Female voices lift behind me, and I can hear Jessica explaining the exchange of the mud to my grandmother, who in turn laughs. They connect, those two, and yes, my grandmother can connect with anyone she chooses to, but this is different. They bonded from the time they met on that phone call and I’m not sure what to think about that. I don’t want my grandmother hurt.
“I don’t always fall in the mud!” Jessica shouts after me, not even sounding slightly fazed by that remark. “Only on Tuesdays and on the side of the road.”
I stop at my truck and turn to face the two women, who are now huddling together as if colluding against me. “Is that right?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “So let me help.”
“No. I’ll be back to get you in a few hours.” I open my truck door and Jessica yells, “Asshole!” and my grandmother laughs again. Damn, she laughs a genuine sweet laugh that I haven’t heard in two years. Because of Jessica.
That crazy, clumsy, pain-in-my-ass woman is ten kinds of turn-me-on and piss-me-off, and I don’t know what to do about it now besides leave, but that’s not going to work for long.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Jessica…
The minute we’re back in the house, Martha whisks me away to the kitchen where we stuff my phone in rice and then suddenly we’re baking chocolate banana bread. I don’t resist. It’s pretty easy to see that while I eat chocolate and make myself fat when I fret, she bakes and makes me fat when she frets. I might need to add jogging to the Pilates. We don’t talk about the press or Jason’s past. We talk about me. She wants me to tell her funny stories from my career and I do.
“What’s the silliest thing you had to fight for in a divorce settlement?”
I don’t have to even think twice on that one. “Pink shoes and doggy sweaters.”
She blanches. “Say what?”
“That was pretty much my reaction as well,” I admit while sipping hot cocoa with yummy marshmallows, because I want to explode from a sugar rush, apparently. It’s not a pleasant thought, but I sip again before I say, “The case of the pink shoes. They bought them in Italy. She adored them. He said he’d trade them for the cat. If he didn’t get the cat, she didn’t get the shoes.”
“Oh my Lord.” She presses her hand to her forehead and sticks the bread in the oven. “Who won?”
“I had pictures of the pink shoes he bought his mistress. We got the cat and the shoes.”
“Oh wow. Mistress? What an asshole.”
I laugh. “Yes. What an asshole.”
“And the doggy sweaters?”
“Two dogs. They each got one, but they had a shared collection of sweaters and collars, too. They both wanted them.”
“And?”
“My client was the man. He knew she didn’t really want the dogs. She was just giving him hell. So I told him to get some Xanax from his doctor and tell her she could have the dogs. He did it and she changed her mind. He got the dogs and the doggy sweater/collar collection.”
Martha growls. “You tigress, you. You have to put some of these stories in your book.”
I laugh and help her clean up again, thinking about her comment. I do want this book to be fun, not depressing. Maybe I need to show people how silly and destructive divorce can get and why they need to just walk away, but I find this is hard for people to do. They miss the love and bond they’d once shared and pain drives craziness. And yet, I don’t miss Craig. Not at all. I feel uprooted. I feel unstable, but as I watch Martha working, humming as she does, I realize that I don’t miss the man. I also don’t feel alone.
My phone buzzes, and Martha and I laugh as the rice bowl vibrates. “It’s back,” I say. “That’s good news.”
“Leave it alone,” she says. “Don’t look at it. I don’t want that ex of yours to upset you.”
“He won’t,” I assure her, grabbing my phone and wiping it down to find a text message from Jason: Hey there, city girl. If your phone is working, let me know she’s okay, will you?
I don’t have to ask who “she” is.
I reply: She started baking again. It’s therapeutic for her I think. So she bakes. I eat. She’s presently humming while fattening me up.
He replies instantly: She’s upset. I knew this would upset her.
I respond again just as quickly: Don’t get your panties in a wad there now, cowboy. She’s good. I promise. I, however, am getting fatter by the second. Have some hay I can throw or something?
“Everything okay?” Martha asks.
I turn to find Martha mixing more icing, God love her. “All is well.” I glance at my other messages, which amounts to a bunch of rants from Craig. “My asshole ex is having a wonderful text war with himself. He’s skilled like that.”
My phone buzzes again and I find a message from Jason: You throwing hay. I might actually want to see that.
My lips curve and I type: She’s making icing. I love icing. Hay it is.
He doesn’t reply. I’m shocked he messaged me in the first place. “That was your grandson,” I say, “but don’t tell, please. He’s worried about you.”
“My asshole grandson?” she teases.
“Why didn’t you get mad at me calling him that?” I ask, rejoining her and setting my phone on the counter.
“Because your mouth says asshole and your eyes say—oh, baby.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “My eyes say no such thing.”
She smirks all-knowingly and hands me an icing-drenched spoon. “Enjoy. You both could use a little sugar in your lives.” She winks and I’m appalled. She’s not talking about the icing.
…
Not so long afterward, we eat bread hot out of the oven, which is freaking amazing, and it’s already five o’clock, with no sign of Jason. “I should have brought my computer to work,” I say, eyeing the sparkling kitchen. “I’m stuck without a ride back to the cottage.”
