Happily Ever Afters Guaranteed (2 page)

She felt kind of bad, because he’d been
working—she’d heard the power tools going again—all afternoon since
he’d returned from the hardware store, and he hadn’t taken a dinner
break or anything before he’d started working on her mailbox.

Part of her thought she should go out and
offer him a glass of water or a sandwich or something, but she
wasn’t sure she could face having a conversation with him
again.

They’d met in Freshman English at university
and hit if off—been nearly inseparable that first semester. When
he’d asked her out to a bonfire with a group of friends, she’d been
elated. She’d had such a crush on him.

She’d been so naïve.

He’d picked her up, and as usual, they’d
talked and joked the whole way out to the local campground, barely
pausing for breath. Having fun.

But one of his buddies had brought a cooler
of drinks and as the evening progressed, Kelly had visited it more
and more. By the time she’d insisted on driving home, he’d been too
drunk to protest, though it hadn’t stopped him from stealing a
slobbery, awkward kiss.

The next afternoon he’d apologized for “going
overboard” and asked her if they could try again.

She’d been polite but refused on the grounds
that she thought they were better off as friends. They’d had
several classes together before graduation but never regained their
former closeness. After Anna started dating Ted at the end of her
sophomore year, she and Kelly had drifted even further apart.

And after he’d made a fool of himself at her
wedding reception she hadn’t spoken to him again.

Until earlier today.

She was glad to know he was in a recovery
program and had been sober for years. But she just didn’t think she
could risk having a friendship with him again.

WEDNESDAY

Kelly and the U.S. Post Office said she’d
have no mail today because her mailbox wasn’t fixed. That meant no
package. Not even a birthday card.

Anna tried to squelch her disappointment and
hold onto her temper as she followed the kids’ screaming voices
into the living room. Her two usually-good kids had turned into
recalcitrant monsters and seemed determined to ruin her birthday
today. A fight over the last of the cereal had made breakfast into
a free-for-all, and they’d both been cranky and petulant since.

Was it really only ten a.m.? She couldn’t
wait for Misty to get here.

“What is going on in here?” she asked, after
raising both hands to silence the kids.

“Mikey won’t let me watch the princess show,”
Gina whined, big crocodile tears that Anna was sure were fake
shining on her cheeks.

“It’s my turn to pick,” Mikey insisted,
holding the remote control out of his sister’s reach.

“How about you both go into the kitchen and
feed Molly her breakfast? Make sure she has water, too.”

“Aw, mom…” They both mumbled and drug their
feet but finally went.

Anna started to follow them but the phone
rang. She answered quickly before Gina tried to come get it.

“Anna, I’m sooo sorry,” Misty’s voice rang
out over the line. “Mrs. P called me in to work. I couldn’t get out
of it and I’m not going to be able to babysit. I know I promised
but she’s my boss and I couldn’t say no.”

Her sister wasn’t coming for the kids.

So much for carving a few relaxing hours out
of the day for her birthday.

Could anything go right today?

Mikey called for her from the kitchen and
Anna slipped into the hall coat closet, wiping away a stray tear.
She just needed a moment without chaos to get ahold of herself.

Pressed against the winter coats, standing on
top of the vacuum cleaner, she hiccoughed and tried to calm down
even as she heard a shouted “Mom!” from somewhere in the house.

Couldn’t she even have a few hours—minutes—of
peace on her birthday?

“Mom!” “Mommy!” Her kids’ shouts echoed more
urgently, but she couldn’t get ahold of herself…

“Mom!”

Finally she stepped out of the closet, hoping
she could keep a lid on her tears. “What’s the matter?”

Mikey skidded to a stop in the entryway, face
panicked. “Molly’s gone! We went in the backyard to get her and the
gate was open. She ran away from home!”

Gina ran forward and threw herself at Anna’s
legs, wrapping her little arms around Anna’s knees.

Just what Anna needed. Something else to go
wrong today! She prayed that the dog hadn’t gotten far as she
disengaged Gina from her legs and headed for the front door.

She was opening her mouth to yell for Molly
as she hit the front porch when a familiar figure came up the walk
and halted her words.

