What Matters Most

by Beers, Georgia

  It had sounded so corny. So simplistic. Imagine Kelsey’s surprise when it had actually worked. She’d shed some tears. She’d screamed into a pillow. She’d envisioned doing terrible things to her professor. And when her timer had gone off marking the end of thirty minutes, she’d told herself she was done. And she was.

  “Okay,” she said aloud now. “That’s what we’re doing today.” She sat up and pulled her chair closer to the desk so she could reach her keyboard. “First, we’re going to find and watch a boatload of cute kitten videos on YouTube. And then we’re going to wallow for an hour. And that will be that.” Not for the first time, she wished she had a plant or a goldfish or something that she could conceivably be talking to should somebody walk in, rather than the air.

  After another glance at the monitors to make sure Jeanine was doing okay alone, Kelsey clicked her way to YouTube and several adorable animal videos. There was one of cats eating ice cream and then getting brain freezes that made her laugh out loud. She was just calming herself down when the phone rang and she was pleased to hear Stephanie Bradley on the other end.

  “Oh, good, I caught you. I thought I might be too late in the day.” Stephanie’s voice was businesslike, but with a nice gloss of friendliness over the top. “Just checking in to see how your customers like our products.”

  “So far, so good. I actually took some home to try myself and I love it.”

  They spent several moments chatting about the different scents, the lotions versus the creams, and some of the new holiday products coming up.

  “I’d like to come in and show you a few,” Stephanie said. “Not next week, ’cause I’m booked up, but what about the week after? That’s pushing us almost into October, so I don’t want to wait much longer than that.”

  For a split second, Kelsey considered telling her exactly what was happening, that in all likelihood, Common Scents might not be there for the holidays. But something held her back. Pride? Shame? Both? She wasn’t sure. All she could manage to do was set up an appointment to meet with her a week from Monday.

  She hung up the phone and immediately felt exhausted from the forced cheerfulness. Maybe now was the time for that hour of anger wallowing. She looked at the monitors, saw Jeremy dusting the shelf displaying the bath bombs, and nobody else in the store at the moment. A wave of melancholy washed over her then, and she felt surprisingly disappointed to be sad rather than angry. Rubbing both hands over her face, she took a deep breath and blew it out loudly. Before her brain had a chance to whisk her off into more wallowing, her cell rang. She glanced at the screen. Her mother.

  “Hey, Mom,” she said, not bothering to inject any false cheer into her tone. Her mother would see right through that.

  “Hi, sweetie. How are you? I felt the need to check.”

  It was silly and adorable at the same time, the way her mother checked in on her as if she were still a ten-year-old. Kelsey could roll her eyes and act all insulted by it, but the truth was, it warmed her heart. They spoke for a few minutes about things back home. A neighborhood block party. The book her mother was reading for book club. A new wine she’d discovered in the discount barrel at the Harris Teeter grocery store. As Kelsey listened and her muscles began to relax a bit, letting go some of the stress tension, she accepted that it was as good a time as any to get things out in the open.

  “Hey, Mom, is Dad there?” At her mother’s positive reply, Kelsey asked for him and soon the low timbre of his voice was tickling her eardrum.

  “Kelsey.” He didn’t have pet names for her. She was never “sweetie” or “honey” or “darling.” She was “Kelsey.”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “How’s business?” Right to the chase.

  Kelsey blew out a breath. “I’m having an issue.” She told him the whole story, beginning with Betsy Siegler’s first visit and ending with the letter Jake had shown her, the one she had her own version of, sitting on her desk unopened.

  Her father gave a grunt, then said, “That’s too bad. I’m sorry you’re dealing with that.”

  “I was wondering if you had any suggestions.” She told him about the research she’d done for a new location, that Jake was having the same problem finding something even close to the same range. “If you can think of anything I’m not doing…”

  “I told you that rent was almost too good to be true,” he said, and Kelsey could picture him shaking his head slowly.

  “I know.”

  “You should’ve chosen a location that cost a little more. That might have ensured something like this didn’t happen.”

  “Yeah, well, sadly, I’m not psychic, so I don’t think I’d have had any way of knowing something this would happen.” Kelsey could feel her ire growing.

  “I would think your solution is probably to close the shop and find another job. You gave it a shot. You failed. Not much else to be done if you can’t find comparable rent.” He was so blunt, so matter-of-fact, that Kelsey had to take a moment to sit there with her mouth open. He was a super successful businessman and had been for nearly forty years. Yet he offered no suggestions. He offered no money to help her (and she’d be damned if she was going to ask him for any). You blew it. Find another job. Those were his helpful daddy-daughter words of wisdom.

  The fact that he was right, despite his lack of compassion about it, made her want to cry.

  “Okay, well, I guess I’ll have to do that,” Kelsey said, this time definitely forcing cheer into her voice. There was no way she wanted him to see that he was crushing her right now. She needed to get off the phone. “Thanks for the advice, Dad.” Before he could respond, she hit End and tossed the phone onto her desk with more force than necessary.

  But she was so goddamn mad right now. Hurt and heartbroken and angry. She propped her elbows on the desk, dropped her head into her hands, and let the tears come quietly.

