Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“No alcohol?” I asked as Maddie set down a gallon of ice cream by the blender, along with chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, strawberry sauce, bananas, and cherries.
“Bella’s coming, so this is going to be a G-rated girl’s day. Each one of us is going to take turns painting her toes, nails, and painting her face, so we can concentrate on you.”
“So who all is going to be here? Trenda, Evie, and the twins?”
“Just, you, me, Trenda and her daughter Bella, and Zoe.”
“What about Evie and Chloe?”
“Chloe is going through some issues, so she can’t make it.” Maddie turned and went to another cupboard and pulled out some marshmallows. I could tell by her voice she didn’t want me to ask questions about Chloe, so I let it drop.
“What about Evie?”
“She’s living in San Diego most of the time with her husband Aiden and their two rugrats. But they have a house here, so she comes and stays at least four times a year.”
“Two homes? I’m impressed.”
“Her hubby is on the same SEAL team as our big brother, but Aiden’s loaded. It’s a long story.”
“Somebody in the military with money, who would have guessed it?” I teased. “It’ll be good to see Zoe and Trenda and meet Trenda’s daughter.”
“Bella’s a trip, you’ll love her. She’s eight, going on twenty-eight.”
We both looked up as we heard footsteps coming up her front porch.
Maddie rushed to the door and opened it.
“Hello!” I heard Trenda call out. “We brought cake.”
“No, Mama, we brought cupcakes.” A little girl’s voice piped up.
I looked up to see Trenda Avery looking as pretty as ever, but then saw a mini version of her holding up a bag of chocolate chips.
“Whoever you are, little girl, you’re my hero!” I cried out.
She started to giggle. “Mama said you were funny. Are you Miss Fallon?”
“I’ll let you call me Fallon, if you give me some chocolate chips,” I bartered.
“I’m Bella,” she said as she skipped toward the kitchen.
“You’re as pretty as your mother, Bella.”
She put the bag of chocolate chips in my hands, then walked around me to give her Aunt Maddie a hug.
“Did you bake the cupcakes, Lovebug?” she asked.
“I iced them! Are we making milkshakes? Mama, there’s ice cream!”
I loved how everything was an exclamation. She took excitement to a whole new level.
“Auntie Maddie, are the ‘Owies’ going to be here?”
Owies?
Trenda must have noticed my expression. “That’s her name for Chloe and Zoe.”
“Nope, just Aunt Zoe. Why don’t you call her and see why she’s late.”
Bella hoisted herself up on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter and concentrated on her mother’s phone. It was obvious she was familiar with it, the way she breezed through the passcode and the contacts.
After a few moments she looked up at all of us with a frustrated expression on her face. “She isn’t answering.”
“Leave a voicemail, Baby,” Trenda advised. “Tell her she’s missing out on cupcakes and milkshakes.”
Bella brightened and started to do just that. Before she finished, there was a knock on the door. Bella jumped off the stool, ran to the door, and grabbed the doorknob.
“Hold it!” My head swiveled to look at Trenda, and she looked panicked.
The little girl jerked her hand away from the door and shoved it behind her back. She turned to her mother. “I’m sorry, Mama. I know better.”
“It’s okay, Baby,” Trenda said as she bustled to her daughter’s side. “We just need to stick to the rules and always be careful, now don’t we?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Open up, it’s me.”
I grinned as I heard Zoe calling from the other side of the door.
“Now can I open the door?” Bella asked Trenda.
“Yes, you can.”
“What was that all about?” I whispered to Maddie.
“We’ve had some problems around here, it always best to play it safe.”
“Fallon!” Zoe yelled. I turned and found myself enveloped in a huge hug. God, I’d missed these women.
“You look freaking gorgeous,” I said when I finally extricated myself from her grasp. She was wearing skinny jeans, high heels, and a tight sweater. She was always my fashion twin back in the day.
“Is freaking a swear?” I heard Bella ask the room at large.
“Uh-oh. I think you’re going to be owing Miss Bella some money.” Maddie laughed.
“No, Sweet Pea, freaking isn’t a swear, it’s kind of like darn,” Zoe answered.
Bella frowned. “It sounds like a swear.”
“What would happen if I did say a swear word?” I asked the little girl.
“If you were my friend, I would tell you that swearing wasn’t a good thing to do.”
She sounded so prim and serious that I had to work not to laugh.
“Okay. That makes sense.”
“And then I would try to help you not to swear anymore.”
This time I saw a little twinkle in her eye. The same twinkle that every single other brown-eyed woman in the room was known to have.
