by Leger, Lori
She opened her compact and groaned at her reflection. “I threw on a little war paint during the drive over here, but Max Factor is a poor substitution for sleep.” She snapped the compact closed and dropped it in her purse before facing him. His smile had her stomach flipping in nervous anticipation. Jesus, what was it about the man that made her feel like a gawky, inexperienced teenager? She forced her thoughts away from the co-worker who seemed to grow on her more every day.
“Another phone call?”
“Several.”
“Maybe it’s only a prank. You know, some kid who dialed a number at random and remembered it to keep jerking your chain.”
“Whoever he is, he knows my name, because he whispered it to me.” She stopped Sam from asking the obvious question. “I couldn’t tell who it was.” She shivered. “At least the dogs didn’t go nuts afterwards so I don’t think he came snooping around. I think I’d have had a stroke.”
Carrie approached the snack machine for a breakfast bar, then the kitchen, where the aroma of freshly brewed coffee called to her.
Sam followed, leaning his long torso against the doorjamb. “Anything else you can remember about the calls?”
Carrie prepared her coffee and propped herself against the cabinet. “They’re always disturbing, but the fact that he wouldn’t stop made it creepier. You know, this would be so much easier if it was Dave, but he’s obviously moved on.”
“Can I say one more time what a fool your ex was?”
She bit back a smile, marveling at how a single comment from him could totally lift her spirits. “I appreciate that, Sam. When I think back on the person I used to be before I met him, and remember how I was when I was with him, I can’t figure out when the old me disappeared. I don’t believe my children have ever met her.”
“Maybe it’s time to introduce them.”
She sipped her coffee, lowered the cup. “I will, as soon as I find her again.” They both turned toward the door as J.C. walked into the kitchen, fairly growling.
“What’s going on in here?”
“Sam’s letting me vent.”
J.C. raised one eyebrow. “Is your ex still dropping by unannounced?”
She gave him a halfhearted shrug and nodded. “Not as often. He just wants me out of the house. Staying at his mom’s must be putting a serious cramp in his single life.”
J.C.’s eyes glittered with excitement. “You want me to whip his ass for you?”
Carrie laughed at her friend. “Don’t offer if you’re not willing to follow through.”
Sam crossed one booted foot over another. “Yeah, don’t let your mouth write checks your ass ain’t willing to cash.”
J.C. chuckled as he refilled his coffee cup. “Isn’t he about my height?”
Carrie grinned at her friend. “Yeah, but I think you could take him. You’re probably one of those Crazy Cajuns who jumps into bayous to wrestle alligators with a knife.”
J.C. gave her a disgruntled look. “I do not. You’d have to be an idiot to do something that stupid.” He pointed a finger at his chest and put on a thicker than normal Cajun accent. “Mais sha, I went to college too, yeah.”
Carrie laughed and came back with her own homegrown accent. “Mais, I’m sorry if you got da wrong imprassion. I wouldn’t do dat, no, me bein’ from dat petit, tiny town of Gardiner. You know, we can parlais de Cajun French purty damn good over dere, too, yeah.”
J.C’s. chest rumbled with laughter. “And can I jus’ say dat you do it justice, my fran.”
Carrie gave him an exaggerated curtsey. “Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Carter.”
“You’re welcome.” He left the room with his mug full of wake-him-up.
Sam shifted and cleared his throat. “So, once you move to Gardiner how much farther will it be to drive to work?”
“About ten miles and twice a day.”
“Times five is a hundred miles per week, four hundred miles a month, and about five thousand miles a year. I know. That’s what I save by carpooling.”
“That’s in addition to the two thousand miles I drive every month. My paycheck’s already stretched too thin.”
“The divorce settlement should help you out, though.”
Carrie’s laugh reverberated through the room. “If Dave’s payments come like they’re supposed to, my car note and school loan will be taken care of. Rent, food, fuel, and utilities will eat up the rest of my income. You have to understand that during the wintertime, plant work can get kind of lean, so it may affect his payments. I’m scratching to make ends meet now, and I’ll be scratching even more if I can ever move out.”
