Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2) Page 3

  “Right.” Liz held the dash as Trish blithely cut off a surly looking guy in a pickup.

  “Did you know they were planning to sell?” Liz asked, scootching her sister’s bag aside before her feet started to fall asleep.

  Trish took a giant gulp out of a travel mug and shrugged, ignoring the rude gesture from the pickup’s driver. “Mom and Dad? They’ve been talking about it for ages. It only makes sense. With them living in Florida most of the year, it’s crazy to keep up two places. And they’re not getting any younger. Dad’s already onto replacement body parts.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “What’s not to believe? He’s been popping Advil like candy for two years, and the kids keep asking why Grandpa is doing an Igor imitation when it’s not even Halloween.”

  “Not that. I meant the house. I can’t believe they’re planning to sell. They’ve lived there thirty years.”

  “And it shows. As if a new patio will sell the place. Seriously, it has zero curb appeal, and that kitchen is disgusting.”

  “I suppose some new appliances—”

  “It needs gutting, if you ask me, but Dad nearly had a coronary when I suggested it. That’s probably why they called you. They figured a number-crunching computer geek would stick to their tightwad tendencies.”

  “Technically, I’m a business analyst. And, frugality isn’t a character flaw.”

  “If you say so. Personally, I’d rather have pots of money and not have to worry about pinching pennies ever again. Russ’ company just laid off another eight— SCREW YOU, A-hole! I don’t give a crap!”

  Liz tried to smile appeasingly at the pickup’s driver even as Trish leaned across her to flip him the bird. Trish gunned the minivan, losing the pickup in traffic. “Was that really nec—?”

  “That guy has no idea what I’m up against,” Trish muttered. She suddenly braked hard at the sight of a police cruiser with a radar gun.

  Liz thanked heaven for a police presence and momentarily considered motioning to him for help. Surely a police escort would be safer than riding with her frazzled, half-demented sister. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t heard about Russ. So, um, where’s John? Can he help me with the house?”

  “John?” Trish’s snort over their wayward brother wasn’t encouraging. “Who knows if he’s even in the state? I haven’t heard from him since he bagged out on us at Christmas.”

  Lovely. “So, how long do you think this house redo is going to take?”

  “One. Maybe two—”

  “Weeks?”

  “Months,” Trish corrected, chugging again from her travel mug. “You do have personal time coming, don’t you?”

  Liz blanched. “Months? Seriously? I don’t have—”

  Trish snorted on her coffee. “I’m kidding! Geesh. Lighten up. I don’t have a crystal ball. Who knows how long it’ll take? You’ll have to figure it out when you get there. Anything’s better than nothing.”

  Liz rubbed her temple. This house thing could not take that long. She had to get back by the end of the week. Next week at the very latest. The Meds2u-Super Scripts merger was complete, but they were starting a whole new project, and if she weren’t there… Oh God. Then there was Grant. She had to get back and make it up to him. After the disaster the other night…

  “Look, I’d help if I could,” Trish was saying, “but Ben’s acting up at school again, and they’re hauling me in Tuesday for another parent-teacher conference so they can tell me what a lousy mother I am.” She stepped on the gas to make it through a yellow light and the van lurched toward the on-ramp. “Speaking of which, you think you’d mind watching Clara for an hour or two?”

  “Me?” Liz turned to look at the five-month old slumped in her car-seat behind them, her round little baby face angelic and serene in the baby-view mirror. It was a little frightening.

  “It won’t be long,” Trish was saying, “Pete and Jess have preschool until three. But they’ve got the school psychologist and everyone coming for Ben, and asked if it could be ‘adults only.’ I seriously don’t want to go.”

  “I... sure. I’d be happy to help.” Liz’s mouth said the words despite the low-level panic taking residence in her gut. Truly, though, she should think of it as an opportunity. She’d be smart to get a little hands-on experience for when she and Grant had children of their own—starting one year after the wedding and every other year—until she turned 35, of course, when the risks to mother and child statistically increased. Lord knew she had no plans to pop out babies willy-nilly like a Pez dispenser. “It’ll be fun,” she asserted.

