Love is a Battlefield (Seven Brides for Seven Mothers Book 1) Page 4

  On the off chance she can do it, I avert my gaze and say, “Lady, you’ve got to get that stick out of your butt and relax a little bit.” That obviously wasn’t a very nice thing to say to an old family friend, but she’s wound tighter than a two-dollar watch.

  “Charming.”

  We finally arrive at the River Suite and Addison runs her key card over the door. When the green light flashes to show it’s unlocked, she doesn’t even bother to face me as she says, “You can go now.”

  No way I’m going to let her dismiss me like she’s a queen and I’m her servant. I push the door open from behind her and walk in. After parking her suitcase next to the luggage rack, I start the tour. “Your bathroom has a jacuzzi tub. Open the shutters if you want a view of the river.”

  I head to the bedroom next. “The mattress is a Duxiana. I guarantee it will be the best night’s sleep you’ve ever had.” Sitting down on the edge of the white duvet, I continue, “You can see the sunset over the water from here, which is quite impressive.”

  “Get off my bed,” she growls. She sounds like a wild cat protecting her domain.

  Instead of following orders, I lean back on my elbows and pick up the television remote before turning it on. “Channel twelve has the menu for dining and spa services. You can book any meal or appointment you want from here.”

  “Please get off my bed.” Her request sounds like a threat, kind of like an axe murderer saying, please come over here so I can chop your head off.

  I don’t immediately respond as I don’t want her to think that ordering me around is the way to go. When I finally get up, I walk back into the living room and announce, “There’s a private patio outside the french doors …”

  “For the love of god, Brogan, will you please just go? I want to unpack and take a shower before dinner.”

  A knock at the door keeps me from replying right away. Instead, I answer it and let room service in.

  “Mr. Cavanaugh,” the server says. “I didn’t know you were staying here.”

  “He’s not,” Addison tells him.

  I offer her a look that suggests I’d be more than happy to rectify that situation before telling the waiter, “You can set everything up on the patio table, Frank. I want my friend to appreciate the view.”

  While the cart is wheeled through the doors, Addie turns to me. “Leave. Now.”

  “It’s been a pleasure showing you around. I guess I’ll see you at dinner,” I tell her before following orders. I’m not sure I’m going to join them for supper. I want to keep little miss sunshine on her toes and not let her think she’s got the upper hand here. Although clearly, she does. If not, I’d go straight up to the fishing cabin and forget she’s even here. But heaven knows that’s not likely to happen.

  Addison Cooper has walked back into my world. She’s prickly as a warthog, and skittish as a wild mare, but still, she gave herself away when she almost laughed at my joke a few minutes ago. The warmth in her eyes was very compelling. I can’t help but want to push through her frosty exterior, and see what more there is to her. I want to make her laugh.

  Chapter Seven

  The Mothers

  “Your place is beautiful as ever,” Libby says, perusing a sideboard full of her friend’s knickknacks.

  “Tom and I had a lot of fun decorating it over the years. We bought those clay animal miniatures in Vietnam when we went for our thirtieth anniversary.” A sadness in Ruby’s voice permeates the atmosphere.

  “We were both lucky finding the loves of our lives so young.” Libby reaches over to take her friend’s hand. “Tom was taken from you too soon.”

  “There are no guarantees in life.” Ruby exhales deeply, as if willing the sadness to leave her body, before saying, “Brogan hasn’t brought a girl home since Emma.”

  “What happened to her anyway? It’s like she just slipped out of the picture without any warning.”

  “I don’t know. My son has always been incredibly quiet on the subject. The only thing he told us was that Emma wanted to take a job in Chicago and they decided it was best to part ways at that point.” Ruby takes a sip of her wine before continuing, “Something big had to have happened for him to have become so tight-lipped and borderline reclusive.”

  “Addie’s pretty quiet on the subject of her social life, too. She’s going to be furious when she finds out what we’re up to.”