“Well, if he skips a note, throw his ass in jail.”
“Yeah, that’d go over big with my kids.”
“I’d do it.”
Carrie frowned and pushed away from the counter. “That’s because they’re not your kids. Besides, none of this is your concern, is it?”
She rolled to a stop in front of her mailbox, groaning at the sight of Dave’s truck parked in the drive.
By the time she’d parked the car, hauled her things inside, and exchanged her shoes for a pair of warm, fuzzy slippers she kept at the door, she was shivering. Rather than raise the thermostat, she shuffled into her bedroom for a sweater to throw over her shirt—and still no visual on Dave.
She listened at the twins’ door and heard the steady beat of a pop tune from inside the room. She knocked once, then poked her head inside.
Gretchen sat propped up against her headboard, reading a library book, while Lauren lay on her stomach atop her bedspread, doing math homework.
“Hey, Mom.” As usual, their voices synchronized for a single comment.
Carrie smiled and walked into the room, searching for any hints of disturbance from her daughters. “Everything all right?”
Gretchen looked up, her demeanor indicating nothing but total relaxation. “Everything’s fine.”
Carrie gave her a quick nod and turned to Lauren, whose body language betrayed her frame of mind. Pencil clenched tightly in her right hand, forehead resting on the open palm of her left, she bit down on her lower lip.
“Lauren?” Carrie’s daughter turned her huge brown eyes, so like her father’s, and lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.
“Are you upset about something?” Carrie stepped over to sit on her daughter’s bed.
Without saying a word, Lauren closed her eyes and dropped her forehead on Carrie’s shoulder. A sound from the doorway alerted Carrie to Dave’s presence.
“Of course she’s upset. You broke up the family.”
Carrie wrapped her daughter in a hug, but ignored his calculated words. “It’ll be fine, Lauren. How’d your appointment with the school counselor go this morning?”
Lauren sniffed and wiped her eyes. “It was okay. She said lots of kids feel like this when their parents get divorced. But Gretchen and Grant don’t.”
“No two people handle situations the same way, but you’ll be fine. I’m here if you want to talk.”
Lauren made a halfhearted attempt to smile.
Carrie rose from the bed and turned toward the doorway where Dave stood, arms crossed stubbornly over his chest. She stepped around him and pulled her daughters’ bedroom door shut on her way to the kitchen.
“You heard any more about that rental in Gardiner?”
She stopped and threw back an annoyed look. “It’s still not available until January fifteenth.”
He sent her a scathing look. “Well, I thought you’d have had your family trying to pull some strings to get you in there sooner. I know they all hate me.”
She walked into the kitchen to start supper. “They don’t hate you, Dave.” Within two minutes, she had a package of thawed ground round frying, a pot of water heating for pasta, and two jars of spaghetti sauce sitting on the counter, ready to add to the meat.
Dave looked over her shoulder. “What are you cooking?”
She quirked one brow at her ex. “Are you really th
at dense, or just making an attempt at polite conversation?”
He laughed—that laugh—the one that made the nerves and muscles at the base of her skull spasm with irritation. She clenched her jaw and arched her neck slightly.
“I can see you’re making spaghetti, so polite conversation it is.”
Carrie glanced at the twins’ bedroom door, hesitant to cause a scene that would only upset Lauren more than she already was. She grabbed a large spoon and concentrated on breaking up the ground meat as it cooked. Tired of having Dave watch her every move, she banged the spoon loudly against the side of the pot and dropped it with a clatter onto the spoon rest. “Look, I said you could see the kids anytime you want, but if you come just to upset our daughter, I’ll put a stop to it.”
“I thought maybe you’d let me stay for supper.”
She kept her voice low and even. “Why would you think that?”
He shrugged. “Mom spent the day in Lafayette at the doctor’s.”
