Hot Buttered Yum (17 page)

Roni clutched at the catch in her side as she ran. She focused her gaze on the back of her house in the distance, and refused to slow though the pain was growing unbearable. Her breathing came in gasps. She dug her feet in and pushed harder.

The ocean glistened to her right, its calm waters shining under the cloudless blue sky and bright sun. The wind weaved softly through the tufts of weeds in the dunes on her left. It was Saturday morning. It was a beautiful day.

Lady Antebellum blasted through her earbuds.

Life was good.

Yet Roni ran as if her past were a mere two steps behind her.

Her fingers intermittently worked the area at her waist that threatened to bend her in two. She counted her steps as she ran to concentrate on anything other than the pain.

She pumped her arms. She dropped her shoulders. She lifted her face to the sky.

Nothing worked.

She couldn’t run fast enough.

It was just a normal day, she kept telling herself. A normal run.

Only she was lying. It was anything but normal.

And she was anything but okay.

Her feet stumbled and she cried out as she threw her arms out to catch herself. She didn’t fall, but she came close. The shout hadn’t been from the pain. Not the physical one. The jabbing in her side was nothing compared to the hurt in her soul.

It was December ninth.

She’d gone to the children’s hospital for the last time on this day three years ago.

She stumbled again and this time went down. Three seconds later she was back on her feet, moving forward, but with a limp. Every time her right foot landed, she listed to her side. She kept this up as moisture appeared in her eyes.

Life was not fair.

She’d walked away from Charles for Zoe.

Roni stumbled again, and this time went down. She stayed there.

On all fours, she dropped her head so it hung limply between her shoulders and sagged. Her breaths heaved in and out. She’d been too late.

A buzz began at her waist and she sat back on her haunches to pull her phone from the hidden pocket behind the waistband of her pants. She was early for her run today. She hadn’t been able to sleep and had gotten out as the sun was coming up.

Her brother wouldn’t know that, though. He’d think he was catching her right as she finished with the piano.

Still breathing raggedly, she wiped sweat from her brow and yanked the earbuds from her ears. She brought the phone up, staying where she was in the sand. She wasn’t inclined to move just yet, though her house was now only fifty yards away.

“Good morning, Danny,” she answered. Her brother could always be counted on to check in on her during her rough days.

“Hey, sis. How are you?”

She shook her head from side to side. A tear seeped from the outer corners of both eyes and she let them roll down her cheeks. Her brother was the only one who knew about Zoe. “I’m just finishing up a run.”

“You’re early.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Her brother might check in with her on this day every year, but he didn’t always know how to start the conversations.

“You exercise too much.” This was an ongoing theme between them.

“I exercise just enough,” she clarified. “Dad died of a heart attack at forty-eight. I won’t be next.”

Their father had been a type A personality. He’d focused on his career with single-minded determination. Roni had once been just like him.

There was a brief silence from the other end of the phone, and then her brother said, “You can’t bring her back, you know? No matter how hard you push yourself.”

Pain sliced through Roni.

“Ah, shit,” Danny muttered. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. It was insensitive. Kathy tells me I’m a jerk all the time.” He waited three seconds while Roni said nothing. “Roni?” he said, almost pleading.

She remained silent.

“Don’t hang up. Please. I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”

“You said that,” she whispered. “I’m not deaf.”

Just broken.

“Oh, sis. Are you okay? I should have called earlier in the week. I should have—”

“I’m fine,” she muttered. “It’s just a shitty day. Too many—”

She stopped midsentence. Too many memories, but also too many wants. Too much loneliness.

And talking to a cute, brown-haired, blue-eyed little girl yesterday hadn’t helped matters any. Her heart squeezed at the cuteness of Gracie. Lucas was so lucky.

Some days, Roni admitted to herself now, she
didn’t
love her life.

Some days it just sucked.

“I should have come down there this week,” Danny said.

“I told you. I’m fine.” And surprisingly, she realized, that wasn’t a complete lie.

Though she had seen better days.

