Loving Meg

by Skye Taylor

  Meg forced herself to let go of her unfounded suspicions and crossed the room. She wrapped her arms about Ben’s waist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I’m just pissed that she took over my project. It’s my stuff. I paid for it, and the idea was mine, too.”

  Ben laid his cheek atop of her head and hugged her. “Maybe the boxes are still at the church. I’ll take a spin by there on my way back from Mom’s this afternoon and check. She was a lousy chief elf anyway.”

  After Ben had gone out again to return the tables he had borrowed from his mother for Meg’s coming home party, Meg sat at the kitchen counter. Paperwork with the unmistakable imprint of the Marine Corps was spread out before her. Decisions to be made. Stay in or resign her commission? If she left, what did she want to do with her life? Her career? If she stayed in, the chances of being deployed again were weighted against her. And if she went, how did she feel about leaving Ben vulnerable to a siren like Anne Royko? Could she even trust herself?

  Chapter 8

  WHEN MEG HEARD the screen door slap open, she looked up from the casserole she was putting together for dinner. She wiped her hands on a towel, hurried to open the kitchen door, and found Ben struggling with the doorknob while balancing two bright teal plastic bins in his arms. He eased past her, kissing her on the way by, and plunked the bins down in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  Will followed with another bin. “Hiya, kiddo.” Will dropped his bin on top of Ben’s and gave Meg a peck on the cheek. “What’s for supper?”

  “I’m a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. I think it’s time to stop with the kiddo thing.” Meg planted her hands on her hips and tried to keep a stern look on her face. But Will just grinned at her, and she couldn’t help grinning back. “Did Ben invite you for dinner, or did you invite yourself?”

  “I invited myself, and Ben took pity on me.”

  “Well, since you’re here, Rick is working on one of his Cub Scout projects, and he’s having trouble. I never heard of the kind of kite he’s trying to build, so I can’t help him. Maybe you can check it out and fill me in.”

  “Sure thing. Is he in his room?” Will tossed his jacket to Ben as he headed for the hall and disappeared around the corner.

  “I think Will is really enjoying being a Cub Scout den father,” Ben observed as he hung his own and Will’s jackets on the hooks by the door.

  “I thought he was an assistant troop leader?” Meg watched while Ben unlaced his boots and removed them.

  “He still is. But when Jerry Hudson’s company transferred him to the west coast, someone had to step in and take over as a den father or mother. Rick begged Will, and you know how persuasive Rick can be. Will was a little nervous about taking over without much warning, but he’s good with the boys. And he’s good at organizing and keeping them in line. And they like him.”

  “He should find a wife and have kids of his own.”

  Ben chuckled. “He says he’s looking for your clone.”

  “I’m a one of a kind,” Meg replied, enjoying an unexpected spurt of amusement.

  “And thankfully, I found you first.” Ben pulled her in for a kiss.

  “I’d have picked you anyway,” Meg assured him, returning his hug. The two men could not have looked more alike, yet their personalities were so different. Will was the extrovert while Ben was more reserved. Both were warm-hearted and had a ready sense of humor, but Will’s tended to be more boisterous while Ben’s was sly and offered with diffidence. Except for the airline attendant from Raleigh that he’d been engaged to, Will had never dated a woman longer than six months tops, while Ben, on the other hand, had been committed to Meg since the day she’d turned eighteen. Will was a great guy, but Ben was for keeps.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Ben kissed her again and then squatted down to inspect the bins.

  “Where were they?” Meg asked as she joined him.

  “Mom had them.” Ben snapped the clasps off the first one. “She found them sitting all by themselves in the rec hall at church when everything else had been cleaned up and taken out. She recognized them as yours, so she took them home with her own stuff. She said Aunt Bea asked about the workshop this year, but Mom didn’t know if you’d be home in time to pull it together.”

  Meg noticed that the plastic clasps that held the lid on one of the bins were broken, and there was a crack down the side of the bin.

  “Actually,” Ben confessed, “Mom reminded me that she told me a year ago that she had them. Somehow I forgot.”

