Passionate Bid (4 page)

How many times had he said, “Remember, poppet. The sun will keep on shining even to those who believe it”s the end of the world.” Together they faced the degrading hurtful gossips about her having a husband for one day. Not once had her dad blamed her for what happened. Nothing changed between them. In fact, their bond became stronger than ever. He doted on her, held her hair while she bent over the toilet bowl throwing up from her morning sickness, fetched her water to drink, fed her fruits almost nonstop, and showered her with books to read. And when she delivered Sam, one would think she gave birth to nobility. Her dad procured the whole ad page of the local paper to announce the birth of Sam, including her first picture. He bought plush toys—all US made from the local store—gave Sam her first bath and built a bridge in the woods so his dear Sam could cross the stream without getting wet.

Now he was gone, leaving her and Sam, the house and the small wooded property they would soon lose. Her shop would have been enough to support Sam if the economy remained strong—not anymore. It was gone.

Too bad waitressing and dancing at the Pink Mermaid was the only job that fit her schedule. She could work while Sam stayed at Hurray for Me! School, a preschool that offered daycare in the afternoon.

“Mama, will you carry the tank this time?”

“Sure, bug.” Joanie turned around to hide her tears from Sam and busied herself by opening the cupboards. She took the boxes of Cheez-It and Fruit Loops and put them in the Hello Kitty backpack sitting on the kitchen counter. Opening the refrigerator, she grabbed a carton of apple juice and a can of Diet Coke and dropped them in the backpack also. As a habit, she unzipped the small pocket on the outside of the bag to make sure Sam”s Epinephrine and inhaler were there.

“Okay, little forest ranger, are you ready to trek into the woods?”

“Yes! I got my binocs, tank, jungle hat and net.”

Joanie smiled at Sam”s getup. She wore pink shorts and sandals, the black, heavy outmoded binoculars her papa had given her hung from her neck, and a green plastic soldier toy hat with a shoelace for a string tied tight below her chin.

She didn”t look like a forest ranger at all.

Joanie made fifty-five dollars in tips today and a good two hundred fifty from dancing last night. Tomorrow, she”d go to Wal-Mart and see if she could find a small pair of khaki shorts and boots. And if her budget allowed it, she”d find Sam a khaki vest with big pockets on the front to complete her ensemble. Her baby would be four in two weeks. She could wear the outfit for her birthday party. Sam would look nice in them.

With Sam leading the way, Joanie followed into the woods. Her heart slowly slithered down to her belly while listening to Sam jabbering about catching a big butterfly today in her tiny toddler voice. How could she explain it to her that her favorite place would no longer be hers? Joanie kicked a small rock.

Life is so freaking unfair.

A month after Georgina left Julian”s apartment, he found himself staring at the Saint Claire”s house. Since he failed to convince Georgina to stay, he didn”t rush to Joanie”s. Facing the Saint Claire”s was comparable to having a root canal. If he could avoid it, he”d do it. But, like his lawyer said, his connection with Joanie had been the cause of his failed relationship. It was time to do something about it—in person. He didn”t want to face either one of the Saint Claire”s, but this was the only way to make Joanie sign his forms.

Julian parked his car beside an old Subaru wagon and just sat there. He must do this, he thought. He got out of his car and looked at the wagon. The car must have been red when it was new, but now, the color resembled rust. Man, look at those tires. Telltale signs of excessive wear showed on the front and back tires—

bulges, cracks around the bead and the crown, tread depth, damage. It looked like hazardous material shaped like a car. If I see this on the road, I’d steer clear just in case it burst into flames.

The house in front of him was in no better shape. Pine needles and moss covered the roof, the porch looked in need of a new paint and the glass windows were all fogged up.

The house was located in a beautiful lot tucked under the canopy of the cedar trees. The front yard was big and behind it was a wooded area. What an ideal place for pets. Julian imagined a golden retriever running around freely, barking and chasing a ball or a little boy…and girl. Someday, he”d buy a house with a yard like this.

He looked at the small paper where he had written Joanie”s address. Man, this can’t be the Saint Claire’s house.

He pressed the button on his tiny black remote attached to his key ring. His rental car, a silver Crown Victoria, beeped. Tucking his hands in his pockets, he made a three-sixty. What a place.

