White Picket Fences

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He sent her a sideways glance. “You mean that? You’d like to visit him?”

  “Yeah. I liked him.” Enough to put up with Sammie.

  “Then let’s do it,” Zack said. “I have a feeling he’d really like to see you again, too.”

  “Okay. When do you plan to go?”

  “Tomorrow, if you’d like.”

  Tomorrow was Friday, and it wasn’t as though she had any plans for the weekend. “Okay.”

  She waved at a woman who was out walking, one of her sister-in-law Becca’s sisters. Which meant Becca would be hearing that she and Zack had gone out skating together again. But Randi had been dealing with her family her entire life. She could handle their nosiness and misguided concern. “So how was he?” she asked, returning to their discussion of Rick.

  “He’s good.” Zack coasted around a corner.

  “He’s added another word to his vocabulary—no.”

  “Good for him!” Randi said. “At least now he can stick up for himself.”

  “He asked about you.”

  “Since he only has two words in his vocabulary, neither of which is Randi, how did he ask for me?”

  “Same way we have many of our conversations. He kept looking at the door, his eyes asking the questions. I guessed until I got it right.”

  She wondered how many guesses it took. And where the conversation had gone from there. Zack didn’t offer that information and Randi was afraid to ask. Wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he’d said about her. If he’d said anything at all. She’d grown up with four brothers. She knew how guys talked.

  “Did you tell him I’m going to beat you next time we race?”

  “I didn’t know that you were.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Randi murmured, grinning.

  They’d just arrived at the elementary-and-junior-high-school complex, and Randi skated up on the sidewalk that surrounded the entire school property. Because it encompassed a good-size playground, a track, football and soccer fields and a baseball diamond, the sidewalk was almost a mile long.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Once around.” She was off before he’d agreed, but he was quick. He’d be right behind her.

  And that was the idea. Randi wasn’t sure she could beat him without a head start. It was an intriguing phenomenon—and an unusual one.

  Knees bent, body forward, she pushed off with all her might, wishing she’d thought to spray the bearings in her wheels. Surely she should be getting more reward for her effort.

  He was right on her tail and Randi pumped harder. She could beat him. She could do anything she set her mind to. She could beat him. She could do anything…

  The mantra continued in her head as she flew around the school, swerving and turning as the sidewalk wound this way and that, taking dips and hills, avoiding stray stones. She approached the last few yards of the impromptu course, and just as she reached the last two squares of sidewalk, Zack whizzed by her.

  “Damn.” She coasted to a stop, then bent over to catch her breath.

  It was something of a salve to her pride to see that he was as winded as she was. That gave her hope.

  “I’m rotating and cleaning my wheels this weekend,” she panted. “I’ll get you next time.”

  “My wheels probably need maintenance, too,” Zack said, starting slowly down the street. Randi went after him and soon caught up with him, wondering if her skates were really the explanation for her loss.

  RICK WAS IN HIS CHAIR, out in the hallway, head lolling on his chest, when Randi and Zack arrived the next afternoon. Sammie saw him first, tail wagging as she approached him. She sniffed the limp hand lying on the arm of the chair, licked it. Randi cringed, hoping the dog didn’t upset him.

  After all, it wasn’t as though Rick could pull his hand away.

  “Is he sleeping?” Randi asked softly.

  “Maybe.” Zack shrugged. “But probably not. He can’t hold his head up, and without the restraint, it does that.”

  “Hey, Rick, my man, how you doing?” Zack asked, lifting Rick’s head and settling it in the brace attached to the back of his chair as easily as if he was shaking the other man’s hand.

  Rick blinked once.

  “Look who I brought to visit you,” Zack said, turning Rick’s chair so he could see Randi.

  She smiled. Rick blinked three times.

  “What’s he saying?”

  Sammie barked once.

  Zack laughed. “I think they’re both saying hello.” He wheeled Rick’s chair into his room. Sammie trotted after them, but stopped just inside the door.