  Meg glanced at Ben.

  “Sorry.” He bunched his shoulders in apology.

  Should she interpret that to mean he’d been trying to put Anne Royko out of his mind? Including wiping her workshop gear off his radar? Just what had he meant by “she came onto me?” Had he been tempted? Had he been doing his best to bury guilt?

  Meg shook her head and turned her attention back to the bin. Ben was too transparent. It was her own guilt that was making her see things that weren’t there—making her read intent that had never entered Ben’s head.

  She opened the tote. The contents had been dumped carelessly into the bins. Odd bits of colored paper mixed with crayons and colored markers, pipe cleaners, and holiday trimmings all piled messily into the bin with no thought to their possible reuse another year.

  Meg clenched her teeth. This wasn’t Ben’s fault. Except, he had given the stuff to The Snake in the first place. So maybe it was his fault. Partly his fault at least. Meg struggled to hold onto the feeling of contentment that had been percolating through her just moments ago.

  Ben began removing the contents, flattening the sheets of colored paper into a stack and collecting the markers into a pile.

  “Most of it seems salvageable.” Then he began pulling at the loose ends of red and green yarn. “Or maybe not.”

  Meg pulled the bottom bin free and opened it. It was just as bad as the last one. Her project two years ago had been Snow Dudes, made from white sport socks. Now the remaining packages of socks had all been opened and tossed back into the bin with no thought to order or keeping them clean and dry. Bright colored feathers purchased to adorn their heads were clumped together, broken and matted with some unknown substance. Meg lifted it cautiously to her nose and sniffed. Coffee. The Snake had spilled coffee on the feathers and didn’t even have the sense to toss them out.

  Meg slumped onto the floor and glared at the mess in front of her. It was a good thing Anne Royko was not sitting in Meg’s kitchen at this very moment, because Meg would have scratched her eyes out. Or worse. Another woman might have cried at this point, but not Meg. Fury rose in her so sharply that she had to clamp her mouth shut before she took it out on Ben.

  She’d put Ben through a lot over the years and especially over this last year. She’d left him to hold down the fort, run his business, be mother and father to their boys, and manage every other aspect of their family life on his own. The fact that he’d been conned into turning over Meg’s fair project should be the last thing on her list of things to gripe about.

  Meg got to her feet and went to wash her hands. She turned back to Ben who was still struggling to sort the contents into salvageable piles. “Just toss it.”

  “All of it?” He looked up, eyebrows arched. He patted some of his piles as if checking to make sure they were still there.

  “I’ll buy new stuff.”

  “The socks at least,” he said, bundling them into a plastic shopping bag he’d found tangled in the mess. “They can be washed. I’ll wash them.”

  “Fine!” Meg bit the word off short. Her anger was all out of proportion to the issue. Had she brought more than guilt home from the war? She’d heard military wives complaining that their newly returned soldier-husbands tended to have short fuses over seemingly nothing. Am I no better?

  “Fine,
” she said again, tempering her voice this time. “I’ll wash the socks. And two of the bins are worth keeping. Just toss the broken one and all the stuff inside.”

  She turned back to the casserole.

  Ben came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her waist. “I’m sorry. I should have known better.”

  Meg shrugged but didn’t say anything. He should have known better.

  “Forgive me?” He squeezed her a little and kissed the back of her neck.

  “Yeah.”

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  Meg turned in his arms and snaked her hands behind his head. “I forgive you.” She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him.

  “That’s more—like it,” Ben said a little breathlessly when she let him go again. “I was planning on taking a shower. Want to join me?” He winked at her as he moved toward the door.

  Meg frowned. “With your brother here? I don’t think so! I can only imagine the ragging he’d dish out.”

  “I’ll make it a cold one, then.” Ben disappeared down the hall.

  Meg finished the last of the casserole and bent to slide it into the waiting oven, all the while mulling over satisfying possibilities of retribution for Anne Royko.

