Worth the Weight (42 page)

Prologue

“I’m not sure I
ever
loved you.”

Wow. She hadn’t seen that one coming.

Still, Katie Lipton supposed, if you’re stupid enough to ask the question, “Don’t you love me anymore?” you ought to be prepared for the answer. Whatever it turned out to be. But she couldn’t believe the words coming out of Ron’s mouth.

She watched as he stood in the bedroom and continued to pack his suitcase. Like picking at a scab, she couldn’t stop herself from pursuing his comment. “What do you mean you never loved me? What were the last seventeen years, then – a crush?”

“Don’t, Katie. Don’t do this to yourself. It’s over.” His look for her was patronizing, filled with false empathy. She wanted to put her fist through his Greek god face. Make his incredible good looks bloodied and bruised, to match her heart.

Her best friend Alison would have done it. Wound up and cold-cocked him right there, right now. Not caring if he bled all over their cream carpeting or their cream comforter in their cream-colored bedroom. Or she would hurt him with the words that wouldn’t come to Katie. Alison’s quick wit and razor-sharp mouth would bring Ron down to size. But Katie wasn’t Alison.

Her other best friend, Lizzie, would probably have seen this coming months ago and had some kind of plan for when the moment arrived. Or, she’d diffuse the situation with her calming, soothing nature. But Katie wasn’t Lizzie either.

While Alison’s smarts and Lizzie’s shining personality would have been so useful now, Katie’s incredible beauty - what s
he
was known for - did her no good in this situation. All she could do was sit on the bed, stunned, and watch as her boyfriend of four years, husband of thirteen, packed his tee shirts and boxers into the his of their his-and-hers matching luggage.

“Ron, if this is about the baby…” her voice trailed off. What? What could she say? Promise not to mention the baby again? Promise to abandon her dream of becoming a mother? Could she do that? If it meant keeping Ron,
would
she do that?

“See, Katie, you even say ‘the’ baby, not ‘a’ baby, as if one ever existed.” His voice was harsh. “There is no baby, Katie. There never was a baby. There will never be a baby.” He paused. “Not for us, anyway.”

There was something in his voice as he made the last comment. Something cutting and mean. Katie had come to recognize that tone. It had been so foreign just a few years ago, when his voice had always conveyed his love for her. “What do you mean, ‘not for us, anyway’?”

“It means no baby for
us
, Katie. Just like I said.”

Don’t do it. Don’t ask. Don’t jump at his baiting voice.
But she couldn’t help herself. “Is there a ‘but’ at the end of that?” she asked.

Obviously he’d been dying to get to this, knowing she would lead him there eventually.

“Yes, there is a but. There will be no baby for us, Katie, but,” he dragged the word out, emphasizing every letter, “there will be a baby for me. In five months to be exact.”

She wanted to double over, the pain was so great. Her breath totally left her body. But some small shred of dignity made her sit still, not even flinching. In the back of her mind she wondered what hurt more, the knowledge that Ron had betrayed her or the thought that yet another woman would have a child and she would not.

Ron seemed disappointed that she hadn’t crumbled, and that gave her a little bit of strength.
Enough to say, “And just who is the mother of your child?”

He turned his back to her, going to a drawer in the dresser and taking out all of his socks. Socks she had bought for him. Socks she had washed. Socks she had picked up off this bedroom floor more times than she could remember.

“Amber Saari,” he said.

Katie couldn’t hide her shock this time as a small gasp escaped her. “Amber Saari? She’s a child herself. She’s one of your students.”

“Was. Was one of my students. She’s twenty,” he said, hurt and indignant. Like how dare she believe he’d ever have anything to do with one of his students at the high school. Oh no, he’d wait until they were out for two years before sleeping with them. A man of honor, her Ron.

“If I recall correctly, she was something of a tramp when she was in the high school. Are you even sure the baby’s yours?
”
She couldn’t believe she was being so calm when every muscle in her body ached to throw something at him. She was just afraid that she’d throw herself at him. Whether to claw his eyes out or beg for mercy, she wasn’t sure. That thought kept her perched on the bed.

He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Of course the baby’s mine.”

“Oh, I see.
You
were the only one who was unfaithful.”

“Katie, let’s not do this,” he said. But it seemed that’s exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted her to lose it, to become the shrieking fishwife he apparently had made her out to be. It would justify his walking out on her. It would then be he who left because of her obsession with having a baby, her instability, her shrewish behavior. When in fact, he just didn’t want to be with her anymore. He wanted to be with a twenty-year-old former student named Amber.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“You’re right, Ron, let’s not do this.” She sat up straight on the bed as he zipped up the suitcase. She summoned every prideful gene she possessed and waited for him to leave. To leave her and their home.

To leave her alone for the first time in her life.

He stopped and looked at her, surprised by her tone and composure. His gaze raked across her face. “Jesus, you’re beautiful, Katie.
”
His voice was soft and tender, and for a moment it reminded her of the Ron she had fallen in love with. The Ron who had pursued her relentlessly their freshman year at Michigan State. The Ron who was the most handsome man at the enormous university, who had wooed her and caught her with that same soft, tender voice he was using now.

