“Okay.”
“And we never had this conversation. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Put it back where you found it, for the time being.”
“I’m not going back up there.” Tess shivered at the thought of critters moving around.
Hudson and Ford gave her confused looks and Lilly guffawed. “Sis is afraid of spiders. And mice. I’m shocked you even went back for the key.”
Tess grinned sheepishly. “I was too curious not to.”
“Show me.” Ford stood up and waited for Tess to lead him to the secret hiding place. He picked up the box and then followed her into the bedroom. When she pointed out the spot, he hopped up on the cabinet that she hadn’t bothered to move in her haste to sate her curiosity. Tess watched as he lightly punched at the loose square of drywall until it fell and he caught it in the palm of his hand. He poked the box back up and then replaced the square more expertly than she had been able to. She didn’t scoot out of the way fast enough as he jumped down and he almost knocked her over. Ford’s hands snaked out to grasp her by the arms before she could stumble backwards. His strong fingers were firm, but didn’t hurt her.
“Hey, careful there,” he said when she was firmly back on her feet.
“Sorry.” The sound of his low voice made her shiver and she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye until the feeling backed off.
“Where’s the key to the box?” Ford was still only inches from her as he asked his question and Tess stepped backward, pushing her hand into her pocket.
“Right here.” She pulled it out and showed it to him.
“Hide it somewhere safe and don’t tell anyone but Hudson or Lilly.”
“What about you?” Tess’s voice was soft and she took a chance to peek into his face. At some point, he had taken a step toward her for the one she took back and the gap between them was only a few inches again. All of a sudden, the room seemed really warm.
“Don’t tell me. I’d probably forget.” He gave her the same smirky, half smile she was getting used to and she returned it. Moving backward, Ford stretched his arm out and pointed to the door, so she could go out first, back to the living room.
“Obviously he gave Jack all the financial paperwork, otherwise Jack wouldn’t have contacted me.”
Tess caught Hudson’s comment as she and Ford got to the edge of the living room. She put her arm out to stop Ford from entering and she held a finger to her lips.
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t take Jack out,” Lilly argued.
“I’m not going to get into this with you. We can’t assume facts not in evidence.”
“Oh please.” Lilly sniffed and rolled her eyes. “You sound like Sam Waterston.”
Hudson chuckled. “Well, maybe I do, but it’s true. We can’t make any assumptions until we find out what really happened to Jack.”
“Can’t you get his body exhumed?”
“No!” Hudson gave her a disgusted look. “Well, yes, we could. But that’s a whole other mess to contend with. I’d rather not even think about it unless we absolutely have to.”
“You better make sure nothing happens to my sister, Hudson Marks,” Lilly hissed. “I will hold you personally responsible.”
Tess grinned at the sparring lawyer and sibling and then looked at Ford. He was clearly as amused as she was. “Now, now, sis. Settle down,” she said. Lilly looked up, her face pinking with guilt at being caught.
“I’m just sayin’.”
“Yeah, I hear you. And so did my lawyer. And my lawyer’s investigator.”
“I think I’ll take a beer now.” Hudson went to the kitchen and helped himself, but was a gentleman and brought a round back for everyone.
The foursome sat in silence with their own thoughts as they sipped their beers. While she was still angry and confused about everything going on, Tess felt better knowing she was surrounded by people who either loved her or cared enough about her case that they would do whatever they could to help and protect her. She didn’t know what she was going to do or what was in store, but she knew she would get through it eventually. She felt the familiar twinge of heartache at the thought of Jack in pain during his last moments and was so grateful he’d never suspected she was having doubts. The emails proved it. While there was a lot of snarky stuff from her father-in-law, Jack’s support for her had never wavered. He had been constant in his belief that she loved him and wanted to get married. Tess wasn’t sure she could have lived with herself if she thought Jack knew about her doubts. Her own guilt was difficult enough to handle.