  FIRST THING THE next morning, Meg called Beatrice Quinn, the town manager’s wife, to find out if it was too late to get the Elf’s Workshop set up for this year’s fair. Mrs. Quinn looked so much like Andy Taylor’s aunt of Mayberry fame that everyone in Tide’s Way called her Aunt Bea whether they were related to her or not. She’d been running the annual St. Theresa’s fair with a bustling efficiency that belied her age for as long as Meg could remember.

  Aunt Bea was delighted to hear Meg’s voice, stopped to thank God that Meg had returned home in one piece, and then told Meg it was never too late for the Elf’s Workshop. They would find a place to fit her into the program and a nice location in the church hall.

  Next, Meg booted up Ben’s kitchen laptop and logged onto the Internet to look for a new project idea she could pull together in just a couple weeks’ time. As she scrolled through one of the craft sites she’d found, Kip wandered into the kitchen and sat by the back door watching her. Maybe he needed to go out. She got up to open the door, but the dog sat gazing at her with a probing yellow stare.

  If only his face wasn’t so unusually dark. If only he didn’t look so much like Scout. The hair on the back of Meg’s neck prickled, and her heart felt like it was being squeezed. Kip could have been Scout’s littermate, and the uncanny resemblance unnerved her. Meg went back to the computer and did her best to ignore the watching dog. Eventually, he settled down and dropped his head onto his front paws, but his unblinking gaze continued to follow her every move.

  It was a relief to find an idea she liked and gather up her purse and get out of the house.

  First stop, her mother’s trailer.

  In addition to being a drunk and a slovenly housekeeper, Mary Ellen Grant was a packrat. A packrat with a penchant for saving every glass jar that ever came her way from plain peanut butter jars and faceted jelly jars to an endless array of jars in all sizes and shapes. The project Meg had found online involved turning ordinary glass jars into pretty luminaries by covering their outsides with colored paper with holes punched in whatever pattern a child could create. Tea light candles were cheap at the Dollar Store, so if she could talk her mother out of a significant portion of her horde, this would be a great Elf project and easy to pull together in a short time. Even toddlers could punch holes in colored paper to decorate a light for their moms.

  Guilt tugged at the back of Meg’s mind. Her mother had not been at the homecoming bash the Camerons had thrown for Meg. But since Mary Ellen Grant was an alcoholic, and Meg could never count on how she would behave, her absence had brought more relief than concern.

  Mary Ellen was still her mom, though, and Meg loved her. Her mother could no more help being who she was than kittens could help being adorable and curious. I should have come to see Mom the first morning after I got home instead of waiting nearly a week. And I only came today because I want something. What kind of a daughter have I become?

  Her mother’s trailer was not a place she visited often, or enjoyed being at. There were too many bad memories associated with the place, but that was a lousy excuse to justify avoiding her mother. I’ll visit first and then ask about the jars.

  As she pulled into the rutted patch of bare dirt that served as her mother’s driveway, Meg’s gut tightened. I’ll try to visit more often, Mom. I promise.

  Meg climbed from the car and heaved a sigh. She picked her way carefully over the rutted dirt to the rickety metal stairs. The railing had been recently replaced. CJ or Stu must have been by to fix it. At least my brothers are watching out for Mom. Meg shrugged off the weight of self-reproach and knocked on the door.

  “Mom?” Meg knocked again.

  “Is that my baby girl?”

  Meg could just make out her mother’s response, muffled as it was by the still-closed door.

  Then the door swung open, and Remy McAllister stood holding it for her to enter.

  Meg swallowed her shock. Remy McAllister! The last person Meg had ever wanted to see again.

  His slow smile and the calculating glint in his eye hadn’t changed a whit.

  Meg felt the blood drain from her face. Her stomach churned, and she had to fight for her composure. She wanted to turn and run. But she wasn’t a defenseless kid anymore. She was a Marine. Marines didn’t back down from anyone. Least of all, this sorry piece of trash that called himself a man.

  She squared her shoulders and stepped past McAllister into the claustrophobic interior of her mother’s squalid trailer. Her mother tottered toward her, clearly already drunk even though it wasn’t yet ten o’clock in the morning.

