“I know marriage counseling hasn’t worked out. Mine hasn’t, either. Maybe she’s like your husband, put the two of us in a room and Pamela has to win. She’ll do anything to win. But maybe you should think about your own counselor. Just for you. Someone to help you get through the rough patches.”
She had done that once, on the sly, a secret counselor. Maybe she should revisit that idea. “Do you have your own counselor?” she asked.
“I don’t,” he said. “It’s been suggested and I might go that way yet. Right now, things are manageable. Not fun but manageable.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.
“Listen...” He paused and glanced away. “I’d like to see you again. Is that possible?”
“Probably not. A complication right now...”
“I’m not suggesting anything illicit, but if you want someone to talk to... I know I wouldn’t mind having someone to talk to.”
“I can’t depend on a man right now, not even for talking.”
“I wouldn’t want that, either,” he said. He pulled out a card. “That’s my cell number. If you want a cup of coffee. Or if you’re sitting on a park bench worrying about things...”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s doubtful I’ll call.”
“I understand,” he said. “It’s an offer.”
“But you’re a busy guy and I’m a virtual stranger.”
“Doesn’t really feel that way,” he said. “Here we are, two people going through divorces with grown kids to deal with and... You know. It just happened that way. Neither one of us ran an ad or signed up for online dating.”
“I appreciate the offer,” she said, smiling.
“We’ll run into each other again,” he said. “Meanwhile, hang in there.”
* * *
Father Tim was leaning on his hoe, waiting for Beau in a stance that looked like the old farmer stance, except that Tim was anything but an old farmer. Plus he was grinning mischievously, ready to give Beau the business. “Your friend Lauren is very attractive.”
“Stop looking. You’re supposed to be a priest,” Beau said, lifting his shovel.
“A priest, not a corpse,” he said with a laugh. “Did you notice her eyes are violet?”
“Must be contacts,” Beau said. “No one actually comes with eyes that color.”
“If they’re born from a god and a high priestess.”
“Spread the manure on the ground, Father.”
He had noticed everything about her. He loved the sound of her voice, her easy laughter, her rich and soft brown hair that fell to her shoulders. It was the color of mahogany. He loved her sass when he ran into her at the fund-raiser and noticed that when the subject turned to her husband, her marriage, it sucked the confidence right out of her. She had that lean and strong look, like a thoroughbred. She was tall and she had kind of big feet, but tall women had to have a sturdy base or they’d blow over in the wind. And that thought made him smile secretly.
“You’re seeing her?”
“No. She’s going through a divorce. Or will be soon. No, I haven’t been seeing her. It’s like she said, we met accidentally a couple of times, that’s all.”
“How do you know about the divorce?”
Beau leaned on his shovel. “I told her I was separated. The next time we met she said she’d be in the same spot before long. So here we are, strangers with grown kids, getting divorced...”
“What are her issues?” Tim asked.
“I have no idea, Tim. We’re not close friends.”
“But you want to be,” Tim said, then wisely shut his mouth and turned back to spreading fertilizer.
It was true. He wanted to be. “That was the last thing I was looking for,” Beau said. “Pamela kind of cures you of women. She doesn’t look like the kind of woman who’d make you want to jump off a very tall building, does she? But she’s—”
“Pamela needs help, Beau. She’ll never get it, but she’s so temperamental and narcissistic, she’s not going to function well in a relationship. Medication and counseling could help her but she’s probably not open to that idea.”
“I don’t know if it’s even been suggested,” Beau said. “The mood swings almost killed me. And trying to make herself happy with things—outrageously expensive shoes or purses. And a better man. She always says she’d left the relationship before the man but I don’t think so... Then when the grass isn’t really greener, she comes home.”
Of course Beau had told Tim all this before. Tim had been back four years now, came home to find his closest friend mired in a mess of a marriage with a selfish and manipulative woman.
“But I’ll be forever grateful to Pamela for giving me a chance with those boys,” Beau said. “They’re good boys. When it’s the three of us, when we go camping or fishing or hiking, we have a good time. One who thinks too much and one who lets everything go.”
“Don’t get yourself in a complicated situation with a beautiful woman who’s trying to leave her husband,” Tim said.
“Don’t sin?” Beau asked.
