Heck, maybe Ella had indeed loved Joe. Laurie Jean certainly loved Asher, Millie didn’t doubt that, so maybe there were reasons other than falling out of love that would cause a spouse to stray.
Dara pulled back and looked at her. “Let’s finish the research about my mom so you don’t have to keep thinking about her. Can you come over on Sunday? I can give you another riding lesson, and we can go through all the other stories I have about Mom.”
Millie sighed. Nodded. “Okay. I can be at the ranch early afternoon on Sunday. Does that work for you?”
“It does,” Dara replied, and she brushed a kiss on Millie’s cheek. “See you then,” she added with a little wave before she headed for the front door.
Judging from Dara’s quick smile and bounce in her step, she’d gotten back some of her perkiness. Good. Millie didn’t want any of this to drag Dara down.
“Sunday,” Millie repeated, sighing again.
She’d just work in the research and riding lesson in between Frankie’s pregnancy tests and sex with Joe.
Easy peasy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FOR DAYS JOE’S mind had kept circling around one thing. Or rather three things. Millie, sex with Millie and just how much sex with Millie could and would screw up both of their lives.
Of course, one could argue that their lives were already in the screwed-up category and that sex wouldn’t do any harm. But that was dick thinking. His dick. And he knew that part of his anatomy well enough to know that it could come up with all sorts of rationalizing to get what it wanted.
And what it wanted was Millie.
Hell, Joe wanted her, too. When he was with her, the grief let up enough so he could breathe. So he could experience something other than the dark ache that’d been inside him since Ella’s death. Millie made him smile again. Laugh. She made him feel. It was still “to be determined” whether or not that was a good thing, but Joe had decided he wasn’t going to wait for that determination. Both he and his dick were going to have sex with Millie.
Tonight.
He’d already gotten his proverbial ducks in a row for their date. Dara would be staying the night with Frankie. That had meant asking Frankie for the favor without telling his sister why he wanted Dara out of the house for the night. It had also involved convincing Frankie to tell Dara the little white lie that she needed babysitting help since she had a bunch of paperwork to do for her shop.
It was entirely possible that both his daughter and sister had seen through his lined-up ducks and knew the real reason he’d wanted to make these arrangements. Still, he hadn’t had to spell it out which suited him just fine.
He heard the car pull into his driveway, and he came out of the tack room to see if Millie had shown up way early for her research date with Dara. His stomach actually did a little flutter at the thought of seeing her, but the flutter vanished when he realized who his visitor was. Definitely not Millie.
Janice.
Well, hell. This couldn’t be good. Janice rarely showed up at the ranch, and her sour mood would only get worse if Millie arrived while she was here. Even though Janice had probably never met Millie, his former mother-in-law would without a doubt know who she was.
Since it was only ten in the morning, Joe figured he’d have at least a couple of hours to find out what Janice wanted and send her on her way before Millie arrived. He was betting that it would take far less than those couple of hours though. Unless she was breaking her usual habit, Janice almost certainly wouldn’t want to sit around and have a long-drawn-out chat with Dara or him.
Joe washed his hands and made his way out to Janice’s car. Even though Dara was likely still in bed, he nearly called out to her, to tell her that her grandmother was here, but he decided against that when he saw Janice’s face.
Shit.
She’d been crying.
Joe quickly picked through his memory to see if today was some kind of anniversary. Janice “celebrated” any and every date in Ella’s life. It wasn’t Ella’s birthday or any other milestone he could think of. However, it was only a week and a half from the two-year anniversary of Ella’s death.
Maybe that was the reason for Janice’s tears.
Joe could sympathize with her on that. He wouldn’t cry on that two-year mark, probably not, anyway, but he sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to the memories it’d bring.
“Janice,” he greeted. “You want to come in and have some coffee or iced tea?” Joe added when Janice just stood there next to her still-open car door. It was already too hot and too muggy to stand outside and listen to her vent about whatever it was she’d come here to vent about.
She kept a white-knuckle grip on the door. “Yesterday, I got a visit from Laurie Jean Parkman.” Her eyes might be red and sad, but that was an angry set to her jaw. “You know who she is,” she started.
“I know her,” Joe verified. “What’d she want?” Though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that.
Janice’s jaw tightened even more. “Laurie Jean wanted to inform me that you’ve been seeing her daughter, Millie.”
Yep, he’d been right about that answer. Since he figured Janice was about to fill him in on what else was said during that visit, he just stayed quiet and let the woman spew in her own ice-queen kind of way.
“Laurie Jean said you even went to dinner at Millie’s house and that you took Dara. Dara,” Janice emphasized. “I couldn’t believe you would put your daughter through something like that.”
Okay, staying quiet was over. “Dara likes Millie, and she’s been helping her with the research for the Last Ride Society. Millie drew Ella’s name...” He had to pause and do the math. “About seven weeks ago.”
He didn’t have to ask if Janice knew what he was talking about. The fire that lit her eyes was somehow ass-burning hot and butt-freezing cold at the same time.
