Authors: Lori Leger
Some Day Somebody (11 page)
dammit
, it’s barely four o’clock.”
then
glared at Dave as she waited, then spoke calmly into the phone.
“Hey, sweetie, I’m sorry as hell to wake you up like this, but my ex-asshole isn’t giving me much of a choice. Would it be okay if the kids and I stayed at your place just until the middle of January? I’ll be able to move into my rent house then. It is? Okay, thanks babe. I’ll come here straight from work and pick up a few thingsI
choice
,” she said, emphasizing the word.
She ended the call and locked herself inside her master bath to get ready for work. Dave’s muffled voice carried from beyond the bathroom door.
“Who’d you call?” he asked, keeping his voice low for a change.
Carrie thought of all the phone calls he’d made from her home to other women. All those numbers he hadn’t been able to explain away. One in particular came to mind. One number she’d dared to call back.
A woman had answered, her tone low and seductive,
“You’d freak if you could see what I’m wearing now, baby.”
“Oh, I doubt it,”
she’d commented.
“Which slut of the month are you? This is his wife, by the way. You know, the woman who’s wasted her youth on a man who doesn’t give a damn about her or their three kids?”
She still remembered the reverberating echo as that particular ‘other woman’ slammed the phone down.
Carrie pushed
open the back door of the office and shook out her umbrella.
Dale paused in front of her holding a steaming mug of coffee. “All this crappy weather and you’re still early. You’re such a dedicated employee.”
She chuckled, thanking God once more for her easy-going boss. “Yeah, well, I was inspired this morning.”
Roxie walked up with her empty cup.
“By what?”
“My ex broke in and woke me up at four a.m. with an ultimatum.” She deposited her purse at her desk and followed Roxie into the kitchen. She’d just finished telling her about her close encounter of the ugly kind when someone pushed open the door, stomping and swearing.
Roxie stepped back to see who else had braved the weather to come in. “Look who’s here. I can see you didn’t melt in all this rain, Sam, so you must have floated in, like a
turd
.”
Sam pulled a bandana from his pocket and wiped the moisture from his hands and face. “I know it’s a stretch for you,
Rox
, but could you at least
try
to be a lady?”
She answered with a snort on the way to her desk.
Sam nodded to Carrie. “That must have been a hell of a drive all the way from your place this morning. It’s coming down out there.”
“It wasn’t too bad. I left early enough, thank God.”
“No,” Roxie added. “Thank
Dave
.”
Carrie intercepted Sam’s curious gaze. “He woke me up early this morning, that’s all.”
She flipped open a set of plans, smiling as she heard Dale rib Sam about being at the office so early, especially in rain that should last all day according to weather reports.
“Your crew took the whole two weeks off, Sam. Hell, if Carrie wasn’t here, you’d have kept your ass at home.”
Sam’s growing affection for Carrie was a commonly discussed subject around the office—so common that both had become immune to their co-workers’ teasing. She had to admit it was good for her ego.
Sam scratched at his neatly trimmed goatee. “All I have to do is show up to get paid. It’s money in the bank.” He paused at Carrie’s desk to pick up a large rubber band and looped it around his fingers. “
What’cha
doing today?” he asked, aiming like he would launch it at her.
She raised her hand to protect her face. “Don’t you
dare,
” she warned the man who gazed down at her with a devilishly cute grin on his face.
“Studying for another certification.”
“You study too much. Why don’t you take a break?”
“If I wait too long, I’ll forget the math I just re-learned in technical college.”
“But, it’s raining outside, and there’s only a few of us here.”
She flipped to a clean sheet on her engineering tablet. “I need to pass some tests so my salary will rise above the poverty level.”
Carrie tried to smother her grin as Sam turned away, looking every bit as deprived as her girls when she said no to sleepovers. Despite the weather, and her rude awakening this morning, she was in a great mood. She watched him disappear into his office and wondered if he was the cause.