“And how would you go about helping me?” I asked.
“Uhm, I would provide a consequent. A negative one,” she grinned up at me.
“You mean a negative consequence?”
“Yeah! Like that.”
“Hmmm, like you’d take away my chocolate chips?”
“No, you’d have to give me a dollar for each swear. Uncle Drake has needed the most consequents. Uncle Aiden needs a lot of help too. But Aunt Zoe needs more help than Uncle Zarek.”
I burst out laughing. “Hopefully I won’t be as bad as your Aunt Zoe.”
“As long as she never hears you talk about Michael,” Maddie muttered.
I looked over my shoulder and glared at my friend. “I don’t know what you’re freaking talking about.”
Could I have fucked up any worse than I had five days ago? I was still busy kicking my own ass. Of course, how was I supposed to know that Fallon’s parents were going to be such assholes to her? How could they not see what I saw?
I squeezed my eyes shut as I cut up the carrots for the beef stew I was making the crew for dinner.
“Damn!”
I looked down at my bleeding thumb.
“Dumbshit.” Zarek shook his head. “I saw you close your eyes. Are you going for a Darwin Award?”
“Look who’s talking.” I turned on the cold water and ran my thumb under the tap. I’d only nicked it. Still, I could have cut the fucker off, considering how sharp we kept the knives here at the firehouse.
“I admitted my mistake, can’t we drop it?” Zarek bitched.
“Only if you promise that it’s not going to happen again. Is Chloe home yet?”
Zarek gave a deep sigh. “No. What’s more, Evie is due to come out with her kids pretty soon, and now Chloe is talking about renting a place in Gatlinburg or Knoxville.”
I winced, thinking back to when the Rankin’s first brought me home after two rocky stints with foster care families. It hadn’t been easy – for them – or me, but they saved me, literally saved me. I could have ended up being a man like my rage-filled father had been, but I wasn’t.
And it wasn’t just them, Chloe and Zarek had played a part in that, too. I’d never been to school before the Rankins took me in; my father wouldn’t allow it, so I didn’t know how to talk to kids, let alone make friends. But between Dale and Melissa’s patience and Chloe and Zarek’s friendship, I’d learned how to be someone different, someone better.
Now here I was, talking to Zarek about the possible end of his marriage to Chloe. I’d been an usher at their wedding, eleven years ago. No, it wasn’t possible for them to divorce. It just wasn’t.
I turned off the faucet and dried my hands. The bleeding had stopped. “There’s not a chance in hell that she would really leave you. You two were meant to be together. It’ll all work out,” I assured my best friend.
I could see the torment on Zarek’s face. “It’s not that. I’m really worried about her. She needs to be talking to someone. A professional. She took this last miscarriage hard.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “What is Zoe saying?” I asked, referring to Chloe’s twin sister.
“Zoe won’t say much to me. She said it’s the sister code. But she said that she and her sisters have Chloe covered. I sure as hell hope so.”
“If they’re saying that, you’ve got to trust them. Those Avery sisters stick together.”
“Enough with me. What’s got you ready to cut off your hand?” Zarek asked.
“Fallon.”
Zarek nodded slowly. “I figured. Zoe mentioned that Fallon had her hands full with her dad. He’s always been an onery bastard. But her parents have always loved you. Have you checked in on them?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. I turned back to start chopping up vegetables again. “That’s why I slipped with the knife. I screwed up the other day. I helped Fallon get Bob to a doctor’s appointment.”
Zarek grinned. “I’m surprised that Fallon called to ask you for help, but the fact that she did is great news.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “That’s not the way it went down. I happened to be outside their house when I saw her trying to heft her dad to her SUV, and she was having a tough time, so I got out of my truck to help. Let me tell you, she was not happy.” I picked up the knife, lined up some carrots on the cutting board, and started slicing.
“What in the hell were you doing outside her house?”
I finished up with the carrots and threw them into the crockpot, then I started in on the baby new potatoes. I always got those because I didn’t have to peel them.
“I’m going to stand here until you answer the question.”
“Fine. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of her, all right?”
“So, my friend is now an official stalker. That’s great news.” Zarek ran his hand through his black hair.
“I’m not a stalker, I just have stalker tendencies.”
“I fail to see the difference. And be careful with that knife.”
“Anyway, she definitely doesn’t want to see me again. I fucked up big time. It was just like the old days where her dad totally blew her off and treated me like their long-lost son. I just don’t get them. Do you know all the great things that Fallon has accomplished?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“My stalker friend has kept me informed and shown me the articles he’s printed out. So yeah, I’m aware.”
