by Tonya Kappes
“I’m sorry, what?” I questioned and began to stack her boxes on the step. Grady came over and helped me.
“Aunt Florence told me she and Zeke Grey got married a little bit ago at the courthouse. She said it’s been in the works for a while, and she’s already changed her will. My dad is going to die when he hears this. Maybe I won’t tell him. She didn’t have him sign a prenuptial agreement, and if I’m being honest, I don’t care if she got married and changed her will. It’s the prized painting she gifted him as a wedding gift that makes me most upset.”
“Prized painting?” I was a little taken aback. “I had no idea Florence loved art.”
“Art? Rare art that was supposed to go to the family charity.” Courtney’s chest heaved up and down. It appeared that anger and sadness warred within her.
“Tell me about your family charity.” I was very curious.
Florence did a lot of charity around Sugar Creek Gap, but it was never done out of the goodness of her heart. There was always a string attached. Even the smallest of donations.
When I was the Sugar Creek Gap High School Booster Club president back when Grady was a student there, I’d asked her to donate to the football team’s new uniform fund. Not only did she require her name be mentioned over the PA system at the games, thanking her for her help in getting the new uniforms, but she wanted a plaque at the concession stand.
“We have a family charity out of our hometown of Minneapolis that helps children with college scholarships. It’s really no different than the church scholarship Aunt Florence is involved in.” Courtney suddenly snapped out of the anger part of her emotions. She shuffled her feet along the sidewalk. “I guess she can do what she wants. But the painting would help so many kids in our town, and we’d already planned for that painting in our future.”
“That’s a really great cause, but she might really be happy.” Grady looked at me. “My mom is dating my uncle, but not really my uncle.” He snickered because it sounded so goofy. “He was my dad’s best friend, and now she’s happy. Isn’t happiness what matters?”
A bit of relief settled in my heart when I heard Grady give some heartfelt advice, making me truly know he was nothing like his father, like he thought. His dad would never pick happiness.
“My happiness is the family charity. I’ve worked there all my life, even all the way through college. I’m next in line to take over as the president of the charity and replace her, but now she’s saying she’d like to go to the board and ask them to appoint Zeke Grey.”
“But you have a job.” Grady seemed really confused.
“I just went to college because Aunt Florence told me I had to go to college. My heart is in philanthropy work like our family charity. Aunt Florence is getting up there in age. She’s been making some very poor decisions that prompted my family to send me here to keep an eye on her.” She shook her head.
“Maybe you should’ve kept an eye on her instead of other things,” I murmured as I stacked the last box on the step, referring to her having Grady help her with the mulch.
“Mom,” Grady gasped and looked at me.
Who was the parent now, I wondered, feeling a little ashamed I’d let my words slip out. Apparently Courtney didn’t even hear because she just kept on rolling with her story.
“I literally stomped in my house to physically get away from her and Zeke because I was mad enough to strangle her. I called my dad, and he said I had twenty-four hours to get her to sign an agreement he’s faxing over. He said force her if I had to.” Courtney laughed as if it were a joke, though her words still sent chills up my spine. She looked at me and threw her hands up. “Oh gosh, not that I want to force her to do anything.”
Grady took the liberty to speak for me, and it didn’t sit well. “We totally get how you think someone you love is one way but totally the opposite.”
I knew Grady was talking about his father, but I didn’t like how he was telling Courtney, a stranger.
“Well, I’m sure Florence is happy. Zeke is a very nice man.” I left out the part he’d lost all his money and may have a different motive to get married. In the end, it was Florence who had to live with her decision.
“Let’s get to the mulch.” Grady looked at Courtney and smiled. “It’ll make you feel better getting some of that pent-up anger out.”
I gulped. Grady sounded and looked exactly like his father in that instance.
“Where’s Wes?” I questioned Grady because he’d mentioned how he’d given the job to Wes.
“Wes is pretty bummed about losing the scholarship, so it’s just me.” Grady’s brows rose, and he gave a very awkward grin.
My mouth became dry. It was time to intervene.
I wished I could say the bright sun and the walk did me good during my third loop over at the neighborhood behind Main Street and located behind the old mill. I’d hoped I’d be able to come up with something, but my mind was a jumbled mess. And there was never a day that I wanted to quickly rush through my third loop more.
It was the largest part of my route and probably the quickest since it was newer and the houses had mailboxes instead of mail slots.
I probably should’ve given it up to a carrier who had an LLV, but when the subdivision was built, I insisted on walking it. Most of the residents in the neighborhood were families with parents who worked during the day. A few of my elderly clients lived there, Zeke Grey being one of them.
I might’ve lingered a little longer at his house, debating whether or not to take the mail up to the door and see what he had to say about his marriage to Florence, or even if he’d tell me. After all, her car was in his driveway. You couldn’t miss Florence Gaines and her luxury cars. She was good at showing things off, and I could only imagine what she had in mind for displaying her new husband. She only lived a street over from him, so I wondered which house they’d be living in. Was she going to pay off his loan to the bank to bring him out of debt before the bank foreclosed on the house?
