The Debra Dilemma (The Lone Stars Book 4) (5 page)

“Blame it on men. I’m sure it was a man who came up with that little clerical error because a woman sure as hell wouldn’t have done it.” Sweet Louise patted down her back and then started over again. Down and back up. It was soothing. “I take it you were alone.”

“Yes. My father and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on anything. When I turned up pregnant, he told me that my options were abortion or living on the street.”

Sweet Louise sucked in a breath. “That’s awful.”

“I chose the street…well…living with Aunt June.” She smiled at the memory of her sweet Aunt June. June Scanlon wasn’t a blood relation, but had been her mother’s best friend. After her mother had died, Aunt June had taken over as much as she could. “She died a month before AJ was born.”

Debra had been so alone. Many times she’d felt Aunt June with her, but she’d always told herself that it had been a figment of her imagination. She wished that she’d gotten a little more time with her, but life was cruel.

“I’d love to meet your father. I have some very choice words for him.” Sweet Louise’s voice was hard. “I don’t suppose you’d give me his address.”

“He’s in Hell. Six months after AJ was born, my father went head-on with a tree. The tree won.” She’d mourned her father—not that he’d deserved it, but nothing like she’d mourned AJ and Aunt June.

“What about AJ’s father?” Sweet Louise’s voice was so soothing.

Debra gave a most unladylike snort. “As soon as my father found out I was pregnant, he offered…” It was time Sweet Louise knew the truth. “He offered Warren a million dollars to never see me again.”

Sweet Louise stiffened. “That explains a lot.”

“It doesn’t justify my behavior, but, well.…” What else could she say?

“I’m sorry you didn’t do something worse to him. It sounds like he deserved so much more. Bastard.” Sweet Louise’s Tennessee southern drawl drew the last word out.

Debra shrugged. “Revenge was new to me then. I hadn’t quite figured out the best plan. I’m older now…wiser.”

If she had it to do all over again, her revenge plan would include taking all of Warren’s money because that seemed to be the only thing that he loved, but it would have cost lots of people their livelihoods so she was glad that she hadn’t thought of that ten years ago.

“My God you were all alone.” Sweet Louise patted harder. “Well, not anymore. You have me.”

“Thank you.” Taking comfort in Sweet Louise’s embrace, she allowed herself to fall to pieces. Time fell away as all of the hurt and loss and pain and grief came to the surface. Debra cried until she didn’t have anything left in her. Sweet Louise walked her into the bedroom and put her to bed.

Debra cracked an eye open and sniffed the air. It smelled sweet and vanilla-y—like cake baking in the oven. She rolled over and checked the clock. She’d been asleep for close to five hours.

Female laughter followed by a loud shushing traveled in through the closed bedroom door.

What was going on? She plopped both of her feet on the floor and stood.

“Be quiet.” A female voice stage-whispered from the other side of her door.

That didn’t sound like Sweet Louise. Debra smoothed down her rumpled sleep shirt. She was in no mood for company. With a thought that she should change into something else, she opened the door and found a world of baby blue staring back at her.

“Surprise.” Grace Robbins smiled down at her. She was standing on a ladder and hanging a sign that said, “Happy Birthday AJ.”

Debra’s heart migrated north and lodged in her throat.

“We decided that your baby boy needs a birthday party.” Summer Grayson waved from behind an enormous, three-tiered blue and white birthday cake, which was sitting on Debra’s kitchen table.

“Where’s Sweet Louise?” Debra almost backed into her room and closed the door. These two women must hate her. After all, she’d slept with their husbands before they were their husbands and still tried after the I-dos.

“She went to Amy’s to get ice cream.” Grace grinned. “Don’t worry. If we wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

“That’s right.” A tall blonde with a bob tied a blue balloon. “Off the top of my head, I can think of ten drugs that I could have injected in you while your were sleeping that would kill you instantly.”

This time Debra took a baby-step backwards. “Okay.”

