Love You Page 18

  She drove off without even so much as a backward glance. He’d been everything she could’ve dreamed of and more. And not for one minute would she regret what they had done together, but she’d never been a woman prone to getting caught up in fantasies. So it was time to leave la-la land and get back to real life.

  *

  “Do you people talk about anything other than dieting and sex?” Rita stabbed a tomato and popped it in her mouth.

  “This from the woman whose life’s work is a sex calendar,” Foster muttered into his wineglass.

  Rita hadn’t missed the insult and got huffy. “It is not a sex calendar. It’s a fund-raising calendar. And what does my calendar have to do with dieting?”

  Darcy thought she made a valid point, though she would argue that the calendar was indeed racy. And out of focus. Rita needed a better photographer. The models were good, though. Especially Win.

  Hannah had been right, so far no one had said one word about the book everyone was supposed to have read. Instead, they’d gathered around the coffee table in Hannah’s living room, eating enchiladas, salad, chips and salsa, and drinking wine.

  Carrie Jo had spent much of the night giving a blow by blow of her new gluten-free lifestyle and how it made her hair glossier. Darcy had never heard that before. And Deb gave a summary on why it was better to get married in the winter than the summer.

  Then the conversation switched to the bar fight.

  “Boden banned Dale from Old Glory.” Hannah took a second helping of enchiladas. “Apparently, he’s been going in there night after night, looking for Candace and making all kinds of scenes.”

  “After the brawl?” Deb asked.

  “Yep.”

  “So, are Candace and Win an item?” Foster asked. “Or was she just his flavor of the night when Dale walked in on them?”

  Darcy feigned great interest in the label on the Chardonnay bottle before pouring herself a glass. She considered telling everyone the truth, since she knew firsthand that Win had no interest in Candace and that he’d been randomly caught in the middle of her marital problems. But Darcy didn’t know if Win would appreciate her interfering.

  “God, I hope not.” Carrie Jo let out a dramatic sigh. “Candace is batshit. Even back in high school there were major signs that she wasn’t right in the head. And poor Dale is a wreck. I don’t know what he ever saw in her but she completely broke his heart.”

  “That’s not what I heard.” Deb dredged a chip through a bowl of guacamole. “According to sources close to the case, Dale was stepping out on her.”

  “Would sources close to the case be Delaney?” Foster and everyone else turned their heads to stare directly at Delaney.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I stay out of my employees’ love lives.”

  “I don’t think Dale was having an affair.” Hannah topped off Rita’s glass. “I think they were going through the seven-year itch. Candace got bored and filed for divorce, which is her business. And according to Josh, she was trying to hit on Win at Old Glory and he was the innocent party.”

  Deb snorted. “Does anyone believe that?”

  Darcy cleared her throat. “I do.” Everyone turned to her, waiting for clarification. Maybe she should’ve kept her mouth shut but she was sick of people thinking the worst of Win. It wasn’t fair but more importantly it wasn’t true. “He came over to my place the night it happened and told me everything. I don’t know about Dale having an affair but Win isn’t having one with Candace. That I know for sure. He was just being chivalrous by sticking up for her and got decked in the face for his troubles.”

  Foster tossed his book at her and laughed. “You’ve been holding out on us, girl. That day I saw you at Tart Me Up … You knew all along what went down.”

  Everyone’s eyes were pinned on her and she felt her face start to flush. “Yes, I did. But it was Win’s story to tell, not mine. But tonight I wanted to set the record straight.”

  “Good for you,” Hannah said, and drilled Foster with a look. “It’s Win’s business, no one else’s.”

  Foster snorted. “Aren’t you Miss Goody Two Shoes.”

  Carrie Jo sniffed one of the corn chips and put it back in the basket. “Okay, now that we’re done with Candace, Dale, and Win, who else can we talk about?”

  For the rest of the evening they gossiped, drank, and ate Hannah’s peach cobbler, which was delicious. Carrie Jo of course abstained because … gluten.

