5
5
DUCKY BOB it’s easier to remember . . . and can also be spelled backwards.” He winked, and Kate did the requisite laugh thing. The old fart turned to me. “I like her already . . . she laughs at my jokes. And a face like a Sunday picnic. Don’t know what she sees in you,” he said around a grin.
I grinned back. “Beats me.”
“Oh, Bob!” Ruthie scolded. “Do behave.” She turned to Kate, who was still hovering half a step behind me. “Come in! Come in! We’re just so pleased to meet you, aren’t we Bob?”
“That we are,” he agreed, moving aside and clapping me on the shoulder as I stepped in.
Meanwhile, Ruthie assaulted Kate with a welcome hug, which Kate reciprocated warmly. “I hope you don’t mind Kate . . . I’m a hugger.”
Kate and I shared a secret smile over her Ruthie squeeze. “I brought some cookies P—Ty,” she quickly corrected, “and I . . . er, we made. I hope you like oatmeal. We used dates instead of raisins,” she finished, holding out the plate for her hostess, her face turning the same color as Ruthie’s apron.
I actually laughed out loud I was so happy. Kate tilted her head up to give me another look. I should’ve warned her about my name change, but honestly, I’d been leading a double life so long, and was just so relieved she was staying for a while, that it kind of slipped my mind until the last second. Guess I really wasn’t well suited to being a spy guy.
Five minutes later Ruthie removed her apron with a flourish to reveal her polka-dotted beauty. We were escorted to the screened-in patio and pushed onto a pink and white striped love seat next to some ivy plants, hanging from the ceiling by white plastic chains. Bob made his paunchy appearance with a silver tray of his “signature cocktail,” Tom Collins.
I was holding Kate’s hand, and she was holding a deviled egg Ruthie offered up after an in depth, secret ingredient reveal. I felt like laughing out loud again, but swallowed it back with some sugared alcohol that tasted worse than buzzard puss. Apparently, alcoholic beverages is where me and sugar parted ways.
Kate slyly put down her nibbled-on mayonnaise and mustard with “a dash of dill” stuffed egg to pick up her drink. I picked up the dreaded hard-boiled thing and wolfed half of it down in one bite, replacing it on the pink-petaled China plate when Ruthie’s back was turned. I winked at Kate. She gave me a grateful smile that busted into something that resembled a cough. I was so happy I was about busting at the seams of my preppy pants.
Kate took a tentative sip of her cocktail. “Hmmm,” she said. “This is really delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a Tom Collins before. It’s kinda like a lemonade, but with a kick.”
Bob gave her the shrewd eyes. “I’m glad you like it . . . as long as you’re old enough to.”
Kate coughed for real, fluttering a hand before leaning forward to set the sweating cocktail down on a monogrammed coaster. “Actually . . .” She met my eyes, and I gave her the head nod. “I’m n-nineteen.”
Now Bob gave her the head nod. “Good enough for me then. Any young man . . . or woman old enough to die for our country outta be allowed to have a beer or a Tom Collins without being hassled.” He followed that long speech up with a fortifying sip of his signature drink. “ Ahhhhh .”
Kate and I exchanged smiles. Ruthie, Bob, Kate, and I sipped on our drinks for a while, while Kate complimented Ruthie on her hanging topiary. Some more sipping took place.
“So, Kate, how long have you known Ugly for?” Bob asked, plucking the radioactive cherry from his glass and popping it into his mouth.
It was Kate who swallowed. Sensing her guest’s discomfort, good ole Ruthie offered up her plate of deviled eggs again. I wondered what the hell that red stuff sprinkled on top was.
“Now Bob, we don’t wanna pry.” Ruthie said the right thing with the wrong tone; she was practically drooling for the story.
“Sure, we do,” Bob countered.
Kate cleared her throat before accepting another stuffed egg. “Thank you. These are the best ones I’ve ever had,” she remarked truthfully, because I knew she’d never had one before. Some throat clearing happened again.
I felt like laughing out loud again. Instead, I came to her rescue. “Kate and I met when she was still in high school. I was her brother’s tutor. We, ah . . . got off to kind of a rough start because she called me out on every bit of BS I threw her way.” I paused to let the hilarity pass.
Ruthie dabbed at a cookie crumb that had landed at the corner of her mouth. Bob was leaned forward, drink forgotten, craving a good story more than any of the goodies the lovely ladies had provided for our afternoon tea party.
