Running the Numbers

by Roxanne Smith

  Duncan stared at the floor, hands in his pockets, and seemed to deeply consider the matter. Finally, he smiled jovially at Blake. “Why don’t you let me buy you a beer, Blake?” He turned to Kennedy and winked. “I owe you one.”

  As though in a daze, Blake followed Duncan through the town square to The Silver Dollar Bar. He was quickly learning it was a local favorite as well as a tourist attraction. Settled at the famous bar for the third time with the third coworker to bring him here, he was vaguely tempted to count the silver dollars himself.

  He sipped his local brew and tried to curb the anxiety racing through his system. It pulsed through his veins and pounded in his temples. With each minute that ticked by, he grew more certain he had to tell Sadie. He had to tell her everything, right now.

  Duncan sighed deeply. “So. You’re in love with Sadie now?”

  Blake nodded. “Probably since she showed up at the airport in a dirty ball cap and mud-crusted hiking boots and smoothly put me in my place. But I’ve never done this before. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to go.”

  “Done what?”

  “You know.” Blake gestured aimlessly, unsure of how to explain himself. “Storm the castle. Get the girl.”

  Duncan pushed his drink aside. “You’re a mess, man. A real mess.” He dropped his hands on the bar, like they weighed a ton, and looked at Blake with weary exasperation. “How do you go from Amanda to Sadie in the space of a few days? Have you thought about what Mrs. Avery said to you? You’re fooling around with your career, buddy.”

  “Don’t worry about Mrs. Avery.” Blake had that aspect figured out. “Instead, why don’t you help me work out how I explain myself to Sadie? Look, I know it’s crazy, but I got in my own way. I tried too hard and made a mistake, which is something I have to do before I can get things right, apparently. But now I see what I refused to look at. You were right about Amanda, and I was blind to it.”

  “If I was right about her, why don’t you trust I’m right about everything else? Tell me, Blake, why do you have to be in love with someone? You’re saying it has to be Sadie, because it wasn’t Amanda. What’s if it’s neither? And I’m not saying this as your boss. I’m out of here soon, and this will end up being someone else’s problem.”

  Blake took a careful sip. He still had to drive to Sadie’s after this. “I don’t, but I am. I’m telling you this is nothing like Amanda. Visually, Sadie made me want to run for the hills the second we met. I made the mistake of seeing with my eyes instead of looking with my heart. But now I see. And Sadie’s basically perfect, isn’t she?”

  “Hey.” Duncan’s hands shot up defensively. “Don’t come at a married man with a question like that.”

  “Sadie is fun. She’s honest and kind and hardworking. She can take care of herself. She’s a great friend, someone you can rely on. She’s everything you’d want in a partner.”

  Duncan’s pitying expression made Blake doubt himself like nothing else could have. “Blake, I can’t help you, man. I want to, but you’re flying off the edge here. Stop and think this through. Call a lifeline. Someone who knows you and can help you figure out what you should do next. Because I get a sense of you rushing headlong into a brick wall. The impact is going to hurt, and the reverberations will be felt far and wide.”

  Blake considered Duncan’s advice as he dropped a twenty onto the bar and saluted. “Chances are I won’t change my mind before I pull into Sadie’s driveway.”

  Duncan shook his head. “Whatever happens, just remember I live for the words, ‘I told you so.’”

  * * * *

  Sadie peeked through the curtains and groaned at Blake’s form standing in the shadow cast by the eaves. Her body defied her mind as her pulse picked up speed.

  She flipped on the porch light and swung the door open. “Didn’t we decide this had to stop? Really, we have to stop meeting like this. You know, all clandestine and deliberate.” She crossed her arms and rested her hip against the doorjamb, barring him entry.

  She’d had enough of the head games, the teasing, the hinting, the little looks that meant everything and nothing. It all led to Blake headed home with Amanda on his arm, so what did they matter? What did any of it matter?

  “You should go, Blake.”

  He had the old deer-in-the-headlights expression. “But… I love you.” His gaze dropped.

