by Leigh Tudor
Loren was so disappointed. All she wanted to do was make Alec a gourmet meal and then shove it down his condescending throat.
And then lick it.
As she roamed the aisles, nothing was good enough, special enough.
Gourmet enough.
“Hello, there.”
Loren looked up from the frozen bread section to see Mrs. Waterman with her own grocery cart. Instinctively, Loren looked behind her to see who she was saying hello to as Mercy blurted in an overly loud and frantic voice, “Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
“It is.” Mrs. Waterman’s eyes widened as if unaccustomed to being verbally attacked in the frozen food aisle, and she nodded, seeming just as nervous as Loren was shocked.
“I wanted to ask you something, Loren.”
Having become a deaf-mute, all Loren was capable of was a quick tilt of her head. This was the first time one of the women from Wilder had willingly spoken to either of them, with the exception of Mrs. Roberts, and now she didn’t seem to know what to do. Or say.
And then there was the thing with her hands. Why did they hang so awkwardly? They suddenly seemed overly large and unnatural. And what does one do with them when conversing casually with others?
Mrs. Waterman cleared her throat. “I was wondering what you did for exercise.”
Loren couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d been hit with a high-voltage stun gun. She leaned her head slightly forward. “For exercise?” She must not have heard correctly.
Mrs. Waterman continued, “Yes, after yesterday’s self-defense class some of us were wondering how you and your sister stay . . . so fit.”
“Oh,” Loren said, “well, we work in the yard a lot.”
Mrs. Waterman seemed disappointed in that admission, as if there had to be some deeply held secret to her and Mercy’s toned biceps.
Loren struggled with an answer she was safe to share. “And we walk a lot.”
She appeared even more disheartened.
“We spar,” Mercy verbally vomited.
Loren’s eyes went wide, and then she just as quickly squeezed them shut. Mercy was never very good at withholding information. Case in point, one particular assignment in Southeast Asia that went a little sideways, Loren had to intervene when Mercy caved after only two minutes of waterboarding.
And of course, Mrs. Waterman perked up. “Oh, really?”
Mercy nodded with nothing short of glee. “Loren and I have been sparring for years. Tell her, Loren.”
Cara was not going to like this. “Yes, well, it’s really nothing—”
But Mercy had the woman’s rapt attention and wouldn’t let it go. “Loren started sparring first and taught me everything I know. I mean, we had . . . instructors, but it was Loren who taught me how to throw a punch.” She lifted her shirt. “Check out our abs,” She began to lift Loren’s tee.
“Mercy!” Loren batted her hands down.
Mrs. Waterman smiled shyly. “Would you be willing to teach us what you do, the sparring? Help us to look like that.” She continued, “I could speak with Pastor Roberts and his wife about starting a class—”
For the first time since this ludicrous conversation began, Loren’s eyes body-checked Mrs. Waterman, and was surprised because she found her to be very attractive. Nothing worth changing in her mind, but it must have taken so much for her to ask for help from someone she hadn’t seemed to care too much for just the day before.
“Well, I guess we could consider it,” Loren suggested, liking the idea of sparring again and not having to hide it. “I’m not sure the pastor will want to support a class on fighting.”
Mrs. Waterman nodded thoughtfully. “Isn’t sparring like self-defense?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t want to step on Officer Tuckus’ toes.”
“That was only a one-time class.” Mrs. Waterman’s eyes started to light up. “Look,” she said, glancing behind her as if searching for eavesdroppers, “I love living in Wilder, but sometimes it can seem so stagnant and bland. I don’t want to turn into some boring small-town housewife who only knows how to cook and maintain a house. This is a chance to do something out of the ordinary, and maybe even tone up a bit.”
“She’ll do it,” Mercy offered up. “And I’ll watch all your kids like I did yesterday.”
Mrs. Waterman smiled wide, and Loren just couldn’t resist the feeling of helping to put that smile on her face.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
“Just one more thing,” Mercy interjected, “just how good of a cook are you?”
When Mercy explained their dinner dilemma, Mrs. Waterman —who insisted they call her Becky—came to their rescue. She called her husband, informing him she had a philanthropic event to attend that she’d forgotten, told him to order a pizza, and then began filling their grocery cart with food.
According to Becky, gourmet food to a Texan of the male persuasion meant something very different from the recipes Loren researched on the epicurean website.
Gourmet to a man from Wilder meant a thick slab of a perfectly seasoned piece of meat. And, although Beef Wellington was technically a meat dish, Becky was sure Alec would have been less than impressed with the puff pastry that it was wrapped in, not to mention the petite foie gras in the list of ingredients.
“Rex usually wants to grill our steaks,” Becky said, placing the platter on the kitchen table, “but I prefer my steak seared in an iron skillet like my grandma used to make.”
Which was good because they didn’t have a grill, but Mercy was able to fish out an iron skillet that had belonged to the previous renter.
Mercy proudly lifted the skillet for everyone’s viewing pleasure as Becky stood in the middle of the kitchen scanning the collateral damage wreaked on the countertops from Loren’s previous cooking attempt.
