“Everything’s fine. I’m just tired. Burning the candle at both ends; guess it’s caught up to me. I’ve finished up the latest classes for TCFP, so I’ll get some rest. Promise.” It wasn’t a total lie. He had been taking some recertification with the Texas Commission on Fire Prevention as part of his fire investigator certification.
“Alright. If there’s anything you need, I’m here. Got it?”
“Yep. Now, go back to work. I’ll have Sally Anne bring you some coffee, you grouch.” He smiled at his brother’s “jerk” comment, and strode toward the front. After a couple minutes of chatting with Sally Anne, he headed for home.
Beth stared at the large courier envelope she’d tossed onto the middle of her bed. Her neighbors in North Carolina, the Findlay’s, had collected her mail for the last few weeks and forwarded everything to her. The growing knot in her stomach seemed to twist and turn, churning inside like a rattlesnake. She knew what the envelope contained. Bills. Letters from collection agencies trying to scare her into sending them money. Money she didn’t have. More people trying to squeeze money from a stone, because she didn’t have a clue how she was going to pay them.
“Evan, I swear if you weren’t already in jail, I’d strangle you with my bare hands. How could you do this to me and Jamie?”
She flopped down onto the bed, and pulled her knees up to her chest. After the whole disaster with her now ex-husband and the Crowley County bond, both she and Tessa had donated all the bond money back to the county. What once had been a prized family possession became tainted and twisted in her duplicitous ex’s hands. He’d turned something honorable and historic into nothing more than blood money, and Tessa had agreed when Beth suggested donating it back to the county. Who would have thought her ex-husband would figure out the bond was worth millions of dollars, and hatch an insane plan to kill Tessa and then her?
If he’d succeeded with his maniacal scheme, all the money would have gone to Beth’s daughter, Jamie. Evan, as her father, would have gained full control of all that money, and he’d planned to play the poor, widowed father to the hilt.
Weeks after obtaining a divorce, and all the paperwork signed and filed with the court system, Beth found out the true duplicity of her ex-husband’s deceit. Bills began showing up, tons of them, addressed to Evan and mailed to her parents’ old address. Statements for credit cards she’d never seen. Ones he’d opened by forging her signature. The two additional mortgages on their home—the one they’d bought together in the early days of their marriage—those had been a total shock. She’d only found out about the mortgages when she’d tried to put the house on the market, after she and Jamie had relocated to Shiloh Springs.
That hadn’t been the end of his nasty tricks, though. He’d also taken out life insurance policies on Beth and Jamie, worth over two million dollars. And he’d made darn sure he’d kept up the payments on those policies.
She shifted to sit with her legs crossed, and placed the envelope on her lap, closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Treat it like ripping off a Band-Aid. Yank the sucker off and get it over with, because it’s not going away, no matter how hard you ignore it.
She pulled the cardboard zipper and opened the package, upending it and pouring out the contents. They spilled across her lap, the pile getting bigger and bigger. Envelopes with final notice in big red letters, or past due stamps, tumbled out. How could there be so many? How could she have been so blind? Like a gullible fool, she’d believed all his lies. All his sweet promises. Never again. She’d been a naïve idiot, believing a smooth-talking con artist who’d offered words of love and commitment. Now, what remained of her dreams of happily ever after lay in a pile of past due bills and threats of foreclosure.
“Mommy? Why’re you crying?”
Beth wiped at her eyes, feeling the wetness against her fingertips. She hadn’t even realized she was crying, lost so deep in her thoughts. Worse, she hadn’t noticed her precious baby girl come into the room. Jamie was the one good thing Evan had ever given her, and she’d do it all again if it meant she’d have her sweet baby girl.
“Everything’s okay, sweetie. Mommy was thinking about something sad, but it’s gone now.” She pasted on a smile, and patted the bed beside her. “Wanna come up here and snuggle with me?”
Jamie raced across the room, her blonde curls floating behind her, and raised her arms up when she reached the edge of the mattress. Leaning toward her, Beth lifted her daughter onto the bed, and snuggled her against her side, inhaling the scent of her daughter’s baby shampoo. She kept her arms wrapped around her daughter, thankful Jamie was too little to understand what her father had done. Sometimes she’d ask about her daddy, and Beth explained he was out of town, and wouldn’t be home for a long time. She knew eventually she’d have to tell Jamie the truth, but that was a long time from the here and now. Today, she simply held her daughter close, and wished she could press pause, and keep the rest of the world at bay.
“Can we have faffles for breakfast?”
“You want waffles, huh? Sounds good to me, kiddo. Let’s go.”
Beth scooted off the bed, picking up Jamie and swirling around with her, holding her up high. She smiled as Jamie giggled, reaching her arms up toward the ceiling.
“Higher, Mommy! Higher!”
“I can’t lift you higher, baby girl. You’re getting too big. Pretty soon, you’re going to have to lift me up instead.”
Her words caused Jamie to laugh even more. “I can’t pick you up, Mommy. You’re a grow’d up. You’re too big.”
“I’m too big? I’m not too big
