Fighting Fate (8 page)

Sarah shook her head as she plucked up a sample that Gretchen had ignored. It boasted five different shades of beige. “I was thinking something like this. That,” she said as she pointed at Gretchen’s strip, “is a little too wild.”

“‘Sunshine yellow’ is too wild? Oh, Sarah,” she said with an exaggerated sigh, “if that’s really your idea of wild, I need to work a little harder at making sure you get out more often.”

“I suppose a soft, subtle blue wouldn’t be so bad,” Sarah compromised as she ignored the teasing remark.

Gretchen acted as though Sarah hadn’t spoken at all. “Speaking of getting out…”

Sarah, hearing the tone of Gretchen’s voice, glanced up.

“Maybe you and Cole—”

“No.”

“
Sarah
,” Gretchen said imploringly.

Sarah’s jaw clenched and she blinked back the burning prickle behind her eyes. Her chest tightened, instantly making each breath ache. Reflexively, her thumb went to her ring finger. It was still bare. She immediately slid her hand away but it was too late. Gretchen had seen the motion.

For some reason, she was more emotional than usual this morning. She decided to blame it on a sleepless night.

“Is it just too soon?” she asked quietly.

“For Cole? The end of time would be too soon for me to be with Cole,” Sarah said as she struggled to keep her voice even.

She flipped through a few more color strips, trying to scan over them but not really seeing them.

Gretchen sighed. “What happened with you two? You never told me. All I remember is that your junior year you were always together. Always happy. Then out of the blue you were crying all the time and no one could even mention his name. It got better and then it got worse again a few weeks later when he graduated.”

Sarah shrugged as she fidgeted with the coffee cup. Back then, with Gretchen so much younger, they weren’t nearly as close as they were now. She hadn’t even considered confiding in her preteen sister. And later? Well, time moved forward and she had managed to leave Cole in the past, where he belonged.

“Come on, Sarah. You still had a box full of pictures of him under your bed,” Gretchen cajoled.

“You went through the junk under my bed?” she asked with raised eyebrows.

“I was looking for the paperwork you asked for. I had to sort through a lot of stuff to find it. So yes, I went through the pictures. I was surprised you kept them.” She leaned over, plucking her enormous purse offettus purs the floor.

Sarah waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not that I meant to keep them. I haven’t lived in that house for years. I just forgot that they were there.” In an instant a realization washed over her and she groaned.

Gretchen slid a manila envelope her way. “Inside is your ticket to a trip down memory lane.”

“Is that what this is about?” she pointed accusingly at the envelope. “You found those old photos of Cole and me and…” She paused. “No. I am not even going to finish that thought. Because if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, it’s not happening.” She scowled because she was certain she knew exactly what Gretchen was up to. “I mean really, Gretchen? Cole? Cole Montgomery?”

“You act like you hate him,” Gretchen stated
.

“I don’t hate him.”

“But you are definitely holding a grudge.”

Sarah frowned but didn’t argue because she couldn’t.

“What did he do? You’re not usually so antagonistic.”

Sarah shot Gretchen an offended look. “I’m not antagonistic. I’m ambivalent.”

“Ambivalent people don’t hold grudges,” Gretchen argued. She gave Sarah her best sympathetic look. “Whatever happened? It was eight years ago. You should let it go.”

“I have let it go. But that doesn’t mean that I have to be happy that he’s back in town.” She threw her hands up in the air. “What does it even matter? He could be married with a dozen kids for all I know!”

“He’s not married,” Gretchen assured her.

Sarah’s eyes widened. “What did you do? Did you run a background check on him? Please tell me you didn’t.”

“No. Of course not. I just noticed he never wears a wedding ring.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. He still might have a dozen kids scattered across the tri-state area.”

“Wow,” Gretchen said as she blew out a breath. “If this is you
not
being antagonistic, I don’t want to be around you when you really decide you dislike someone. Do you really think that poorly of him?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t. Because here’s the thing. I don’t know him at all. I thought I did. At one time, I thought I knew him better than anyone. But I was wrong. He wasn’t the person I thought he was. In fact, he ended up being a person I didn’t like very much,” Sarah admitted quietly.

