His Best Friend’s Sister

by Eve Gaddy

  “Don’t you have wedding rings?” Zack asked her.

  She gave a short, not particularly happy, laugh. “Nope. Sold them. After I first got divorced, along with every other piece of jewelry that had any value. Well, except the necklace and earrings from my parents.”

  Damn, the hits just kept coming. “I’m sorry, Laurel.”

  She shrugged. “That’s okay. There were only a couple of things I minded selling. I was perfectly happy to sell my wedding set. I didn’t need a reminder of Stan.”

  “What did you sell that you wished you hadn’t?”

  “I bought some diamond stud earrings before we married. They weren’t big; in fact, they were tiny. But they were real and I paid for them with the money I’d been saving from my Kelly Boots paycheck.” She gave a rueful smile. “I was so proud that I’d paid for them myself, without any help. They were my first big independent purchase.”

  “Your ex is a real dick, isn’t he?”

  Laurel laughed. “Yes he is.”

  “I don’t see your laptop,” Zack said. “Either of them.” Great. The new one had the airport financials on it.

  “They took the old one but I’d wiped it. I was going to sell it since you’d given me the new one and told me I could use it for my personal stuff as well. Luckily, I couldn’t carry everything so I locked the new one in my trunk. Thank God. The police said they might be able to find the thieves through one of the pawn shops.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “I suppose it is. Who’d have thought things could have been even worse?”

  “You and the kids weren’t hurt. That’s a pretty huge thing to be thankful for,” Zack said.

  “You’re right, of course.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “But look at it.” She waved a hand indicating the room. “I’m afraid to look at my bedroom. I bet it’s even more messed up.”

  “Do the police have any leads?”

  “They agree with Edith that there’s been a burglary ring operating out of the Barrels. They suspect this was their work. The thieves have been careful to make sure no one was home. We were just unlucky to be the first.”

  “If they thought no one would be home why were they armed?”

  “I guess in case someone surprised them, like we did. CSI found blood on the sliding glass door where they’d smashed it to get in. They’ll run the DNA to see if it’s in the system. They believe it will be.”

  “They must not be very bright if they left that kind of evidence.”

  “CSI said they wiped it off but there were trace amounts left behind. But they said it would be a long time before it’s processed. They do have the bullets they fired at us and that might tell them something.”

  After the living room they took on the master bedroom.

  “Oh, God,” Laurel said. “I think I’m going to be sick.” The bedspread and sheets had been taken off and thrown in the middle of the floor. The mattress was crooked on the box springs, indicating they’d searched underneath it. Worse, her underwear drawer had been pulled out and the contents strewn everywhere.

  “Perverts,” Zack said.

  “People hide things in their underwear drawers and underneath mattresses,” she said. “So I guess they were looking for money or something. But it’s still sick.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  After a lunch break Zack and Laurel went back to work.

  Laurel had held it together all morning. But seeing the kids’ rooms broke her. The robbers had trashed both rooms. Obviously they’d taken any electronics the kids had in their rooms, none of which was terribly valuable. But when she realized the broken pottery on their floors was from their piggy banks, Laurel broke down crying.

  Zack pulled her into his arms and let her cry it out. Eventually, she sniffed and pushed herself away from him, a broken shard of pottery still clutched in her hand.

  “How can anyone do that? Take a little child’s savings? It couldn’t have been more than a few dollars.”

  “Laurel, they shot at you and your children. Taking money from a piggy bank pales in comparison, don’t you think?”

  “Of course it does. But seeing their precious little piggy banks smashed to pieces just got to me. They were presents from my parents. Cody and Katrina both were so proud when they had money to save. They talked all the time about what they would do once the banks were full.”

  “We’ll get them new ones.”

  “It won’t be the same.”

  “No, but it’s all we can do.”

  While they were still cleaning up Harlan and Travis came over to install a new sliding door to the balcony. Regardless of when Laurel moved out, the door would have to be replaced so rather than wait for the insurance money to come through, her brothers elected to do it right away. Harlan could have had his crew do it, but apparently he and Travis wanted to take care of the repairs themselves.

  “Thank you,” Laurel said. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “We brought more locks for the front door but there’s not much point installing them if you’re moving out. Are you?” Travis asked pointedly.

  “Will you quit nagging me if I say yes?”

  “You are? That’s great!”

  “We could have Zack’s new house ready to move into in no time. I can put a crew to work right away,” Harlan said. “You’d still have to live with workmen, but we could have a lot of it taken care of quickly. Just say the word.”

  “I haven’t decided exactly what we’re doing yet. Zack and I need to talk more, for one thing.”

  “What’s to talk about? The solution is right in front of your face,” Travis said impatiently. “Move in with Zack.”

  “Travis?” Zack said. “Shut up.”

  Harlan hadn’t said anything beyond offering to fix up the house quickly. Now he said, “Let’s finish up the door, Travis. Before Laurel clocks you.”

  “For God’s sake, it’s not like I’m trying to force her to do something she doesn’t want to do. What is your problem?” he asked Laurel.