“You should have. Tomorrow, bring it.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Of course. I’d love for you to come help again.”
“Me, too,” I say, meaning it. I think I need this escape, and I think she needs it as well. I know we both need this.
“I have a MacBook,” she offers. “Can you use it?”
“Actually, yes. I have my file saved to a remote drive.”
“Well, excellent. I have a late afternoon soap I watch. I can watch while you write. I have a headset I can use so I don’t disturb you.”
“Are you sure? You don’t mind?”
“I’d love for you to stay. It gets lonely around here and I’m normally okay with that, but right now—well…” She swallows and looks away, turning to shut the dishwasher. “This time of year bothers me.”
And there it is. That open door to the plane crash. I tread carefully, letting her go there or not. That’s up to her. I give her an exit. “I always hate my birthday,” I say, because I do.
“Why? Birthdays are wonderful.”
“They come with fake happy greetings and you have to assess where you are today versus last year. Which for me is in July. It’s now May and I’m jobless.”
“You’re writing a book. It’s going to be spectacular, and this year you have me to bake you a cake.”
“My cheerleader,” I say. “Thank you, Martha.”
She inhales and cuts her stare before looking at me. “The plane crash that took Jason’s mom was in October.”
My stomach knots, heart bleeds. “Two years, right?”
“Yes, and sometimes it feels like two days it’s so raw, and yet twenty years since I hugged her.”
“I won’t say I’m sorry. That doesn’t help, I know.”
“Thank you for that. Most people don’t get that.” She studies me. “Why do you?”
“I had a client who lost her child. That was at the core of the divorce. I a
ctually tried to convince her to step back from the final separation. I felt like the pain was driving their divorce, not a loss of love. I didn’t succeed, but I did bond with her. She told me how much the constant apologies bothered her.”
“And you listened and heard her. Most people don’t.” She offers me a sad smile. “Let me get that MacBook.”
“I’ll brew some more coffee.”
“Lovely,” she says, exiting the kitchen, leaving sadness in her wake. I decide right then that my goal is to erase that sadness and quickly.
I brew the coffee, fill two cups, and grab another pie to please her and my taste buds. I meet Martha in the living room, the scent of cigars and man lingering in the air. “Here we go,” Martha says, setting the MacBook on the table while I place our cups side by side in front of the couch.
We sit down next to each other and she inhales. “Oliver, my late husband, loved his cigars. I swear that’s why Jason smokes them. To remember him. They were close.”
I feel a pinch of guilt over learning so much about Jason from someone who isn’t Jason, but I have this sense that she needs to talk and it’s hard to avoid. “Who taught him to pitch?”
“His father. He pitched at UT, you know, just like Jason.”
“The Flying J’s.”
She smiles. “Yes. The Flying J’s.”
“He should still be playing, but—” She sighs. “He’d be upset if I told you.”
“I do believe you’re right. His story is his to tell. And what a special person you are to know that.”
“I could say the same of you.”
We share a warm moment and then I fire up the MacBook while she watches television. I tell myself to work on the divorce book, but I think I’m at my limit with divorce and breakups right now. I need some feel-good in my life, so now I’m watching TV, too. Martha tells me all about the characters and we snuggle onto the couch, blankets over us. I don’t know when it happens, but at some point my eyes are heavy and my head is on a pillow.
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I remember the moment my lashes lift and I’m staring into Jason’s blue eyes. “Hi,” I whisper.
“Hi,” he says, his voice as warm as the flecks of yellow in his eyes, eyes that could sink a ship with the sea of unknowns swimming in their depths.
“I fell asleep?”
“You did.”
“Martha?”
“In the kitchen.”
“And you’re now on a knee in front of me.”
“You usually need help up.”
“That is so not funny.”
His lips quirk. “No?”
“No,” I say, sitting up, and I do so with unexpected consequences. Our knees are now touching and our faces are close, those lips of his that I’m always obsessing over, also so very close. But of course, I’m not thinking about what they would feel like on my own kiss-deprived lips. Because that would be trouble, and I’m done with trouble.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jessica…
We’re still staring at each other. Why are we still staring at each other? And why are his knees still pressed to my knees? Or is it my knees pressed to his knees?
“Why are you blushing, Jessica?”
Why?
Why?
Why?
Everything with this man is becoming a big why.
“I didn’t think city girls blushed, and certainly not you,” he adds, his hands daring to touch my legs.
“Why?” I ask, sticking to the theme, because at least we’re being consistent. “Because I dropped my towel while trying to beat you with a flashlight?”
His eyes light with mischief. “You did drop your towel and I do believe I was quite the gentleman when you did.”
“You were quite the asshole that night.”
“There you go. Calling me an asshole again.”
“We discussed this. It’s context. And past tense. ‘You were’ means past. Since your hands are on my legs, I’m still deciding.”
“While blushing. You’re still blushing, Jessica.”