“And what did you do today?”
“I went hunting this morning. I shot my limit too.”
“Did you clean the birds yourself or leave them for your mom to clean after she’d been to the doctor and driving all day?”
He glared at her. “I cleaned them myself.”
“Did you clean up her kitchen when you were done?”
“Yes, I did, as a matter of fact.”
Carrie spoke in a tight voice. “You should have cooked supper for your mom when you finished. You know how tired she is after her appointments, especially when she has a stress test scheduled, like she did today.”
Dave’s eyes narrowed angrily. He straightened and stalked over to the door before swinging around to point at her. “You’ve got until the end of next week to get your shit out here. After that, I’m moving back in, whether you like it or not.”
She turned her attention to the meat frying in the pan. “The end of next week. I’ll be out.”
He stalked out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
Carrie grinned as she stirred the pot. “Don’t go away mad. Just go away.”
Carrie stopped loading the dishwasher to answer the phone.
“Hey.” Dave’s tone was considerably more subdued. “You don’t have to move out until your place is ready.”
“What happened? Ruby chewed you out?”
“Shut the hell up.”
Carrie laughed. “Your mom loves me, jerk.”
He snorted. “Yeah, she does. All my family loves you, but your mom hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you, although you’ve given her plenty of reasons to.”
“What about you?”
She closed the door of the dishwasher and set it to start. “She doesn’t hate me either.”
“Always the smart ass.”
Carrie wiped at the kitchen counter. “I don’t hate you either, Dave, but I need to get out of here before I do.” She thought of the early morning phone calls, thinking again how she’d feel safer if Dave was making them. An old quote she’d had to memorize in the sixth grade came to mind. Greater is our terror of the unknown. No kidding.
“Carrie—”
“G’night, Dave.” She ended the call quickly. “It’s too damn late for heart to hearts,” she muttered, before locking up the house and flipping off the kitchen light.
Carrie opened her eyes but didn’t move another muscle. She stared at the bleary glow of red digital numbers coming from the nightstand; blinked them into focus, as four eleven turned to four twelve. Rain pelted the window, overflowed the gutters as thunder rumbled, low and threatening, from miles away.
She lay tense and frozen, certain of one thing. Something had awakened her. A sound? A stir in the air? A sense of not being alone?
Whatever it was had been strong enough to cut her dream short, only her second about her father since his death thirteen years earlier. She’d been having a cup of coffee with him at her kitchen table, while he said how proud he was of her for going to college—for getting away from Dave.
She felt the drip of water on her forehead a millisecond before he whispered her name.
She jerked away from the sound, fully awake now, as her tension-filled body responded to the intrusion. Willing her eyes to adjust to the dark, she finally recognized the outline of Dave’s face, mere inches from her own. She smelled his rain soaked hair, beer on his breath, and cigarette smoke from whatever bar he’d come from, as well as a telltale trace of perfume.
“What the hell, Dave?”
“I’m coming home.”
Her heart pounded from a massive rush of adrenaline. “I changed the locks. How the hell did you get inside?”
He answered in a low, hoarse whisper. “You can’t keep me out of here. This is my home. I built it, and I need to be back in it with my kids.”
“Asshole!” Furious with him, she pushed him away and threw the covers off to sit up. “Get off me. It’s barely four o’clock, Dave.”
“It couldn’t wait. I’m losing my mind at Mom’s.”
“Oh, please. It’s too damn early in the morning for dramatics.” She got out of bed and grabbed her phone.
“Who the hell are you calling at this hour? Your boyfriend?” His tone dripped with bitterness and anger.
Carrie jabbed at the dial pad, glaring at Dave as she waited. After a few seconds, she spoke calmly into the phone.