“And she’d just turned seventeen,” I continued. “Even though the age of consent in New Mexico is seventeen.” I paused to smirk at Bob. “I checked.” Bob hooted at that one. “But because of circumstances beyond our control, I still had to wait her out.” Everyone smiled at that. “And I did . . . until I couldn’t anymore.” I gazed into Kate’s sparkling eyes and reached for her hand. “So I went to go fetch her.”
Ruthie put down her cocktail long enough to clasp her hands together. “How romantic! Ty, how did you find her? On one of those social media sites?”
“Actually, it was a fated chance encounter. I was helping a girl.” As soon as I dropped this, Kate frowned, which immediately had the opposite effect on me. “A client,” I amended, squeezing her hand. “I was helping a client out with her sister’s big deal wedding. So she’s showing me a picture of the happy couple’s wedding announcement.” I paused to grimace. “That’s when I saw it.” I stopped there for my captive audience to connect the dots.
Kate sucked in the loudest breath of all. “You saw it!”
I lifted half a lip. “Yep,” I answered, turning to stare into Kate’s glittering eyes. “I saw the girl—the one I couldn’t seem to forget—had seemed to have forgotten all about me.” I stalled out and shook my head like it was too painful to talk about, but my stinger had done its job. Kate could no longer look me in the eye my accusation was so strong.
“No!” Ruthie gasped like she had a part to play in this story.
“Yes,” I confirmed, giving Kate the slant eyes. “What I saw literally made me sick to my stomach. It was an abomination. But it was more than that. It was a sign.”
Ruthie’s mouth gaped open. “Goodness gracious! You poor dear!” She patted my hand. “So . . . Katie was engaged to someone else?” Her tone was the same one she used when speaking about her favorite soaps, which were practically a whole other religion for her.
“Yup.” I nodded with a sad smile, playing to my captive audience. “And not just to any guy . . .” I paused, cutting my eyes to Kate. She froze, bracing for it. “The most worthless bastard I’ve ever met!” I finished dramatically. Kate unfroze long enough to drop the hand that Ruthie just patted.
Ruthie gasped. I nodded at her and turned to Kate. “Yup. The very same worthless bastard she once swore she’d never fall for.” Kate’s face fell and deepened in color, but I continued on. “I think I’m directly quoting now.” I allowed another dramatic pause for the ones sitting across from me on the edge of their seats. “‘Not if he was the last man on earth,’ is what I’m pretty sure she said.” Even Bob let out a booming laugh at that one, slapping the glass coffee table. After the base sound effect of his laugh and the soprano tinkling of silverware, I resumed. “So imagine my shock when I ran across their engagement photo online. The arms of the guy I hated around the girl that I love. Felt like Armageddon,” I finished dramatically.
I swear Ruthie and Kate made about five different noises: there was a gasp, a pip and a squeak, a little strangled noise coming from the woman-of-the-hour to my left, and a gargled scream I thought was let out by Ruthie. I kind of lost the particulars, because I realized I’d lost a member of my audience. Or rather she was standing up, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t to give me a standing ovation for my performance.
Whoops! I’d gone too far. But I was on a roll. And truth to be known, right beneath the happy new varnish was an old buzzing anger that she’d married that guy. So, if it wasn’t under duress, then what the fuck? Yunno? I wanted to know. I needed to know. Or I was gonna implode soon.
A titillated Ruthie came down from her tizzy at once. “My goodness, Ty. Shame on you! You’ve upset the poor dear!”
Kate was shaking. Her face red as I’d ever seen it. “I’m sorry, b-but I think I need . . . a moment.” She looked lost as how to proceed past the point of standing up.
It was my turn to gasp. And stand up. “I’m the one who should be sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to upset you.” It seemed like I kept having to repeat that. But was it true?
She ignored me and my apology. Bad sign. She focused on the Henrys, hands clasped tightly together. “It was so nice to meet you both,” she managed to formally say.
Ruthie was already on her feet, with Bob sighing and swiping at his beard like the sudden drama wasn’t fun anymore. But he followed subliminal orders from the missus and rose to his feet too. “Well, son, I see how you’ve managed to stay single so long.” He clapped his hand on my shoulder in a gesture of male solidarity.
I huffed out a humorless chuckle. “Yeah.”
“Kate dear, thank you so much for gracing us with your presence. And for these lovely cookies.” Ruthie fussed over her now. “Bob and I will sure enjoy them with our tea, won’t we Bob?”