“Well, as much as I’d like to sit and get silly with you girls, I think we should get going.” Hudson stood up and pulled his keys from his pocket. Ford stood up, too, and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Okay,” Tess replied, unsure if she was ready to let them both go. She felt safe with all of them there.
“You sure you’ll be all right?”
Tess was surprised that Ford was the one to ask her. He always managed to keep his face even, but his eyes gave him away every time. She could see the concern for her there. Yep, he got the eyes for sure.
“I mean, we could stay, if you want us to,” Hudson said, sounding exactly like it was the last thing he wanted to do. Then he looked at Lilly and his expression softened.
“No, I’ll be okay.” Tess let him off the hook with a wave of her hand.
Ford ignored her words and began to move around the apartment, checking all the locks on the windows. He didn’t wait for her permission to go into the bedrooms and do the same. Last, he checked the window in the kitchen above the sink and then closed and locked the French doors. “Turn on the AC if you get hot,” he told her when he was back in the living room, standing over her.
Tess wanted to say thank you, but her voice didn’t seem to want to come out of her mouth so she just smiled and nodded. She started to get up, but Lilly pushed her back down on to the couch. Her big sister got up instead and walked them to the door.
“I’m going to stay with her tonight.”
“Good.” Ford gave her a nod, then glanced back at Tess. She got that same warm feeling throughout her limbs and hid the tremor moving across her shoulders by giving him a wave. He smirked and dipped his chin at her before crossing the threshold into the night.
Hudson smiled down at Lilly, noticing flecks of gold in her green eyes. “If you need anything, just call.”
Lilly lowered her chin and a soft smile teased the corners of her mouth. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
“Good.”
Lilly closed the door behind them, locked it and hooked the chain.
“I say we order pizza.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
* * * * *
“That Ford is pretty hot,” Lilly whispered.
Hours and many beers later, she and Tess lay on the couch, their heads in the middle and their legs hanging over separate ends. Each had a cat on her stomach to pet and scratch. A half-finished pizza from Hungry Howie’s lay in the open box on the coffee table along with several empty beer bottles.
“You think so?” Tess flinched and was glad Lilly couldn’t see.
“Yeah. But Hudson’s hotter.”
Tess laughed out loud, disturbing Spencer enough to make him leap off and scamper to the cat tree. “Maybe you should see if he’s on Tinder.”
Lilly snorted. “No way. Besides, I think he’s got a thing for you.”
“What?” Tess sat up and stared at her sister. “No he doesn’t. He’s my lawyer!”
“That doesn’t mean anything. I see the way he looks at you.”
“Well, I don’t.” Tess leaned back down until her head thunked against Lilly’s. “Besides, even if he did, he’s not my type. Not to mention, I’m a widow.”
“Pffft! You don’t have a type.” Lilly flung a hand back and whopped Tess on the forehead. “You can’t fool me. I know you loved Jack, but I can see the way you look at Ford and not Hudson
. ‘Sides, I’ve known you all your life, little sis.”
Tess froze. She knew she needed to protest vehemently, but the words stuck in her throat. Finally, she found her voice. “Okay, so Ford’s damn fine to look at, but I do not give him any looks.” Tess picked at the cuticles on her left hand, staring at her wedding rings, conjuring Jack’s face in her mind. His smile, his laugh, the way his eyes brightened when he looked at her. All of those things always brought joy and happiness to her when he was alive, and agonizing torment since his death. But now, she just felt sad. Regular sad. Man-this-sucks, kind of sad. It was as if all the drama surrounding her had caused her heart to go numb to either loving Jack or mourning him.
“How bad do you miss him?” Lilly whispered.
Tess shrugged. “Depends. When I feel guilty. Or when I don’t feel guilty. Basically all the time.” She groaned realizing the words coming out of her mouth weren’t matching the sentences she was forming in her head. Her brain was quoting the script she wrote for everyone else, but it got lost in translation by the time it came out of her mouth.
Lilly sat up and turned to stare at her. “What do you mean guilty? What on earth do you have to feel guilty about?”
