by Jamie Beck
She slammed the clock back on the nightstand and threw off the blankets. She rummaged her drawers to find clean underwear and a long-sleeve shirt.
Claire didn’t budge from the doorway. “Hang on, I want details! You were in bed when I got home. I half wondered if Ryan was in here with you. How’d it go?”
Steffi rolled her eyes and shook her head as she replied, “I’ll fill you in later on how I sent him running, but right now I have to get to Molly’s.”
“I’m sorry.” Claire’s face pinched like she’d swallowed lemon juice. “I hope it wasn’t as bad as you think.”
“Maybe it can be salvaged, but I’m not sure.” Steffi tugged the blanket up over the mattress in a half-assed attempt to make her bed, then wondered why the hell she bothered. “I need a cold shower to wake up. Save me some coffee?”
“Sure. I’ll fix you a to-go cup. I’m on my way out to meet with Helena Briggs to look at kitchen counters for the Hightop Road house.”
“Great. I have two guys starting on demolition over there today. I need to check on them this afternoon, too.” She waved Claire off and dashed into the bathroom to engage in a record-breaking three-minute-long shower-and-go routine.
Fifteen minutes later, her stomach flipped as she crossed the Quinns’ backyard. She mumbled to herself, “Be brave and friendly, despite the pity dinner date he offered.” She couldn’t blame him for that. What man would put up with being hit while kissing? Especially after the way she’d abused his trust in the past.
She entered the back of the house through the new French doors and went straight to the supply pile she’d left in the corner yesterday afternoon. Like a dog’s, her ears remained alert for any sign of Ryan.
After dragging the box of drywall mud over to the five-gallon paint pail, she then laid out the tape dispenser, joint and mud knives, mud pan, and electric mud mixer. Once she’d organized herself, she took the other empty paint pail outside to fill it from the hose.
When she came back indoors, she found Emmy hunched over the row of supplies. Often Ryan would wander in to retrieve her, but Steffi didn’t hear him in the kitchen.
“What’s that?” Emmy pointed at the mixer.
“It’s a mixer.” Steffi lugged the heavy bucket of water to the center of the room. “I’m mixing drywall mud today.”
“Mud?” Emmy wrinkled her nose in distaste. Today she sported pink sweatpants and a white T-shirt. Her so-called work clothes led Steffi to believe Emmy’d been waiting for her arrival. “Why do you need mud?”
Steffi transferred the mud to the empty paint pail, her body twitching at any sound, thinking each to be Ryan’s footsteps. “See all the places where the sections of drywall connect? I have to fill in all those cracks so it looks smooth when we paint. Those cracks get filled in with special mud and tape.”
“Can I help?” This had become Emmy’s daily refrain.
Most days Steffi didn’t mind, but this part of the job could be tricky. She was having enough difficulty concentrating as it was, let alone having to deal with Emmy. But she was tough. She could handle this.
“A little, but this has to be done just right or the tape can bubble, so I have to do most of it. You’re welcome to watch and learn, though.”
Emmy’s shoulders slumped, but she raised the mixer, which came up to her chest and probably weighed about a third of her body weight. “Can I mix?”
“I need to handle that, but you can help me with the sponge and water.” Steffi grasped the mixer before Emmy let it drop, in her zeal to choose among the large yellow sponges. After a surreptitious glance through the opening to the living room—a fruitless one because Ryan didn’t appear—she said, “Soak that sponge in the bucket of water, and then squeeze it out over the top of this mud bucket. I’ll start mixing. We want the mud to be on the soupy side.”
“Soupy?” Emmy grimaced again. She buried the sponge until the water was up to her elbows, and then brought it over to the mud bucket—dripping water all over the flagstone floor—and squeezed.
Steffi fired up the mixer and let Emmy watch her stir the mud. “A little more water. Just a little, okay?”
Emmy complied. “Can I touch it?”
“Sure, but just with the tips of your fingers. It’s messy, and you don’t want to get it everywhere.”
While Steffi heaped a scoop of the mud into the pan with the knife, Emmy tested the mud in the bucket. She got it all over one palm and then clapped her hands together to test its stickiness. Once both hands were dirty, she plunged them into the water bucket and wiped them on her shirt, creating a mess.
