Chapter 5
FOND MEMORIES
Meredith heard her phone ringing and lifted papers and binders out of the way on the kitchen table. Finally locating it under her laptop, she saw Gale was calling.
“What the heck, Gale? Why didn’t you tell me your brother was a heaping host of testosterone?”
Her friend laughed on the other end of the line. “Which brother is that?”
“The one I’ve recently seen. Duh. Have they all turned out like that? I mean I’ve seen pictures of Ford.”
Ford Ridgeway was the Sheriff of Warren County. Hard not to see information about him.
“So you mean my jerk of a brother,” Gale said. “Clay.”
“He wasn’t that bad,” she said.
Gale snorted. “I’m positive he was since I just got off the phone with him. He didn’t even know who you were. What an idiot.”
“It took me a minute to realize he didn’t recognize me. Not even after he had to catch me before my knees hit the floor.”
“Oh lord, Meri. Sorry—Meredith. I’m working on it. Did you fall in front of him again?”
Very few called her Meri. Only old classmates and her family. It was what she went by for years, but when she left for college, she’d given her name as Meredith. She got sick of everyone misspelling her name like the normal Mary. It was only a nickname anyway.
“I wanted to impress him. You know, not come in as if I was chasing a gang of runny-nosed five-year-olds. I changed out of my comfy sneakers and put on pumps.”
“You’ve never been able to walk in heels,” Gale said.
“Nope. I proved that to your brother too. Got the heel caught on the door jamb because I didn’t lift my foot up enough, lost my balance and teetered forward.
My binders go flying, my purse wrapped around the front of me, and my hands went to catch myself.
But there was Clay, once again, his fingers on my forearms and steadying me. ”
His hands on her body brought on the same reaction as they had when she was a child.
A sense of security. That the world could crash and burn, swirl around her head, but there would be Clay Ridgeway in slow motion with a wicked grin carrying her to safety.
Not that he’d ever given her anything other than a roll of his eyes, a shake of his head, and short conversations.
“That’s Clay for you. The guy always seems to know when something is going to happen before it does.”
“For a big guy, he still moves fast too. I’m sure he told you I got the job.”
“He did,” Gale said. “I feel bad. The weddings were my idea and I just can’t handle it. I help when the family needs me, but I can’t be around for more than a few hours for an actual event. My mother was carrying the load with Reenie.”
“I heard. Your mother looks awesome. She sent me a bunch of information yesterday. I had little time to go through it but am doing that now. I’m going to reach out to the bride for a wedding scheduled in a few weeks. Not that I can do much, but I want to offer my services if she’s got questions.”
“I’m sure they will appreciate it. My mother could use the break, but I know she’s having fun with it.”
“I hadn’t realized your parents got ordained and could marry couples.”
She thought that was a nice touch to have on hand.
“Ash joked about it and my mother took it seriously. They should have fun with this. They’ve worked hard all their lives. Honestly, I’d never say that I’d want my father to get hurt, but it might have been the best thing for the way the farm is turning out.”
“Do you have time to tell me a bit about that?”
“Sure,” Gale said. “My father broke his back in a fall two years ago. It’s been a long hard recovery and multiple surgeries. Clay wasn’t asked to come home. He just said he was done with the Navy and was home the next week. We were all stunned.”
“He said nothing else?”
“No,” Gale said. “He’s not the same person he was before.”
“Seems it to me,” she said, laughing.
“He’s never been much of a talker and always had a keen awareness of his surroundings. But he’s... darker. That’s the best I can describe it. Do you know what happened to Ford’s girlfriend a few months ago?”
“No, should I?”
“I’m not going to get into too much information. I really can’t. Just what was on the news. She was kidnapped. Ford and Clay got to her. Two people died that day. Clay was the one who shot and killed them. Ford got shot and could have died if Clay hadn’t worked fast to stop the bleeding.”
“I read that,” she said. “I hadn’t realized it was Ford’s girlfriend.” Or that Clay had been the one to kill the two men.
She never paid much attention to the details of things like that.
Her life was about fun and rainbows, unicorns and puppy dogs.
Or so she wanted it to be. Didn’t mean it always happened though. At least not lately.
“Yeah. Clay’s had it hard. He doesn’t talk about his experience in the Navy and no one asks. My guess is he just needed to come home.”
“He didn’t want to run the orchards or the farm?”
It’d never really been a farm, but there were always animals around to feed and pet. The summer and the fall were the busiest times. Berries to pick, then apples and pumpkins. Hay rides. All those fun kid things she had fond memories of.
“No. My father and he didn’t always see eye to eye.
Clay had a vision though and put his own money into the building out back to turn it into the mill.
It was just a place my father made cider to sell in the cafe prior.
Clay worked endlessly to get it up and going.
I want to say it was like an overnight launch, but he probably doesn’t see that. ”
“I mean just to learn to make it or come up with a recipe is great. I know he’s got several flavors. I’ve had them all.”
She’d always loved cider as a kid. As she got older, the fact that cider became alcoholic made it an easy choice for her. When she drank.