Loren looked around the room as a rosy glow of embarrassment worked its way up her neck. Being completely transparent, Loren and Mercy weren’t very good at cleaning. Prior to the initial cooking fiasco, the kitchen sink had already been full of dishes and the trash can overflowing.
Come to think of it, the rest of the house was in no better condition.
Becky finally closed her gaping mouth, and asked, “You’re expecting dinner guests?”
Mercy was still proudly holding the iron skillet as Loren worked toward an explanation, “The house kind of got away from us this week.”
“O . . . kay,” Becky said, nodding her head. “We have a short amount of time to work with, but if we all chip in, we should have this place spick-and-span in no time.”
Assuming the role of a drill sergeant, Becky was true to her word. In no time, she had Loren elbow-deep in dishwashing suds while she began to cook. At the same time, she gave Mercy and Cara tasks and instructed them to report back after they were completed, only to be replaced with new ones.
An hour and a half later, Becky pulled her dessert out of the oven. She called it banana pudding, and Loren marveled at the lightly browned meringue that looked like puffy clouds, nothing like the coarse and grainy meringue that was currently drawing some of the less exacting woodland creatures in the backyard.
Becky stood straight, wearing a smile of satisfaction. “There you have it. Skillet-seared rib eyes, Idaho baked potatoes with herbed butter, and my mother’s banana pudding, a gourmet meal, according to your typical alpha male from the state of Texas.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Becky,” Loren said with her hands clasped under her chin while Mercy and Cara each slumped in a kitchen chair. “And the house looks great. We couldn’t have done this without you.”
“You give me a six-pack like yours and teach me to spar, and we’ll be even,” she said, grabbing her purse from the chair. “I’m also gonna need you to tell me all the details about dinner with Alec Wilder. He lives close to the vest since all that happened with his ex-wife. Rarely leaves the farm unless it’s for Ally.”
Loren walked with Becky to the front door. “His ex-wife?”
she asked, not wanting to sound overly interested.
Becky looked at her with surprise. “No one told you he’d been married?”
Loren didn’t want to admit that no one had bothered to strike up a conversation with her or Mercy until today.
“I don’t like to spread rumors, but Marisa was a hot mess, as in a crazy hot mess. Alec married her after his parents died, and he gained custody of Ally. It was a whirlwind romance, and I guess he thought she’d be a mother figure for Ally while he was stationed overseas. She ended up being loose in the head. Abused that little girl something terrible.”
Loren’s head jerked back, and she suddenly felt nauseous. “Abused Ally?”
“Beat her, left her in the closet for hours. All sorts of horrible things.”
“How did he find out?”
“Came home on leave as a surprise. Found Ally beat and malnourished, locked in her bedroom while his wife was in the kitchen sipping chamomile tea, staring off into space and singing church hymns.”
“Nobody in town knew?”
“She wasn’t from around here. Showed up out of nowhere. She bolted from her parents’ home in Montana along with five grand in cash, landed in Wilder, and set her sights on Alec.”
Loren blinked as Cara slipped back behind the piano and began playing. She woodenly opened the front door, trying to absorb the information Becky shared.
Puzzles had fascinated Loren as a child, and she thought she was only a few pieces short from putting Alec Wilder together. She’d assumed all of his pent-up hostility stemmed from some nasty shit that went down while serving abroad, rolling around in the sand with a MK-15 strapped to his back, rather than the horrors inflicted back home on a loved one, by another loved one, who wasn’t who she claimed to be.
She swallowed hard and blinked again.
“From what was reported in the news,” Becky continued speaking softly, “. . . she’d have stretches of normal behavior and then would slip into psychotic episodes. Her meds ran out a couple of months after Alec was shipped out and her sickness slowly took over.”
“How long did the abuse last?” Loren asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
Becky tilted her head. “I’ve said enough. This has upset you. But you’ve got to understand, the entire town of Wilder feels just awful about what happened to Ally. Feel like we let Alec down and we owe him. I guess that explains why we’re so stand-offish with strangers. Just give us all a chance to get to know you and your sisters and everyone will come around.”
Loren looked away and nodded. Sure thing. Easy-peasy. We’ll give everyone time to get to know us by lying to them and sharing our completely fabricated background. No problem.
Becky paused before walking out the front door. “Cara plays the piano beautifully.”
“Yes, she’s been playing since she was five.”
That is, after the doctor secretly sedated her and wheeled her into an operating room to test out a lifetime of experiments and hypotheses.
“She should consider giving piano lessons to some of the elementary students. I know a number of parents who might be interested.”
Loren suddenly felt both heavy and numb.
Great. More people to lie to in order to gain their trust and good standing in the community.
Chapter Ten
“Mathematics is the music of reason.”
—James Joseph Sylvester
English mathematician; made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory,
partition theory, and combinatorics
* * *
Alec pulled into the Ingalls’ driveway with an overly excited Ally in the passenger seat, and at first, he thought he was at the wrong house.
“They must have hired a contractor,” he commented as he switched off the ignition.
