* * * *
Mitch wasn’t expecting that, but it moved her more than she thought it would. “Thank you, Donna. Really, I mean it. I’m okay. I’ve been okay for a long time now. It took me a while to get over it, but I’m moving on. I’m going to go ahead and file for divorce, but please don’t tell him that. That’s why I want to talk to him.”
“Ahhh. I see. I won’t say a word.” The secretary giggled. “Personally, and I know this is a really evil thing for me to say, but I hope you soak him good, dear.”
Mitch burst out laughing so hard it brought tears to her eyes. The women laughed together for a minute before Mitch finally regained control of herself. “Oh, Donna, that’s funny.” She giggled. “Thank you, but I’m not after his money. I wouldn’t want to put you out of a job.”
They said good-bye, and when Mitch hung up, she felt better than she had since finding Barres’s body. She stood and stretched, feeling the urge to go jogging despite the heat rapidly invading the morning. She quickly changed and collected Pete and set off toward the spring again.
She didn’t even get all the way to 595 before sweat poured down her face. With the air-conditioning on in the house, she’d misjudged the humidity level. She felt like she was trying to breathe through a warm, wet, woolen blanket. It felt better once she turned onto the shaded dirt road leading down to the spring. When she reached it, on a whim she jumped in, Pete splashing in next to her. They spent several minutes enjoying the cool water before slowly loping back to the house. Pete was already dry. She took a cool shower to wash the sweat and dust off of her.
She changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top and went into the kitchen to fix a glass of iced tea and check the messages. There was one from Ed, one from a customer requesting a charter, and Ron telling her he had her divorce papers ready. She called the customer back to arrange the charter, then spent about an hour working on paperwork. It was noon when she headed out to the marina with lunch for her and Ed in a small cooler on the floor of the front seat of the Bronco.
Ed was doing some chores they always needed to finish but never got around to. He poked his head up out of the engine compartment and smiled when he saw her pull into the parking lot.
She unloaded and walked down to the boat. “Hey, you look like you’re in a chipper mood today,” he said.
“I am.” She told him about the conversation with Donna. They both laughed about it as they unwrapped their sandwiches and started eating. “I feel like a weight’s being lifted off my shoulders. It’s not gone yet, but it’s getting lighter every day.”
He nodded in agreement. “Once Faith told me she wanted out of our marriage, I felt the same way. I guess I knew we weren’t going to last, but I didn’t want to give up and think I didn’t try. But once I knew it was over, it was a relief to get it done.”
Mitch studied his face for a long moment before speaking. They had never really discussed in-depth the circumstances leading up to his divorce before. “How did you feel when she broke the news to you?”
He thought about it for a while before answering. “It hurt, but I felt relieved at the same time. It was a mistake for the two of us to get married in the first place. We were way too different in the ways that mattered. We didn’t have the kind of relationship we needed. Not like we—” he stopped suddenly, glancing at Mitch for a moment before quickly looking away, a deep crimson blush filling his tan face. “Let’s get this done so we can enjoy tonight,” he quickly said before she could ask him what he meant.
Her heart raced as she watched him crawl back into the engine compartment. She wanted to believe with all her heart that he was going to say, “not like we do,” the we meaning him and her. Ron’s words haunted her again, and she thought about it for the rest of the afternoon as they finished their chores.
* * * *
Ed tried to keep his hands from trembling as he finished the wiring. Eventually his heart stopped pounding in his chest and he felt the blood drain from his face. It was getting harder for him to deny the feelings he felt for Mitch, but fear still overrode the desire to tell her. They fueled the boat at the gas dock before leaving the marina late that afternoon. He went with her to the Winn-Dixie to get groceries for the charter the next day, and they had dinner at his place that evening.
When he finally went to sleep that night he thought about how nice it would be to have her sleeping next to him.
* * * *
John took Jenna back to her apartment so she could change clothes and get her laptop. Her apartment impressed him. It wasn’t as expensive as his condo by any means, but she’d elegantly and tastefully decorated it, and kept it extremely neat and tidy.
He wandered around the living room while she was in the bedroom and not for the first time examined the pictures on the end tables and hung on the walls. Some of her when she was younger with what appeared to be siblings. There only appeared to be one, however, of her and her ex, taken on their wedding day with her family standing around them.
John picked the frame up and examined the picture. Her ex, John closed his eyes and recalled his name was Bob, wasn’t at all as John had pictured him. Tall and thin, a basketball coach’s dream. He didn’t look the part of a sharkish lawyer.
A wry smile creased the corners of John’s mouth. Then again, I don’t look like a lady killer.
He replaced the picture when he heard Jenna’s approach. “Well, I’m ready.” She carried a small overnight bag slung over her shoulder and the laptop case in her hand. She worked as a computer analyst for a telecom firm in Orlando.
He held out his hand for her bags and noted the pleasantly surprised look on her face as she handed them over. He carried them down to his car and put them in the backseat of the sports car for her. He stood by the passenger door and held it open, brushing her lips with a gentle kiss as she passed him.
She smiled, her eyes dancing with humor. “You really spoil me rotten.”
