Big Girls Don't Cry

by Linz, Cathie

“Well, I worked successfully for a number of years in Chicago.”

  “And then? What went wrong?” Nancy demanded. “Something clearly went wrong or you wouldn’t have come back here.”

  “Maybe she missed her hometown and her family.”

  “Oh, puh-lease.” Nancy rolled her eyes. “We’re talking about Rock Creek and Sue Ellen here.”

  “Don’t insult my sister!” Leena was quickly losing patience.

  “Uh-oh. She has a temper,” Nancy told Sister Mary.

  The nun nodded. “She’s loyal to her sister. That’s a good thing.”

  “And she’s getting aggravated by your attitude,” Leena added. “Here. Maybe you should take this back.” She handed the covered dish back to them.

  “She’s got gumption. She’ll need that to deal with Cole. No, you keep that.” Nancy returned the dish to the table.

  “It’s not Angel’s squash cookies, is it?” Leena asked suspiciously.

  Sister Mary shook her head. “Of course not. We wouldn’t do that to someone.”

  “How did you hear about Angel’s cookies?” Nancy asked.

  “Sue Ellen told me.”

  “Angel’s cookies have become pretty infamous.”

  “There’s nothing pretty about them,” Nancy noted. “But back to your reasons for returning to Rock Creek.”

  “And your reasons for wanting to know are?”

  “We’re concerned about our nephew.”

  “Because you heard that I punched him as a kid? I won’t do that again.”

  “Will you rip out his heart and stomp on it?”

  Leena blinked. “Huh?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “To use your phrase, Nancy, puh-lease. Do I look like the kind of woman capable of doing that?”

  “I think she’s referring to the fact that she’s a size sixteen,” Nancy told her sister.

  “Cole could have any woman he wants,” Leena said. “And he probably has. Did you interrogate all of them?”

  Nancy nodded. “We’ve tried.”

  “Why aren’t you worried about Cole breaking my heart?”

  “He doesn’t do that. He remains friends with all his former girlfriends, strangely enough.”

  “Probably because he’s not really committed to them in the first place,” Leena noted.

  Sister Mary and Nancy looked at her with newfound respect. “A size sixteen and smart. We like you.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Leena’s voice was mocking.

  “No, I’m serious. We like you. You’ll be good for Cole.”

  “I certainly intend to be a good employee.”

  Sister Mary frowned. “That could complicate things.”

  “What? Me being a good employee?”

  “No, you working for him. Sexual harassment and all.”

  “You think I’m going to sexually harass Cole?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first woman to try. But no, I didn’t mean that. And before you ask, no, I didn’t mean he’d sexually harass you either.”

  “He’s never had to before,” Nancy said.

  “He’s had affairs with his employees before?” Leena asked.

  “No. That’s why I said that you could complicate things.”

  “Getting involved with your boss is never a good thing,” Leena said.

  “Has it happened to you before?” Sister Mary asked.

  “No, and I’m not about to let it happen now. I’ve got enough problems in my life at the moment. I certainly don’t need more.”

  “Unfortunately life doesn’t always go according to plan,” Sister Mary said.

  “No shit.” Leena clapped her hands over her mouth in horror. The words had slipped out before she could stop them.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Nancy’s grin was huge. “For once my sister and I agree on something. You will be good for Cole.”

  But would he be good for Leena? That wasn’t something she was willing to bet her heart on.

  Chapter Six

  “I’m going to kill someone!” Leena yelled at Sue Ellen several days later.

  Since it was barely seven in the morning, Sue Ellen wasn’t really awake, but she did sit up in bed and stare at her sister as if she were an escapee from a horror flick.

  Then Sue Ellen yawned and flopped back down.

  “Did you hear me?” Leena demanded.

  Sue Ellen groaned and put the pillow over her head.

  Leena marched over and yanked it away before waving the local newspaper at her. “Did you see this?”

  “I don’t have my contacts in.”

  “It’s a picture of me. In the ad for the Regency Mobile Home Park.”

  “Really? Wow, that was fast.”

  “Fast? I’ll tell you what’s fast. The lawsuit I’m gonna file against these people.”

  “You signed a waiver.”

  “I what?”

  “You signed a waiver. Saying they could use the photos.”

  “But I didn’t say they could use this photo. I didn’t even know they took this.”

  “You don’t have approval over the shots.”

  “They deserve to be shot for using this picture. I’m half naked.”

  “What does the ad say?”

  “Don’t get ripped off.” Leena read the huge-font tag-line. “Buy your mobile home from Regency Mobile Home Sales.”

  The photo showed Leena waving her hands and looking down at her torn dress.

  Or she could have been looking down at her cheesy thighs. The look of dismay on her face would cover either possibility.

  “I can’t believe they did this,” Leena growled.

  “I can’t either.” Sitting up, Sue Ellen took the paper and squinted at it. “They did a really good job.”

  “Of screwing me over and making me look like a fool. Yes, they did. A really good job.”

  “You don’t look like a fool.”

  “How can you tell? You don’t have your contacts in. Besides, you always see things that aren’t there and you don’t see things that are.”

