The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess

by Regina Hale Sutherland

  It was past time to retire her tiara. They had to take the class seriously.

  Now.

  I’ve had it!” Millie said, resisting the urge to utter the swear words echoing in her mind. Instead of cussing, she had her fingers tight around an ear of each of her sons, dragging them into the condo like she used to when they were younger.

  She hadn’t had to drag them out of the store; thankfully they had come of their own accord, after picking up the mess they’d made. She’d ranted and raved at them in the store, her cool totally lost. Her face heated again, just remembering her shrill outbursts. But she was through tidying up after them. Hopefully the store owner wasn’t too upset, since the grocery was Millie’s favorite place to shop.

  She stopped in the kitchen, backing Mitchell and Steven against the hickory cabinets so that they couldn’t get away from her. She wasn’t done yelling yet.

  “It was an accident,” Mitchell repeated the defense he’d been uttering since she’d come upon him lying on the tile floor amid cans and chickens. “The aisle was narrow, and they had that pyramid of cans right in the middle of it. There was no way to get around it without knocking them over.”

  “I did,” Steven pointed out as he wriggled free of Millie’s grasp. “He’s the one who made the mess—”

  Millie let Mitchell loose, too, then she did the same with her temper. “He’s not the one Audrey threw out. You made the mess there, Steven.”

  Steven gasped in shock at her tone.

  But she continued, her anger driving her, as she accused him, “You never helped her around the house. You never even picked up after yourself. The poor girl has enough going on; she doesn’t need to take care of you, too. You should be able to take care of yourself. You’re almost thirty-six years old, for crying out loud.”

  “Mom?” Mitchell was the one to ask the question, his tone cautious as he glanced between her and his brother.

  Steven was silent, all color drained from his face, leaving him looking pale and old. He leaned heavily against the counter. When he finally spoke, his voice rasped, “So you did start the class for me. You manipulated me. Both of you.”

  Millie snorted. “I manipulated Mitchell, too. You don’t think he needs the class? He can’t keep a girlfriend because he’s such a slob.”

  “Mom!” This time Mitchell was indignant, his face flushed with bright color and his dimples nowhere to be seen.

  “Come on,” she said, no longer charmed by her youngest’s boyishness. “Do you really think every one of them—Heather, Tammy, Amy, and the other ones who weren’t even around long enough for us to meet—had a problem with your hours? They had a problem with you. They didn’t want to take over for your mother, cleaning up after you like you’re a toddler.”

  A chuckle gurgled out of Steven’s throat until she whirled back toward him, then it became a strangled cough.

  “And you, yeah, I started this class for you. I had to do something to save your marriage. I promised Brigitte I would try. You’re sure as heck not. You haven’t done a darn thing to reconcile with Audrey, to make an effort to win back your wife.”

  “You think a few cooking and cleaning classes will make Audrey take me back?” he asked, clearly disbelieving.

  After her conversation with her daughter-in-law, Millie had her doubts that anything would be enough. Steven epitomized the too little, too late scenario.

  “I don’t know,” she honestly admitted. “But if she doesn’t, at least you’ll be able to take care of yourself.”

  Before her anger ran out of steam, she forged ahead with another confession. “I don’t want to take care of you two anymore. I’m tired of cleaning up after you. You’re grown men. It’s time you both start acting like it. Take this class seriously, or don’t take it at all.”

  “Mom.” Steven was the one to utter her name in shock this time. “This is how you really feel?”

  Embarrassed. Aggravated. Those were the emotions she was feeling now. But she sensed they knew that already. She nodded. “If you two weren’t going to at least try, why’d you agree to take the class?”

  If it were to help each other, as she suspected, they wouldn’t admit it, at least not in front of the other. Mitchell confirmed this when he said, “I convinced Steven that we needed to check out Charles since you were interested in him.”

  “So that’s what you’ve been talking to him about,” she realized, as she stepped back, coming up hard against the white side-by-side refrigerator. She leaned against it as her knees weakened. “You’ve been grilling him.” And because of that, they probably knew more about him than she did.

  “We have asked him some questions,” Steven admitted. “Dad left you with some good investments—”

  “So you think Charles is an opportunist?” she asked, insulted for him. Charles shouldn’t have had to endure an interrogation.

  “We know better,” Mitchell freely conceded, “now that we’ve talked to him. He’s not after your money.”

  “So what if he was? Do you think I’m so stupid that I’d give it to him?” she asked, insulted for herself.

  “No, Mom,” Mitchell protested, “you’re not gullible. But you seem to like this guy. You dyed your hair.”

  She hadn’t thought they’d even noticed. “I didn’t do this for Charles,” she told them, patting her cinnamon-colored curls. “I did it for me.”

  Steven expelled a ragged sigh. “We just wanted to look out for you, Mom.”

  “So you don’t think I can look out for myself?” No matter how many times she’d told them she could. “Or maybe you’re going to say the same thing Theresa and Kim have, that I shouldn’t get involved with someone that I might need to take care of.”

  Steven shook his head. “No, Mom. We weren’t worried about you taking care of Charles. We were making sure he could take care of you.”

