I started to post Chapter 21 last night to schedule for this morning and then realized I hadn’t actually finished Chapter 21. Oops. So I finished it this morning. I’d written most of it in my head already anyhow, which is probably why I thought I had finished it.
Anyhow, as regular readers know, my fiction Thursday and Fridays are usually novellas or novels in progress, which means there will be changes before I publish it in the future as an ebook or paperback. One change I have a feeling is going to come when I rework The Farmer’s Daughter is moving Jason and Ellie’s story into a separate novella in between The Farmer’s Daughter, book one of the Spencer Chronicles, and The Librarian, book two of the Spence Chronicles. That novella will most likely be called . . . The Farmer’s Son because I am oh so original. *wink*
With that being said, I don’t want to leave my blog readers hanging so I’ll still try to keep Jason and Ellie’s story in the chapters I share here. My thought is that if I break this off into a novella in the future, I can flush out Jason and Ellie’s characters more without bogging down Alex and Molly and Franny’s story in this book.
Sometimes I think it’s silly I share these books as I write them, but then I think “well, life is short. Just have fun with it.” Plus I like the feedback from my few readers because it helps me decide and craft the remainder of the story (and sometimes it helps me decide to chop off chapters all together).
Thanks for sticking around this long (if you did). I’ll be quiet now and get on with the story.
Chapter 21
“How much trouble is the farm in, Robert?”
Franny’s question sent Robert’s eyes up to the ceiling in frustration. He was grateful his back was to his mother the same way it had been when his sister had cornered him a few weeks ago. How did the Tanner women have such a sixth sense about the bad news of life? He poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it with his mother’s tea to her kitchen table.
“Hannah been talking to you?”
Franny sipped the tea, reached across the table and spooned a heaping spoonful into her cup. “She’s been hinting, but not exactly talking. You know how she is.”
Robert definitely knew how she was. He sat on the chair across from his mother and sipped his coffee once, twice, three times before he spoke. He sat the cup down, cupping his hands around it, looking at it instead of his mother.
“We’re in a tough spot, Mom.”
“We’ve been in tough spots before.”
“This may be the toughest. I don’t know how much longer we can hang on, to be honest.”
Franny stirred a spoonful of honey into her tea and sipped it, waiting for her son to continue. She knew he would. He always did. Like Ned, he was thoughtful, contemplating the words before he said them.
“What I don’t get is why I can’t keep this farm running the same way Dad did.” Robert looked up at his Mom. “I took out a loan. Dad would never have done that. He only spent what he had or what he saved up for.”
When Robert fell into silence again, looking out the kitchen window into the field across the road, the same field his father had farmed for years and his father before him, Franny decided she needed to offer her son the encouragement she’d been unable to offer since she’d lost Ned. She had been a wife, yes, but she was still a mother and she needed to start acting like one, even if her children were fully grown.
“This isn’t the same farm your dad had, Robert. You’ve added more property, other farmers and farmland. You and your dad and brother did the right thing trying to diversify the business. How were you to know that milk prices would fall even further than they did in 1985? None of this is your fault. It’s circumstances out of your control.”
“No, your dad never took loans out. But milk prices were better back then. Other expenses were lower. He could manage to save up. You don’t have that luxury anymore.” Franny leaned over and laid her hand on Robert’s. “You’re doing the best you can, son. I know that. Farming runs in your blood. You’ll figure this out.”
Robert’s eyes stung with tears and he looked away quickly.
His voice broke when he spoke. “Thank you, Mom.”
“Don’t be afraid to cry, Robert. There’s nothing wrong with crying.”
Robert nodded but he still couldn’t look at her. If he saw her eyes, the compassionate eyes of the woman who raised him and his sister and brother, who held the family and the farm together for his while life and who had suffered so much over the last few years, he might completely break down and he wasn’t about to do that. Instead he laid his hand over hers, swallowed hard, focused his attention on the field and nodded again.
“You’re a good boy, Robert.”
“Thank you, Mama,” he managed finally through the tears.
***
Alex’s head was pounding. His mouth was dry. He felt like his eyes had been glued shut.
Squinting against the sunlight pouring in from his bedroom window he recognized the feeling, which he hadn’t had in years.
He definitely had a hangover.
“Alex! You ever getting up?”
Jason’s voice outside his bedroom door was loud.
Too loud.
“I’ve already been to the barn and back.”
“Yeah. Comin’. Just . . .” Alex rubbed his hands across his face and forced himself to sit up. The pain in his head throbbed now, a steady pulse of pain that felt as if his brain would push out through his forehead. “Yeah. Be right down.”
Jason banged cupboard doors and loudly clanked spoons into bowls when he reached the kitchen. Alex winced against the noise, each clank another pain shooting through his head.
“Cereal?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Jason leaned back against the counter and watched his friend sleepily pour cereal from the box to the bowl. Alex’s hair was pushed up in several different directions, dark circles creased the skin under his eyes, and he was moving slower than a zombie in a cheap b-movie.
“You go out last night?”
Alex poured milk on his cereal without looking up. “Yeah.”
“Daniel Stanton said you left the bar last night with Jessie Landry hanging all over you.”
“If Daniel Stanton already told you I was at the bar, then why did you ask if I went out?”
Jason shrugged, folding his massive arms across his massive chest. Alex wasn’t always pleased at how massive his friend was, especially when he wasn’t sure where a conversation was going and how his massive friend might choose to end it.
“So, you ended up back up here?”
Alex kept his eyes on the cereal. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t see her this morning when I got up.”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I – sent her home. Or rather, she left. In a bit of a huff really.”
“So, you didn’t sleep with her?”
Alex shook his head, shoving a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
Jason leaned back, reaching for his coffee cup on the counter and sipping from it. “Really? Well, that’s new. What happened?”
Alex glared, milk dripping down his chin.
“What does that mean, Jase? You act like I’m some man-whore or something. It’s not like I’m bedding girls every night.”
Jason laughed and shook his head. “Not every night, no.”
“Actually, if you’ll remember, I haven’t brought a girl back here in almost two years. Maybe even longer.”
“So, you’re not taking them back to our place, maybe you’re —”
“I’m not,” Alex snapped, shoving the last of the cereal into his mouth and gulping the remaining milk down.
“Okay. Okay.” Jason looked quizzically at Alex, folding his arms across his chest again. One leg was casually crossed of the other one. “What’s up with you anyhow? You’re touchy this morning.”
Alex wiped the milk off his chin with the back of his hand.
“I’m just not the jerk you act like I am,” he grumbled, walking toward the backstairs that led to the upstairs bathroom. “I’m going to get a shower and head up to the farm to help your dad.”
Standing in the shower, the hot water kicking up steam around him and pouring over his bare skin, Alex cursed under his breath, knowing his best friend knew better than anyone what a pig he’d been much of his life; how he’d distracted himself from the hard moments in his life with the company of a cold beer or a warm, sexually aroused woman more times than he cared to admit.
He leaned his hands against the wall of the shower and let the water pour over his head and back, wishing the hot streams making paths across his body could wash away the shame the same way it was washing away the sweat from the night before.
After drying off and pulling on his usual faded blue jeans and a t-shirt he felt more alert and moved quickly downstairs, guzzling a glass of orange juice before reaching for his keys.
Jason was still in the driveway when he walked outside, checking under the hood of his truck.
Alex stood by the truck, sliding his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. He cleared his throat. “Hey, sorry I was so sharp earlier.”
Jason looked up from where he had leaned over the truck with a wrench and shook his head slightly. “Actually, I’m sorry I harassed you about your night out. It’s none of my business.”
The sun was brighter than Alex had realized when he first stepped outside. He winched and reached in his front shirt pocket for his sunglasses, sliding them on. “Everything go okay with Ellie last night?”
Jason sighed, which was a weird sound coming from such a masculine figure. “Yeah. Sort of.” He glanced at Alex while he loosened a bolt on the engine. “She thinks I proposed.”
Alex lifted an eyebrow. “Thinks you proposed? Um, I might need a little more of an explanation on this one. Usually a guy proposes or he doens’t.”
“Well, I was going to propose but I needed to talk to her about something first and then she brought it up and then she just thought . . . you know what? It’s too confusing to explain.”
“So, you’re engaged. That’s great. Why don’t you look happier? Don’t men usually look happier when they get engaged?”
Jason used a rag to wipe grease off his hands as talked. “It is. I guess. It’s just . . .”
“You’re nervous about getting married?”
“A little but it’s not that. It’s just, I’ve never told Ellie about what happened in college.”
Alex spoke through a yawn, his expression clueless. “What happened in college?”
Jason starred at him for a few moments with first furrowed eyebrows then raised ones. Alex continued to look blank for a full minute then his eyes widened in realization. “Wait. You mean what happened with Emily Barker? You never told Ellie about that?”
Jason shook his head and tossed the dirty rag into the front seat of his truck. “I was really embarrassed, man. That experience was a low point for me and it wasn’t even —ugh, just never mind. The point is that I never told Ellie because I was embarrassed and because I didn’t know how she would feel about it.”
“But you guys weren’t even dating then.”
“I know but it still was wrong, Alex. That’s not how I wanted my first time to be. I wanted it to be with someone I loved. Someone I planned to spend my whole life with. And yeah, I know it sounds lame, but I wanted it to be with someone I was married to.”
Alex shrugged one shoulder and smiled. “Yeah, it sounds a little lame, but it also sounds really sweet and romantic.” He made a face and shuddered. “Yuck. Dude, I think you’re rubbing off on me with all your sentimental crud. Next Thing I know we’ll be watching chick flicks together.”
“Sleepless in Seattle isn’t bad.”
Alex held up his hands. “Jase, I am not watching chick flicks with you. Calm down.”
He grinned and then realized even grinning made his head hurt. He let the grin fade, partially because of the headache and partially because Jason was leaning back against the front of the truck now, one arm propped up on the metal frame, looking at the ground, thinking.
“Jason, you know Ellie loves you. She’s going to understand, okay? Just talk to her.”
Jason nodded, but didn’t look up from the dirt. “Yeah, I hope she does.” He lifted his gaze to look at Alex, his eyes glistening. “Because if she doesn’t . . .” He shook his head, swallowed hard and looked out at the fields across from the house. “I don’t know if I’m going to make it without her.”
Welcome to Chapter 4 of Quarantined. Let me know in the comments if you are following along and what you think should happen next.
Since this is a novella there will be less chapters than the other stories I share on my blog, which will be good for some of you who don’t have time to read a longer story.
Maddie and Liam hadn’t spoken to each other for four days, other than for her to ask if the doctor had called and him to say ‘not yet,’ and him to ask if she wanted some lunch or dinner and her to say ‘I’ll make my own.’
He’d locked himself in his office, dealing with the fall out for his brother’s delay in quarantining himself after his interaction with the ambassador; writing press releases and using video chat features to do interviews with major news commentators.
She’d locked herself in the bedroom, writing bits and pieces of her novel in between pouring over news sites; scrolling through social media feeds for personal stories from those who had had the virus and were recovering. She wondered if she and Liam would eventually face the same situation, or would they be worse with one of them admitted to an ICU somewhere. Who even knew at this point since he’d lied to her about having the virus in the first place? She should have been happy it wasn’t confirmed, but she was furious he had lied to her and it made her wonder how many more times he’d lied to her.
In the evenings she binged watched Parks and Recreation while eating ice cream or popcorn, grateful she’d stocked up on groceries even before Liam had told her about the quarantine. Liam spent his nights straightening boxes, speaking to his brother through video conferencing and binge-watching Bosch, the crime show about a rugged, hard-edged Los Angeles Police Department detective; just what he needed to distract him from the restlessness he felt.
“So, how’s it going with Maddie?” Matt asked via video messaging on night seven of Liam’s quarantine as he’d leaned back on his couch and cracked open a soda.
His gaze wandered off to one side, toward something behind his computer before Liam could answer. “Tyler. Stop hitting your sister. I don’t ca—you know what, just go outside. In the backyard. You’re allowed to go in the backyard. . . . I don’t know. Hit the ball. Chase the dog. I don’t care. Just get out for a while. Take your sisters with you . . . Hey! I’m still in charge around here. Do what I say!”
He looked back at Liam through the screen. “Fun times over here. I can’t wait until this thing is over.”
Liam scoffed. “It’s only been three days for you, dude. If you can’t handle three days with your wife and kids, you’re in serious trouble.”
Matt grinned. “Yeah. I know. First world problems, right? Anyhow, what’s up with you and Maddie? I see you’re still alive, so she hasn’t stabbed you yet.”
Liam winced and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Not for a lack of wanting to, I’d imagine.” He sat back against the headboard of the bed, arms across his chest. “We had it out the other night. The stuff she accused me of doing — you wouldn’t even believe it. Affairs, spending more time at work than with her, not supporting her after the miscarriages. It was all a bunch of crap.”
“Well?”
Liam scowled at his brother. “Well, what?”
“Did you do those things?”
“You know I didn’t, Matt.”
“Then why is it bothering you so much? Don’t be so defensive. You know you didn’t do anything wrong so let her rant.”
Liam shifted on the bed, focusing his gaze out the window. “I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t support her like I should have after the miscarriages. And she’s pretty accurate about working too much too.”
“And the affairs?” Matt asked.
“No!” Liam snapped, looking back at his brother. “I didn’t have an affair.” He paused, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I could never do that to Maddie. You know that. We haven’t been getting along, yes, but I . . . I could never hurt her that way.”
He furrowed his eyebrows and leaned closer to the screen of his laptop. “Do you really think I could do that?” he asked his brother.
Matt laughed. “Liam, no, I don’t, and I don’t know if Maddie really does either, but she’s scared. She obviously didn’t feel secure in her relationship with you to think that.”
Liam sighed. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I helped that feeling any. I told her I already had the virus.”
Matt shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, Liam, Liam. When will you ever learn? Never lie to a woman. When she finds out she thinks that means you’ve never told the truth about anything and you’re really a secret agent whose been living a double life.”
Liam flopped back on the bed and groaned. “I know. I know. I’m an idiot.”
“Yes, you are. Seriously, though, I don’t think you or Maddie really want this divorce. You’re both just afraid to do the work it will take to keep this thing going. It’s going to hurt, little brother, but I think you two need to work things out. I think you still love your wife or what she said to you wouldn’t have hurt so much.”
