Regret (Never Waste a Second Chance Book 2)

by Janice M. Whiteaker

  “Is he okay? I didn’t see what happened.” Nancy turned to look for Autumn, assuming his mother would be running along beside her. She wasn’t. Autumn was finishing up in the garden, sliding mounds of dirt over the pea trench.

  “He’s fine.”

  Nancy kept moving, a little disturbed at Autumn’s lack of concern. She reached his side and went to her knees, inspecting his little body for injuries. “What’s a matter honey?”

  The little boy groaned dramatically. “I am soooooooo hungry.”

  “Told you he was fine. He does this every day before breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Autumn hollered over her shoulder as she kept moving down the last row, not even looking up until she was finished.

  Nancy looked down at the starving child before her. “Is your stomach eating itself?”

  His brown eyes shot wide. “Can that happen?”

  Nancy laughed and sat in the grass beside him. “No silly boy.” She started tickling him. “You scared me to death, you know that?”

  He laughed as he tried to squirm away from her. “Stop Miss Nancy. I’m sorry.”

  She relented, shaking her head as he jumped up and ran away.

  “Nana?” Kate’s voice came from the side yard where she and Liza stood, transfixed, staring across the street at the parking lot that served the downtown businesses.

  Nancy shoved her achy body up off the grass and went to see what they were staring at so intently.

  Kate raised her arm to point at a small rental car parked beside one of the many landscape islands placed throughout the large lot in an attempt to beautify the chunk of blacktop. A man jumped out of the passenger door to help a woman hastily approaching with her arms full of grocery bags. “Is that the lady who looks sorta like you, ‘cept her face is frozen?”

  Nancy watched as Carol shoved her plastic shopping bags at the man. He struggled to grab them all from her, barely managing to hold them all before she waved her hand in his face and walked to the driver’s side, leaving him to wrestle open the trunk of the small hatchback while balancing an overflowing armload.

  Nancy squinted at the man, trying to get a better look at him. A baseball cap was pulled low on his head and large, dark sunglasses covered a good portion of his face making it nearly impossible to get a good view. Still, there was something oddly familiar about him.

  “Yes sweetheart. That’s Nana’s sister Carol.”

  “So that’s her.” Nancy hadn’t even heard Autumn walk up beside her. She stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest, a scowl on her face.

  Nancy blew out a loud breath as the man climbed in. Carol didn’t even give him time to shut his door before the car started pulling away, his right foot still on the ground. “Yup.”

  “Who in the heck is that dude with her?” Autumn watched as the car sped away.

  Nancy shrugged. It would appear Carol already found a new man to do her bidding. One more check in the ‘Carol hasn’t changed’ column. It was filling up significantly faster than the ‘Carol is different’ side.

  “That is crazy.” Autumn dusted her hands on her already dirty jeans. “Did you figure out why she’s here?”

  Nancy shook her head. “Not yet.”

  ****

  Paul pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot and shut off his truck. Walking quickly through the parking lot, he grabbed a basket as he entered the fluorescent lit store.

  Now that everything was out in the open between him and Nancy, it felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. The cloud that hung over his head so many years finally evaporated, letting the sun shine through.

  For so long he’d only focused on the things he wasn’t. The ways he was lacking and unfortunately the relationships he’d had only reinforced his insecurity. But everything felt different now. Now there was someone who said he was enough.

  Every broken bit of him.

  Now it was time to start showing Nancy what he could offer her instead of worrying about what he couldn’t.

  The first stop was electronics. The end cap had the newest releases making it easy to find a chick-flick she hopefully hadn’t seen before. Then wine.

  After adding a bottle each of mid-priced red and white he found a couple kinds of cheese and a variety box of crackers to go with it. Now all he needed was something sweet. The cookie aisle was a dangerous place for an already hungry man to be and by the time his basket hit the check-out conveyor belt it was overflowing with sweets. Only part of them for tonight.

  The young girl scanning his items smiled at him. “Looks like you have a nice night planned.”

  “I guess we’ll see.” Paul paid for his groceries and was back on the road with the cashier’s words still rolling around in his head.

  ‘Nice’. She said he had a ‘nice’ night planned. That one word was enough to make him double-back to the same old insecurities and just what he couldn’t give.

  Paul set his bags on the passenger seat and pulled out of the lot, mad at himself. He hadn’t even made it an hour before the thoughts easily ran back to the front of his mind.

  Was this something he would ever be able to get beyond?

  Maybe Nancy was telling the truth. Maybe it didn’t matter to her. But it mattered to him. More than it probably should and certainly more than he wanted it to.

  He wanted to enjoy every second of his time with Nancy. He’d dreamed about it for years and now that it was happening, the idea of spending it obsessing about what he couldn’t give her was starting to piss him off.

  The truck turned onto his street and he saw her before the tires hit the driveway. Nancy was sitting on his porch, a book on her lap and a shopping bag at her side. The sound of his truck tires squealing on the fresh layer of blacktop that was put down in the fall snapped her eyes off the pages.

  She stood up, a beautiful smile spread across her face. A smile for him. Maybe even because of him.