  “Okay, so I said I saw the face of Jesus in the fur of that llama. That was a year and a half ago. Old history. Getting back to your photo . . .” Sue Ellen perched a pair of hot pink reading glasses on the bridge of her nose. “This doesn’t look bad.”

  “Easy for you to say.” Leena yanked the paper away. “I think it’s awful. Titanic proportion awful.”

  “The face that sank a thousand ships?”

  “It’s supposed to be the face that launched a thousand ships. And that was Helen of Troy, not the Titanic.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I’m doomed.”

  “I had no idea you could be this dramatic so early in the morning. You never used to be like this.”

  “Appearing half naked in the Serenity News will do that to a person.”

  “The ad is actually scheduled to run in all the area newspapers,” Sue Ellen said. “Not just this one.”

  The phone rang before Leena could reply.

  “Get that.” Sue Ellen plopped back into bed.

  Leena grabbed the phone off the bedside table, almost hitting Sue Ellen in the head with it.

  “Is this Sue Ellen?” the caller demanded.

  “No, it’s her sister Leena. Just a second, I’ll put Sue Ellen on . . .”

  “Wait! It’s you I want to speak to. I just saw your photo in the newspaper this morning.”

  “That wasn’t my idea—”

  “And I was calling to find out when I’ll be getting my royalties.”

  “Your what?”

  “Money. My dog Misty was in that photo. She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she? But she doesn’t model for free, you know. I’d think the least a big model like you could do would be to give her a year’s worth of dog food. And not the cheap stuff either.”

  “Lady, I don’t have enough money to pay for my own food let alone a dog’s.”

  “You should have thought of that before you lu
red my darling baby girl into your decadent photo shoot.”

  “Your darling baby girl ripped my dress off!”

  “Was it one of those tear-off dresses? I hear they have those in Vegas.”

  “No, it was not a tear-off dress. And if you have a problem with the photo, then I suggest you get in touch with Bart Chumley.” That was certainly what Leena planned on doing.

  Sue Ellen tossed and turned but was unable to fall back asleep. She hated when that happened. Or when she had that recurring dream where she stubbed her toe and woke up with a jerk.

  When she’d been married to Earl, she’d woken up with a jerk every morning. Her life was much better now. So why was she feeling so unsettled? Maybe because her sister had gone all model diva on her, screaming that she was going to kill someone.

  Sue Ellen had stayed up late last night watching one of those slasher movies on cable. Not something she normally did, but lately normal was just a setting on the washing machine, not a characteristic of her life.

  Okay, maybe normal hadn’t been part of her life since . . . she was four? Maybe growing up with a father who drank led to such an unpredictable life that there was no point in aiming for normal. Or maybe she just thought that unpredictable was normal.

  Was that why she liked Skye and Lulu so much? Because they weren’t normal either? Skye sometimes referred to them all as a band of misfits, but Sue Ellen had never taken that seriously until this moment.

  She didn’t like the feeling of being a misfit. Her friends seemed to relish the role, but not her. Sue Ellen wanted something else. She wanted the security and respect that Russ Spears represented. Yep, that’s what she wanted. That and chocolate.

  Yanking on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, Sue Ellen padded out to the kitchen, where she grabbed a brownie before remembering she hadn’t brought in the mail from yesterday.

  The pink flower on her flip-flops matched her T-shirt so she felt coordinated enough to step outside. She’d just bitten off another bite of brownie when she heard her name being called.

  “Hey, Sue Ellen.” Donny waved at her from his Smiley’s Septic truck.

  She weakly waved back and tried to hide the brownie behind her.

  Don’t stop, don’t stop, she willed Donny. But being a guy, he totally ignored her telepathic message and got out of the pickup with a bouncy step that said this was a man accustomed to early mornings.

  “Hey, Sue Ellen,” he said again. “What are you doing up so early this morning?”

  “Getting my mail.”

  He got to the box before she could and reached inside to pluck out her stack of bills and then hand them over to her. She put out her left hand to take them. Her right hand was still clutching the brownie and was partially hidden behind her.

  “Well, uh, thanks,” she said. “Gotta go now.”

  “Hold on.”

  She was. Holding on to the iced brownie so tightly that the frosting was starting to squish between her fingers. What a mess.

  “What’s your hurry?” Donny said.

  “I have things to do.”

  “Can’t they wait a minute or two?”

  Sue Ellen eyed him suspiciously. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Can’t a guy talk to a girl without something being wrong?”

  A girl. For a moment he made her feel sixteen. Sue Ellen hadn’t felt sixteen even when she was sixteen.

  But Donny shouldn’t be the one making her heart go Sixteen Candles fluttery. That was Russ’s job.

  Sue Ellen glanced down at the stack of mail, relieved to find that the top credit-card bill was Leena’s and not her own. At least she wasn’t the only one messed up.

  Wait, Sue Ellen refused to be messed up anymore. She had a goal. Two goals. Her realtor’s license and Russ. And a pair of pink kitten heels from Nordstrom.com. That made three goals. Wait, also redecorating the living room in her trailer. Okay, that made four goals. None of which involved Donny.

  “I saw your sister’s picture in the paper this morning,” he said.