  “Travis, I love you and I appreciate you’re worried about us, but this is something I need to discuss with Zack. So shut the hell up.”

  At least she’d said she was going to talk to him, Zack thought. He’d been afraid she’d avoid talking again and he was at the end of his patience. The tedious work of cleaning up fingerprint dust didn’t help his humor either.

  Harlan hugged Laurel and said, “No pressure. But you know you and the kids are welcome at our apartment anytime, for as long as you need to stay.”

  “I know.” She hugged Travis too. “I love y’all. Thank you for fixing the door.” She closed the door after them and turned around to Zack. “I really love them but oh, my God, I’m glad they’re gone.”

  “You can’t blame them for being worried about you.”

  “I know, but Travis is about to drive me crazy.”

  “Come sit down. It’s time we talked,” Zack said. When she started to say something he added, “Don’t blow me off again, Laurel. This is important.”

  “You’re right.” She sat beside him. “I know you want me to move in with you.”

  “No, what I really want is for you to marry me. But I’ll settle for you and the kids moving in with me.”

  “I don’t know what to do. I want to be with you. Cody and Katrina love you. I love you.”

  When she didn’t say anything else Zack said, “That’s the first time you’ve said you love me.”

  “I fell in love with you almost from the first. But I was afraid to tell you.”

  “Why? What are you afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid to depend on you. I’m afraid to depend on anyone.”

  “I can see that. Do you think I’m going to abandon you? I won’t. I love you and Cody and Katrina. I love the babies. I want what we could have, Laurel. When you were robbed, when I realized you and the kids could have been shot, I almost lost it. I can’t imagine my world without you in it. I don’t want to lose y
ou. I don’t want to lose what we have.”

  “I don’t want to either. But I’m still not sure living together is what’s best for us.”

  “Then we won’t. But you’ve got to get out of here.”

  “You’re right. But I’m not living with my brothers. They’ve both offered but I won’t do that to them. I’ve never wanted to borrow from them, either. I’ve done my best not to have to do it. That’s one reason I took another job, but it wasn’t enough. But I really don’t see any other way to afford a different apartment.”

  “There’s another solution.”

  “What? If you think I’ll take money from you—”

  He set his jaw and waited a minute before he could answer without yelling. “Damn it, Laurel, me supporting you and my kids isn’t ‘taking money from me.’ They’re my children. My responsibility. But that isn’t the point. You and the kids can move into the house on Spring Street.”

  “But—”

  “Without me.”

  *

  “What?” Laurel stared at Zack wondering if she’d heard him right. “You want us to—”

  “Yes. I want you and the kids to move into the house. I’ll stay in my apartment.”

  “We can’t do that.” Move into his house without him? What a shitty thing to do to him.

  “Why can’t you? You’re not ready to move in with me but you need a safer place to live. It’s the perfect solution.”

  “That’s—that’s—it’s ridiculous. It’s a stupid solution.”

  “Why?”

  He was serious. Sincere. And what he was suggesting was totally wrong. “For one thing, it’s your house. Not mine.”

  “I bought it for you and the kids. You’re going to need more space before long anyway. You’re having twins, you know.”

  “Yes, I’m aware.” She shook her head, smiling despite the serious topic. “But Zack, you bought that house for us all to live in together.”

  “Yes, I did. But plans can change.”

  “It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “Screw that. If it doesn’t bother me or you, it’s no one else’s business.”

  “But it does bother me. I feel like a shit.”

  He took her hand, held it in both of his. “You’re not a shit. I don’t know why you feel that you can’t live with me, but the fact is, you do. So, don’t. But I still want you to move to the house on Spring Street. You and the kids. I think you’ll be really happy there.”

  “Oh, Zack.” What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she simply do what she wanted to do? She told herself she had to be certain, particularly for her children’s sake. But she was sure. Sure that Zack loved her, sure that he loved Cody and Katrina, sure that he would love the new babies too.

  She knew what kind of man Zack was. Good. Responsible. Loving. He’d proven it over and over. Her problem wasn’t with Zack. It was with her own fear of letting go, of trusting him because trusting her first husband had been such a disaster.

  “What is it, Laurel? If you love me and I love you, then what’s stopping you? Do you trust me?”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Zack. I don’t trust myself.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “My marriage was…a disaster.” Which really didn’t even touch how bad it had been.

  “Lots of people get divorced.”

  She was silent, struggling with wanting to tell him the truth and being ashamed. “There are things about my marriage that no one knows. It wasn’t something I could ever talk about. I was…ashamed. I guess I still am.”

  “What happened, Laurel?”

  “Stan and I got married young. Not because I was pregnant or anything like that. But because we were young and in love. He came from an upper middle class family. They didn’t like me. Well, they didn’t know me but they didn’t like the fact that my family was not socially on par with them. You know back then the family had just started to dig out of the hole they’d been in as long as I could remember. And this was right before Dad got a better job and they moved away.

