Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2) (42 page)

“You’ll be late for your flight.”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

Liz directed Trish down the street and told her where to park. “Keep the car running.”

She pursed her lips, squared her shoulders, prayed Carter wasn’t home and knocked on his door.

Just as she was about to try and slip the envelope underneath, the door swung wide. Liz popped up.

“John?”

“Liz? What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same thing.”

John opened the door wider. “I’m helping out with some office stuff for Carter until his uncle is back on his feet. Mostly cleaning up.”

“You clean?”

He laughed, looking happier and younger than she’d seen him in years. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Yes. But, I don’t cook.”

“Now
that
I knew.”

She smiled, amazed she could have a semi-civil conversation with John without all the drama. Would wonders never cease? “Can I come in?” she asked. “I wanted to drop off a letter. For Carter.”

“Heading out are you?” She nodded. “Put it in his office. It won’t get lost there.”

“Thanks.”

Liz pushed open the door John gestured to and stepped through.

The room smelled of Carter, a mixture of fresh air and hard work and sweet rebellion she recognized now as Twizzler. The combination made her feel like crying right then and there. She pushed the feelings down and sat in the desk chair for a moment, soaking in all that was Carter before pulling the letter of apology she’d written out of her purse.

She ran a hand over the envelope to smooth it, wishing for all the world she could make things right between them but knowing that wasn’t possible. She’d made too many mistakes.

He deserved more than a woman who couldn’t stand behind him or stand up for him.

She opened the drawer to retrieve a pen to write his name on the outside of the letter… and saw a large manila envelope marked “Beautification League of Sugar Falls.”

She frowned, feeling guilty, but the envelope wasn’t
sealed
, so she pulled out the paper inside.

He hadn’t submitted the bid? But the deadline was…
today!
Why wouldn’t he…?

And, then, all the self-doubt she’d heard him speak over the years washed over her in a wave. He didn’t think he could do it. He was afraid of making a mistake.

Well, she thought, take it from someone who has made mistakes. The only things worse than mistakes are regrets.

By the time she waved goodbye to John, she had the manila envelope tucked in her purse and was asking Trish to make one more stop…

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
____________________

J
UST AS SHE HAD FOR THE past three years, Liz filled Eddie’s dish with one precisely measured scoop of urinary-tract-health cat food then pulled a box of breakfast cereal from the kitchen cupboard.

She grimaced. It was the hemp/flax-seed/high-fiber cereal Grant had recommended a couple months ago. It tasted like cardboard with just enough organic sweeteners to make it so she didn’t reflexively spit it out, and she’d tried to make herself choke down a few spoonfuls each morning before she was entirely awake, but today she shoved it aside.

She craved swiss cake rolls.

Liz looked out at the morning and tried to muster the enthusiasm to go in to the office.

Aunt Claire was right. She needed a new plan.

Eddie leapt to the table and settled bread-loaf style on the placemat in front of her. She’d worried at one point she’d need to retrain Eddie to pretend to be well-mannered. Eddie raised one leg and started to clean himself.

It depressed her knowing no one would object.

She patted his head and pushed out of her chair. She stared out the window onto the street below as she prepared coffee. How strange that just over a month ago she’d been imagining her wedding to Grant while standing in this very spot.

Now, she and Grant were kaput, Grant and Ethan were starting their own firm, and Liz had been offered Ethan’s position. It represented a huge promotion. They expected her answer today.

Dum. Dum. De-dum. Dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-DUM…

Liz bit her lip. She hadn’t taken her mother’s calls since that night at the hospital. She hadn’t wanted to face it all, hadn’t wanted to try and explain what a mess her life was.

But she couldn’t wallow in self-pity forever.

She sucked in a long breath, held the phone away from her ear and braced herself. “Hello?”

“Liz?”

“
Dad?”
Liz held the phone closer. “Dad? What’s wrong? Is it mom? Aunt Claire?”

“
Shh
. Nothing’s wrong. We’re good. I’m calling to check on
you
.” He paused. “How are you, Chickie?”

Her chest felt tight and she tried to deny anything was wrong, but he’d caught her off-guard. He hadn’t called her Chickie since that day so many years ago when he’d found her sobbing into her pillow because a certain boy was going to the prom with the
wrong girl.

“Not good, Dad,” she finally said. “Not good at all.”

“I’m sorry, Chickie.”

That’s all he said.
I’m sorry, Chickie.

I’m sorry.

When he’d said those words to her  all those years ago, she’d felt fragile as glass—hurt and sad and embarrassed—but there’d been a quiet strength in her father, as if he was trying to tell her that what she felt right now wasn’t going to be the way she’d always feel. The future was sure to be brighter. And, somewhere out there the right man would recognize what a wonderful, shining star she was inside and all this heartache would be a distant memory. That’s what she’d heard, anyway, when he’d said it before.

Now, she recognized that all he meant was ‘I’m sorry.’

“Me, too,” she whispered, and then she began to cry, silently at first, trying to hold it in, trying to control the force and overwhelming wave of misery, but then the dam burst, and she sobbed out loud. Huge, gulping, ugly sobs that wracked her frame and hurt her throat. And when her dad said something like, “aw, honey,” it only made her cry all the harder—uncontrollable, hiccupping tears that flooded her face and coursed over the phone as she mopped them up with a piece of paper towel she’d hastily torn from the roll.