Instead of high-rise buildings, huge cedar trees stood everywhere. Their branches rustled with the gentle breeze. The air was clean and smelled like wood smoke with a hint of baked bread. And something else was missing. Noise. No vendors. No yellow taxis honking and people walking so fast as if the devil himself was after them. So far, he”d only seen a couple people, and they waved at him.

Unlike on the crowded highways of fast-paced Manhattan, the roads were open and no tollbooth to deal with. He probably didn”t have to lock his car here.

Julian took a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. Saint Claire picked a good place to move. Not that their house in Seattle was in a bad location. It sat on an equally beautiful area with a view of the Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains, closed to civilization and Starbucks Coffee Shops. So why did the Saint Claire”s move here, more so, in this house?

I don’t give a rip. Where they lived was no concern of his. What he wanted right now was to convince his present wife to agree to end their marriage. And the sooner he talked to the Saint Claires, the sooner he could get back to Manhattan, contact Georgina and show the papers. He bet she”d come back in his apartment, his bed.

Seeing no one was coming out of the house, he walked toward the front porch. A pink tricycle with a matching pink basket hanging in front of the handlebars caught his attention. A kid lived here, too? In this shack? Whose kid?

Joanie”s?

A squirrel scurrying from a tree branch brought his attention back to why he stood in front of the Saint Claire”s house. He wondered if Saint Claire was inside peering through the foggy glass windows, watching him approach his house ready to shoot him with his gun.

Julian touched his side where the older Saint Claire pressed the barrel of his gun and winced. Man, Saint Claire succeeded in shrinking his balls to a size of a gumball when he pointed his gun on him that day. Just thinking about the incident made his nuts turn into little prunes. Well, not really, but kind of.

He admired Saint Claire”s guts, though. The man was so protective of his daughter”s reputation he had threatened to send him to hell himself if he refused to marry Joanie. Thinking about it, he”d probably do the same thing if he were in Saint Claire”s shoes.

It had been over four years since he and Joanie tied the knot. The whole ceremony was just a memory. A memory that he would soon forget. It would quickly happen if he disconnected anything that tied him with Joanie. He wished the dratted woman would have just signed the divorce papers instead of sending him stupid notes.

The first note she wrote was, “Come back. See the precious soul you left behind.” And the second one, “You left who is rightfully yours. Come back; don’t be a fool.” A fool?

Jesus, what did she think was reason why he left her? Because he didn”t want to claim what was rightfully his—the woman with curly light brown hair almost yellowish when the sun shone on them, wore braces and thick wired-framed glasses, with a body…damn, he couldn”t remember her body because he was so fucking drunk when he had sex with her. Since that night, he never touched her again, not even after the wedding. Hopefully, this would be the last time he laid eyes on her.

Ricky Mason, his lawyer, said meeting her in person would be good.

Apologize and smooth her ruffled feathers, and he might be able to avoid a time consuming battle in court if Joanie decided to do that.

Damn it, what did Joanie want? A settlement perhaps? But I never received anything from her other than stupid notes. What’s her purpose? Whatever she wants, I don’t care.

All he wanted was to speak with Joanie as soon as possible without a long-winded discussion and without the hysterics and the crying.

For some odd reasons, women used tears as a weapon to make men surrender to their wishes. Georgina was one of them.

Georgina. He liked her a lot. More so than the other women he had dated in the past. She was great in bed and showed tolerance and interest with his blind grandma. Perhaps, he”d be able to get her back and give their relationship another chance. He was tired of looking, of hopping from one woman to the next only to find his bed empty again after a week or a day because of his marital status and grandma. He felt like a deformed freak.

The front steps creaked from his weight. He hoped his foot wouldn”t go through the rotten floorboard. Peering through the foggy window, he didn”t see anyone inside. Fuck! The hotel where he would be staying tonight was five miles away. If the Saint Claires weren”t home, that would mean coming back again tomorrow.

He wanted this meeting to be quick. In, sign the papers, and out. He looked for a doorbell but found none, so he opened the screen door and knocked. No 47 answer. Where the hell were they?

“You might find them in the woods, on the bridge.”

