The Killing Game(5)
She pulled into her drive. Andi still had some packing to do and the new buyers were giving her through the weekend to move. She’d managed to box up most of her belongings, forcing herself to fill one box per day or it would never happen, but now the push was on. Even though she was pregnant, she had a renewed sense of energy. What had seemed like an insurmountable task now felt doable.
Pregnant . . . !
Her cell buzzed as she was climbing from the SUV. She looked down to find a text from her best friend, Trini.
Tomorrow at the club?
Andi and Trini had a long-standing Tuesday/Thursday morning workout schedule, which Andi had completely abandoned after Greg’s death. Now she texted back You bet and immediately received All right! along with a winking emoticon happy face.
Would she tell Trini about the baby? No . . . not yet. Ditto Carter and Emma. She needed some time to process this. It felt too precious to reveal yet. She had no doubt Carter and Emma would be horrified. She was already the interloper, and now Greg’s child . . . She could already hear them talking about her behind her back, perhaps mounting a lawsuit to claim back the company; that would be just like them.
Her pulse fluttered as she thought about when she would deliver the news. She was three months and not even showing. She had time. Greg’s brother and sister were trying to put a good face on the fact that she was both majority stockholder and a capable business associate, but it was taking all they had. Since Greg’s death they’d been too involved in other business problems, chiefly the quiet war Wren Development was having with the Carrera brothers, who were trying to take over all the properties surrounding Schultz Lake, to put all their concentration on Andi’s position in the company. The Carreras were thugs who used fair means or foul—mostly foul, actually—to achieve their goals; they had tried to put a moratorium on building, not for any reason other than to stop the Wrens. Greg, Carter, and Emma had been handling the project, which involved slogging through and complying with all the county ordinances on the one hand, and dealing with twins Brian and Blake Carrera on the other. Greg’s death had put Andi in the thick of it even while she moved through life as an automaton, but the project had moved forward anyway.
Andi’s emotional fog had allowed Greg’s siblings to run things any way they wanted these past few months, but she’d set up a meeting with them for later today at the site. Even through her numbness, she’d been irked at the way they’d dismissed her, and now that she’d surfaced, she planned to take control of her life and her place in Wren Development.
And what a way to surface ... she was having a baby ... a Wren heir.
The house Greg had insisted on buying for them was over three thousand square feet, a big, square contemporary settled among other big, square contemporaries. Andi parked in the driveway next to the Sirocco Realty sign with its red, diagonal “Sale Pending” banner. She’d already signed papers and the house had closed, so she had through this coming weekend to move, and it was just a matter of schlepping boxes and getting her furniture taken by truck. She couldn’t wait to move in.
She hit the remote for the garage and looked at the wall of boxes waiting for her. She’d left a small trail to the back door and traversed it now, letting herself into the sleek kitchen with its stainless appliances and sink, deeply veined, dark slab granite, and glass and chrome cabinets. No more stainless-steel cleaner, she thought with a sense of freedom. Her cabin was rustic. Not “decorator” rustic. More like old-time, maybe-there-are-mice-in-the-walls rustic.
She was going to have her work cut out for her and she didn’t care.
Of course everyone had told her to wait. Selling your home wasn’t the sort of decisions to make when you were still grieving. She didn’t see how she could explain that she’d never liked the house anyway, that she’d been dragged along by a husband who earnestly believed his wishes were her wishes, and who argued with her whenever she disagreed, certain he could make her see that her opinion was faulty, that she just needed to see his side. She’d learned to rarely fight with him, to pick the few battles carefully for which she would go to the mat. Whenever she did, Greg would roll his eyes and smile, like she was a crazy woman, and finally lift his hands as if she’d been blasting him with artillery fire, drawling, “Oh . . . kay,” in a way that meant he would acquiesce, but she would be sorr . . . eee, no doubt about it. His behavior had put her teeth on edge more than once, but she’d never seriously considered divorce until maybe Mimi. She understood Greg had thought their marriage was stronger than she had, but his perception was always different than hers, so she’d let him believe what he wanted. People were individuals, and as the French said, vive la différence.
And there had been those times when she and Greg did see eye to eye, most of those times being when they were discussing Wren Development and Carter and Emma’s involvement. Greg thought both of them would be poor stewards of the profitable company founded by his grandfather, and Andi had agreed. Of course she’d believed Greg would be the person in charge, never dreaming she would be the one left holding the reins.
She stalked past the heaps of boxes in the foyer and dining room. She didn’t know where she would put everything in her two-bedroom cottage. Half of her belongings were going into storage as it was, and she’d made a pledge to herself that she would empty out the storage unit before a calendar year had passed, using, selling, or giving away everything inside. She had until Sunday evening to move. It was Wednesday, so that gave her five days.