Starting Over On Blackberry Lane

“Okay. But don’t push your luck. You need to get that roof fixed.”

Cass gave him a salute. “Yes, sir. Will do!” He chuckled.

“We’re off to Zelda’s for lunch. Wanna join us?” he offered.

Like she wanted to sit at a table with Dan and his gorgeous father for an hour so she could leave the man with an indelible impression of herself looking like this. “I’ll pass, but thanks.”

“Okay. We’ll catch up with you later, then,” Dan said and started for the door.

“Nice seeing you again,” said his dad.

“Same here,” Cass lied. Nice was hardly the word for it. Torture would be more appropriate.

“I thought for sure he was that actor,” Misty said after they left. “He looks so much like him.”

Yes, he did. Dan’s father was the male equivalent of chocolate, cream puffs and key lime pie all rolled into one. He definitely made a lasting impression.

She didn’t even want to try to imagine what he might have thought of her. Not that she was butt-ugly, but she wasn’t going to win any beauty contests. A man like that wouldn’t look twice at a woman like her. He probably hadn’t even remembered her.

But since she wasn’t in the market for a man, who cared, right? She took out the chocolate cake she had in the display case and cut off a large piece to take home. There. Who needed a man when you had popcorn, TV shows and chocolate cake?

Chapter Six (#u985a9382-959c-5e4f-9e34-a15202512408)

Of course, Brad couldn’t work on the house this weekend. Petey had his T-ball game that afternoon. “We got up too late,” Brad pointed out.

Yeah, because they’d been busy in bed, working up an appetite for breakfast. “We have three hours until Petey’s game,” she said.

“I know but I’ll just get going and it’ll be time to stop. There’s no sense starting something I can’t finish.”

Was he kidding? It was all she could do not to snatch away his plate of pancakes. Her husband didn’t deserve pancakes. “You’ve started things all over the house that you haven’t finished.”

“I’m gonna get to them. Give me a break, Stef.”

Stef, not Sweet Stuff. Okay, he was pissed. Well, so was she. She’d given him sex and pancakes, and this was the thanks she got? “All right, you had your chance,” she growled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you can be replaced.”

His brows dipped down. “You shouldn’t even joke about stuff like that.”

“I meant as a carpenter. I’ve had it, Brad. I really have.”

“Oh, come on, now. Don’t be like that.”

Yes, don’t be so demanding. Be happy your house looks like a war zone.

“Is Mommy mad?” asked Petey, looking from one to the other.

“Not at you, sweetie.” She leaned over and kissed the top of Petey’s head. “So, guess what?”

“What?” he asked eagerly.

“You and Daddy get to hang out this morning and watch cartoons while Mommy goes out for a little while.”

“Are you coming to my game?” Petey asked.

“Of course. I’ll be back in plenty of time. We’ll have lunch and then we’ll all go together, and maybe Mommy can get in some batting practice with Daddy,” she added, giving Brad the faux sweet smile that telegraphed you’re in deep kimchi, dude.

That made Petey giggle. “Mommy, you don’t play T-ball.”

“I know. I won’t have to worry about hitting the ball. I’ll have a much bigger target.” She drained the syrup out of her voice and said to her husband, “See you later.”

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“Someplace where I don’t have to look at this,” she said and grabbed her purse.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that patience is a virtue?” he called after her.

“And didn’t yours ever teach you to finish what you started?” she called back, then stormed out the door, slamming it after herself.

Honestly, he made her so mad. She needed a sympathetic ear, and that sympathetic ear was only a few houses down Blackberry Lane. The front room curtains at Griffin’s house were open, and as Stef walked up the front walk, she could see signs of home improvement—a ladder, a drop cloth... She got closer and saw her friend sitting on the floor, holding what looked like a package of frozen vegetables on her wrist and rocking back and forth.

She banged on the door. “Griffin!” She anxiously turned the doorknob, found the door unlocked and rushed into the living room, where Griffin sat, tears racing down her cheeks. Her jeans were covered in paint and she was whimpering.

Stef knelt down beside her friend. “What happened?”

“I fell off the ladder,” Griffin said through gritted teeth. “I think I broke my wrist.” She moved aside the frozen peas to reveal a very swollen purple mess.

“Oh, not good,” Stef said. “We need to take you to the emergency room.”

“The paint spilled. Everything’s a mess,” Griffin wailed.

It was. There was paint all over the floor. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll clean it up. Let’s get you taken care of first.”

“I can’t go to the hospital like this.”

“Okay, I’ll find you some new pants,” Stef said.

“In my bedroom dresser. Ooh, this hurts.”

Stef fetched a clean pair of jeans, and between the two of them, they changed Griffin out of her paint-covered ones and into the new pair. Then they got into Griffin’s car and Stef drove her to the Mountain Regional Hospital emergency room.

Fortunately, not too many people were having emergencies on a Saturday morning, and Griffin was admitted right away. The doctor who examined her was an older man, a kindly father figure, who strongly suspected a radial fracture. “But we’ll do an X-ray and a CT scan to be sure.”

“If I’ve broken it, I’ll never get my house painted,” Griffin lamented.

Stef wasn’t in a hurry for her friend to get her house fixed up and on the market, but she certainly didn’t want her to have a broken wrist. “I’m sorry,” she said.