  “Stan went to law school in San Antonio. With his parents’ help we bought a house here in Whiskey River. Nothing fancy but decent. I’d been working at Kelly Boots since high school and still did. Stan had planned to work in Whiskey River after he graduated, but he was offered a really good job in San Antonio, so he took it and commuted to work. We had Cody and everything was still mostly okay. But he started to become more and more distant. Katrina was an accident. I suspected he was cheating on me during my pregnancy but I couldn’t prove it. I’m not sure I wanted to prove it. I thought it was my fault. That I wasn’t enough for him, and never had been.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Maybe so, but it was bullshit I believed. Don’t forget his parents were continually telling him I wasn’t good enough for him. He should dump me and take the kids. He was a lawyer. I knew he could do it. But he had no interest in Cody and Katrina. Thank God.” It destroyed her to think what could have happened if Stan had wanted the children.

  “He continued to work in San Antonio. We saw less and less of him. I…still loved him. Or thought I did. Stan began defending criminals. Small-time at first, but the longer he did it, the less cautious he became. Until he was defending a slew of drug dealers and the like.”

  “Did you know?”

  “Very little. I knew he was a defense attorney, of course. But I had no idea who his clientele were. I was too busy trying to raise two kids on my own with a full-time job and a husband I hardly saw. And I was naive. Stupid, actually.”

  “I don’t believe that. Naive, maybe. Stupid? Never.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said flatly. “I deliberately closed my eyes to…all kinds of things. I put up with my suspicions about the women. But then he started coming home more. I thought he wanted to make a go of it.” She laughed unhappily.

  “He didn’t.”

  “No, he did not. He was getting worse. More irrational. Meaner. No patience with the kids or with me. Of course, he’d never had much. But by then he’d decided I couldn’t do anything right. He hit me.”

  “Jesus, Laurel. He abused you?”

  “He hit me a few times.” She shrugged. “Not a lot and never very bad. Each time he’d swear he’d never do it again. I wanted to believe him. But then I discovered he’d taken out a second mortgage on our house. I couldn’t understand why. So I confronted him. He blew up at me and shoved me against the wall. I’m pretty sure I broke a rib.”

  “Pretty sure? You didn’t go to the hospital or the doctor?”

  “No,” she said simply. “I was ashamed. But I knew it would only get worse. I made plans to leave him. But I couldn’t follow through. I knew I should, but the kids were still so young and I was afraid I couldn’t make it on my own. So I kept hoping, and all the while I was completely clueless as to what the real problem was.”

  “What was it?”

  “Cocaine.”

  “Shit,” Zack said.

  “Yes. Stan was a cocaine addict.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Her ex-husband was a cocaine addict. That explained a lot.

  “His clients had been paying him in drugs, which was one reason money was so tight,” Laurel continued. “But of course, I didn’t know any of this until I found his stash.”

  “You confronted him,” Zack said. That wouldn’t have been pretty.

  “Yes. Now I knew why he’d needed more money. Not for his family. For the drugs. I wasn’t such a coward that I could let that go.”

  “I don’t think you were ever a coward.”

  “That makes one of us. Anyway, once I confronted Stan he went ballistic. He tried to deny everything, but of course he couldn’t.”

  “Is that when you broke up?”

  “No. You’d think so, but no. Eventually he admitted it was true. He swore to me he could beat it. But he needed help. He needed me. So I stayed. He wouldn’t hear o
f going into a rehab facility. He said he could do it on his own, with my help. He would tell me he’d quit but by then I knew the signs and knew he hadn’t. He continued to spend money we didn’t have. He couldn’t get clean. I’m not sure he even really tried. Finally when Katrina was almost two I told him to choose. His family or the drugs. He chose the drugs.” She fell silent.

  “Why does no one know this? Didn’t you ever talk to anyone about all this? Your parents? Travis and Harlan? A girlfriend?”

  “No.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I’ve never told anyone. I was too ashamed.”

  “Why were you ashamed? You didn’t do anything wrong,” Zack said. “He was the abusive drug addict.”

  “I married him. I stayed with him. Even after he hit me, even after I found out about the drugs, I stayed.”

  “Because you wanted to help him. There’s no shame in that, Laurel.” Zack reached for her hand. “It’s not a crime to love your husband.”

  She lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. It broke his heart to see her so sad. To see her place all the blame for a terrible situation on herself.

  “That’s just it. I didn’t love him. Not by then. I’ve always wondered if the reason I didn’t give him an ultimatum earlier was because I was scared to be alone. Scared of having to support myself and my children.”

  “So what if you were? Your kids were little. They were what, two and four? Anyone would be worried about supporting them and raising them alone.”

  “It was wrong. I left the decision to stay or go up to him. If he’d agreed to really get help, I’d probably still be with him.”

  “You wouldn’t have stayed with him if he didn’t get clean, would you?”

  “No. But—”

  Zack placed his fingers on her lips. “Stop. Stop blaming yourself. You did your best. You did what you thought was right. Maybe it was a mistake, but you can’t—you shouldn’t—fault yourself for trying to save your marriage. Whatever your reasons.”

  “I love you, Zack. I do. I want to be with you. But I’m scared. No, I’m petrified.”