Relatively Crazy

by Ellen Dye

  Val quickly glanced at Sam and then at me.

  I just smiled, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks as I wondered just how much—and on which event—Sam had filled them in.

  Sam popped up and quickly pulled out the chair next to his. “Morning, Sugar…ah, Wanda Jo.”

  I sat, surmising from the incomplete appellation that Sam hadn’t filled them in on at least one of last night’s events.

  Val’s brows rose in question. “Sugar…” she prodded, glancing to make sure the kids weren’t paying close attention before fixing her bright blue gaze on me.

  I shook my head slightly, noting that Rye was busy demolishing what looked to be his third plateful of biscuits and gravy and the girls were busy scribbling in their latest business notebook.

  “Hi, Mom,” Olivia greeted me cheerfully.

  “What’s up for you today, baby?”

  Olivia practically bounced in her seat. “We’re going with Rye to check out a new cooking store.”

  “In Worthington,” Kate supplied.

  “Gourmet cooking store,” Olivia added.

  “Twenty-seven thousand square feet,” Kate sighed, her eyes beginning to glaze, and Olivia gushed, “Of specialty cookware.”

  The pair sighed in unison before shooting a pointed look toward Rye, who was naturally oblivious, resisted their obvious urge to drum their fingertips on the tabletop, and turned back to their notebook.

  I glanced toward Rye, who seemed to be an unlikely candidate for such an outing.

  He paused, the fork mere inches from his mouth. “I’m just the driver.”

  “Rye’s doing overtime today. Worthington Protein Plant run,” Val clarified.

  I nodded, tucking into my own breakfast. That explained both the truck and the odor. And it was a clear measure of Olivia’s devotion to cooking that she’d be willing to be in such close proximity for the nearly hour-long drive to Worthington. Poultry plant waste is in a class all its own when it comes to stench.

  Sam sat back, arms crossed, and began to look a tad too smug for my liking as Val and Mitzi began to make small talk. I was determined to stick with my simple plan: finish up this unbelievably delicious breakfast and then quietly take Sam to the kitchen for a private few words.

  I still had no idea what those private few words should be. But, I reasoned over a bite of creamy-sausage-gravy-drenched biscuit, I would figure that out later.

  And, as usually happens, later came much too soon.

  “So are you two ready or what?” Rye asked in a tone suggesting he was the one who’d been kept waiting.

  Both Olivia and Kate sighed to conceal their irritation and grabbed their backpacks.

  Olivia came around the table and gave me a hug. “Have fun with the salon today.”

  “I will. You have fun, too.”

  Sam turned toward Olivia, who had already turned toward the door. He reached for his wallet and extracted a few bills. “Get something great.”

  Olivia sent a glance my way, I nodded discreetly.

  “Thanks, Sam.” She kissed his cheek and sent a wink my way.

  I realized this was her way of saying, Go for it, Mom.

  Ignoring Val and Mitzi’s questioning gazes, I downed the last of my coffee and marveled at my own polished-clean plate. I knew the minute the bell above the door chimed, signaling the kids’ departure, the real conversation would begin.

  Three, two, one… Olivia stepped across the threshold. The bell chimed, and like a prizefighter I charged from my corner.

  “Sam—”

  “Sugar Buns,” Sam crooned, cutting me off. His earlier smug expression returned tenfold, and he draped an arm across the back of my chair. “It’s time for our announcement.”

  Val’s brows climbed as Mitzi’s jaw dropped. Both crossed arms on the table and leaned forward, gazes riveted on me.

  I held up one finger, realizing I needed a few answers before that private word. “Not yet.”

  Sam opened his mouth to speak, but I charged ahead. “Later. In private.” I turned toward Val and Mitzi. “What happened after I left?”

  Val waved one hand, indicating I shouldn’t worry and sharply glanced at Sam and then back to me. I shook my head slightly and Mitzi picked up the conversation.

  “Turns out that Mrs. Habersham has a blood sugar problem and skipped her breakfast. She just fainted.”

