“Tell me.”
She attempted to capture his lips. He pulled away.
“Brat.”
“Tell me.”
Mary grabbed the back of his head. “Arizona. Mary Frances . . . my spring trip.”
Glen laughed before he resumed her desired position and possessed every sensitive spot on her skin.
First thing in the morning he pulled her out of bed and dragged her to the airport.
Looked like her exclusive boyfriend wanted to meet the only claim to family Mary had.
And he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mary Frances lived in a two-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in a quiet neighborhood outside of Phoenix. The front porch was designed to sit on and watch the neighbors, the cars, the kids playing in the street. Not that Mary Frances did a lot of that. The woman held a part-time job at the library and volunteered for just about every organization she could to fill her days.
Glen and Mary pulled into the driveway in the rental they’d picked up at the airport.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t book a room at the hotel?” Glen asked for the millionth time.
“Mary Frances would be offended.”
“I’d think she’d be more offended that we’re sleeping together . . . her being an ex-nun and all.”
Mary shook her head. “And we won’t be sleeping together in the hotel?” She pushed the door open. “C’mon . . . she doesn’t bite.”
She made it three steps before Mary Frances, all five feet nothing of her, let the screen door slam behind her. Mary paused and let all the stress and worry of the past week float away.
She flung her arms around Mary Frances for a soothing hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You have to stop hugging me to see me.”
“Shut up.” Mary kept hugging.
When she did pull away and take a good look, her jaw dropped. “What is that on your lips?”
“Just a little lip gloss. It’s dry here.”
Mary ran her thumb over the other woman’s cheek. “Blush?”
Mary Frances batted her hand away. “I am allowed, you know.”
She wanted to squeal. Since when did Mary Frances wear makeup?
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
Mary turned to find Glen standing at the edge of the walkway, enjoying the reunion.
“Mary Frances, this is my friend, Glen Fairchild.”
Mary Frances looked him up and down, kept a snarky smile on her face. “When Mary called to say she was on her way and bringing a friend, I half expected a woman. I was starting to think my Mary was a lesbian.”
“Oh, my—”
Mary Frances cut her off with an evil eye.
“Word! How could you think such a thing?”
“Because I haven’t met someone you’re dating since you were in high school.” Mary Frances turned toward the house. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting hot out here.”
Glen walked in beside her, chuckling. “Lesbian,” he said under his breath.
Mary elbowed his ribs.
The house hadn’t changed. Sparse furnishings, very few knickknacks. A young picture of Mary on the mantel along with her college graduation picture with the both of them in it.
“I have iced tea or lemonade,” Mary Frances said as she led them toward the kitchen.
Mary walked around the familiar kitchen to help with the refreshments.
“Lemonade would be great,” Glen said.
The cupboard where the glasses normally lived now housed a half a dozen vases.
“I moved the glasses to the one on the left. Reaching that high was starting to hurt my back.” Mary Frances took the seat opposite Glen. “Tell me, Mr. Fairchild . . . how long have you known my Mary?”
“We’ve known each other for about a year. And please call me Glen.”
Mary Frances released a disapproving click of her tongue. “A year and I’ve not met you?”
“We haven’t been dating that long,” Mary explained. “We met when I went to that conference in Florida with Dakota. The one where she met Walt?”
Mary Frances nodded. “Yes, yes . . . the one where you and that sassy friend of yours ended up in a police car. I remember the story.”
Glen started laughing. “How could I have forgotten that? I had to circle the airport. They wouldn’t let me land due to some woman saying there was a bomb in baggage claim.”
“I did not say there was a bomb! It was Dakota, and she said the luggage was taking so long you’d think they were searching for a bomb . . . or something like that.” Then a little old woman practically yelled “bomb” and pointed her finger at the two of them. So yeah, they were both in the back of a squad car for the better part of three hours explaining the situation.
Mary Frances turned back to Glen. “So you’re the pilot . . . I believe I have heard about you.”
Glen smiled, and Mary cringed . . . she knew what was coming next.
“You’re the arrogant player with commitment issues.”
Mary wanted to bury her head in the sand.
“This is him, right?” Mary Frances asked with the sweetest smile a nun could have.
Glen locked amused eyes with Mary.
“My summation before we started dating,” she explained.
He sipped his drink and said, “Arrogant? I’ll go with confident. Player? We all have a past.” He winked at Mary Frances when he said it. “As for commitment issues . . . maybe I just haven’t found the right person to be committed to . . . until now.”
Mary Frances slapped a hand on the table, laughing. “Oh, you’ll do just fine.”
Mary took a seat beside Glen.
“Now tell me what was keeping you from coming this weekend.”
Mary stiffened. “Nothing. We’re here, aren’t we?”
“Don’t start that with me, child. I heard your voice when you called on Tuesday. You were upset. So spill.”
She needed to downplay this to keep the woman from worrying. “I have those plumbing issues.”
Mary Frances just stared.
“And my car is back in the shop.”
Glen kept silent beside her.
