Deconstructed(23)

“Sure.”

One minute later, I hung up. Then, since I had already pulled the trigger on a divorce attorney, I clicked on the phone number Ling had given me, my heart beating in my ears.

I was doing it.

Seizing my own life by the horns and steering it where it needed to go . . . even if it was really smelly and quite a struggle.

The phone rang and was answered. “Patrick Vitt.”

No Can I help you? or delivering his title. Just a straightforward kind of guy.

“Hi, my name is Catherine Crosby, and I’m interested in hiring you for some work.”

Five minutes later, I had a link for a form I would fill out detailing what I needed from my new PI guy. As soon as I filled out the form, signed an agreement for services, and sent a deposit, Pat Vitt, former investigator with the Caddo Sheriff’s Department and former head of Lucky Diamond Casino security, would start getting the goods on Scott.

Rubbing my fingers against my eyes, I released a heavy but determined sigh. I’d pressed the launch button and my course was set. This missile would hit my marriage and blow my sanity to smithereens. But after the dust settled, I would find a new place for myself. A place where I could grow and hopefully thrive.

This was my wish.

That I would not just let life happen to me but instead direct my life toward something better.

Looking into the mirror, I saw the resolution and sadness in my eyes. I flipped the sun visor up, started the van, and drove home.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled a stick of butter out of the fridge to bring it to room temperature so I could make a pound cake for my neighbor who’d had a bunion removed. Nothing made a person forget she’d lost half her foot like cake, right?

The back door opened, startling me, and in walked Scott. I glanced at the clock. Home at four thirty?

“Hey, sweetheart,” Scott said, dumping all his junk onto the counter. Keys clanked, papers wafted, mail spilled. I tried not to frown. “You finally got dressed. Good girl.”

I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see them.

“So how was your day?” he asked.

Fabulous. I hired a divorce attorney and a private investigator to remove your testicles from your person and place them in the palm of my hand. “Oh, it was fine. I went to West Highland Middle School to pass out pizza to the honor-roll kids.”

Scott went to the pantry and pulled out pita chips. Funny how annoying all that crunching was when you were falling out of love with someone. I was pretty sure that’s what I was doing. I’d cried my tears, and now I was in the process of letting go, distancing myself so I could protect myself. Hey, I had taken psychology in college.

He stood over me as I measured out flour, crunching and dropping crumbs on the floor. “Always at that school, aren’t you? They should give you an award or something.”

I rolled down the top of the flour bag and placed it in the storage container, sealing it against pestilence and any ill will that might befall it in my pantry. “Yeah. Sure. I’d have to arm wrestle all the other helicopter moms to get it. So what are you doing home early?”

He did some more of the annoying smacking thing, the bag crinkling each time he fished out a chip. “I had a meeting in Natchitoches that finished early. Since I gotta take JK to tennis clinic after soccer, I thought I would come home and have an early dinner with my girl.”

I blinked.

His girl?

“Well, that’s a nice thought, but I wasn’t planning on cooking tonight,” I said.

He crackled the bag some more. So irritating. “Thought we’d grab a quick bite at El Verde before I had to go. Just catch up. Spend some time together.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him, dropping a kiss onto my neck.

My first inclination was to lean into him. This was muscle memory craving the intimacy that I always longed for. That sweetness that had once risen between us, the feel of his skin, his lips on my pulse point, the comfort of his body against mine. But then as soon as my neurons fired that way, my brain overrode the impulse. I used my hip to send a message. “I can’t. I have to bake this cake for Janice. She had a bunion removed today.”

“Seriously? Your husband wants to take you out on the town and you’re more interested in baking Janice a cake. Have you seen her ass lately? You can skip the cake.”

Yeah, falling out of love was like cleaning a window you didn’t know was dirty. Suddenly things were so clear.

“Don’t be mean. And an early dinner at El Verde is hardly ‘out on the town.’”

Scott popped me on my own expanding bottom. “Look, I’ll grab a shower, you put the cake in, and we’ll go to dinner when it’s out of the oven. Or we can stay in and have sex on the kitchen floor. Your choice.”

I whipped my head around and stared at him. He arched a brow like he knew the answer. Hey, I loved the chips and guac at El Verde. I opened the oven and shoved the Bundt pan inside. “Dinner out sounds fine.”

“Ha, I already knew the answer.” Scott snorted good-naturedly and moved away from me, and for a teeny, tiny moment I felt a flash of guilt for pushing him away. This was why he’d taken up with the tennis slut. Even though I knew women weren’t supposed to call other women sluts because there was no shame in liking sex. But there was shame in liking sex with another woman’s husband. So . . .