“What the heck,” I grumbled and gave in, going up to the door. “I might as well congratulate the happy couple.” I talked to myself as though I were encouraging myself.
I lifted my fisted hand up in the air to give a quick couple of knocks before I heard some fussing coming through the closed door. A difference between the subdivision houses and the houses on Little Creek Road was that the materials they used to build these new homes were not as soundproof as the mortar used on my house.
“You said that after we got married, you’d help me out.” There was no denying how stern Zeke’s voice was. “I told you I’d help you out with your family, and now you’re going to help me out just like you said you would.”
“We just got married! Is this what it’s going to look like until we can get Courtney out of here?” Florence hollered just as loud as Zeke.
I put my ear a little closer to the door. . .okay it was flush with the door, but I had to hear what was going on in there and what Zeke meant by helping her out.
Was Florence trying to run Courtney off? Was the whole marriage thing a sham?
“Listen, Florence Gaines.” Zeke meant business. I shoved the piece of hair back from my ear so I could hear exactly what he wanted her to listen to. “I had a lot of women on the line who would be one-hundred percent nicer to me than you are. I did what we agreed to do. Now you hold up your end of the deal.”
“What if I told you that I want to be married to you and I’ve changed my mind about the deal.” There was a saucy tone from Florence, one I knew. The kind where she said she would do one thing but did something completely different, like she’d planned to do it the entire time.
“That’s not the deal. Do you honestly believe people in this town will buy the fact I married you out of love?” An evil laugh expelled from him. “I’ll go get a divorce right now and expose you for what you really are.”
“Over my dead body, dear husband.” Florence laughed right back at him.
I pulled away from the door
and decided it was best I put the mail in the mailbox because I didn’t want them to see me and figure out I knew they were pulling one over on each other. All I knew was that I had to talk to my Grady before Florence’s twin got her claws into him.
Chapter 5
“I think you are making stuff up in your head,” was Iris’s response when I told her I thought Courtney was trying to get her claws in Grady. “Even if she were, Grady is gaga over Julia. Now that she’s having his baby, forget it.”
She pushed back the long strand of her curly brown hair that’d fallen out of her hairnet. I’d recently noticed how she’d started to let the gray take over even more, but I didn’t dare say a word.
She kneaded the dough for the southern bread pudding she was going to make for Julia’s special dessert.
“You’re the one who told me you had a feeling.” I reminded her how she’d been the one who put the panic deep in my soul. “I shouldn’t’ve stopped by here after work.”
“Then you’d not gotten the cookies for Courtney.” She nodded to the counter in the kitchen of Pie In the Face, where she had special-ordered items that still needed to be picked up tonight.
“I just think Courtney is no different than her aunt.” I couldn’t get the images of Grady sitting on the front porch with her as if he were meant to be there out of my mind.
“I said my feeling was about Julia, not Grady.” She glanced up from under her brows at me. “Listen, you still need to take the cookies over to Courtney. Go home and do that so you can see if there’s anything to worry about.”
“Maybe your feelings are all gummed up or something because Grady told me Julia said the doctor’s appointment went well today,” I told her and watched her shape the dough into two long baguette-style loafs before she put them into the oven.
“Gummed up?” She smiled, wiping her hands down her apron, and walked over to me. She put her arms around my shoulders. “Listen, nothing is going to hurt Grady and Julia. Not even someone like Courtney Gaines. Maybe she’s telling you the truth about Grady having a good ear to listen. You can remind him how hard pregnancy can be, though I’d not know anything about that.”
Iris had been married once. Good ole Bobby Peters. Her feelings got me in trouble with Bobby Peters at an early age and didn’t stop until we were in high school, when she told me Bobby Peters was going to ask me to prom but ended up asking her.
Granted, Bobby Peters was good-looking and pretty popular. Iris found out their marriage was a complete farce like mine when she caught him in bed with another woman. I’d like to say it was the cheating that brought their marriage down, but it wasn’t. It was the fact that Bobby and his side hustle—what we liked to call the other woman—were in bed and eating one of Iris’s desserts out of her pie plate, which was a big no-no in the south.
“You didn’t even cut a piece out of the pie plate?” was what Iris had told me she’d said to the cheating couple when she found them in bed with her pie plate. “You get a pie in the face!” she yelled at them as she picked up the pie and slammed it into his face.
She had come to our house all torn up. Richard and I were home, and that’s when Richard had suggested she make her baking into a real business since she already made custom cakes and desserts for various friends.
Richard had jokingly said she should call it Pie in the Face so whenever Bobby had to drive downtown to get to his lumberyard, the name on the bakery would be a constant reminder of his philandering ways.
Iris loved the idea that Bobby Peters would have to see her shop daily, and any sort of pain she could give him brought her joy. Now she had a very successful bakery.
“I don’t know.” I groaned and stood up from the stool I was sitting on. Iris walked back over to her ingredients and started to pluck the items she needed to make the rice pudding for the dessert. “Oh, my aching feet.” I sighed and didn’t look forward to the hurried walk home since Mac would be over to have supper.
“One thing I do know is that you’re a great mom who will know exactly what to say when it’s time. But…” She opened the heavy-cream carton and poured it into the bowl without even measuring. “Keep an eye on Julia and her pregnancy.”
