Dirty Little Midlife Mistake by Lilian Monroe
Candice
I’m goingto kill my mother. Kill her dead, then wait for the earth to open up and swallow me whole. Complete disappearance—that’s the only solution.
Not only did I immediately break my resolution to keep Blake at arm’s length when I agreed to go to dinner with him, but I also introduced him to the craziness that is my family. My mother touched him. She basically propositioned him on my behalf!
The last thing I need is for my mother to play matchmaker.
I never thought I’d turn into a murderer, but I’m not seeing any other options.
But my mother bustles into my cabana and grabs clothes off the chair, saying something about doing my laundry. She tells me she’s already organized a short-term rental house in town, and she intends to stay until I’m back on my feet.
“You stay in this room as long as you want to, though, Candy Cane. That Blake fellow was looking at you like he couldn’t get enough.”
“I think he was laughing at me.”
“Oh, honey.” My mom chucks my cheek. “Trina! We have to get the suitcases over to the rental.”
“The kids are swimming, Mom. I can’t just leave them. Why don’t you go visit with Marge and Dor?”
“Oh, fine.” My mother sweeps all my laundry into a bag and sets it down by the door. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I watch her walk away, letting out a long sigh.
Trina grins. “You know ten minutes means two hours, right?”
“And thank goodness for that.”
Trina laughs. “Where’s Allie?” She sits back in the lounge chair I vacated earlier and takes a sip of my coffee.
“School. She called me this morning before she left. She’s sleeping at a friend’s place while I get our accommodation figured out. Having the time of her life, as far as I can tell.”
“Kids. They’re more resilient than we give them credit for.” Something in my sister’s voice makes me pause. I glance at her as I lie back in Blake’s lounge chair.
“Where’s Kevin?”
Trina grimaces. “We’re separated.”
I freeze. “What? Since when?”
“Mom! Look what I can do.” Toby dives under water and sticks his legs up above the surface. A moment later, his head pops up. “Did you see?”
“Very good, Toby!” Trina calls back with a tight smile. She turns to me. “Three months. I’ve been living with Mom.”
“Wow.” I arch my brows. “Are you doing okay?”
A wry smile. “What, about living with Mom, or about the separation?”
“Both.”
“Mom is fine. Makes me want to tear my hair out, but she’s great with the kids and she’s always in my corner. Last time Kevin tried to weasel his way back into my life, she growled at him and threatened him with a kitchen knife.” Trina snorts, then her face grows sad. “The separation makes me feel like a failure.”
“Oh, Katrina.” I reach over and squeeze my sister’s hand. She passes the coffee back over to me and I take a sip, leaning back to watch the kids play for a moment.
“Have you spoken to Iliana lately?” Trina asks. Our older sister has always been a free spirit. She stopped by Heart’s Cove a year and a half ago on her way to Paris—or was it Amsterdam?—on another one of her world tours.
“Not for a few weeks. She sent me a postcard from the Taj Mahal.” I take another sip of coffee. It’s cold. “Sometimes I wonder if she had it right all along. Just go where the wind takes you and don’t worry about men or kids or roots. Sounds a lot less painful than what we’ve got going on. Marriages ending, deaths, fires. Wouldn’t it be better to be able to pack a bag and take off?”
Trina shrugs. “Wouldn’t be for me.” She nods to her kids. “They make me happier than all my trips combined. Plus, if you were traveling, you wouldn’t be sharing a morning coffee with Blake Harding.” My sister’s eyes gleam. “What’s going on there?”
“Oh, nothing,” I lie. “I don’t know. I think maybe he’s a bit attracted to me, but from what I’ve read about him, he’s attracted to anyone and everyone.”
“I say go for it,” Trina says with a nod. “You deserve a little tryst.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. I had no idea I throw off such a strong ‘repressed forty-something-year-old woman’ vibe.”
Trina laughs.
“Girls, time to go!” Mom calls from the main hotel building. How she manages to make her voice carry like that must be some motherly skill that was never imparted on me.