When Steffi began mudding and taping, her miniature shadow came to her side. A minute passed, maybe two, before Steffi broke down and asked, “Where’s your dad?”
“Out.” Emmy picked up another mud knife and studied it, slashing it through the air.
“Where?” Steffi blurted out, shamelessly pumping the child for information.
Emmy shrugged, completely oblivious to Steffi’s anxiety. “Can I please try to fill a crack?”
She didn’t have time for teaching, but she knew that Emmy missed her mother, had almost no friends, and felt completely displaced. There was no way Steffi could turn the kid away.
“Okay, let’s try one small section.” She set down her things and took Emmy to the short wall beneath the windows, where she showed her how to apply the mud and scrape it. Then they taped.
By the time they’d finished that window section, Emmy had mud on her shoes and pants legs, and a little stuck to her hair from when she kept swiping it back with her hand. “I’m good at this!”
“Yep, you’re pretty good for a beginner.” Steffi heard the doorbell ring in the distance. Ryan? No. He wouldn’t ring the doorbell. “But I need to finish on my own because you aren’t tall enough and we can’t have a lot of tape breaks.”
“Boo.” Emmy sat cross-legged on the ground with her chin on her fists.
Molly appeared in the archway with Val, causing Emmy to jump up at the same time Steffi nearly tripped over the bucket of mud.
“Mommy!” Emmy flung herself at her mom, but Val held her at a distance, presumably to spare her expensive clothing from the human drywall-mud missile. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to surprise you, honey bear. You invited me to come for pizza, right? I thought we’d go do that and maybe go shopping.” Val’s gaze slid up and down Steffi, making Steffi aware that she’d been gawking at Val. Val leaned down to kiss Emmy’s head. “Where’s your father?”
“Ryan’s running some errands for me,” Molly replied. “Did he know you were coming?”
“He told me I could see Emmy whenever I wanted,” Val replied. “I sent a text from the road.”
Molly raised her eyebrows, but Val seemed unconcerned by her mother-in-law’s disapproval. Her attention was now focused on her daughter’s outfit. “Emmy, sweetie, you’re a mess. Go clean up so we can go out.”
Steffi noticed the way Emmy looked at Val with such longing, and the way she changed her voice to speak with a babyish tone. It broke her heart to see it. How could Val not want to take that pain away? Or Ryan, for that matter?
“Okay. Can Daddy can come with us?”
“Maybe.” Val smiled, and patted Emmy’s head as she bounded off to change.
Steffi’s stomach dropped. As much as she wanted to see Emmy happy, the scene unfolding in front of Steffi was her worst-case scenario. Val’s demeanor sent a clear message—she’d come back to see Ryan and, possibly, salvage her marriage.
“Would you like some water or tea?” Molly asked, flabbergasting Steffi with her graciousness.
Molly had to harbor ill will toward the woman who cheated on her son. Then again, Molly had forgiven Steffi for the way she’d mistreated Ryan. Given her own mistakes, perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to hurl mental insults at Val, or be so stunned by Molly’s poise. After all, she loved her granddaughter, so she would force herself to be pleasant to Val.
“No, thank you. I’ll just wait here . . . with Steffi.” Val’s cool gaze examined Steffi again. “Considering how much time she’s spending with my daughter lately, I’d like to get to know her.”
Oh damn.
“If you’ll excuse me, then, I’ve got other things to do,” Molly said before she disappeared. Steffi prayed she’d gone to make a 911 call to Ryan.
Val strolled around the room—waltzed, really, with a feminine lilt so natural it made Steffi a little jealous. She inspected the windows and the doors before she spun around on the heels of her black boots. Up close, the woman was more of a stunner than Steffi remembered from the long-ago run-in.
That time—Christmas Eve six years earlier—Val had been bundled up in coat, scarf, and hat. All Steffi had really noticed was her short stature and those blue eyes. She’d been so busy trying to run away from Ryan’s hateful gaze that she hadn’t had time to really observe Val or Emmy.
Today, Val wore black leggings and a camel-and-black cashmere sweater—an ensemble that showcased her figure. In the sunlight, Steffi couldn’t ignore Val’s delicately boned face, full lips, and lovely blonde hair. She carried herself with assured grace, too.