  “To quote Doris Day,” Ruby says, “que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. If those kids of ours had taken care of business on their own, we wouldn’t have had to get involved. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve brought it upon themselves.”

  Addison

  My first memory of Brogan was when I was seven years old and he was ten. He picked his nose and wiped his booger on my hamburger bun before handing me the paper plate holding my dinner. I told on him, but he denied it. Since none of the adults saw him do it, he wasn’t punished, which really made me angry. At him and them.

  Even though I got a new burger, I was put on alert. This boy was not my friend and under no circumstances should I trust him.

  Every year after that, when our families camped together, he’d ask me if I wanted my hambooger with or without the extras. I took to standing next to whomever was doing the grilling so I could monitor the preparation of my meal and make sure nothing untoward was added.

  As far as memory serves, James wasn’t as mean as his brother until he realized how happy it made Brogan when he pulled a prank on me. From that point on, I slept with one eye open.

  Contrary to popular belief, I do not hate the outdoors. I adore them. When properly equipped with bug repellent, good food, and comfortable seating, I love dining al fresco. I love riding horses. I just don’t understand the desire to sleep outside.

  My friends in New York City agree with me. Summering in the Hamptons or on the Jersey Shore is considered enough love of nature to satisfy. I have yet to hear any of them express a desire to sleep on the beach and get consumed by sand crabs. In my opinion, this makes them sane, not haters of Mother Nature.

  People from this state are a different breed though. They enjoy sleeping under the stars in Bigfoot territory waiting for the aliens to abduct them. They relish such outings as though their DNA requires it to keep their hearts pumping.

  “Does Your Mother Know” blares from my cell phone, breaking my inner critique of the natives. I consider ignoring it, but right before it goes to voicemail, I answer. “Why didn’t you tell me Brogan was going to be here?”

  “Addison,” my mom’s tone is stern, “you’re a thirty-two-year-old woman. Why don’t you consider acting like one?”

  She’s kind of right. It does seem silly to still be mad about things that happened so long ago. It’s just that those things ruined more family vacations than I care to think about.

  “Fine,” I offer less combatively. “Why are you calling?”

  “Ruby was wondering if you’d like to have a massage. She says she can send someone up in fifteen minutes and you’d still have time to shower before dinner.”

  A burst of real happiness shoots through me. “I’d love that.”

  “I’ll tell her. In the meantime, take some deep breaths and try to calm yourself. I’m sorry you’re not in the Cayman Islands, but I suggest making the best of being here. Do you think you can do that?”

  My mom makes me sound like a petulant child, and in some respects she might be right, but I’ll never tell her that. Instead, I concede, “Maybe.”

  Sniffing my blouse, I can still smell the lingering traces of marijuana from the two man-buns at the airport. I might have to burn it on principle. I don’t care how legal pot is in different parts of the country, until they create a strain of weed that smells like chocolate chip cookies or star jasmine, it should remain a jailing offense.

  I hurry into the shower to wash off the day. It’s only common courtesy to be clean before having a stranger rub your naked body.

  As the rainfall showerhead beats down on me,
I visualize all my tension swirling down the drain. I make a mental note to have one of these installed in my apartment when I get home. One point for Oregon.

  Once clean, I pick at the cheese platter Aunt Ruby sent up. I briefly consider calling Elle before the masseuse arrives, but it’s two hours later there and I’m sure she’s out having the time of her life. I gave her my room at the Bainbridge Caribbean along with whatever niceties Roediger had planned for me. Yeah, I’m that good of a friend.

  Roediger was lovely when I told him I couldn’t make the grand opening and was encouraging of my sending Elle in my stead. He also told me that I’d be his guest whenever I was able to make it back to Grand Cayman. Heaven knows when that’s going to be.

  My masseuse turns out to be a big strapping masseur named Todd. I’m a little uncomfortable having a strange man rub me until he opens his mouth and says, “Didn’t I see you with Brogan Cavanaugh in the lobby? That man is yummy.”

