Bowled Over (35 page)

“You don’t have to do this right now, you know,” Jaymie said. “You can tell me this another day.”

“No, I need to do this today. I almost died, Jaymie. I was almost murdered! I married a murderer. I’m never
not
saying anything again. I’m never leaving anything to tomorrow.” She stopped and caught her breath, the roses lying on her legs, the buds starting to droop. “Anyway, I figured if I broke up your friendship with Kathy, then she’d want to be
my
friend. So I started the rumor that you said she and her family and her home stank like pigs. I knew telling that guy was the way to go, because he’d spread it to all his buddies. It worked! It got back to her that you had said it, just like I planned. I was there to console her when she needed a friend.”

“So you did become real friends?”

“For a while. But Kathy was obsessed. All she talked about was you, and your friends, and your family. She was so intense! And she wanted to get back at you. It’s all she talked about! I got sick of it. Sometimes when you get what you want, it turns out to be not what you want at all.”

Ella must have been really lonely to have played such a mean trick.

“I wish I’d known,” Jaymie said. “I wish I’d known how lonely you were and had reached out. But I was in my own little bubble back then.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. I was not a healthy kid, not in any way. There was a lot going on at home, and I couldn’t know then that I was just…” She sighed, her eyelids drooping. “I was
so
unhappy. Anyway, when I couldn’t get her to lay off talking about you, I just turned around and became the meanest bully! I was so angry and miserable, and saying nasty things was all I could do. It felt better while I was doing it, but afterward it was awful.”

“I wish my mom had let Mrs. Hofstadter say something, like she wanted to,” Jaymie said. “Some adult intervention might have helped us all. Please don’t feel bad. You were a kid too, just like Kathy and me, and it sounds like you had enough going on in your life that we weren’t aware of. I wish we’d
all
been friends.”

“I came back to Queensville hoping that it was all over, that I hadn’t done irreparable damage, but there you were, years later, you and Kathy, still enemies. When I found out it wasn’t over, I didn’t know how to fix it. I was trying to summon up the courage to tell Kathy the truth, hoping that would fix things. I was going to that morning when she came over, but I was getting so sick. And then she apologized for being mean in the Emporium. I thought, if she can apologize to me, maybe she would to you, too.”

“But that wasn’t all she talked to you about, that morning, was it?”

“No. She went into the kitchen and was gone for a few minutes.” Ella closed her eyes, and sighed. When she opened them again, there was a profound sadness in the depths. “Kathy came back to the living room and asked me about the homemade jam in the fridge. I was surprised that she was in my fridge. In fact, I was a little put off—I don’t like people rummaging through my things—and maybe I snapped at her. I told her Bob made it, and that he was experimenting with local berries.
Now
I know what that was about. If she’d just told me…but I guess she only had suspicions at that point.”

Jaymie remembered how Ella acted about her belongings, her insistence that things be put back exactly as they were. Maybe that prickliness had made Kathy hesitant to confide her worries or suspicions to her old nemesis, which perhaps went back to overhearing Ella’s complaints in the Emporium about her vision problems, dry mouth, et cetera. Kathy, interested in all things medical, probably did some research on those symptoms, and discovered the correlation with atropine poisoning, Her hypothesis would have been confirmed by finding the deadly nightshade–laden jam. Kathy had had lots of time between the visit to Ella and the afternoon’s events in the park to do more research, and even to phone the Payne Institute.

But still…“You’d think she would have said something, like,
don’t eat the jam
!”

“Maybe she didn’t want to alarm me. I told her flat out I wasn’t planning on eating any more of it because I didn’t like the taste. She asked if Bob was due home, said she wanted to talk to him, that maybe she’d catch him that day, if we were going to be at the park.”

“Perhaps she wasn’t sure until she saw how he reacted
to her questions about the jam.” Jaymie didn’t elaborate on that, though she knew from Bob what went down that evening when Kathy confronted him. “Why did you eat more of it, if you didn’t like the taste?”

“Bob begged me…said he’d made it better. I ate it to please him. He’d been so helpful. I wish Kathy had just said something. Now she’s gone forever.” Ella lay back, weakened by talking so long. Tears trickled from her closed eyes. “I wish I’d told her the truth, apologized for the past. I’m such a coward.”

“Ella, we’re adults now. If Kathy had just told me what was said about me back in high school, I could have told her that I’d never said it. We could have solved it. Once we grew up, it was
our
responsibility, not yours.” Jaymie thought back through the years. While they were friends, Kathy had rarely invited her to come out to the farm; she always wanted to spend time at Jaymie’s house or the cottage. “You know, I think she was hanging out with me, trying to become the ‘townie’ she wanted to be. And so her pride was hurt when she thought I dissed her. Injured feelings can be mended, but pride…”

Pride. When Joel left her, Jaymie’s pride had taken a big hit. She had figured out a lot since he’d left, though, and she was better now. It was
his
weakness—his inability to deal with a smart, independent woman—not hers, that had led him to leave her. She turned the conversation to other things, Ella’s plans now that Bob was incarcerated with no bail set.

“Glynnis, a cousin of mine, is coming to stay here for a while,” Ella said. Her cousin was a few years her senior and had just lost her job as a loans manager at a savings and loan. She needed someplace to live for a while. “She can help me, at least until she gets back on her feet.”

“I’m happy you won’t be alone,” Jaymie said. Ella was
still heartbroken over Bob’s awful betrayal, but she almost seemed stronger without him, more decisive and with a better outlook on life. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“I hope so, too. They’re still doing tests to see if there has been any permanent organ damage.”