  By the time he was making his way up the front walk with two bags in one hand and his keys in the other, she was holding his storm door open.

  He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss. “You’re early.” He kissed her again. “And at the wrong house.”

  She giggled as she continued to press her lips against his, her eyes open. “Sorry. I just thought it made more sense for me to come to you.”

  He tipped his head to the side, and looked down at the bag in her hand. “And you brought...?”

  She held the bag higher. “I made some snacks.”

  “You’re crashing my party.” He slipped his key in the lock and twisted open the door, letting her slide in before him.

  Nancy looked over her shoulder at him as she made her way toward the kitchen. “I had some spare time so I thought I would put a few things together.” She set the large brown paper shopping size bag on the counter and started pulling out containers and lining them up across the granite.

  He watched as the line of food grew to include a smallish container of some sort of dip with a bag of chips, a divided tray of vegetables already cut, deviled eggs and a very large box of both cookies and brownies. Paul raised his eyebrow at her.

  “What?” Her eyes were open wide, an innocent look on her face.

  “But did you bring wine?” He lifted both bottles out of his bag.

  Nancy laughed and started fishing through his remaining plastic bags, adding his purchases to the food she brought. When it was all laid out, she turned to him. “I don’t think we have to go out to dinner.”

  Paul wrapped her in his arms, looking down into her upturned face. “How am I supposed to take care of you if you won’t listen?” He’d been very clear about his plans for the night. He wanted to come get her and go out for a nice dinner. After all the meals she’d made for him, it was time to return the favor.

  Nancy fingered the button at the collar of his shirt. “I suppose I’m not really good at being taken care of.”

  It was no wonder. She’d done the taking care her whole life. First her d
ad and younger sister after their mom died, then Thomas and Rich, now she was trying to lump him into her comfort zone. He wasn’t going to have it.

  “You’re going to have to get over that.”

  “I suppose I can try.” She gave him a sly smile. “But only for you.” Her hand gently grabbed his where it rested on her hip and pulled it up. “How’s your hand. Should I have carried you into the house?”

  She kept a straight face for less than two seconds before bursting into laughter, throwing her head back as she cackled at her own joke. It was infectious. This was the woman he’d waited for. The funny, witty, kind and caring woman he’d loved nearly his whole life.

  Nancy wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry.” She cleared her throat and blinked a few times before giving his hand a once over. “It looks better.”

  Paul opened and closed his fist a few times. “It feels better I think.”

  It had been nearly a week since that night and his memory was no clearer than before. Who he had actually seen, if anyone, was still a mystery and unless someone came forward to accuse him of giving them a right hook, it looked like it would stay that way.

  Nancy started loading her arms with the food. “Can we eat on the couch while we watch that?” She nodded to the movie on the counter.

  “We can do whatever you want.” Paul grabbed the remaining items and followed behind her, setting his armful beside hers then going back to the kitchen. “Do you want me to open the red or the white?”

  Nancy stood by the couch pondering for a second. “I think white.” She started laying out the food while he fished through the kitchen drawers trying to remember which one he kept the corkscrew in. By the time he found it, she’d wandered back into the kitchen.

  “I saw the weirdest thing today while I was at Autumn’s.” Nancy set a stack of lids beside the sink and leaned against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest, watching him struggle with the foil covering the cork. “You don’t have to pull that off. It will open anyway.”

  Wine wasn’t his drink of choice so opening it was not a skill he’d honed. “That is good news.” He screwed the device into the cork through the foil. “What did you see that was weird?”

  Nancy shook her head and raised her eyebrows as if the disbelief still hadn’t worn off. “I saw Carol out shopping.”

  He glanced sideways at her while trying to gently coax the cork from the bottle. “I’ve only seen part of the woman’s wardrobe and I know that’s not weird. She probably shops daily.”

  “That wasn’t the weird part.” Nancy took the corkscrew from his hand and began twisting the cork free giving him a free hand to hold her glass in one while he started to pour with the other.

  “There was a man with her.” Nancy’s brow furrowed. “He seemed familiar, but I’m not sure why.”

  The wine bottle crashed at Paul’s feet, the heavy glass breaking into a few pieces and clear liquid pouring over his shoes.

  Nancy looked at it, then at him. “Red’s fine.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Paul grabbed his travel mug from the holder attached to the dash of his truck and tipped it back adding another swig of coffee to the belly full of scrambled eggs and bacon Nancy made him for breakfast.

  If she kept going the way she was, and he hoped she did, it wasn’t going to take him long to get spoiled. Sleeping with her at night, waking up to her in the morning. After just a few nights, he almost couldn’t remember what it was like without her waking up next to him.

  And he didn’t want to.

  His life was everything he’d always wanted it to be. The woman he’d always loved beside him, loving him back, giving just as much as she got, maybe even more. It should be perfect, and it almost was.

  There was only one problem. One nagging memory he just couldn’t seem to shake that was only spurred on by Nancy’s offhand comment about seeing Carol with a man. A familiar man.

