Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2) (43 page)

She gratefully pushed the door open and flicked on the coach lights. Somehow, seeing them at this hour, when she was so incredibly tired in so many ways, made them seem all the more welcoming. To think her brother was now a bona fide electrician.

The thought brought a smile to her lips.

Then she remembered who his fiancé was.

Good Lord, life was unpredictable.

Liz turned on more lights as she made her way through the house. She’d worked in such a frenzy before, patching and painting and fending off suitors, she hadn’t had a chance to take it all in before now. But now, she saw the house with new eyes.

What she saw was lovely. Truly lovely. The living room, with its soft birch walls and bright white trim, set off the warm woodwork around the fireplace beautifully. And, she’d rearranged a little, creating a cozy seating area by the fireplace, a reading nook by the window. Someone had set up the chess set on the little side table, as if there was a game in progress.

She pushed through to the dining room, its wainscot and trim were freshened with more birch white paint, but then she’d done the walls and ceiling a sky blue, causing the small plaster medallion over the light fixture to pop.

And the kitchen. She walked in, remembering how it had felt to see it for the first time. She’d never gotten around to repainting the cabinets, so they were still that peaceful celery green.

Surely a new buyer would see how charming it was and make an offer soon no matter what the state of the side yard.

After getting a drink of water, Liz unloaded the SUV, set Eddie up in the spare room and fell into bed.

She was awake again three hours later, staring at the ceiling. Thinking.

It was strange how life came full circle sometimes. She’d lain in this very bed, staring at this very ceiling, crying over the same man a decade ago.

When would she learn to stop believing in fantasy? Those stolen moments in Jenny Whitmeyer’s pantry were just that—a fantasy.

Reality was the mess in the side yard, an ex-vampire as a future sister-in-law and a promotion hanging over her head like a guillotine.

Ugh. And the sooner she faced it all, the sooner she’d be able to move past it.

Liz sat up, desperately wanting a cup of coffee, but she didn’t even have half and half. It’d be better to work a couple of hours, shower and go into town for food and a break.

Pulling on her ugliest sweats, she stepped out into the cool morning and stared at where the shed used to be.

Oh, my.

There wasn’t much left of the shed except for the charred remains of what looked like an oversized camp fire. A handful of metal tools sat in a jumble, their handles turned to ash. The wheelbarrow was nothing but a dented black bowl. Pieces of wood and debris were scattered around, dark with soot, from where firefighters obviously worked to get to any remaining embers. All in all, a thorough disaster.

Liz pulled on her work gloves and started hauling metal recycling into a pile. Once she got that out of the way, she could buy a new shovel in town and scoop the charred wood and ashes onto a tarp and drag it all to the back lot.

Forty-five minutes into the job, covered in soot from head to toe, she needed a drink. And a shower. Liz swiped her brow, uncaring of the smears she was surely leaving behind, and stumbled. She looked down.

She’d caught her toe on the corner of what looked like an old metal toolbox under some half-charred timbers. Dragging the box out, she stepped over the charcoal and mess and was about to throw it in with the other metal recycling when she stopped. The shape was familiar.

Very
familiar.

The box sat heavy in her arms, a small bit of red paint showing on the lower corner. She brushed off the top with her sleeve and stared at it. Oh, my God. She’d forgotten all about it.

She tried the latch, but it stuck, so with shaking hands, she grabbed the head of an axe and smacked the latch until it popped open. She sat back on the damp lawn.

It was still there. Everything she’d tucked away was all there—somehow, miraculously, protected from the flames and the fire hoses.

The little ceramic kitten knick-knack Uncle Marv had given her. The lucky bottle cap from the Black Cherry soda bottle she’d saved from her sixth birthday party. A real French Franc from the old woman down the hill whose husband had fought in Normandy.

And her dreams book.

She pulled off her gloves so as not to dirty the pages and pulled the thick book out, her breath light in her chest.

She ran her fingers over the cover, letting them bump over the little cut-out flowers and stars done in construction paper and glitter glue.

She eased the book open.

Using pictures from catalogs, samples of fabric, even candy wrappers, she’d recorded her vision for every room in the old farmhouse. Each space was carefully decorated—just as she’d seen done on a TV show once—with thin-lined diagrams of walls, windows and furnishings she’d then accented with glitter pens and colored pencils. Slowly, one by one, she turned the pages, the vignettes she’d dreamed up so many years ago coming to life like mini movie sets.

Her fingers slid over the page. There was the front door, a fresh, welcoming periwinkle blue. She’d glued on a tiny gold sequin for the knob and drawn little violets at the stoop. There was the dining room with its sky blue walls and white trim. Her younger self had added a bird motif in the light fixture and a delicate, pastoral mural on the wall. And then the kitchen.

Liz sucked in a breath… and began to cry.

Dear Lord, she seemed to be doing an awful lot of that lately.

Soft green cabinets, cherry-red knobs, and there, on the counter, she’d even crafted a tiny Cookie Rooster from poster-board and pasted him onto the page.

A little tan cookie with brown magic marker dots sat on the counter beside it.

Without even knowing it, a decade later, she’d recreated everything almost exactly as she’d first imagined it.