  Darcy, who’d never been to Josh and Hannah’s house before, was given the grand tour. It was a darling Victorian with all the original millwork intact. Even the kitchen, which had been updated over the years, retained much of its 1800s charm. It was hard to see rough-and-tumble Josh Garner living here but Darcy supposed that his love for Hannah trumped living in a life-size dollhouse. And anyone could see that he adored his wife. All the Garner men loved their women with the exception of Win, who loved all women.

  The memory of her and Win writhing in bed together surfaced and she pushed it out of her mind, focusing on the gathering instead. She’d hoped that living in Glory Junction would improve her social life and it appeared that things were looking up. This was the third event she’d been invited to. In February, there’d been Deb’s thirtieth birthday party. And last month, Colt and Delaney’s wedding. When she’d been married to Lewis her social life consisted of hanging on his arm at various business functions where she was mostly ignored.

  The book club meeting—if you could call it that—had begun to break up. Darcy helped Deb and Delaney with the dishes and grabbed her purse.

  “You don’t have to leave, Darcy,” Hannah said. “Josh probably won’t be home for a while. This is his regular night to meet his brothers at Old Glory. The three of us usually hang out together afterward and you’re welcome to join us.”

  Darcy wondered if Win had gone to the bar with them and if he was there now. Hopefully, he wasn’t getting himself beat up again. “Thanks for the invite but I’m going to Reno tomorrow and want to get an early start.” After everything that had happened today she was feeling especially bold and asked, “So am I officially in the book club now?”

  Deb laughed. “Such as it is. Yes, you’re an official member, which means next time you either bring the wine or make the dinner.”

  “I’m happy to do either.” She was just thrilled to have friends. “How often do we meet?”

  “When all the stars align, once a month,” Hannah said. “We usually do it here but sometimes we do it at Delaney’s house and once we did it at Deb’s.”

  “I like the way you said that.” Deb beamed. “I always just think of the house as TJ’s but it’s mine, too.”

  “And it’s beautiful,” Darcy said. “The house, the lake, your backyard are just gorgeous. The FlashTag folks were certainly impressed.”

  “Thank you and I’m glad. I hope we get the account.” Deb filled Hannah’s dishwasher with soap and turned it on.

  “Any news on that?” Delaney asked.

  “Not yet. They have another company they’re meeting with this weekend so we’ll see.” She slung her purse strap over her shoulder.

  “If anyone can get them it’s the aptly named Win, as TJ likes to call him.” Deb hopped up on the counter. “Leave it to the charmmeister. I’m sure he’s already knocked their socks off.”

  He had indeed been charming and knocked their socks off. Though she hated to admit it, his improvisation had cemented the weekend as an indisputable success. But it would’ve been nice if Deb had acknowledged Darcy’s hard work too. She’d done just as much as Win to bag the deal and still had the blisters on her feet to prove it. Win might be the athlete and the charismatic one but she was the one who’d organized the entire weekend, booked the hotel and the restaurants, and shuttled everyone around.

  Ordinarily, Darcy would’ve kept her mouth shut. Win was Deb’s family and Darcy was an outsider. But she was sick of always standing on the outside, looking in. Even in her own home—her parents
’ and Lewis’s—she’d felt like a second-class citizen. Just once she wanted to be acknowledged.

  “He was amazing,” she stammered. “You should’ve seen him ride the bull. Everyone was in awe. But I like to think I was just as instrumental as Win in showing them a good time.” There, she’d said it. She’d spoken up for herself and it felt damned good, even though she probably should’ve kept a leash on her tongue.

  “Hell yeah, you were.” Deb got off the counter and topped off her wineglass. “TJ thinks you hung the moon. We all do. And you and Win are the perfect team. He’s good with the schmoozing and the physical stuff, you’re good with strategizing and coordinating.”

  “You think so?”

  “Uh, yeah. Everyone does.” Deb stated it so definitively that Darcy felt giddy.

  “Thanks,” she said, her chest still swelling from Deb’s praise. “I guess I better get going.”