  Gay men can rub me, no problem. “Brogan Cavanaugh may be good looking, but that’s the only thing he’s got going for him. If you ask me, he’s a boil on the backside of humanity.”

  “Girl, get up on this massage table and dish! I want to know more.” He hurriedly adds, “Of course, it’s against hotel policy to gossip with the guests so I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry nothing. You beat the tension out of my back, and I’ll tell you all about the time Brogan filled my sleeping bag with slugs.”

  I get so carried away I also tell him about the time he put mud in my hiking boots, snuck fish guts into my backpack, and poured tree sap on my hairbrush. I reminisce so much that I’m just as tense after my massage as I was when it began. And now I get to go have dinner with him. Super.

  Chapter Eight

  The Moms

  “Do you remember our first day at OSU?” Ruby asks her friend as she places some snacks on the table in front of them.

  While perusing the charcuterie platter, Libby says, “How could I forget? It’s not often a buttoned-up girl from the East Coast walks into a room to find that her new roommate tie-dyed the matching navy-blue duvets and curtains her mom sent. The room reeked of bleach while screaming, ‘hippy-chick.’”

  “The look on your mom’s face was priceless!” Ruby laughs. “I thought she was going to drag you out of there and demand you get a new roommate.”

  “She learned to love you as much as I do,” Libby says with a smile.

  “She loved that I set you up with another East Coast preppy that you later married.”’

  Libby nods her silver bob in agreement. “That didn’t hurt. But the truth is, I think we rubbed off on each other. You softened my edges and taught me to love camping.”

  Ruby interrupts, “And you made me burn all of my cutoffs and talked me into getting a business degree instead of becoming a professional belly dancer.” She raises her wineglass in salute and adds, “Thank you for that, by the way.”

  Brogan

  The front door to the cabin is wide open. I know I shut it before I went up to the lodge, so that either means the deer have figured out how to turn the knob or Billy is around. He hates closed doors, claiming they make him nervous.

  I step across the threshold and call out, “Billy, you in here?” I don’t want to startle him lest he throw his pocketknife at me again. Thank goodness he wasn’t really trying to hurt me that time or I’d be down an eye.

  “Who’s that?” a gruff voice calls from the bedroom.

  “It’s me, Brogan,” I reply.

  Billy Grimps comes shuffling out of the bedroom. He normally wears the same pair of khaki-colored cargo pants and a t-shirt, but today he looks borderline presentable in a cleanish looking pair of jeans and a loose, cotton button-down shirt.

  “Hey, boy,” he says. “You planning on staying up here for a while?”

  “I thought I’d hang out for a month or two. Is that going to cramp your style?”

  “Nah. I wondered why the cleaning gal came in and made things so pretty. Looks like your mom was getting ready for you.”

  “I can have them bring out a rollaway bed for you, if you want,” I offer.

  “I mostly sleep outside this time of year. I only come in when it rains hard.”

  “Well, if that happens, you can take the couch, or we’ll call housekeeping and get you that bed.” I’m not sure how it happened, but ever since I can remember, we’ve checked in with Billy to make sure he’s not planning to stay in our cabin, almost like we’re asking his permission to use it.

  “You want some fish?” he asks. “I caught a mess of bluegill and crappies I was gonna fry up for supper.”

  As my mom has not officially invited me to dinner and because I want to keep Addison off balance, I decide to eat here tonight. “I’ll run out and get the beer. You want anything else while I’m at the market?” I ask.

  “Yeah, get me some of that bran cereal, would you? I’m a little stopped up lately.”

  “Bran cereal and beer. That’s some grocery list. You want anything sweet for later?”

  “I picked a bucket of blackberries yesterday. There’s a bunch left if you want to get some ice cream.”

  “I’ll do that.” On my way to the store, I think about Addie. That woman is in desperate need of a tranquilizer. While James and I were pretty rough on her as kids, I haven’t seen her, let alone pulled a prank on her, in over fifteen years. You’d think she would have lightened up a little bit.