  The floor could’ve come out from under her. “I’m sorry, what? When did you figure this out?” That wasn’t the question she should’ve asked. She stood erect and massaged her temples to keep her brain from leaking out. “Blake, what are you doing?”

  He rubbed his neck and seemed to want to stare at everything but her. “I had it wrong. Amanda isn’t anything like Quinn.”

  “And you think I am?”

  He nodded. Barely. Just the slightest nod, but enough to shoot her temper straight to red.

  God, she wanted to punch him. She stepped forward and settled for a hard jab at his chest. “What is your malfunction? Amanda is not Quinn. I am not Quinn. No one but Quinn can be Quinn!” Her voice rose on its own accord. The shortsightedness, the ignorance… More than anything, the insult that she should only be worthy as long as she existed in the outline of another woman sketched by Blake’s skewed memory. “You need a therapist, okay? There’s something off about a man who wants to remake every woman he meets into someone else.”

  “It’s not that!” Blake’s hair stood on end as he ran his hands through it like a man in desperate need of a rope, but Sadie would give up accounting for waitressing before she’d throw him one. “It’s—I only mean there are certain traits, that’s all. Things you have in common. Things I admire.”

  “You don’t love someone because of their traits,” Sadie snapped. “We are more than the whole of our parts. I add up to more than my idiosyncrasies, more than the mere characteristics of my personality. I’m a human being with faults and fears. I make mistakes. I can be ugly, Blake. As ugly as Amanda, and far uglier than Quinn. So, no, you don’t love me. You don’t even know me.” She went to slam the door in his face.

  His hand shot out, catching it and holding it. “Sadie, please.” Hardly a whisper.

  Why was he doing this? With one hand, he offered her everything she wanted. With the other, he shaped it into something meaningless and lamentable.

  “Please,” he said again. His expression begged her. His eyes squeezed shut and popped open again, and a whole world of bewilderment and grief opened up to her.

  He seemed so lost. She wanted to help him find his way, but not like this—not as the second-place runner-up for Quinn’s stand-in.

  Blake cast his gaze on the ground like it hurt to look at her. “Sadie, it’s not supposed to go like this, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Damn it.” He grabbed at his hair and pushed off from the porch. He halted in the small patch of grass that was her yard, hands on hips, head hanging, hair wild. “I don’t understand. For Quinn and Emily, it happened all so perfectly. They met someone, they fought it, they realized the error of their ways, and then… And then, that was it. They found their soulmates and lived happily ever after.” He shook his head and regarded her again. This time his expression was guarded. “I know how I feel about you. I know that you’re what I’ve been looking for. Whether you like the sound of it or not, the qualities I appreciate are those you share with my ex-wife, yes. That doesn’t mean it’s not about you, though. I don’t want you to be Quinn, but I also can’t help wanting you for the same reasons I still want her.”

  Sadie couldn’t believe her ears. “Still? Do you hear yourself?”

  “No! I didn’t mean—”

  “I’ve got it bad for you, Blake. You.” She took a long stride to stand in front of him and drive it home. “Not someone like you, not a suitable substitute, not someone who happens to remind me of you. I’m not settling for someone similar to you, or someone who has the same sense of humor, or the right clothes, or an interchangeable pe
rsonality, or who laughs at the right jokes or cries on cue. I deserve better than that.” She clenched her jaw and ground out the last words through a sieve of iron, because it pissed her off that she needed to say them. “I am Sadie Darling Felix, and I am worth a thousand Quinns. And any man who thinks he’s going to waltz into my home and tell me I’m good enough doesn’t deserve me.”

  It was as though she’d slapped him. His face opened up as light dawned, eyes wide, mouth agape. He blinked stupidly. “You’re right. You aren’t Quinn.”

  Sadie didn’t need this. Wes, Blake, Duncan—they’d all let her down, and she was tired of giving them the power to do the job. “Screw you, Blake. Leave and take that chauvinistic, unrealistic, degrading fantasy of some other poor woman squashing herself into the mold of your ex-wife with you.”

  This time when she slammed the door, it crashed against the frame without any resistance. She fell against it. Her breaths came harsh and heavy, weighed by the realization that Blake was just another psychopath, after all. So, why did it hurt to turn him away? She clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking. One bone. She’d throw him one bone, but if he screwed this up, she was done.