“Then why do you continue to push yourself so hard? Why do you kill yourself with these runs?”

“You’re a doctor. You should understand the value of an exercise regime.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone before Danny sighed. “I understand exercise. I get up every morning and do my own. But no matter how healthy you are, you can’t change the fact that Zoe was sick. You’ve got to give yourself a break.”

“I run because I don’t want to die like Dad.”

Because it was easier to run than face her world.

She’d needed Zoe.

And Zoe had needed her.

“Want me to come down?” her brother asked. He was a pediatric surgeon in Cincinnati. “I’m off for the next four days. There’s a flight leaving out of here in three hours.”

When she hadn’t come home for Christmas three years ago, Danny had flown to New York to find out what the problem was.

“You can’t leave Kathy and the kids,” Roni pointed out. His wife was a doll, but two young boys were a handful for anyone.

“They’ll be fine for a few days. Plus, I could use something other than the drizzly cold we’ve been having here.”

Roni unfolded her legs from beneath her and stretched them out, propping her elbows on her knees as she did. The dampness from the sand seeped into the back of her compression pants. She would be frozen if she didn’t get up off the ground soon.

“I’m fine, Danny. Really. I told you, it’s been three—”

“I know how long it’s been, Roni. I was there, remember? I saw you at your worst.”

No he hadn’t. He’d seen her only at the beginning of her worst.

“I can tell today is bad,” he said. “I hear it in your voice. Let someone help.”

She shifted her eyes to her house and studied it. She did need to let someone help. She should have let them years ago. She had friends who loved her as much as she loved them. “You’re right,” she said at last. “How about if I promise to tell Ginger and Andie? Will that keep you in Cincinnati?”

“Today?”

The ache behind her breastbone burned. “Tomorrow,” she said.

She didn’t want to talk about it today.

A movement caught her attention on her deck but then it stopped. Probably a shadow from one of the trees in her backyard.

“Promise me you aren’t lying,” Danny’s stern big-brother voice said in her ear.

Her brother was only two years older than her, and though they’d spent the majority of their childhoods apart, they were close.

She smiled. “I’m not lying. As soon as I hang up with you I’ll text them to set up a time.”

He went quiet and she could picture him with a smug look on his face, thinking he’d just accomplished something she wouldn’t have done alone. The truth was, she’d been thinking about talking to her friends since she’d left Lucas’s hotel the morning before.

“You’ll be home for Christmas, right?” Danny asked, changing the subject. “The boys are looking forward to seeing you.”

She’d only ever missed the one year.

“Of course I’ll be there.” She inched her smile up, hoping the sentiment would make it through the phone. She was looking forward to seeing his boys too. Her nephews were nine and six, and though she sometimes felt a little envious of the life that Danny had built for himself, she would never let that come between her and seeing her family. “Have you met Tom yet?”

Their mother had a new boyfriend.

Danny laughed lightly. “I have. He’s a good guy. He moved to Huntsville last year and is teaching at the college with Mom. He worships the ground she walks on.”

“That’s good to hear.” Their mother was a strong woman, but she’d had a hard time getting over their dad. She’d dated two other men fairly seriously over the years, but so far, nothing had stuck. Danny and Roni were hoping this was the guy.

They said their good-byes, then she held her phone up in front of her as she typed out a message. The run had done her good. As had the chat with her brother. But Roni was ready to talk to her friends.

The message went to Ginger:

Can we talk? My house tomorrow morning? I’ll skip my run.

She’d talk about Lucas too.

Not that it mattered at this point. It was over. Certainly he’d gotten that message when she’d given him the cold shoulder the day before.

That didn’t keep her from wanting to talk about him, though.

She glanced back at her house, didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on her deck, and crossed her arms over her knees as she waited for a reply. She lifted her chin and enjoyed the sunshine warming her skin. It was a gorgeous morning.

Everything okay?
The message came back.

Really good
. And it was. It was way better than when she’d started out that morning.
We’ll call Andie. I need you both. Things I should have told you a long time ago.