Trina coaxes Toby and Katie out of the water with lots of protests and promises to return. How kids enjoy swimming in the chill of April weather is beyond me. My sister gets them dried off and dressed, and the four of us join my mother in the parking lot, where a rental car awaits. I tell them I’ll meet them at the café once they’re settled, since I need to shower and change and talk to the fire chief about their findings at my house.
Amazingly, I haven’t thought about Blake’s promise to take me to dinner at all until I’m on my own again. Is dinner allowed when I’m planning on using him purely for sex? Should I refuse the date and just invite him to my room tonight?
The thought of getting naked with him fills me with fear. No one has seen me naked in years. No one. But last night, in the pool, it was very obvious how much his body responded to mine. And the heat in his eyes was unmistakable when he spotted me in my yoga clothes.
It makes me feel…sexy. Is it wrong to enjoy that feeling? To want more of it?
As I shower, I find myself letting my hand drift between my legs at the thought of Blake’s hard length pressed against my stomach. The feel of his lips on mine. The breadth of his shoulders as he wrapped his arms around me.
Pleasure mounts as my legs start to tremble. I haven’t touched myself in a long time. It feels good. Really good…until it doesn’t. Until it feels wrong. Until I pull my hand away and lean my head against the cool tile, trying to dispel the images in my mind.
Everyone keeps telling me it’s normal and healthy and human…so why does it feel so wrong? Why does pleasure feel like a betrayal?
I finish my shower with my teeth gritted. Even on my own, I can’t get past this wall. It’s when I’m toweling off that I realize the truth: the only time I’ve set aside my guilt and sense of betrayal has been in Blake’s arms. Both the kiss and the pool rocked me out of the dark pit where I’ve buried myself alongside my grief, when nothing else has even penetrated the surface.
That’s when I know I want to sleep with him.
Sex, physicality, pleasure—if he can give me those things, I’ll take them, if only to remind myself of all I’ve been missing.
But my heart still belongs to Paul. It has to.
The fire chiefis a black-haired man in his early fifties with an impressive mustache. I’ve met him a few times at school events over the years—his two boys are around Allie’s age. Chief Michael Allen meets me and Simone, who insisted on coming with me for moral support, at the charred husk that used to be my home, handing both of us a hardhat and high-vis vest to put on before we make our way inside.
“We were able to get the fire under control quickly, which is fortunate. A good portion of your house was unaffected by the flames or water, but there will be some smoke damage.” He walks me through the intact front door.
Simone puts her arm around my waist and squeezes. Her lips are pinched in a thin line. We poke our heads into the relatively undamaged living room, and Simone helps me grab a few photo albums from the shelves. We take frames off the walls and stuff them into a reusable grocery bag. Simone hauls it over her shoulder and gives me a stern look when I try to carry it myself. “You just take care of you, Candice. I’ll carry the bag.”
I want to cry and I’m not sure why. My friends are so good to me. There’s too much going on.
Is it completely pathetic that I wish Blake were here with me? Why in the world am I thinking of Blake right now? He’s supposed to be kept in a small box in my brain reserved for sex. Nothing else.
We walk farther into the house and make it to the kitchen, and my heart squeezes. Black soot and demolished remains of cabinets stare back at me. There used to be walls with photos on them there. Now I can see straight through to the blue sky outside.
We walk out to the back patio and turn to look at the black, soot-covered shell of the building. On the second floor, I can see the edge of the small fourth bedroom, the old nursery that turned into Allie’s first bedroom. She’d asked Paul to paint whales all over the walls because she was obsessed with them, devouring every book she could find, sleeping with half a dozen stuffed animal whales. She even painted some of them, and I think that’s what started her love of drawing and doodling and art.
When she became a moody teenager, she asked to move to the spare bedroom since it had a bigger closet. I never painted over the whales, partly because I just never got around to it, and partly because I loved thinking about Paul and Allie cuddled up on that old La-Z-Boy recliner, reading books about marine mammals.
Chief Allen draws my attention to a room off the kitchen on the first floor, the exterior walls completely demolished. “Preliminary findings indicate that the fire started in the utility room.” The space is mostly ash. The damage is heart wrenching. I can’t let Allie see this. Not right now.