  “I’m sure the shock must have contributed,” I said, my thoughts returning to Mrs. Habersham sliding from my chair and coming to rest as a brilliant ball of pea green.

  “Not really. According to what she told us, it would probably have happened anyway. For what it’s worth, she was more worried about you, after we got some orange juice and a sandwich into her,” Val said. “In fact, she left fingering her hair with a smile and muttering under her breath about possibilities.”

  Odd. But not as bad as I’d previously believed. Next topic. “Bitsy?”

  “What about her?” Mitzi countered.

  Val understood. “Don’t worry about her. This isn’t high school. It’s not like she can expel you. And she can’t block your refresher graduation, either. You’ve only got a few more hours to log, and then you’re done. No matter what.”

  “That’s right,” Mitzi added. “You’ve worked behind the chair. Mistakes happen. No biggie.”

  I nodded as understanding descended and the weight pressing on me evaporated.

  Val made eye contact with me, once again quickly cutting her gaze to Sam and back with one lifted brow. Translation: What the hell is going on between you two?

  Later, I mouthed.

  Val shrugged and tried another tactic. She glanced at her watch. “We’d best get a move on. The drywall guys finished up yesterday, and if we get going now, we can get the big clean-up done and still have time to get going on the paint and decide the rest of the color scheme.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Sam cut in, wearing a canary-eating cat grin.

  I laid one hand on his arm. “Sam—”

  He ignored me. “You girls are going to have to find another partner.”

  “Ah, Sam. We need—” I found the rest of my reply stifled by a faceful of T-shirt as Sam pulled me close.

  I heard Val and Mitzi’s combined gasp.

  “That’s right,” Sam began again, pulling me closer still as my chair tilted, practically spilling me onto his lap. “Wanda Jo is going to be much too busy now for this little beauty shop thing.”

  I spat out the T-shirt. “Sam, we really need to speak in private.” I scrambled to get myself right side up again.

  “Wanda Jo, is this true?” Val asked for clarification, leaning forward.

  “Not exactly—” I started and once again found my reply cut off as Sam tightened his grip, pulling me into a full hug.

  Honestly. I was in complete sympathy with the poor cat desperate to escape the clutches of Pepe LePew. I twisted about, trying to face Val.

  “Oh, now this little beauty shop is a fine notion. Really. And I’m sure you single girls will have a nice time with it. But Sugar Buns is going to be much too busy…” I lost the rest of Sam’s words as he cradled my head against his chest.

  “Ah, Sam,” I mumbled, but it came out sounding more like, “Ah-gark.”

  “The wedding to plan,” I caught Sam saying as I succeeded in pulling my face from his shoulder. “Households to combine. Well, you’re just going to be one busy little beaver. Aren’t you, Sugar Buns?”

  “Sam, we need—” The last word came out a few decibels too high as Sam squeezed my middle.

  “Absolutely, Sugar Buns,” he returned, not missing a beat. “Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. There’ll be the reception to plan,” he continued.

  “Sam!” I bellowed, finally breaking free.

  Sam’s semi-glazed eyes focused on me for the first time as I struggled to my feet. “Did you want to say something?”

  “Yes.” I hastily smoothed down my shirt. “In. The. Kitchen.”

  “But—”
>
  “Now.” I pointed and then looked toward Val and Mitzi, who both looked baffled. “Be right back.”

  I led the way through the swinging door as Sam followed in my wake, ticking off a list of must-do items.

  “Maybe finding a caterer would be the best idea,” he decided, crossing the threshold.

  Dottie looked up from a pile of celery she was busily chopping. She glanced at Sam, who had now moved on to the topic of flowers, and raised a brow in my direction. I slowly shook my head.

  With all possible haste she piled the waiting celery stalks onto the cutting board and picked up the lot. “I think I’ll just check out the dining room for a bit.”

  “I’m seeing an outside ceremony,” Sam was saying as I halted a few feet from the back door and turned to face him.

  I sucked in a preparatory lungful of air, managing to cringe only a bit at the smell. Rye must not have gotten going yet.