Liam shook his head and clicked his tongue, rolling to his side and propping himself up on his elbow. “Senator Matthew Grant. The hard-headed, some might say, pig-headed, youngest-ever head of the homeland security committee showing that he’s also a marriage counselor.”
The brothers laughed easily together.
Matt leaned closer to the screen, his expression fading from jovial to more serious. “Liam, lLet me give you some brotherly advice. Make sure this divorce is truly what you want before you sign those papers. You and Maddie have something special. Always have. I don’t want to see you throw this away without really thinking it through, okay?”
Liam let out a long breath, tapping his fingers along the touchpad of the laptop.
Matt pressed him further. “Promise me you’ll think really hard about all of this while you two are locked up in there, okay?”
Liam nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Matt.”
The brothers said their goodbyes and Liam closed the laptop and laid back on the bed. The last thing he wanted to do was think long and hard about anything else, especially his marriage. Thinking about it all made him hurt more, but he knew Matt was right. He knew he had to be sure that this divorce was truly what he wanted, not simply something he was doing because he didn’t want to face the tough questions, work through the tough issues. In the end, though, it didn’t matter if he wanted to work through the issues. Maddie had to want to work through them too and if she didn’t, then, well, all this thinking about it all would be completely pointless.
***
With the children in bed, it was just Matt and Cassie alone in the living room. Alone. Together. With a canyon of silence between them.
Matt slumped further down on the couch, drumming his fingers on the cushion. He had no idea what to do with himself without hearings to plan for, committee meetings to gather research for, or statements to draft for the press. He should probably be on the phone with John and Liam, preparing their plan of action for when they got back into the office in the next week or so. He looked at his phone on the end of the couch, but didn’t feel any motivation to reach for it. In fact, he didn’t feel any motivation at all to deal with his job, especially the press.
He’d already drafted a statement with John. There really wasn’t anything else to say. For now anyhow. He was sure in the next day or so he’d be getting calls from other senators looking to set up virtual meetings to draft various bills or establish plans of action for the current situation, but for now his phone had gone silent and he should enjoy the silence while he could. He would have enjoyed it, if it just wasn’t so weird.
He felt his forehead. Maybe he was coming down with that virus after all. He’d been going full bore at his job for two years straight now, but today he’d finally hit some kind of wall. He wasn’t even motivated to reach for the remote and watch television.
He looked over at Cassie sitting sideways on a chair, her legs hanging over the arm of it, her head bent over a book. She was wearing a pair of hot pink short-shorts, a loose fitting white t-shirt and her hair was falling out of a messy bun she’d piled on top of her head. Her long legs were as shapely and attractive as the first day he’d met her. His eyes followed the length of them from her bare toes to the edge of her shorts and remembered the many times his hand had traveled that path over the years.
Desire swelled in his chest as he thought about the night they’d celebrated his win. She’d worn that black skirt with the slit in the side, the slit that went from the middle of her thigh to her knee. Only she hadn’t even known the skirt had that slit until she was at his victory speech and he’d laughed later in the back of Liam’s car when he had watched her try to hold the pieces together, her cheeks flushed pink. Cassie always was fairly modest in how she dressed and he knew she never would have worn the dress if she hadn’t been rushed. The election results came in earlier than expected and she’d snatched the skirt out of her closet, the skirt she’d purchased a few days before but hadn’t had a chance to try on. She knew Matt’s acceptance speech was going to be closely watched by many since he had run against a long-time senator who had been thrown in the middle of a scandal the year before.
“I can’t believe I wore this skirt to your acceptance speech,” she hissed. “I can imagine what the press will be saying tomorrow.”
“That you’re gorgeous?”
“Or that I’m a floozy.”
Matt tipped his head all the way back and laughed. “A floozy? What happened right there? Did we just teleport back to the 40s?”
Cassie punched Matt in the upper arm, giggling. “Shut up.”
Back at the house, the children staying with Cassie’s parents, Matt had stood behind Cassie as she unhooked her necklace and took her earrings out.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, stepping closer, reaching out to touch the edge of the skirt. “I really like this skirt.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
His finger found the slit and slipped inside, touching the skin there, on her upper thigh.
His mouth touched her bare neck, his voice husky as he spoke. “All I wanted to do was get back here with you. No kids. All alone. Finally.”
She turned, smiling, sliding her arms around his neck. “And what can we do here, all alone?”
He didn’t need words to answer her question. His mouth found hers while he gently pushed her back toward the bed, lowering her to it.
“You okay over there?”
Cassie’s voice interrupted the memory of his hand traveling up that leg, under that skirt, that night.
“Huh? Oh yeah. Good. I’m good.”
“You miss work, don’t you?”
“Um. No. Actually. I don’t. And that weirds me out a little.”
“Oh.”
She shrugged and turned back to her book. “This break is probably just showing you how burned out you are.”
“I’m not burned out.”
Cassie was back into her book. “Mmm. If you say so.”
Am I? he wondered
Matt sat up straighter and leaned forward on his knees toward Cassie.
“We haven’t spent a lot of time together lately, have we?
She glanced up from the book, eyebrows raised slightly.
“No. Not really, but you’ve been busy. I understand.”
“Do you want to spend more time together? I mean, maybe you’re bored with me? Our life here together?”
Cassie laughed. “Matt, where is this all coming from?” She closed the book. “Is this because of Liam and Maddie?
Matt shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe. It’s got me thinking a lot, I guess.”
“So? What’s the verdict? Are Liam and Maddie getting a divorce?”
Matt sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, they’ve been meeting with a divorce attorney. The only reason they missed the last meeting was because of this craziness.”
He looked at Cassie, watched her watching him and wondered again if Cassie would ever want to divorce him. If she did, he wouldn’t blame her. He’d dragged her into this crazy political world, under a never-satisfied microscope of public scrutiny. The same with the kids. What had he been thinking? Of his constituents? The future of the country? Or had it really just been of himself and his own desire to reach a certain level of success?
Cassie blew out a breath. “Wow. Now they are stuck together in that house. That has to be super awkward.”
“Yeah. Liam said Maddie accused him of cheating on her.”
Cassie’s eyes widened. “No way.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, did he?”
“Cassie! You know Liam wouldn’t do something like that.”
“I don’t think he would, no, but . . .”
“But what? Men do those things because we’re all jerks, is that what you mean?”
“I’m not saying that but long hours, all those pretty women around, he and Maddie so distant after the miscarriages, especially after the last one.”
Matt was uncomfortable with his wife’s line of thinking. He stood and walked toward the kitchen for a glass of juice. Did Cassie really think his little brother would cheat on Matt? If she thought that then what did she think of him? He’d been working long hours too. Around a lot of pretty women, many of them more than willing to sleep with a senator to work their way up the ladder in their careers. Was Cassie drawing a line between the possibility that Liam had cheated to the possibility he had too?
He poured the juice and heard her footsteps behind him. “I’m sorry, Matt. I really can’t see Liam doing that, no. Your brother has just been under a lot of pressure and —”
“Being under pressure doesn’t lead to affairs, okay? Or not all the time anyhow.”
Cassie raised her eyebrows and held up her hands. “Okay. I wasn’t trying to pick a fight. I was just trying to enjoy a quiet night for once with a book. I’ll leave you alone.”
Matt turned toward her. “Cassie, I didn’t mean to start a fight either. I just —”
“It’s fine.” Cassie walked to him and kissed his cheek. She stepped back and looked him in the eyes. “You just need to unwind. You’ve been put through the ringer by the media, members of congress, and now Liam’s drama. I don’t blame you for being tense. Why don’t you go watch one of your favorite shows? I’m going to turn in early.”
“You don’t need to turn in early.”
Her mind had been made up though. She was weary of discussing Liam and politics and viruses and . . . life, quite frankly.
“I really do need to,” she said softly, already at the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “See you in the morning, Matt.”
Matt finished his juice and shuffled back to the living room. Watch one of his favorite shows? He didn’t even have any favorite shows. Not current ones anyhow. He never had time to watch television anymore. He sat on the couch and slumped in the corner of it again, even further down this time than before.
He didn’t have time for anything anymore other than political fights and trying to put out fires. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Dang it. What had he been thinking dragging his family through all of this? Just, seriously, what had he been thinking?
He had been thinking he could help people, change things in Washington. Most days, though, he felt like he was a hamster on a wheel in its cage, getting nowhere fast. Maybe he’d made the wrong decision deciding to run for re-election this year. He’d accomplished most of what he’d set out to do to help his constituents and then some, but there were days it was as if those wins were eroded by the opposition until they were losses again.
Laying his arm across his eyes he sighed and tried to think clearly. He needed to decide if this re-election was really what he wanted, for one, but also if it was really what was best for his family.
A warning to readers this week: don’t panic during some of this and remember I don’t write sex scenes. Just keep going. It’s all going to be okay.
That’s all I will say for this week.
To catch up with the rest of the story click HERE. To catch up on Quarantined (a novella in progress) click HERE.
Jason’s heart was racing, his palms damp with sweat. What had he been thinking? Was he really going to do this tonight? Was he really going to tell Ellie about his past and let the chips fall where they may?
He took a deep breath and tightened his hands on the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. Yes, he was. He was doing this because he needed the burden off his shoulders, and he needed to know how Ellie would feel about him after he told her. He couldn’t keep waiting, torturing himself with worry of what might be.
He and Ellie had gone to school together since junior high, but it wasn’t until his junior year he really noticed her, or she had noticed him, or he guess he would say they noticed each other. It was in history class and Mr. Prawly and placed them in a group together to work on a project. Before that they’d seen each other at 4H meetings or when Robert took Jason with him to pick up equipment he borrowed from Ellie’s dad Jerry. Late one night after working on their project about Pennsylvanian history they found themselves laughing about their shared interest in old movies.
“Cary Grant is the epitome of old fashioned suave and charm,” she’d said, pretending to swoon, her hand against her forehead two nights later when they watched North by Northwest together at his parents.
He grinned, a teasing glint in his eye. “I agree, but I’m the epitome of modern suave and charm, right?”
She’d tipped her head back and laughed and he wasn’t sure if she was enjoying his humor or mocking him.
“Ginger Rogers was a very underrated actress,” he announced after they watched Vivacious Lady at her parents’ house.
“I agree,” she had said and smiled.
Wow. That smile. That smile that was for him and only him. It took his breath away.
That soft, long black hair against that pale skin, those large dark eyes and her sweet round face all together with that smile was a knockout combination.
He’d taken her to the movies twice, dinner once, lunch three times and attended youth group with her every Wednesday for two months before he’d finally worked up the courage to kiss her. And now, here he was working up the courage to ask her to marry him.
Those two years in college when he’d been without her, when they had decided to take a break from dating and see “how things developed” as she had said, were the loneliest and most confusing two years of his life. He’d felt like a ship out at sea without a compass. Returning home from college, to the farm and to her had anchored him again. He couldn’t even imagine losing that anchor again.
God, please don’t let me lose her.
He caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to see her stepping off the front porch, down the steps, watching him as she walked, her smile broad. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes followed the length of her body as she walked, and he bit his lower lip. Even after all these years she still took his breath away. She was so beautiful.
“I can’t do this, God,” he whispered as she reached the truck and opened the door.
“Hey,” she said after she slid into the truck seat and had slid her arms around his neck. Her mouth was on his before he could ask God for strength for later when he confessed to her about his past.
His mind was clouded by her kiss and her presence. She smelled of lilac and vanilla scented shampoo. The skin along her neck was soft and smooth as he kissed it and then moved his mouth up along her jawline, her ear and back to her mouth.
“We should probably head out to the restaurant,” she said breathlessly a few moments later. She tipped her head to one side, her hand against his chest. “Before we go too far.”
Jason cleared his throat and nodded. “Right. Of course.”
He grinned as he turned back to the steering wheel and she hooked her seatbelt. “But it wasn’t as if things would get too far with us parked outside your parent’s house. Not before your dad shot me.”
Ellie laughed. “Jason, Daddy wouldn’t shoot you.”
“I beg to differ.”
Ellie shook her head. “He loves you. You know that.”
“But he wouldn’t love me making out with you in my truck.”
“No, probably not,” Ellie said with a wink. “Unless we were married, of course.”
Jason swallowed hard. Married. There it was. The word. The one word hovering in his mind 24/7, waking him up at night, giving him near panic attacks daily.
“Right,” he said nervously, pushing his foot on the accelerator slightly, willing his truck to move them faster toward the restaurant where they could talk about the food, the weather, the farm, anything but marriage.
The drove in silence for a few moments, farmland and trees and open fields passing them by.
“Jason?”
Hurry up, truck.
“Yeah?”
“Are you ever going to ask me to marry you?”
Jason’s hand jerked on the steering wheel as he nearly jumped out of his seat from shock. The truck swerved over the center line and then back again into the right lane. Ellie gasped and clutched her hand around Jason’s upper bicep as he regained control of the truck.
She was breathless when she spoke. “Oh gosh. Sorry. I just — I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that, but I knew if I didn’t say something now, I would lose my courage.”
Jason slowed the truck down and pulled off into an empty parking lot in front of an abandoned convenience store. He slid the gear into park and turned to look at Ellie.
“What would make you ask that right now?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
Was she reading his mind? They’d been together so long he wouldn’t be surprised.
“I — I don’t know. I just —” Tears rimmed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jason. Are you angry?”
Jason shook his head. “No. Not at all. I’m sorry.” He reached over and took her hand in his. The frightened expression on her face sent stabbing guilt shuddering through him. He let go of her hand and cupped his palm against her face.
“It’s not that at all. It’s just that I was actually going to talk to you about that tonight and I was surprised that it was on your mind too.”
A tear slipped down Ellie’s cheek and his heart ached even more. He swiped at it with the palm of his thumb.
“Of course, it is on my mind, Jason. I’ve wanted to marry you since high school. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have your children. But sometimes I feel like you don’t want any of that at all.”
“No, El, that’s not true. I do want that. All of it.”
“Then why aren’t you asking me to marry you?”
“I — well, I was going to —”
Ellie’s eyes grew wide and her eyebrows shot up. “Oh! Were you going to ask me tonight and I totally ruined your plans?”
“Well, I —”
“Oh, Jason! I’m so sorry! I ruined your plan.”
