Midnight Promises (26 page)

“I was afraid you’d take pity on me and let me get away with it when I don’t feel like doing something,” she admitted. “I figure if I’m paying Jeff, I’ll listen to him. I need somebody who won’t cut me any slack.”

“Good thinking,” he conceded. “And Jeff knows what he’s doing.” He studied her with concern. “Mind telling me what brought this on? Ernesto hasn’t said something about your weight, has he?”

“Ernesto doesn’t speak to me about much of anything these days,” she said before she could stop herself, then winced at Elliott’s immediately angry expression. She held up a hand before he could respond. “Don’t mind me. I was having a bad morning, and I just decided I wanted to do something positive. This was it.”

“Do I need to—”

“Speak to my husband?” she finished, cutting him off. “Absolutely not.”

“But if he’s disrespecting you…”

“We both know he is and that he isn’t going to change. I just have to figure out what I’m going to do about that. Now, please, leave it alone, okay?”

“I’m just saying—”

Again she cut him off, this time by pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Understood. Thanks for the offer of backup, but I’m dealing with this in my own way.”

Though he didn’t look happy about it, Elliott backed off.

She forced a smile. “I hear you, Karen and the kids ran off for a day at the beach on Sunday. Mama was surprisingly pleased about that. She didn’t grumble once about you all missing Sunday dinner.”

“I think she understood how badly we needed it. Next time you and the kids should come along. Being outside in all that salt air and sunshine was great. Daisy and Mack had a ball.”

“So she told Selena.”

Elliott frowned. “Selena didn’t get upset or feel left out, did she?”

“No. In fact, she came home bubbling with excitement because Daisy said she could come along next time. It made me realize that I need to start looking out for my own kids. I think I take great care of them, but with everything that’s been going on at home…” She shrugged. “It has to be taking a toll, though so far the only one who seems tuned in is Selena. She’s very angry. I worry about what she might do. You know how rebellious she is already. What if some boy shows an interest and she does something crazy just to be noticed?”

Elliott’s expression once again filled with concern. As the only man among the siblings, he considered it his duty to look out for not only his sisters, but their children, just as their father would have done had he lived.

“Have you talked to her about that?” he asked.

“Not that exactly, but I’ve told her she’s not to even consider sex until she’s at least thirty,” she said, grinning. “Wishful thinking, I know, but maybe if I say it often enough she’ll understand what a big deal it is. I certainly didn’t. I got pregnant way too young, and I was almost twenty-one.”

“Do you think you would have married Ernesto even if you hadn’t gotten pregnant?” he asked.

Adelia considered the question carefully. “More than likely,” she conceded. “I was crazy in love with him. I had no idea it would turn out the way it has.”

Ernesto certainly hadn’t been a serial cheater back then, or if he had been, he’d kept it well hidden. That wasn’t something she intended to share with her protective brother. Elliott probably knew all about what was going on now. He’d certainly hinted that he knew, but she wasn’t going to confirm it. He might feel compelled to have a chat with Ernesto, and no good could come of that.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she told her brother. “And you might want to warn Jeff that I’m a wuss when it comes to exercise.”

He grinned. “A prediction? You’ll be addicted in a month.”

“And you, my dear brother, are a dreamer!”

She’d be lucky if she didn’t collapse in exhaustion after the first session and never show her face here again.

* * *

Karen was beginning to really count on her morning visits with Raylene. They never lasted more than a few minutes, long enough for a cup of coffee and a quick conversation, but for the first time in her life she felt as if she had a real girlfriend. Best of all, she’d discovered that she and Raylene had quite a lot in common.

Both of them had had troubled relationships with their mothers. In Raylene’s case, her mother had withdrawn and, as Raylene now realized, had shown signs of the same agoraphobia that Raylene herself had dealt with, keeping her confined to home. Karen’s mother had been an alcoholic, who refused to see the devastating effect drinking was having on her or on her daughter.

Both of them were living in blended families, though the circumstances weren’t the same. And both of them had overcome serious psychological issues and struggled to reach the point of living full and normal lives.

“When you look back a year, can you believe all the changes in your life?” Karen asked Raylene as she sat on a stool and watched while Karen chopped vegetables for the stew on the day’s menu.

Raylene laughed. “No way. Every time I walk out the front door and make it all the way into town, I consider it a miracle. And then there’s Carter. After the disaster that was my first marriage, he’s like some fairy-tale prince—kind, considerate, sensitive.” A wicked grin spread across her face. “And very, very sexy!”

Karen chuckled. “I landed one of those, too. There’s absolutely no comparison between my first husband and Elliott. He’s good to me. He’s responsible. He’s great with my kids.”