  Mitchell nodded. “And he can. He was a fairly successful lawyer.”

  Millie wasn’t sure if Charles had told them that, or if they’d found out another way. But she didn’t care what they’d learned about Charles. She was the one they didn’t know.

  They didn’t understand that she wasn’t the fragile little woman they thought her. She didn’t need a man to pay her bills or investigate any noises in the night. She could do that herself. She already did everything else.

  It was the everything else she was worried about. She didn’t want to keep doing all the cleaning and cooking for the men in her life. But with the way she’d just told off her boys, she doubted they would be interested in learning to take care of themselves.

  Neither they, nor she, had survived the bachelor survival course.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.”

  —George Santayana

  Phew,” Wally commented, as he set his grocery bag on the granite kitchen counter. “I’ve never seen Millie mad before.”

  “It’s about time,” Theresa said, as she settled into a wicker chair in the breakfast nook. She didn’t suffer from Millie’s hangup. She had no problem letting Wally do for himself.

  The bag rustled as he pulled a bottle of wine from it. “I didn’t know she could get that mad,” Wally said, awed. “She didn’t even have to say anything… just the look on her face…”

  But she had said plenty, too. Theresa’s lips curved at the memory of the angry words spilling unchecked from Millie. Then she glanced up and found Wally’s gaze intent on her. She hadn’t seen him look so thoughtful in a long time.

  “You don’t have to say anything either,” he told her. “I know when you’re unhappy.”

  “So am I?” she asked, calling him on his claim. Since she wasn’t a western or the sports page, she doubted he paid enough attention to know anything about her, but because of the class he’d been spending less time watching TV and reading the paper.

  He didn’t hesitate before nodding. “I think so.”

  She didn�
�t fight the amused smile from lifting her lips. “It’s ironic that you think I’m unhappy. You’re the one who’s been depressed.”

  “It’s been a struggle to adjust to retirement,” Wally admitted with a ragged sigh. “Selling the business totally changed my life.”

  “Mine, too,” Theresa replied vehemently.

  “Does my being home all the time cramp your style?” he asked with a teasing lilt to his voice. But his gray eyes were serious, watchful.

  Theresa wasn’t sure how honest she was prepared to be. He didn’t seem as depressed as he’d been. But if he was getting better, she didn’t want to cause a setback. “I wouldn’t call it that…”

  “What would you call it, Theresa?”

  “Like I said, you’ve been depressed.” She swallowed, then added, “You’re no longer the man I married.”

  He nodded. “Of course not. That was a long time ago. I’ve grown up.”

  “Grown up or grown old?” she asked quietly.

  “Older,” Wally conceded. “Maybe wiser. We all grow older, Theresa, even you.”

  She nodded in ready agreement. “Yes, we all grow older.” She wasn’t fighting age. She was accepting it gracefully and wearing it the same way: today with a blue silk, sleeveless blouse and linen capris.

  “But you’re still as beautiful as the day I met you,” he said, walking over to join her at the table in the breakfast nook. He settled into the chair across from her and reached across the glass top, brushing her hand with his, as if he wanted to take it into his but didn’t dare. He added, “Maybe even more beautiful.”

  She tipped her lips up into a smile, touched by the brief resurgence of the old charm that gave her a glimpse of the man he used to be. “I can’t argue with you about that,” she said, patting her hair in mock arrogance.

  He chuckled. “But you want to argue with me about something else?”

  “We don’t all grow wiser,” she maintained.

  “So now I haven’t just been depressed but stupid, too?” he asked, no trace of humor in his deep voice now, as his gray eyes darkened with anger. He drew his hand away and leaned back in his chair.

  She was as touched by his anger as his charm. Lately he hadn’t cared enough about anything to get angry. But then she’d struck him where his retirement had done the most damage, his pride. Shame washed over her; she hadn’t meant to hurt him. “You’re not stupid, Wally. You’re such a smart man. That’s why it’s so sad…”

  “What’s so sad?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

  She didn’t want to hurt him, but he was listening to her for the first time in a long time, so she had to take advantage of the opportunity to reach him. After clearing the thickness of emotion from her throat, she answered him softly, “What’s so sad is what you’ve become.”

  He sighed raggedly. “I don’t like it either, Theresa. I can’t look in the mirror because I don’t know the old man staring back at me. Defeated.”

  Tears burned Theresa’s eyes. He saw it, too. “Defeated? So you’ve given up?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “The old Wally would know. You fixed all those dying businesses. You can fix yourself.”

  “Is that why you really want me in the class?” Wally asked. “To fix me?”

  She borrowed his phrase. “I don’t know.” Then she added, “I don’t know how to fix you.” She wasn’t sure that what was broken could be fixed. Could a man repair his pride once it had been shattered?

  “Then what’s the point of my learning all this stuff?” he asked, his voice unsteady with emotion. “Am I going to be a bachelor again? Are you so unhappy that you want to leave me, Theresa?”

  “I don’t want to leave the man I used to know, that I used to love,” she said, swiping at the tears that ran unchecked down her face.

  “You don’t love me?” he asked, tears welling in his gray eyes.

  “I don’t know you.”