I grabbed the homemade cookies and tucked them into my empty mailbag.
“I’ll keep you posted and see you tomorrow.” I went to walk out the door before she stopped me.
“I was going to drop this off to you tonight.” She had the idea of me taking it to Julia so we could have a conversation.
“No. You can just bring it with you tomorrow for Sunday supper. I think I’m going to let this one ride out with Grady and Courtney and not stick my nose in it. You’re right. He loves Julia.” I jerked up when a clap of thunder practically shook the roof of the bakery. “I better hurry home. Mac said he was coming by with takeout.”
“Don’t get struck by lightning,” Iris warned in a joking voice, though the situation was not a bit funny to me.
It was only six thirty-ish, and the dark clouds had moved in. They hung in the air, appearing not to be going anywhere anytime soon. The storm was settling in for a long night of rumbling ahead, and I knew Rowena would be hiding all night. I’d yet to see what Buster would do. I hurried down Main Street toward the veterinarian clinic and crossed over the bridge to Little Creek Road with my mail carrier bag on top of my head.
The rain had started out in a drizzle, but by the time I made it over the bridge, it was coming down in buckets, almost making it hard to see. There was a light coming from Courtney’s house, and for a second I wondered if I should just drop the cookies off, but I didn’t. I needed to attend to Rowena and Buster. They were my priority at this time.
Of course Buster was wiggling all around the front door when I opened it. Even his shoulders did a little happy jig to see me. I put the mailbag on the floor and gave him a few pats to his licks to my face and got up after his attention span went directly into the bag where I’d put Courtney’s cookies.
Rowena, my orange tabby cat, was sitting next to her bowl when I walked into the kitchen. She could care less that I’d just gotten home and wanted her bowl full of her supper. I still scooped her up and snuggled her in my neck. She might act like she hated it, but her purr told me otherwise.
“You two are hungry, I bet. I promise to get your automatic bowl up and running tomorrow.” Rowena gave me a few eye blinks before she squirmed in my arms and jumped out. I was trying to get Buster to know his bowl was his bowl and Rowena’s bowl was not his bowl before I used an automatic feeder with both of them.
“But you need to go potty.” I looked at Buster.
It was nice having a fenced-in yard so I could open the door for Buster at any time. Rowena was a different story. She was an altogether different pet. I was not in any place to have a pet out in the country on the farm. Even though Grady begged me to get a guard dog since I was out there all by myself, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It wouldn’t’ve been fair to the fur baby with me being gone all day.
But one day I’d taken an extra route for one of the other carriers during their vacation a couple of years ago, and the SPCA was on his route.
Rowena was what they called the hallway cat and roamed around the halls while they were open. At eight months old, she’d been dropped off in a box with a few little babies of her own. She was unable to nurse them due to being so malnourished, so the SPCA volunteers had to bottle-feed her babies, and I took in Rowena. It was only on a foster basis until she decided I was her human. Cats did that. They decided who they belonged to, and I’d not realized she was my ticket to not being so lonely at night. Since she could be home alone without needing to be let out to potty. I’d decided to keep her, or maybe it was the other way around.
Buster, now he was different, and as the town knew, he was somewhat inherited to me along with this house. Buster was a natural Sugar Creek Gap roamer, and everyone knew him. When the days were just the right temperature, he’d like to go on my third loop. It was good exerc
ise for him, but today there was just so much on my mind that I’d not taken him.
“Don’t stay out too long,” I hollered after him after he bolted out into the rain. I turned on the front porch light, shut the door behind me, and headed back into the kitchen to put some kibble into their bowls and grab a towel to dry Buster off when he came back in.
I heard Buster barking his head off, which was rare.
There was a knock at the door.
“Buster knows how to knock? Or is it Mac?” I asked Rowena, but she kept her head down in her bowl.
The front porch light showed the shadow of a person through the curtain I’d hung on the small window of the front door. Buster wasn’t barking anymore, so I was guessing it was Mac, or he’d be going nuts. There was a clap of thunder and a strike lightning, then the sound of cat claws skidding out of the kitchen and down the small hall to our bedroom. The heavier knocking that followed made me jump.
“Let me in before I get hit by lightning and become a piece of crisp bacon!” Harriette Pearl knocked harder.
“Harriette.” I flung the door open. She had on a yellow raincoat and rain hat and carried a jug of her sweet tea in her hands. “Get in here.” I looked out to see if Mac was around. “I’m expecting Mac.”
She started to take a step inside, but Buster sideswiped her before I could stop him. She teetered on her wet shoes, the jar of tea swinging in the air. I grabbed her around the waist right before she started to fall, saving the iced tea.
“That was a close one.” I gingerly took the tea from her once she was steady. “Let me help you with your coat.” I set the jar down on the entrance table next to the coatrack.
She peeled off her coat, and I hung it up along with her hat. I threw the towel on the ground since it was useless for now.
“Oh, Bernie. Me and Buster made a mess all over your floor. Your new hardwood floors.” Worry knitted her brows. There was a puddle of water around her bright-yellow rain boots.