Raylene studied her over the rim of her cup. “Mind if I ask you something personal?”

“Anything,” Karen responded.

“Have you and Elliott talked any more about him adopting Daisy and Mack?”

“We’ve talked about it,” Karen said, though she was aware of a certain tightness in her voice even as she said the words.

Raylene obviously picked up on it. “Then it’s still a touchy subject?” she asked.

Karen nodded. “I’ve managed to avoid actually dealing with it. I just can’t seem to make up my mind.”

Raylene looked puzzled. “Why? Like I said before, I would think it would be great for the kids to know that Elliott loves them that much. Maybe it would be different if Ray—is that his name?—if he were still around, but he’s not. Are you thinking he could turn up? Or does Helen think it would be hard to get him to relinquish his parental rights?”

Karen flushed guiltily. “I haven’t even approached Helen. Ray did relinquish his rights when we got divorced, so it’s probably not an issue.”

“Then I really don’t get it,” Raylene said with the sort of candor that Karen had come to appreciate. “Not when you say yourself what a great stepfather Elliott’s been.”

Karen struggled to find an answer that would make sense to either of them. “I think you were right the last time we talked about this. A part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to fall.”

Raylene regarded her with understanding. “You’re honestly afraid things might not work out with Elliott?”

Karen nodded. “Crazy, isn’t it? Every day I thank my lucky stars for him, but there’s this one tiny part of me that still thinks it’s too good to be true.”

“I’m in no position to give marriage counseling, but I do think marriage isn’t something you can do by half measures. You have to be all in. Otherwise those tiny doubts can create a crack that will eventually turn into a huge fissure.”

“My heart gets that,” Karen responded. “It’s a hundred percent onboard. It’s my head. I can’t turn off the part that questions my judgment. I made a terrible mistake once. What if I’ve done it again?”

“So, are you constantly looking for evidence that you made another mistake?” Raylene asked, frowning.

Karen hesitated, then nodded. “That’s exactly what I do,” she admitted. Every little slip Elliott made—especially when it came to finances or evidence of macho behavior—triggered panic and went into some mental lockbox, stored away for some future time when they’d all be added together to prove that once again she’d chosen the wrong guy.

“You know that’s not healthy, right?” Raylene asked, her concern evident.

“I know,” Karen said bleakly. “I just don’t know how to stop it.”

“You saw the same shrink I did, didn’t you?” Raylene asked. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk this over with her.”

The suggestion completely threw Karen. “I thought I was past the need for that.”

“You probably are,” Raylene consoled her. “Most of the time, anyway. But people like us who’ve been through traumatic ordeals should know better than most the value of asking for help
before
it’s too late.” She stood up and gave Karen a hug. “I’ve got to run. And please don’t look so panicked. It’s just a suggestion. I certainly don’t mean to suggest you’re unraveling or anything like that.”

Karen forced a laugh. “Good to know. And I do appreciate the suggestion. I’m beyond being able to see things clearly, so an objective point of view was definitely welcome.”

But as Raylene left to run across the town green in time to open her boutique, Karen sank onto the stool at the kitchen counter in Sullivan’s and worried that maybe she didn’t have herself nearly as together these days as she’d thought she did. And what would Elliott think if she told him she thought she ought to seek counseling to work through some of these unresolved issues that were impacting their marriage? Though he’d never judged her for her near-breakdown in the past, would it shake his faith in the woman he’d married? Was she prepared for that?

* * *

With the last-minute crunch to finish the renovations at the gym, Elliott was usually the last to reach home. Thank goodness Dana Sue had been accommodating and had given Karen mostly day shifts, so the children weren’t constantly left with his mom in the evenings. Not that she would have minded, but the child care would have come with increasingly strident lectures about them working too hard and neglecting not only Daisy and Mack, but each other.

When he came in at nearly midnight, he was surprised to find Karen waiting for him, a cup of coffee—hopefully decaf—in front of her.

“Hey, you,” he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “Why aren’t you already in bed?”

“I wanted to wait up for you,” she said. “It feels as if it’s been days since we’ve seen each other for more than a minute.”

“Because it has been,” he said wearily, pouring himself a glass of juice and joining her at the kitchen table. “Everything okay around here?”

“Fine,” she said, though she looked as if it were anything but fine.

“Then you stayed up hoping you could seduce me?” he inquired hopefully.

She smiled. “While the idea definitely holds a lot of appeal, I was thinking we could talk.”

“About?”

“Just talk,” she said with a touch of impatience. “About what’s going on, how we are, the normal stuff.”

Elliott set his glass on the table and leaned forward. He took her hands in his. “Are you upset about something? Because I have to tell you, you’ll need to spell it out for me. I’m too exhausted for guessing games.”