  She closed her eyes and bit her lip. Turning around, she pulled the door open a few inches and peeked out at Blake.

  Motionless, he stood where she’d left him.

  She licked her lips and spoke quietly into the shadows. “This is it, okay? The only lifeline you’re gonna get, so listen carefully. You’re not in love with me, but you aren’t in love with Quinn, either. You idolize her. You idolize your marriage before your affair, because it’s the last time you can remember feeling good about yourself or feeling whole. Before you became cheating slime. But you can’t move forward by going back. Quinn is the past. I can be your future, but not like this.”

  She pressed the door closed. The click of the metal latch sliding home seemed to her like a ref’s whistle blaring into the quiet.

  Round one.

  Chapter 13

  Sadie crouched next to the filing cabinet and did her best to ignore the beads of sweat forming at her hairline and dripping down onto her temple, sluicing through layers of her makeup. By the time she crept out of here, she’d look like a melting candle.

  Why did Wes keep his office at such a stifling temperature? She understood it was mid-March in Wyoming, but eighty-five degrees was a tad excessive.

  Quietly, Sadie pulled open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. It glided toward her silently. She flicked through the folders, a veritable neon rainbow of colors. Old paper files wouldn’t likely lead anywhere, because mostly everything had been digitized years ago. But Wes’s portal password might be scribbled down anywhere. Sadie had hers tucked away in at least three different locations, given how often it changed and how difficult the random mix of letters and numbers could be to memorize.

  Blake might’ve helped her, but Sadie wanted to take a gander herself. She knew Wes’s style and might catch on to something Blake wouldn’t. After all, there was a lot to be learned about a man when you’d shared his bed.

  Blake certainly didn’t have that distinction.

  And it had to be Wes. No doubt in Sadie’s mind, Wes was behind the missing money. His expensive car and severe case of self-deluded, egocentric entitlement all made sense now. He strutted around like the next big cheese because he believed he was getting away with stealing right under their noses.

  She couldn’t wait to rub his face in the evidence, see the terror and surprise expand his beady eyeballs until they exploded from his sneering face, and watch as Duncan—

  “What are you doing on the floor?”

  Sadie jerked and whacked her shoulder against the cabinet with a thud. The resonant shock of Amanda’s voice made her skin feel like it was going to peel off. When her breath returned, she swallowed and addressed Amanda without looking up. She shuffled through the files as though she had the right. “Searching for an old file I misplaced. It might’ve been one I gave over to Wes.” She sniffed and straightened, kicking the drawer shut with her boot. She tugged her cardigan down. “It’s not here. Might be in archives.”

  Amanda’s face hadn’t changed a bit, no matter what emotional hardships she’d suffered the last several weeks. No new lines around her eyes. Her placid features gave away nothing. She clutched a glaring orange folder to her chest like a shield. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  Unbidden, last night came to Sadie. Her face warmed. How could she have faced Amanda if she’d given in to Blake last night? It seemed like every point on the compass led to a brick wall. No matter where she turned, potential pain, either for herself or someone she cared about, whether it was Blake, Amanda, or her own heart, stared at her. And she did care about Amanda, despite everything.

  Sadie tucked a sweat-soaked strand of hair that had stuck to her forehead behind her ear. “You’re right. I’ll go.”

  She tried to step past Amanda.

  Amanda stepped once to the left, barring the way. Her green eyes were pale and creepy in the dim room. “You think he’s guilty, don’t you? Blake told you about the missing money, and you’d like it to be Wes.”

  Sadie swallowed past the lump in her throat, threatening to choke her. If Mrs. Avery’s daughter pointed the finger at Sadie, it’d be enough to make her a person of interest. Blake wouldn’t have a choice; he’d pull every file Sadie had touched in the last year. He wouldn’t find anything, but the investigation would go down in her personnel record for all time.

  It was enough to paint a brilliant red slash over years of impeccable professionalism.