“So fucking beautiful,” he whispered and reached out to touch her face.

She winced, not sure if it was from the prospect of his touch or his language, which he knew she hated. Either way, her flinch broke whatever spell her splendor had just woven over him and he stepped back, dropping his hand.

“You keep the house. I’ll keep the Hummer. The rest we can figure out later.”

He set his sealed suitcase on the floor, stacked the smaller bag he’d packed earlier on top of it, and pulled up the handle, wheeling them both out of the room behind him.

Funny, the thoughts that go through your head, she mused. Here her husband had just walked out on her and all she was thinking was that it would have been so much more manly, so much more dramatic, if he’d picked both bags up by the handles and walked out instead of wheeling the bags behind him like a flight attendant traveling through an airport.

After she heard the front door close and the roar of that monstrosity leaving the driveway,
Katie rolled over onto the bed, her knees to her chest, pulling one corner of the comforter over her. She finally let the pain of the knife he’d plunged into her heart wash over her.

Her husband had left her for some young tramp he’d knocked up.

Katie Maki Lipton. Known as the prettiest girl to ever come out of Hancock High
.
The most stunning woman in the Copper Country. They said she was a true original. A unique beauty.

And she was now nothing more than a bad cliché.

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Chapter One

I stare into the eyes of the man who killed my father.

Maybe.

I mean, maybe he’s the man who killed my father, not the staring part. Although, to be honest, I’m not really staring
into
his eyes, because I’m looking at a photo of him on a computer screen.

Okay. Let me start over.

I stare
at
the eyes of a man who
maybe
killed my father.

I only knew him for a few weeks before witnessing him murder my father, twenty-two years ago. And, I was only a five-year-old girl, not the most reliable witness.

But yeah, it’s him.

I try to calm down. This isn’t the first time I thought I saw someone from my past. I’ve quickly left grocery stores, abandoning my cart mid-aisle, when seeing the flash of a handsome man with dark hair. Only to be embarrassed as I hid in the parking lot and saw a complete stranger walk out later.

But I never thought I’d seen Uncle Chazz before. Until now.

The picture is the desktop picture of my newest acquisition, a used Mac IMAC. The man – I knew him as Uncle Chazz though, even at five, I knew he wasn’t really an uncle – stands behind the bar in a bar/restaurant. To the right of him, in front of the bar is a young couple standing with their arms around each other
.
They’re more dressed up than the people in the background of the bar, like maybe they’ve come from somewhere else. They look to be about my age.

The woman is blonde and pretty. The man is handsome with black hair and blue eyes – a combination I used to love on a man. I quickly dismiss them.

I do a couple of quick clicks and realize that the previous owner didn’t wipe the hard drive clean. That’s not as unusual as you might think. In fact, it’s somewhat common. Even after doing this for four years, I’m still amazed at how people can sell their computers without totally obliterating every bit of personal data.

Some don’t know how, I suppose. Some don’t care. And of course, some computers are stolen, but those are mostly laptops.

The shock value of seeing people’s personal things wore off long ago. And there were some shocking things. On one of the first machines I dismantled, I found a folder of the most disgusting pornographic photos I’d ever seen.

I’ve been around the internet a while, and I’ve …stumbled upon...a lot of porn. Some made me laugh, some aroused me, some got no reaction, some made me sick. So when I say this was DISGUSTING…well, you know it was bad. A couple of folders down from the porn folder on this machine were all the letters the owner had sent out…to his parishioners.

Yeah, that’s right, the guy with all the hard core porn was also a minister.

After awhile I became immune to all the personal docs on the computers I refurbished. Now, I simply don’t care enough to look.

I pick up the ebay receipt that was in the box. The seller is an N. Carpenter. There’s a hand-written note that I’d tossed aside when I unpacked the computer.

I hope you like it. It served us well, but time to move on – Nick

Nick Carpenter from Tennessee sold his Mac on ebay and I bought it. He probably joined the PC nation. Or maybe got a laptop with a new job. Or upgraded to a new Mac. I get a lot of Mac sales that way. Mac users love to have the newest version of everything.

I wonder if the bartender – Uncle Chazz, now, to me – is a part of this Nick’s everyday life, or is he just a bartender that happened to be in one of his pictures? The likelihood of him being
my
Uncle Chazz slims in my mind. The bartender has the same basic features that Uncle Chazz had, but that was twenty-two years ago. He would have been in his early thirties then. The bartender looks to be younger than mid-fifties. And hopefully, Uncle Chazz is rotting in prison somewhere. And if he isn’t, then he got away with killing my father, is running free, and I really can’t imagine him – or any of his ilk – in Tennessee.

Those guys don’t leave their home turf unless they have to.

Like I did.

But the more I stare, the more my hand doesn’t move on the mouse. I can only see the desktop picture.

And Uncle Chazz.

My mind races as to how I can confirm this. Or, better yet, to eliminate the possibility that it’s him. My fingers itch to start Googling, but I know better. No search like that can be traced to this IP address. Or anywhere in the vicinity.