  Footfalls pounded hard on the asphalt behind Kim. She quickened her pace, her lungs burning as she struggled for breath. Pain traveled up the arches of her feet, radiating in her shins as she exerted more speed, desperate to outdistance her pursuer.

  Excitement, not fear, had her heart pumping hard and fast. If she were afraid, she’d stop and confront the man following her, whirling on him with the canister of pepper spray clipped at the waist of her blue running shorts. But she wasn’t afraid, not as much as she should be.

  If she had any sense…

  Where had it gone?

  She’d been so careful to avoid temptation, shutting off her lights long before his shift ended, stumbling over the cat in the dark so that he didn’t have an excuse to come to her door… or window again.

  But now temptation was chasing her down. And as she’d suspected before, she might not be able to outrun him. Yes, she was far safer flirting with Mr. Lindstrom!

  Kim had a bruise on her upper thigh from the old man. Since he didn’t drive, she’d played his chauffeur for the trip to and from the grocery store. Despite his age, he’d managed to reach across the console between them and squeeze her leg a few times, nearly making her veer into a ditch. He might be old, but the man was still strong. Too strong.

  A giggle tickled her throat from the memory of fending off Mr. Lindstrom’s clumsy advances as well as this ongoing chase. She could hear him breathing in loud pants. Then she could feel him, as his breath blew across the back of her neck.

  “Gotcha,” he gasped, as his fingers closed around her arm, drawing her up short.

  Off balance from the momentum of her run, she spun around and fell into his arms. Hating the weak gesture and how strong and hard his chest felt against hers, she mock-threatened, “I’m a cop’s daughter. He taught me self-defense moves that could put you in the hospital.”

  His face so close to hers, George chuckled. “I believe you. But since you haven’t pepper sprayed me already or used Harry to shoot me, I think I’m safe.”

  She could argue with that. He was everything but safe. Just being close to him made her feel reckless and out of control. She hated that feeling. “Never underestimate me,” she warned him as she pulled away.

  “After how hard I had to run to catch you, I would never make that mistake,” he promised, his breath still coming fast and hard.

  A smile teased her lips, and she found herself flirting with him. “You only caught me because I slowed down.”

  He laughed; it rumbled deep in his chest. He wore a dark blue tank top that showed off his muscular arms, while sweatpants cut off just above the knee showed off his strong calves. “I’m not going to disagree with you,” he said.

  “You’re not?”

  He shook his head, sending sweat trickling from his graying temples down his chiseled cheekbones. The man was hot. “Nope,” he said, “you might challenge me to a race.”

  “Scared of me?” she teased.

  “Oh, yeah,” he admitted, his grin fading and his dark eyes burning in intensity as he stared at her.

  She didn’t think he was afraid of her athleticism but something else. Maybe how she made him feel? If it was half as confused as he made her, she could understand his fear. And she could almost admit to feeling some herself.

  Almost.

  “Don’t be,” she told him. “I might let you win.”

  “You would do that?” he asked, dark eyes widening in surprise.

  She solemnly nodded. “I understand how fragile the male ego is.”

  “Is that why you let me catch you?”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d done that. But she knew that she had. She could run faster. She shrugged, unable to answer either of them.

  “You must have some peripheral vision,” he commented, “to have known it was me. You never looked back.”

  She hadn’t had to look back and not because she’d seen him out of the corner of her eyes. She’d known it was him just by the way her pulse quickened. Yeah, she’d been smart to avoid him. He was trouble.r />
  “I didn’t know it was you,” she lied. “I thought it was Mr. Lindstrom.”

  “Mr. Lindstrom? Is that the old guy that walks past your condo a couple times a day?”

  She hadn’t known he did that. “A short guy, usually wears a dark, pinstriped suit?”

  He nodded.

  “Then, yes, I guess that is him.” No wonder he stayed in such great shape for his age; he participated in her exercise class and walked.

  “You have a stalker,” George surmised.

  “Some cop you are,” she scoffed. “You haven’t run him off yet.”

  “He seems harmless enough.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she mused, stroking her hip. “He bruised me today.”

  “He hurt you?” The brown eyes darkened with concern and something far more primitive, something possessive.

  Despite the excitement quickening her pulse again, she managed a dismissive shrug. “It was an accident.” Except for the grab in the car. “He got me with a shopping cart during a field trip for the class today.”

  “How’s that going?” he asked, seeming to be genuinely interested, unlike her ex-fiancés who’d only been interested in talking about themselves.

  She didn’t like remembering how young and stupid she’d been during those engagements. At least she’d come to her senses in time. She only hoped she could do the same with George.

  “Are you having problems with the class?” he asked when she didn’t immediately answer.

  She groaned. “Next subject.”

  “That bad?” he asked, voice deep with sympathy. Not only was he interested in someone’s life besides his own, he cared.

  She answered with a nod.

  “So you’ve been busy with the class?” he asked as he settled his hands onto her shoulders.

  She nodded again, only half listening as she considered pulling away from his loose embrace. But it felt too good to have someone hold her, even if just her shoulders, after the day she’d had.

  Poor Millie, hers had been infinitely worse.

  “So you haven’t been avoiding me?”