  “Sam, we need to talk,” I interrupted his list of the merits of an outside wedding.

  His brow furrowed. “We could do inside. Maybe a church?” He began to list various locations.

  “Ah, I don’t think so,” I interjected after he’d named the local Catholic Church. “You see—”

  “Buckston County Baptist?”

  “No.”

  “We could find something non-denominational.” He then ticked through a list.

  I issued a shrill whistle and held up one hand between the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the local Moose Lodge. “Enough.”

  Sam stopped mid-list, looking puzzled.

  “Isn’t this a little sudden?”

  Sam tilted his head to one side, he smiled slowly. “No.” He took my hand. “I’ve waited better than twenty years for this.”

  I blinked.

  “You really don’t understand, do you?”

  He called it right. I had absolutely no idea why he’d suddenly turned into a very large combo version of Martha Stewart and the Wedding Planner From Hell.

  “It’s always been you, Wanda Jo. Always.”

  “What has?”

  “You’re the reason I never married. Always you. You were the one I wanted, the one I waited for. Nobody else would ever do for me. I’ve always loved you. Didn’t you understand that?”

  Fortunately, Sam didn’t seem to require an answer I was too shocked to give.

  “I know I’m not some fancy, big-city lawyer. But I make a decent living. Certainly good enough that you won’t have to work. You won’t ever have to go through that mess you went through yesterday, ever again. I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you and Olivia and everything. I love her like she was my own, you know. We’ll be good together. We’ll make a fine family,” Sam paused, cupping my cheek. “We won’t be rich in money. But we’ll be rich in all the ways that really count.”

  I brought my hand to his as I felt my eyes fill. Yes, there was no doubt, he really did love me. And, I realized, I loved him. Deeply.

  “I don’t want to see you torn up again like you were last night—”

  I held up one hand. “It was a mistake—”

  “A what?” Sam whispered as all color drained from his face.

  “No, not that. I shouldn’t have—”

  In one fluid movement Sam straightened and pulled away. His gaze became hard and was fixed somewhere above my head. “I see.”

  Without further explanation Sam stalked by me, headed toward the back door.

  I groaned. Had all the males in Buckston County gone completely crazy?

  Chapter Seventeen

  I slowly turned toward the back door, and the question flew from my mind. No. It just couldn’t be. I blinked several times, but the view remained the same.

  Reed wrinkled his knife-sharp nose in distaste as he glanced at the solid gold Rolex on his wrist. “Ready?” he asked as though it were a perfectly legitimate query.

  As I stood completely still, staring at my ex-husband, my previous question returned. And, unfortunately, this time it brought along an answer. All the males in Buckston County had indeed gone crazy. And now it seemed there was an issue of possible importation.

  “Don’t just stand there gawking, Ashton. I want to get out of this burg before I die from the ungodly stench.”

  Yep. Completely crazy. Theory of Importation confirmed.

  But at least Reed’s appearance had returned to normal. He’d exchanged the wild plum silk and Armani for his standard day-off uniform of navy Ralph Lauren polo and khakis, finished with a pair of soft leather loafers I was sure cost more than I’d scraped together for the cottage’s electrical deposit.

  Reed’s hair was no longer standing on end in stiff, needle-like spikes. His receding hairline framed a head of hair that had been cut short with military precision and combed back with a crisp side part so straight I suspected he’d used a ruler.

  “Why are you here?”

  “To take you home, of course.”

  “We’re divorced. Or did I miss something?”

  Reed gave a dismissive wave. “A situation easily rectified.”

  A sharp pain stabbed behind my right eye. My world shattered by a nasty practical joke on national television. My daughter’s family instantly cut in half. Twenty years of marriage ended with the arrival of a sheaf of documents sent Priority Mail. The loss of everything I’d worked for. The secure life I thought I had vanishing before my eyes in a split second. All with no explanation whatsoever.

  A situation easily rectified?

  “Have you lost your mind?” I nearly screeched, as anger moved in, edging out the months of painful uncertainty and sheer bafflement.