Mary picked up her drink and held out as long as she could. “Someone broke in while I was away last weekend. Not a big deal, just needed to clean the place up a bit.”
Mary Frances blinked a few times, her face unreadable. Then she turned that gaze toward Glen.
“Her plumbing issues are now fixed.”
The stare of death was heightened by the fact that it was difficult to tell if Mary Frances was breathing.
“Her car is back in the shop . . .”
Glen was going to cave, Mary felt it in her bones.
“. . . because the person who broke into her house trashed the car, trashed her house. We’ve spent this week cleaning it up and installing an alarm system to keep your girl safe.”
Mary reached over and pinched Glen’s thigh.
He gently placed his hand over hers and removed the grip of her fingers without breaking eye contact with Mary Frances.
“Do the police have anyone in custody?”
Glen shook his head.
“It might be a random act.”
Mary Frances turned that death stare on Mary.
She squirmed in her chair. “I’m fine. My house is safer than walking into a bank now. I didn’t want you to worry, so I didn’t tell you.”
Mary Frances leaned forward. “You listen to me, young lady. It is my right to worry. I’m not so old that I’ll fall into some kind of fit with bad news. Please don’t treat me as such.”
Mary lowered her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
The mother figure in Mary’s life was pure amusement. Glen could picture her in a nun’s habit forcing confessions from the congregation with her stare.
Mary was in the kitchen helping the senior Mary with dinner while Glen was in the back of the house . . . on a ladder, no less, removi
ng leaves from Mary Frances’s gutter.
It wasn’t like the woman asked. She told him where the ladder was and encouraged him to make himself useful so she could have a few words alone with her girl before dinner. Dinner that was going to include Burke, Mary Frances’s beau.
Getting his head gripped around the ex-nun was one thing, thinking of her dating was quite another. And from the tight expression on Mary’s face when Mary Frances announced that Burke was coming for dinner, she was less than excited.
Which was probably why Glen was hanging off the side of the single-story bungalow cleaning gutters, something he didn’t even do for his own home, while the women were in the kitchen talking in hushed whispers.
Everything aside, Glen couldn’t think of a better way to spend his weekend.
Staying at Mary’s would remind him of her troubles . . . going home he’d be worried about her alone. Here, he could enjoy her company, learn more about where she came from, and find distraction in cleaning gutters.
Mary Frances ducked her head out of the back sliding door. “You can come down now, we’re done talking.”
Glen laughed, reached for another set of leaves. “Almost done.”
“It’s not like we get a lot of rain here.”
“I’m up here, might as well finish the job.”
She chuckled and left him to it.
He was positioning the ladder to the final spot on the roof when Mary stuck her head out. “He’s here!” Her rough whisper said she meant business.
“I’m almost done.”
“You’re done now!”
Glen didn’t bother holding in his laughter. “Yes, ma’am!”
Mary dusted off his shirt. “I can’t believe she’s dating.”
“I can’t believe how upset you are.”
“I’m not upset!”
He laughed harder. “You don’t lie, remember?”
She growled, pulled him into the house, squeezing the circulation out of his hand the entire way. Her fingernails dug in when she caught sight of Mary Frances’s guy.
“Here they are,” Mary Frances said when they walked into the room.
“My goodness, Mary . . . just look at her. She’s just as you described.”
“Burke, this is my girl, Mary . . . and her friend Glen.”
Glen pried Mary’s hand free of his and extended it. “Glen Fairchild. Mary’s boyfriend.”
“Oh, is it boyfriend now?” Mary Frances asked. “It was just friend when you arrived.”
Glen winked. “We move quickly in the city.”
He liked watching the older woman blush.
“A pleasure.” He shook the other man’s hand. “Burke Perry, Mary Frances’s boyfriend.”
Mary clenched at his side, the physical weight of his words and their meaning hitting her like a truck.
“I take it you weren’t ready to hear that,” Burke said, his English accent somehow softening the blow.
“Nope. Can’t say that I was. First there was pie . . . then makeup . . . now a boyfriend.”
Glen wished he had this on film. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a woman so amusingly torn.
“It might take some getting used to.”
Mary nodded like a bobblehead doll. “Yep. Probably.”
“Changes make life interesting,” Burke told them.
Mary kept nodding.
Glen kept laughing.
“If it makes you feel any better, Mary and I dating is like it was for you in secondary school. Quite innocent.” Burke placed an arm on Mary Frances’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t you say, m’dear?”
“Well, of course it is . . . you’re dating a fifty-eight-year-old virgin.”
Glen lost it.
Mary tossed her hands in the air, twisted around, and said, “I’m out.”
Glen followed her into the kitchen while the older couple giggled behind them.
“She’s delightful.” Burke’s words carried through the house.
It was a damn good thing Jesus drank wine.
Mary handed a second bottle to Glen for opening before they started on the main course.
Burke was actually really nice.
It was Mary Frances who’d somehow morphed into something other than what she was when in the man’s presence.
She blushed, giggled, and held his hand even after they said grace.
Watching Mary Frances, Sister Mary Frances, being a woman and not just a motherly type or a nun, was sensory overload.
