A Slice Of Heaven

In the past two years Ronnie had worked more construction jobs around the state of South Carolina than any man with good sense ought to. The more physically demanding, the better. He was pretty sure if he kept it up much longer, the sun would bake his brain completely, especially since he’d decided to concede defeat to his receding hairline and shave his head.

After all these months of taking any job that was offered, then going back to a cheap motel room for a cold shower, and out to some bar for an icy beer and greasy food, he was exhausted, physically and emotionally. But no matter how exhausted he was when he tumbled into bed, it was never enough to chase away the nightmares and regrets.

There was no question in his mind that he’d blown the best thing that had ever happened to him—his marriage to Dana Sue. Worse, he’d done it stupidly and carelessly, not even once thinking of the consequences until it had been too damn late.

Years of heat exposure, from a lifetime of working construction, was the only possible explanation for his idiotic decision to have a fling back in Serenity—the gossip capital of the South—practically under his wife’s nose. It had taken about a nanosecond for her to find out he’d slept with some woman he’d met in a bar after work. One time, dammit, but nobody in Serenity was handing out passes for freebies. Once was more than enough to rip his life apart.

Dana Sue hadn’t given him even a minute to explain and beg her forgiveness. She’d tossed two suitcases filled with his belongings on the front lawn, not even caring that half the contents were falling out all over the place. She’d screamed that he was lower than pond scum, that she hated him and never wanted to see him again. The entire neighborhood had witnessed his downfall. A couple of women, showing their solidarity with Dana Sue, had actually cheered her on.

Ronnie had wanted to stay and fight for their marriage, but he’d known Dana Sue long enough to recognize that stubborn, fiery glint in her eyes. He’d left, knowing he was making the second-worst mistake of his life. The first had been that tawdry, meaningless, one-night affair.

Before he’d gone, he’d taken his little girl out to lunch to try to explain things to her, but Annie hadn’t wanted to hear his explanations. At fourteen she’d been just old enough to understand exactly what he’d done and why her mother had been so furious. She’d listened to him in stony silence, then gone into the restroom and stayed there until he’d had to send Grace Wharton in after her.

Since he’d left, not a day had gone by when he hadn’t regretted hurting Dana Sue or putting that devastated look in his little girl’s eyes. Falling off the pedestal Annie’d put him on had just about broken what was left of his heart.

During the divorce proceedings he’d fought for visitation rights, but Helen had kept them to a bare minimum. Not that it had mattered. He’d spent more than a year trying to maintain some kind of contact with Annie, but she’d hung up on every call and refused to see him when he’d tried to arrange a visit. He knew some of that was out of loyalty to her mom, but a good bit more was her own disappointment and anger. For a few months now, she’d at least taken his calls, but the conversations still tended to be stilted and uninformative, nothing at all like the heart-to-hearts they used to have.

Since Dana Sue and Annie weren’t that eager to see him, Ronnie hadn’t set foot in Serenity again, coward that he was. But lately he’d been thinking more and more about going home. He wasn’t cut out for a vagabond’s life. He hated living in motel rooms and moving from place to place in search of work. He’d been on this last job for the better part of a year, but it still wasn’t the same as settling down. Even the freedom to make a play for a woman when he felt like it had worn thin. He figured there was a certain amount of irony in that.

The truth was, he missed being married, especially to Dana Sue, who’d stolen his heart when they were fifteen and hadn’t let loose of it yet. Why he hadn’t had the sense to realize that a couple of years back, before he’d done something so totally stupid, was beyond him.

Thanks to his recent talks with Annie, he knew his ex-wife hadn’t found someone else. Of course, that didn’t mean she’d take him back. If he did return to Serenity, he was going to have his work cut out for him trying to win her over, but maybe two years was long enough for her to have cooled down just a little. She might not pull a shotgun on him on sight. At least he hoped not. He knew for a fact she could hit a tin can at fifty feet. If she aimed for him, she wouldn’t miss.

And even if she hit him, as long as she didn’t hit anything vital, so what? He had it coming. And, hell, he thought with a grin, what was life without a little excitement and risk from time to time? He just needed an excuse to get his foot in the door. If winning Dana Sue back was meant to be, he figured one would come along sooner or later.

At quitting time, he climbed down off the roof, grabbed a bottle of water and took a long swallow, then doused himself with the rest of it.

Thanksgiving, he decided, with the first real anticipation he’d felt in two long years. If fate hadn’t handed him the right excuse by then, he was heading home and taking his chances.

Dana Sue and Maddie took their iced tea—unsweetened for Dana Sue, which was practically a crime in these parts—onto the shaded brick patio out back of The Corner Spa. At eight in the morning the air was still a reasonably pleasant seventy-five, but the humidity and bright sun promised a scorcher by day’s end. It would be another couple of months before that humidity loosened its grip on South Carolina, probably just in time for Thanksgiving.