  Reed struck a pose, one hand resting casually inside a pocket. “Now, Ashton, let’s not be emotional. We had issues—”

  “You walked out of our lives without so much as a backward glance, Reed. You left Olivia and me with nothing. No damned explanation, no home, no money—”

  “That’s simply not true. I left you a complete explanation on disc,” Reed said in a tone of voice he reserved for his most unreasonable clients.

  “An explanation?” I snorted. “You leave me a nasty practical joke on video and have the gall to call it an explanation?”

  Reed’s stare told me I was missing something crucial, but I was too angry to care. “You made an appearance on Talk! with some old woman to humiliate me. How does that explain your sudden desire to break up our family?”

  Twin spots of crimson bloomed on Reed’s cheeks. “All right. I admit I should have handled the matter of Trixie a bit differently. Perhaps something more personal. However—”

  “However, my fanny.” I took a step closer. “You wanted out of our marriage for reasons I’ve yet to understand, and now you waltz in here expecting me to leave with you?” I paused as Reed’s words finally connected. “The matter of Trixie? Trixie, the old woman?”

  Reed’s color heightened and spread. He coughed discreetly into his balled fist. “Yes. Well. It didn’t work out, obviously. But…”

  Complete shock zinged through my body, setting each nerve ending afire as I caught the full meaning of Reed’s words. I staggered backward a few steps and then came to rest against the metal prep counter. “My God,” I whispered, looking at Reed. “You were with that woman?”

  “It’s now a non-issue. As I said—”

  I held up one hand. “You mean to tell me that you honestly broke up our family to be with a woman practically old enough to be your mother?”

  “That is a crass way to phrase it—”

  “But true,” I said, nausea building in the pit of my stomach. “Why? Were you in love with her?”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Then for God’s sake, why?”

  Reed looked at me as though I were an especially dim-witted child. “She’s one of the richest women in the country. Family money, very old. Exceptionally well-respected.”

  “Last I knew, you certainly weren’t a pauper.”

  “Working class. Upper middle cla
ss money, that’s what I had accomplished. It was all I thought I’d ever achieve. But then Trixie came along…”

  The full and ugly reality of the whole sordid situation descended on me. And brought, unbidden, a mental image of Reed’s nude, slightly paunchy, middle-aged body coupled with the liver-spotted, obese yet wrinkled and likewise nude flesh of Trixie Kilgreen. I brought my hand to my mouth in an attempt to staunch the roiling nausea.

  “You really did destroy our family so you could become some old bat’s boy toy.” I echoed Olivia’s words from what seemed like an eternity ago.

  “I really don’t think you’re striking the proper tone here.”

  A bubble of hysterical laughter burst forth and shoved away both my nausea and the mental image that caused it. “And what would the proper tone be, Reed?”

  He shrugged casually and then paused for a Law Shark Smile. “I might remind you that I’ve done nothing more than you did in marrying me. This is just a bit of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.”

  I felt my jaw working, but for the life of me, no sound would come out. He honestly thought I’d married him in order to get my hands on the money he earned. I hadn’t. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, I hadn’t wanted to marry a nonworking deadbeat who expected me to support him with my meager earning skills. But marry him, or anyone, simply for a paycheck? Never.

  I looked at him, really looked, for the first time in a very long time. Who was this man I’d given my life to for the last twenty years? Certainly not who I’d built him up in my mind to be.

  My very own Valiant Knight, that’s what I’d deluded myself to think he was. But in reality, he was nothing more than an exceptionally unattractive man—both inside and out.

  Reed had begun to speak again. “And not that I hold it against you.” He glanced around the kitchen, wrinkling his sharply pointed nose disdainfully. “Who would want to be stuck in Hillbilly Hell, after all.”

  Now there he was partially right. But for all the wrong reasons. When I’d been younger, escaping Buckston County had been synonymous with escaping the backbreaking grind of the minimum wage pit my family seemed to have no choice but to toil in. I shook my head slightly. How had I made the mental leap from exhaustion to finding myself incompetent to feeling that my only option for a good life was to marry a man who would save me?