  “Sssss…”

  “Ssssss…”

  Rick tried six times before he managed to say the name. Randi had to bite her tongue not to blurt it out for him.

  “Ssssaaaammm.” When he finally said it, Randi turned expectantly to Zack’s dog. She was smiling as she waited for Rick to receive his hard-won reward.

  Sammie continued to sit by the door. Randi looked at Zack, who was standing just to the side of Rick’s chair. He shook his head.

  Frowning, Randi glanced back at Rick. Because he couldn’t smile or frown distinctly, it was hard to tell just what the man was thinking, but it didn’t matter. Randi couldn’t just stand there.

  “Make her go to him,” she told Zack. When he didn’t move, she moved towards Sammie herself.

  “Stop,” Zack said.

  Rick’s eyes were blinking furiously.

  “He wants to show you the progress he’s made,” Zack interpreted.

  Confused, Randi stood and watched as Rick’s right hand fumbled along the arm of his chair, falling off, then getting back on. It looked as if he was moving his hand forward, toward the little joystick near the end of the arm.

  Randi looked at Zack, biting her lip when she saw the intense concentration on his face as he watched the other man. This was as hard for Zack as it was for her, the frustration of not being able to help, of not being able to do for him what he couldn’t do for himself.

  Except that Rick could.

  After fifteen minutes of trying, with sweat dripping down the sides of his face, Rick finally got his hand on the joystick. Slowly, with jerking starts and stops, his chair began to move.

  A couple of minutes later, Rick was sitting beside Sammie—beside Randi—and as his hand lifted to the dog, as Sammie licked the hand that was petting her so awkwardly, Randi could have sworn she saw a smile on Rick’s crooked lips.

  RANDI COULDN’T GET the episode out of her mind as they drove back to Shelter Valley that evening. Her opinion of Zack rose every time she was with him. Never had she known a man so strong, so sure and at the same time so compassionate.

  Her opinion of Sammie had risen, too. Not that she wanted to be friends with the dog. She didn’t. Couldn’t believe she’d actually reached for Sammie’s collar like that. But she was impressed with the dog’s patience. Her ability to help a man who’d had no life left.

  As Zack turned his car toward Randi’s street, they passed a young boy sitting on his bike at the end of his driveway. He was thin, with short brown hair and very expressive eyes. Randi didn’t know him, didn’t know who he belonged to and wondered if someone new had moved to town.

  “Did you ever see the movie The Sixth Sense?” Zack asked.

  “No. I wanted to, but I didn’t get to Phoenix while it was still playing.”

  “That boy back there looks just like the kid in the movie. Almost makes me shiver.”

  “I take it you saw it.”

  “Several times. It was extremely well-done.”

  “I’ll have to rent it sometime soon.”

  “You don’t need to rent it. I own a copy. You could come by my place later and we can watch it together.”

  Randi hesitated. “How about if I just borrow it from you sometime?”

  “You got other plans tonight?” He looked over at her. Frowned.

  “No.” But she couldn’t go to his house. Too much risk that she might forget her plans. Her d
ecisions. His adamant refusal to consider another long-term relationship.

  “It’s a movie you shouldn’t see alone. At least not the first time.”

  “I’m always fine alone.”

  “So, maybe I don’t feel like playing catch with Sammie tonight. Come on, take pity on me.”

  She hated to disappoint him.

  And he didn’t seem the least bit concerned about their spending an evening alone in his home. This from a man who’d made it very clear that one night with her had been enough.

  What was she worried about?

  “Can we pick up frozen pizza?”

  “Do you ever think of anything but your stomach?”

  “I burn a lot of calories.”

  He looked over at her. She could feel him looking. Could almost feel the touch of his eyes as they roamed her body.

  “I’ll get a pizza,” was all he said.

  She’d probably just imagined the rest. She needed to get a grip. Decide on a goal for the weekend. A project. One she could master by Monday. She’d always been good at focusing on her goals.