“He was really that awful?” Gretchen wondered.

Sarah looked torn. She really did not want to dredge up the past. Yet she knew that Gretchen would keep pressing her for information until she had the answers she wanted. Maybe it was best to get it over with. With a whole lot of luck, maybe her sister would decide to never bring the subject of Cole up again.

“If Grandma were here, she’d call Cole a hoodlum.” Sarah could think of worse names, but no matter how frustrated she was with Cole, she couldn’t bring herself to use them.

Gretchen rolled her eyes at Sarah. “Cora loved Cole. She never would’ve called him a hoodlum.”

“That’s because she didn’t really know him,” Sarah argued.

“Well, I don’t think he’s a
hoodlum
,” Gretchen said the word sarcastically. “At least, not anymore. People change. They grow up and become responsible. I saw him helping a lady cross the street. The poor thing had an oxygen tank and I saw Cole help her cross the street and walk her into an apartment building. Hoodlums don’t help people out. Not like that. That’s what
nice
guys do.”

“Do nice guys go around kissing other girls? Do they kiss other girls when they know their girlfriend will be walking in the door any minute?”

“
Ohhh
…” Gretchen said the word on an exhalation. A look of understanding settled onto her features. “He cheated on you.”

Sarah nodded as she spun her empty cup on the table.

Gretchen waited with raised eyebrows. When Sarah didn’t elaborate she said, “Is that it? They were
kissing
?”

Sarah scowled at her. “Yes.”

Gretchen nodded slowly as if she understood. Then she stopped abruptly and threw her hands in the air. “Wait. I don’t get it. Yeah, that was a total jackass move. But you seem to have an awful lot of hatred built up over a kiss.”

Sarah frowned, waiting for the words to come to her. She’d never talked about this with anyone.

“That’s not what bothered me the most. I mean, of course, like you said, it was a jackass thing to do. It was more than that though. He wanted me to catch him.”

“Why would you think that?” Gretchen demanded.

“I was supposed to meet him at his house. He
invited
me over.”

“Why would he do that?”

Sarah emitted a small sigh. “Obviously, he wanted to end things with me. I guessed me. I a civil break-up, a civil conversation, was beneath him.  But even worse than that? It was like a switch had been flipped. He wouldn’t talk to me. He would barely even look at me. He wanted nothing to do with me. We dated almost a year but more than that, I had thought we were friends. I wouldn’t have liked it but I would’ve been okay with a civil break-up. I would’ve wanted for us to still be friends. But he made damn sure that didn’t happen. He didn’t just set out to break up with me. He set out to hurt me. On purpose. Then he just
left
! He left town without saying goodbye or letting anyone know where he was going. And maybe I’m being ridiculous, but I always felt like he left to get away from me.”

“What an ass,” Gretchen said with a frown.

A small smile tugged on the corners of Sarah’s mouth. “Yes, well, that pretty much sums up my thoughts on Cole Montgomery.”

Chapter Six

Sarah had never been very good at sitting still. What was the point? And trying to relax? How can you relax when you can’t stop thinking about all of the things you could be getting done if you weren’t sitting around doing nothing?

Besides, an idle body makes for a busy mind. And if there was anything Sarah hated, it was when her thoughts began to meander to places she didn’t care for them to go.

But today, even though she was keeping herself plenty busy, she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering. In fact, it had taken off at a sprint. It had been almost a week since she’d seen Cole. While out of sight, he had certainly not strayed far from her mind.

The tinny clang of the doorbell pealed through the house. She gritted her teeth against the racket as it rattled her out of her memories.

The doorbell was just another thing that she was going to add to her list of things to replace. It wasn’t that it didn’t work properly. It was simply that every time it went off, it grated on her ned brves.

