Melinda Curtis - A Marriage Between Friends

Edda Mae was the mother figure Jill had always longed for, and for the most part, Railroad Stop embraced Jill. After Teddy was born she stayed on, unable to curb her overactive imagination when it came to Shady Oak. Jill was still her parents’ daughter and the hospitality industry was in her blood. Where others might have seen a hopeless money pit, Jill had envisioned charming success. When Edda Mae was ready to retire, Jill took out an exorbitantly scary loan cosigned by her parents and employee became employer.

“So.” Teddy crouched over one of the last two boards and began creating a curvy purple road. He was a gangly kid, all knobby elbows and knees, an aficionado of bad jokes, but he was her pride and joy. “Who is he?”

“Who?” Jill tried to play dumb.

“The man from the meeting. Is he your cousin?”

“No.”

“Your brother?”

“No.” Jill half carried, half dragged one of the old wooden sawhorses back into the storage shed.

Teddy was into the lime-green paint when she returned, tracing a curvy line with the color. “Why does he have our last name?”

“All right, all right. I’ll tell you.” Wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans, Jill drew a dramatic breath. “He’s Batman and he’s taken on an alias so that he can continue fighting injustice to protect the innocent.” Although Jill didn’t let Teddy watch much television, she’d broken down and joined a mail-order video-rental service a few weekends before, introducing Teddy to the crime fighter.

“Mo-om.” Teddy stopped painting. He had a way of looking at Jill that said, Cut the BS. “I’m ten, not two.”

“It’s complicated.” Jill poked the ground with one toe. They’d talked about Jill’s separate-but-married status, but lately Teddy had wanted to know more about his father, the man he assumed Jill had married. She didn’t want to tell Teddy he was a rape-conceived child—he was too young to carry that baggage—so she’d resorted to jokes and topic changes.

Something stirred delicately near a leaf by Jill’s foot—a spider. “Eeeeeiiii!!” She leaped a yard away, stumbling backward up the slope. Just the thought of eight spindly legs creeping across her skin gave her the willies.

Teddy dutifully came over with a rolled-up newspaper. “It’s just a baby.” He scooped it up and took it behind the shed.

“Baby?” It was the size of a fifty-cent piece. “I wish you’d kill it.”

“Spiders are good bugs, remember?” Teddy’s voice was muffled. He galloped back waving the newspaper. “All gone.”

Jill shivered. “He’ll be back.”

Edda Mae appeared at the corner of the garage. “I buzzed that casino man in the front gate.”

That was what Jill got for trying to cut costs. The main gate was a quarter mile down the hill. Its intercom rang to Edda Mae’s caretaker’s cottage. It had been significantly cheaper to wire the gate controls to the cottage since it was a hundred feet closer than the apartment above the dining hall/kitchen where Jill and Teddy lived.

“Need I remind you to watch your manners?” Edda Mae asked as she melted back into the shadows. Edda Mae probably expected Jill to race down the road into Vince’s arms.

“I wouldn’t have had to mind my manners if the gate stayed locked,” Jill muttered.

Gravel crunched beneath tires on the driveway and headlights swung around onto them and then away as Vince parked out of sight in front of the garage. A smooth engine roared once before settling into silence.

He’d want a divorce. Jill spun her wedding ring with her left thumb. It wasn’t as if she was going to ask for alimony or child support from Vince. A divorce shouldn’t be a big deal, although odd as it seemed, being married to Vince was part of who she was. But if she had to choose, preserving the small-town integrity of Railroad Stop was more important than a ring on her finger.

“Jill?” Vince’s voice was deep and familiar when so much about her husband was a mystery.

A breath of cool mountain air made Jill shiver. “Over here.”

They’d gone to private school together since kindergarten. In high school, Vince was the class loner, a situation he and his perpetual scowl seemed comfortable with, especially when it didn’t seem to deter a certain type of willing girl. Jill was the brainy girl who didn’t quite fit in. Although they’d been friends of sorts since they were five, the older they got, the less frequently their paths crossed.

Then Vince had asked Jill to come watch the sunset on his boat on Senior Ditch Day. But Craig had been coming over to her house that evening and Craig was so perfect—captain of every sports team, class president—no girl would be stupid enough to turn him down. Whereas Vince…Vince was the kind of boy her parents warned her about.

Jill struggled to fill her lungs with air. Turned out Craig wasn’t so perfect, after all, and Vince…

Teddy balanced his paintbrush on the edge of the can and leaned against Jill, bringing her back to the present. “Is it Batman?” he whispered.

They both giggled. Jill draped an arm over Teddy’s shoulders as Vince came around the corner in his custom-made suit and tie, looking every inch the heir to a grand casino in Las Vegas and draining the laughter from her throat. The rebellious boy who wore a leather jacket and pierced his ear was nowhere to be seen in this man. Jill, on the other hand, had gone from put-together, studious debutante to harried, working single mom. Her stomach flip-flopped.

“It’s good to see you, Jill. You look great.” As Vince approached, his gaze drifted over her, no doubt registering the extra pounds she’d put on over the years.

“You, too.” She didn’t have to tell Vince he looked better than great. He probably knew it. Jill could imagine the plastic babes roaming Vegas falling regularly at his feet. If only she could easily picture Vince turning them down. He must think she was a pathetic pushover for hanging on to him for so long.

Vince held Jill immobile with his dark gaze as he continued to narrow the gap between them. Hugging had become de rigueur in the business world in the past ten years. Surely he didn’t…

Part of her rejoiced. That unexpected emotion was immediately quelled by a stronger, more predictable desire for self-preservation that usually gave Jill the strength to move away, raise a hand and smoothly utter an excuse for a man to keep his distance.

Only, this time she faltered. She could barely remember her own name, much less his. She wanted to put up her guard, but couldn’t lift a finger. And her feet…her feet weren’t moving, either.

He wasn’t stopping. Jill’s heart thudded against her chest.

By sheer force of will she managed to take a jerky step back. Surely he’d see her discomfort. He’d always been good at picking up on her body language, but it had been so long he probably didn’t realize. Long arms reached for her. Large hands settled on her shoulders and drew her to him.

Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t… “Don’t!” she cried, her feet suddenly obeying her mind. Her butt hit the remaining sawhorse and she would have flipped over it, but Vince held her tight.

“I’M NOT GOING to support your casino.” Wary-eyed, Jill wrenched herself free from his grip and edged around the sawhorse until it stood between them.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

“I’m…fine.” She gave her son a weak smile.

“Jill?” That unwanted protective male instinct, the one only Jill aroused, had reawakened. Vince wiped his palms, still warm from touching her, against his trousers and stepped away.

“I’m fine,” Jill repeated, hefting one end of the sawhorse and dragging it toward the open shed behind the garage. “I’m not supporting your casino.”