“Good luck. I’ll see you soon.” Ella’s eyes were drooping, and they closed as Jaymie left the room. She returned home, had lunch with Becca, then walked over to Stowe House. Daniel had just gotten in late the night before, and she wanted to talk to him. He greeted her at the door with a big hug and a kiss.

“I missed you!” he said, holding her close. “I can’t believe what happened while I was away.”

“Let’s go for a walk.”

It was a beautiful summer day, and they walked hand in hand toward the river, as if by common consent, not talking much. She told him her side of what had happened. It was only a few days ago, but it felt like quite a while.

“Daniel, I don’t think I’ve been very fair to you,” she said, stopping and indicating a shaded bench along the boardwalk path.

They sat. “What do you mean?”

She thought about what she wanted to say. “First, I want to tell you about my feelings for Joel.”

He tensed.

She glanced at him, saying, “I loved him; I really did. But that’s over.”

He relaxed.

“He was the wrong guy for me. He tried to make me feel inferior. He interrupted me all the time, corrected whatever I said.”

“He’s a jerk,” Daniel said sharply.

“You’re right; he’s a bit of a jerk, and I’m
so
over it. But,
that said, I’m just not ready to get serious again. I don’t get there easily, Daniel. Joel and I dated for almost a year before…before anything happened. And he was only my second real boyfriend. I’m kind of a stick-in-the-mud.”

He was pensive and stared out over the river.

“Really, Daniel, it’s not y—”

“Please don’t say, it’s not you, it’s me,” he said tightly.

“Okay.” She paused. He was still tense, like he was waiting for the other shoe to fall. “I’m not saying I don’t want to go out with you, I’m just…” She shrugged, unable to form the thought into words. She watched his face. “Why did you move to Queensville, Daniel? You’ve never really told me.”

“Why does that matter?”

She watched him for a long moment and cocked her head to one side. “When was the last real relationship you had?”

He shrugged and was silent, staring still toward the river. She turned toward him, putting her knee up on the bench and her arm along the back. “Tell me,” she said, gently, squeezing his shoulder. “Did someone hurt you?”

“Has anyone gotten away unscathed?” he asked. “We’ve all been brokenhearted at some point.”

“Then tell me about
your
broken heart.”

He glanced over at her, and something he saw in her expression seemed to relax him. He talked. It was a long conversation, one that delved back five years before to a woman who’d worked with him and in whom he had placed a lot of trust. But she’d left him, breaking their engagement, telling him she didn’t want what he wanted: a home, a family…kids. “You want children, don’t you, Jaymie?” He turned toward her, and the longing on his face, the absolute yearning, was heartbreaking.

Her heart sank. “You came to Queensville looking for something, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I was just…driving. And when I came through Queensville, it was the weekend of the Queen’s Tea three years ago. Stowe House was up for sale, but the Realtor had allowed the event to go on. I stopped and had tea. You served me; do you remember?”

She shook her head.

“I asked you about the house, and even though you were busy, you talked to me. I called the Realtor that day and bought Stowe House.”

Oh crap. Jaymie felt her heart drop. He bought Stowe House because of her? How had she never known this? Was that creepy or sweet? She considered the implications. “You thought because I was a small-town girl with no career that I was just waiting for Mr. Right to marry me and give me children, didn’t you?”

“Is there anything wrong with getting married and having kids?” he asked, his tone exasperated.

“Of course not. But if that’s what I am to you, then I’m not the right girl.” She searched his eyes. “I might want kids, but not yet. I can’t even promise in the next five years.”

He held her gaze. “I get it,” he said, taking her hand. “I do. But since then, since I fell in love with Stowe House and bought it, it’s been three years. I found out you were going out with Joel, and I just got on with my life. Stowe House has become a project of sorts, I guess. I like Queensville, and I’m good, now. I’ve gotten to know you, Jaymie. I really like you. Honestly. Down to my heart.”

“And I like you, too.”

“So can we still go out?”

“No expectations, at least not for…oh, six months?”

He smiled. “Six months; let’s see, that takes us up to Joel and Heidi’s wedding, doesn’t it?”

She laughed out loud. “It does! I had completely forgotten about it.”

“Good. Okay, six months. We’ll go out when I’m in town, and see where it takes us.”

“That’s totally reasonable.”

They walked back to Jaymie’s house in amicable silence.

Twenty-two

“S
O YOU’RE NOT
engaged?” Becca asked the next morning, turning the Lexus onto the highway out of Queensville.

“I am
not
engaged,” Jaymie replied. Again.

“I thought for sure when you and Daniel came walking into the house hand in hand yesterday that you were engaged.”

“Becca, we’ve only really known each other a few months!”

“You’ve known each other for three years!” Becca retorted.

“I’ve known him as an acquaintance for three years, but as a friend for a couple of months.”

They were on their way into Wolverhampton for shopping and lunch, at Becca’s request. Jaymie explained what Daniel and she had talked about and the decision they had come to.

“You can’t keep him hanging on forever,” Becca said.

“I’m
not
going to keep him hanging on forever. We’re giving it six months before we make any decisions.” She hadn’t said anything about him buying Stowe House after talking to her at the tea. She didn’t need any additional pressure, and Becca would think that was just
too
romantic, Jaymie feared. Sometimes she wondered why, when she was the one who read romance novels, Becca was the one who did the most romance-novel-heroine-like things. Like getting married on a whim.