Halfway through the meal Mary realized she’d all but removed herself from the conversation. She listened to Burke talk about his career before he’d retired. He spoke of his children and his late wife.
Glen touched on Fairchild Charters and explained that his parents were gone.
It was during a discussion of loss that snapped Mary out of her unease.
“The past is what molds you, it’s what you do with that mold that counts,” Burke said. He lifted Mary Frances’s hand from the table and kissed the back of it.
There was happiness in the woman’s smile that Mary hadn’t seen before.
“Mary Frances says you have grandchildren.”
Burke seemed pleased with her change in the subject. “I do. Would you like to see pictures?”
“Of course.”
Burke pulled a phone out of his back pocket and placed a pair of reading glasses on the edge of his nose.
Mary Frances met her eyes from across the table.
Mary mouthed the words I love you and turned her attention to Burke’s pride and joys.
When the evening wore down and Burke took his leave, he kissed each of Mary’s cheeks and told her she’d been a delight.
The older couple walked out of the house to say good-bye without an audience, and Mary stayed in the kitchen cleaning up.
“Feeling better?” Glen asked when they were alone.
“Yes. It’s just strange.”
He moved in behind her, dropped his lips to the side of her ear. “I think he’s good for her.”
“So do I. It would be easier if I didn’t like him.”
“I doubt that.”
Glen pulled up his sleeves and started in with the dishes.
“Mary Frances is precious. I think she kept talking about her virginity just to get you used to the fact she may not always have it.”
Mary couldn’t help but laugh. “Probably. It must be crazy strange for Burke to know that if they do . . .” She tried to picture it, winced, and squeezed the image from her brain. “Never mind.”
Glen bumped her shoulder, handed her a clean dish to dry. “You’ll survive.”
The front door opened and closed.
“Oh, good. I dislike doing dishes.” Mary Frances sat at the table and finished her wine. “Burke thinks you’re lovely. I told him he had great taste.”
Glen jumped in. “How nice of him, tell him I liked him, too.”
“Always the charmer, this one.”
“He’s everything you said he would be,” Mary said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more social when he first arrived.”
“No worries. We both expected as much. With all the change you’ve had in your life, this one was bound to toss you down the rabbit hole.”
“That didn’t mean I needed to be rude.”
“Nothing twenty Our Fathers won’t remove.”
They both laughed.
Mary Frances jumped up. “Oh, before I forget. The property tax bill came directly to the house. I’m not sure why.” She pulled the papers from her stack on the small workspace that sat on one end of the tiny kitchen. “I didn’t want you to miss it. I considered taking care of it myself.”
“Don’t even think of it.”
“I do make some money.”
Mary noticed Glen watching her during the conversation.
“We’ve had this discussion. Just put the bill in my purse. I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay, dear.”
Mary Frances left the room and Glen leaned over
. “What’s that about?”
“I, ah . . . I take care of it. This.” She looked over their heads.
“The house?”
“When she left the order she left with nothing. Her real sister helped her out those first few years, once I graduated and started to make a living, I took over.”
“You bought her a house?”
“Prices are nothing here.”
Glen stopped washing dishes. “No wonder you’ve been so concerned about the cost of everything. You’re supporting two households on one income.”
Mary dried the last dish and put it away. “I try to put some away for emergencies. I just didn’t expect so many in one month. I’ll recover.”
He leaned over, kissed her fully. “You’re a beautiful person.”
She felt her cheeks flush. “Ah, you’re just saying that to get lucky.”
He kissed her again and Mary Frances walked back in the room. “Well that’s one way to whistle while you work.”
“She keeps attacking me, Mary Frances. You might have to talk to her about that.”
“For Pete’s sake!” Mary pushed away from Glen.
“It’s about my bedtime,” Mary Frances exclaimed. “Glen, I put a blanket and pillow on the couch for you.”
Mary and Glen exchanged glances.
“That isn’t necessary,” Mary said.
“Oh yes it is. Boyfriend is not the same as husband. Glen sleeps on the couch.”
“But you know that we’ve—”
Mary Frances stopped her with a wave of her hand. “Oh I’m sure that you’ve . . . but not in my home.” She turned and patted Glen on the shoulder. “Besides, abstinence is good for the soul. I’m sure Glen won’t mind.”
Glen eyed the sofa. The small couch that didn’t pull out into a bed.
“You kids get some sleep. We leave at seven for church.”
Glen’s eyes got wider.
Mary Frances hugged Mary, kissed her cheek.
Glen didn’t go unhugged and kissed too before she left them alone.
“Separate beds.”
Mary flopped on the couch. “You weren’t going to get any anyway.”
Glen sat beside her. “Oh?”
She shook her head. “Started my period.”
“Ah.” Glen put his arm around her and pulled her close beside him. “Doesn’t mean we can’t cuddle.”
She toed off her shoes and tucked her legs under her bottom. “It doesn’t bother you to know about my cycle?”
Not Quite Perfect (Not Quite Series Book 5) Page 19