  It wasn’t possible. People didn’t just come back to life. He knew Sam was dead, he’d seen the gravestone that marked where he would’ve been if there’d been anything left of him in the car that night, but until he knew what really happened at the bar and who Nancy saw Carol with, there would be a shadow clouding his time with Nancy.

  Sam successfully tainted most of Paul’s life but the pecker sure as hell wasn’t going to haunt the rest of it. So he made an excuse about going to check on the house he and Mina just finished and left Nancy to relax while he went to find out what in the hell was going on.

  Hopefully he had better luck than everyone else since no one had been able to get a straight answer out of Carol since she showed up less than a month ago. The woman was dodgy and acted hell bent on worming her way back into Nancy’s life for whatever reason.

  He was going to find out that reason.

  The first stop was to figure out where Carol was staying. The options in a small town were pretty limited. Not too many people came here for recreation so the need for hotels was low. It took less than five minutes to cruise through the first parking lot. Unless Carol switched rental cars, she wasn’t there.

  An hour later Paul was pulling out of the last lot, still without a clue as to where Nancy’s sister could be staying. He assumed it was early enough in the day that most people would still be in bed, but maybe Carol was an early riser and was already gone for the day doing whatever a non-working, hotel dwelling, husband steeling, child abandoner did.

  Paul pulled to a stop at a red light, tapping his fingers on the wheel. Was he crossing a line by doing this? Technically, this might not be any of his business, but when it came to Nancy his boundaries were always on the blurry side. That’s how he ended up sending the local dentist more than a few repair jobs over the years. When it came to her, he just didn’t know when to back down.

  He sat, waiting for the light to change, trying to decide if he was crazy or paranoid or both, when he heard a woman’s loud voice in the car beside him floating through the open window along with the warm morning air.

  It was difficult to make out her words over the sound of his truck’s engine, but the voice was unmistakable. He knew it was Carol without looking, which he did anyway.

  She was in the driver’s seat, giving the person in the passenger seat hell over something. Her head was bobbing around on her neck, making the perfectly flat hair on her head swing around like she was in a wind tunnel.

  Paul leaned closer, trying to look past Carol but the height of the cab of his truck compared to the lowness of her rental car kept him from seeing anymore than the other person’s knees. Just as he was about to unbuckle and scoot across the seat, Carol’s car made a right on red, leaving Paul to squint at the quickly disappearing two door.

  “Damn it.” He was so close. All he needed was to see the face on an unknown man in that seat and this stupid wild goose chase he was on would be over.

  A horn honked behind him. The light was green and he was still staring at the ass end of Carol’s car.

  Pulling away from the light, he turned right at the next intersection. Maybe if he hurried he could cross their path and run back into the twosome. Not literally.

  Unless it was Sam in that seat.

  That’s why he was almost sure he was crazy. There was no way it was Sam. Carol probably brought a man back with her and just didn’t want to spring her strained family situation on him. It made sense. Much more sense than the idea that Sam somehow survived the fiery crash all those years ago.

  But he had to be sure. Until Paul saw this guy, face to face, with his own eyes and it wasn’t Sam, well… He wished he hadn’t quit drinking. Again.

  His foot eased off the accelerator as the next crossroad came into view. Paul craned his neck to the right, hoping to see the little white coupe, zipping along. Nothing. It took three more empty intersections before he could admit defeat.

  Wherever she’d gone, Carol went there quickly because it was like that damn little white car just disappeared into thin air. Hell, maybe Sam was a ghost. Maybe they
both were.

  He turned the truck around to go back and check on the house so his excuse to Nancy wouldn’t end up a lie. It needed to be walked through anyway. An empty house was a dangerous thing to have sitting around. Hopefully it would sell quickly because his time was about to be split two very important ways. Thomas’ house and his Nan.

  And she was his. And he protected what was his. That’s why it was so important for him to figure out what Carol was up to before the woman could have a chance to hurt Nancy again. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any more ideas on exactly how to accomplish that.

  By the time the house came into view, Paul was beginning to realize he needed help if he was going to get to the bottom of this, however, the top of his list of potential cohorts was a woman who might not be so quick to go behind Nancy’s back.

  Then he noticed the car in the driveway and realized he may not need that help after all. There sat the white two-door he’d seen just a few minutes ago. The same white two-door he’d tried so desperately to find. It looked like it found him first.

  Paul pulled into the newly widened driveway and parked next to the empty car, peering in the windows as he climbed out of his truck. All that was inside was a handbag on the passenger seat and a few sheets of folded paper in the center console, most likely the rental agreement.

  He squinted up at the house then scanned the empty yard. Where in the hell were they and why in the hell were they here? His suspicions of Carol and her motives for being here were growing with each passing minute. There was only one reason for her to be here.

  Snooping.

  The irony of her snooping on him as he was attempting to snoop on her was more than irritating so he decided to ignore it. He knew his motives were good, maybe not for her, but her motives? Questionable at best.

  “Hey Paul.” Carol appeared around the side of the house, stepping carefully in the newly sown grass, attempting to keep her pristine, suede heels out of the dirt.