“Hey, sweetie, I’m sorry as hell to wake you up like this, but my ex-asshole isn’t giving me much of a choice. Would it be okay if the kids and I stayed at your place just until the middle of January? I’ll be able to move into my rent house then. It is? Thanks babe. I’ll come here straight from work and pick up a few things, and we’ll be there later this afternoon. What’s that? No, I don’t mind sharing the bed with you. Thanks again and sorry for waking you up so early. Wouldn’t have done it if I’d had any other choice.”
She ended the call and locked herself inside her master bath to get ready for work. Dave’s muffled voice carried from beyond the bathroom door.
“Who’d you call?” he asked, keeping his voice low for a change.
Carrie thought of all the phone calls he’d made from her home to other women. All those numbers he hadn’t been able to explain away. One in particular came to mind. One number she’d dared to call back.
A woman had answered, her tone low and seductive. “You’d freak if you could see what I’m wearing now, baby.”
She’d answered dryly. “I’m sure it’s just what I’d be expecting someone like you to wear. Which slut of the month are you? This is his wife, by the way. You know, the woman who’s wasted her youth on a man who doesn’t give a damn about her or their three kids?”
She’d relived it countless times—both the conversation and the reverberating echo of that ‘other woman’ slamming the phone down.
Dave muttered a foul curse from the other side of the door, as Carrie beamed back at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She didn’t get to turn it around on him often, but her sense of victory provided a cheery start to this dismally wet and gloomy day.
December 21st
Carrie pushed open the back door of the office and shook out her umbrella.
Dale paused in front of her holding a steaming mug of coffee. “All this crappy weather, and you’re still early. You’re such a dedicated employee.”
She chuckled, thanking God once more for her easy-going boss. “I had a little inspiration this morning.”
Roxie joined them, empty cup in hand. “What kind of inspiration?”
“I got a four a.m. ultimatum from my ex.” She deposited her purse at her desk and followed Roxie into the kitchen. She’d just finished telling Roxie about her close encounter of the ugly kind when someone pushed open the door, stomping and swearing.
Roxie stepped back to see who else had braved the weather to come in. “Look who’s here. I see you didn’t melt in this rain, Sam. You must have floated in, like a turd.”
Sam pulle
d a bandana from his pocket and wiped the moisture from his hands and face. “I know it’s a stretch for you, Rox, but could you at least try to be a lady?”
She answered with a snort on the way to her desk.
Sam nodded to Carrie. “That must have been a hell of a drive all the way from your place this morning. It’s really coming down out there.”
“It wasn’t too bad. I left early enough, thank God.”
“No,” Roxie added. “Thank Dave.”
Carrie intercepted Sam’s curious gaze. “He woke me up early this morning, that’s all.”
She flipped open a set of plans, smiling as she heard Dale rib Sam about being at the office so early, especially in rain that should last all day, according to weather reports.
“Your crew took the whole two weeks off, Sam. Hell, if Carrie wasn’t here, you’d have kept your ass at home.”
Sam’s obvious attraction to Carrie was a commonly discussed subject around the office—so common that both had become immune to their co-workers’ teasing. Carrie would only admit it was good for her ego.
Sam scratched at his neatly trimmed goatee. “All I have to do is show up to get paid. It’s money in the bank.” He paused at Carrie’s desk to pick up a large rubber band and looped it around his fingers. “What’cha doing today?” He aimed it at her, ready to launch.
She lifted one finger in warning. “Don’t even think about it.”
He chuckled and launched the band to the other side of the room instead. “You studying for another certification?”
“Yep.”
“You study too much. Why don’t you take a break?”
“If I wait too long, I’ll forget the math I re-learned in technical college.”
“But it’s raining outside. There are only a few of us here today.”
She flipped to a clean sheet on her engineering tablet. “I need to pass these tests, Sam. It’ll take a couple of promotions before my salary rises above the poverty level.”
Carrie tried to smother her grin as Sam turned away, looking every bit as deprived as her girls when she said no to sleepovers. Despite the weather, and her rude awakening, she was in a great mood. As Sam disappeared into his office, she couldn’t help but wonder if he was the cause.