Luck of the Draw (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 1) (2 page)

Lord knew she didn’t want to ask her parents for help. Her father took great pride in his self-made success and said hand-outs eroded character. Kate sighed
—she could accept a little less character if it bought her some time. Maybe she should buy a Powerball ticket…

“You should come to Sugar Falls!” Nana piped up from behind as if reading her thoughts. Kate jumped in surprise, nearly dropping her mini wiener off her toothpick. Good Lord. For a woman pushing seventy, Nana was surprisingly quick on her feet.

“What? No.  I couldn’t.” She’d love to, hadn’t been to New Hampshire since she, Nana and Poppy had gone together that summer after high school, but now was so not the time.

“Nonsense,” Nana insisted. She did a lot of insisting. “It’d do you good to get away for a while. Fresh air. Swimming. Fishing…”

“
Fishing?
” Liam exclaimed, bouncing over to join them. “I never fished! Can we go? Can we?”

“Not for a while,” Kate hedged.

“Why not?” Nana and Liam asked in unison.

Kate gritted her teeth and tried to simultaneously smile at Celery Mom, shoo Liam away and give Nana the evil eye. “Please don’t get Liam’s hopes up,” she whispered in Nana’s ear. “I can’t afford a vacation.”

Nana dug a carrot into the veggie dip, popped it into her mouth and crunched loudly. “Nonsense. You could stay at Ruth Pearson’s little house on the lake. She moved in with her kids last year after her knee surgeries. It’s just sitting empty. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.” Nana touched Kate’s arm. “I’ll call her.”

“No! No. Work is… busy. Besides, I don’t think any more upheaval would be good for Liam. He needs to be home.”

“Home?” Nana sniffed, stuffing another dip-drenched carrot into her mouth. “I thought it was a memorial to Randy Mitchell what with all the pictures you’ve got lying around. He’s here more now than he was when he was alive.”

Kate gaped in disbelief before finding her tongue again. “Excuse us,” she mumbled to Celery Mom. She grabbed Nana’s elbow and steered her away from the snack table. Oh. My. Lord! She didn’t have the strength for this conversation. Not on Liam’s birthday of all days. “We’ve been through this, Nana. The psychologist said it would help Liam process Randy’s... being gone.”
Not that Randy’s death had had nearly the impact on Liam Kate had feared it might. She shouldn’t be surprised. Randy had always been too busy… or drunk… to spend quality bonding time with his son.

“Anyway,” muttered Nana with single-minded determination, “I don’t see why you have to have a picture of him on the back of the
toilet
.”

“It’s Liam’s favorite photo of his father. He likes to look at it when he’s taking a bath. Can we drop this now?
Please?”

Kate scanned the room. She should probably serve the cake at some point. Right after she gagged her meddling grandmother and stuffed her in a closet somewhere.

Nana, God bless her, had been poking around the edges of Kate’s ‘situation’ ever since arriving from New Hampshire the day before. And when Nana got a hold of something, she was harder to shake loose than peanut butter from hair. Don’t ask how she knew.

Hanna Andersson girl poured the last of the lemonade into her paper rocket-ship cup. Grateful for an excuse to escape, Kate grabbed the empty lemonade pitcher and pushed through the kitchen door. Unfortunately, Nana picked up a chip bowl and trailed behind.

“No, I won’t drop it. The ladies and I are worried. What’s happened to you, Katie? You were so determined to move on, to start fresh —”

“But he
died
first!” Kate cut in, pouring way too much pink lemonade powder into the empty pitcher. Oh, heck. Who cared? The kids were already plenty sugared up. Kate held the pitcher under the faucet with shaking hands. “He’s
dead
. That kind of changes things, you know? I know he wasn’t perfect, and—
yes
—we had our problems, but he was the only father Liam had. I have to respect that. For Liam’s sake.”

Nana raised an eyebrow and tugged open a bag of chips. “At what cost to you?”