“Don’t mind Laney.” Grace stepped down off the ladder. “She’s a doctor and she hardly ever kills people on purpose. She’s Devon’s fiancée.”

“I don’t understand.” Debra glanced at each woman in turn. “What are you doing here?”

“Sweet Louise called and said that you needed some girl time.” Summer moved from behind the table to come stand by Grace. “She told us your story and we want to help. Children are a blessing and you were deprived yours, so the least we can do is help you celebrate his life.”

The gesture was beautiful and sweet and gut-wrenching.

“But…you must hate me.…” It hit Debra like a ton of bricks. They didn’t hate her, they felt sorry for her, which was worse. “I don’t need your sympathy.”

Laney came to stand beside Summer. “Too bad. You’re got it and our respect.”

“Any woman who has the presence of mind to think of others in the midst of her own loss is good people.” Grace crossed her arms. “You can kick us out, but we’re just going to crawl through the open window.” She pointed to an open living room window. “We are relentless when it comes to friendship.”

“I don’t suppose we could go back to when y’all hated me?” It’s not that she didn’t want friends, but, well, she just didn’t really know how to act around other women.

“Sorry.” Laney came to stand by Grace. “Too bad. We decided that you’re our friend whether you like it or not.”

“What exactly does that entail?” Debra wasn’t sure she was up to the challenge.

“Lunches, dinners, movie nights, girls’ nights, and we’ll be dropping off baked goods on a regular basis.” Grace nodded. “We’re relentless.”

“What are y’all on, some kinda friendship jihad?” Debra smiled in spite of herself.

“Friendship jihad, I like that.” Summer grinned. “We should totally get T-shirts.”

These women truly were relentlessly pleasant. It was charming in a grotesque way.

The oven buzzer went off. “Brownies are ready.”

That sounded like CoCo Robbins, Grace’s teenage stepdaughter. Oh God, the last time Debra’d seen CoCo she’d yelled at the girl. What had Sweet Louise been thinking? Was this some plot to make her hate herself so much that she forgot about her son?

CoCo came around the corner with oven mitts covering her hands and holding a pan. She set the pan on the kitchen table and looked up. “What’s going on? What did I miss? Sorry, I had my earbuds in.”

“We were explaining that just because we feel sorry for Debra doesn’t mean we don’t want to help her. She’s embarrassed about her past and thinking of throwing us out.” Grace kept her keen eyes on Debra.

CoCo walked right up to Debra. “Trust me. Grace doesn’t give up. When she wants something, she doesn’t stop until she gets it. Once at Amy’s Ice Cream, they were out of her favorite flavor, Texas Dirt Cake, so she talked the guy working there into driving to another location and getting her some. He dropped it off at our house. Now, every time we go to that Amy’s they have Texas Dirt Cake. They keep it in the back, just for her. Take a tip from me. Just give her what she wants because she’s going to get it anyway. The sooner she gets it, the easier your life will be. Besides, we don’t hate you anymore, we hate Warren.”

“Warren?” Sweet Louise must have talked their ear off. The betrayal cut deep. True, she hadn’t exactly told Sweet Louise to keep her mouth shut, but it had been implied.

“Warren’s an ass.” Summer pulled a folded paper out of her back jeans pocket. “We’ve been thinking up different ways to kill him.”

“I vote for a flesh eating bacteria.” Laney raised her hand. “Really gross and super painful.”

“You’re vicious, God love you. I so like that about you. Personally, I’m in favor of the idea of bouncing him off the hood of my car,” Summer nodded. “It’s an oldie but goodie.”

“My idea involves a nail gun and some acid. I want prolonged pain.” Grace said it like she’d put quite a bit of thought into it.

“Wow.” Debra shook her head. “If I’d have known how violent y’all are, I’d have been nicer to you.”

These women were commiserating with her. It felt good to not face today alone. Maybe Sweet Louise’s telling them wasn’t so bad.

“Yeah, well…you were under duress.” Grace waved her hand like it was nothing.

