Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

Publix parking lot, but her call went directly to voice mail. It was just as well, she thought, because she really wanted to tell him firsthand how her visit to Gulf Vista played out.

She drove around to the back entrance to Jungle Jerry’s and found the nearly hidden driveway that led to Wyatt’s trailer. His truck was parked under the carport, in front of a vehicle she’d never seen before, a battered and rust-spotted Jeep.

She tapped lightly at the aluminum storm door. “Wyatt?” she called, and was rewarded with the sound of Sweetie’s answering bark, followed by a frantic scratching at the door. She waited another minute. Maybe he was in the shower? Or out in the park, on the golf cart? Grace tapped again, and Sweetie gave another answering bark.

She tried the door. It was unlocked. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. Sweetie threw herself joyously at Grace’s ankle, yipping excitedly.

“Hi, little girl,” Grace said, scooping the dog up into her arms. “Where are the guys? Huh? Are you the only one home?”

“Not quite.”

Grace looked up, startled.

Callie Keeler stood in the doorway from the kitchen, eating from an oversized bowl of cereal. She was barefoot, dressed only in a short, faded bathrobe, loosely belted around her waist.

“If you’re looking for my husband, you just missed him,” Callie said. “He and Bo are out in the park, looking for Nelson.”

“Oh.”

Grace’s chest constricted. She hugged Sweetie close and blinked. She felt her face growing hot.

Callie laughed at her obvious discomfort and took another bite of cereal. A bit of milk trickled down her chin, and she dabbed at it with her sleeve, revealing, in the process, that she was naked under the robe.

“Awkward moment, huh? I’m guessing you must be the girlfriend Bo’s been telling me about. It’s Grace, right?”

“Yes,” Grace managed to say.

Callie held out the bowl. “You want some cereal? It’s Cocoa Puffs. I swear, you’re never too old for Cocoa Puffs.”

“No thanks,” Grace said. She turned and left.

“Don’t go on my account,” Callie called, chuckling to herself. “I’ll tell Wyatt you dropped by.”

*   *   *

“Dumb, dumb, dumb.” Grace banged her head on the steering wheel with each exclamation. Sweetie whined and crawled onto her lap, licking her chin as a consolation prize.

She started the car and headed down the sandy driveway toward the street. She blinked back tears as she navigated through the thick foliage that lined both sides of the narrow one-way drive.

It was after ten o’clock in the morning, and there stood Callie Keeler, dressed only in Wyatt’s robe, calmly eating cereal. Obviously, she’d spent the night there. “You just missed my husband,” she’d said. Not “ex-husband,” not “Wyatt,” but “husband,” letting Grace know she’d reclaimed him.

“You can have him,” Grace muttered.

No wonder he’d begged off seeing her last night. He’d had a much better offer from his wayward wife. And why should that come as a surprise? Wyatt had made it clear right from the start that his first commitment was to his son’s happiness. And like any six-year-old, Bo wanted his parents back together.

How could she have believed he wanted to start a new life with her? How could she let herself get sucked into a relationship on the rebound? Double rebound, if you wanted to be technical, since both she and Wyatt were coming out of ruined marriages. And with a guy she’d met in a divorce-recovery group!

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she chanted, slapping the dashboard for emphasis.

Sweetie looked up at her with huge, uncomprehending brown eyes.

“Never trust a man, Sweetie,” Grace told the dog. “They all lie. Every damn one of them is a liar.”

Her cell phone rang. She grabbed it and looked at the caller ID. It was Wyatt.

“This is the liar calling right now,” Grace told Sweetie. “Can you believe it?”

She tossed the phone onto the seat, and the little dog sniffed it. The phone rang again. She knew without looking it would be him. And he’d probably keep calling. Why postpone the inevitable? She snatched up the phone and tapped the CONNECT button.

“What?”

“Grace, I just got back to the trailer. Callie told me you came by.”

“How nice of her.” Grace sneered. “She’s a great hostess, Wyatt. She even offered me some of her Cocoa Puffs. I’m sure you two will be very happy. Again.”

“Look, it’s not like you think,” Wyatt said. “I don’t care what she told you; we are not back together. We are not getting back together.”

“So, last night—was that just a one-night stand? And you think that doesn’t count?”

“She slept on the sofa! She broke up with Luke last week, and she called me, hoping I’d let her stay here, but I told her there was no way. So she went to her sister’s house, but Luke showed up over there, and they were drinking, so Kendra kicked her out in the middle of the night. You know what it was like last night—it was raining. And then Bo woke up and saw her, so what was I gonna do, kick her out into the rain, with my son standing there, begging me to let her stay?”

“Let me ask you a question,” Grace said, her voice oddly cold. “You say this all started last week? Did it ever occur to you to mention to me that your wife was trying to move back in with you? Especially after you told me you couldn’t see me last night, because of Bo?”

“That was a mistake on my part, and I know that now,” he said, his words tumbling together. “But I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d get the wrong idea,” Wyatt said. “Which you did. I never had any intention of taking Callie back. It’s over between us. And I’ve told her that. Repeatedly.”

“And yet there she was this morning, all cozied up at your place. Was that your robe she was wearing? Or has she already started to unpack?”

“Dammit, Grace,” Wyatt said hoarsely. “She slept on the sofa. And she’s gone now. I told her she