“You shouldn’t have allowed Dara to do that,” Janice snapped, her voice as sharp as a bullwhip. “That Dayton woman could be trying to manipulate Dara into telling her lies about Ella so she can put it in that so-called research report. A report she can and will use to smear Ella’s name.”
Joe should have felt torn between defending Millie and Ella. But this wasn’t about that. This was about Janice and a crapload of faulty logic.
“I hate to remind you,” he said, hanging on to his temper, barely, “but Ella’s name is already smeared.”
Janice gasped, pressed her hand over her heart, and she flinched as if he’d physically punched her. In her mind the truth was probably worse than a punch. And that’s why Joe instantly regretted it.
Dragging in a weary breath, Joe backtracked so he could try to smooth things over. Something he always seemed to be doing when it came to Janice.
“Millie isn’t going to smear Ella’s name,” he spelled out. “She’s using stories that Dara has given her. Good, positive stories of a daughter’s happy memories of a mother she loved.”
“I don’t believe that,” Janice fired back. “Of course Millie wants to get back at Ella. She wants revenge because she mistakenly believes my Ella was having an affair with her husband. Ella wasn’t doing anything of the sort. And there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can say that’ll make me believe otherwise.”
“Then, why was she in that car with Royce Dayton?” Joe snapped before he could stop himself. So much for smoothing over. He was adding some potholes and maybe even a crater to his and Janice’s already rocky relationship.
Janice stayed quiet for a moment. “I don’t know.” She swiped away a single tear that spilled down her cheek and repeated it.
Her second “I don’t know” lacked the anger of the first one. In fact, all the anger seemed to drain right out from her, and in its place came some very dark pain and grief.
On a heavy sigh, Joe walked toward her, intending to pull her into his arm
s and offer her what comfort he could, but Janice shook her head and stepped away from him. “Don’t,” she insisted. “I’m all right.”
No, she wasn’t. Janice was far from being all right, but Joe stayed put, figuring if she broke, it would only make things worse. No way would she want him to witness her having a full-fledged meltdown though he had to wonder if that would help in the long run. Heaven knew Janice needed something to shove her past this wall she’d built up around her.
And that’s when Joe realized something.
That Millie had helped him with his own shoving. His own wall demolition. The help hadn’t come as a meltdown but with the feelings he had for her. It didn’t matter that he was still uncertain about those feelings, it was a start that Millie had given him. Maybe, just maybe, he’d done the same for her. If so, they just might get through this hell on earth that had been doled out to them.
“My daughter didn’t cheat on you,” Janice stated after she’d composed herself. “And you should be doing everything possible to find out why she was with that man when she died. You should be working to clear her good name.”
Joe wanted to say that he didn’t want to find out or clear anybody’s name. But he did. It was another realization like the one about Millie, walls and shoving. He needed to know what had been going on with his wife that had caused her to be in that fatal car crash with Royce.
“Dara’s inside if you want to see her,” Joe pointed out when Janice got back in her car.
“Please tell her hello for me.” The woman was back to her icy, tight tone. “I’ll call her soon.”
Joe didn’t try to stop the woman. No sense in it. Janice had closed down again. But she’d also issued him a not-so-subtle call to action.
One that he’d take.
He went straight to his man-shed and took out Ella’s laptop that he’d stored away in a box on the highest shelf above her old worktable. The battery had long since been drained, but he fished out the charger cord, plugged it in and sat in his recliner while he turned it on. He had no trouble recalling the password Ella had used for all her online accounts so it opened right away for him.
Plain and simple, this was snooping, something he’d never thought he would do, but he sure as hell did it now. In fact, it was something he should have done months ago, if for no other reason than to rule out that there was something to find that Ella hadn’t wanted found.
Like proof of an affair.
He clicked on her email account and sat, and sat, and sat while the emails loaded. Apparently, the spam had just continued in the past two years, so he had to wade through ads for penis enlargements, weight loss pills and pleas to split inheritances if she provided a bank account number. There was one from a Nigerian astronaut wanting to sell bottles of air from outer space.
Joe skipped through all of those to make it to an email conversation between Ella and her high school friend from San Antonio, Shelby Wright. In the half dozen emails, they shared and tweaked recipes for Christmas cookies. Unless “cream the butter” and “dribble in food coloring” were code for something else, Ella hadn’t confided in her old pal.
There were some emails from Janice where she’d forwarded inspirational memes and such. Some back-and-forths with Frankie about preschool and pre-K recommendations for Little T. Joe kept scrolling until he got to an automated notice of a monthly statement from Liberty Bank in San Antonio.
He felt his chest tighten.
Ella and he had had a joint account for the bank in Last Ride, and he’d never heard her mention doing business with one in San Antonio. Maybe it was something Janice had set up for her way back before Ella and he had married.
But the tightening in his chest got worse.
He kept looking and saw that Ella had gotten one of the automated notice reminders every month since her death. Before her death, too. Joe finally made it to the first one. The one congratulating her on the account. She’d apparently opened it six months before she’d died.