  On the way home, she rolled down all her windows and set her radio at full blast.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darcy awoke to voices in the kitchen. They were muffled but she could make them out just the same. The first one belonged to Nana, the second was the voice of doom, which made her smother her face in a pillow to drown out the sound. She practiced her breathing. In and out, in and out.

  It was her day off so she could spend as long as she wanted in bed, just inhaling and exhaling. Except she had plans, ones that she sensed were about to be broken. She inched to the edge of the bed, felt for her phone, and checked her messages under the tent of her blanket, hoping that TJ wanted her to come in. Nope, she was screwed. Why couldn’t someone need her when she needed to be needed?

  She lazed as long as she could, stretching her legs as far as they would go. Win barely fit on her full-size bed but she couldn’t even touch the footboard with her toes. Britney’s toes would’ve touched. Darcy had seen Win’s ex-fiancée only once but she’d been tall and slender.

  Britney was Win’s usual MO, at least in the looks department. And why not? Beautiful people tended to gravitate toward other beautiful people, leaving the lesser mortals to settle for the leftovers. But just for once, Darcy hadn’t had to settle. And even though she and Win had been a onetime deal, she’d always have their liaison to remember and to give her a lift in desperate times. Like now.

  She forced herself out of bed and dragged herself to the shower, taking extra long to wash her hair because … procrastination. Then she took a while to go through her closet and pick each article of clothing to wear with the same care as she would’ve planning her own funeral. This wasn’t procrastination, this was sheer survival. The occasion called for putting on heavy-duty Spanx and going monochromatic from head to toe. She even broke out her kitten heels and put on a full face of makeup.

  Her mirror said she was as good as it gets and she strode down the staircase, trying to hold her head up high and not to die from her undergarments cutting off her oxygen flow.

  “Mother!” She acted surprised to see Geneva sitting at the dining room table. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  Geneva gave her a swift examination and the fact that she didn’t utter one criticism should’ve been the tip-off that things were even worse than Max had let on. That’s when Geneva burst into tears, leaving Darcy at a loss of what to do. She realized she had absolutely no idea how to comfort her mother. The truth was after thirty-one years they were detached, almost like strangers.

  “Max said he told you about the divorce,” she said, wiping her nose on one of Nana’s linen napkins. “Did he tell you he was leaving me for someone else?”

  He hadn’t but in the back of Darcy’s mind she’d thought it was a possibility. A slight one, but one nonetheless. She hadn’t asked because frankly she hadn’t wanted to know. “No. I’m sorry, Mother.” “I’m sorry” seemed woefully insufficient but she didn’t know what to say and a part of her was angry that they were putting this at her door.

  When she’d left Lewis, both her parents had been the opposite of supportive. Her mother had made it clear that Darcy would never do better and her father had treated the divorce like a childish phase.

  “I can’t believe he’s doing this to me.” Geneva wailed. “He wants to sell the house, probably so he can buy something better for his slut. I worked my ass off to make that house … everything. It was the envy of all our friends.”

  She sounded more upset about losing the house than she did about losing her husband, Darcy noted. And her “working my ass off” consisted of hiring people. But Darcy could understand her disappointment. Her life was being turned upside down. That part of it Darcy understood firsthand.

  “You can start over, Mother, get a new house. And you can make it any way you want. I’m sure it will be as gorgeous as yours and Dad’s.” Darcy sat at the table across from Geneva and glanced at Nana, who seemed as uncomfortable as she was. Max was Nana’s son after all and Geneva was clearly here to claim them to her side.

  Geneva stared back. “Get your head out of the clouds, Darcy. When your father’s through with me I’ll be lucky to afford a double-wide. If you don’t believe me, look around.” To punctuate her insult, she literally turned her nose up as she glanced around Nana’s cozy house. “Did you get your own place with your large divorce settlement from Lewis?”

  Darcy hadn’t wanted anything from Lewis, only her freedom. They’d been married a mere two years; it’s not like he owed her anything, though it would’ve been nice to have been recognized for helping him grow his real estate firm. Her parents, on the other hand, had been married for more than three decades and her mother had helped Max build their mortgage company from the ground up.