“No, that’s okay. It’s just —”
Her mouth was on his again before he could explain. The expression of sheer delight on her face when she pulled back, her arms still around his neck, sent warmth bursting through his chest.
“You know I don’t need a big fancy proposal. All I want is you and of course I’d say ‘yes’ no matter how you asked.”
She was kissing him again and he was forgetting what he’d been going to say. Her body was so warm and solid against his and her lips so soft. Her hands were in his hair as they kissed and he couldn’t focus. Slowly his thoughts began to clear and that’s when the panic set in.
Wait a minute. Did she think he had just proposed and she was saying yes?
She peppered his cheek and neck with kisses. “Oh, Jason! I’m so excited! I’ve been waiting for this moment for years!”
Yes, she did think he’d just proposed, and she was saying ‘yes’.
“I know. I have been too, but I —”
She cut his sentence short again. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry I ruined the surprise.”
“No, it’s okay, I mean — It’s just that I —”
Her large brown eyes were watching him with hopeful expectation, with joy, with complete and utter adoration. There was no way he could tell her about his past now; ruin her night completely.
“I don’t have a ring,” he blurted.
She tipped her head back and laughed. “I don’t care about a ring, silly! We can worry about that later, or not at all. You know I don’t care about stuff like that.”
“But, it’s a symbol and it’s important, El. I should get you a ring.”
Ellie kissed him gently and shook her head. “Later. I just want us to enjoy this moment together for now.”
Jason swallowed hard. He wanted to enjoy the moment too, but he knew he couldn’t keep his secret forever and Ellie needed to know sooner rather than later. He wouldn’t tell her tonight, though. He’d already made his mind up about that. They would go to dinner, celebrate their engagement and then later, another day, he’d tell her what she needed to know and let her make up her own mind about whether she still wanted to spend the rest of her life with him or not.
***
The front door banged open hard against the wall and Alex stumbled inside with a giggling Jessie Landry pressed up against him. He was glad Jason was out for the night with Ellie.
Fumbling for the lights he slid an arm around Jessie and pulled her slender, warm body against his hip, leading her into the living room.
I’m going to forget about Molly Tanner once and for all, he thought, turning to kiss Jessie hard on the mouth, breathing in the smell of alcohol and cigarettes she’d brought with her from the bar.
Jessie was breathing heavy in his ear as his mouth found her neck and shoulder. “Oh, Alex. That feels so good.”
She pulled back, her mouth curled up in a seductive smile, one finger making a trail down his chest as she hooked a finger from her other hand in his belt loop and pulled him toward the couch. He grinned as she roughly shoved him down on the cushions and straddled him, the tiny mini skirt she was wearing pulling up around her slender, tanned thighs. She lifted the small halter top she’d been wearing over her head and dropped it on the floor, revealing a tiny pink flowered bra.
His hands instinctively slid up her back as she kissed him hard. Her hands were in his hair, clutching tight as they kissed, when it hit him. He wasn’t in college anymore. He had just turned 30. Was he really doing this? He didn’t know Jessie at all beyond flirtatious comments at the bar and now he was groping her on his couch? Suddenly Alex saw Molly in his mind’s eye, her sweet smile, the sun hitting her hair, the way she laughed when he created voices for the cows while they were being milked.
Jessie’s mouth moved to his earlobe and then his neck. Any other time his hands would have been sliding up her back to unhook her bra but in that moment all he could think of was how more than anything he wanted something real, something pure, a relationship not built only on physical attraction and he wanted it with Molly.
When Jessie moved her hips against him and moaned his name in his ear, he pictured Molly that morning when she’d left for her Bible study, her green eyes bright as she told him she’d see him later in the barn. Maybe she felt something for him too but was too afraid to admit it. Maybe if he told her how he felt, he’d have a chance to . . . To what? Corrupt her the way he’d corrupted so many others, even himself?
He willed the image of Molly away and clutched at Jessie’s hair, kissing her harder, sliding his hands up her back, his fingers on the hooks of her bra. He flipped her fast onto her back on the couch and she gasped and then laughed as he stood over her, pulling his shirt over his head. She reached up and trailed her hand down his bare chest.
“Get down here, sexy, and show me what farm boys are good at besides milking cows,” she said, her voice thick with desire.
She giggled as he lowered himself and kissed her throat. He should have been excited, but instead he felt a cold chill rush through him. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want another cheap, one night stand. He wanted something real. He paused for a moment over her before sitting back on the couch.
He rubbed both hands over his face. “I can’t do this.”
Jessie’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she leaned up on her elbows, still laying on her back. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry Jessie but I can’t do this. . .to. . . with you.”
Jessie sat up straighter on the couch, her eyebrows dipping lower as anger began to replace confusion. “Why not? Did I do something wrong? Are you having,” her gaze drifted down his torso to his unzipped jeans. “some kind of issue?”
Alex stood from the couch, zipping up the zipper Jessie had been lowering as she kissed him.
“No. I’m fine. You’re fine. Very fine. It’s just . . .Listen, it’s not you, it’s —-”
Jessie scoffed. “Oh my gosh! Are you giving me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech?! Me? You are really giving me that speech?! Are you serious right now?”
She jumped from the couch, snatching her shirt off the floor and pulling it over her head to cover the pink bra with the white flowers.
“You have some nerve Alex Stone! Why did you bring me all the way out here in the middle of,” she flung her hands in the air. “Nowhereville if you just wanted to toy with me?”
She pulled her jacket on, still yelling. “You are such a jerk!”
“Jessie, wait . . .”
“For what? For you to give me the ‘you’re a nice girl, but,’ speech? No, thank you. I’m out of here!”
The crash of the slamming door reverberated in his head, already aching from the alcohol he’d consumed earlier in the evening.
But it is me, Alex thought as he watched Jessie’s car tear down the dirt road away from his house, dust billowing around it. It is me and it’s Molly Tanner.
He punched the wall by the window hard. Blast that Molly Tanner and the way she’d worked herself into his mind. She’d ruined him for anything fun and spontaneous because all he could think of was his developing desire for something real, something special, and a relationship deeper than a one-night stand.
He cursed under his breath and snatched his shirt off the floor, sliding it on. What was he even thinking? He’d just brought a woman home from the bar with every intention of having sex with her and now he was actually considering taking his friendship with Molly to a deeper level. He had to be disillusioned at best, crazy at worst.
I’m not good enough for her, he thought, looking out the window toward the Tanner farm. God, if you’re real, keep me from hurting Molly. Don’t let me show her my feelings and hurt her somehow. I can admire her from afar for the rest of my life if I have to.
Alex knew just being near Molly would make him happier than meaningless acts with women he barely knew.
Still, he’d been pushing these feelings down for more than three years now. He didn’t know if he could hold his feelings back much longer. He was cracking and he knew it.
He had to know if Molly could or did feel the same for him. He had to know if her lips tasted as sweet as they looked. Shaking his head he knew it was wrong to think of her mouth, to think of her in a physical way like he had other women, but he hadn’t allowed himself to see her that way when they had first met five years ago when she was just his best friend’s little sister. The physical attraction to Molly had come gradually for Alex; slowly over the years. He knew he’d fallen in love with something deeper in Molly before he fell in love with her looks.
Alex felt like a cheesy fool thinking it, but he’d been attracted to her spirit before he had ever been attracted to her body. Something about her was different than any other woman he’d met and he’d wanted to know what it was as soon as he saw it. He wanted to know what she was thinking, how she felt about subjects he had never really even thought about before he’d come to the Tanner farm.
When they talked in the barn in the mornings and evenings he saw the world through her eyes and it was brighter, more hopeful and more beautiful than it had ever been through his own.
He felt like a dirty farm boy daring to touch the pristine skin of the fair maiden, even on the days her hands were covered in the same mud and manure his were.
He walked upstairs to the bathroom, tugging on the pull string, a feature that made it even more obvious Jason’s grandparents had never remodeled the farmhouse that had originally been built in the early 1920s.
He turned the water on in the sink full blast and splashed cold water on his face, rubbing it into his hair, growling in frustration.
Some days his biggest fear was that Molly would love him back, or that she already loved him, and that he would somehow ruin her with his imperfections, destroy the beautiful innocence and tenderness he saw in her.
But he knew he’d have to take the risk someday, let her know how he felt about her, end the torture he was putting himself through. Maybe telling her how he felt wouldn’t be the worst thing. Maybe she would corrupt him — in a good way.
This is a Novella in Progress: Quarantined. To catch up with the rest of the story click HERE.
Chapter 3
“It’s going to be okay, Maddie. We’ll try again.”
Liam’s voice had been warm, comforting, reassuring. His arms around her made her feel like her world wasn’t crumbling under her feet when she knew it actually was. He gave her hope, hope that one day they’d carry a pregnancy to term and they’d have a child of their own. But that had been four years ago, after their fourth miscarriage, and now, with a divorce looming like a dark specter on the horizon, Maddie had lost all hope of ever having children. She was 32, almost 33. Soon she’d be too old for children. The mere thought of dating again, of finding someone she wanted to have children with, exhausted her.
Liam had been the only one she’d ever wanted to have children with.
Walking slowly around the culdesac, her head down, she knew that Liam was still the only one she wanted to have children with. Despite all the anger, all the hurt, all the ways he’d rejected her over the years, she wanted nothing more than for him to want her again. She knew that wasn’t going to happen, though. He’d barely flinched when she’d told him she wanted a divorce six months ago.
“Fine,” he’d said, jaw tight, looking away from her. “If that’s what you want, I’ll call Pete in the morning and he can start drawing up the paperwork.”
“It is what I want,” she’d responded.
It had been a lie. She hadn’t wanted a divorce. She’d wanted to shake him out of his complacency, to force him into realizing how much he’d neglected her for the past four years. Her plan had failed miserably. Instead of begging her to stay, he’d practically packed her bags. He’d called his lawyer, suggested a lawyer for her, and told her they would need to decide who got what in terms of possessions, property, money.
“Of course, you can have the house and I’ll provide alimony for you if you wish,” he’d told her, a stoic expression on his face, his voice practically monotone. “And I’m sure the process will be easier since . . .” He’d glanced up at her then, looking at her for a few moments. He’d swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Since there aren’t any children involved.”
That’s right, Liam, she had wanted to scream. There aren’t any children involved because you practically abandoned me for your career after my last miscarriage. You pushed me off for years when I asked when we could start trying again. You replaced me with conference calls and press conferences and political prestige within your brother’s crooked political circle of influence.
Maddie kicked at a rock on the sidewalk and felt tears clutching at her throat. “You replaced me, Liam,” she whispered as she walked. “The girl you said you’d always love because I’m the only one who ever made you feel like you were loved unconditionally.”
The tears came suddenly, and she wiped at them furiously, afraid someone would see her and think she knew something they all didn’t because of who she was married to. She dreaded going back to the house, back to the husband who was shut up inside; not only inside the house, but inside himself.
Still, she couldn’t walk out here all day. She was actually tired. It had been a long week and she was feeling run down. She needed to rest, to keep her strength up in case she really did catch something from Liam. She walked slowly back to the house, making sure to wipe the tears from her face before she went back inside. The last thing she needed was Liam seeing her tears and asking her what was wrong, pretending he cared, when she knew he didn’t and hadn’t for a very long time.
It was quiet back inside the house. She breathed a sigh of relief and tossed her coat onto the couch. Finally, some peace and quiet. Liam had probably locked himself in his office to start working on press releases with John and Matt. She glanced at the office door as she sat down and saw it was open. She couldn’t hear Liam talking or typing away on his computer.
She groaned softly as she stood, a sharp pain shooting down her upper back. She stood and waited for the pain to subside, knowing it was stress-induced. She hunched her shoulders and clenched her jaw when she was angry or upset and she knew it was putting a strain on her back. She walked gingerly down the hallway toward Liam’s office and out of the corner of her eye she saw him in the spare room, asleep on his back, a pillow hugged to his chest. She paused and leaned against the doorway.
She remembered her friend Annie telling her how peaceful her children looked asleep, how easy it was to forget their misdeeds from that day when she saw them vulnerable and relaxed in their bed.
Liam looked peaceful.
Vulnerable even.
The lines she was so used to seeing stretch across his forehead were smooth, barely noticeable. His mouth was slightly open, but he wasn’t snoring, something he’d never done, and she was grateful for. His eyelashes had always been unusually long for a man, but not too long to be unbecoming. Strands of dark brown hair laid across his forehead, the rest of it swept back due to his supine position.
A small smile pulled at Maddie’s mouth. Memories pushed their way into her thoughts. Hands clutching, mouths touching, soft gasps, clothes on the floor, giggling, and then a loud crash as the boards that held the bed up at their first apartment broke and sent the bed, and them, crashing down. They’d laid there for a few moments, the bed at an angle, their heads down, their feet up, startled expressions on their faces, their naked bodies intertwined. Then they’d burst into laughter, laughing even as they dragged themselves from the wreckage of the bed.
His eyes flashed with a mischievous glint. “The couch doesn’t have wooden slats.”
He grinned.
She smiled.
He’d taken her hand and they’d rushed to the room that served both as a kitchen and a living room and resumed their undressed rendezvous.
He sure knew how to touch her back then. How to caress her, where to kiss her, how to hold her and just what to say to make her feel safe and loved. That first year of marriage. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. She touched her fingers to her throat, realizing her heart was pounding fast and she’d flushed warm at the memories. Her gaze drifted over his form on the bed, his strong shoulders, long legs, perfectly shaped mouth. She couldn’t deny he still did something to her insides; that he still lit a fire of passion within her that made her head feel a little funny, her stomach flip flop.
Her eyelids were even heavier now. She yawned, walking back to the couch for a much-needed nap and maybe later a Cary Grant movie and a cup of hot chocolate.
***
The smell of bacon and brewing coffee woke him. Sunlight poured across the bedroom floor and Liam squinted in the light, disoriented.
What time was it? He looked down at his wrinkled T-shirt and sweatpants. Had he slept all yesterday afternoon and night here? He snatched his phone from the bedside table. 8:30 a.m., Thursday.
He dragged his hand through his hair and across the back of his neck, stiff from laying in the same position for so long. He inhaled deeply to try to wake himself up and smelled the bacon again. And coffee.
Who was making breakfast?
Who else would be making breakfast, Liam? he thought, walking groggily down the hallway. You and Maddie are the only ones here, idiot.