Kelly, carrying a panting, squirming Molly in
his arms. “Looking for something?” He ruffled the dog’s ears and
chuckled as she licked underneath his chin, wiggling with joy.

He took one look at Anna’s face and his smile
faded. “What’s wrong?”

“Molly!” Mikey’s voice rand out and his
footsteps slapped against the porch steps behind her.

Anna didn’t want to break down in front of
her kids, she really didn’t—and she especially didn’t want Kelly to
see her cry. But her relief that Molly was safe sent her teetering
emotions reeling and hot tears filled her eyes. She turned to the
side and raised one hand to shield her eyes as Mikey rushed past
her.

“You found Molly!”

“Actually, she found me. I left the front
door open and she came wandering in and right to me.”

Anna sensed Kelly kneeling down to Mikey’s
level, but tears still blinded her as she tried to get ahold of
herself.

“She seems hungry,” Kelly’s baritone
rumbled.

“Yeah, Gina and I were supposed to feed her
and that’s when I saw the gate was open. We musta forgot to close
it last night after we put our bikes up.”

Anna was surprised by Mikey’s chatter. He was
usually more reserved with people he didn’t know well.

“Well, next time you’ll know to check the
gate, won’t you? Do you think you should go feed Molly now?”

“Yeah! C’mon Molly. You too, Gina.”

Anna heard them scamper off into the house.
They’d be distracted by feeding Molly for at least a few minutes.
Now if she could just escape Kelly without making a total fool of
herself…

She heard his clothes rustle as he stood from
his crouched position. “Is there anything I can help with?”

She shook her head, sniffled. “No. I’m fine.”
It might have sounded more believable if her voice hadn’t shaken
with emotion.

“Anna.” He said her name and her heart gave
another one of those funny lurches.

“I just…” She couldn’t tell him everything
that was wrong—no birthday gift from her parents, no sister to
babysit, no Ted to make a big deal out of her day… It would sound
like whining. “Could you just watch the kids for a few minutes? I
might take a short walk.”

His hand closed over her elbow briefly. “Take
as long as you need.”

She meant to only go partway down the block
and come back, just a few moments to calm herself, but by the time
she felt composed, it had been more like a half hour and she’d
walked all the way around the block to the neighborhood park.

The house was quiet when she came in. Not a
good sign. And what was that smell? “Gina? Mikey?” she called out.
“Kelly?”

A soft woof from somewhere in the house
reassured her.

“Hello?” she tried again. Noisy feet
scrambled around somewhere above her head.

“We’re upstairs,” Kelly’s voice answered.

Curiosity piqued, Anna climbed the stairs.
She stopped close to the top, when she came face-to-face with two
grinning kids and a carpenter with a movie star smile.

“Surprise!” Gina and Mikey shouted, jumping
up and down and rattling the… plastic they stood on?

That’s when she noticed the walls. Bare of
pictures. Brightly white. With no birthday wishes scrawled on them.
No orange paint.

“What happened?” she asked faintly.

Gina came forward and pushed a folded piece
of construction paper into Anna’s hands. “Happy birthday,
Mommy!”

Anna unfolded the handmade card to see “Happy
birthday, Anna” written inside in a heavy, masculine scrawl.
Beneath the words, both Mikey and Gina had printed their names.
Beneath that was a kids’ drawing of a house with several stick
figures and a stick puppy. One of the figures held balloons.

“We fixed the wall,” Mikey said proudly,
bringing her attention back up to the pristine white hallway. “Mr.
Kelly let me help put together the paint roller and lay out the
plastic.”

“And I made the card!” Gina chirped.

“But…” she looked closely at the wall and
couldn’t even see the orange paint through the new white layer. “I
wasn’t gone that long.”

Kelly stepped forward, his blue eyes serious
behind his smile. “It’s a fast-drying paint plus primer. I had an
extra half-gallon left over from the neighbor’s place…” He jerked
his thumb toward the house next door as if she didn’t know where
all the noise had been coming from for the last few weeks. “All
your pictures are laid out on the floor in your bedroom. I marked
the spots where they all went…”

Kelly pointed to several small, dark marks on
the wall, showing where the family pictures needed to be re-hung.
He’d thought of everything.