  Trish gave her a look. “You’ve never spent much time around babies. Are you sure? I could ask Mrs. Vanderpoel.”

  “Mrs. Vanderpoel? Isn’t she like ninety-seven years old? She must be in a rest home by now.”

  “Ninety-three, and I think they allow visitors.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud. I’m perfectly capable. Clara looks… sweet. We’ll be fine.”

  Trish looked dubious but let it go.

  How much trouble could one little baby be? Liz settled in for the ride, determined to ignore her sister’s reservations. True, she didn’t have much experience with infants, but it was a tad insulting taking flak from a woman who couldn’t even get her shirt on right side out.

  A while later, as they neared the outskirts of Sugar Falls, Liz began to fidget in her seat. Seeing the familiar, rolling hills and occasional cow-studded field, the quarry where the in-crowd used to go drinking… It made her skin feel tight—like fat, old Beth was trying to squeeze back in.

  Maybe it was because everything looked more or less the same. There was the Connecticut River, wide and tranquil, an endless dark green mirror reflecting the budding trees on either side. They’d see the falls soon. Then Main Street.

  Sugar Falls would look like it had for generations: picturesque, in a forgotten, hard-working New England way with blocky brick woolen mill buildings along the river and grand Federal and charming Victorian homes around the common. Everything would be just as she—

  “Hey! When did you get a Walmart?” Liz sat up in her seat.

  Trish gave her a sidelong look. “Five years ago.”

  The van swerved suddenly into the passing lane, and Liz grabbed at a baby rattle and half-eaten granola bar as they skittered across the dash. “Um, Trish? The speed limit’s only forty here.”

  Her sister threw a wary glance at her daughter in the back seat... and floored it. “Screw the speed limit. The sun is setting. There’s no time to lose…”

  LIZ STOOD ON THE UNEVEN cement walk outside her parents’ house, the cool, moist, evening air seeping through her clothes. Ten minutes earlier, Trish had handed her a key to the front door, unloaded Eddie’s crate and Liz’s luggage on the drive and roared away in a cloud of gravel dust.

  Liz had been standing there ever since.

  She tugged her blazer closed and stared at the old, rambling farmhouse she used to call home. The passing years had not been friendly. Paint cracked and peeled. Shingles curled. The holly bushes, once compact and orderly, now jutted awkwardly toward their neighbors as if fighting for space. A broken branch on a large rhododendron lay brittle and brown against a window sill.

  Liz tried not to remember the crisp fall Saturday she and her father had planted the glossy-leaved holly bushes along the drive, or the way each Mother’s Day the rhododendrons by the house would hum like hives from all the bees attracted to their abundant flowers.

  Dad had always prided himself on a neat landscape. But now, last year’s golden rod tilted in unruly brown clumps by the side of the garage. And his collection of garden ornaments still sat in the lawn, having never been tucked away for the winter.

  When had the place become so… tired? It was like a weary, middle-aged woman who’d given up on herself and taken to wearing elastic-waist pants and sloppy ponytails.

  Liz smoothed a hand over her own, sleek, low ponytail, picked up Eddie’s crate and mentally itemized the obvious p
unch-list items. Trim shrubs. Clean bird bath. Weed walk. Repaint front door.

  Rent a bulldozer and raze the place.

  She sighed, pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the one person who never failed to make her feel good about having left Sugar Falls when she had the chance.

  “Bailey!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ____________________

  BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, thanks to Trish, Liz had eaten more Peanut Butter Captain Crunch than her diet allowed in a lifetime, cleaned out all the front gutters and stripped most of the paint off the front door. Which is why, when Bailey pulled into the drive to say hello and drop off a quart of yogurt and a bag of apples late that afternoon, Liz welcomed the diversion like a starving model welcomes an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Bailey flipped the tab on her take-out coffee cup and sipped, her short, blonde pony-tails jutting out to the sides. “Sucks being you,” she finally said, balancing the to-go cup on the birdbath and peeling open a Snickers bar.

