Robin's Reward (Bonita Creek Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

Thomas laughed cruelly in her tear-stained face as he left their apartment abruptly, slamming the door forcefully for added dramatic effect.

Astonishment, shock, sorrow, and abandonment were a few of the raw emotions Robin experienced. The pain was so intense she feared she was having a heart attack. She later learned she’d experienced a major panic attack that night.

She slid down to the floor and cried until she had no tears left to shed. Then she prayed. She prayed God would intervene with Thomas’s thinking and make him return to her soon. She asked God to make her a better wife. She prayed Thomas would love her as she loved him. When she finally prayed for God to give her peace and comfort, she felt a powerful serenity wash over her soul.

Later in the evening when she’d composed herself a bit, she found the bakery box lying on the table. She opened its lid to face a freshly-baked dried apple pie, her husband’s favorite. At Robin’s request, the head cook at the diner had written a frosting message on the pie’s upper crust. The text was surrounded by a red frosted heart: “Happy 2nd Anniversary, T. I’ll always love you, R.”

Yes, Thomas Bennett certainly had a great sense of timing. He’d made his grand exit on the evening of their second wedding anniversary. She seriously doubted he’d even remembered their wedding anniversary when he made his forceful pronouncements earlier. She then considered perhaps he did remember and had timed his abandonment to create the most pain possible for Robin.

Through her briny tears, she dumped the pie in the garbage can and ripped the greeting card she had signed into about a thousand pieces of confetti and threw it on top of the pie. Apparently the word ‘remorse’ was not in Thomas Bennett’s vocabulary, because Robin heard nothing from him for close to three years.

~*~

So here she was again, five years after Thomas’s desertion, crying over a man yet again. Her warm tears did not subside for close to an hour after Jeff Clarke left her garden.
You should have learned this lesson from what you went through with Thomas!
She stood up and declared she could and
would
get on with her day—and life—without Jeff Clarke’s interference. Armed with new determination, Robin went out to the patio and gathered all of the food, dishes, utensils, and linens and returned them to her cottage. She swept the patio stones around the table and picked up her sun hat and gardening gloves.

She made her way quickly to her little wooden gardening shed at the back of the garden and selected her tools for the day. In her angered state, she admitted trimming bushes and flowers would not be a good idea as she would likely hack them to death. Instead, she decided to follow through with her plan of spreading compost over the entire garden to aid in weed control and water conservation.

Robin loaded her wheelbarrow with compost from her compost bin, and began the rhythmic process of raking it carefully over the roots of her trees, shrubs, and plants. If she was lucky, it would take her hours to accomplish the task. Betting with concentrated, physical exertion she would forget about a certain man, she threw herself into the task wholeheartedly.

At noon, Robin stopped working because she was hot, thirsty, and hungry. She forced down a chicken sandwich, some cold tea, and a bowl of fresh fruit salad. Within thirty minutes she was back at work. This time Miss Praise meandered down the garden path to keep her mistress company. The old cat’s tail twitched and swirled as she kept a keen eye on the bird feeders while listening to her keeper’s frustrated commentary.

Robin hummed her favorite church hymns in an effort to comfort herself. When she felt less upset, she quietly talked out the unbearable situation with Miss Praise in an effort to feel better about the way things had turned out with the town’s newcomer. She thought maybe in another two hours she’d finish the composting chore. She recognized it would take a lot longer to get the good-looking newcomer out of her mind.

Chapter 8

Jeff didn’t know what to do with himself when he arrived home.
Self-loathing invaded each cell of his body. He decided a shave and shower were necessary after his active morning. By the time he finished getting cleaned up, he was hungry. He made himself a peanut butter sandwich and munched on a couple of apples. The food was tasteless, and he wondered how he’d ever live with himself after this morning. He choked on his resentment toward Mr. Brownstein and deep disappointment in himself over how he’d treated Robin earlier.

How could he ever make it up to her? Was there any way he could redeem himself in her eyes while at the same time regaining his own self respect? He’d have to come up with a strategy, create an effective plan, and follow through with it until he accomplished his goals. At his desk he began jotting down ideas and a timeline for accomplishing his goal.

If he handled things properly, maybe he could keep his job
and
win over the girl’s heart just like in an Indiana Jones or James Bond movie. Except he wasn’t an action hero and this was not some fictional Hollywood script. This was real life—Robin’s life
and
his life. That was what really bothered him. He’d jeopardized his own integrity and potentially harmed a kind-hearted woman who didn’t deserve to be caught in the middle of his little drama.

He busied himself doing his laundry and unpacking the last of the few personal items he’d brought with him to Bonita Creek. He wished he had a pet to keep him company. His memories rolled back to his boyhood pet beagle, Hunter. He and Hunter had many adventures together. Hunter never criticized Jeff or whined when he didn’t spend as much time as he should with his loyal companion. Since he wouldn’t be in Bonita Creek for long, Jeff quickly pushed aside the thought of rescuing a pet from the local animal shelter. Maybe when he moved back home in a couple of months he would consider getting another dog to keep him company on his runs and on those lonely days and nights at home. For now he would just suffer through with only himself for companionship.
What a lucky guy I am,
he thought,
I get to spend all my time with the biggest loser in the world.

Desolation crept into his mind and took over like some alien force. He thought of the many relationships he’d tried to forge with women over the years. It seemed there was always something wrong with the women he chose. They were too quiet or too boisterous. They were too timid or too aggressive; too self-deprecating or too arrogant. He’d never before considered perhaps
he
was the problem. Maybe he’d judged the women too harshly. The women he brought to mind were too much of this or not enough of that. Every woman until he met Robin Bennett.