He let her cry, silent on the other end, until she was spent, her breaths coming in long, stuttering hiccups. She mopped her eyes some more. Blew her nose.

When she was finally quiet, he said, “I love you, Chickie,” his voice hoarse and strained, and she realized with an ache in her heart he’d been crying right along with her.

“I love you, too, Dad.” Liz hiccupped into his ear. “Th—thanks for calling.”

“I’ve been wanting to for days, but your mother hasn’t moved more than ten feet from the phone. Just in case you called.”

An image of her mother tethered by the phone cord had her almost smiling. “She really needs to get a cordless phone.”

“You know she won’t listen.”

“I know.” But
he
had. He’d listened. Even if all she’d done was cry.

Liz took another deep, cleansing breath and hugged Eddie. Crying didn’t change a damn thing, but it felt good to let it out. It felt good to know he cared enough to call. “So, um, when do you close on the house?” Her dad cleared his throat. He didn’t answer. “Dad?”

“That’s not going to happen right away.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“They backed out. Without the shed and with the damage to the yard, they bought another place.”

“But… couldn’t you just adjust the purchase price? Wouldn’t they renegotiate? Can’t you ask Valerie—?”

“It’s done. Don’t worry about it.”

Liz felt new tears well up. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I know this is my fault!”

“Some things are nobody’s fault.”

“But this…”

“It’s all right. John said he’d go over and help when he can. Trish, too. I’ll come home in a couple weeks to finish up. We’ll make it work.”

“But, won’t Mom—?”

“She doesn’t want to see the fire damage. You know how she is about a lush lawn. Better to leave things how she remembered them.”

“I could—”

“Hush. You’ve done enough. You take care of
you
.” He chuckled lightly. “And, for God’s sake, don’t let any more men chasing after you try to get your mother to help them throw a proposal party. It took me two weeks before she’d go near my laptop again. You think she was scared of technology before…”

“Don’t worry. I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t think I’ll be having that problem anytime soon.” She grimaced. “They’ve offered me a promotion at Ames & Reed.”

“They have? That’s great!”

“I haven’t accepted.” He was silent. “Dad?”

“You afraid, Chickie? You know you can do anything you set your mind to.”

“I think I just need more time to think about it.”

“Good idea. Your little yellow notebooks always seemed to help you think. Get one of those out, and you’ll have a new plan in no time.”

Liz let out a long, cleansing sigh. “I love you, Dad, but yellow legal pads can only take you so far.”

They said their goodbyes, and Liz went to the little window over the sink and stared out at the same sliver of street she’d looked at every day for six long years.
Eesh
, she hated this apartment. Hated the ugly popcorn ceilings and the awkward floor plan. Why had she stayed? Just because it was cheap? What did she think she was saving her money
for?

Liz looked around at the eighties-style cabinets, the box of cardboard cereal and her one-eyed cat... and half-smiled. Maybe she didn’t have a fiancé, a whole heart, or a clue where she was going in life, but there was one thing she did have: a family that cared about her.

And, despite all that made them quirky and unlovable, she’d do anything for them. Because, in the end, when everything else in life had gone up in smoke and she was left craving swiss cake rolls and crying into a paper towel, they were all she had left.

This
was the love Carter had been talking about.
This
was the real, unvarnished, authentic Liz she’d run away from all those years ago, because it had hurt too much to
feel.
But the alternative—a lifetime of trying to control every outcome—wasn’t the answer either. She had to go home. She had to remember who she was before she’d walled herself off from her own imperfections. She had to let the old Beth back in.

Liz swiped at her aching eyes, her nose and lips swollen from crying… and whole-smiled this time.

“Hey, Eddie,” she said. “How do you feel about a road trip?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
____________________

I
T WAS ABOUT HOUR NINE of her fourteen hour drive, as she crossed the great state of New York surviving on coffee and fast food, that Liz began to have second thoughts about her decision to drive back to Sugar Falls and clean up the shed mess herself.

She hadn’t wanted to go through the trouble of flying again, didn’t want the crowds or the hassle or to put Eddie through the whole ordeal, so she’d gone to work, requested an extension on their offer, told them the sad news that her Great Aunt Claire had suddenly passed away (a small fib in the scheme of things but totally believable given the tear-streaked state of her make-up,) rented an SUV and gotten the heck out of Dodge.

It was a Monday, so as she figured it, she had two days of bereavement, two days of personal time, one sick day, a weekend, and she’d have bought herself a week.

And, if she couldn’t straighten her life out and fix what she’d broken in that time, she could tell herself she’d at least tried.

It was close to three in the morning when she rolled into her parents’ driveway, shut off the engine… and remembered she didn’t have a key.

Liz let her head fall to the steering wheel in bleary-eyed defeat, too tired to even cry, but then remembered where her dad used to keep a spare. With any luck… She stumbled up the front walkway in the dark to the garden gnome, fished way up inside with her hand and pulled out the bubble-wrapped key to the front door he’d wedged there.