  Liz’s mouth watered. It was the one thing about Bailey she had always envied—her ability to eat anything and not gain an ounce on her pixie-framed figure. The deadbeat father, the crazy mix-up of half-siblings, the trailer-park upbringing—all that made Liz feel gratefully superior, of course, but the super-charged metabolism? That, she envied.

  Liz stepped backward down the front walk toward Bailey and squinted to soften the harsher realities the afternoon sun seemed determined to highlight. “I know it’s in tough shape. But, it has good lines. You’ve got to give it that. And old farmhouse charm.”

  “Sure. If you can see beyond the peeling paint, ugly aluminum storm windows and shingles that are rolling up like burnt hair.”

  Liz looked askance at her friend. “Nice visual.”

  Bailey shrugged and toed a clump of grass that was heaving up a chunk of cement on the front walk. She sipped her mocha latte, a drink she’d been addicted to since discovering it in high school. “Just trying to help.”

  Liz turned back to the house with a sigh. She had been home all of one day, and already her ‘to do’ list was three pages long. The home she’d always thought of as quaint and picturesque now just looked shabby.

  And the town, well, even though most of it felt disturbingly unchanged, there were other parts she didn’t even recognize. For instance, when had they redone the intersection of Route 6 and Miller Brook? If Trish hadn’t been driving, she’d have been half way across Vermont before she figured out her mistake.

  All in all, Liz felt like a stranger in her own hometown which only made her feel childish knowing she’d half-expected the world to stand still in her absence.

  “Snarky comments aren’t helpful,” she finally said aloud. “I’m shooting for curb appeal. A little fresh paint on the front door, a little pruning out front, maybe a pot or two of flowers and a welcoming chair by the door. Who knows, maybe buyers won’t notice the rest.”

  “If you’re looking for distractions, there’s a crazy cat lady in my neighborhood who has an even larger collection of lawn ornaments than your dad. Want me to see if she’ll lend you some more? This yard is just calling out for flamingos. The gnomes look lonely. I think they need pets.”

  “No pets,” Liz said. But she grinned, nonetheless. Of all the things she missed about Sugar Falls, it was Bailey. They’d been BFFs since before it was even an acronym. Thank God for cell phones and e-mail.

  “You’re no fun. How about a puppy?”

  “Be serious.”

  “Okay, I’ll be serious. How is Lover Boy taking the disappointment of not scoring Wednesday night?”

  Liz picked at a fleck of paint sticking to her shirt and wished she hadn’t shot down the flamingo idea. “Pretty well.”

  “I can’t believe he’s okay with waiting to do the deed with you. Is something wrong with him? A man that can wait this long…” Bailey trailed off and stared meaningfully at Liz as she took a long sip of latte.

  Liz frowned. “Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s very respectful of my need to take things slow, that’s all.”

  Bailey rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe he bought that load of bull.”

  “It’s not bull. It’s a statistically sound strategy. Ninety percent of couples that have sex in the first thirty days are broken up within a year. That’s only a ten percent success rate. But, by waiting ninety days, we increase our likelihood of remaining a couple to one in four.”

  “Mmm. How romantic.”

  “Besides, do you know how disastrous an office affair can be? If we get caught, one of us needs to leave the firm. It’s company policy. If my career is at stake, I’m not starting something unless I’m pretty darn sure it’s leading somewhere serious.”

  “Is it? Serious, I mean?”

  “Actually, yes. Just the other day he said he thought we should take things to the next level.”

  “Exact words?”

  “Exact words.”

  “God, I wish I were you.” Liz gave her a sidelong look. “I do! I have fantasies that I wake up living your life. Then I’m the one who’s smart. Successful. Makes enough money to live on her own. I think I was more disappointed than you after the other night. I had such high hopes.”

  “Stop. You do not fantasize about my life.”

  “Hello? I live in a trailer with my mother, am currently cleaning people’s toilets for a living and haven’t had sex with a partner other than myself since I got toasted New Year’s Eve. I’d be crazy if I weren’t fantasizing about living someone else’s life.”

  “It’s not a trailer. It’s a double-wide. And besides, you know you have a lot going for you. Your time will come. You’ll see.”