Jeff had an epiphany. The Bonita Creek librarian was the one woman with whom he felt he really wanted to invest some time and effort. He desired to get to know her on a deeper level. He felt he may finally be willing to let someone into his life to get to know him at his core level. This opportunity to reach out to Robin would be a huge step for Jeff, one he had never taken before in his life.

His thoughts shifted to a vision of his future including Robin as his significant other or even his wife. The vision was at the same time peaceful and exhilarating. How could he convince her he wanted to commit the time necessary to get acquainted with her after what he’d done this morning?

There was no chance a relationship with this woman was going to develop until his unpleasant job assignment was fulfilled. He knew he’d have to be free to be himself with Robin on a personal level before they could even consider a long-lasting relationship based on faith, respect and love. He was willing to bide his time until he could approach her in an honest, open fashion. He was not a patient person, so he decided to immerse himself in his job assignment to take his mind off of Miss Robin Bennett.

~*~

By the time she finished her garden project, Robin was suitably exhausted. The afternoon was not quite as hot as yesterday, but she decided to give herself a break and take a nice cool shower. She put her garden tools, wheelbarrow and gloves in her gardening shed and turned toward the cottage. She filled her bird feeders with seed and added some fresh water to the birdbaths. After she cooled down in the shower, Robin decided to call Penny.

“Penny, it’s me. Can you talk?”

“I’ve got a few minutes. How’d your garden date go this morning?”

“Awful. It was horrible.”

Penny gasped. “Tell all.”

Robin took a deep breath. “He showed up really late this morning. You know how I feel about punctuality. It was a real letdown when he came looking and smelling really bad.”

“What do you mean? Like he hadn’t showered and shaved?”

“Exactly. He was really sweaty and his clothes were, well, less than pristine. It made me feel like his coming to my house for breakfast wasn’t a priority for him and he couldn’t even be bothered to clean up for our time together.” The disappointment in Robin’s voice was so strong that Penny interrupted her cousin to offer words of support over the telephone.

Robin continued, “The worst part was how he acted toward me. He acted and spoke like a jerk. Yesterday afternoon he was witty, considerate, and polite. This morning he acted like pond scum. He was sarcastic and downright rude about the food I’d prepared. I was getting negative vibes from him so I asked him to leave.”

“You did what? It was
that
bad?” Penny seemed shocked at her cousin’s revelation because she knew what a gracious hostess Robin’s grandmother had taught her to be. “He must have been really misbehaving if you asked him to leave,” she added sympathetically.

In a small, shaky voice, Robin revealed, “He reminded me of Thomas the last time I spoke to him on the telephone when he demanded a divorce. Jeff behaved like a surly, sullen, smart aleck teenager, and I just didn’t want to spend even one more minute with someone like that! His attitude this morning was disturbing to me and it’s affected my attitude and mood all day long. I will never in my entire existence understand men. Why did God even place them on this Earth?”

When she heard her cousin laughing she realized the humor in her last remark. “Oops, I actually do know the reasons for their existence. I just meant there must be an easier way to live with the male population . . .”

The cousins laughed together before continuing their conversation. “I just have to put my thoughts and opinions of Jeff Clarke far from my mind. It was over before it even began, I guess. No need to discuss him anymore.”

As the two closed their conversation Robin congratulated herself for how well she was handling the entire situation involving Jeff Clarke and particularly the morning’s embarrassing fiasco. Maybe she’d recover soon from this latest romantic disaster. Although she’d been through romantic disappointments before, she sensed her interlude with Jeff was different from her other doomed romances for one particular reason. She’d liked the newcomer from the first moment she met him.

Jeff’s strange behavior this morning had turned Robin’s world upside down and quickly shifted her thoughts of a possible romance back to reality—this man wasn’t interested in spending time with her.
I’ll accept Jeff’s rejection with grace and dignity.
In an attempt to put those negative thoughts to rest, she decided to attempt losing herself in the latest best-selling legal thriller authored by Sue Grafton. After reading for fifteen minutes, she realized she hadn’t a clue what the story was about even though she’d flipped the pages of three chapters.

Chapter 9

Jeff spent the remainder of Saturday afternoon and evening sulking
. Vivid nightmares involving Mr. Brownstein greeted him as he tried to get some sleep on Saturday night. By the time he awoke on Sunday morning he was utterly exhausted.
I can’t go on like this.

Jeff grabbed his notebook and penciled in some more notes on his plan and timeline. He caught up on some work-related reading about budgets and efficiency from various professional journals to which he subscribed. As his stomach rumbled, he was happy to note it was now lunchtime. He patted himself on the back for not thinking about Robin for the past couple of hours.
You certainly were valiant, letting her down so gently before she became too attached to you.

“Just who are you trying to fool, you fool?” He resolved to set things right with Miss Bennett if it was the last sensible thing he accomplished in his miserable life. In the meantime, he would listen to a pre-season baseball game on the radio to try to pass the time. Maybe the game would help to clear his mind so he could get some much-needed sleep tonight.

He whipped up a couple of oversized sandwiches and finished off a carton of potato salad he’d picked up at the deli a few days ago. After eating, he settled in to listen to the baseball game and maybe even nap for a little while. He certainly needed the rest after the past two nights of virtual sleeplessness.

The game was tied at four in the top of the ninth inning
.