Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
After the altercation, the browsing at Sugar but I wouldn’t let myself dwell on possibilities about my own future right now. Maybe after the wedding on Sunday.
Gladys clapped her hands. “Come in and get settled and I’ll take your orders for either a pick-me-up, a sleepy-time tea, or a hangover helper.”
Savilla headed to the restroom to change Ollie, and Charlotte and Myrtis sat at their own table.
Lacy sank into one of the comfortable corner chairs, facing Jemma, who seemed at a loss for words.
The accumulation of the unexpected guests and the scene with Charlie and the priest had apparently stunned her, and she was about to be even more surprised as Will Hurt rushed into the store, a look of terror in his eyes, Valerie on his heels.
“How could you leave him with strangers?” Will shouted, startling all of us, especially Charlotte, whose eyes were unblinkingly fixed on him.
Valerie seemed about to yell back at her husband, but when she scanned the café and didn’t see her baby, she became frantic herself instead. Her eyes were wide as she stepped closer to me. “Where is he? Where’s Ollie?”
“I told you not to let him out of your sight this weekend,” Will said, his voice strained, as if someone had him by the throat.
He was angry, yes—but also afraid.
“Your baby is fine,” I said, stepping forward. “Savilla is in the restroom, changing him.”
Valerie’s eyes darted toward the bathrooms and then her husband before she started in that direction, a stricken look of relief on her face.
As soon as she’d passed through the door, Charlotte was at Will’s elbow, her hand on his arm.
Without looking at her, Will shook her away. “Not now. I need to see my son.”
Charlotte gasped, startling both of them, before narrowing her gaze. Almost immediately, Will realized he’d made a mistake.
His face froze, seeming to sense that he shouldn’t speak this way to her. “Charlotte, I didn’t mean to—” he started, before she interrupted him.
“It’s fine.” The woman stood to her full height and lifted her chin. “I don’t expect any show of gratitude, even after everything I’ve done for you.”
Will swallowed hard, and I couldn’t tell if he wanted to hide or fight. Either way, he was on edge.
Surely it wasn’t just the late hour and the need for caffeine veiling the meaning of Charlotte’s actual words—everything I’ve done for you. I ran back over them in my mind one more time—Charlotte had arranged something, something for which Will should show gratitude.
Nope, still didn’t add up.
“After Todd left the party, I was just worried about Valerie and the baby,” Will said, this time his hand on her arm and Charlotte shaking him off. “I couldn’t get a hold of Valerie on her cell, and when I went by the house, they weren’t there.”
“She fell asleep at The Reel,” I said, before I could think better of it.
Will stared at me as if he hadn’t realized I’d been listening to their conversation. When he saw me, he suddenly shut his mouth and wouldn’t speak. Thankfully, a moment later Valerie and the baby emerged, Ollie all smiles as his mother carried him, Savilla following close behind.
With a look of disdain at his wife, Will hurried over to Ollie and yanked the baby from Valerie’s arms.
“Careful. He only ate a half-hour ago. He still hasn’t burped much,” Savilla said, sounding hurt and defensive, which was fair. She hadn’t taken the child of her own accord. Valerie had thrust him into our hands.
“Watch his head,” Valerie chided her husband, as if she didn’t trust him to hold the baby.
“I know what I’m doing,” Will spat back at her.
His eyes had a wild look of terror in them as they darted from the baby to his wife to the door.
It was almost as if he wasn’t registering our presence at all as he continued their argument.
“I told you how important tonight was. I told you to stay home and keep the doors locked and the alarm on.”
That sounded unnecessarily extreme, especially in a town where crime never happened—okay, except for two recent murders at The Rose, but those were definitely anomalies.
“I’m sorry if I need a break from being a twenty-four-hour dairy cow!
” Valerie, mascara smudged at the corners of her eyes as if she’d been crying, looked ready to pounce on her husband.
The mascara was the only makeup she was wearing, and I could just imagine her earlier that evening, trying to rake the wand across her eyelashes with a restless baby in her other arm.
“And I’m sorry if I’m intruding on your ‘new gig’—whatever the hell that means.
I just thought it might be nice to be around other grown-ups, instead of cooped up at home like the little obedient wife you always wanted. ”
Will’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah? And whose fault is that?” Valerie pointed at Will. It was her turn now to appear oblivious to her audience. “You won’t tell me anything. You just give commands. Open this account, move that over here, stay home with the baby.”
“It’s for your own good,” Will hissed, obviously about to come undone.
He dared a glance at Charlotte, who merely eyed him, her arms crossed. Apparently, regardless of what was happening between them, Charlotte was not about to get involved in this marital spat.
Lacy’s wide eyes found mine, and Savilla gripped my arm. Myrtis and Jemma appeared just as stunned. We could all see that these new parents were fragile, on edge, and about to burst into flames.
As Ollie started to fuss in Will’s arms, Valerie took the child from her husband. “You don’t even know how to properly hold him.”
“We need to go,” he said, voice quivering even as he lifted his chin and tried to push back his shoulders to reclaim some sort of dignity. He led Valerie out of the café, his eyes fixed straight ahead, as if on a death march.
When the door closed behind him, it was as if air had suddenly been let back into the room. I heard clinking behind the counter and saw Gladys’s head pop up from the bottom of the glass case she’d been cleaning. She removed a earbud from her ear and raised an eyebrow.
“What did I miss?”
None of us answered. I wasn’t quite sure how to explain the tension in the air or the way that Will had looked at Charlotte one last time before hurrying his wife and baby out of the store.
One thing I knew: Will Hurt was terrified.