Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2)(33)
“You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset! I’m just... stunned.” Okay, maybe a little upset. “Why now? Why all of a sudden?”
“We’ve been talking of selling for years. You just haven’t been around to hear.”
Liz didn’t reply. Was it true? In escaping all that had been less than comfortable during her teenage years—the unfulfilled crushes, the awkward social maneuverings, the time they had to send her brother away to juvie after he blew up the Dickenson’s boathouse with an illegal stash of fireworks—had she turned her back on the good memories, too? Maybe she had walked away without a backwards glance. Still.
“I can’t believe you got rid of Cookie Rooster,” she sulked.
“Oh, stop. He’s in the corner cupboard. I was going to give him to you last Christmas, but with all the hubbub with the new baby and those storms that kept you in Chicago, I forgot.”
Truthfully, she’d been glad of the storms. It meant she didn’t have to come up with a less credible excuse. Work had been busy, and she and Grant had been spending more and more time together.
“Listen,” her mother said, cutting into her thoughts. “I’ve got to run. The orthopedist just came in.”
Liz mumbled a goodbye, hung up and looked around at the counters with their faded, worn laminate and metal trim and dull, brown cabinets, functional and well-built, but no more attractive than when they’d been installed decades ago.
The funny thing was, ever since all those “Leave It To Beaver” re-runs she used to watch with her dad, she’d always envisioned herself as an adult in this very kitchen—a modern-day June Cleaver wearing a cheery apron in her bright, retro-inspired domain, the scent of cookies filling the air.
Of course, her fantasy self had a husband with dark hair and green eyes. She would coolly handle running the kitchen, their household, and their two point two children—one boy, one girl plus a twinkle in her eye—as she juggled a satisfying professional career, respected and admired for her keen intellect.
Liz sighed and went to rinse her glass. That was a girl’s fantasy of what adulthood would bring. Yes, she’d matured and grown more self-confidant, working hard to achieve financial security and a weight she wasn’t embarrassed to fudge on her driver’s license. But what did she have to show for it other than a healthy nest-egg for which she had no specific plans whatsoever?
Maybe Trish had been right after all.
Liz pushed aside the tired, faded café curtain over the sink and stared at the old orchard just beginning to brighten with small green leaves. The blossoms were mostly gone by now, their pale pink and white petals carpeting the ground.
She let the curtain drop back into place.
It wasn’t that she actually thought she’d grow up to live the June Cleaver fantasy. It wasn’t even that she believed the husband or the house or even the cookies would make her magically happy. The hard part about coming home, she realized, was that if it were so easy to up and take time off, if she were that quick to say ‘yes, I’ll come home,’ then maybe the career, the relationships, the life she’d built elsewhere over the past decade weren’t making her blissfully happy either.
She sighed again. Wonderful. She wasn’t even thirty yet and she was having a mid-life crisis.
Liz swallowed and turned toward the room. It looked empty and dully sterile without the odds and ends of life to populate it. While she sent up a silent cheer that the hideous, harvest gold bicentennial canister set was nowhere in sight, it seemed like the home she’d thought she’d see one last time was already gone.
Bending low, Liz pulled Cookie Rooster out of the corner cupboard and placed him on the counter. His bright red and yellow plumage and portly belly never failed to cheer her.
Maybe because she’d spent so many days as a teenager baking chocolate chip cookies. She’d often hid in the kitchen, come to think of it. Cooking and imaging a rosy, idyllic future.
Liz ran her hand over Cookie Rooster. She hardly recognized herself since coming home. She’d gone from a Liz who ate quinoa and had an almost-fiancé to a Liz who ate swiss cake rolls and accepted dates with men who she’d fantasized about way more than she’d ever admit to.
It was enough to give anyone an identity crisis.
She repositioned Cookie Rooster to best advantage and made a mental note to add chocolate chips to her grocery list. And quinoa. Just in case.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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THE OCCASIONAL SOFT GRUNTS drew his attention first. That and the denim cut-offs hugging Liz’s hips as she attempted to clean the ceiling above the stove from the top of a stepladder. Carter tapped on the slider window with his knuckle and waved. Liz bobbled her sponge and stepped down to retrieve it, giving him a pleasant, albeit brief, view of her backside. She slid the door open.
“Carter! What are you doing here?” She smoothed her hair behind her ear, the faded Bates T-shirt she’d worn that first day pulling snug over her curves as she stepped back for him to enter.
“I ordered the wrong retaining wall blocks for another job, so I have some unplanned free time. Anyway, I know you said you’d take care of it, but it was such a nice afternoon, I thought I’d come help rip out the deck. I see someone beat me to it.” He stepped into the kitchen from a cement block someone had set as a temporary step outside the door.