  They didn’t last long, though, as a thought poked at her right then. Hard, like an ice pick prodding at her temple. She furrowed her brow as she tried to figure out what her brain had latched onto. After a moment, she looked down at her desk, at the mail strewn about in piles, some open, some not. And that blue logo caught her eye.

  “Noooooooo......” she said, in quiet disbelief, as she picked up the envelope and ran her finger over the Carter Mayfield Real Estate Developers logo. The house outlining a heart.

  She’d seen that logo before.

  On a binder.

  At Theresa’s house.

  Facts began to click into place like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle finally coming together, and Kelsey could do nothing but stare at the envelope for a very long time.

  When she finally blinked herself out of her trance, she moved her fingers to her keyboard and did a Google search on Carter Mayfield. She clicked on the website that appeared and a photo of a distinguished-looking older gentleman filled her screen, along with background on how he went from a little-known real estate agent in Chicago in the seventies to the CEO of one of the largest and most successful real estate developers in the entire Midwest. She checked the menu bar at the top, saw the option of “Staff,” and clicked.

  A vertical row of small photos popped up, looking very much like school pictures, each person dressed in a nice outfit and smiling widely for the camera.

  All except for one.

  She wore a classy bright blue top in what was probably silk. Her blond hair was wavy, its gentle curves of gold falling down around her shoulders. Her smile was subtle, like she knew something that nobody else did. And her eyes sparkled with both intelligence and mischief. Had Kelsey not already known Theresa Keene—intimately—she’d certainly want to. There was a pull, like a powerful magnet drawing paperclips across the surface of a desk, giving them no choice but to submit.

  Almost instantly, the wonder over that draw was squashed by a sudden, blinding anger so intense Kelsey actually growled. She clicked out of the “Staff” page and closed the site all together. Palms on her desk, she pushed herself to a standing
position, as if she wouldn’t be able to rise otherwise, as if the white-hot anger had crippled her.

  It sure felt like it had.

  With a sudden determination that almost frightened her, Kelsey snatched up the letter and her purse and stomped out of her office. She could feel Jeremy’s eyes on her as she marched up the aisle to the front door, calling, “I’ll be back in an hour, tops,” over her shoulder.

  Forming coherent thoughts as she drove proved to be difficult, and for that, Kelsey was thankful. She didn’t want to go over and over it all in her head. She wanted to face Theresa, to look in her eyes, to understand somehow even though that seemed impossible at the moment.

  Traffic was heavy and she cursed it more than once, banging on the steering wheel and shouting expletives she rarely used. All the while, mixed in with her anger, was an enormous pain and sadness that she couldn’t bring herself to think about. No, the anger was easier. She’d stick with that.

  She made it to Theresa’s house in one piece—and she’d left the others on the road intact as well, shockingly. When she pulled up out front, she was surprised to see Theresa’s car in the driveway, then surprised at her surprise, since it had never occurred to her what she’d do if nobody’d been home. Stomp on some flowers? Jump up and down in the lawn and flail her arms? As it was, she had no plan, hadn’t really thought it through.

  Before she could second-guess herself, she pushed out of her car and marched with great determination across the front lawn and up to the door, the crumpled letter in her fist. She poked the doorbell and then knocked on the door anyway. Hard. When nobody had answered in three seconds, she banged some more.

  Finally, the door flung open, startling Kelsey nearly as much as Kelsey’s presence on her front stoop seemed to have startled Theresa. Her beautiful blue eyes were wide and as Kelsey watched, her face drained of all color until it was chalky white.

  “Kelsey,” she said quietly, and just that one word made it clear to Kelsey that Theresa had not expected this, had not expected her to show up on the doorstep of her house.

  “Did you know?” Kelsey shoved the letter at Theresa, who took it without looking right away. She merely looked at Kelsey, searched her face for...what? Kelsey wasn’t sure.

  “Come in,” Theresa said softly and stepped aside.

  “Did. You. Know.” Kelsey didn’t move.

  “Kelsey, please. Come inside.”

  Kelsey felt her nostrils flare at the directive, but Theresa’s voice wasn’t angry. Or bossy. It was pleading. “Fine.” Kelsey stepped into the foyer, determined not to go any farther into the house and determined not to look at Theresa at all. Not to notice how cute she was in her casual clothes or how soft her hair looked or the sadness in her eyes. No. She kept her eyes on the letter in Theresa’s hand and several beats went by before she said again, through gritted teeth, “Did you know?”

  Theresa finally smoothed out the letter, gave it a glance, but it was obvious she already knew what it said. “Not right away, no.” Her eyes stayed on the letter. Her voice was quiet. “Not until Monday morning.”

  Kelsey stared hard at her. She wasn’t going to make this easy for Theresa. No way. She was too angry. Too hurt. Way too hurt.

  Theresa cleared her throat, apparently realizing Kelsey wasn’t going to speak. “And even then, I didn’t know it was your store until I actually went in.”

  “When you were sizing it up, yes?”

  Theresa met Kelsey’s eyes then, but couldn’t hold them, gazed somewhere over Kelsey’s left shoulder. “I was checking out the layout, the structure of the entire building.” She said it quickly, as if it embarrassed her. “I went into all the businesses.”