Tears slid down her face as she leafed through the rest of the book, realizing she’d done the same thing to other houses, reimagining and reinventing individual rooms and entire facades. She remembered hoarding paint samples from the local home center and begging for fabric swatches from the quilting ladies at church so she could give each room just the right touch.

When had she forgotten how much she loved to do this?

More to the point, when had her life veered so far away from where she’d dreamed she was headed?

She let out a sigh. She knew when. She’d stopped believing in dreams three days after her first kiss. The day she’d asked Carter to the prom. From that day onward, she always had a plan. She was always prepared.

Because, it hurt too much when dreams didn’t come true.

Liz carried the scrapbook back to the house, set it on the kitchen table, started a pot of coffee—even though she didn’t have cream—and went to shower.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
____________________

W
HEN SHE CAME back down, Trish was there.

“Does no one knock anymore?”

“I might ask you the same thing.” Trish pulled a carton of half and half, God bless her, from her diaper bag. “So what are you doing here? I thought you were back in Chicago for good.”

“I came to clean up the mess from the fire. Why are
you
here?”

“It’s quiet.” Trish rocked Clara in her bucket seat with her foot as she added cream to the coffee Liz had made. “And clean.”

“It’s not quiet at home?” Liz knew not to ask about the clean part.

“Not like this.” Trish closed her eyes on a sigh. “I’ve been coming every morning after I drop the twins at preschool just to breathe. It’s very peaceful. Just between you and me, I hope Mom and Dad don’t sell too soon.” Trish eyed Liz over the rim of her mug. “I saw the book.”

Liz didn’t need to ask what Trish was talking about, because it was still sitting smack in the middle of the table revealing all her secrets. She poured a mug and sat down. “I found it in the shed.”

“I remember you used to spend hours on that thing. It made me jealous how good you were at it. It’s like nothing you do can turn out ugly.”

Liz added cream to her mug and watched it swirl in the black coffee. “Oh, I can do ugly. You’ve seen the side yard, haven’t you? It makes me sick knowing it cost Mom and Dad the sale. Nothing to be jealous of there.”

“Oh,
pish
. That buyer was looking for an excuse to pull out. They knew full well about the shed when they signed that contract, but then a week later they say they weren’t informed about the ‘negative impact the fire and explosives had on the landscaping?’ Seriously? Like a few branches and burnt patches in the lawn aren’t going to grow back?  I hear they’ve already signed a contract on another property off of Miller Brook.”

Liz swirled her coffee pensively. They drank in silence. The baby snored.

Liz fiddled with the salt and pepper shakers in front of her. “Can I ask you something? And, this may sound stupid given the fact that you were knocked up and nineteen when you married Russ, but when did you know he was ‘the one?’ I mean, when did you know you hadn’t completely screwed up your life by getting involved with him in the first place?”

Trish raised one brow. “What makes you sure I don’t still have my doubts?”

“I’m serious.”

Trish took a swig of coffee, shrugged. “Seriously? I don’t know. There was never an ‘a-ha’ moment. When I found out I was pregnant, everybody on God’s green earth was talking at me. First I had Russ insisting he’d marry me, then Mom and Dad were offering to take me and the baby in—though Lord knows how that would have turned out. With John screwing up, they had nothing left to give, you know?” She trailed off, an amused tilt to her lips.

“What?”

“I’ll never forget how Russ proposed. He looked me in the eye and said our chances were as good as any other couple, and why
shouldn’t
we get married?”

“Romantic.”

Trish shrugged. “He was right. Maybe it seemed crazy for two kids to get married, but no crazier than our being parents to begin with. Mom and Dad were convinced I was throwing my life away, but Russ got his first sales job after that, did really well, and here we are.”

“Do you love him?”

Trish’s features softened as she looked at the baby. “Maybe it’s not the romantic life most girls dream about, but it’s a good life. I get to do what I want, when I want, most of the time. And I only have to deal with Russ’ dirty laundry when he’s home. He’s done the best he could by me and the kids. Neither one of us is perfect.”

“But, do you love him?” Liz repeated, stamping down her impatience.

Trish set her mug on the table and looked Liz in the eye. “I’d be an idiot not to. And no matter what anybody says, I’ve never been stupid.”

Liz smiled. “No, you never have.”

Liz sipped her coffee.

“So what are you going to do now? What’s the plan?”

Liz choked on her coffee. “You sound like Aunt Claire. I don’t have a plan.”

Trish pulled a yellow legal pad from under Liz’s laptop case, flipped to a clean page and shoved it forward. “Then make a new one.”

Liz’s palms began to sweat as she stared at the blank page. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Trish stared at her a moment then yanked the notepad back across the table. She divided the page into three columns. “Okay. Here’s what I see. There are the things you
thought
you wanted—financial security, professional accomplishments, a man who wears more hair product than you…
Grant
—that’s all column one.” She hastily jotted each item one over the other. “Column three is everything you know you
don’t
want—”

“Jail time, any more class reunions...” Liz said.

“Halitosis,” Trish eagerly added. Liz gave her a look. “Okay. Now here’s the middle column, the things you’re not sure how you feel about. That would include, and I’m only guessing because I heard you were offered a promotion but neglected to jump at the opportunity… your job…”

“…my home…” Liz sighed.