Cat’s outta the bag now. “Oh nothing, never mind me, I’m drunk.”
But Lilly wouldn’t leave it alone. She literally poked Tess in the head and shoulders and cheeks until she was forced to sit up as well.
“Out with it. Now’s the best time to come clean, when we’re both drunk and won’t remember it in the morning. You can vent and I can give comfort. We’ll both feel better.”
Tess tried to giggle, thinking it was the correct response, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She was so tired. The grief and the guilt and the anxiety were weighing her down. It felt like someone had put a fat suit on her body and tightened a vice around her brain.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Here goes.” Breathing deep, she confessed her deepest worry in one long breath. “Before the wedding, I thought about calling it off.”
Lilly gave her a long blink. Then another. Then a third before she burst out laughing. “Is that all?”
Tess glared at her and pursed her lips. “What do you mean, is that all? I had doubts, L, real doubts. I wanted to walk away from the wedding.”
“Pffft!” Spittle flew of Lilly’s lips. “Sorry, my lips are numb.” She apologized as she wiped her mouth on the hem of her t-shirt. “Baby sis, everyone goes through that. You had cold feet.”
“I’m not so sure,” Tess whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself and scrunched up in a ball. “It started right after we got engaged. It’s not that I wanted to go out with anyone else, but I started to wonder why we needed to get married at all.”
Lilly nodded, wobbling a little while she did. “Kinda like, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?”
“Yeah!” Tess shouted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, that was loud. But yeah, I mean, why change what was working? I wanted to talk to Jack, but I felt so bad about it. It woulda broken his heart.”
“Nah, he woulda understood.” Lilly patted her leg. “That was Jack. He was so fuckin’ perfect.”
“Don’t I know it?” Tess snorted. “He was too perfect. I couldn’t even get mad at him. We never even fought. Do you know any couple that doesn’t ever argue?”
“Hell no!” Lilly’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “You guys had fights, you told me about ’em all the time.”
“Well we didn’t. Never once. Every time I bitched to you, it was made up!” Tess figured it didn’t matter anymore. If she was going to come clean, she might as well use an extra bucket of Clorox and wipe everything away.
“What the hell do you mean?” Lilly blinked hard.
“I lied. You always made me feel so bad when you’d snark about how perfect we were. So I made up stories about fights that never happened.”
Lilly just stared at her, and Tess wondered if she had suddenly stopped speaking English or something.
“Any time I wanted anything, Jack gave it to me. Any time I wanted to do something, Jack went along with it. I even tried to start fights with him, and he would just laugh and laugh. ‘It’s not important, T. I’m not gonna fight with you. You’re what’s important to me.’ Can you believe that shit?”
Lilly held her stomach as she laughed and Tess railed on about how absolutely perfect Jack had been. Not one single flaw. The epitome of everything good and kind and prince charming like.
Soon, though, she was sobbing as she ranted. Lilly held her and listened, and Tess kept talking until the flow of words trickled to a stop. Snuffling and dabbing at her nose with a greasy napkin, Tess pulled away. “Oh Lilly. I’m the most horrible person in the whole world.”
“No you aren’t!” Lilly protested. “You’re young! You were scared and confused just like most of us. It was all natural. You only feel guilty now because Jack died. Once the wedding was over and you guys got back to everyday life you woulda known you did the right thing.”
“But,” Tess whispered, “as much as I miss him, I feel a little bit relieved.” The conversation and the crying had sobered her up considerably. There was no turning back, though. Now that she had her sister’s attention and compassion, Tess couldn’t hold anything in.
“How so?” Lilly’s eyes were clearer and she wasn’t slurring as badly as before.
“Well, Jack died. Now I don’t have to ever find out if I actually did make a mistake.” Tears welled up in Tess’s eyes with the admission. “Now that makes me an awful person. I know it does!”
Lilly grabbed her hands and held them tightly. “No, Tess, it doesn’t. Everything in this life happens for a reason, you know I believe that. Whatever lessons there are to be learned from this experience, forgiving yourself is probably going to be the hardest one.”