He knew she watched him through the windshield as he walked around to the other side of his Porsche. He smiled to himself.
Sometimes, it’s almost too easy.
He carried her bags up to his condo when they arrived. Once the door shut behind them, he set them on the floor and took her hand in his. He felt her tremble as he kissed it, stroking the back of it with his other hand. “What would you like to do?” He smiled.
She smiled in return. “Need you ask?” She laughed and stepped into his arms.
* * * *
John called in for his messages around three. Donna’s cheerful voice answered. “Gulf Coast Images.”
“Hi, Donna. It’s me. Any messages?” He wrote as she talked. “Okay. Tell her I’ll be in the rest of the week. I don’t have any appointments scheduled, do I? Okay. Just tell her to call the morning she wants to come in to make sure I’m there. Fine, see you in the morning.”
He laughed as he tossed the notepad on the table and turned back to Jenna’s open arms. “Now, where were we?”
She smiled. “Right about here.” She pointed.
Chapter Twelve
Sami and Matt beat the charter passengers to the boat the next morning. Once the charter passengers arrived, Mitch and Ed loaded their gear and were soon idling down the channel. Because of low tide, Mitch guided the Sun Run from the flybridge. Even after her many years of navigating the channel, she still didn’t know the locations of all the rocks. Sometimes, she thought, new ones grew when no one was looking.
It was going to be a beautiful day. A slight breeze had kicked up from the west, but forecasters predicted the afternoon storms would hold off until later that evening, more than likely until after they returned to port. Her paying customers were two vacationing couples from Michigan. Fortunately, they wanted to do underwater photography and not spearfishing, which would allow her and Ed a chance to put some fish on the boat. Mitch checked out the divers’ logbooks, and while they had plenty of freshwater diving experience, their ocean diving was sorely lacking. Mitch and Ed decided they w
ould take turns accompanying them during their dives.
Better safe than sorry.
Sami climbed up the ladder and joined Mitch. “Want some company?”
Mitch smiled. “Sure.”
Sami sat on the bench, next to Mitch. “So, have things started to quiet down from this weekend?”
“I suppose so. We’ll see. I may be going from the frying pan into the fire.”
The quizzical look on her friend’s face prompted Mitch to explain. “I’m filing for divorce.”
Sami hugged her. “Congratulations. Or whatever the right thing to say here is. It’s damn well time you did.”
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t love him anymore, haven’t in several years. I still feel like I failed or something.”
“Hey, don’t feel like that. You weren’t the one in bed with that bimbo.”
Mitch made a slight adjustment to the wheel to avoid a small runabout anchored near the channel. “What did you feel after…” Mitch didn’t know how to phrase her thoughts and wasn’t sure where to go with that thought after she started it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Sami’s eyes focused far away on the horizon. She didn’t talk about her first husband very much. At least, not about the last several weeks of his life. When Sami finally spoke again, her voice sounded weary and full of old emotion. “Mitch, I loved Steve. I truly did. But the man I loved and married died before he ever fell into that lake. That wasn’t Steve that day. Steve had died days, maybe even weeks before.
“It was hard for me. I loved Matt, you know that. I’d already decided my marriage was over. Steve had started drinking again, was lying to me about it even though I didn’t know it at the time. After the first intervention, I swore I’d never put up with that again. Matt and I spent all those years apart and hurting because I made a really dumb mistake and married a man I loved, but wasn’t in love with. All because I thought I wanted something that in the end, didn’t really matter. I was fortunate that Matt didn’t give up on me and still wanted me after all that time.” She turned to Mitch.
“Don’t make the same mistake I did, Mitch. You’ve got Ed, and he loves you. I can see it in everything he says and does. So can Matt. You need to take the chance and open up to him.”
Mitch mulled over Sami’s words for the rest of the afternoon. Whenever Ed wasn’t looking, Mitch watched him and weighed her options. She was getting too old to be playing teenage dating games, but she didn’t want to lose her best friend in the process.
Or her heart.
* * * *
Later that evening, before Ed arrived for dinner, Mitch checked the messages on the answering machine and listened to Donna relay John’s message. That reminded her that she’d forgotten to get the papers from Ron. She looked up Ron’s number and called him.
“Hey, can I come by in the morning and pick those up?”
“Sure, hon. No problem. Have you talked to John yet?”
“No. He was ‘out of the office’ today,” she sniped.
“Now, now, Mitch,” she heard him chuckle. “Be nice to him until that agreement is finalized. Once he signs it, bash the fucker all you want.”
“I know, I know. I’m going to try to see him tomorrow. I hope he doesn’t put up a fight. You know how obnoxious he can be when he wants to.”
“Well, that’s an ad guy for you.” He laughed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
They said good-bye. Mitch was left to think about her soon-to-be ex as she prepared dinner. John’s advertising business was very successful, so he claimed. He’d even bought himself a brand-new red Porsche Carrera the previous Christmas. Besides his local clients, he had prestigious accounts with firms in Miami, Tallahassee, Naples, Palm Beach, even in the Bahamas and on Grand Cayman. When dating, he didn’t try to impress her with his money, but he would never allow her to pay for a single thing when together. He even wanted to pay off her Bronco for her, but she insisted on buying it with her own money. In retrospect, she was glad she had. It was now paid for, but he had no claim to it whatsoever.