Fuck. He’s right. I had done that.
“Well, she’s pretty incredible,” I defended myself. “I always knew she could do anything. Before she even graduated from college, she had companies knocking on her door to recruit her. It was that one app she created in her junior year that put her on the map.”
“Didn’t she have something lined up where she could work from home?”
“Yep. That was Fallon, she always had everything lined up,” I sighed. “She’s amazing.” My words echoed in my ears.
“Yeah. She is. It makes a man wonder why someone would have put on a bullshit performance to get out of marrying her.”
My balls shriveled up. Why had I ever told Zarek what I had done?
“You didn’t tell Chloe, did you?”
“You swore me to secrecy, remember? I took that shit seriously. What’s more, if I had told Chloe, she would have told Zoe, who would have told Fallon. I don’t know what would have hurt Fallon more—you actually fucking Lindsay, or you pretending that you were going to fuck her.”
“Lower your voice.” I looked around the common area, and the only person who was there was Rick. He was engrossed in some true crime show, so I was safe. “Why are you here anyway? Aren’t you off shift?”
“I left some shit in my locker. Figured I’d come up here and bust your balls. It’s not like going home is any kind of treat.”
I thought about what he was saying. It was the truth. Most of Zarek’s outside activities were couples’ things, and without Chloe he was kind of shit out of luck. “Maybe it’s time to get a hobby. They do quilting over at Dorothy’s Antiques on Tuesdays and Saturdays.”
The look on Zarek’s face was precious.
“How in the name of all that’s holy do you know that?”
“I go in to talk to Dorothy Sheridan from time to time. She is a fucking hoot. Every time I go, I get a great story.”
“What do you mean?”
“So, I walk in and it was two days after her great aunt died. She was on the phone with her cousin, talking about the services. I offered my condolences.”
“Okay…” Zarek tilted his head.
“Dorothy tells me that her one-hundred-and-four-year-old grandmother is upset about her younger sister dying.”
“Well sure she is…” Zarek said again.
“But here’s the kicker. Dorothy grins at me and tells me the real reason her grandmother is upset is that her one-hundred-and-two-year-old sister never did take care of herself.”
Zarek burst out laughing. “No shit?”
“No shit.” I chuckled. “That time I bought some cufflinks for my dad. I always buy something when I’m in there. It’s worth it just for the stories.”
“Well, I might go in to peruse some antiques, but I’m going to skip the sewing circle.”
I wasn’t surprised. “You could always go volunteer down at the food pantry,” I suggested.
Zarek tilted his head. “That might work. Anything to occupy my time on my off days. The silence at home is killing me.”
I understood. That was the reason I had adopted Harley a few years back. With the acreage I had it made sense to get a dog. She had plenty of space to roam, and she was a great companion. But I didn’t think it was a good idea for Zarek to make a big decision to adopt a pet without Chloe’s input, because I was positive that the two of them would work things out. They were too perfect together not to.
“I’ve got to go. I’m going to the gym,” Zarek said.
“What about the weight room here?” I asked.
“Nah. I’m going to Knoxville. See if I can get some time in the ring.”
I frowned. Now I knew that Zarek was in a bad space if he needed to go to Cappy’s Boxing and MMA Arena. Zarek was good, but some of the guys there were animals.
“Stay safe.”
Zarek gave me a chin tilt. “Always.”
I finished chopping up the potatoes and cubing the meat then threw it all into the two crock pots. I set the temperature, then headed over to the lounge chair where one of my two books was. I was lucky, I could tune out just about anything when I was reading a book, so Rick’s show was easy to block. But my thoughts? Not so much.
What was I doing thinking about Fallon all the damn time? Hadn’t I firebombed that bridge nine years ago? Shit, three months after I chased her out of town, I’d joined the Army. What did I have to lose, right? Turns out, you can lose even more when you’re in the middle of some desert with men you consider your brothers, and everything falls apart. I was glad to return home to Jasper Creek after I’d put in my four years.
So here I am, doing something important, in a town I love. A town that considers the woman I love a pariah, when I’m really the asshole.
But this was my second chance, and I was going to take it. Fallon might not see it that way, but I did, and I was going to pull out all the stops to win her back. Zarek was right. Me confessing that I hadn’t slept with Lindsay wasn’t going to get me back into her good graces. It would piss her off even more. Instead, I would have to learn the woman she was now and get this woman to fall in love with me.