The Weekday Brides 04 - Single by Saturday (5 page)

“You did good, kid,” Zach whispered to himself as he ran his hand over the marble countertop.

Zach showered and dressed before leaving his room in search of coffee. He rounded the corner and spotted Karen struggling with the front door with her hands full of catering trays.

“Let me get that.” He relieved her arms of the load.

“Oh, thanks.” She opened the door and led him out to the drive, where several cars were still sitting from the night before. “I should have had Michael load the car before we went to bed last night.”

“No problem.”

Today Karen was dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a simple pullover shirt she’d tucked in. Her face was free of makeup and her hair was pulled into a ponytail. There wasn’t one ounce of polish on her like he’d seen the night before, no silk, no shiny jewelry dangling from her ears or her neck. Without heels, the top of her head barely made it to his chin. She wasn’t at all what he’d assumed she’d be from the pictures he’d seen.

Karen opened the hatch of the SUV and moved around to the second set of doors to lower the back seats. “Just pile those up. I have a few more to bring out.”

“What’s all this for?” He set the trays down and shoved them up toward the seats to make room for more.

“The kids at the club.”

“You feed them?”

Karen walked around him back to the house. “Not all the time. But they know after we’ve had a party to expect something special.”

He followed her into a huge pantry off the kitchen, which housed another refrigerator. Inside were several more trays of food. “All of this is leftovers?”

“No. We have the chef make extra, more kid-friendly food. The kids will eat the fancy desserts but skip the caviar.”

“I’d skip the caviar.”

Karen laughed and the sound splashed over him with warmth. “Yeah, me, too. I find more fish eggs in crumbled up napkins after these parties than I can count.” She started pulling the oversize trays out one at a time and loaded him up. When he kept nodding for more, she continued to pile until they met his chin.

She pulled the last one and walked with him back to the car. “If no one eats the caviar, why do you serve it?”

“Some things are expected. Have you met Tony?”

“No.”

“Tony is Michael’s manager. He takes great pains in knowing the personal tastes of many of Michael’s co-workers, the producers, so that everyone feels taken care of when they visit.”

“Do you know their tastes?”

“I have a hard time with their names. Knowing if they’re a vegetarian, or Jewish to the point of only eating Kosher…not a clue. Tony, on the other hand, has it all down.”

Interesting.
“But you know what the kids at the club eat?”

She helped him with his load until the back of the car was stacked full. She pressed a button and the hatch closed. “They’re kids. They haven’t been told what to like yet. I just try to keep it healthy without being obvious. Dip the strawberries in chocolate and leave fresh ones alongside them, and they all disappear.”

Zach leaned against the car since she wasn’t working her way back into the house. “My mom smothered broccoli in cheese sauce.”

“Exactly.”

“It sounds like you take good care of the kids.”

“They’re good kids. We can afford to spoil them.”

“So you like kids?”

“Yeah.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “But you don’t want any of your own?”

She blinked a couple of times. The answer stuck somewhere between her brain and her lips. “I’d like kids…someday.” She narrowed her blue eyes on him. “Well, I should go.”

Zach pushed away from the car, giving her room.

She opened the driver’s door and said, “Can you remind Michael that he promised to stop by at three today? He said something about taking you out to shop for your sister’s birthday present.”

He’d forgotten. “Shopping. Yeah.” There was no joy in his voice.

“I’ll ask the girls what’s on the top of a seventeen-year-old’s wish list. Maybe they can help.”

“If it cuts out hours, I’m all ears.”

“You sound like Michael.”

Zach shook his head. “No, he sounds like me. I’m older.”

Karen slid on a pair of sunglasses and dropped behind the wheel, a smile played on her lips. “I’ll see you later then.”

He watched her drive away and hated how much he would enjoy seeing her later.

Karen brought the food early so kids could jump in before school and grab a bite. Much like Pavlov’s dogs, which salivated with the sound of a bell, every kid in the club knew when Karen and Michael threw a party, and whenever Michael himself was going to make an appearance. She had to admit, making Michael her temporary husband had been a complete windfall for the kids.

Last year the club had been struggling with finances, and she was dipping into her income to help. It wasn’t as if she had a big account or anything. Oh, she could hit up Samantha, and didn’t feel guilty about doing so once in a while. But this was
her
passion, and she didn’t want to mooch off her friends, even if her friends had serious money.

Long after lunch when the rest of the party food was gone, Karen stood in the kitchen doing dishes. Her mind drifted to her handful of friends and she couldn’t help but smile. How the hell did a girl like her end up with such an influential guest list of her own to add to Michael’s at these parties? It was insane.

She’d barely made it through college because of funds, she’d only just managed to pay off her student loans before signing up with Alliance. The only reason she was driving around in new cars was because Michael insisted they lease her something new. As he put it, no one would believe that his wife would be driving around in a seven-year-old Mazda with a broken air conditioner. The car wasn’t that bad, but she knew he was right. She did nix anything over the top. It had taken the kids a few months to settle down after her marriage, and if she’d parked some hundred-thousand-dollar sports car in the drive, it would be near impossible to get the attention of the boys. On days like today, she brought the Escalade, which wasn’t an unlikely car to be parked in the lot. She usually knew when Michael showed up before he walked in the door. He
had no problem bringing something flashy for the kids to drool over. It brought joy to the kids, and to Michael.