Maddie was standing at the stove with her back to him, flipping an over-easy egg. She hated over-easy eggs. It must be for him and for that he was grateful at least.
“Hey,” she said turning to face him, spatula in her hand.
“Hey.”
“I made you some coffee and bacon. Your eggs are almost done.”
“You didn’t have to do that. Thanks.”
She shrugged, pouring herself a glass of orange juice. He had thought she would still be mad this morning but instead she seemed indifferent about it all. She slid the plate across the breakfast bar to him and carried her plate with her to the kitchen table.
“I guess I figured we should have a good breakfast before we get too sick to eat,” she said sullenly, taking a bite of bacon.
He sipped his coffee. Two spoonfuls of sugar and vanilla bean creamer. She knew how he liked it, that was for sure. Guilt dug at his chest as he dug into the eggs. He needed to tell her the truth; that he didn’t even know if he really had the virus. Maybe he’d wait until their breakfast was done at least, so he didn’t have to dodge the flying frying pan while he tried to finish his cup of coffee.
“Have you heard anything from Matt?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. He and John have been busy putting out fires, but they’re both finally in quarantine too.”
“You’re his press secretary. Shouldn’t you be in on putting out the fire?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but John’s my assistant so he can handle it. I’m sure Matt will be calling again soon, pulling his hair out or going stir crazy from being stuck in the house all day. One or the other.”
She nodded and finished her toast.
“Have you talked to your parents?” he asked.
She didn’t look at him. She studied her plate of food. “Yeah. They’re fine. Mom is having a hard time keeping Dad from going in and out of stores for supplies and stopping to help everyone he knows, but they’re locked in now, trying to stay well. They’re worried about me, of course.”
Oh, crud. He had to tell her the truth so she could tell her parents there was a chance she might not catch the virus. There was a good possibility she might kill him, but he had to tell her.
“Maddie, listen. . .” She turned her head to look at him. He looked into wide green eyes and cleared his throat. She cocked an eyebrow. A cocked eyebrow meant she was ready for a fight. This was going to be rough.
“There’s a possibility I don’t have the virus.”
Her eyebrows sank into a scowl immediately and she pursed her lips, looking at him for several moments before she spoke, her tone cold.
“I’m sorry?”
“The doctor who took the test said he’d have the results in a few days but that there was a chance I didn’t have it.”
“You told me you had the virus, Liam. Had it. Not might have it. You yelled it at me, in fact.”
“Yeah, I know, it’s just —”
“It’s just, what? You told me it was positive. Are you telling me now that you lied to me?”
“Yes, but listen … I just didn’t want to talk about it. I know I should have cleared it up, but I needed you to stay in the house and I figured you wouldn’t listen to me if I said I might have it. If you’d left and someone found out it could have been bad for Matt. The doctor wrote the case down as ‘probable’ and right not ‘probable’ is as good as positive.”
Maddie’s eyes were ablaze with fury now, crimson spreading up her cheekbones. “I have been sitting here waiting to feel sick, looking up ways to deal with the coughing and the fever if one of us gets it and you still don’t know if you really have it? Holy crap, Liam. Really?”
“I was still exposed. This is still the right thing to do.”
“That’s not the point. The point is you lied to me. Again.”
“Again? What are you even talking about?”
She turned away from him, standing up from the table, and walking to the window. She crossed her arms tight across her chest, her back to him. “Why did you want this divorce?” she asked, her voice strained.
“What?”
“I said why —”
“I heard what you said, Maddie. I’m not the one who asked for this divorce. You are. Remember?”
“Only because I knew you wanted it.”
“You knew I wanted it? You never even asked me what I wanted. You never ask me what I want.”
“I could tell by how you acted that you didn’t want to be married anymore.”
He pushed his plate and mug away from him. He couldn’t even believe what he was hearing. Standing from the breakfast bar, he faced her with his hands on his hips.
“Okay. Yeah. Whatever. You know what? Just go ahead and make decisions for me, like you always do, Maddie.”
She turned to face him, her arms falling to her side. “What are you even talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
There went that eyebrow again. “No, actually, I don’t.” She gestured in front of her as if she was conducting a magic trick. “Enlighten me.”
That was it. He’d had enough of her acting like he was the one guilty for the collapse of their marriage.
“Like how you decided we weren’t going to try for any more children, for one.”
She was talking through clenched teeth now. “I did not decide that, Liam. You decided that by running off to run Matt’s campaign and never being home.”
“You pushed me away, Maddie. You acted like you were the only one who’d lost those babies.”
Maddie looked stunned. Her face flushed an even darker red, her eyes swimming with tears.
“I needed you, Liam! I needed you to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay and —”
“I did hold you. I did tell you it would be okay.”
“At first yes, but it was like after a while my grieving just pissed you off.”
He carried his empty breakfast plate and coffee mug to the sink. “We needed to move on, Maddie. We couldn’t wallow in our misery forever.”
He grabbed the pan from the stove next, turning to place it in the sink too.
“Our misery?” Maddie shook her head in disbelief. “I was the one who carried those babies, who lost those babies, whose body failed her, who —”
Liam’s blood boiled. He slammed the pan down on the countertop by the stove and swung to face Maddie. “They were my babies too dammit.”
Maddie stepped back, hugging her arms tight around her, gulping back a sob.
“Yes, it was our misery. It wasn’t all about you,” he continued, his voice shaking with anger. “We made those babies together and we lost them together and I stopped trying to comfort you because nothing I did helped you. I could never do anything right and —” Liam cursed again, furious at the emotion choking his words, the tears burning his eyes. “I couldn’t fix you, Maddie. I couldn’t make it right. And eventually I couldn’t fix us, and I gave up trying because I didn’t think you wanted me to fix us.”
Maddie dragged her hand across her face and turned to walk back into the living room, bone chilling exhaustion rushing over her. How could he say that? That she didn’t want him to fix them? That she didn’t want to fix this marriage? He was the one who — she shook her head, sitting on the couch, tears rolling down her face. She curled up in a ball, facing the back of the couch, pulling her mother’s quilt off the back and draping it over her.
“That’s what you always do, isn’t it?” he snapped, walking into the living room. “Just walk away and never deal with anything.”
She flung the quilt off her and sat up. “I never deal with anything? And what have you been doing to deal with things? Burying yourself in your work instead of dealing with your life at home, with your marriage that was falling apart, was dealing with things? You could have fooled me. Flirting with staffers and reporters instead of coming home and facing the disaster that was our relationship. Was that how you dealt with things too?”
Liam made a face and scowled at her. “Flirting with who?”
“You know who. Wendy. That little redhead from channel 12.”
Liam scoffed. “Wendy? I never flirted with her. She’s not my type.”
“I guess all those female staffers in your brother’s office that you wink at aren’t your type either.”
“That I wink at? I don’t wink at those women and no, they aren’t my type either. Most of them are airheads.”
“Then who is your type? Because it definitely isn’t me or I wouldn’t,” Maddie’s voice cracked and tears filled her eyes again. “be home alone every night in our bed.”
Liam placed his hands on his hips and tipped his head. “Come on, Maddie – it’s not like I haven’t been alone too. And I have been for a long time.”
He tossed his hands out in front of him then clenched them into fists and pressed them against his mouth. “You know what? I’m just done talking about this. We are getting nowhere. I’m going into my office to get some work done.”
The slamming of the door reverberated in her ears.
“Now who’s walking away from his problems?” she snapped under her breath, falling back onto the couch and pulling the quilt over her again.
Yes, I wrote another long chapter so this is part two of Chapter 19 and you can find part 1 HERE. To catch up with the rest of the story, which I feature every Friday, click HERE or find the link at the top of the page. This is a “novel in progress” and when it is finished I usually toss it up on Kindle for friends, family, and blog readers to read in full (after I fix plot holes, edit, rewrite and hopefully fix typos).
Sitting at the bar with his third bottle of beer in front of him, Alex dragged his hands through his hair and wished he could drink until he couldn’t think anymore. He knew he couldn’t, though. He’d finished the days chores, but Robert could need him at any time of the day. He hated the idea of Robert seeing him with glazed over eyes or a hangover. That had happened only once before and Alex had felt the stinging rush of humiliation when Robert sent him out of the barn and ordered him to sleep it off. Thankfully Robert had accepted his apology.
It wasn’t the first time in his life Alex had felt the sting of humiliation. In fact, he’d felt it many times in his life and often when a man much better than him had to correct him on one of his many mistakes.
“You need to make a decision on what kind of man you want to be, Alexander Timothy Stone,” his grandfather had said to him as they drove away from the jail one night in his grandfather’s old pick up.
Col. Paul Madigan. Career Marine. Retired by the time Alex was in high school; just in time to whip his own grandson into shape. Or at least try to.
Even at 67 he had still been an imposing man. Six feet tall, broad shoulders and chest, square jawline
“What do you think you’re proving pulling all this stuff, boy?” his grandfather had asked him. “You’re not proving that you’re a real man. You’re not proving you’re better than your father. Is that what you’re trying to do? Get his attention? It’s not going to work. You know that. Your father doesn’t care about anyone other than himself, boy. You better think about what you want for your future, who you want to be. You want to be someone your future children can be proud of.”
His grandfather’s jaw clenched, his hands gripping the steering wheel tight. He’d let out a long breath and then shook his head.
“I know one thing, though, boy, no matter what you do, I won’t top loving you. I know there’s a man inside that body of a boy. I know there is a man who wants to be better, who wants to be what a man should be – responsible, trustworthy, and able to provide for his family. A man people will want to look up to one day, not shake their heads at.”
Alex had wanted to be a better man, to be what his grandfather had wanted him to be and somedays he thought he was on the way to being that better man, but today he really didn’t care anymore.
He needed a break from trying to be better. It was exhausting.
Country music blared from the speakers and cigarette smoke filtered across the bar like the haze filtering across his mind. The bar was sparsely crowded with only two other people sitting on actual bar stools near him, the rest scattered around the dimly lit inside of the bar, sitting at tables or leaning against the pool tables.
Blond hair spilled over his shoulder, interrupting his thoughts. Someone leaned against his back, a clearly feminine arm draping over his shoulder, a strong smell of alcohol and perfume hitting him.
“Hey, farm boy. You look like you need a friend.”
He glanced over his shoulder, his face now inches away from the face of a woman he’d met in the same bar a few months before. What was her name again?
He struggled to remember.
Jenny?
Jackie?
Julie?
The woman’s smile was broad, her eyelids heavy under dark blue eyeshadow. Her bright red lipstick matched her blouse which featured a low cut v-neck that clearly revealed her cleavage. “Remember me?”
“Uh. . .yeah. . . hey … Jackie.”
She rolled her eyes and giggled.
“Jessie, silly.”
Jessie. Right. Jessie Landry.
“Right. Jessie. Hey. How’s it going?”
Jessie slid onto the stool next to him and leaned an elbow on the bar. “Good, but you look like you’ve seen better days.”
Alex shrugged, taking another swig of beer. “Yeah. I guess.”
Jessie smiled slyly and tipped her head. “Fight with your girlfriend?”
A slight smile tugged at Alex’s lips at he looked at her.
“No girlfriend to have a fight with.”
“No wife either?” Her tone was playful now as she slide her hand along the bar toward is arm.
“No woman to speak of,” he said, looking back toward the stack of bottles behind the bar.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jessie push her lower lip out and tip her head to the other side. She crossed one long leg over another, her high heels clicking on the bottom rung of the stool.
“Aw. That’s so sad. Someone so good looking shouldn’t be so alone.”
Alex laughed softly and shook his head. He knew a flirt when he saw one, even with all the alcohol in his system, and this Jessie Landry was definitely one of those.
Music thudded from the jukebox on the other side of the bar. Bodies pushed into the center of the room, moving and swaying to the rhythm. Jessie slid off the bar stool and began to dance next to him. That’s when he noticed her too short mini skirt and her too tight bright red shirt. She tugged at his arm as she danced, hips moving from side to side.
“Come on. Dance with me. It will make you feel better.”
“I don’t dance,” he said with a smirk, sipping the beer.
She leaned close to him and winked. “Then just stand out here with me and I’ll dance around you, silly.
His senses dulled by the beer, Alex staggered from the stool as she grabbed his hand, letting her lead him to the center of the floor. She gyrated slowly in front of him, her straight blond hair bouncing back and forth across her back and shoulders as she moved down to the floor and back up again, sliding her hands up his legs seductively.
He watched her through bleary eyes, drowsy from the beer, admiring her slender form and the way her body curved in all the right places.
When a slow song came on, she slid her arms around his neck and stepped close to him, pressing her body into his. He questioned himself briefly about why she was being so forward — they’d only met once or twice before, yet here she was dancing with him liked they’d been dating for months. He dismissed the thought almost as quickly as he’d thought it as she tipped her head back, revealing a long bare neck, the top of her shirt pulling down and drawing his eyes to where he knew he shouldn’t be looking.
Her voice was whiny as she flipped her head back up and pressed her forehead against his. “It’s so boring here tonight. We should think of something else we could do…” She trailed her finger down the front of his shirt, letting her eyes drift down and then up again, then leaned close and seductively whispered the last word. “Together.”
Alex watched her for a moment, lowered his eyes to her full lips and shrugged. Why not? It wasn’t as if someone Molly would ever be interested in someone like him. An alcoholic loser like him. A heathen someone like Ben Oliver might say. Why not take his mind of Molly and how he wouldn’t ever be good enough for her?
He grinned at Jessie and laid his hand against her thigh. A familiar need pulsated within him.
Her jerked his head toward the door. “You want to get out of here? I know somewhere we can have a lot more fun.”
Jessie giggled and nodded. She took his hand as he broke their embrace, and followed him out into the parking lot. When she climbed up into his truck and closed the door behind her, she slid next to him and laid her hand on his upper thigh, rubbing it gently as he shifted the truck into gear.
He drove toward the house, glad to know he’d soon have a way to take his mind off Molly, his failures, and his confusion about life in general.
I have another long chapter this week so I have split it into two parts and once again won’t make anyone who wants to read it wait until next Friday but will share the second half of the chapter on a special fiction Saturday.
I hope you are all doing well. Stay calm and reading fiction as a distraction. Trust me on this. It helps.
To catch up with the rest of The Farmer’s Daughter, click HERE or see the link at the top of the page.