  “Nevada is a community property state, Mother. You’ll get your due.” She rarely spoke to Geneva with such bite but she’d be damned if she’d let her denigrate Nana’s house. More love abounded from the fifteen-hundred-square-foot cottage than all of Max and Geneva’s four-thousand-square-foot castle. Besides, Darcy lived here by choice.

  “Are you really that naïve? Between his tramp and his accountant, I’ll be lucky to get a quarter of our financial worth.”

  Darcy didn’t know how the “tramp” fit into this. She and Nana exchanged glances before Hilde got up to refill Geneva’s coffee and bring Darcy her own cup.

  “Have you hired a lawyer?” Darcy asked, even though the obvious question felt like she was taking sides.

  “Of course I have, though your father has already retained the best divorce attorney in Reno.”

  Darcy assumed there was more than one good lawyer in Nevada but clearly her mother needed to vent. “I’m sure you’ll find a good one too.” And because Darcy couldn’t help giving her mother a taste of her own awful medicine she said, “If you’re that worried about it you should try to get Dad back. Clearly, he’s a wonderful catch.”

  At that Geneva burst into a second round of tears, which made Darcy feel like an absolute bitch.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, you did. You think I don’t know how much you resent me for Lewis. I only say the things I do because you’re my daughter and I love you. I want you to have a good life, Darcy. I want you to be happy and have what I had all those years, before your father left me.”

  Geneva did not make a habit of telling Darcy that she loved her. In fact, Darcy couldn’t remember her ever saying it before and the words took her by surprise and made her lungs constrict. Perhaps all her mother’s sniping was never intended to be hateful. Maybe she really did have Darcy’s best interest at heart. But it was still sad. Sad that her mother equated having a good life with having lots of expensive things. Sad that a loveless marriage was better than no marriage at all. And sad that she knew so little about what made Darcy happy. It certainly hadn’t been Lewis.

  She wanted to go to her mother, hold her, but she didn’t know how. They’d never been a touchy-feely family. The table between them may as well have been a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

  “
She’s not even beautiful,” Geneva said, this time blowing her nose into the napkin. When Darcy looked at her quizzically because she had no idea what her mother was talking about, Geneva said, “Your father’s receptionist, the one he dumped me for. She’s short, mousy, and chubby. Hardly what one expects the other woman to look like.”

  Darcy was struck by the portrayal. It sounded vaguely familiar because it was all the things Geneva had accused her of being. Darcy the fat dish towel.

  And Nana knew it too because she looked Mother straight in the eye and said, “Max obviously doesn’t see it that way because he loves her.”

  Geneva began to wail all over again. Darcy’s phone buzzed and she surreptitiously reached for it in her purse and glanced at the screen. She never thought she’d be thankful for a text from Lewis but at that very moment she felt beyond beholden to her ex-husband.

  “I promised Lewis I’d spend the day doing data entry for him,” she said, quickly shoving the cell back inside her bag. Nana gave her a panicked look. Please don’t leave me alone with your mother. Darcy hurriedly added, “And Nana has a doctor’s appointment. So we need to get going soon.”

  “You’re welcome to stay, Geneva,” Nana said. “Perhaps a little time in the garden would do you good.”

  Mother nodded, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy and Darcy felt instantly ashamed. “If you want, you can come with us. We could go to that mall you like for some shopping therapy.”

  “No, I’ll stay here. Hilde’s right, a little time outdoors might be restorative.”

  Since when? Geneva hated the sun, was scared to death that it would age her. But it was better than the alternative: Geneva coming with them to Reno.

  “When we get back we can all go out for a nice dinner,” Darcy said. “There’s that gastropub, Old Glory, that you liked so much the last time. Or if you’d prefer we could go to the Indian—”

  “Anything is fine.” Geneva waved her off. “You go. I’m glad you’re spending time with Lewis, maybe there’s still hope for the two of you.”