The man worked nonstop. Oh, he played hard, too. They’d returned to Europe together and taken the inside passage in Canada and Alaska the previous summer. There were parties and award dinners with passing friends and fake acquaintances. There were a few people that Michael called friends, but she didn’t think there was even one he’d shared his true life with.

Karen put the last of the dishes in the massive machine, lowered the door, and turned it on.

After grabbing the last of the empty trays that were ready for the trash, she opened the back door and moved around to the front of the building where they housed the Dumpster.

As usual, the roar of an engine sounded like a mating call to teenage boys. She turned around, garbage in hand, and caught sight of Michael pulling into the parking lot. The copper metallic paint glistened off the low-profile sports car that she couldn’t immediately identify. It wasn’t his. Or at least, it hadn’t been when she’d left the house that morning.

Kids started pouring from the club as he cut the engine, and he and Zach hopped out of the car with
cat ate the canary
grins on their faces.

Karen popped the garbage into the trash can and wiped her hands on her pants as she walked over to greet the boys, who looked as if they had just been on a joy ride. She knew he’d show up in something crazy expensive, but she assumed it would be the Ferrari parked in the garage that she’d all but refused to ride in because of the time the semitruck nearly ran them over.

With her best eye roll, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared Michael down. “
What
did you do?”

He delivered his sexy smile. Beside him, Zach dished out a grin that would devastate her if she allowed it.

“Is it new, Ms. Jones?” Dale, one of the regular kids from the club, asked.

“There aren’t plates on it, moron, of course it’s new,” his best friend, Enrique, said as he hit him upside the arm.

“Is it yours, Mr. Wolfe?” one of the kids in the back asked. By now there were two dozen circling the car. When the bell to the high school next door rang, Karen knew they’d be mobbed with kids from the school, and the club, within seconds.

“What is it, Michael?” someone else asked.

Karen walked around the back of the car and noticed the logo.

“It’s a McLaren, dude.”

“Sweet!”

“Do you like it, honey?” Michael asked over the top of the car as he watched her approach.

“It’s very pretty.” It was, even if the cost of it could probably feed several villages in third world countries for a year.

“Damn, Ms. Jones, you don’t call a car like this pretty.”

Karen shot a nasty look at the boy talking. “Language, Peter!”

He had the good sense to lower his eyes. “Still can’t call it pretty. Sweet, sick, fu—” he stopped himself. “Freaking amazing, but not pretty.”

It is fucking amazing.
There was no denying that, and from the grins on both Zach’s and Michael’s faces, it was a fun ride, too.

“I’m glad you like it. I bought it for my sister for her birthday.”

The smile on Karen’s face fell. “You what?”

“Hannah. Think she’ll like it?”

Words escaped her. “You did not!” She twisted toward Zach, who happened to be closer to her than Michael was. “Tell me he’s kidding!”

Zach was still smiling, but she couldn’t read much from his expression because of the sunglasses covering his eyes.

“Michael Gardner Wolfe, tell me you’re joking!”

“You don’t think she’ll like it?” he asked.

“You can’t give this to a seventeen-year-old girl.”

A gasp went over the kids. “Lucky sister.”

“Wish he was my brother,” someone from the crush of kids said.

“Why not? It only has two seats so she can’t pile kids inside, and it’s only a V-8.” Michael was still grinning, completely oblivious of how stupid this idea was.

“She’s a kid! She’ll hit the gas and wrap herself around a pole. It’s too much. The insurance alone is insane!” She wagged her accusatory finger in his direction, and then swung it toward Zach. “You’re not giving it to her. Your mother will kill you!”

Michael finally stopped smiling. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Yeah, well you should have. Holy cow! What were you thinking? A day at the spa, a trip to the mall, those are the kinds of presents you give to your kid sister, not a car like this.”

Michael leaned over the hood and rubbed his jaw. She was getting through to him and her heart started to slow down.

“You’re right.”

The kids had gone quiet as they listened and recorded their argument on their cell phones. Like every visit to the club, Michael’s presence would be up on YouTube and Facebook before the hour was up.

“Of course I’m right.”

Michael lifted his glasses off his face and set them on top of the car. He looked at the keys in his hands and then to her. He tossed her the keys, which she caught with one hand.

“Then it’s yours.”

She tossed the keys right back as if they burned. “I don’t need this car.”

Back the keys came. “You said it was pretty.”

“I already have a
pretty
car.” The keys sailed over the car again. Like a tennis match, the phones were swinging back and forth.

“This one is prettier.”

She caught the keys again and stomped her foot. “Michael!”

He mimicked her, stomped his foot, and winked. “Karen!”

He started to laugh. “C’mon, honey. It’s your anniversary present. One whole year of putting up with me.”

“Take the car, Ms. Jones.”

When she caught Zach’s expression, she knew the whole ploy of giving the car to Hannah had been a joke. Michael knew Karen wouldn’t drive this car without some kind of hook.

“It’s not polite to give someone’s gifts back,” Peter said beside her. She heard the words she’d told them more than once.

Karen glanced down at the car and cringed on the inside. She dangled the keys in her hand. As she walked around the hood, kids parted a path. If there weren’t cameras pointed at her, she’d likely stomp on his foot and shove the keys in his pocket, but instead, she leaned into him and whispered in his ear. “I’m going to kill you when I get home.”

He just laughed.

“You’re welcome,” he said loud enough for the audience. He kissed her cheek briefly and offered his Hollywood smile.

Chapter Five