  “She isn’t happy with it. You’d think she would appreciate the fact that I finally got her shower fixed so she has hot water, but nooo. Instead she wakes me up by yelling at me.” Deciding she didn’t care what Donny thought, Sue Ellen brought the brownie into sight, lifted it to her mouth, and took a bite.

  “You’ve got a smear of chocolate on your mouth.”

  Before she could protest, Donny reached out and rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip.

  Whoa, where did those shivers come from? It was a warm sunny day. No reason for shivers. No how, no way. Not caused by Donny of all people.

  He was a good guy. A nice guy. But he was not the guy for her. Not the one who was supposed to be rubbing chocolate from her mouth in the morning.

  That was Russ’s job. So where was the coach when she needed him?

  “You’re late. Again.” Cole stared at Leena with disapproval, giving no hint of the man who’d kissed her on Sunday as if the end of the world were approaching. What a difference a few days made.

  “Do not mess with me today,” Leena growled. “I’m having a very bad day.”

  “Does that mean you saw the ad in today’s paper?”

  “Yes, Einstein, that’s what it means. It also means I left twenty voice-mail messages for Bart Chumley and he still hasn’t called me back.”

  “By the expression on your face, I’m guessing you weren’t pleased with the ad.”

  “Right again.”

  Cole grinned. “I thought it was great.”

  “You would. You enjoy making a fool out of me. Or seeing others do that for you.”

  “So you’ve accused me before. It still isn’t true.”

  Had she been in a more coherent frame of mind she’d have confronted him about the kiss right then and there. But she needed caffeine more than she needed anything else, so she passed Cole and headed straight for the coffeemaker. He’d apparently put on the first pot himself, so she decided not to go too hard on him—for now.

  Then he made the mistake of following her and saying, “I’m not the settling-down type.”

  “No kidding.” She inhaled the coffee fumes before drinking half the cup.

  “Women seem to think that just because I’m a vet and I care about animals that I must be all warm and fuzzy.”

  Leena shook her head. “What idiots.”

  “Of course, I am warm and fuzzy—”

  “Yeah, right.” She paused, coffee mug halfway to her lips. “Oh, you were serious.” She sipped her coffee. “Anyway, I do agree. No way are you the type to settle down.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Probably some trauma in your childhood or something. Maybe the Peter Pan syndrome.”

  “I had a totally normal childhood, and I don’t have any syndromes.”

  “Then why ask me why you don’t want to settle down?”

  “I was asking you why you thought I wasn’t the type to do that.”

  “Because you just told me you aren’t.” Was the man a few cards short of a full deck this morning?

  “Yeah, but you acted like you already knew that before I said it.”

  “Of course I did. It takes one to know one. I’m not ready to settle down either.”

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t ask you why not,” Leena pointed out.

  “I’m asking you.”

  The man was like a dog with a bone. What was his problem? He was the one who brought up this stupid topic to begin with. Obviously this was his way of warning her off after their kiss the other night.

  Fine. She got the message. He didn’t have to hire a plane and skywrite it overhead. She got it already. Warning understood.

  So what gave him the right to question her now? Did he think that she was sitting around panting for him? Not in this lifetime. “Why am I not ready to settle down? Because I’ve got places to go and things to do. And I certainly wouldn’t settle for Rock Creek or anyone who liked living here.”


  “Because you’re so much better than the rest of us, huh? Glad you set me straight on that.” The flash of pure Irish Flannigan fury in Cole’s eyes was there and then gone a moment later. So was he.

  “Where’s he off to in such a hurry?” Mindy asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “He seemed angry.”

  “You think?”

  Mindy nodded before setting down her overstuffed tote bag. “I saw you in the paper this morning—”

  “Please stop.” Leena held up her hand like a traffic cop. “I already know how bad it is. You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I’d never do such a thing.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Mindy was much too kind to ever say a harsh word about anyone other than herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off like that. It’s just that I am not happy with the situation.”

  “Which situation?”

  “My picture being in the paper.”

  “But I thought you’d be used to it by now. I mean, you’ve been a top model for several years now.”

  Leena didn’t know how “top” she was, but in this photo she appeared almost topless. And then there was the matter of her thighs . . . “Yeah, well, I’ve never had a photo like that done before.”

  “And that’s what is so great. You had the courage to show off your body even though it’s not a size zero.”

  That hadn’t been Leena’s intent. She’d just been trying to pay the rent. But there wasn’t time to correct Mindy’s misconception.

  To Leena’s surprise, the waiting area was filled within five minutes of her unlocking the front door. Strange. She didn’t remember seeing that many appointments on the schedule for this morning.

  She definitely didn’t remember Nancy Crumpler having an appointment. Maybe she thought that since Cole was her nephew, she didn’t need an appointment. “Are you here to see Cole?” Leena asked.

  “No,” Nancy said. “I’m here to see you.”

  Oh no. More questions. “I really don’t have time to talk right now. As you can see”—Leena waved a hand at the people around them—“it’s a very busy day today.”

  “This won’t take long. I just wanted to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For that photo in the paper this morning. It’s about time that someone showed people what a real woman should look like.”