.

“I’ll come down and help,” Sass said as she helped Mrs. Ford blot her lips with her napkin once she was done.

“You will?”

“As much as I can.”

Millie placed her hand over Sass’s. “You’re an angel.”

Sass leaned closer. “And
you
are the only one who thinks so.”

Millie laughed and patted Sass’s cheek. “Would you mind wheeling an old lady down to the rec room? I don’t want to miss the start of my art classes.”

“Art classes?” Sass said with amusement.

“Yes. Figure drawing. But the new administration won’t let us draw nudes.” Millie sighed with exaggeration. “They treat us like infants, not people who were doing it before they were born.”

“Not everyone has your liberal views, Mill.” Sass parked Millie in front of an easel and pulled up a chair to sit beside her.

“So, what brings you in on a Wednesday night?”

Sighing, she said, “I swear to God, I must have done something really rotten in a past life because, holy shit, the universe is dumping on me.”

Millie sighed, probably at Sass’s use of profanity. But then she asked her what exactly the universe had done and Sass recounted everything that had happened in the last few days, omitting, of course, her drunken sleepover with Jordan at the Doubletree in Denver and glossing over her past relationship with Dex Whelan. “All I need now is for Carter Reynolds to show up and I’d have a full house.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“He was my first and…oh forget it. The point is—”

“The point is, every man who’s ever done you wrong seems to be showing up to haunt you.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Hmm.” Millie tapped her lips in thought. “That is a lot of ‘shit.’”

“Millicent Delacroix? Did you just say ‘shit’?”

The older woman smiled, her eyes twinkling, “I believe I did.”

Sass laughed. It was the first time she’d laughed in days. It felt good.

“You know, Sass, after I retired, I had all sorts of plans, all sorts of ideas for what I wanted to do.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“I wanted to travel.” Millie gazed out the window as she spoke. “I planned to go to Stratford-upon-Avon, see the home of Shakespeare. Then from there, to London, Paris, Cairo, Beijing.” Millie shrugged and met Sass’s gaze. “Then my stroke hit; it was only seven months after my retirement. Seven months. I didn’t end up going anywhere.”

“Oh.” Sass swallowed.

“Yes, ‘oh’ is right.” Millie patted Sass’s hand. “I felt sorry for myself for a while.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But I don’t anymore, and I’m going to tell you what a wise person once told me.”

Sass leaned forward.

“Suck it up.”

“What?”

Millie leaned back in her chair and repeated, “Suck it up.” She took in a deep breath and then exhaled long and slow. “Then, let it go.”

“Let it go?”

“Yep. And move on.”

“That’s some advice, Mill. Who told you that?”

“Your grandmother.” Millie grinned. “She said your mother’s death almost killed her. But it didn’t.” Millie squeezed Sass’s hand. “It didn’t kill you either.” After another gentle squeeze, Millie said, “Oh, class will be starting soon. Do you want to stay?”

Sass shook her head. “Umm…” She frowned. “No. I think I’d better go.”

“You could model for us, make some old geezers happy.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Before you leave,” Millie pointed to the items displayed around the room, “check out some of our work. I think you’ll like it.”

“Yeah, sure,” She wandered over to the wall where the art was displayed, barely looking at it. Instead she pictured her grandmother.

Right after her mom died, Sass had lived with her for a little over a year. Then her grandma had gone off on some world tour, a safari, trekking through the Himalayas, and Sass had gone back to living with Buck. She’d never understood why her grandmother left. To her seven year-old mind, she’d been abandoned.

Shit happens. Suck it up and live your life.

It was like her grandmother was in the room with her, whispering in her ear. The crown of her head tingled as if her grandmother had just kissed her there.

Gingerly, she touched her head and turned around, half expecting to see her grandmother standing behind her. Instead, there was a portrait that caught Sass’s eye. It was different from the others, the drawing cleaner, more certain, done by a professional, not an amateur with shaking hands. It was an outdoor portrait of a woman at sunset. She felt herself drawn closer to it as if pulled by a magnet.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

But it was.

There she was, leaning against a wooden rail, her head resting on her hand as she gazed out at the woods and water. She had a faraway look in her eye and a soft smile on her face.

“Hi, Sass.”

She spun around and it was like she was back there. Back at the cabin, with the sun setting behind her and Jordan there with pencil and paper, drawing her. Making her feel…special.

“You,” she whispered, trying to summon up all the anger and betrayal but falling decidedly flat. Instead all she could see was the depth of his blue eyes and the warm feelings that still lingered when she thought about that night.

She opened her mouth to say something but instead spun around and stalked down the hall toward the front of the building. What she wanted to say and the words that were forming were in direct contrast to one another and the fact of the matter was Sass didn’t want to deal with Jordan at the moment. She was too confused. Too upset. Too…she just couldn’t handle him. Not now.

But Jordan didn’t let her get far. “You’re really good at running away, do you know that?”

“Stop following me.”

“Stop walking away.”

She stopped and turned on him with her hands on her hips, finally able to summon some of the anger she’d wanted. “What is this? Huh? Is this your way wheedling your way back into my good books? Well, it’s not going to work. I won’t be fooled again.”

Jordan threw his head back in what appeared to be frustration. “You know, Sass, not everything is about you.
This
is not about you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I love art. I love to share my passion. I’ve been coming here every Sunday and Wednesday evenings for the last three weeks to teach art to the residents.” He took a step forward so that Sass had to look up at him. “This has to do with me and my art students. This has
nothing
to do with you.”

…

Jordan showed up at Hogan’s the next day fully prepared for another scene with Sass. However, he didn’t get one. Sass was already there in the yard, seemingly done with the Chevy and now focused on some old truck frame that, from his best guess, was from the thirties or forties. It was going to be another warm day and already she was down to her tank top. It was torture. When he’d first met her and she’d been wearing that killer outfit, he thought she was aware of her effect on men. Now he wasn’t so sure. Because, if Sass had any idea what seeing her in that little tank top did to him, she’d have coveralls on in a second.