Carrie slipped her mechanical pencil inside the book and slammed it shut. She stood up to stretch her back and legs then grabbed her coffee cup. “Looks like I’ll be hauling clothes to my sister’s place in the rain this afternoon.”
“You have someone to help you?” Roxie said.
“I don’t need any help. I told the kids to bring just enough to last for the rest of the week. We’ll get more this weekend.”
Roxie followed her into the kitchen. “Are you looking forward to moving into your own place?”
“I can’t wait. I moved straight out of my parent’s home and into a house with Dave when I was eighteen. This will be my place, with my rules.” She washed her coffee mug and placed it into the drain rack, turning as she heard a noise behind her.
Sam leaned against the doorway and cleared his throat. “Hey.”
She watched him shove his hands in his pockets, something he did when he was nervous.
“Hello again.
What’s on your mind, Langley?”
“Maybe you should think about moving closer to work. Fuel costs will only get worse.”
“My kids go to school in Gardiner, Sam. I don’t want to ask them to move if I don’t have to.”
“It makes more sense than being on the road two hours a day.”
“Is your ex living in the same town as you?”
“No, she’s about forty-five miles away.”
“And where’s Nick?”
“He’s with me.”
“So he stayed with you because he didn’t want to switch schools, right?”
“Then I don’t see why you’d be so shocked that I’d want to stay in the same town as my kids.”
“Because it’s twice the distance,” he blurted out.
“It’s twice the distance...As what?” Carrie watched, fascinated by the slow flush infusing Sam’s face. Her gaze followed as he spun around and left the room. “What the hell was that all about?” she mumbled.
Before going back to her desk, Carrie walked to the lobby to check out the huge wall map of Louisiana. With her fingertip, she traced the highway leading north up to Kenton, Sam’s hometown. She measured the difference between Kenton and Gardiner, and smiled when she put it together. Gardiner was twice the distance to work in Lake Coburn...as Kenton.
She turned toward the double glass doors and rested both arms on the push-bar to stare out at the heaviest rainfall of the year. Carrie watched rainwater splash from the overtaxed gutter system. She saw a woman tip toe in a ludicrous dance through water six inches deep to get from her car to the front door of the neighboring business.
Headlights glowed eerily through the frigid, sogginess of the winter afternoon. The dreary, saturated day should have been reason enough to depress Carrie. Instead, a lovely feeling of warmth radiated throughout her chest, filling her with something she hadn’t felt in years.
Hope.
Before she had a chance to revel in the feeling, the reality of her situation hit her: Three kids, school in Gardiner, work in Lake Coburn, an ex-husband, the almost certain disapproval from Lauren if she even looked at another man, not enough money, and never enough time. No way could she throw in a relationship with a co-worker. This was a formula no amount of re-calculating could solve.
Sam plopped down in his rickety desk chair and dropped his forehead into his hands.
Jeff, his office mate, glanced up at him. “You okay?”
“Just dandy,” he answered. He pulled a stack of survey books from his desk drawer and slammed the drawer shut with his knee as he opened up a book. Sam stared blindly at the pages, unable to see anything but the confused look on Carrie’s face as she’d asked,
“It’s twice the distance as what?”
He snorted and shook his head, drawing another curious look from Jeff. He pretended to look for something as he busily flipped pages in the book, all the while silently cursing himself for the idiot he was. He’d made a complete fool of himself by first, not thinking before he spoke; and second, reddening like a school boy in front of the first and only woman who’d turned his head since Linda left.
“Way to go, dumbass,” he muttered under his breath.
“What the hell did I do to you?” Jeff asked.
Carrie loaded
the last of the suitcases and slammed the trunk. Rain fell in heavy, gray sheets, drenching everything it touched and obliterating the landscape. Darkness enveloped everything but the area around the brightly lit carport.
Carrie ducked her head to look inside the car. “Y’all ready to get wet?” she yelled over the sound of water splashing out of the gutters onto the sidewalks.
“Sure,” Gretchen answered from the backseat while Lauren remained silent in the front passenger side.