Kate could feel the tears threaten as she searched the counter for her extra-long spoon. “Oh Lord, Nana, I can’t get into this with you, again. I’m fine.
We’re
fine. Tell the ladies they don’t need to worry.”

“
Pfft
. Anyone can see you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re not eating right. You haven’t had a haircut in months...” Nana motioned vaguely toward Kate’s hair.

Kate stuffed a hunk behind her ear. Sure, it was a little longer than the shoulder-length page-boy she’d worn it as for so long, but she was still deciding what to do with it.

“Your problem is you’ve been so busy trying to preserve Randall’s memory and pretend everything’s okay you haven’t given yourself time to be angry.”

“Angry?” Kate pushed her hair out of her face again and tried to concentrate on Nana’s words. She spied the spoon and began to stir the lemonade with more vigor than precisely necessary.

“Yes, angry. Why, for six months after your grandfather died I paced this house hurling insults at him. I was so mad at him for leaving me.”

“I know how much you loved Poppy, but I hardly see how that’s anything like
—”

“He was my rock, true, but I don’t think it matters. Love. Hate…” Nana waved the empty chip bag and crumbs sprinkled the floor. “They’re really not that far apart. The point is I’d built my life around that man. I couldn’t see how I could make it work without him. But, apparently, the Almighty could. ‘Cause here I am.” She flicked the bag toward Kate. “And here
you
are. So get angry and get on with your life. Take some time to figure out what you want to do.”

“What I want to do,” Kate shook her head and put the spoon in the sink, choosing to ignore the neon pink dribbles that spattered the counter, “is get through this damn party without discussing this anymore.”

Nana pursed her lips. “
Well
. There’s no need to swear. I get the hint. We’ll talk later.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Nana, I know you want to help, but I don’t
—”

“Kate! There you are.” Betsy pushed open the kitchen door and stepped forward. “Here. Let me get that. Thirsty crowd out there! Oh, and Cindy wants to know if the cake will be gluten-free, because she brought sorghum flour cookies to share just in case.” She took the pitcher and disappeared back into the living room.

Kate wiped her hands briskly on a dishtowel, ignored Nana’s pointed, questioning look and returned to the fray, letting the door swing closed behind her. She stepped over a girl crawling on all fours and nearly collided with the leggy, Nordic-looking nanny with the low-cut top and generous cleavage. The nanny apologized. Or at least Kate presumed she did, not actually recognizing the language being used. The nanny’s smile was brilliant and white and could only be expensive and imported.

“Are vee having  de kek soon?” nanny asked, blinding Kate again with her teeth. “Vee av an
—ow do you say?—appoint-mont?”

“Cake! Yes! Yes. Good idea. I’ll serve the cake now.” Kate whirled back toward the kitchen where Nana was already ripping open a package of paper plates.

“All I’m saying,”  Nana continued, as if Kate had never left the room, “is it’s better to be a widow when you’re young and attractive than when you’re old like me.”

“
What?”
Kate gaped at Nana and reached to pull the cover off Liam’s rocket ship cake. “Where is this even coming from?”

“I’m just saying if you were my age, you’d have to accept you’re going to spend your remaining days alone.”

“Surrounded by family who loves you.” Or at least tolerates you.
Hmm
. Kate stuck the plastic astronaut figurine on the cake about where she figured the cockpit would be. The cake was a little lopsided and Kate had accidentally dumped the food coloring bottle into the exhaust-plume frosting, so it was
really
vivid, but Liam loved it. That’s all that mattered. Liam
loved
orange.

“Maybe. But that’s not the same as a warm man in your bed and you know it.”

Kate forgot about the frosting for a moment as she sucked in a fortifying breath. She
so
didn’t need a man in her bed. “I’m not ready, Nana.”

“Come on, Katie. Don’t waste your youth mourning him. You need to move on. He’s been gone two months.”

“
Seven. Weeks
. It’s only been seven weeks.”

Nana waved a dismissive hand. “Time enough,” she muttered.