Newly planted shrubs landscaped the house, the surrounding ground covered with dark mulch. There appeared to be an arbor in the process of being built to the left of the property, and to the right a half dozen hydrangea plants were peeking up by the fence row. Several gallons of paint sat on the porch steps with what looked like a new ladder. There was a pile of wooden boards and a new circular saw. The decomposing front steps had been replaced with new ones.
“I told Cara about Pinterest, and they started all these house projects.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed. “You mean you told them about specific projects on Pinterest.”
“No, I mean I told them about the app. They didn’t even know Pinterest existed. Can you imagine?”
What woman over the age of fifteen didn’t know about Pinterest?
“Wait,” Alec said, turning his head, “what is that?”
Ally stopped for a minute, and then smiled. “It’s piano music. Cara plays the piano and she’s super good at it. But outside of band class, all she plays is stuffy classical stuff so I brought music from some alternative bands.”
“Does she only play the piano?”
“No. All of them.”
He turned toward her. “What do you mean ‘all of them’?”
“Well, she started in the middle of the school year, so for now, she’s like a floater. She can literally play any instrument. Even the oboe.”
This was interesting. Loren looked like a fitness model and could fight as well as any special ops combat specialist he’d ever come across. Both Loren and Mercy appeared more than able to tackle home improvement projects most men would shy away from. And now he learns the younger one played not only classical music on the piano, but any instrument you put in her hands.
Alec opened his truck door. “Well, let’s go see if they can cook.”
Before he could take a step, Ally grabbed him by the elbow. “Okay, but please be nice.”
“What? I’m always nice.”
“No,” Ally said, shaking her head, “you’re not. You’re like the women in town. You snub them and make them feel bad. Which really sucks because they’re super nice, and they try really hard to make friends.”
“Look, I think it’s neighborly that you’re being nice to them, Ally, but—”
“And they don’t even know how hot they are. I mean, they seriously have no idea. The men in town won’t talk to them, either, afraid they’ll make their wives mad. And what y’all need to know is that they have feelings, too.”
“Okay, message received,” he said, a little surprised to hear his sister speak so passionately about how the Ingalls sisters had been wronged by the entire town. But he couldn’t help the feeling that they were hiding something, and he’d be damned if he’d ignore his gut ever again.
“But I want to be clear, I’m here to make sure this is a healthy and safe environment for you to visit. I know how quickly you’ve made friends with Cara, but no matter who her sisters are, I would still insist on making sure I approve of letting you into their home.”
Ally tilted her head with a half-smile. “You know I’m okay, right?”
He looked down and nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“You know that you take really good care of me.”
Alec didn’t move.
“Alec.” She lowered her head in an attempt to gain his focus. “You’re the best brother I could’ve ever asked for.”
He gave a single nod and cleared his throat as he looked out the window. “Better get inside.”
Mercy opened the door for them, and Cara quickly bolted from her piano bench, squealing like middle school girls do while hugging Ally, and then pulling her by the hand to give her a personal tour of the house.
Alec slowly walked deeper inside as Mercy made small talk, mostly about the weather. He looked around, just as surprised to see the inside as he was on the exterior.
The last time he’d been inside the house was when old man Kramer lived here. He’d become a recluse after losing his wife to cancer twenty years ago. Alec and Ally would visit on Saturdays to bring him groceries and provide some basic human contact. When he passed away last spring, they were
two out of about five who attended his funeral, and that included Pastor Roberts and his wife.
Now, the house resembled nothing short of one of those house-renovation shows Ally watched on TV. To the right of the front room was a large piano, the walls painted a stark white with music notes covering the walls. To the left was a small living room, the outdated furniture giving the space a funky twist with new, brightly colored upholstery, patterned pillows and a throw rug.
“What do you think?” Loren asked, walking into the room, drying her hands with a kitchen towel.
He turned toward her and thought seriously about turning around and walking out the front door. She wore a simple white tee that, in his mind, was two sizes too small and showcased breasts that, dear God, weren’t receiving any proper support. Her jeans were also snug and looked worn, not from some designer’s hands but from her own, as if she’d personally put the hole in the knee and inadvertently splashed some green paint near the pockets.
His body seized up as he felt his blood rush through his veins like a garden hose with a released kink. How did one compact woman make his entire body turn against him, along with his better judgment?
Finding the wherewithal to reply without sounding choked, he said, “Place looks good. You’ve done a lot of work in a short amount of time.”
“Mercy’s the visually creative one in the family,” Loren said, placing the towel between her legs so she could pull a hair tie from her wrist.
He stood transfixed as he watched her pull her hair up in a quick messy bun, her roots darker from the rest of her hair. A look he typically didn’t care for, but on Loren, it looked edgy instead of unkempt.
“She seems to know what colors will create just the right mood for each room,” Loren said, flipping the dish towel over one shoulder and slipping her hands into her back pockets, making her nipples strain against the thin fabric.
Alec attempted to refocus on the conversation as Mercy beamed at Loren’s compliment.