  “I don’t want it to be anyone, actually,” she parried. A little early for a verbal spar, but she’d taken the risk breaking into Wes’s office. Now she had to outsmart the bridge troll to escape to safety.

  Except, Amanda wasn’t really a bridge troll, only a deeply misunderstood woman.

  Sadie gave up on making a run for it. “You know, I lied to you, Amanda. And I owe you an apology. Because I do like Blake.”

  It floored her when Amanda’s brow gathered in pained puzzlement. She almost looked like a normal person when she moved the muscles in her face. “You’re involved with him?”

  “No.” Sadie shook her head in adamant denial. “No, no, no. I would never, ever do that to someone I consider a friend. I probably wouldn’t do it to an enemy. That’s not the kind of woman I am. You spent enough time with me to know if I were. I wouldn’t eat at your table, then spend the night with your man.” It disgusted her to even think about it. “When I say I lied to you, I only mean that I sort of had a thing for Blake, back in the beginning. But you were so happy he’d asked you out, I dialed back instead of telling you the truth. He didn’t want me, anyway, and you both seemed happy. I’ve had a bit of a…”

  Was there a grown-up way to say crush? Was there any way to explain it that didn’t make her look like a desperate, lovelorn spinster drooling after Blake all these months?

  “…a crush, I guess.” She’d have to read a dictionary at some point. Expand the old vocab. “I’m only bringing it up because I feel I owe you more, I guess. I don’t want to flail my arms and beat feet every time you enter a room. I’ve liked Blake for a long time, ever since you began dating. But I’ve never pursued an intimate relationship with him. Likewise, Blake never attempted one with me,” she added, wanting to be clear. “Besides, he sort of told Kennedy point-blank he didn’t want to date me. But we did have fun together. And he does have this very sad underdog thing going on that I can’t help but want to support, despite his history, which just screams red flag—”

  “What are you talking about?” Amanda’s face had dropped the pained expression, leaving only confusion in her wide green eyes. Her head tilted slightly, and her blond curtain of hair draped over one shoulder like a fine woven scarf. Sadie could kind of see her appeal. If a man were into that kind of thing.

  She hesitated to dive into Blake’s past, but he owed Aman
da full disclosure. Besides, she had to have heard at least some of the details in all the time they’d been dating. She did her best to inject the perfect note of nonchalance into her voice. “I only mean the thing with his third wife being his first wife’s sister, and his second wife being the mistress from his first wife. It took me a while to wrap my head around it. I actually drew a diagram.”

  She broke off. Amanda’s eyes had grown in circumference.

  Please, Blake, tell me you told her. Tell me you didn’t hide this from her…

  Sadie didn’t know what to do but keep going and try to dig her way out. “Anyway, it’s like he was trying to fix the whole mess with that last marriage but didn’t have the first clue of how to go about it. I get the sense he’s going through something similar here. He’s trying to atone, but not in the right way. I can’t help but root for the guy, you know. Years later, he’s still got himself strapped to a gurney.”

  Five years, precisely, which didn’t sound as impressive as say, ten, so Sadie didn’t enumerate.

  “Anyway,” she plowed on in the wake of Amanda’s gaping silence, “no one else seems to be clinging to the past. His first wife is married with a toddler, the mistress disappeared with the guy who was the real dad of their baby together, and his third wife fell for a beach bum in Hawaii. So, really, who cares?”

  It was like the plot for a long-running soap opera had spewed from her mouth. No one would ever believe she’d actually been trying to help Blake, not make him sound like a cautionary tale from the Deep South.

  She ran a hand through her hair and let out a puff of air. “I’ve screwed this up. Amanda, I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have said anything. All I meant to get across was Blake’s a reformed moron douchebag who’s trying way too hard to repair something no one can even remember was broken. More to the point, you’re my friend. Were my friend, but I’m down to still be friends if you can believe I never meant to cause any upset between you and Blake. His recent change of heart notwithstanding,” she added with an eye roll, because silly, silly Blake seemed to think he was in love with her. “I’d choose your friendship over Blake if it came to that. He’s confused right now, that’s all. Seems to think I’m his ex-wife incarnate.”