Bob took his cue. “Oh, yes. Certainly will. And the doc says, like a horse, I can’t eat too many oats.” A heartier chuckle than befitted the joke followed up that dandy. But no one was in the mood to laugh at his corny jokes now, least of all me.
I quickly pecked Ruthie’s powdered cheek and mouthed out a quick, “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize, child, but you need to go make it right with Kate,” she admonished.
Good advice if I’d ever heard any.
I heard the back door softly bang, so I batted some ivy out of my way and scampered out the door after her. Kate was stalking back across the stepping stones with her short skirt flouncing about with her arm pumps. Her shiny brown hair was swaying, her tanned legs striding, ass pertly lifting up her skirt, something that amused me to no end when I first met her. If I remembered right, the asshole and I had even shared a conspiratorial smirk at that diner when she’d turned around to stalk off, in the very same manner she was doing now. And then he’d yelled out: “I wonder what she’s got hiding under that skirt?” Or something crass like that. And that’s the guy she gets with to march down the aisle.
I suddenly felt like laughing again. So I did, a little hysterically. Kate whirled around, a beautiful move that splayed her silky hair out and sparked her eyes. I wished I could’ve recorded it to play later in slow motion. She shot me a filthy look. I would’ve deleted that part. Now I felt like crying.
“Kate!” I called out. “Please! Wait up.” As if. I started jogging and hoped she wouldn’t too. She’d likely turn an ankle in those heels.
She didn’t jog. Just kept stalking resolutely up those stairs I’d recently stained to spruce up the place before she got here. Like it would make a difference. My place was a pit compared to the St. Regis Hotel and the President of Mexico’s house in Puerto Vallarta.
“Kate!” I bellowed, like a man who was on the cusp of losing.
She just banged through my front door—my only door—and I banged in after her. She whirled around with a face mottled with anger. She opened up her mouth to speak. Nothing came out. She pressed her lips together and shook her head at me. Then removed those inappropriate shoes and threw them towards her closet one by one.
I exhaled, somehow taking that for a good sign. I mean, at least she didn’t throw them at me, or worse—into her suitcase. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
She unglued her lips to speak. “That ‘worthless bastard’ saved me.”
“Well, I saved you from that worthless bastard,” I countered. “So we’re even.”
She hacked out something resembling my hysterical laugh, then bent over and covered her face with her hands. I watched her hair tumble upside down. She growled, then flipped her head back up, keeping one hand over her mouth while she stared at me. I gave her a minute and watched the dark color slowly dissipate along with some of her anger. She finally removed her hand from her mouth to speak. “I can’t believe you saw it.”
“I couldn’t believe it was real. Still can’t.”
She blew out some air and turned her back on me. A bad sign.
“I took it as fate,” I went on, trying to get her to engage with me. “Or even something more—a signal from God or something. Me happen chance finding that photo that morning. It had to be more than coincidence. And then I wondered if it was a trap, you know, to bait me.” I watched as her spine stiffened. “Seemed like something they would do. If that was their plan, it was working. Everything came crashing in. I just had to act.”
Kate slowly turned back around. Her pained eyes finding mine.
“So I made a phone call to the paper, asking how long the announcement had run and if it would run again. They informed me only a follow up society piece was planned after the nuptials, detailing what the bride wore, the local who’s who in attendance, that sort of thing.”
She barely blinked her eyes she was so focused on my words.
“I couldn’t believe you had accepted a marriage proposal from Ranger, or that he’d actually proposed. Had to be a sham.” I took in a breath. “I thought maybe you were forced into it, or like I said, it was a trap to draw me in.” I paused there, waiting for her to pick up her side of the story, but she still wouldn’t speak. I continued on. “I had to find out, so I called my mother, a move that almost caused her to have a heart attack, because I hadn’t called her one time since I split. Emergencies only, which I took this to be. And then she informed me that it was a real marriage. And then you just confirmed that you thought it was too . . . until you didn’t.”
She gave me a painful little smile at the reminder.
“Kate, honey. Please . I’m begging you! Put me outta my misery. How the hell did you end up in that shower in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with the last man on earth?”
She pressed her lips together.
I pressed on, pressing my hands together. “I’ll even do the Mikey face.”
Her face softened a little, but she remained mute.
“One question, Kate. One little question and then I’ll leave it alone.” I hit her with the puppy dog eyes. “ Please .”
She slowly breathed in and nodded her head.
“Yes?”
She nodded again.
“And you promise you’ll answer me, no matter what.”
She drew in another deep breath and inclined her head.
Holy shit! I knew just the one to ask.