She tossed down the scraping tool that she’d been using. It landed on the strip of protective plastic she had thrown on the floor. She tiptoed over the mess of wet, clumped up wallpaper strips that she had peeled off. Her hands felt gummy from the old glue and the chemicals she had sprayed on to loosen the paper. Too late she realized she had reflexively wiped her hands on her shorts.

“Yuck,” she muttered as she glanced at the sticky streaks. Not that it mattered. She was already a fright. Small fragments of paper and splatters of old glue stuck to her t-shirt and cut off jeans. It was a messy, monotonous job. If there was an easier,
tidier
, way to remove the wallpaper, she wasn’t aware of it. Perhaps if she had some experience with the task, she wouldn’t be making such a mess of it. But she had
no
experience so she was doing the best she could.

It didn’t help matters that the heat wave hadn’t broken yet. She could add
sweaty
to the list of things that were making her feel grimy.

She bounced down the stairs, wondering what excuse Gretchen would have for stopping by. Surely, it wasn’t to help because she’d already given up on that notion, just as Sarah had known she would.

She swung the door open and found herself gazing into the eyes of the last person she expected to see. He had backed up so he was leaning against the porch railing. His arms were crossed over his chest. It was impossible to miss the way his biceps bulged just enough to be distracting. She had to wonder if he’d positioned himself that way so that he would look as appealing as possible. Then again, she realized, she had never seen him look
un
appealing.

“
Cole
? What…?” Her face crumpled into a look of confusion. “What are you doing here?”

His eyes glittered with humor. She had no doubt that he was enjoying the way he had completely caught her off guard. He pointed at the large bin that Tom had dropped off last week. He’d told her he was still swamped with work but that he was trying to add to his crew.

“That’s for my roof. I’m having new shingles put on,” she explained. He nodded and understanding washed over her. “No.
You
? Tom sent
you
to do my roof?”

Cole nodded again. “I’ve been working part time for Alex at the lumberyard. That’s where Tom gets his supplies. He mentioned to Alex that he’s gotten really behind the last few weeks. Alex mentioned that I was looking for work and thought maybe I could help him out. Tom asked if I was interested in joining his crew because the pay is a lot better than working for Alex. So here I am.”

“Oh,” Sarah said with a nod. The movement caused a chunk of her hair to pull free of her ponytail. It slipped out, covering her eye. She lifted her hand, prepared to swipe it out of the way. Just in time, she remembered her hands were full of gunk. She tried blowing it off her face instead. To her horror, it was weighted down—probably with chunks of old goop—and it didn’t budge.

Cole grinned as he moved toward her. His fingers brushed against her cheek as he tucked the strand behind her ear.

She instantly felt the heat rush into her cheeks, running along the same path that Cole’s fingers had so gently crossed. Those fingers had lingered a little longer than she thought necessary.

“It looks like you’ve been working hard,” he said as his gaze slid over her.

She crossed her arms defiantly. Was that his way of pointing out that she was a mess? Because she most definitely was. She probably looked disgusting. Did she
care
? Unfortunately, she realized she cared a lot. “I’ve been busy.”

“What have you been up to?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she took a step backward. After he’d swiped her hair out of her face, he hadn’t left nearly enough room between them. And now he wanted to make small talk? She wasn’t having any of that.

“Look,” she said, “I still don’t completely understand why you’re here. I really don’t—”

“I told you why I’m here,” he interrupted. “Tom’s behind schedule on a few projects. He said when he spoke with you, you were anxious to get this done.”

“I’m not really in that big of a hurry,” she said.

“Sarah.”

She tried to ignore the pleading look on his face but couldn’t. She decided he probably needed the money this job would pay. It was impossible to forget that Cole’s family had always struggled with money. It was impossible to forget that his jeans had always been torn. His shoes had always been too worn. His hair had always been a bit too long. It had taken her a while to realize it was because he didn’t want to waste the money on having it cut. If he was standing in front of her now, looking for work, she just couldn’t scrounge up the spite to tell him to go away.