Hell.
Why hadn’t Ella told him about this?
Shoving that question aside and cursing the continued tightness in his chest, he opened the bank statement issued the month she’d died. It took him to the bank site where he figured he’d stall because it would require a password. It did, but Ella had used an automatic password saver so all Joe had to do was click.
His finger hovered over the key.
And hovered.
Before he finally pressed it.
It took only a couple of seconds for the statement to load, and he saw that the account was in both Ella’s name and La La Land. The balance was $6,687.43. Not a fortune but definitely not pocket change, either. He worked his way through it and the other statements to find the initial deposit of six grand.
The date matched up with what Millie had told him. This was no doubt payment for the three paintings. Two thousand apiece. He supposed that was good money for a new artist. But there were other deposits, too, that appeared to be from other buyers for the paintings. No purchases were as big as the one from Once Upon a Time, but there had been a fairly steady stream of income in the six months Ella had had the account before she died.
A steady stream of monthly withdrawals, too.
Two months before her death, Ella had set up payments to Easy Storage, a place just on the outskirts of Last Ride. The payments had continued, including the most recent one of just a week earlier. So, the account was still active.
He opened up the last receipt and got the number of the unit she’d rented. Joe jotted it down, along with the account info, and then he just stared at it.
And stared.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to speculate about what would be in that unit, one that she hadn’t told her husband about, but it was hard for him to imagine that it had something to do with an affair with Royce.
Unless that’s where Ella had stored gifts he’d given her.
Royce would have had to be overly generous in the gift department though for her to need an entire storage unit. Then again, storing even small tokens from a lover would have kept Dara or him from running across them had she stashed them around the house.
He considered asking Dara if she knew about the unit. Or the bank account for that matter, but if she didn’t, then this might make her worry. It was certainly making Joe worry. Because even though there didn’t seem to be a reasonable explanation as to why Ella had been with Royce, Joe wanted to hang on to the possibility that there was one.
Either way, he needed an explanation whether it was reasonable or not. Hell, whether it crushed him or not. He didn’t have a bucket list like Dara and Millie, but there were plenty of things he should be doing. Like moving on with his life. He’d made a start of that with Millie, but he had a long way to go, and clearing up the past was part of that long way.
Joe sent a quick text to Dara to let her know he was running an errand. She tended to sleep late on Sundays, but she might be up. However, when she didn’t respond right away, he figured she was still in bed or in the shower.
He got in his truck and drove the fifteen or so minutes to get to the storage facility. Thankfully, he didn’t pass anyone along the way that he knew because he was positive that he had a very troubled expression right now. Anyone that saw him might think he’d finally snapped.
There was no attendant on duty at Easy Storage so he parked and walked through the rows of units until he came to number twenty-four. He’d expected there to be a standard sliding door with a padlock, but this was a temperature-controlled unit with a reinforced door and a keypad. The instructions on the keypad said to enter your four-digit pin for entry.
Joe tried Ella’s birth year. The lock didn’t budge, and the little light above the numbers stayed red. He tried Dara’s next. Still a no-go, and it didn’t open when Joe put in his own birth year.
Cursing, he hoped to hell that Ella ha
dn’t used just some random number. If so, it’d be a first since she always had trouble remembering passwords and such. It twisted at his gut more than a little to consider that the pin might have something to do with Royce. His birth year or, hell in a handbasket, some other numbers that lovers might hold dear.
Joe had no idea if the keypad would shut down if there were too many failed attempts to log in. He just kept going. The year Ella and he married. Janice’s birth year. The lock still didn’t budge. Until he typed in the year that Ella had graduated from high school.
Bingo.
The light on the keypad turned green, and the lock made a clicking sound when it disengaged. He reached out, turned the knob and opened the door just a fraction. He hated that he had to steel himself just to think about going in. Hated that the thought of what might be inside made him sick to his stomach.
Aggravated with himself and his gut reaction, he gave the door a kick with his boot, and it flew open. The cool air rushed out toward him, but he couldn’t see squat because the light was off. He fumbled around on the wall next to the door, located the switch and flipped it on.
And then he just stood there and took it in.
Shit.
The room was filled with yet more secrets.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MILLIE GRABBED THE two pregnancy tests that she’d bought from the Quik Stop the day before and shoved into her purse.
She cursed when she checked the time. It was already ten thirty. She’d lingered way too long in her bubble bath while dreaming of Joe, and she was now running late. She had to get the tests to Frankie, deal with the aftermath of the results and then head to the ranch to deal with whatever aftermath the research with Dara would cause.
At least the end of the research was in sight. She’d take the last of the stories from Dara, write them all up into the report and add them to the info she’d gotten from her internet searches. Then, she’d try to forget about Ella.
Fat chance, her mind whispered.
Millie couldn’t argue with her mind. Ella would always be there, a part of the memories that hovered like a storm cloud over her life. Still, Millie wanted to look through those clouds and see the bright side. The research had started what she now had with Joe.
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