Summertime Dream (22 page)

He opened the house photos folder on his phone and let the slideshow play, trying to encourage himself with the tasks he’d finished and concentrate on the tasks he had left to complete. The third time through the slideshow, he paused on the photo of Margie perched daintily on the back steps, her warm smile lighting her whole face.

Time to cut the lame attempts at denial. Margie was why he was still here. Dealing with the house was an excuse, pure and simple. Yes, his to-do list was a mile long and the New York trip deadline was looming, but Sorenson had recommended enough reasonable contractors, cleaning companies, and appraisers, he didn’t need to lift a finger to unload this place.

No more pretending this thing between them was just lust at first sight or loneliness.

So then, you know what you need to do. It’s time to fish or cut bait.

When Margie arrived, they were going to talk first thing, no more excuses for either of them. He downed his coffee and headed to the basement to work while he waited.

He carted out two loads, still astounded that one little old lady could accumulate so much utter rubbish, but pleased with the progress he’d made over the past several days. He now had bare stretches of floor instead of narrow aisles between towering boxes. On the third trip, the bottom box in his load of old canning jars split open. He staggered, fighting to keep everything balanced, and collided with the wall. Pain raked his forearm and he jerked back, losing the whole load with a shattering crash. Shards of glass sprayed everywhere.

“Shit!”

A warm liquid drip off his fingertips hauled his attention down at his arm to find blood running freely from a ragged gouge. He slapped his hand over the cut, putting pressure on as he looked for the culprit. A rusty, bent square cut nail protruded from the brick wall.

Oh great. When the hell was his last tetanus shot? Damn. He stomped upstairs into the kitchen to rinse his arm under the tap. The cut was deep and still bleeding. He pressed a pad of paper towel down hard. That should work until he found the package of bandages he’d seen in the bathroom upstairs. But the box only held little finger-sized strips and despite the pressure, he was still bleeding pretty good.

Damn, time to see about a doctor.

****

Margie nibbled on her toast and poked at the back arrow key, deleting the words she’d just written. Her word count this morning was sadly puny. Writing in her favorite corner at the restaurant was failing her today. She always liked the morning company of the busy restaurant. The noisy soup of conversations, clinking and clanking of flatware and dishes used to be white noise for the dialogues in her mind. Today, every dropped knife, plate clacking against countertop, and creak of the kitchen service door chipped away at her focus like tiny jackhammers.

Ugh, what focus? Focus was long lost, and she knew the problem and the solution. She’d been a coward yet again yesterday, avoiding the opportunity to talk to him at lunch, and last night, jumping on Grandma Em’s invitation to dinner. She needed to stop hiding, tell Christopher flat out, and deal with what may come as an adult.

Joe weighed on her mind. He wasn’t at work yet. His being late was very weird, but the kitchen was certainly more peaceful without him holed up in there like a wounded bear, roaring and grumbling at everyone. She’d been deliberately avoiding him ever since Sunday.

Write. Worry later.

She sipped at her coffee, pecking out unsatisfying words on her keyboard with one hand.

“I saw you with him Monday night,” Joe snarled.

She yelped, dropping her mug and spilling the little coffee left. Monday? Monday! He’d seen them, in the kitchen? She slapped a napkin on the mess before the puddle reached her keyboard as her brain fumbled for a defense.

He loomed over her, deeply flushed and eyes flinty hard, and jabbed a finger in her face. “He was all over you against the car. What if Mom or Dad had seen you, behaving like some slut?”

Relief and anger washed hot and cold chills through her. He’d only seen them kissing goodnight at the car. “What are you, the morality police? I’m almost twenty-five. I’m allowed to kiss who I want.” She finished mopping up the coffee spill and dropped the napkin on her plate.

“He’s going to leave and hurt you. He’s just using you to get the house sold.”

Didn’t they just have this fight on Saturday?

“The only person hurting me right now is you!” She jammed her tablet and notes into her bag. “You don’t know anything about Christopher and me. I love you, Joe, but I really don’t like the person you’ve become anymore. If you have a valid reason why I shouldn’t see Christopher, then say so. But don’t take out your issues on me. At least I’m trying to move on with my life.”

“He’s not going to marry you either.” His clear, cruel words struck like a dagger.