  “Baby Girl.” Her mother enveloped her in an embrace that reeked of gin. “Where you been? How come I haven’ seen you ‘round?”

  Meg returned her mother’s hug, then freed herself and stepped out of the alcoholic miasma. “I was deployed, Mom. Out of the country.”

  Mary Ellen Grant pinched her brows together as if trying to recall why Meg would have been out of the country. Then she smiled again. “You’re a Marine. I remember now. But you’re home.” She reached for Meg’s hands and checked her out. “And not hurt. Praise be.” Mary Ellen sank onto the couch and patted the space next to her.

  As casual as if I was out on a date and missed my curfew. Meg sat on the chair opposite her mother.

  “You’ve been gone so long.” Mary Ellen lifted her nearly empty glass to her lips and drained the rest of her drink. Then she looked around as if trying to recall where she might have left the bottle.

  Meg heard McAllister move behind her but refused to turn and acknowledge his presence. He reached over her shoulder to refill Mary Ellen’s glass. Instantly a jumble of memories full of helpless panic and revulsion raced through Meg. Disgust rose up in her throat and almost choked her.

  She grimaced, doing her best to ignore McAllister and respond to her mother. “It was a long time, Mom. Too long. I just got back. That’s why I haven’t been by to see you.” Did CJ and Stu know how bad things had gotten with their mother? They hadn’t mentioned it at the party. The subject of their mother hadn’t come up. Probably because CJ and Stu were as relieved by her absence as Meg had been. Another wave of guilt washed over her.

  “Well, surely you weren’t where all those nasty bombs are. They don’ send women to those places.” Mary Ellen took another swallow of her drink and cradled the glass lovingly in her hand, comfortable and secure in the hazy world she’d created for herself.

  The door behind Meg shut, and the weight of a man’s footsteps descended the metal stairs. Her shoulders relaxed for the first time since he’d opened the door at her knock. She didn’t know where he might have g
one or for how long. She was just happy for the reprieve.

  “How long has McAllister been back?”

  “Remy?” Mary Ellen’s face took on a soft glow. “A month. I think. Maybe a little longer. He’s stayin’ this time. I just gotta get myself straightened out. But he’s staying. He promised me.”

  Meg’s vow to herself to visit her mother more often had just become exponentially harder to keep. She was all grown up and not cowed by any man, but McAllister wasn’t just any man. He was a nightmare from her past.

  The sooner Meg got what she came for and got out of there, the better. If the jerk had a job, she’d come back to see her mother when he was at work. But right now, she couldn’t wait to leave.

  “I came to ask if I could have some jars.”

  “My jars? You want my jars?” Mary Ellen tipped her head and looked at Meg as if she’d asked for her life savings rather than a collection of worthless jars.

  “I’ve got a project.” Meg began to rise and then forced herself to stay sat and tell her mother all about the fair project she had in mind.

  Mary Ellen listened to Meg’s plan wearing an expression of vague interest, but then shrugged good-naturedly. “Sure thing. I knew them jars would turn out useful someday.” She took another swallow from her glass. “Take however many you need.” She looked past Meg and then back at her as if she’d forgotten McAllister was no longer lurking in the background. “Remy can carry ’em to the car for you.”

  Meg jumped to her feet. “No need. I can handle it myself. Thanks, Mom.” She bent to kiss her mother’s cheek and bolted for the door before her mother could summon McAllister to help with the lugging.

  There was no sign of the man when Meg stepped out of the trailer and made her way toward the shed. Thank you, God!

  When she opened the rusted door to the storage shed behind her mother’s trailer several cockroaches scurried out of sight, and a box filled with old newspapers nearly toppled out on top of her. Meg shoved the newspapers back and reached for the bigger box underneath, checked to make sure it contained the jars she had come for, and hauled the box out to her car. She dashed back, grabbed two smaller boxes of jars, hip-checked the shed door shut, and hurried to her car. Only after she’d turned back onto the paved road and was out of sight of the trailer did Meg notice she was trembling.