Page 98 of Bountiful
Usually, Audrey closed the bakery on the days when I went in early, and vice versa. But now I both opened and closed, sneaking away in the middle of the day only briefly before Kieran leftattwo.
“You need a full-time employee,” my mother said as I dragged myself through the door again after thethirdday.
“Too expensive.” I sighed. Audrey and I often did the math on hiring someone else. But a full-timer would be entitled to benefits. And we were afraid to take on liabilities this early in our businessdevelopment.
“If Audrey’s pregnant, you’re going to need someone, whether it’s expensiveornot.”
“Who told you she was pregnant?” I asked, lifting my shirt for Nicole tonurse.
My mother waved away the question with one of her carefully manicured hands. “The bridge club was all over that last night. I know I missed the ceremony, but apparently Audrey was a lovely shade of green duringhervows.”
“That’s not nice,” I said, even though I’d noticed it, too. Although Audrey wouldn’t give a rip what the bridge club said, the gossip still bothered me. Small towns were brutal. “What does the bridge club have to say about Dave turning up at the wedding withNicole?”
My mother gave me a cat-like smile. “Do you really wanttoknow?”
“No,” I grumbled. “Iguessnot.”
“They thought you looked lovely together,” she reported anyway. “And the fact that he’s buying two houses on the hill hasn’t escaped notice, either. There’s a rumor that he’s going to knock one of them down to make a double yard with anicerink.”
“That isnottrue,” I pointed out. “Where do people get theseideas?”
My mother just shrugged. “You picked the Tudor, right? Jana Godfrey said it wasprettier.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “It was.” I’d been trying not to think about the house, or about Dave in general. But it sure wasn’t easy to put him out of mind. I’d gotten texts from him asking when he could drop off some paint chips andseeme.
And by “see me” I was sure he meant “see menaked.”
Sleeping with him had been a mistake I shouldn’t repeat. And yet every time I lay down in bed for my precious few hours of rest, I imagined him there beside me. My traitorous body craved his touch, and not just at night. When I was standing in the bakery alone at five thirty in the morning, I thought about his green eyes staring down at mewhilewe—
Unngh.
I didn’t know how to stop wanting him. I’d always promised myself I wouldn’t do what my mother had done—wait around for the father of her children to turn up again and love her. But now—even if I was determined to avoid the same mistake—I finally understood how she’d spent two decades of her life bamboozled by a man who reallydidn’tcare.
I got it now, because I had itbadfor David Beringer. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting another man as much as I wanted him. And even if he ended up treating me poorly, I didn’t think the yearning would evergoaway.
Now, if Ireallyfelt like torturing myself, all I needed to do was take another look at the photo Bess had texted me yesterday. It was a shot of Dave and Nicole asleep in a hammock, their ginger heads relaxed beside one another, their eyes closed peacefully.Hello,hormonerush.
Like I said, it was alongweek.
By the sixth night, I was questioning all my life choices. Lucky for me, Benito brought takeout wrap sandwiches from the little place in Colebury. After putting Nicole to bed, he and I collapsed together on thecouch.
I was too tired to even pretend to watch the cooking show that was on the television. I just ate my sandwich and counted the minutes until I could reasonably fall into bed. From her crib in the next room, Nicole was still talking toherself.
Please go to sleep, baby girl. Mama can’t takeanymore.
“How’s it going with you, anyway?” I asked my twin, trying to summon the energy for conversation. Between the coffee shop and Benito’s brand new undercover work, we hadn’t seen each other in overaweek.
“Interesting times,” he said. “This isconfidential…”
“Duh.” We’d always kept each other’ssecrets.
“Okay. You rememberJimmyGage?”
“How could I forget him?” He had been our next-door neighbor in the trailer park when we were teenagers. Back then he was a cop—the dirty kind. And a mean drunk. I’d been legitimately afraid of him, even before that weird showdown at The Mountain Goat. “I don’t think I ever told you about the night he sat at my bar and tried to humiliate JillSullivan.”
Benito tensed. “Was thisrecently?”
“No! Two years ago. I gave him some lip and he threw his beer bottle and stormed out. That was the endofit.”