She surged to her feet, sick on reckless anger, fed up with being intimidated, and her rash words rang out. “What if I don’t want him to marry me? What if I’m the one using him?” She scrubbed the back of her hand over the tears. “You didn’t consider that, did you? Maybe I like having a guy want me. Maybe I’m sick of being everyone’s little sweetie. Maybe I just want a hot outrageous fling and feel alive again. Maybe I want more than one fling! Maybe I want something completely different for the rest of my life than I did a year ago. Damn it, I want to enjoy my life! I deserve some happiness. You may have thrown away your happiness, but I’m going to find mine!”

She slung her bag over her shoulder and swept out, hotly cognizant of the gaping mouths of all the customers, staff, Amy, and Aunt Ida who’d just witnessed her learn her boiling point.

Oh, so not good. She’d just given Falk’s Bend a whole new chunk of gossip to chew on.

Fuming and mortified, she hurried along the sidewalk. If only she’d found a closer parking space…A sniffle escaped her and she swallowed hard. She would find her happiness. She had a right to kiss Christopher. She had a right to want happiness. But they still had to talk—

She careened straight into someone. “Sorry!” She spun aside without looking. Oh, she’d made such a scene. Everyone was going to know.

A hand caught her wrist, stalling her. “Margie, wait.”

Eddie. Oh, peachy. Could her morning get any worse?

“You okay?”

Looking back over her shoulder, she tugged against his restraining hand. “I’m fine. I’m, I’m just late. Sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

He held firm, his face set in that
let’s be reasonable
look she’d grown to hate during their house hunting. “I’ve been worried about you.”

Really? The simmering anger set loose by Joe flared to a full-on blaze. “That’s interesting. I couldn’t tell by the past year that you even had the least thought of me. When were you worried? When you were seeing Jennifer behind my back? When I went in for surgery? When you were breaking our engagement? On your wedding day and honeymoon?”

Patches of red flared over his cheeks. “I still care. I’ve missed you.”

A sharp laugh raked her throat. “Oh, right. Give me a break.”

“I’ve heard all the talk around town about that guy Gordon and you. Margie, he’s not going to stay. He’s going to hurt you.”

“That’s just brilliant, coming from you of all people.” She twisted her wrist.

His fingers tightened. “Margie, stop! Folks are staring. I don’t want to see you hurt. We’ve been friends for too long for me not to say something about this. You’re too nice. He’s just taking advantage of you.”

“
Were
friends! You lost any right to tell me what to do when you married Jennifer. I’m fine. I will be fine. Now, let go, or I really will cause a scene.” Desperate to run, she grabbed the pinky finger on his restraining hand and gave a warning yank.

Eddie snatched his hand back. “Hell! Margie, would you just be reasonable!”

She bolted for her car, threw herself inside, and locked the door. A choked laugh burst free. Eddie
still
hadn’t apologized.

Christopher’s car was missing when she drove up. Margie rubbed her forehead. The wind deflated from her sails of good intentions. Maybe he’d run out for donuts. What to do while she waited? With the house locked, she was stuck.

A sparrow landed on a rose cane and perched there, eyeing her as he bobbed above the weed-choked bed.

The garden. She could tidy the front bed a little before the agent stopped by and the work would provide good stress relief. At this time of day, the front yard was pleasantly shady, the perfect time to pull a few weeds and enjoy the last cool minutes of morning. She’d thrown her gardening bag in the trunk, so she had her gloves, insect repellent, and small hand tools.

She tugged on her gloves and ripped down a swath of bindweed. Every last weed in her guidebook looked to have made the poor yard their home. The soaking rain last night let the first dandelion come up easily and she fell into the soothing rhythm. Unfortunately, her unruly mind fell to Christopher, their almost making love in the kitchen, how wonderful Christopher was, and how badly she’d bungled everything.

How dare Joe make her sound like she was a slut! How dare he twist her relationship with Christopher into something sordid! She yanked on a clump of crabgrass, wrenching out the tough mass, and whacked it against the brick edging to knock off the clinging dirt. Oh, that felt good.

How dare Eddie think he could tell her what to do!