I’ll be there
. The reply was immediate.
And I’ll let Andie know
.

Roni could always count on her friends.

Rising, she began moving toward her house. She had extra time before she had to be at the convention center, but her rear was frozen from sitting in the sand. She needed to get out of her wet pants.

“Yoo-hoo.” A voice came from somewhere above her.

Roni squinted as she looked around, trying to make out where the sound had come from. Finally, she saw a small head sticking up above the railing of her deck. A bony arm waved back and forth, wildly enough that it could be trying to flag down a ship.

“Yoo-hoo.”

The head had what Roni knew to be white curls covered in a sheer yellow scarf. Mrs. Rylander.

“What are you doing up there, Mrs. Rylander?” Roni shouted back. She picked up her speed, worried that the older lady would head down the steep steps before Roni could make it up to her. Mrs. Rylander may think she was only fifty, but the facts were, she had three more decades on her. Roni didn’t want the woman to lose her balance and break her lunatic neck.

“You have company, dear,” the woman’s thinner voice yelled back. “I brought over tea.”

Roni’s feet quit pushing through the sand. She lifted one hand above her brows to block the sun. She could only see her neighbor on her deck.

She began moving again, dusting the sand off her rear as she went. When she made it to the base of her stairs, a much larger figure appeared beside Mrs. Rylander. Lucas, looking scruffy and rumpled like he’d just crawled from bed, stood there, his hand huge around the delicate teacup he held, his white T-shirt emblazoned with “Turtle Island rocks!” stretched tight across his chest and shoulders. Roni’s breath lodged in her throat.

Geez, he made her weak at the knees every time she looked at him.

He made her want to march up the stairs and muss up his hair even more than it already was.

She should have known he wouldn’t get the hint from yesterday.

“Morning, Roni,” he said. His voice touched her like a summer rain shower, sprinkling down over her from above. Warmth covered her, and she shivered.

She pulled her gaze from his and shifted it back to her neighbor. Mrs. Rylander smiled brightly in her fleece jacket that hung to her knees, its collar turned up at the neck, fluttering her lashes in innocence as old as time itself. The woman was in so much trouble. Lucas wouldn’t be on the deck right now if not for her.

With a silent groan, Roni moved forward. Might as well get this over with. The man wasn’t likely to leave until they did.

Fifteen steps up and Roni stood before Lucas. As with every time, he dwarfed her. He seemed twice as wide as her, as well as the substantial inches he had on her in height. He was also eyeing her as if he knew a secret she didn’t want to share.

Sitting on the small glass-topped table behind him were the silver stilettos she’d left at the convention center the night he’d kissed her.

“Well,” Mrs. Rylander said, pressing her hands together in front of her. She turned toward the massive beast of a man and patted him on his chest. Roni noted that even at eighty, the woman let her hand linger longer than necessary. “Now that the lady of the house is home, I’ll leave you two to talk.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rylander,” Lucas began. He reached out and gripped her hands in his and met her wide, blinking gaze. “I appreciate the hospitality from such a gorgeous lady. I hope Roni knows what a lovely neighbor she has in you.”

What a suck-up.

The older lady laughed, the sound high-pitched and girlish. The paper-thin skin of her cheeks even blushed.

Roni stared at her, aghast. What a flirt.

“Oh, you charmer, you,” Mrs. Rylander cooed. “I’m sure Roni would have done the same for me if I’d had an unexpected guest.” She patted his chest one more time—tossing in a bit of a stroke at the end—before turning her back to him and facing Roni. Then she winked. The sky-blue eyes laughed as if she thought she’d pulled something off. What did she think? That she’d done Roni some sort of favor by capturing and keeping him here until she’d returned?

Roni shook her head at her neighbor, letting her know that she wasn’t getting away with anything. And Roni
would
find a way to get her back.

“You keep the tea set for now, dear.” Mrs. Rylander said. “I brought over a cup for you too.” She headed for the stairs, her head bobbing with her steps as she seemed to have a bit of a limp. Had she hurt herself?

“Wait.”

“Let me help you.”