When they bought their house in Carrollwood, the financing paperwork went through with amazing ease. She later found out it was because he’d put down a fifty-thousand-dollar cash payment. And she meant cash. The money was directly transferred out of an account she didn’t know about.
She finally decided she wouldn’t worry about the status of their finances because the bills were getting paid, he didn’t appear to be doing anything illegal, and they filed separate IRS returns anyway, so if he got audited it wouldn’t affect her.
She hoped.
She heard Ed’s truck in the drive and let Pete out to greet him. Ed appeared in the door a minute later with one arm hid behind his back and a grin on his face.
Mitch couldn’t help but smile. “What are you up to?”
He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Close your eyes.”
“Ed?”
“Close ’em.” She did, and she heard the freezer door open and shut. “Okay, you can open them.”
“What did you do?”
“Just don’t open the freezer until after dinner. I got you a surprise.”
“But—”
“Promise me.” The look on his face melted her heart. She smiled and promised she wouldn’t peek.
Dinner was a fun affair. Mitch felt a playfulness between them that hadn’t been there before. Several times their eyes met. She wondered if Ed felt the same surge of emotion she did each time it happened. After the dishes were done, Ed sent Mitch to the living room to watch TV while he prepared her surprise. A few minutes later, with a very proud look on his face, Ed walked into the room carrying two tall sundae glasses filled with vanilla ice cream and crème de menthe sauce.
She squealed with delight. “Mint parfaits! You remembered!” She took hers as he sat down next to her on the sofa. Before she realized what she was doing, she kissed him on the cheek. “I haven’t had one of these in years.”
Ed blushed with pleasure. “I thought you’d enjoy a little treat.”
They finished their desserts in front of the television, sitting in companionable silence as they ate. She offered to take his empty glass into the kitchen, but he got up instead and took hers. “You sit here and relax,” he said.
He returned and they sat side by side with Pete on the couch next to them, his head resting on Mitch’s lap. Several times Mitch started to talk about the things Ron and Sami had said to her, and each time she chickened out. When eleven o’clock rolled around, Ed stretched and yawned before standing.
“I really need to go, hon. It was a long day, and I’m worn out.”
She walked him to the door, an invitation for him to stay the night welded fast to the tip of her tongue.
“Good night. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, hon.” He kissed her on the forehead. Then he paused, looked at her, and kissed her again briefly, almost chastely, on the lips. She was frozen by the heat of it. Before she could respond he smiled, turned, and left.
She closed the door behind him and rested her head against it, groaning in frustration.
“Why the hell can’t I do it?”
Chapter Thirteen
When Mitch awoke at dawn the next morning, she knew there was no way she could go back to sleep. Tangled pictures that she couldn’t decipher once morning took the edge off them filled her dreams. She knew they were comprised mostly of images of Ed. She sat up and looked down at Pete, who lay curled up on the floor next to her bed.
“Feel like a run, boy?”
He looked up at her and thumped his tail once. Definitely not an enthusiastic response. She walked out to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. While she waited, she stood at the sliding glass doors to watch the grey horizon out behind the cypress marsh to the east of Aripeka. As the smell of coffee filled the kitchen, Mitch’s stomach growled. She decided to get her run over with so she could grab a bite to eat.
She quickly drank a cup of c
offee and set off for the spring with Pete in tow. The morning felt slightly cool, the humidity low, and the scent of salt water and night-blooming jasmine hanging in the air. She felt light. She imagined her feet barely touched the ground as she jogged and was almost surprised when she looked back and saw footprints behind her.
It was full daylight when she returned to the house and stepped into the shower. She knew she had to call John’s office. She wasn’t looking forward to that, or her eventual talk with him. But she did, however, look forward to seeing Ed.
Mitch scrubbed the sweat and dust off and thought about Ed again. She wanted him, but she didn’t want to just jump into bed with him, as pleasant as she found that image. She wanted to explore developing a closer relationship with him, but didn’t want to force it along. She wanted to break through the barrier so that if something was destined to develop, it would have the freedom to do so.
She also wanted to quit being such a chickenshit but didn’t know how.
Mitch was dressing when the phone rang. A glance at the clock and she saw it wasn’t quite eight. She instinctively knew it was Ed. “Hello?”
“Good morning.” She could almost hear the smile on his face. “What are you up to?” he asked.
“We just went jogging. Pete’s not happy.”
Ed laughed. “He doesn’t like it when you wake him up this early to pound the pavement. When will you get to the shop?”
“I need to call John’s office. If he’s going to be in, I need to go see him and talk to him about filing the papers. If I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done.” She wondered if Ed would comment on that.
“Okay. See you when you get here.”
Mitch tried to read something, anything into his words and tone. “It shouldn’t take long if I do,” she added. Come on, give me a bone. Anything. Not knowing how he felt about her gnawed at her.