  Inside the Quick Stop, Cheryl Wilkens calls out, “Look who the cat dragged in. Folks around here have started wondering if you think you’re too fancy for the likes of Spartan.”

  Cheryl and I went from grade school all the way through high school together. Even though we took different paths in life, we have the commonality of a shared childhood. Around this area that means we’re as good as family. “You know me, Cheryl; I’m as fancy as they get.”

  “I told some tourist lady the other day that Brogan Cavanaugh grew up in Spartan and she didn’t believe me. I had to run across the street to my place and grab an old yearbook to prove it to her.”

  I can’t help but laugh. This town is just under three thousand people and, as a rule, they don’t particularly embrace progress. By and large, what was good enough for their parents, is good enough for them.

  When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to get out of here and live in the real world, but as an adult, I realize my hometown possesses a contentment that no amount of money can buy.

  “Have you got any Umpqua vanilla bean ice cream? Billy Grimps asked for it.”

  She shakes her head. “Is that man still up on your property? I keep hoping he’ll find a real house to live in.”

  “He uses the fishing cabin any time he wants. Although, I’m thinking we should update it a little for him.” I tell her, “He’s making me a fish dinner tonight.”

  “Speaking of fishing …” She crouches down under the counter and comes up holding a paper cup covered with tin foil and a rubber band. “My dad was going to give these to Billy next time he saw him.”

  “What is it?” I ask, reaching out to take the Dixie cup.

  “Tomato worms. He left a couple plum tomatoes in there to keep them happy. Tell Billy the bluegill love them.”

  “Will do.” I ask, “How are you and Damian doing these days?” Damian was a good friend in high school, but we’ve drifted apart as the years passed.

  “Better now that he’s moved out.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I tell her. Couples come and go, but I thought Damian and Cheryl would be together until the end.

  “Yeah, well, there are no hard feelings anymore. He seems to think we got together too young and he wants to see what else is out there. Good luck to him,” she says with only a hint of bitterness. “What about you, Brogan? Any lucky woman catch your eye?”

  “I’ve managed to stay happily single.”

  “You let me know when you’re ready for me to set you up with my cousin. She’
s had her eye on you for a while now.”

  “I don’t know, Cheryl,” I flirt light-heartedly. “This is the first since we’ve known each other that we’ve both been without a significant other, maybe it’s our time,” I wink at her playfully.

  “I know too much.” She contorts her face jokingly in a look of horror. I hope she’s joking anyway. “In all honesty, I’m taking a nice long man-break. The kids are more or less self-sufficient now and I’m finally going to read all those books I’ve wanted to read but never had time for.”

  “Starting with mine, I hope.”

  “Nope,” she deadpans. “I’ve got my eye on some good old-fashioned trash. I might get around to yours sometime next year.”

  “Flattering.”

  “Go get your groceries, fancy man, and don’t forget the worms for Billy.”

  Another good thing about coming home is that people knew me before I was famous. To them, my biggest accomplishment is breaking the rock crossing record at Twitter Creek when I was fourteen.

  After getting everything on my list and a few more items that look too good to pass up, I go back to the counter to check out. I’m ready to leave when Cheryl says, “Emma came in the other day.”

  The only way to respond is to act like I didn’t hear her. Emma Jackson is not someone I talk about with anyone. “You have yourself a good day, Cheryl.”

  I walk out of the store feeling a good deal less happy than I was when I went in.

  Chapter Nine

  The Mothers

  Libby is sitting on the veranda drinking her second cup of coffee when her friend joins her. She inspects Ruby closely from the slump to her normally ramrod straight posture all the way to the puffiness of her eyes. “Rough night?” she asks with more than a tinge of concern.

  “All the nights are rough,” Ruby answers with aching honesty. “I’m used to Tom and me going our own ways during the day, but nighttime was when we connected. Just knowing he was lying next me was like a battery that charged my soul. I could do anything as long as we were together.”