She gave the clump another sharp whack and flung it into the wheelbarrow. She dug her gloved fingers into a patch of ground ivy and pulled, ripping the little rooted nodes free. The bruised leaves added their minty scent to the morning.

Last year had been so insane. Had Eddie truly been seeing Jennifer before? Her old shattered dreams still wanted to cry,
no, he wouldn’t betray me that way
, but she needed to stop the denial. As Debi had pointed out enough times, in hindsight the signs of Eddie’s defection were clear: the absences, the unavailability, his growing emotional distance. Yes, he might have been. Must have been. Her illness, his work, too much time apart, temptation…

She stabbed her weeder into the roots of a huge dandelion clump full of bobbing puffs and wrenched. The roots held. She twisted the weeder, waiting for the pop. Nothing. She jabbed deeper and tugged hard. The root snapped abruptly, bowling her back onto the grass in a cloud of dandelion fluff.

She caught her breath, watching the feathery seeds swirl and drift off on the breeze. Why couldn’t Jennifer be a hateful person? Why did Joe have to be so not Joe? She wanted her sweet, protective brother back. Joe honestly wasn’t the rude, hostile man Christopher kept experiencing. But lately, yes, he was. Joe and Christopher had enough likes in common they could be good friends, if Joe would only let himself.

She sniffled and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. No, she would not cry.

Had Loretta been unfairly accused of running around too? If Joe’s single accusation hurt this much, how much worse for Loretta back in that very different era with the town talking and twisting her friendship with Dex Taylor into something nasty and a cruel father and a mother blind with grief? Running away seemed a sensible choice.

Unfortunately, running away wasn’t an option for her. Weeding. Weeding was the cure for her ills today. She pushed onto her knees and eyed the next granddaddy of a dandelion.

As she reached the corner at the driveway, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway dragged her thoughts to the here and now. Finally, Christopher was back. She turned, but instead of Christopher’s convertible, a shiny white SUV proclaimed
Ashe-Alexander Realty
. The agent was here already? She scrubbed the back of her glove over her forehead. Where on earth was Christopher?

The agent stepped out of the car and her heart sank. Of all the possible agents Christopher could have chosen, of course he had to be Frank MacDonald, one of Joe’s baseball teammates and one of Debi and Baxter’s blind date offerings.

“Hi, Margie girl! How’re you doing?” He grinned, scanning the garden and the wheelbarrow heaped with wilting weeds. The formerly weed-choked beds lay tidy, but sadly sparse, with only the unpruned roses, some ratty azaleas, irises, daylilies, and vigorously reseeded foxgloves surviving from the original plantings. “I see you’re working some of your green thumb magic here. Looks good, but you got some dirt there on your cheek.” He brushed a thumb over her cheek and gave her a quick hello kiss and wink.

Oh, great. Frank was a nice guy and all but…”Ah, Christopher isn’t here. I don’t know where he went off to.”

“He said he might run late and that he’d call you and let you know the key was under the mat if he wasn’t back in time.”

“Wow, I didn’t get his call. Just a sec.” She pulled her phone from her purse. Oh, rats. The battery was dead. When would she ever learn to check her phone was charged? She plugged the phone into the car jack and checked her messages. Among the multiple voicemails from Joe she’d missed Christopher’s one call.
“Hey, sorry, but ran into a small problem and had to run out for a bit. The key is under the mat if I’m not back in time for the agent.”

What else could go wrong today? Having to show Frank around to get the house listed was so not fair.

Her phone rang in her hand. Just Joe. She let his call ring into voicemail, not wanting to even hear an apology from him. He needed to get a life. He needed a good swift kick.

Swallowing hard, she pinned on a smile. “Let’s get that key and I’ll show you around inside.”

Chapter Nine

One tedious emergency room wait, two stitches, and a tetanus shot later, Christopher was on his way back to Falk’s Bend. His arm would be fine, but his head remained an undecided mess. How to do this talk with Margie right, he didn’t know. He could blow this thing between them so easily.

He hardly recognized the yard as he drove up.

Margie sat on the porch, her tablet and keyboard in her lap. She set aside her tablet and ran to meet him. “Where have you been? I was worried. You totally missed the appointment with Frank.” She glanced down, brows pinching together as she took in the hospital’s professional bandaging job. “What happened?”