“Ms. Viceroy, did you have your dryer running when the fire started?”
I frown. “No. And I clean the lint trap every time I use it. I know it’s a fire hazard.”
He nods. “Air conditioner?”
I gape at the chief. “Yes,” I whisper. “We’d turned it on in the early hours of the morning because it was too hot. It was the first time we had it on this season.”
Chief Allen pinches his lips. “That’s probably where it started. Looks electrical, and if you hadn’t had your A.C. serviced in over a year, it’s likely something shorted and sparked. There could have been flammable material in there, could have blown in from outside. Could have been tiny particles of lint floating in the air from the dryer since it was in the same room. Impossible to know.”
“It could have started in the night when we were in there,” I whisper, horror flooding my veins. “We could have been sleeping. Allie…” My voice catches.
Simone squeezes my hand.
Chief Allen puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You weren’t. That’s the important thing. You have insurance?”
I nod, mute. That’s one thing Paul taught me. Everything big—life, health, car, home—was covered. He’d been sick his whole life, and he wanted to make sure we were safe. We always took out the best policies, because he’d learned young that disaster can strike when you least expect it. I kept the same policies after he passed, mostly out of laziness and unwillingness to switch, but partially because I knew he was right.
I send a silent thank you to my husband. He was a good man. Responsible. Loyal.
The rest of the tour is short. The stairs were damaged, and it’s too dangerous to see the second story. Chief Allen escorts Simone and me out of the house, gives me his card, and tells me to call him if I need anything. His voice is gruff, his eyes intent on me. I expect him to walk away, but he…lingers. “The insurance company should be able to release the funds to you fairly quickly. If they don’t, keep calling them. Tell them you’re a single mother with nowhere to stay, and raise hell if they try to delay. If they’re being difficult, call me. I’ll be happy to be your attack dog. I don’t want to see you and your daughter homeless.”
I glance at the chief, at his wide, protective stance, at the intensity of his gaze. He moves his hand as if to reach for me, then drops it. “You’ll be all right, Candice.” My name comes out as a rasp when he says it. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Okay,” I answer, wrapping his words around me like armor.
“Everything will be okay,” the gruff man says, his voice softening. “I see this all the time. You were lucky the damage was localized. You should thank your neighbors for being vigilant and calling the fire department at the first sign of smoke.”
I nod. “I’ll give them free coffee for life. And you too. Free coffee any time you want it. Pastries, too. Whatever you want.”
“That doesn’t sound like a smart business model,” Simone says from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes shine with humor I don’t understand as she meets my gaze.
A slight smile from the chief. “Might take you up on that, Candice.” He waits until Simone is behind the wheel and I’m safely in the passenger seat of my car before giving me a wave and walking away.
Simone grips the steering wheel, watching him until he disappears into his own vehicle. Then she turns to me. “That man wants to sleep with you.”
“What?” I whirl toward her.
“‘Call me if you need anything, Candice,’” she says, lowering her voice to a deep register. “‘Maybe a late-night massage with my big, strong, fireman hands?’”
“You’re imagining things.” I wave my hand, face heating. “He was being professional.”
“Uh-huh. Professional, my ass.” She turns the key in the ignition. “If I hadn’t been there, he probably would have asked if you wanted a tour of the firehouse. Maybe a ride on the pole, if you know what I mean.”
“Stop it.” I’m blushing, trying to keep my head angled away from Simone so she doesn’t see.
She sees, obviously, nudging my arm before putting the car in gear. “Look at you. Men lining up around the block to take you out. About time they realized what a babe you are.”
“You live in a fantasy land, Simone.”
“Maybe you should join me. It’s more fun on this side of reality.” A slash of a grin as we drive toward the café where my mother, my sister, and her kids are probably going to be more interested in interrogating me about Blake Harding than they are about the fire or the sorry state of my life.
I stiffen in my seat. “Don’t you dare tell my mother that Chief Allen wants to sleep with me.”
Simone giggles.
“I’m serious!”