  ZACK HAD THE PIZZA in the oven by the time Randi arrived at his place. She’d not only showered but put on real clothes. A pair of jeans, a blouse. She was wearing shoes that weren’t white—they weren’t even running shoes. He was barefoot, in a pair of sweat shorts and a T-shirt. Dressed like any of her brothers getting ready for a slovenly afternoon of football.

  He looked a hell of a lot better than her brothers ever had in that kind of outfit, but the message came through loud and clear: this evening was nothing special to him. Feeling a little foolish, she took due note.

  Sammie greeted her at the door, nudging her hand. Randi smiled down at the dog, patted her head once and moved quickly to the side.

  “Stay,” Zack told the dog as they moved into the house. Sammie lay down on the tile by the front door, head between her paws.

  “Where’s Bear?” Randi asked. She was trying to be polite, to show interest in the other members of his household, but mostly she just wanted to make sure she didn’t run into Bear unawares. Bear was old. And old dogs were even more unpredictable than the rest of them.

  She could still feel the blood trickling down her neck from the edge of her hairline…. A neighbor’s old dog had chased her down the sidewalk. The dog had run faster than two-year-old Randi. And jumped at her from behind….

  “He’s in the kitchen,” Zack said, “finishing up his dinner. It takes him a while. Which is why Sammie’s out here.”

  And Randi had thought Sammie’s orders were because of her.

  “She’s not allowed to watch him eat?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at the dog as she followed Zack around the corner and into the living room.

  “She doesn’t merely watch,” Zack said. “She tries to help him, and he gets a little cantankerous about that.”

  “Just like a guy,” Randi murmured. She wouldn’t be going into his kitchen anytime soon.

  The house was nice. Only a couple of miles from her own, in a slightly upscale neighborhood. Larger than hers, with lots of windows and a no-stucco finish. It even had a white picket fence. But what it gained in location, it lost in interior decor.

  “How long have you lived here?” Randi asked as she looked around. The living room was large—open and airy with big windows—the furniture all leather and new-looking. But…

  “Almost a year.”

  “You have nothing on your walls.”

  And nothing in his spare bedroom, either.

  “I’ve never been too interested in decorating,” he said.

  “Well, sure, I can understand that.” Sort of. “But don’t you have anything you’ve collected through the years? A few photographs, maybe? A trophy?” She peeked into his office, empty except for the desk. “A diploma?”

  “I left everything with my ex-wife.”

  “Everything?” Randi asked, still staring around his virtually empty office. “She finds herself another man and you give her everything you own?”

  With only a shrug, he led her back down the hall to the spacious living room without giving her a glimpse behind the closed door, which had to be the master bedroom.

  She vacillated between relief and disappointment. She’d wondered so many times, as she’d lain in her bed alone at night, where he slept. Tried to picture him there.

  He’d provided no visual information to make that any easier.

  SHE FINDS HERSELF another man… Randi’s words haunted Zack as he brought pizza and drinks to the living room, setting everything on the coffee table in front of the couch. Sammie came over to investigate, but at Zack’s command, crawled under the coffee table and lay down.

  He had to grin as, dog somewhat contained, Randi dug right in, helping herself to a beer and a couple of pieces of pepperoni pizza.

  “Mmm. Heaven,” she said, taking a healthy bite.

  But his grin faded too soon. By his silence, he was allowing Randi to think something that wasn’t true. That his ex-wife had left him for another man.

  Zack knew he’d had nothing to do with Dawn’s choice. That he’d had nothing to do with Dawn’s attraction to women. Yet, no matter how many times he told himself that, no matter how clearly he grasped it intellectually, he still felt responsible somehow.

  Had he not been warm enough for her? Had he lacked understanding? Shown too little emotion?

  “Come on, have some before I eat it all,” Randi said, motioning toward the pizza with the paper plate in her hand.

  Zack sat. He took a slice of his favorite spoil-himself snack—not that he’d tell Randi that or he’d never live it down, not with the ribbing he’d given her earlier—but he was still uncomfortable.