Molly groped for her cellphone in the dark, her heart racing. It had startled her out of a deep sleep. “Molly?”
“Yes?”
She didn’t recognize the voice in her drowsy stupor.
“It’s Allie. I’m at the hospital. I’m not supposed to do this. I could probably get fired for calling you, but Liz won’t let us call her parents. She only wants you and I don’t think she should be alone.”
Molly sat up abruptly. “What happened?”
The following brief silence hinted that what had happened was more complex than what could be explained over the phone.
“Umm, I’m going to let Liz tell you when you get here.”
The drive to the hospital gave Molly’s imagination plenty of time to run wild. A variety of scenarios flitted across her mind’s eye and with each one her grip on the steering wheel tightened.
Liz’s hospital room was dark and quiet when Molly walked in with only a strip of light pouring in from the streetlamp outside the window. Allie had met Molly at the nurse’s station, nodding toward Room 22 with an expression that exuded sympathy. Molly didn’t even bother asking Allie what had happened again. She knew Liz would need to tell her.
The beep of the heart monitor and voices of nurses in the hallway were the only sound when Molly stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“Liz?”
Molly’s best friend since grade school laid curled up in a ball under the covers in the hospital bed, her honey blond hair hung limply across her back and shoulders. Her eyes were closed and pale skin blended in with the moonlight spreading across the pillow under her head, her face void of the makeup she usually wore. Molly wasn’t sure if Liz was asleep, so she sat quietly on a chair next to the bed.
In the moments after Molly sat down and Liz finally spoke the silence was deafening, terrifying, panic inducing for Molly. What in the world is going on?
Liz didn’t open her eyes or unfurl herself from the fetal position she’d wrapped herself in. “Molly, do you think God forgives us for things we have done wrong? Really forgives us?”
Molly leaned forward in the chair, confused. Where was this going? “Yes, Liz, I do. I truly do but I’ll admit that sometimes I worry he won’t.” She tipped her head, her eyebrows furrowed. “Liz, what’s going on? What happened?”
Liz let out a long breath.
“I’m an idiot, Molly.”
“Liz, you’re not an —”
“I tried to kill myself, Mol.”
A cold chill cut through Molly and she closed her eyes, hot tears rushing into her eyes before she could stop them. She turned her face away, covering her mouth to choke back a sob. She swallowed hard and tried to regain her composure as she opened her eyes again.
She took a deep breath. “Liz. . . how? Why? What’s going on?”
Liz stared out the hospital window, expressionless. “I’m pregnant.”
Molly’s mind raced for answers. Liz was pregnant? When had this happened?
“How? I mean, I know how, I just mean —”
“You mean, who?”
“Well, yes. Who?”
“Gabe.”
Molly was baffled. “Gabe?”
Liz closed her eyes, a tear slipping down her cheek. “I fell for it again, Molly. I fell for him again. I believed him when he said he loved me and he wouldn’t hit me or cheat again.”
“Hit you? He was hitting you?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me he was doing that.”
“I never told anyone.”
Molly looked at Liz in disbelief. “And you went back to him?
“For one night, yes.” Her stoic expression crumbled as she began to sob. “How could I have been so stupid?”
Molly leaned back against the chair, feeling as if she’d been hit in the chest with a two-ton weight. She struggled to wrap her mind around what Liz was saying.
“I drank a lot when I was with Gabe, Molly. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t kn—”
“There is so much you didn’t know.”
Molly’s eyebrows raised. Was she in some kind of alternate universe? This conversation was surreal. Had she been so wrapped up in her own world she hadn’t noticed the pain her friend was in? It was becoming more obvious by the minute that the answer was ‘yes.’
Liz closed her eyes and shook her head. “I wish I hadn’t called 911. I should have just kept those pills down and I wouldn’t have to be here anymore.”
Molly moved the chair between Liz and the window. “Liz. Please. Tell me what is going on.”
“I got drunk one night three months ago at a party Brittany Jennings convinced me to go to. I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since I’d left Gabe. He was there. I don’t remember much, just him leading me upstairs at this house, someone’s house, his hands all over me. . . .”
“Liz, did he force you to sleep with him?”
Liz shook her head slowly. “No. I agreed to it. I remember that much at least. I was out of it, but I agreed to it and I thought I wanted it. It wasn’t until the next morning I realized what I’d done. I was so ashamed.”
Tears soaked Molly’s cheeks. She had given up on trying to hide her emotions. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”
Liz’s voice faded to a whisper, as if she was too weak to even talk. “I didn’t want you to know how messed up I was. I didn’t want you to know how far I’d fallen. I’d let Gabe walk all over me and abuse me all those years, simply because I thought he would change — that I could change him. I moved in with him without being married to him and I was already embarrassed about that. I just couldn’t imagine telling you I had been stupid enough to get pregnant by him too. I was drinking so much when he and I were dating. I couldn’t think straight most days. Drinking, taking pills Gabe offered me, sometimes pushed me to take. It’s probably why I could never think straight long enough to get away from him.”
A sick ache clutched at Molly’s stomach. Liz had been drinking and depressed and she’d never even noticed. How could she have been so clueless and selfish?
“You must have hid the drinking well.”
“It was mostly on the weekends. The weekends when I told you I was working late or made up some excuse about having to do inventory at the store.”
“Oh, Liz, I’m so —”
“This isn’t who I thought I would turn into back when we were going to youth group together,” Liz said quickly, talking over Molly. “Back when we always said we’d save ourselves for marriage and never get drunk or do drugs. We were so naïve.”
Molly thought about how she had kept all of those promises so far and how sometimes it made her feel boring, but most of the time it made her feel proud for keeping her word to her younger self. Keeping those promises didn’t make her better than Liz, though, especially not in the sight of God. He loved both of them, no matter what Liz might think about herself and her worth right now.
“No one is perfect and you may not have kept the promises you made to yourself back then but it’s never too late to change.”
Molly motioned for Liz to move over and sat next to her friend on the bed. Liz slid over and leaned against Molly, crying against a crumpled tissue clutched in her hand. “The worst thing about all of this is that I was really falling for Matt, you know? I knew he was too good for me though. I didn’t deserve him.”
Liz broke down again. She tried to speak through the tears, stopped and started again. “I think I thought Gabe was the only one who would want me that way. That I wouldn’t ever be good enough for Matt so why even act like he would want me? And now. . .” she paused to sob into her hands that were now covering her face. “Now he definitely won’t want me. No one will want me. I’m a mess. I’m an alcoholic, an addict, and obviously a mental case who wasn’t strong enough to walk away from an abusive man. To top it all off, now I’m pregnant with that man’s baby.”
Molly gently pulled Liz’s hands from her face. “Liz, all this is lies. Lies you are telling yourself. Lies that the ruler of darkness is telling you. You know that. Your life might be a mess right now, but you are worthy of love. You have made mistakes but there is redemption and you will have that redemption. Do you hear me?”
Liz nodded weakly, burying her face in Molly’s shoulder.
“Have you told your parents about this?” Molly asked as she hugged her friend close. “Do they even know you’re here?”
“God, no.” Liz’s response was sharp as she pulled back and made a face. “Can you imagine me telling Frank and Marian about this? Frank would be here anointing me with oil and Marian would be using me as an example of who not to become at Bible study. They may just make me wear a sweater with the letter “s” for slut emblazoned on it when they do find out.”
Molly laughed softly. “Liz, they love you. They are not going to do that.”
Liz rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Molly handed her friend another tissue. “I just wish you had told me.”
She leaned back to look at Liz. “How is the baby? How far along are you? Or did this . . .”
Liz shook her head. “The heartbeat is good. The doctors don’t think the pills I took harmed it. I panicked after I took them and called an ambulance. I’m guessing I’m about three months.”
“Are you telling me that you were three months pregnant and still kicking my butt at the gym every day.”
A small smile tugged at Liz’s mouth, then faded, replaced by tears and sobs.
“I’m three months pregnant and I don’t know if I can do this, Molly.”
“I’ll help you however I can. You won’t be alone. We can get an apartment and raise the baby together.”
Liz laughed weakly. “What, like an old married couple?”
A slight smile tugged at Molly’s. “No. Like the friends we are. Though we do sometimes act like an old married couple.”
Molly stood and pulled the blanket up around her friend’s shoulders.
“For now, I want you to rest until the doctors say you can go home.”
Liz’s sleepy gaze drifted out the window, over Molly’s shoulder.
“They want me to stay for a few days in the psych ward. The psych ward. How did I even get to this place in my life?”
Molly shrugged. “One mistake at a time, like any of us. You’re going to be fine, though. Maybe they’ll allow you to have outpatient care instead. But for now, I think it’s best you stay here and rest. Do you want me to call your parents for you?”
Liz looked back at Molly and shook her head.
“No. I’ll call them soon. This town is so small, I’d better before someone at the gas station or library tells them.”
“Do you want me to call Matt?”
Liz grimaced. “Oh gosh, no way. He’s going to run as far away from me as he can when he hears about this. That relationship is over. Sunk. I’m sure of it. I don’t know how I’m going to handle that right now. I mean, can you imagine? ‘Hey, Matt, so like you want to go on another date? Oh, and by the way, I’m carrying my abusive ex-boyfriend’s baby.’ Yeah. That conversation is so not going to happen.”
Molly couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s sense of humor and how it came out even in the darkest of times.
“I wouldn’t put it to him that way, no. But at some point, you owe it to him to tell him what’s going on. You can’t control how he reacts but at least you will have done the right thing and told him. He cares for you, Liz. He’d want to know.”
Liz pulled her knees up against her chest under the covers, closing her eyes.
“I know. I’ll tell him. Later.”
A nurse walked into the room, pushing a cart. Molly knew Liz needed her sleep and took it as a sign to leave. Still, anxiety over leaving Liz alone was poking at her thoughts.
“Do you want me to stay with you a little longer?”
Liz shook her head, her eyes still closed. “No, that’s okay, I think I’m going to rest, but can you come back in the morning?”
The nurse checked the IV in Liz’s arm and then began to hook a blood pressure cuff on her upper arm. Molly stood in place, still feeling uncomfortable with leaving.
Liz opened one eye, glanced at the IV, then back at Molly.
“They’re watching me, here, Molly. It’s okay. And I chickened out and called the ambulance, remember? I regretted it as soon as I took those pills. I won’t try it again.”
Molly leaned over and hugged Liz. “Okay, but I’ll be back first thing in the morning. I’m a call away.”
“I know, Molly. Thank you. And listen, when you come back I want you to tell me all about how things are going with you and Alex.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Liz opened her eyes and grinned sleepily. “Please. I know something is going on between you and Alex and when you come back , I want you to bring chocolate and tell me all about it.”
“Liz, there is nothing going on between Alex and me.”
“But you want there to be.”
Molly looked at the nurse, who looked to be in her mid-40s, her dark brown hair cut shoulder length. The nurse shrugged and smiled. “I’ll check with the doctor about the chocolate. The story should be fine.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Molly responded with a laugh. “There isn’t any story to tell.”
Molly looked back at Liz, grateful to see her eyes closed, her body relaxed and her chest rising and falling in a rhythmic patter. She was breathing and alive, something Molly was eternally grateful for. Out in her truck Molly pressed her forehead against the steering wheel and let the tears fall for several moments before pulling out of the parking lot.
Driving in the dark, back toward the farm, she felt foolish for moping through life when she was blessed to have the life she did. Yes, it was stressful knowing that the farm and family business was struggling. Yes, she was anxious about feeling stagnant and lost. But she was alive, she had a family who loved her, good friends, and a God who wanted the best for her.
Then there was Alex. Where did he fit in? For now, she was placing him somewhere between family and friend, but closer to friend. A very good looking friend who she had daydreamed about kissing more than once.
Oh boy.
So, maybe friend wasn’t the category he belonged in, but for now, until she could figure out how he felt about her, that was the category he’d have to stay in.
I’ve been off Facebook for a few days and haven’t looked at the news but based on some of the blog posts I’m reading, the events going on in today’s world are hitting people hard and spiraling them into depression. Take a break from it all today – either reading this chapter from this novella I’m working on or simply walking away from media all together and pick up a book, take a walk, or start a hobby that gave you comfort before. We have to choose to walk away from the stress so I’m encourage you (and me) to choose to do that.
Matt Grant tapped the end button on the screen of his phone and laid the phone on the coffee table next to his laptop and paperwork. He rubbed his hand across his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a tension headache pulsating in his temples.
He’d just got off the phone with his assistant press secretary, John Chambers. They’d drafted another statement for the media, answering accusations that Matt was still at work in his office in the capitol.
“Just make sure they know I’m at home, self-quarantining, just like my doctor told me to,” Matt had told John, more than a touch of annoyance in his voice.
“I’m making sure,” John said. “I’m assuring them all of us are safely locked away now. Just like the critics seem to think we should be, even though our preliminary tests are inconclusive. I doubt this will satisfy them, but we can try.”
With the statement to the press out of the way, Matt’s mind wandered back to his brother Liam, who he needed to call and check on. The doctor who had examined Liam had listed his diagnosis as “probable” for the virus, which was what had triggered this latest scandal in the first place. Matt was sure Liam would be fine but there was a small part of him that worried about his little brother developing symptoms of the virus that was sending others to ICUs across the country. Matt wasn’t only worried about Liam’s physical health though. He was also worried about his mental and emotional health.
Liam had told Matt months ago that his marriage was in shambles. Matt had barely listened, sure his brother and sister-in-law would work things out. He knew Liam still loved his Maddie, and Maddie still loved Liam. He was sure of it. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be struggling so much with the idea of divorce and it would have been finalized months ago.
It couldn’t be easy being quarantined together during a pandemic with all the issues they had with each other, but Matt was glad they were. Maybe it would give them a chance to work out their issues and save what had been a great union at one time. As it was, their divorce proceedings had been delayed because of the pandemic, which Matt saw as a way for them to buy more time and truly be sure the divorce was what they wanted.
What made Matt uncomfortable wasn’t only that he could hear pain mixed with longing in his brother’s voice when they had talked about the divorce a couple of weeks ago. It was also that he wondered, worried even, that maybe his marriage was bleeding out in the same way his younger brother’s had and he had been too wrapped up in himself to realize it.
Matt and Cassie hadn’t had a lot of time alone lately. They actually had barely even had time to talk.