Tess turned away to reach for a cold slice of pizza. She considered it, turning it this way and that, before tossing it back into the box. She grabbed the nearest beer bottle next and shook it a little. To her disappointment, it was empty. “I need to get redrunk.”
Lilly snickered. “No you don’t. You need to get some sleep now.” She stood up from the couch, and pulled Tess up beside her. “Let’s go to bed. We can talk more in the morning.”
“I thought we weren’t going to remember any of this.” Tess yawned as they hobbled off to bed, their arms around one another’s shoulders.
“Now that I know what’s been eating at you,” Lilly said softly, “I’m not going to give up until you work through it. That’s what sisters are for, you dolt.”
Tess smiled and nodded, knowing it was true.
Chapter 25
Tess opened her eyes and groaned. Warm sunshine filled the bedroom, sending daggers of pain into her head. “L?” she croaked, but there was no answer. Flopping over, she saw a note on the bedside table. “Had to work, I’ll text you later.”
Wanting nothing more than to staple the covers to the sides of the bed so she couldn’t get out, and no one else could get in, Tess grunted. Even though she had a cat curled up against either side of her and her head was fuzzy with a hangover, Tess didn’t think she could fall back to sleep now that she was awake. She had no idea what time it was, but it had to be late judging by the amount of light in the room. Sucking it up, she yanked herself into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes until they stayed open with less effort. “God, I shouldn’t drink like that,” she muttered. Timothy meowed at her, but it ended up turning into a wide, feline yawn.
“Oh, how would you know?” she asked, while scratching his head.
Spencer lifted his chin about a millimeter from his paws and gave her a second’s notice before closing his eyes again. “Yeah, I can tell you’re real sympathetic, Spence.”
Giving each feline another pet, she crawled out of bed and shuffled off to the bathroom. One followed her, but the other stayed in the warm bed to snooze. When she was finished, Tess washed her hands and then rinsed the bowl clean of any soap residue.
Then she left the cold water tap running in a fast drip so that the cats could have their morning drink. It had driven Jack crazy when she did that, but Tess always figured it was one of the perks of being a spoiled housecat.
Staring into the mirror, she frowned. The worry lines in her forehead looked like they were drawn on with a pencil and the bags under her eyes might as well have been a flashing neon sign saying she was hungover. “No more drinking for me for a while. So not worth it.”
At that point, both cats were hanging out on the countertop, leaning into the sink to lap at the drops of water splatting down toward the drain. She stroked their backs, one in each hand, and smiled. If it wasn’t for Timmy and Spencer, she knew her life would be a lot lonelier than it was without Jack. At least they kept her company and “talked” with her so she didn’t feel like her home was empty. She took a few aspirin from the medicine cabinet and swallowed them with a sip of water cupped in her hands, praying they’d work their magic fast.
Tess wandered out to the kitchen to make coffee and then stopped to stare out the French doors at the beautiful day. The weather app on her phone said it was already past noon and that the day would be sunny and hot. It was the kind of day she and Jack would have spent outside riding bikes or hiking, then throwing dinner on the grill, saving their client work for later. Thinking about that, it made her smile.
When the machine finished brewing, she decided to take her coffee outside onto the small stone patio. The weather was too nice to stay inside and she really wanted to spend some time thinking, hoping it would help to get the fuzziness out of her brain. Knowing the cats would love a foray in the grass, she trapped each one and put on their harnesses so they could join her. Tess grabbed her notebook and coffee and headed outside, leaving the door open so the cats could come along when they wanted to.
Sitting at the table, Tess opened to a clean page but she couldn’t really find the words she wanted to write. Instead, memories of Jack flitted in her mind. The day he gave her the promise ring. Their senior class trip to Washington, D.C. The first time he ever beat up the little boy who lived down the street for calling her a name and pushing her down. The day he proposed. They were all good memories, happy ones that made her heart feel light instead of like a stone pressing on the inside of her chest.
The Widow and the Will Page 15