  He had a right to his privacy. Owed Randi nothing.

  And yet…

  “When Dawn told me she wanted a divorce,” he began abruptly, “she just dropped it out of nowhere one morning while we were getting ready for work. There was no discussion. Absolutely no hope of working on anything. She was in love with…someone else and was filing for divorce that very day.”

  Great, Foster. Entice the lady with charming dinner conversation.

  Not that he was out to charm Randi. Maybe just ease his conscience a bit.

  “What a bitch.” Randi said between bites. Her eyes were filled with compassion. God, she was beautiful.

  He bowed his head, picking up a piece of pizza, holding it.

  “She wasn’t, really,” he said, admitting something it had taken him a year to accept. “Dawn was—is—a very caring, intelligent woman. She couldn’t help that she met her soul mate five years after she’d married me.”

  “Why was she even looking five years after she married you?”

  Good question.

  “She didn’t go with a joyful heart,” Zack said, instead. “I could see how much it hurt her to break up our partnership. How much she wished it could have been different. I honestly believe she would’ve done anything to change how she felt. But…she couldn’t.”

  “You’re very generous.”

  The smirk on Zack’s face held no humor. No sarcasm, either. “I just know my limits.”

  “And those are?”

  Bear wandered in, sniffed at their feet, at the coffee table, and wandered over to the tile in front of the fireplace to lie down.

  “If it had to be over, it was over. She’d laid everything out, sparing herself nothing. And when someone’s being humble like that, admitting her wrongs and her needs with such honesty, it’s a little hard to have any hope for what just died. I knew I had to accept what she was telling me and move on.

  “There was no way I was going through weeks of packing, dividing up what was mine, what was hers. Reliving memories that no longer meant anything.”

  Randi froze, a flopping piece of pizza on the way to her mouth. “You just walked away.”

  Zack nodded, took his first bite of pizza.

  “You and Dawn never spoke about terms, about anything?”<
br />
  “Nope.”

  “Not even through attorneys?”

  He shook his head again. “I walked out and never looked back. Several months ago, divorce papers arrived, I signed them, mailed them back, and that was that.” And he’d do it exactly the same way if he had it to do over again.

  Things didn’t matter. They could be replaced.

  “She was so selfish that she not only betrayed your relationship but served you with papers giving her everything?”

  “No.” He continued to eat. He hadn’t told her the whole truth, but he still felt better. “I’m entitled to half of everything. The profit from the sale of the house, the belongings, a few other assets.”

  “So where are they?”

  In boxes, in an air-conditioned storage unit, according to the note he’d received through Dawn’s attorney with the final divorce decree. And in a safe-deposit box in a Phoenix bank.

  But because he wasn’t prepared to explain to Randi why he was leaving all that stuff right where it was, because he couldn’t tell her why it was only salt in a wound that was still too raw, he just shrugged. Again.

  “I transferred my half of all the monies into a separate account the morning I left,” he said. “I don’t need anything else. Now, how about this movie?”

  Randi gave him an odd searching glance, then sat back, another piece of pizza on her plate. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Grabbing the remote control, he clicked on the large-screen television set and the DVD player, and sat back to be terrorized with someone else’s visions for a change.

  THE MOVIE WAS better than he remembered, the pizza apparently not as good as it had seemed. Randi’s voracious appetite vanished almost before the opening credits had rolled by.

  The first time Zack had seen The Sixth Sense had been with Dawn. She’d been truly frightened, disturbed beyond the vicarious thrill the experience was meant to impart. Somehow she’d had a hard time recognizing that although the story was told extremely well, it was still only a story. Fiction. Entertainment. She’d sunk lower and lower in her seat, eventually falling asleep on his shoulder until the movie was over and they could leave.

  If he’d had any idea it was affecting her that strongly, he’d have left long before that. There was no way he would’ve subjected her to such discomfort, but just like everything else in their marriage, he hadn’t had a clue until it was too late to do anything about it.