Their life had been a runaway train since the election six years ago and now it was picking up speed again as their re-election campaign was underway. Really, though, the train had never actually slowed down.
In Washington he faced daily drama and conflict whether he wanted it or not. Becoming the head of the Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs last year hadn’t helped slow things down any either.
Then there was this crazy never-before-seen virus that seemed to come out of nowhere a few weeks ago and now had him at home with his family, waiting to see if he developed any symptoms after being exposed to it more than a week ago. He was convinced if he had the virus he would have developed symptoms by now, but he had stayed home to make sure things looked good to the press and his constituents. Making sure things “looked good and right” to others seemed to be 90 percent of his job anymore, leaving little room for him to actually do good and right and accomplish the things he’d been elected to do.
All the drama in Congress left him little time to focus on Cassie or the kids and he regretted that. He regretted it even more when his brother’s march toward divorce had become a growing reality. He’d never pictured Liam and Maddie divorced. They were the perfect couple. They’d weathered some hard storms, but Matt had been sure the challenges would bring them closer together. In fact, he thought it had but now he realized he’d been too wrapped up in the campaign and job to notice how much they’d actually drifted apart.
Sure, Liam, as his press secretary, spent many late nights working with him, but he imagined when he went home, he and Maddie made up for lost time. Instead Matt had recently learned that Liam had been working at home as well, sleeping in his office, leaving Maddie alone most of the time, writing her romance novels and reaching for companionship on social media.
Matt and Liam’s parents had been the perfect example of a stable, loving marriage. Married 54 years, Tom and Phyllis Grant made it clear each day how much they loved each other. Sure, they had argued, even in front of their children, but those arguments had been resolved usually before the sun had gone down and with a fair amount of ‘making up’. Matt and Liam, and his sister Lana had been grateful the majority of that making up had gone on behind closed doors.
Standing from the couch to stretch, Matt looked out the window at his own three children playing ball in the backyard and felt a twinge of guilt. Getting pregnant and carrying three babies to term had been easy for him and Cassie. They’d never had to face the heartbreak of not being able to get pregnant or of a miscarriage. Matt felt like he’d taken being able to become a father so easily for granted.
He looked around his living room, well-decorated with expensive furniture and commissioned paintings, and thought about how much of his life he had taken for granted, especially lately. He’d taken for granted the newer model car he drove, the highly-rated bed he slept on, the full refrigerator, and even fuller bank account.
He rubbed his hand along his chin and turned toward the kitchen where Cassie was making a late lunch for him and the kids. Her dark brown hair fell to her waist in a tight braid, the bottom of it grazing the top of the waistband of a pair of red workout shorts. Her favorite T-shirt, featuring Johnny Cash wearing a cowboy hat, fit her medium build well, hugging all the areas it should, especially for the benefit of her husband admiring the view that he hadn’t admired for a long time.
He watched her stirring the taco meat in the skillet and his gaze traveled down her legs and back up again, thinking about the first time they’d met in an English lecture at college.
“Pst.”
He’d leaned over the desk to try to get her attention, but she was intently focused on the professor. He had tried again.
“Pst.”
She glared over her shoulder at him.
“Do you have an extra pen?” he whispered.
She rolled her eyes, ignored him, tapping the end of her own pen against her cheek gently as she kept her eyes focused forward.
“It’s just,” he leaned a little closer so he didn’t interrupt the other students. “I left my pen back in my dorm room and I want to make sure I’m taking notes.”
He was glad he had leaned a little closer. She smelled amazing. What was that perfume? He had no idea but it was intoxicating. Maybe it was her shampoo. The fluorescent light from the lecture hall was reflecting off her luxurious black strands of hair and he pondered what it would feel like to reach out and touch it. But he didn’t reach out and touch it. That would be weird. Even a 19-year old college freshman like himself knew that.
A year later, though, he was touching that soft dark hair while he kissed Cassie for the first time outside her dorm after their third date. And over the years he’d sank his hands in that hair in moments of tenderness and moments of passion. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he watched his wife and thought about a few of those moments, including that time in the back of his new car after he’d landed that job at the law firm in Detroit.
He could deny it. It wasn’t only the material things of his life that he had taken for granted. He had also been taking Cassie for granted. For far too long.
***
Cassie Grant turned from where she was cooking lunch for her husband and children and watched her husband pace back and forth in the living room.
She knew he was worried about the situation with the virus, the way his office had been thrown into the middle of an unexpected scandal. She was sure he was also worried about whether he’d develop symptoms of the virus, pass it on to the children, and if his other staff members would be infected, now that it looked like Liam’s test for it would be positive. Too little was known about how the virus affected the majority of people, although early reports showed that most cases were mild.
And then there was Liam and Maddie’s marriage which was about to end. Matt and his brother had been raised by parents who had been married 54 years. The brothers and their sister weren’t a product of divorce and Cassie wondered if the prospect of Liam’s marriage ending was weighing on Matt’s mind along with the virus.
Cassie wasn’t sure what her husband was thinking anymore, though, because Matt hadn’t been talking to her much lately. He’d been busy at the office, putting out fires, which seemed to pop up several times throughout the day, thanks to a 24/7 news cycle that never let up.
She couldn’t deny that she missed seeing her husband. She missed their date nights and family movie nights and him just being around the house when she needed him. But she knew that he was doing what he thought was right to try to make a difference for the people who elected him.
Turning the burner down she leaned back against the counter and watched Matt turn and look out the window where their children were playing. Her gaze fell on the back of his head, on his soft brown hair and she remembered with a soft laugh that day in college when they’d been studying in a private room on the first floor of the university library. The love seat they were sitting on was soft, plush, light maroon.
Papers and books were spread out in front of them and Matt was debating the importance of some moment in history to the future of something or other. Cassie couldn’t remember now and hadn’t cared then. She’d tuned him out long ago. Instead she had been watching him amazed at how impassioned he was about the topic at hand. She had been staring at the muscles in his jaw and how they moved as he spoke, at his long fingers connected to that manly hand, at a strand of hair that had fallen across his forehead that she desperately wanted to push to the side. And she’d definitely been watching his mouth. His lips looked amazingly kissable.
Cassie was sick of listening to him quite frankly.
“Cassie, don’t you see that —”
Cassie leaned forward and pressed her mouth to Matt’s, cutting his sentence short, touching the side of his face gently. She pulled back and looked at him, her mouth still inches from his. He had finally fallen silent. At least for a few seconds.
“Oh. Um. Okay. Was I talking too —”
“Just shut up, Matt.”
She caught his mouth with hers again, sinking her hands into his hair, moving closer to him at the same time he moved closer to her.
He slid his arm around her and held her to him gently as the kiss continued.
“So, I guess you weren’t only interested in me as a study partner,” he said breathlessly a few moments later.
“Is that the only way you were interested in me?” she asked, her fingers still in his hair, playing with it.
A grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “What do you think Cassie Henderson?”
She answered with another kiss, and they leaned back against the seat as they kissed, forgetting they were in a study room in the library.
Three years later they were married, a year later their first, a boy, was born. That had been 15 years ago and now they had three children, an expensive home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Matt was a U.S. Senator while she stayed home with the children, her career as a social worker long behind her and his career as an attorney behind him, for the time being at least.
Sure, some of that initial passion of their relationship was gone, replaced with the everyday and the mundane, but Cassie recognized this as a season – a season during which marriage became more about comfortable moments and less about desire. It wasn’t that she didn’t have desire for Matt; it was just that they never seemed to have time for it anymore.
She startled out of her thoughts, smelling something burning.
“Oh no!”
She rushed to the stove and turned it down, smoke billowing from the skillet where she’d been browning meat for tacos. She moved the skillet to another burner and groaned. It looked like they’d be having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch today.
The blaring of the smoke alarm only made the humiliation that much worse.
Matt rushed into the kitchen, waving a newspaper at the smoke. “Whoa there! Let’s not add burned down house to our list of bizarre occurrences for the month.”
“Sorry. I guess I got distracted.”
Matt pulled the battery from the fire alarm. “No big deal, right? It might can be salvaged.”
He grimaced at the charged edges of the meat in the pan. “Or maybe the dog would like a treat.”
Cassie sighed. “I’m not sure even Barney should eat that. I’ll just make the kids some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You want one?”
“You know what, yeah. I haven’t one of those in years. Crustless?”
Cassie shook her head. “What are you, six?”
“Sentimental reasons,” Matt said with a wink. “My mom used to make them that way for me.”
Cassie pulled the bread out of the bread box and Matt slid the peanut butter and jelly across the counter.
“So, being quarantined with me has to be pretty boring for you, huh?” he asked.
“Not really,” she said with a smile, spreading peanut butter on slices of bread. “But it is weird seeing you here this time of day or, well, much at all.”
Matt winced softly. “Ouch.”
“Well, it’s not your fault. You’re busy.”
He couldn’t read her tone of voice but sadly it seemed more apathetic, more along the line of “that’s just the way it is” than anything else.
Matt leaned back against the counter, sliding his hands in his dress pants pockets. He looked at his dress shoes, chewing on his bottom lip, thinking. First, he thought about how absent he’d been in his family’s life. Then he thought about how he was quarantined at home but for some reason he was still wearing dress shoes, a dress shirt and tie, as if he was on his way to a meeting or a senate hearing. He had apparently forgotten how to relax, unwind, and kick back.
He cleared his throat. “I guess I can go to change into something more comfortable. It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing anything business related for a few days anyhow.”
When he returned wearing a pair of sweatpants and a Garth Brooks t-shirt the children were already around the table, munching on sandwiches and drinking chocolate milk.
“Daddy! Sit next to me!” his youngest, Lauren, called, tapping the back of the chair next to her.
“Okay. I can do that.”
His son Tyler eyed him over his glass of chocolate milk as he drank from it. At the age of 13 he waffled between being bored and annoyed most of the time.
“It’s weird seeing you here,” Tyler said bluntly as Matt sat down.
Matt looked into his son’s bright blue eyes, noticing the acne starting to form along the top of his forehead near his closely cropped hairline. He wasn’t sure how to take the comment. Did Tyler mean “good weird” or “bad weird”? Should he ask? Did he even want to know?
Luckily, he didn’t have to decipher his son’s meaning for long.
“But it’s a good weird, right?” Cassie asked, as if she could read Matt’s mind, and after 15-years of marriage, she probably could.
Tyler grinned. “Yeah. It’s a good weird. Just weird.”
Gracie, his middle daughter, smiled sweetly at Matt and then giggled around a mouthful of sandwich.
“I like you being here, Daddy.”
Matt smiled back at her, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his. “I like it too, sweetie. Maybe something good will come out of all of this, huh? At least you will all see me a little more often.”
His gaze focused on Cassie and he saw she was watching him, but again he was having a hard time reading her expression. Was she happy they’d all be spending more time together? Or was the extra time with him simply a reminder for her how much she didn’t need him around anymore?
Chapter 18 of The Farmer’s Daughter? Really? It seems so strange to be this far already in some ways, but in other ways it isn’t because I actually started this story sometime last year and have been slowly working on it since I even wrote my other books.
I can already see some changes and additions I want to make, but so far I’m liking the direction of the story. I have a feeling I’ll be tweaking a lot before all is said and done, but for now – brace yourselves, one of our characters may get themselves in some trouble in the next couple of chapters.
Molly slid a pile of books across the library desk at Ginny, unsure of when she’d have time to read the books but knowing she needed to do something to distract her from life, or her lack of one, these days.
Ginny glanced at the title of the book on the top of the pile.
How To Get Out of A Rut in Your Life.
She cleared her throat, sliding it into the library bag and reaching for another book.
How To Spice Up Your Life.
And then, Does He Like You? Ten Ways to Tell If He’s Totally Into You.
Ginny raised one eyebrow and looked up at Molly who was chewing on her fingernails.
“So, Molly, have you figured out how you were feeling a few weeks ago about sort of being stuck in life?”
Molly shrugged. “Not really. Still not sure about things and still feel like my life is somewhat. . . Hmmmm..I’m not sure what to call it.”
Ginny knew what to call it.
“Stagnant,” she said bluntly.
“Yes. That’s it. Stagnant. Like dirty water.”
Ginny laughed softly, tapping the top of her pencil on top of the desk, leaning against her hand. “Trust me. I get it.”
Molly studied Ginny’s expression, the sadness there, and wondered what was making Ginny feel stagnant. She had a good job, was popular in the community, had three lovely, now grown children, and was married to the most successful real estate agent in the region.
“You?” Molly asked.
Ginny looked up at Molly, a faint smile tugging at her mouth. “Yes, Molly. Even old people feel stagnant in life sometimes.”
Molly laughed, flipping a strand of her hair off her shoulder. “Ginny. You are not old. Stop.”
Ginny shrugged. “I feel old. Much older than I actually am. Maybe we need to cheer both of us up. I’m not an expert on how to do that, unfortunately.”
“Maybe an art class?” Molly suggested, gesturing toward the flyer taped on the top of the counter. “There is one in two weeks that is entitled ‘Lessons in realistic sketching.’ The description says we will be drawing a life model.”
“Knowing my luck it will be some skinny model with a perky chest and perfect skin,” Ginny sighed, rolling her eyes.
Molly snorted a laugh. “It will be both our luck, but let’s try it anyhow.”
Ginny handed Molly her bag of books. “And maybe by getting out a little more you won’t need all these books. Except that one about finding out if he really likes you or not.”
Light pink spread along Molly’s cheeks.
“Um..just pretend you didn’t see that one.”
“You don’t need to read the book. He likes you. I already told you he was flirting.”
“Ginny . . .”
“I’m just saying.”
“I know you’re just saying, but I’m just saying hush.”
Ginny laughed as Molly walked toward the door. “Okay,” she said softly. “But he does.”
“See you Wednesday night, Ginny.”
During the drive to the farm Molly thought about the conversation she’d had with her parents, Jason and Alex earlier in the day.
“We didn’t want to tell you anything until we knew for sure what was going on,” her father had said after he told her about the financial trouble the farm was facing.
“I understand,” she said, deciding not to mention she’d already been tipped off about the situation when she’d eavesdropped on her aunt and uncle at the farm store.
Her parents had assured her and Jason that every effort was being made to keep the farm and the rest of the enterprise afloat but she still couldn’t help feel a twinge of panic and alarm at the idea her family could be standing with so many others watching their lives being auctioned away.