  “Right. Like I’m going to meet my soul mate over a toilet bowl.”

  “It could happen.”

  “Only in your world, honey. Hence the fantasies.”

  “There must be somebody in Sugar Falls worth dating.”

  Bailey shoved the rest of the Snickers bar into her mouth and chewed. She stared over Liz’s shoulder. “Define ‘dating,’” she said.

  Liz turned at a sound in the driveway. An unfamiliar pickup coasted to a stop, the driver’s door creaked open, and a weathered boot hit the ground. Two sneaker-clad feet followed. Liz got a brief glimpse of a masculine, jean-clad backside as the man picked up the empty boot and threw it back into the pickup, then slammed the door shut. He turned.

  Liz froze.

  Oh. My. God.

  Carter McIntyre?

  Liz smacked Bailey on the back. “What the hell is he doing here?” she whispered. “His uncle was supposed to be coming!”

  Bailey just shrugged, swallowed, and chugged her latte.

  Carter’s sneakers scrunched on the gravel drive as he loped toward them, head bent, fishing in his jeans pockets for something and clearly not finding it. Liz was grateful, as it gave her a few precious moments to collect herself. She swiped at the flecks of paint still clinging to her arms and old college T-shirt as she peered at him through her lashes.

  Wow, he’d changed. So had she, of course, but knowing that only made her feel foolish for expecting him to look like the teenager he’d been ten years ago. His hair was thick and dark and slightly unruly as ever, but gone was the almost too-lanky frame of youth. His shoulders had broadened, and his face was fuller somehow, yet still lean and expressive. His pecs jumped under his tee as he finally looked up and extended one solid, muscular, man-sized arm toward her.

  “Wow,” he said. “Beth ‘the Brain’ Beacon in the flesh! Long time no see.”

  “It’s ‘Liz’ now.”

  She reflexively extended her hand, resenting him acutely even as her fingers reached for his palm like a drowning victim reaches for a life preserver. For one thing, he was two hours late, clearly no more driven or reliable than he was ten years ago. Two, he was as smart-mouthed as ever. And three—her eyes skittered from the tips of his dust-covered sneakers to his tanned, smiling face—he was even more sinfully gorgeous than sh
e remembered.

  Liz swallowed before she drooled and made a complete fool of herself. Why couldn’t he have turned out all pot-bellied and prematurely bald for crying out loud?

  The next thing she knew, his hand closed over hers.

  She pumped his hand twice—just to be polite—then yanked hers away again before the firm calluses on his fingers had a chance to register in the part of her brain that was checking him out in a way she didn’t intend to acknowledge.

  What the hell was wrong with her? Had she no self-respect? No shame?

  Granted, any woman’s heart would skip a beat when faced with that testosterone-ridden, mega-watt smile he was flashing. She was only human after all. But still.

  Liz tugged the hem of her T-shirt down over her belly button.

  “Hey, Bailey. How’s it going? Still over at Willard’s Auto?” Carter’s eyes passed over Liz’s chest as he spoke.

  Bailey shook her head. “No. Willard and I had a parting of ways after I kneed him in the balls for pinching my ass. I’m cleaning houses now until I can afford my own shop.”

  Carter’s eyes made a second pass over Liz’s front even as he raised one dark brow at Bailey. “I’ll consider myself forewarned.”

  “Oh, honey,” Bailey laughed, her blonde ponytails bobbing, “You don’t need to worry. I only knee smarmy guys.”

  They chuckled at each other, Carter grinning charmingly, Bailey’s baby blues twinkling over the lid of her mocha latte.

  “Well,” Liz interrupted, stepping between them. “I hate to rush you, but we should probably get started.” She pointed to her watch. “You are late.”

  She couldn’t say why she felt the need to point that out, but it was disconcerting having him standing there all relaxed and sexy and confident and flirting with her best friend when her stomach was doing odd little flip-flops in her gut right under her belly button. It annoyed her, especially, that he could waltz up to her after ten years, flash that trademark smile and make her feel like time had stood still.