These women were offering friendship. And it felt good. On this day—the worst possible day—these four…well, basically strangers—were somehow brightening her life with a glimmer of hope.

“Sweet Louise told us everything.” Summer grinned.

“I can see that.” Debra tried not to sound hurt.

“Even if you hadn’t told her, she would have found out. That woman has some serious mom extra sensory perception. She can spot a liar at twenty paces and look into your soul and find all of your secrets. She’s kind of like Mother Teresa but a badass with awesome hair and big boobs.” Grace nodded. “When I grow up, I want to be her.”

Summer nodded. “Me too.”

“Not me. I want to be Princess Leia.” Laney grinned. “I ordered a Princess Leia bikini. Devon’s going to lose it.”

There was something comforting in being around these chatting ladies and the fact that they were willing to share her grief lessened her burden. There was something she needed to get off of her chest.

“If it helps, I’m really sorry for all of the pain that I’ve caused.” Debra made eye contact with CoCo. “You didn’t deserve it. I was trying to make Warren pay for something he really didn’t care about. It was stupid and I didn’t care who got in the way.” She looked at each woman in turn. “I’m so sorry for all of the pain that I’ve caused.”

She’d made such a mess of her life. First falling in love with Warren, and then causing her little baby to be born with such a terrible disorder, and then sleeping her way through the entire Lone Stars’ football team. Tears burned her eyes. For so long, she’d buried the regret and pain behind a wall of hatred, and now that she didn’t have that wall to hide behind, she had to face her sins head-on.

Grace put her arm around Debra. “Life dealt you some really crummy cards and you made some bad decisions. We’ve all been there. We’ve forgiven you…now it’s time for you to forgive yourself.”

Debra had been through a lot, but forgiveness wasn’t in the cards. It had taken her a while, but she was finally willing to admit that her father had been right. She was stupid and worthless. For the last six months she’d been wearing the mask of a responsible adult. As long as she pretended that she wasn’t stupid and worthless, the world believed it. And she would continue the farce because it was it was her penance, but deep down inside she knew she was shallow and petty and deserving of everything that had happened to her. It was true that bad things happened to good people, but bad things also happened to bad people. Debra knew that she was bad to the core. Her father had known it and so had Warren. But these wonderful ladies wanted to see the good in her—so she would fake it because she just couldn’t stand to break their hearts.

Her heart was the only one she broke anymore.

Debra was the villain of her own life story. From now on, every day she would work hard to make the world believe that she was the hero.

Warren popped another sour cream and onion potato chip into his mouth and brought the tiny brass opera glasses to his eyes. If he’d brought binoculars—now that would have been creepy. Admittedly, opera glasses were weird, but they weren’t creepy.

He was sitting in his car across the street from Debra’s South Congress condo building. He guessed that it was her condo building. He’d followed Sweet Louise here several hours ago. He’d had a moment’s pause a couple of hours ago when Summer, Grace, and Laney had parked on the street and gone in the front doors. Just to be on the safe side, he’d gone inside the building and sure enough, D. Covington was stenciled on one of the mailboxes inside.

He took another deep guzzle of his Big Gulp cherry Slurpee and set the drink down in the cup holder. He glanced around taking in the tinsel-draped traffic lights and the light-up decorations stuck up on the traffic light poles. Was that an Elf face or a Christmas tree? Come to think of it, was there a company who made city holiday decorations? Who came up with the decoration ideas because that Elf face was weird?

He took another pull off of the Slurpee. Last night’s meeting hadn’t gone well. A small part of him had hoped that Debra would tell him that she still loved him and they’d start a new life together. That was the silly part of him—the romantic part—the part that loved flowers and candy and knew that crystal was the traditional fifteenth wedding anniversary gift. He shook his head. The fact that he knew that meant he’d been spending way too much time with the team wives.

He checked the dashboard clock. Dinner at Sweet Louise’s was in two hours. He shoved in a handful of chips. He could spend another hour here in the hopes of seeing Debra.