Anna couldn’t speak past the lump that had
returned to her throat—this time from gratitude. She’d pretty much
blown Kelly off yesterday when he’d tried to apologize and today
he’d done this wonderful thing for her.

“I hope it’s okay… I didn’t overstep, did
I?”

Kelly’s real concern was echoed by Mikey’s
soft, “Mom, don’t you like it?” and pleading brown eyes.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, pulling Gina and
Mikey into a brief hug. “Thank you.”

Gina looked up, chin still pressed into
Anna’s stomach. “Can I have a snack? I’m hungry…”

“Me too!”

No wonder, since both children hadn’t eaten a
good breakfast after fighting at the table. “Sure, thing.”

They ran down the stairs, sounding like a
herd of elephants. Whooping, hollering elephants.

“Your pup is in the laundry room. Thought it
might get us in more trouble if she got paint footprints all over
the house,” Kelly said as he joined Anna on the staircase.

“Good thinking.”

She wished she wasn’t so aware of him as
their shoulders brushed on the way down. She slowed so that he
moved in front of her as he stepped of the last stair and into the
entryway.

“Thank you,” she said. “For more than just
painting the hallway.”

His eyes were still serious even though he
smiled when he turned back to her. “I’ve learned it’s okay to need
help sometimes. I’m glad I could be here.”

Embarrassment heated her cheeks. “I’m not
usually… I don’t do that. Break down.”

Kelly shrugged. “It’s understandable. Having
a birthday has to be one of those occasions that you really miss
someone you’ve lost.” He glanced at the large, framed picture of
Anna and Ted with the kids, laughing in the park. It had been taken
a few months before the accident—Gina was just two months old in
the picture—and hung prominently in the foyer. Was it Anna’s
imagination, or did Kelly’s jaw tighten as he considered the family
portrait?

“Your kids are really something. Ted would’ve
been proud.”

She swallowed the lump that remained in her
throat and whispered, “Thanks. They usually are. Today they’ve been
a little challenging.”

He chuckled. “I’d better get back to
work.”

WEDNESDAY EVENING

Anna had just sat the kids down with mac and
cheese and hot dogs when the doorbell sounded. Gina started rise,
but Anna motioned her back into her seat. “I’ll get it.”

Misty grinned and waved through the front
window.

“What are you doing here?” Anna asked as she
pulled open the door. “I thought you had a date tonight?”

“Your birthday only comes once a year. I felt
bad about having to back out of watching the kids this morning, so
I cancelled. You can still sneak out of the house for a couple
hours. Oh, and I forgot! Mom asked me to give you this.”

Misty put a small package in Anna’s hands.
Ripping open the paper revealed the novel Anna had been expecting,
plus a special surprise tucked in the front jacket—a gift card for
a one hour massage at a place she’d wanted to try out for
awhile.

Her parents—probably her mom—had known just
what she needed for her birthday.

“Get out of here. The kids and I will be
fine.”

A glance out the window showed Kelly hauling
something from his truck to the neighbor’s house. Anna remembered
the poignant, longing look on his face as he’d glanced at the
family portrait earlier. She suddenly knew what she wanted to do
with her now-free evening.

After running upstairs to put on some lip
gloss and grab her purse, she stepped outside. She was halfway
across the neighbor’s lawn when Kelly emerged from the house
carrying a load of used lumber.

“Something wrong?” he called out when he saw
her. “Dog out again?”

He carried to the wood to the curb and
deposited it on the ground with a loud clatter.

“No,” she replied, suddenly nervous. Her
tongue cleaved to the top of her mouth and she had to clear her
throat before more words would emerge. “Do you want to—my sister
came over to babysit.” Anna motioned over her shoulder to Misty’s
car in the drive. “I thought I would go have a bite out to
celebrate. You know, birthday dinner and all. Do you want to—would
you like to go with me?”

His look of surprise was quickly followed by
a tentative smile.

“I’m not really dressed…” He glanced down at
his jeans and sweat-dampened t-shirt. “I could run over to my
apartment and change. It’s not far.”