  “And you didn’t think maybe it was a good idea to tell me then?” Kelsey’s eyebrows raised up, her eyes widened.

  Theresa inhaled, then swallowed audibly. “I was still trying to absorb it myself. I didn’t know what to say.” She grimaced, as if realizing how lame that sounded.

  “Really. You didn’t know what to say.” Kelsey nodded slowly, let her eyes roam around the space but didn’t actually see any of it. “How about, ‘Hey, Kelsey? I think we need to talk about something?’ How hard would that have been? How about, ‘I need to talk to you before dinner tonight?’ Although you blew that off, so that probably wouldn’t have worked.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I just...” Theresa let her voice trail off.

  “Didn’t know what to say?” Kelsey supplied with great snark.

  “Right.” Theresa looked down at her hands.

  Silence reigned for several long moments as Kelsey felt herself slowly running out of steam, that sadness threatening to usurp the anger. Finally, she took a deep breath in and let it out. “You know what’s hard?” she asked quietly. “The fact that I thought we had something, you and I. I mean, I know it’s only been a short time and we would’ve had a lot of getting to know each other to do, but...” She swallowed, felt her eyes well up and wrinkled her lip in a snarl over the fact. “I thought maybe we had something.”

  “I think we do, too.” Theresa’s use of the present tense wasn’t lost on Kelsey, who forced herself to scoff.

  “Yeah, well, you certainly took care of that, didn’t you?”

  Theresa seemed to gain a little energy then, to stand up a little bit straighter, but her voice stayed quiet. “Kelsey, what did you want me to do? Huh? I was just as blindsided as you were on Monday. Should I have just blurted it out right there in the store in front of your employees and customers? ‘Gee, sorry, but this building’s been sold and you’re going to have to vacate. Have a nice day.’” Kelsey had no immediate response and Theresa let the point sit for a moment before continuing. “I realize I should have contacted you by now—”

  “Ya think?” Kelsey muttered, still angry, though the miserable look on Theresa’s face was making it difficult for her to stay that way. She gave her head a subtle shake and said, “I’ve got to get back.”

  Theresa’s hand closed on her upper arm, stopping Kelsey from taking another step. “Please, Kelsey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Kelsey looked at the hand on her arm, got a brief flash of that same hand on her naked skin, causing goose bumps and heat and arousal and want and...she squeezed her eyes shut, pushed the memories from her brain. “Yeah. So am I.” She gently pulled her arm free.

  Walking across the yard to her car, Kelsey tried to ignore the tears that had gone beyond welling and had spilled over to run hotly down her cheeks.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “MY FEET ARE KILLING ME.”

  Chris dropped into the passenger seat of Kelsey’s car and immediately took off her shoe so she could rub her foot.

  “Dude. Seriously. You’re stinking up my car.” Kelsey keyed the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot of the twelfth apartment they’d looked at since nine that morning.

  “My feet don’t stink,” Chris said with mock indignation.

  Kelsey snorted. “I’ve known you your whole life. I know exactly what your feet smell like.”

  Chris laughed. “And you love me, so you don’t mind.”

  Kelsey allowed a small grin, and they drove the next few moments in silence.

  “You doing okay, little cousin?” Chris’s voice was quietly serious this time. Kelsey could feel the weight of her concerned gaze.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” Kelsey turned to her, flashed her a quick smile, and moved her focus back to the road.

  “You’ve been really quiet and...” Chris looked out the window.

  “And what?”

  “And you don’t seem happy. Not like the last time I was here. You hardly smile at all. You just seem...sad.”

  “Yeah, well, my store is closing in less than a month, so I think I’m allowed a little sadness.” Kelsey tried not to sound snippy, but was pretty sure she failed. Which wasn’t fair. She wasn’t mad at Chris.

  “I know. I know. I just...I think it’s more than that.”

  Kelsey f
urrowed her brow, played clueless. “Why would you think that?”

  Chris tilted her head and gave Kelsey a look. “Known you your whole life, remember?”

  Kelsey sighed. “I’m fine. I promise.” But she couldn’t look at Chris and she was certain her voice lacked the conviction she’d attempted to put into it. Because the truth was, she wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot. She was losing her store. While she hadn’t completely given up the search for a new location, she’d had no luck so far finding someplace she could afford. Leaving Westland wasn’t something she wanted to do, though, which meant she probably needed to start looking for a job...something that proved difficult when all her energy was poured into making as much money as possible in the store’s last few weeks.

  And then there was Theresa.

  Theresa, who hadn’t stopped texting since their confrontation at her house two weeks ago. She’d called. Dozens of times. She left messages of apology. She sent texts of apology. She e-mailed apologies. Every day. Every day some sort of contact arrived. And Kelsey hadn’t responded to a single one, which felt like righteous indignation at first. But now? Now, the anger was pretty much gone, and she was just so sad. It overwhelmed her, and she just didn’t have the energy to deal with her own emotions. Theresa deserved more from her—two weeks was a long time to keep knocking at a door that nobody ever opened—but Kelsey couldn’t manage to suck it up. She knew she should, but...