Sure she felt stuck in some ways, but that didn’t mean she wanted her family’s farm to go under or the families who worked with them to be left without an income. The thought that it could happen terrified her. She’d called Liz shortly after talking to her parents. Liz had seemed concerned, but distant somehow.
“Are you okay?” Molly had asked.
“Yeah, fine,” Liz said. “I was just thinking about work, but that can wait until later. What are your parents going to do?”
Molly didn’t think Liz was fine at all. She could hear the tension in her voice, but she decided she wouldn’t push for an answer for now.
“We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing but add some different items for sale at the farm store, expand what we offer and hope we have a good crop this year. We are looking at opening a café. I don’t think we have time to pull it off, though, Liz. We had a lot of rain this spring, the crops aren’t growing as fast as they should and it will take time to expand what we offer at the store. This might be it. We might lose our farm.”
“It’s not going to happen, Molly,” Liz’s tone was firm. “Something is going to work out. It has to. I can’t imagine your family without their farm.”
Molly couldn’t either and as she pulled into the driveway toward it she felt tears choking her. She pulled the truck off next to the top field, shifted it into park and gulped back a sob. She’d spent her whole life here, took her first steps outside the barn, learned to ride her bike in this driveway with her grandfather’s hand on the back of the bike until she took off. She’d even had her first kiss ever on the front porch of her house. That kiss had been with Ben, of course, and even though her feelings for him weren’t as strong as they were back then, it was still her first kiss.
Her grandfather had taught her about cows and calving and how to store grain on this farm. She had shucked corn and snapped green beans with her mother and grandmothers on this porch before her mom’s mom had moved away. She didn’t even have to close her eyes to imagine her grandfather walking out of that barn wearing a pair of dirty overalls and a pair of manure and mud caked work boots, reaching into his front shirt pocket for a piece of hard candy to hand her before he headed back to his house for the evening. Somedays it was if she could still see him there, out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned it was her dad or the wind or nothing at all.
“God, what are we going to do?” Molly asked softly. “Please, please don’t take this farm from our family. Help us, somehow. Help us figure out how to save it.”
She wiped the back of her hand across her cheeks and couldn’t help laughing slightly. Only a few weeks before she’d been lamenting her life here on the farm and now she was asking for God to save this farm, save her family’s livelihood, save the very life she thought she hadn’t wanted.
***
Alex’s phone blinked a warning of awkwardness ahead.
He held it in his hands for a few moments, staring at the ID blinking at him, his thumb hovering over the decline button. He rolled his eyes and hit the accept button instead, bracing himself.
“Well, well, look who finally answered his phone.”
“Hey, mom.”
“Hey, yourself. I guess you’ve been busy. I’ve been getting kicked to voice mail for a month or more now.”
“Service isn’t always great out in the fields.”
“Hmmm..right. The fields.”
He heard the mocking tone and chose to ignore it.
“Have you heard from your father lately?”
“Nope.”
“Me either. Thank God. How about your brother?”
“Last week.”
“Is he doing okay? He never calls me anymore and I have to chase him down too. I guess I’m not as important to him as his father is.”
Alex ignored the passive aggressiveness. “Yeah. He’s fine. Got a promotion at the office.”
He heard an exhale, knew his mom was blowing a plume of cigarette smoke out. “Well, good for him.” She inhaled and exhaled again. “So, you’re happy? On that farm in the middle of nowhere?”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, mom. I’m happy here. On this farm, in the middle of nowhere.”
“And Jason is good?”
“Yes, Mom. He’s good.”
Jason grinned and pointed his thumbs toward his chest. “Is she talking about me?” he whispered.
Alex nodded and rolled his eyes.
“Did he ever ask that nice girl he’s been dating forever to marry him?”
Alex laughed out loud, looking at Jason.
“No, Mom, he hasn’t asked Ellie to marry him yet.”
Jason smirked, shaking his head. He stood and leaned close to the phone. “You too, Cecily? Thanks a lot.”
Alex wasn’t used to hearing his mom laugh, especially now that her laugh was hoarse from her years of smoking. The sound was slightly jarring to him. “You just tell that boy to do the right thing and propose,” she said.
“She says just propose already,” Alex told Jason as Jason walked toward the door.
He waved his hand at Alex. “Yeah, yeah. See you at the barn later.”
Alex turned his attention back to his mom. “So, what’s up, Mom?”
“Nothing is up. Can’t a mother just call her son?”
“Sure, she can, but you don’t usually do it unless something is going on.”
“It’s just — well,” his mother let out a heavy sigh, an exhale that probably include more smoke. “It’s your father.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “What about him?”
“I don’t think he’s doing well, health wise.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s just that your brother hinted that something was going on awhile back. He said he’d had some appointments with a doctor. He said it wasn’t anything to worry about, but I don’t know. I felt like he wasn’t being honest about what’s really going on.”
Alex shrugged. “Like I said before, I just talked to him and he didn’t say anything to me about Dad’s health. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“You know I don’t care much about your father’s health for my own sake, Alex, but maybe you should call him, talk to him.”
Cecily Madigan Burke wasn’t sounding like herself and now Alex was wondering is something was wrong with her health.
“Mom, compassion toward Dad really isn’t like you. Are you okay?”
Cecily sighed again. “Alex, I just said I’m not worried about him for my own sake. I’m not even worried about him for his own sake, but I don’t want something to happen to him before you’ve talked to him and worked some things out. I don’t want you to carry that anger for him for the rest of your life. It’s not healthy. I’ve had to let a lot of it go or I’d have even more wrinkles than I do now. My Yoga instructor led me through this amazing meditation of forgiveness last week. Maybe you could do something like —”
“I think we’re rushing things a bit here,” Alex interrupted. “We don’t even know there is anything wrong with his health, okay? And you’re already acting like he is dying. Besides, Dad is the one who should be contacting me and, as you have always said, act like a real father for once. I’m not going to chase someone who obviously doesn’t care whether I live or die.”
“Alex, I don’t think it’s true that he doesn’t care, he’s just too selfish to show it.”
“He’s focused on himself, Mom. Always has been and always has. Listen, I’ll ask Sam about his health, but I think you’re reading too much into it. He’s probably just getting a vasectomy to make sure he doesn’t father anymore children in his old age.”
His mom laughed softly at the suggestion and then they said their goodbyes, with Alex agreeing he’d try to keep in touch more and insisting he was still happy on the farm. When he slid his finger over the end call button his phone, though, he knew he was only half telling the truth. He did love working on the farm, but right now he was struggling because of what he’d witnessed between Molly and Ben.
He pulled a soda out of the fridge and cracked it open, pushing the refrigerator door closed hard behind him. He hadn’t been able to get the image of Molly and Ben together out of his mind for a week now. He’d been quiet in the barn, talking when talked to but not offering comments or jokes like he usually did. He’d been inside his head too much to feel relaxed enough to act like nothing had changed since he’d seen Molly laughing and lightly touching Ben’s arm outside the church that day.
He sat on the porch railing, his legs hanging down, the soda can cupped between his hands, glad Jason was still down at the farm bringing the cows into the barn for the night.
Sleep had been hard to come by for the last week. When he closed his eyes, he pictured Molly and Ben together, Ben’s arms around Molly, leaning down to kiss her, her leaning up to kiss him back. No, he hadn’t seen that actually happen, but in his mind it had or was going to.
He was tired of thinking about it, tired of knowing he wasn’t good enough for Molly. He needed to get out of his head, and he needed to get out of this house.
He crunched the empty soda can in his hand, jumped off the railing, and stood on the porch as he stared down the road that would lead him toward town. He had no chance with Molly. He was wasting his time imagining he did.
She was a hundred times better than him. She believed in God; he didn’t know what to believe. She was sweet and gentle; he was hard and often cynical and bitter. She’d been talking to Ben outside a church.
A church.
They’d smiled, looked happy together. Because they were, like Jason had said, “meant to be together.” A good fit.
He and Molly weren’t a good fit and it was time he accepted that.
When it came down to it, she was good, and he wasn’t.
He was restless, anxious to get away from his own rambling thoughts. He’d been avoiding the bars lately, avoiding the temptations they brought but he needed the distraction tonight, temptations or not. He reached inside the front door and snatched keys off the hanger then turned on his heel, walked briskly down the front steps and to his truck.
He ripped out of the driveway, driving fast in the direction of town and away from the thoughts that tortured him at home.
Because I’ve decided to combine Quarantined (the short story I wrote in April or May or at some point during all this craziness) and Rekindle into a novella called … er… Quarantined, I’ve decided to share parts of the novella from the beginning starting every Thursday. I’m releasing it as a self-published Novella sometime in September. And this time I’ll offer it on more sites than Amazon — just for fun.
Anyhow, some of these parts this will be a repeat for some of my regular blog readers, but some of it has also been rewritten to tie up some plot holes and to add Matt and Cassie to Liam and Maddie’s story.
Maddie Grant glared at her husband over the edge of a book as he pounded his fist against the wall by the living room window.
Liam’s voice was strained, tired. “I can’t believe I have to self-quarantine. I don’t even have symptoms. This is absolutely ridiculous.”
Maddie couldn’t agree more. “Yeah, well I’m not thrilled with it either.”
His eyes flashed with anger as he turned to face her, hands on his hips.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
His jaw tightened as he spoke. “Yeah, I heard you. Believe me, I don’t want to be stuck here with you as much as you don’t want to be stuck here with me.”
She lifted the book higher, blocking her view of him. “We wouldn’t be stuck here if you hadn’t gone to that stupid political rally.”
“I went to that stupid political rally because it’s part of my job, Maddie. Remember what that is? A job.”
Maddie slapped the book closed, stood, and slammed the book on top of the coffee table as hard as she could. “I have a job, Liam. I’m a writer. Or don’t you remember the checks I’ve been putting into our bank account to help pay the bills? She walked past him toward the kitchen, but stopped abruptly, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot that you’re the only one making a difference in this world.”
He bristled at her sarcastic and bitter tone.
“Of course I’m not. Clearly your romance novels are truly” he made quote symbols with his fingers. “world changing.” He turned away from her to look out the window again. “To lazy, pathetic housewives all over the world.”
Maddie’s hands ached as she tightened them into fists at her side, knuckles white, nails digging into her palms. Red spread slowly from her chest to her forehead as she stared at his back, every muscle in her body constricting with anger.
She pointed at his back aggressively. “If it wasn’t for you, we’d be divorced by now.” She snatched her phone off the coffee table. “I’m calling my lawyer and seeing if we can sign those papers electronically.”
“We can’t sign them electronically,” he snapped. “I already asked Art. We have to go over the settlement details before we can sign, and we have to do it in person.”
Maddie stood in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, one leg cocked slightly, arms tightly folded across her chest.
“You can have it all if it means I can get rid of you.”
She turned toward the front door. “I’m going for a walk.”
“You’re not supposed to go for a walk. We’re supposed to be in the house for 14 days to make sure we don’t expose anyone else and this thing doesn’t keep spreading.” He watched her walk down the hallway toward the front door, raising his voice. “If someone in the media finds out we’re going for walks they’ll smell blood in the water and be all over it. It could look bad for Matt.”
Snatching her coat off the hanger by the door she kept her back to him. “I can go for a walk.” She’d clenched her teeth so hard an ache shot up through her jawline. “I’ll stay six feet away from anyone I see, okay? I’ll even wear a hat and sunglasses, so I don’t ruin the career of the illustrious Sen. Matthew Grant.”
She snatched a sunhat from the front closet and her sunglasses off the table by the door.
“What happened to you, Maddie?” Liam called after her. “How did you become such a bitter person?”
Maddie’s muscles tightened again at his words. There was tired of arguing with him but there was no way she was letting this one slide.
She walked quickly back to the living room, eyes flashing.
Liam knew the tongue lashing was coming and he wasn’t in the mood.
“I’m sorry? How did I become so bitter? Maybe you should be asking how you became so distant. Maybe you should be asking how you became so preoccupied with your career and your reputation and the reputation of your stupid older brother that you let your marriage fall apart. Maybe you should ask yourself what it has been like for your wife to sit here at home alone while you’re out flitting around with sexy little reporters and congressional staffers and maybe —”
Liam scoffed. “Oh please. That’s such crap. I did not let this marriage fall apart. You are the one who shredded it, Maddie. And I invited you to those events plenty of times. You just wanted to sit here with your computer and your Twitter followers. You could have cared less about what was going on in my life and my career. You haven’t cared for a long time.”
Maddie shook her head and pivoted, walking briskly from the room and flinging open the front door. She made sure to slam it hard behind her as she walked through.
Her mind raced as she took the front steps two at a time and made her way down the sidewalk past the neighbors’ houses.
Why would she want to attend events where she merely stood in the corner while Liam kissed the butts of every politician in the room? Then there was the way he laid his hands on the backs of female staffers as he talked to them, winking before he walked away.
Yes, he winked at them.
Always that stupid, fake wink that spoke volumes about his relationship with those women when Maddie wasn’t around. She couldn’t remember him ever winking at her; not in the 15 years they’d known each other and not in the ten they’d been married.
Now she was trapped in her house, her safe haven, for the next 14 days with the man who had become a stranger to her because he had kept meeting with politicians despite the warnings about the spread of a weird virus. Oh, and, of course, he had also kept meeting with the media. The stupid, pain in the butt, fear-mongering, obnoxious, and arrogant media, which for Liam mainly meant that red-headed reporter from the local NBC affiliate.
Wendy Parker.
Cute, shapely, long red curls hanging down to her small, firm bottom.
“Oh, Liam, you’re always so good at keeping me in the loop,” she cooed through the speaker on his phone one day.
Maddie had walked by his office on her way to the kitchen. She rolled her eyes at Liam’s response.
“No problem, Wendy. You’ve always been good to us. I’m glad to give you the scoop.”
The tender timbre of Liam’s voice when he spoke to Wendy was a tone Maddie hadn’t heard him use toward her in years. In truth, Liam hadn’t cared about Maddie for a very long time. He was never interested in her writing or her accomplishments. Last year he had barely looked up from his paperwork when she told him she’d surpassed her personal goal for ebook sales.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
His pen bumped against his lower lip repeatedly as he looked through a stack of papers.