“Nana, it’s more complicated than just getting on with life. I can’t pretend Randy meant nothing to me. We had a child together!”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Randy knocked you up. There’s a world of difference.” Nana held up a hand to stop Kate from interrupting and pulled open the package of candles. “I saw how things were... before things went down the tubes. Let me tell you, once you’ve got a few kids running around the house, it isn’t sex that holds things together. At least, not the
only
thing.”

Kate propped her hands on her hips to argue the point then instantly regretted the action. She scrubbed at the frosting smear on her pants with a dishtowel. And they were having this conversation now...
why??
“So now a wife’s not supposed to be attracted to her own husband? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Don’t twist my words, young lady. Of course she is. And Randy was a charmer, I’ll grant you that. But there’s got to be more to it. A marriage isn’t all about the bedroom. What you need is to find a man who’ll take care of you. One who’ll take care of little Liam, too.”

“They don’t make superheroes anymore, Nana.”

Nana pursed her lips and handed over the cup of plastic forks. “Not a superhero. Just one good man. That’s all you need.”

“What I
need
is way more complicated than any man can fix.” Kate licked a blob of icing off her knuckle and began rummaging through the junk drawer. “
Aargh!
Where are the matches?”

Her grandmother carefully stuck three candles into the cake. “Maybe you could try one of those internet dating services. The ladies agree
—”

“
No.”
Kate could only imagine what that personals ad would look like. “Definitely not. No way.” She narrowed her eyes. “Oh God. You haven’t done anything I should know about, have you? Tell me you haven’t!”

Nana gave her a blankly innocent look. “Of course not.” She reached around Kate and pulled a lighter from the drawer, lit the candles then picked up the cake. “Never mind. We’ll talk more when you’ve calmed down. Time for cake. Can you get the door?”

They sang
Happy Birthday,
Liam blew out his candles, and Nana started doling out cake, the kids descending like locusts.

Kate knew Nana meant well, but there were times it seemed Nana was so intent on everyone being
happy
she couldn’t let go if she thought there was something she could fix. Unfortunately, Kate’s problems felt like the mess in Liam’s
Cat in the Hat
book... so big… and so wide… she’d never clean it all up...

She absently stabbed another mini wiener and stuffed it in her mouth.

“Kate! There you are.”

Kate chewed rapidly and gulped as her boss, Nancy, appeared beside her. Nancy’s daughter and Liam were thick as thieves in music class, or Kate wouldn’t have been guilted into inviting them.

She’d been avoiding Nancy for days—ever since Nancy had not-so-subtly hinted about wanting to talk, a look of pinched concern telling Kate it wouldn’t be a fun conversation.

“I’m sorry to corner you like this, Kate. I’ve been hoping to speak with you, but I’ve been so busy finalizing the strategic plan with the new Board of Directors and taking care of last-minute details before we leave next week….” She shook her head on a wry smile as if to say,
Husbands! How are you going to tell them their surprise anniversary cruise is poor timing?
  “Anyway, do you have a moment?”

“Now?”
Kate forced a smile, the mini wiener lodging somewhere just short of her stomach. Nancy raised an elegant brow expectantly. Kate wondered where all these women found the time for personal grooming. She vowed to find her tweezers as soon as the party was over. “Um. Sure.” She motioned for Nancy to follow her down the hall. “I’m sorry, Liam’s room is a mess, and my grandmother is using the guest room during her visit. Maybe right he—”

“This is fine.”

Kate scurried back down the hall as Nancy veered into the laundry room behind her.

A pair of dingy white panties hung from a clothespin above the washer like a limp, graying flag. Kate snatched them down and shoved them in a laundry basket.

Nancy pursed her lips. “I’ll get right to the point. I know about your plans, Kate. I know… you’re leaving.”

“What?”

“I saw the college paperwork in your drawer. I wasn’t snooping, but you’d left for the day, and, well, it doesn’t matter now.”