Inside, a half dozen women were already working out, and a few more were in the café, having Dana Sue’s no-fat, high-fiber raisin bran muffins with bowls of fresh fruit.

“Where’s Helen?” Dana Sue asked when she and Maddie were settled.

“Taking a shower upstairs,” Maddie said. “She’s been here working out since before the doors opened.”

Dana Sue regarded her friend with disbelief. “Helen? Our Helen?”

“She had another appointment with Doc Marshall yesterday,” Maddie explained. “He read her the riot act about her blood pressure again. It’s way too high for a woman who’s only forty-one. He reminded her she was supposed to cut down on stress and get more exercise. So, for today at least, she’s determined to stick to her workout regimen.”

“Want to lay odds on how long it lasts this time?” Dana Sue said. “She was totally committed a couple of months ago, but then her caseload got heavy and she was back to working fourteen-hour days. There were a few weeks there when we didn’t even see her.”

“I know,” Maddie said. “She’s a type-A personality through and through. I’m not sure she can change. I’ve talked to her till I’m blue in the face, but she certainly isn’t listening to me.”

“Who won’t listen to you?” Helen asked, grabbing a chair and sitting.

“You, as a matter of fact,” Maddie said, without the slightest trace of guilt about talking behind Helen’s back.

“I’ve been in the gym for the last hour, haven’t I?” she grumbled, obviously guessing the topic. “What more do you want?”

“We want you to take better care of yourself,” Dana Sue said gently. “Not for one day or a week, but from here on out.”

Helen frowned. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”

“Yes,” Dana Sue readily admitted. It was so much easier to tackle Helen’s health issues than her own or Annie’s.

“I’m not discussing this,” Helen said. “Doc Marshall gave me a piece of his mind. I took it to heart. End of story.”

Dana Sue exchanged a look with Maddie, but neither of them said a word. If they pushed any harder, Helen would only dig in her heels and start avoiding them. It would be just the excuse she needed to stay away from the gym entirely, even if she did have a major financial stake in the place.

Helen nodded in satisfaction at their silence. “Thank you. Now then, on a far more pleasant subject, I looked over the books last night,” she said. “Memberships are up.”

“Ten percent over last month,” Maddie confirmed. “Spa treatments have nearly doubled. And the café business has tripled. We’re running well ahead of the projections in our business plan.”

Dana Sue regarded her with surprise. “Really? Are we getting more café business at breakfast or lunch?”

“All day long,” Maddie said. “We have one group of women who come in three times a week at four o’clock to work out, then have tea. They’ve been begging me to ask you to come up with a low-calorie, low-fat scone for them. They all went to London together a couple of years ago and got hooked on afternoon tea. They keep telling me what a civilized tradition it is to have a late-afternoon snack with pleasant company and conversation.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Helen said thoughtfully. “Late afternoon is probably dead a lot of the time, right?”

“So far, and it’s worse now that school’s started again,” Maddie agreed.

“I suppose some women are picking up kids from school,” Helen suggested. “Others are at work or starting dinner preparations. An afternoon-workout-and-tea promotion might encourage a few more women who think a gym’s not for them to give us a try. It might appeal to some retirees, who think they don’t fit in with the younger crowd.”

“I like it!” Dana Sue said eagerly. “Maybe we could even add in a mother-daughter promotion. That might lure in some of the moms who do car pool. It would save them from going home and fixing some snack for the kids, or leaving the kids to grab a fistful of cookies or some junk food. We can staff the day care room so the little ones will be out of their hair, while moms and daughters work out together.”

Maddie and Helen exchanged a look.

“Are you thinking you and Annie could share something like that?” Maddie asked.

“Why not?” Dana Sue asked.

“Because, for one thing, afternoon must be the worst possible time for you to be away from the restaurant,” Maddie said realistically.

“I could make it work for an hour,” Dana Sue insisted. “It would just mean more prep work in the morning or letting Erik and Karen do a little more. She’s only been at the restaurant for a few weeks, but Karen’s turning into a very capable assistant. She picks up everything I tell her in no time. And, of course, Erik could run the place with one hand tied behind him. The only reason he doesn’t is out of deference to me.”

“Deference?” Helen inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Or fear for his life? I’ve got to say, I don’t see you relinquishing that much control. That kitchen is your domain. You flipped out when somebody moved the refrigerator two inches while you weren’t around. You claimed it threw off your stride when you were in a rush.”

“I’m not that much of a control freak,” Dana Sue said irritably.

“Oh, really? Since when?” Helen taunted.

“Okay, maybe I am, just like both of you,” she conceded. “But it would be worth the sacrifice if it meant getting my daughter back on track and the two of us communicating more.”

“I hate to say it, but I’m not sure I see a teenage girl wanting to spend time at a gym with her mother,” Maddie said.

“Even one who’s obsessed with her weight?” Dana Sue asked, disappointed, but trusting Maddie’s instincts when it came to her daughter. Both Maddie and Helen seemed better able to read Annie these days than she was. Maybe it was their objectivity.