Meredith needed nothing else to have her wobbly on her feet or overly enthusiastic. Fredrick always said she got on his nerves when she was drinking.
There wasn’t anything wrong with being a little silly in her eyes.
Why hadn’t she seen the signs of all his crap earlier and saved herself the frustration?
Because she was lost in the romance of happily ever after and thought for sure she’d be able to plan her own dream wedding soon.
Better to focus on her new part-time job than wedding gown shopping for herself.
“Clay had been making hard cider for years,” Gale said. “It drove my father insane. But my father isn’t laughing now at how successful it all is. Clay just needs to do things his own way.”
No surprise there.
“Okay. So he comes home and starts the hard cider. He said you were the one that wanted the wedding venue.”
“I did,” Gale said. “He’s put so much work into the property to make it shine. His idea was having that be a tasting room. Or a place someone could rent for a small event. I told him to open it up to more. He’s the last person who can plan anything frilly.”
A giggle escaped. “I figured as much. He might scare nervous brides.”
“Definitely that,” Gale said. “There you go. That is why you were hired. The two weddings that he’d had were small and they were beautiful. A lot of work, but made more money than Clay thought. You can talk to him about all those things.”
“Your mother sent me the list of prices for what is offered.”
From just renting the space and the Ridgeways being hands off, to actually catering for food and drink, setting up the venue with decor and seating. Now she was going to meet with them about the costs to include her as a planner and have that added to the menu of fees.
“I know you’ll have fun with it. You always enjoyed decorating and playing dress-up.”
“I like being a girl,” she said, putting her feet up and wiggling her toes. She’d just painted her toenails lilac. They should be dried by now.
“It has its perks,” Gale said. “When you’ve got time to go out and see the other sex. I’m not sure I know what it’s like to go out and have a drink with a man anymore.”
“You’re not missing much,” she said, her lips pursed.
“How are things with Fredrick? You said he didn’t take the breakup well.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t get it. He was cheating on me. How could he be upset over me kicking him out? He had someone else to fall back on. I’m home alone eating ice cream out of the container three nights a week.”
It was down to once now, but for the first week, Ben and Jerry had been her two new best friends.
She’d kicked them out when her belly hurt.
There was truth to too much of a good thing.
“Men are idiots,” Gale said. “He’s not bothering you, is he?”
It wouldn’t hurt to tell her friend what was going on. “The first few weeks I got a lot of calls and voicemails. Texts too. I had the locks changed because he came in one day when I was gone and rearranged stuff on me.”
“What? Why would he do that?”
“Because he knew it’d annoy me.” She didn’t want to admit what she’d done to him. She felt justified with it all being so fresh in her mind with the pain he’d caused.
“What a dick,” Gale said.
“I guess I deserved it. I was petty when I packed up his stuff. He hated all my art supplies.”
“I would have dumped glitter in his shit,” Gale said.
She burst out laughing. “Yep. Did that. Only in a few boxes.”
Gale was roaring with laughter. “Good for you.”
“I did a few more things. Nothing I thought was major. Guess he thought they were because after my interview with your brother, I came home to a dead fish by my front door covered in flies.”
“That’s nasty,” Gale said. “And we know you hate bugs and flies.”
“Yep. That’s why he did it. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to clean it myself. My neighbor took care of it.”
“He admitted it to you?” Gale asked.
“He did. He was mad that he finally figured out I stitched several of his pants tight in the crotch. I mean, he was sending altered dick pics, why not give him a confidence boost that he might grow?”
“Oh God,” Gale said. Her friend was laughing so hard, she could almost see her bent over with it. “That’s kind of brilliant, in a way.”
“There you go. I suppose I had it coming. I hope it’s over now. It’s been over six weeks.”
“For your sake I hope it is too. You’ve done nothing since the day you kicked him out?”
“Nope. I’ve wiped my hands of him. Everything he’s done has been after. The calls, texts, voicemails, coming into the house, then the fish. Oh, my flowers before that. Not sure why he won’t let it go, but since he discovered that with his pants, maybe he’s had his fill of it.”
“If he hasn’t, let me know. You should take action against him.”
She sighed. “It’s not what I want to do. As I said, I started it doing that when I kicked him out.”
“Meri, you were hurt and blindsided.” You did what a lot of women do. Hell, you packed his stuff up and I might have just tossed it all on the lawn and told him to figure it out on his own.”
“I wanted to, but then you know, the glitter wouldn’t have stayed as well as it did in the box.”
Gale laughed again. “There you go. Oh, I’ve got another call coming in.”
“I’ve got work to get done anyway. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up with Gale and returned to planning other people’s happy ever after.
Who could she be talking to?
Karl had his laptop on the table as he watched as if it was his favorite TV show.
Maybe he should have gotten a camera that could pick up sound, but he’d rushed in to set it up so fast when she’d left her door unlocked and he didn’t want to get caught.
Meredith was on the phone. Her kitchen table a mess while she worked. Naughty girl. She needed to be more organized. If she was, maybe things would have worked out sooner. Or better. Yeah, definitely better.
But she’d see the light soon enough. He’d help her as he always did.