“That’s probably asking a bit much,” Tim said with a laugh. “It’s just that there’s an intensity about Lauren...”
“Well, what would you expect? She’s obviously pretty worried about what’s coming. She asked me how I told the boys. She has to tell her daughters.”
“I know you want to help her,” Tim said. “I’d just like you to remember, Pamela needed support when you met her. She’d just come out of a bad relationship and found you to help her pick up the pieces.”
“Hey, I don’t know this woman, okay? But she doesn’t seem like a Pamela! Manure on the plants, Father.”
“All right. Don’t get testy.”
“I’m not,” Beau said, digging a shovelful of fertilizer out of the split bag.
But he was. He was annoyed because Tim could be absolutely right. When he met beautiful, sexy Pamela, he didn’t see a selfish, impatient, hard-to-please woman with a short attention span. Oh no—he saw a vulnerable and sweet young woman saddled with two hard-to-manage little boys, a woman so grateful to have a good, steady man in her life, a man interested in the parent-teacher conferences. It was a couple of years before he met the other Pamela. Oh, he’d seen hints of her here and there, but they were so fleeting he convinced himself that everyone has their bad days.
Lauren, at first glance, seemed like a good woman with a strong moral compass. She couldn’t meet him even just to have someone to talk to if it could become a distraction, a complication. She wanted to be sure her daughters were informed in the best way of what was coming. She didn’t trash the husband she was leaving, yet it was clear in her eyes and what little she said, she was in a bad situation. When he asked if he hit her, she rubbed her upper arms and said, “No.” She was beautiful. Sweet and sensitive.
And in two years they could be at each other’s throats. She could be railing at him about how dull he was, how uninteresting, how inattentive. He didn’t dance. He had quiet friends. He didn’t want to party. She could be explaining how her life had become unfulfilling, how her needs were not being met...
...how her sex life needed to be recharged.
“There were red flags with Pamela,” Tim said. “You told me all about them, how obvious they were, how you convinced yourself you were overreacting because most of the time things were good. And besides, no one’s perfect. You admit you have failings. In fact, you’re a little too eager to admit your—”
Beau stopped shoveling and stared at his friend. “Stop reading my mind.”
“Sorry,” Tim said. “I wasn’t sure I was.”
“You do it all the time and it pisses me off.”
“I said I was sorry. So, we can count on you for basketball Thursday night?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Father?” a female voice said from the walk. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. I was just wondering...”
“Angela! How wonderful to see you! What brings you to my neighborhood?”
“A fool’s errand, I think. It’s still so early in the spring, but my shelves are bare of the fresh stuff and my clientele could use some greens. It was just a gamble, that you might have some lettuce that came in early.”
“Beau, meet my friend Angela,” Tim said. “She operates a food bank in Oakland. It’s where a lot of our fresh stuff from the garden ends up.”
“It’s a pleasure,” Beau said. He couldn’t help but notice how Tim’s eyes lit up. He also noticed how beautiful the Latina woman was, black hair in a single braid down her back. Beau guessed she was about thirty. Her eyes danced as she was focused more on Tim than Beau. She wore tight jeans with rips in the knees, hoodie tied around her waist. She was lovely. And Tim’s entire mood changed.
“We don’t have anything yet but I’m friendly with the produce manager at the big Safeway. One of my parishioners. Let’s go see if he’s clearing out produce. I bet we’ll get something, no matter what his stock looks like. Let’s go in your car, then you can drop me back here.”
“I knew you’d help if you could,” she said, smiling so beautifully.
“Let’s go then,” he said. He took her elbow to guide her, walked her away from the garden. He leaned down to talk with her and they laughed together.
Tim never looked back at Beau.
“Interesting,” Beau said. Then he proceeded to spread fertilizer.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Delaney family home was in a posh, gated neighborhood in Mill Valley. Guests had to be cleared by the guard at the gate to enter. It was much more house than Lauren wanted or needed, especially with the girls being gone, but Brad found it and contracted the purchase without her involvement six years ago. It was an eight-thousand-square-foot showplace. She had been stunned but helpless. What was she to say? We don’t need all this since I’m not planning to be married to you that much longer? She had two choices—she could sign the purchase agreement and at least be a co-owner of the massive property. Or she could refuse and he’d just buy it himself.