Val finally spoke. “Well, you certainly chose an interesting way to make a living.”
“I enjoy it.” Steffi decided amiability might disarm Val. She slapped more mud on the wall and scraped it, determined to avoid the trap Val must’ve planned during her drive down from Boston. Steffi might not be a delicate beauty, but she was a healthy, strong, independent woman who would not be cowed by an adulteress.
“I can’t believe Molly hired you, or that you accepted.” Val tsk-tsked. “It was very insensitive. This had to have been very awkward for Ryan.”
Correction: adulteress and hypocrite.
“It was awkward for both of us at first, but we’ve worked through it.” Steffi smirked to herself, knowing from the flash in Val’s eyes that she’d just landed a small hit. Neither she nor Val could claim the moral high ground in this catfight, but Steffi wouldn’t sit there and take shit.
“Have you?” Val approached her under the guise of inspecting the job. “And now what? You plan to pick up where you left off, and steal my daughter in the process?”
“I’m not stealing Emmy. I’m only being kind.” Steffi stared at Val. “She’s a great kid.”
“I know,” Val sniped. “I raised her.”
Steffi bit back the snide remark that raced through her thoughts. She wouldn’t be goaded into doing or saying anything that might hurt Emmy or Ryan.
“I know what you’re thinking, you know. You think I’ve abandoned her and so I must be a terrible mother. But it’s not true. I was a good mother . . . and wife. I put myself and my needs last for ten years. Supported Ryan, cared for Emmy, ran the house, worked odd jobs to help bring in money.” Val glanced out the window toward Molly’s garden. “Not that it mattered to him.”
“If you’re looking to justify your boyfriend, I’m the wrong audience, Val.”
“Well, listen to you—so full of judgment. You have no idea about my marriage or me. Anything you think you know is filtered through Ryan’s perspective, which remains tainted by what you did to him.”
That remark struck hard enough that Steffi nearly rubbed her jaw from the blow. Fortunately, life with three brothers had taught her to recover quickly. “We’re all grown-ups now. Don’t blame me for your problems.”
“Blame? There’s plenty of that to go around. All I’m saying is that I’m not a bad person.” Val sighed. “Bitter. Depressed. But not evil. Not heartless.”
Steffi scraped mud along a joint, hoping Val would take the hint and go wait for Emmy in the living room.
Val, however, would not be deterred. “I met John at a party, and Ryan had noticed the attention John paid me. I thought if Ryan was jealous, maybe he really cared. I hoped if I made him more jealous, he’d realize that he didn’t want to lose me. A stupid plan, in hindsight. When it didn’t work, it became hard to walk away from a man who actually noticed me. Who was interested in what I had to say and put me first.”
“I’m not your priest, and this isn’t a confessional.” Steffi shook her head, wishing she hadn’t heard any of that. She preferred to view Val as the bad guy, but if this kept up, she’d have to acknowledge her as merely another flawed, sometimes lonely, human, much like herself. “This has nothing to do with me.”
Val crossed her arms, scoffing. “It has everything to do with you.”
“How do you figure that?” Steffi asked.
“If you’d been at BC, you’d know the answer.” Val’s gaze went to the windows again. “I remember the first time I met Ryan at a party. So handsome and sweet. Every girl on campus was after him but, my God, was he faithful to you. For two years, other girls tried to seduce him despite the fact that he was dating you . . . but I didn’t. I waited. I always sensed he cared more for you than you did him, and that it would only be a matter of time before your relationship ended.” She snapped her gaze back to Steffi. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
Val mesmerized Steffi like a snake charmer. The answers to so many of her questions about that dark time dangled before her like the apple in the Garden of Eden. All she had to do was keep quiet. Not a strength of hers, unfortunately.
“I did love Ryan,” Steffi said. “I was very young, though. Not near ready for a lifelong commitment.”
“And so off you went without a word, never looking back.” Val’s accusatory tone put Steffi in her place. “If you’d seen the damage you did, maybe you would’ve been too ashamed to be here now, pushing your way back into his life. That fall he lost so much weight and went on a weeks-long drinking bender. He was a wreck, struggling to focus on school and soccer, but I was there for him. I listened. I baked for him and took walks with him. Let him cry on my shoulder. I gave him everything I had—everything.
