“How?” Kate and Amanda followed her back to the kitchen.
“It wasn’t just me that he couldn’t love. It was any woman. We were all just a game to him. Like a hunter chases down a white-tailed deer. Marrying us was equivalent to shooting us. Now I know it wasn’t because I couldn’t make enough money or wasn’t pretty enough or good enough in bed. It wasn’t me or you or Amanda.” Jamie picked up her suitcase and headed up the stairs. “I’m glad you invited us. It’s really, really over now, or it will be after tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Amanda said.
“He lived here. He lived in my house, which you were paying for,” Jamie said. “And he lived in your little apartment. Nothing satisfied him or brought him happiness. He craved the hunt.”
“And look what it finally got him,” Amanda said. “I’m ready to get in that pool and pretend that we are on vacation. What are you going to do with this house after the summer, Kate?”
“Sell it,” she said without hesitation.
Amanda awoke with a start the next morning. She scanned the room and tried to figure out what she was doing in a five-star hotel. Then it all came back to her in a flash. She was in Fort Worth. Today she would go to the courthouse to get her maiden name back, putting the final touch on what had happened in the last month.
She hefted her round body out of the bed and drew the drapes back. Jamie and Gracie were sitting beside the pool having leftover Chinese for breakfast. Amanda dressed in the same outfit she’d worn to the funeral, a pair of black leggings and a flowing black top with a hankie hem that dropped to her thighs. She pulled her red hair up in a twist and secured it with a few bobby pins, applied a minimum of makeup, and repacked her suitcase. She took it with her so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs again.
Kate was foraging in the cabinets when she reached the kitchen. “There’s oatmeal but no milk. I’ll take us all out for breakfast as soon as this is over.”
Amanda shivered. “I’m too nervous to eat anyway. The idea of standing in front of a judge gives me the jitters.”
“My legal department is sending a lawyer. For the most part, we’ll only have to answer a couple of questions, if that.” Kate threw an arm around Amanda’s shoulders and drew her even closer. “Look at us. Jamie has on her cowboy boots, I’m wearing high heels that are pinching my toes, and you have on your fancy flip-flops.”
“Just like the day we arrived at the cabin.”
“And we’d all rather be barefoot out on the porch, wouldn’t we?”
“Or down by the lake with our toes in the edge of the water.” Amanda smiled.
“That’s where we’ll go soon as today is over and we do some shopping,” Kate said.
Amanda took a couple of steps to the side. “I’d like to go to the discount stores and look for things for my baby girl. I don’t have a thing for a girl, not even something frilly to bring her home in.”
“Of course,” Kate answered. “We can go wherever y’all want, but please let me pay for our food today.”
“Done.” Amanda would gladly let Kate shell out the money for food, since it would take a chunk out of her bank account to buy baby things.
Kate glanced at the clock. “The driver will be here in five minutes. If you’ll call Jamie and Gracie in from the pool, I’ll make sure everything is ready for me to lock the doors.”
“Are you really never coming back here to live, Kate?”
It was hard to think about owning a place like this and wanting to live in something the size of the cabin. But then on second thought, a huge place like that would be pretty damned lonely.
“Probably not. I’ll live in a hotel until I find an apartment or small house that I like.”
“Or maybe you’ll stay in Bootleg?”
For the first time, Amanda didn’t want any of them to leave the cabin. She felt safe and comfortable with all four of them living together. And besides, she needed Jamie for when the baby came and Kate for her quiet strength.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now I have to get us to the courthouse on time,” Kate answered.
Kate might appear calm on the outside in her cute little business suit and high-heeled shoes, but she was a nervous wreck on the inside. Time for a modicum of closure on the whole marriage thing.
The courthouse ruling took less than fifteen minutes for all three. They walked in with the same last name and came out with their different maiden names, and just like that, it was finished.
The firm had sent a seasoned lawyer, Mary Beth O’Bryan, who had made short work of the whole process. “I knew it would be easy. The judge wanted to get out of town and his plane leaves at ten, so he had to get through this in a hurry. Would you mind if I ride with you back to your house? There are a couple of things we need to discuss, and this will save time for both of us. It’s all about Conrad, so I don’t suppose you mind talking in front of the other two?”
“I’m good with you riding with us and with talking to you in front of them,” Kate answered.
When they’d settled into the six-passenger van, Mary Beth opened a briefcase and took out a file. The gray-haired woman adjusted her glasses and introduced herself to Jamie and Amanda. “I’m one of the lawyers in the legal department of Kate’s firm. We have notified the church in Bootleg of their windfall found in the bank deposit box and let them know that they will most likely own the cabin where you are staying, though it will have to go through probate. They are not interested in selling it, but they will lease it to any of you on a yearly basis for enough to pay the taxes and insurance on the place. That comes to about four hundred dollars a month, and at the end of the first year they will renegotiate if things aren’t done by then. Their pastor is nearing retirement, maybe in two years, and they are hoping to use the cabin as a parsonage if they hire a new pastor with a family.”
“We’ll take the lease,” Kate said. “Cut them a check for an entire year’s rent.”
“And you will be responsible for upkeep and for the utility bills?” Mary Beth asked.
“Agreed.” Kate nodded.
“So we’ll split everything three ways?” Amanda asked.
“How about I pay the rent for the year? Amanda, you take the water bill, and Jamie, you pay for the electricity? If we have a maintenance problem like plumbing or decide to paint the place, we will discuss the split on that then,” Kate said.
Amanda frowned and shook her head. “That doesn’t seem quite fair. You’d be taking on the biggest chunk.”
“Let me do this for the first year until y’all get on your feet,” Kate said. “We’ll take it back to the table in a year when we have to renegotiate the lease anyway. Jamie?”