The heat in my cheeks is undeniable. He’s right. I am. I can’t explain it. I’m a grown-ass woman who has had sex and even listened to my ex have sex with another woman while I stood outside the door.
“It’s not like you haven’t even seen me naked before, isn’t it?”
He laughs and a gasp sounds to our left, followed by an “oh my” that has him pushing to his feet and pulling me to mine while we both turn to face his grandmother like two busted teenagers. “You two move quickly. I guess I know why you fight so much now.”
“No!” I say, holding up a hand. “That wasn’t what it sounded like. The night I fell in the mud, I stripped away my clothes and he barged in on me while I was in a towel and scared me. I grabbed a flashlight to hit him with and my towel fell down. It would have been mortifying if I hadn’t been so angry.”
She looks between the two of us and focuses on me, a question in her eyes. I nod my confirmation. “I was having a very bad day.”
Her gaze shifts to Jason. “You barged in on her?”
“I thought she was a scammer, Grandma. And how was I to know she’d walk in the door and strip naked?”
I whirl on him. “I was dripping mud, which you knew because you were the one who all but pushed me into that mud.”
He laughs. “You didn’t need my help with that and you know it.”
“A gentleman would take the blame and make me feel better.”
“I guess I’m no gentleman.”
“What you are is making me crazy.”
“Ditto,” he says, his warm eyes flecked with tiny amber glints, his jaw heavy with stubble.
Martha clears her throat and we both turn back to attention. “You two are something. I just don’t know what yet. I’m going home. Jessica, honey, repeat tomorrow after Pilates? It would be wonderful to have your help with baking again.”
“I’d enjoy that.”
“And Saturday will be great. You will meet so many people at Pilates. You’ll start to feel right at home.”
“Pilates?” Jason asks. “Is that what you’re calling yoga now?”
“Ruth went to the city and got certified,” Martha informs him. “It’s great for the core.”
“I need to jog,” I say, looking between them. “Is there a place I can do that safely? You know, where cows don’t chase me and men don’t shove me in the mud?”
“There’s a running path around the Sweetwater River,” Jason says. “But with your luck, I’m not going to promise you won’t end up in the mud.”
“Ha ha. Guess what? Guys who don’t laugh because—that’s not their thing—don’t know how to tell anything but bad jokes.”
Martha laughs. “Oh Jessica,” she says. “I do believe it will be fun to have you around. You liven things up.” She eyes Jason. “I need a ride. I’m a lazy ole’ sass this evening and the rain is not.”
Which is so true. We had a dry spell for an hour and then it started all over again.
“It keeps coming,” Martha adds, “and I’m too old to get all wet and bothered.”
If I had a drink, I’d choke on it. Instead, I choke on my tongue. “My God. You didn’t just say that.”
“Yes, she did,” Jason assures me. “Everyone says my father taught me to throw a hundred-mile-an-hour ball, which is true on the field. It was my grandmother who taught me how to throw them off the field.”
Martha laughs. “Nonsense. I know my way around a kitchen and that’s about it,” she says before she looks at me and adds, “And you, my dear, know your way around a towel.”
My cheeks heat. “I’m never going to live that down with you, am I?”
“Never,” she promises, giving a chuckle and looking at Jason. “Jessica needs a ride home, too.”
&
nbsp; “I already planned on giving her a ride, Grandma, and getting her car out of the mud tomorrow when the rain stops.”
Martha hikes her purse up her shoulder. “As you should. She’s a paying guest.” She winks at me like I’m conspiring with her, and I have a bad feeling it’s about her grandson, which is why I don’t look at him. If he’s not reading that into this, I’m not going to put the idea in my head in his head.
“Come on, you two,” she says, motioning us forward and leading the way, giving me a squeeze on the arm and a coy smile as she passes.
Oh no, I’m right. She wants to fix us up and I quickly follow her, giving Jason my back and my ass, which is bigger for all my breakup eating. Of course, big asses are all the joy of the world right now, so I can only hope he’s an ass-man, and mine is of a special variety: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and cookies. And pie. And icing, and stop, Jessica. Stop now. He’s not looking at your ass. He didn’t even look when you dropped the towel.
Martha exits the house and I’m still behind her, eyeing the darkness now hugging the front of the house. Jason must flip on a switch behind us, because light floods the path before us. That’s all Martha needs for encouragement. She charges down the steps toward the truck, agile beyond her years. Good grief, I really do need to try Pilates. I inhale and stop at the top of the stairs, lifting my hood over my hair, thankful the rain is presently a drizzle, not a bucket at a time.
Hurrying toward the truck, rain plucking at my hood, I decide I’m paranoid. Martha knows that I’m in a “no zone” for men right now. And even if I wasn’t, I’d be in the rebound place that leads to another bad place. You don’t do relationships in the rebound place. I’ve handled many a rebound divorce and they told a story: if you have to rebound, do it naked and say goodbye, but A) I’m not a sex-only kind of girl, though Craig makes me think I should be, and B) even if I went down that path, it’s not like this is a big city where it’s one and done, and you can move on and never see the person again.
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