“When we first got together, I knew he wasn’t quite over you. Still, I believed that, eventually, he’d see me for who I was, not just as your stand-in. That day never came. Not even when I was pregnant. He tried, I’ll give him that. But I could never quite take your place in his heart . . .”
“It wasn’t a competition. Ryan loved you. He married you and started a family.” Even as she said the words, she couldn’t lie to herself. Ryan had so much as confessed this very truth to her on those bleachers. “I’m sorry for hurting him, and I’m sorry, for all of you, that things didn’t turn out better. But you can’t blame me for everything that happened once you two got together.”
“I don’t blame you for all of it,” Val huffed. “Tell me the truth, though. Are you hoping to win him back?”
“I don’t owe you an answer.”
Val stepped closer. “I deserve one, especially because it will affect my daughter.”
“Did your boyfriend have to answer to your husband?” Steffi shot back, then closed her eyes, wishing she’d held her tongue.
Luckily, Emmy rushed back into the room, putting an end to the conversation. “I’m all clean now, Mommy.”
Val’s tense expression instantly transformed into a cheerful smile.
“There’s my little beauty.” Val gathered Emmy into her arms for a big squeeze. Then she amassed Emmy’s hair in her hands and sighed. “If you find a comb, I’ll pull these messy curls into a French braid.”
Emmy’s expression faltered. “All right.”
Steffi hated the way Val treated Emmy like a baby doll. Before she could dwell on that, Ryan stormed into the room.
He looked gorgeous in his faded jeans and black sweater. Steffi’s heart skittered from the collision of lust and fearful anticipation of what might happen next. He spared Steffi the briefest glance before turning on Val.
“Can we talk?” He gestured with his head, but Emmy stopped him.
“Daddy, Mommy came to surprise us and try that pizza. Now we can all go together.” She hugged his legs like a gigantic monkey. “Please, Daddy. Please!”
Steff
i noticed Ryan’s hard expression soften. “Princess, Mommy drove all this way to see you, not me. I don’t want to intrude on your special day together.”
He patted her head.
“Actually, you’re welcome to join us for lunch.” Val smiled at him and Emmy. “If you want to, that is.”
“See!” Emmy tipped her face up at him, bright with joy. “We can eat together, like we used to do.”
How neatly she’d trapped Ryan.
Ryan’s resentful gaze sliced through Val before he kissed the top of Emmy’s head. “Sure, honey. If that’s what you want, I’ll come.”
“Yay!” Emmy jumped and clapped. “I’ll get my jacket.”
Emmy dashed to the front closet, giving Ryan a moment alone—almost—with Val. Only the slight flare of his nostrils hinted at his mood. Steffi braced for his cutting remark, but he merely asked his wife, “Could you please take Emmy to the car? I’ll be out in a second.”
Val’s gaze darted from him to Steffi and back.
“Fine.” Then she smiled at Steffi, her voice sweeter than anything Molly could bake. “Nice talking with you. This room is a fabulous addition to the house, by the way. Love all the windows.”
She gave a little wave and sashayed out of the room, leaving Steffi to stew in the new perspective on Ryan and Val’s history and the domino effect of her own mistakes. Those few minutes with Val rearranged everything Steffi had thought she understood. Everything she thought was right and wrong. Worst of all, it made her feel unworthy of the second chance with Ryan she wanted so much.
Unsure of how to face him after last night’s meltdown, she picked up the drywall knife and got back to work. She’d give everything to avoid all conversation with him until she had time to gather her thoughts.
“I had no idea she was coming,” Ryan said.
“Obviously.” Steffi scraped the freshly laid mud and the rolled tape over the seam. “But it’s not my business, really.”
He stared at her. “Are you okay?”
She could barely speak, with her throat tightening as if she’d swallowed a fistful of mud from the bucket. “Sure, but between getting here late and Emmy and Val’s interruptions, I’m really behind now. I need to finish up and head over to our new project on Hightop Road to check in on my little crew.”