“Hmm? Oh, that’s great, hon’.”
Maddie had stared at that pen on that bottom lip for several moments, remembering how those lips used to press against hers, but hadn’t for months now, not longer than a quick peck on his way out the door anyhow.
“Yeah. I thought so,” she said softly, knowing he really didn’t care.
He flipped another page of the packet, his eyebrows furrowed. “That’s a big thing for a self-published author, right?”
Annoyance hit her square in the chest. His use of the words “self-published”, struck her as patronizing.
She’d walked away, leaving him to continue his work; reviewing speeches or gathering dirt on a political opponent, she wasn’t sure which.
As she stood across from him a few moments ago shouting at her, veins popping up along the top of his forehead and along his neck, she realized just how sick of it all she was.
How sick of him she was.
Sick of all the times she’d felt rejected and pushed aside.
Sick of all the times she’d felt like she was competing with television cameras and self-serving, power-hungry politicians.
Sick of the way he’d made it clear she wasn’t a priority to him anymore.
When he’d told her he had the virus, he hadn’t even expressed concern for her. So far, he hadn’t had even a sniffle, but she knew it could get worse and she knew she could be next.
All he’d done the last two days was rant about how ridiculous all this quarantining and so-called “social distancing” was and how it would make his job more difficult since he’d have to work from home.
What about her and how it would affect her? As soon as he’d announced he’d be working from home for the next two weeks, maybe even longer, all her quiet writing time had evaporated.
She didn’t have a private office like he did since he’d never finished transforming that spare room upstairs into her writing space like he’d promised, instead filling it with political documents and books.
Not being able to meet with their lawyers to finalize the divorce papers was like the poisoned apple on the cake.
She wished she had taken her friend Andrea up on her offer to stay at her apartment during the quarantine.
“I’m single, no children, and no elderly parents to catch it if you do get it so let’s be stuck here together,” Andrea told her over the phone three days ago. “It’s supposed to be a mild virus for 80 percent of the population anyhow. Too many people are acting like it’s the end of the world. If it is, we can make milkshakes, pop some popcorn, and watch it burn. Or we can watch a couple Brad Pitt movies. Either way, you won’t have to be stuck in the house with that jerk.”
“Make it a few Hugh Jackman movies and I may take you up on that offer,” Maddie responded. “But, seriously, all my paperwork for the book is here. Plus, I’m sure Liam will be locked in his office the whole time anyhow.”
But her brooding, distasteful, self-important, soon-to-be ex-husband hadn’t locked himself in his office.
He’d been practically been crawling up the walls since his boss and older brother, U.S. Senator Matthew Grant, had ordered him into quarantine after he tested positive for the virus. He spent his days pacing the floor like a caged animal. Why didn’t he just go in his office and leave her alone already?
She needed a very long break from him, but this short walk in the cool spring air would have to do. She’d have to return to the house eventually. But for now, she intended to enjoy the warm sun on her face, the newly sprouting buds on the trees around her, and the chirps of the birds.
***
The front door crashed closed, rattling the hinges.
Liam stared after his wife, jaw tight, heart pounding from the adrenaline.
Holy heck that woman is so . . . he struggled for the word as he turned and walked toward the small flight of stairs that led to his office.
Evil.
That’s what she was, or what she had become anyhow.
Evil.
Cold.
Bitter.
Distant.
Detached.
None of those attributes were how he would have described her when they’d been dating or when they had married ten years ago, but now he couldn’t think of any other way to say it.
She was mean.
Flat out mean.
He tossed his hands in the air in frustration as he walked into the office and flopped back into the black, leather chair, behind the desk, reaching for his phone.
He didn’t want to think about her anymore.
He had other subjects he needed to focus on.
Work for one thing.
He still had a press release to work on with John for Matt’s statement to the media, updating them on restrictions that had been placed in his district to try to reduce the spread of the virus. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure why so many restrictions were being placed but that wasn’t his job. His job was to make his older brother Matt look good and that’s what he was going to do.
He reached John’s voicemail.
“John, hey, it’s Liam. Give me a call when you get this. Let me know the latest. I’ve started the release and need to fill in the details. You’ve got my number.”
He swiped the end button and set the phone face down on the desk, pushing his hands back through his hair as he leaned back against the chair.
He was going stir crazy in this house. Maybe he needed to take a walk like Maddie, or a run. A run would sweat out the virus, which he wasn’t sure he even had. It would also help him focus on something other than the tension between him and his soon-to-be ex-wife.
Ex-wife.
That definitely sounded weird. But it was needed. He and Maddie hadn’t been connecting for years. It was time to move on, shake the dust off his feet, so to speak.
He’d told Maddie he had the virus, but the truth was that his first test had been inconclusive. He was waiting for a call from the doctor’s office for the results of a second test.
Telling her the test had been positive had been the only way to shut her up when she’d been harping on him about being missing the meeting with their attorneys to finalize the alimony numbers.
“I have the virus, okay?!” he’d yelled, tossing his arms out to his side. “I’m in quarantine for 14 days and the doctor said you’re stuck here with me because you’ve been exposed already. We have to put up with each other for two weeks, maybe longer, so maybe you can just get off my back for once and shut up.”
Her annoyance bubbled into pure fury. “Are you serious? You couldn’t have called me? I mean, why do I have to stay here? So, I can get it too?!” She’d tossed her notepad and pen across the room at him, missing him by two inches. “Well, that’s just great! I am so looking forward to getting sick with you.”
“I don’t even have any symptoms,” he’d shouted at her back as she walked toward her bedroom. “You probably won’t get any either so don’t worry about it. But, hey, thanks for being concerned about me.”
Even though the tests had been preliminary, there was no denying he’d been exposed to the virus. The ambassador from Italy had announced three days ago he’d tested positive. Liam had been at a meeting with the ambassador the previous week. They had shaken hands and even sat next to each other at dinner. Symptoms or not, he knew there was little chance he wouldn’t develop it. That meant he hadn’t lied to Maddie. Not really.
The doctor had told him that based on his age and overall good health, it was more likely that his case would be mild if he did develop symptoms, but they couldn’t take a chance he’d spread it to others who were more vulnerable, so he had been sent home and told to self-quarantine.
He knew it wouldn’t have looked good for Matt if he’d tested positive and kept going to work, possibly exposing others.
He’d cursed under his breath all the way home, wearing a mask on the subway, everyone around him scowling at him like he’d released a biological weapon in their midst.
He spun his phone around on top of the desk and then shoved it away from him and slapped the desk in frustration. He couldn’t just sit around waiting to get sick. He had to do something to occupy his mind until John or Matt called him back. The only communication he’d had from his brother in two days had been a quick text: Press is blowing up. Going into quarantine at home. Be in touch.
He couldn’t focus on work anyhow.
His mind raced with the events of the last few days.
Being in the same house with Maddie longer than a couple of hours wasn’t helping.
Honestly, he’d been avoiding coming home even before they’d agreed to the divorce. He wished he could avoid it now too.
He glanced through the partially open door to the spare room across the hall. He should finish clearing the room out. He would have to anyhow when he officially moved to the apartment he’d rented on the other side of the city in a couple of weeks.
He’d agreed to give Maddie the house in the divorce. He didn’t need it. It was too big for just him and he didn’t have plans on getting into another relationship anytime soon. Honestly, he was looking forward to some solitude after years of walking on eggshells around the woman he had once thought he’d spend the rest of his life with.
He pushed himself to a standing position with a groan, heading into the spare room. Boxes cluttered the floor and he started opening them, tossing papers into a trash bag he’d started filling the week before. Old speeches, stained copies of his resumes, press releases from his brother’s campaign. He tossed them all. They weren’t needed anymore.
The last box in the stack by the window was covered in a layer of dust and he blew it off as he picked it up, coughing and shaking his head. What had he been thinking? Blowing the dust all over? Like he needed dust in his lungs if he had a virus growing in there. He flipped the lid off the box and looked inside. Old bills, bank statements from six years ago, birthday cards from his family, and a stack of envelopes tied together with twine. He tossed the statements and bills in the trash bag and flipped through the birthday cards. He ended up tossing them too. He appreciated them but he couldn’t keep everything.
He frowned at the letters. What were these and why were they hidden in this box? He worked the twine loose and one fell off the top to the floor. He reached down and picked it up, looking for a name on the front. Finding none he slid out the letter he found inside.
Liam:
I won’t lie, I feel so weird writing this letter, but I haven’t been able to think about anything but you all week. I really enjoyed our night together, especially our dance alone in the courtyard outside the restaurant. I didn’t notice before that moment how blue your eyes are or that scar at the edge of your jawline. I hope we can meet again soon, and you can tell me how you got it.
Classes are almost done for the semester. I have decided to stick it out with the communications major, though I’m still not sure what I want to do with it. I’ll be spending my summer break at home, probably working at the ice cream stand again. What will you be doing this summer? I hope you’ll write me back and let me know.
Sincerely,
Maddie
P.S. Is sincerely too cold of a way to sign a letter to a person you were kissing only a couple of days ago?
P.P.S. I fall asleep every night thinking about that kiss.
Liam slid the letter back into the envelope and shook his head. Those words had been written a lifetime ago. When was the last time Maddie had thought of him in that way? He didn’t even know, but he knew it had been a long time since he’d thought of her that way. He stared at the envelope, remembering that night in the courtyard, his arms around her waist as they swayed, her honey-brown hair cascading down her back, the way she’d laid her head against his shoulder and he’d breathed in the citrus smell of her shampoo.
The rest of the world faded away and it was as if they were the only people in the courtyard, even though a few other people were also dancing to the impromptu concert a couple of street performers were putting on. Her skin was so soft, her lips even softer when he’d touched her under her chin, and she’d looked up at him and he’d leaned down to kiss her.
He’d wanted that kiss to last forever. It had only ended because the sky had abruptly opened up and sent them running to his car, laughing and soaked when they’d climbed inside. They’d resumed the kiss for several passionate moments, steaming up the windows, and then he’d driven her back to her dorm room, his body aching to hold her again as he watched her walk inside.
He sat on the floor by the window, crumpling the letter in his hand and tossing it across the room.
He opened another box.
Photo albums.
No way.
He refused to look at old photos and let any more memories twist his already jumbled thoughts. That’s all they were — memories of what used to be, not the reality of what was now. The people in these photos were ghosts. They were ghosts of who he and Maddie used to be. They weren’t who they had become, who they were now; two people who had once loved each other, but no longer did.
He snatched up one of the albums and started to toss it toward the garbage bag. It wasn’t like Maddie would miss them. She never even came into this room. There had been a thick layer of dust on this box just like the one with the letters.
A photo slid out of the album as he started to toss it and it skidded across the floor, face up. He glanced at it as he reached down to pick it up. A smiling Maddie on the beach, her hair flowing in soft waves down her back, her head tipped back, her bare throat exposed.
The memory came against his will.
It was their first trip together.
Spring break.
Sophomore year of college.
On the beach.
Florida.
“Should I pose like this?” Maddie’s hand was on her hip, one leg pushed out slightly from the other, knee bent. She tipped her head back and laughed, the sunlight dancing across her curls. He snapped the shutter.
“Yep,” he’d said, completely under her spell. “Just like that.”
She’d laughed at him, playfully slapped her hand across his upper arm.
“You did not take that photo! I looked like such a goofball! You better delete that.”
He grinned and pulled her in for a kiss. “Nope. That one is my favorite so far. I’ll keep it forever and never forget the way you smiled at me in the sun on this gorgeous spring day on this gorgeous beach.”
Her smile had faded into a more serious expression and then she’d tipped her head up and pressed her mouth to his, tugging gently at his bottom lip when she’d pulled back. He’d almost exploded with desire.
He tipped his head back, closing his eyes as he remembered that kiss. It had been an amazing, mind-blowing kiss. One for the record books he liked to tell her for years afterward.
God, she had been beautiful that weekend. He’d been head over heels, though he knew part of it had been his libido speaking. He’d wanted to spend the whole weekend with her in bed, but he knew she’d have none of it.
She hadn’t been raised that way. For her, sex was something had only after the marriage was final. He’d sighed and rolled his eyes when she’d first told him but gradually he’d accepted it, remembering his own upbringing and how his parents had urged the same for him. Maddie was worth waiting for, he’d decided, and he’d compromised with long walks and extended make-out sessions on the beach before bidding her a good night outside her own hotel room.
He’d been right. Maddie had been worth waiting for. They had spent two years dating getting to know each other beyond a physical connection and on their wedding night they’d casted aside any physical expectations, instead simply enjoying each touch, each kiss, and each rush of pleasure at just being able to be together.
Liam leaned his head forward, opening his eyes to look at the photo again. He could barely remember the last time he’d made love to Maddie. Sure, they’d had sex once or twice in the last year, but it’d been rushed, distant, cold even. It had been for their individual physical needs and nothing more. He knew that and he hated it. He clutched at his hair and flicked the photo across the room.
He hated who he had become, and he hated that it had affected his marriage more than he ever thought it would. He and Maddie had been so young when they’d married, so full of naïve idealism. They were going to change the world together. They’d buy a home in the suburbs, raise two children (a boy and a girl, of course), both have successful careers in communications, and take amazing family trips to Europe every summer. That’s what they told themselves anyhow.
But now, they were barely talking. They’d never had any children. Maddie had had two early miscarriages, and one at 25 weeks. They’d taken a break after the last miscarriage, deciding they’d talk about trying again when life settled down. That had been four years ago, and life had never settled down. Shortly before that Matt had been elected as a U.S. Senator and he had hired Liam as his press secretary, meaning Liam and Maddie had moved to Washington D.C. from Ohio and Liam had started spending more time in the city and less time at home in the suburbs with Maddie.
Liam yawned and pushed himself up from the floor, staggering toward the bed that had been shoved to the other side of the room, in the middle of the boxes and bookcases. It was the bed he’d been sleeping in since Maddie had told him she wanted a divorce six months ago.
He was exhausted and knew the walk down memory lane wasn’t helping to calm his jumbled thoughts. He flopped down on top of the covers on his back, when he reached the bed, closing his eyes, not even bothering to undress.
Maybe I should stay awake until Maddie gets back, he thought as sleep started to overtake him. But he couldn’t fight the sleep and his thoughts swirled together with dreams of the way his life with Maddie used to be.