Julian turned around. A woman standing across the street pushing a stroller waved at him. “In the woods?”

“Yeah. Just follow the dirt path right there on the west side of the house and you”ll find them.”

Julian thanked the woman and quickly headed toward the side of the house.

He found the dirt path easily. Worn and clear from grass, obviously, the path was a well-traveled one. He could see two sets of footprints on the soft dirt. One set looked like it belonged to a grownup and the other of a child. Was the child Joanie”s? Did she find another man after he left? If she was involved with another, why the hell did she return the papers without her signatures on the line? Damn, so many questions and no freaking answers.

The woman said something about a bridge. Julian kept following the path until the sound of a child”s laughter reached his ears. He must be getting closer to them.

Realizing he was only a few steps away from seeing Joanie, an invisible punch in a gut made him hold his breath. Weird. It was understandable, he supposed. Seeing her again was like seeing an old classmate or a friend or an enemy. Except, she was neither the first two and most likely the latter. Yeah, that was it. His curiosity about what would happen when they meet was affecting his nerves. Who wouldn”t? After all, this person he was about to see was Joanie. His wife he left the day after their wedding.

One thing about their wedding day he couldn”t get rid of was Joanie”s cheeks being red from her constant wiping to remove traces of her tears. Her sad face etched in his mind. Yeah, she cried silently the day he stood in her room, removed his wedding ring and placed it on the dresser. He remembered not giving a whit about it. What he cared about that night was to keep his distance as far away as possible from her and Saint Claire.

To this day, nothing changed. He still didn”t want to be around the Saint Claires. Not because he remained a stupid young man blaming others for his mistakes, but because…well, they”d both tried to trap him, forcing him to shed his bachelor title against his will.

He wondered about what Joanie looked like now. Still a scraggly painter, maybe? He hoped she wouldn”t scream at him like the abandoned wife she was?

Throw stuff and hit him with her slippers? Or worse, point her father”s gun at him.

Shit, the gun. What if Saint Claire was around carrying his gun? Fuck!

Joanie tried to hide her irritation. She knew this would happen, and couldn”t blame her daughter, only herself. It was her fault that Dolly had gone missing again. If she had insisted Sam leave the doll, they would be heading home right now. She should have learned a lesson after the Wal-Mart drama. She was furious at herself that day, too, blaming her stupidity for Dolly”s disappearance.

She remembered sitting for hours inside the Wal-Mart manager”s office waiting for a good Samaritan to return Sam”s doll. Sam, sitting on her lap, cried until she suffered from a hiccupping attack.

If Joanie had paid attention to the little doll, Sam wouldn”t cry her eyes out and she wouldn”t have had to deal with the Wal-Mart manager”s not so subtle advances. The fat lard patted Sam”s knee then squeezed hers while licking his chops. Luckily, after three cans of Diet Coke and a box of Kleenex, someone had turned in the doll to the lost and found.

Dad gave Dolly to Sam the day she was born and they”d been together since then. Losing Dolly would be comparable to losing a limb. Lordy, they”d have a hell of a night if they couldn”t find that rag limb.

“Do you remember where you set her down, bug?” This would be the last time she would let her take the doll outside of the house. “Sam, look at me. Do you remember if you left her on the bridge?”

“Don”t know, Mama.” Sam”s tiny fists rubbed her eyes, her lower lip thrust low. “I want Dolly.”

“Okay, come on. Let”s check the bridge.”

“I wanna go home.”

“You want Dolly or not?”

Sam nodded then let out a long yawn.

Of course she wanted her doll. What a stupid question. Joanie looked at her daughter and felt horrible for keeping her in the woods for hours. Sam”s eyes were droopy. Poor thing was tired. It was a good sign though. Tired, Sam would go to bed without a fuss. No whining and crying about her papa. “Okay, let”s go back and look for Dolly.”

“I want to stay here with Nigel.”

“Nigel?”

“My frog. See?” Sam lifted the tank and showed a tiny frog she had caught in the water.

“Bug, you know you”ll have to release the—Nigel, right?” Why did she have to name the damn frog? Naming an animal would only make the letting-go part harder. Joanie watched her daughter tap her tank. “How about a piggy ride? Let”s go.”