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Frustration ate at Birch on the ride back to Carly’s. She rushed out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk without waiting for him. The next thing he knew, Carly was rushing him and his mother out of her condo on some made up excuse.
“I don’t know what happened, Mom,” he declared on the ride back to the ranch. “One minute we’re talking about plans and dreams, the next she’s asking to go home. I don’t know what happened.”
He had settled the bill and walked her to the car. She was nearly silent on the way back to her place. He tried repeatedly to initiate a conversation, but to no avail. All he got was one-word answers.
“I must have said something, but I don’t know what?” He clenched the steering wheel between his hands until he felt it would crack beneath his grip. “She’s so hard to figure out. First, it’s like she doesn’t know I’m alive. Then we fought because I overreacted to her teasing me about being a stalker. Then a sweet reconciliation and half a dozen lovely dinners at her house. Now, on a real date, she turns cold. I don’t understand her, Mom. I just don’t.”
“I wasn’t there, Birch. I can’t even guess. Maybe it’s just all moving too fast for her. You’ve been friends for a long time. Now you’re rushing, in a good way, into a serious relationship. She’s got a child to consider. Be patient.”
“I don’t know. It feels like more than that. She went from an easy back-and-forth discussion to ice-cold. A complete personality switch. It was so weird.” He puzzled over it all the way to his parents’ house to drop his mother off, and then all the way to his own place. He parked by the front door and went in to let Francis out of her cage. Eventually, she’d have her freedom to run the land, but until she was better trained and more mature, she was safer inside when he wasn’t around.
Her entire body vibrated with excitement. At least someone was glad to see him. “Hey, girl. How are you?” Her tail thumped on the floor as she waited for a pat. They’d been working on not jumping up. He scrubbed her ears with his hands. “Come on Francis, let’s go outside. It’s a nice night.”
He lowered himself into the deck swing and patted his lap. She hopped right up beside him and rested her head on his knees. Running his fingers through her silky fur he pondered what happened. “Why did I have to fall for the unattainable who became attainable but distant and hard to understand?”
Francis whined.
“You’ve got that right girl.”
He sat there for an hour, lost in thought. The wind started to blow, and the air smelled like rain. He went inside, fed Francis, and made a cup of cocoa. Wrapped in a blanket, he settled into a deck hammock to watch the weather and ponder his problem. Francis curled up under the hammock.
He ran the evening’s conversation over in his mind ... they’d been talking about doing anything in the world. Fulfilling dreams, bucket lists, and travel.
Whoa! He’d been talking about those things. She’d listened and answered. Was that a clue?
Month by month, year by year, he recalled every incident with Carly. Every casual or stilted conversation. Every smile and frown. All the times he and his family had pitched in and how every time they did something for her or helped her, she baked or created something for them. She didn’t like to be in anyone’s debt. For anything.
That was a revelation. Only how did it fit into tonight’s behavior and sudden cold shoulder? Was it the feeling of being indebted?
He sat bold upright, nearly spilling his cocoa on his chest. Money!
It was all about the money.
For the love of all that was holy.
He nearly laughed aloud. In his final year of university, he’d seriously dated a woman. He’d dumped her when he realized that somehow, she’d found out that his father had a lot of money. She’d been eager to get her hands on whatever money she could. Now he was getting the cold shoulder from the woman of his dreams because he had too much money. The irony!
♥♥♥
CARLY COULD HARDLY wait to get to work. Tanya was back! She couldn’t wait to hear about her glorious honeymoon. Paris, the French Riviera, Italy. What a whirlwind tour they had gone on. So was so excited for her friend.
Seven-thirty came and went. Then eight. Tanya was late. Maybe they hadn’t gotten home yesterday after all. Weird that she didn’t text and let someone know. The morning rush came and went. Finally, shortly after ten, Tanya strolled in.
She should have been smiling and tanned from their last few days on an Italian beach. She was pale and red-eyed. What the heck? She rushed to her friend’s side.
“Tanya. What’s wrong?”
Tanya sniffed. “Nothing. Allergies. Sorry I’m late.” She brushed past Carly and dumped her wallet in the lockbox. She snatched up the coffee pot and started making the rounds. The smile on her face was obviously fake. Many of their regulars wouldn’t notice, but Carly saw the way it drooped at the corners when nobody was looking. Her friend wiped her eyes too often and spent entirely too much time in the ladies’ room and wasn’t wearing her wedding rings.
The minute both servers for the next shift arrived, Carly hauled Tanya outside. “We’re going to talk. Now.” She dragged her by the arm to the park down the street. They sat on a bench far away from everyone else.
“What happened?” she asked softly.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You were supposed to come back glowing and happy. Newlywed bliss and all that. You’re not even wearing your rings.” She squeezed her friend’s hands. “Talk to me. Whatever is wrong I’ll help you fix it.”
“There’s no fixing it. I’ve made arrangements to have my marriage annulled.”
“What?” Carly nearly shot off the bench. “Why? How?”
Tanya stared at the ground and sighed. “First, we got to our hotel in Paris and were greeted, in our suite, by his mother. His mother! Can you believe it?” she screeched. “No honeymoon night for us.”
“What? That’s insane. Who takes their mother on their honeymoon? But she left after that?”
“Noooo. She came with us. Every step of the trip. We stayed in suites. She had one room. I had a room. George either had a room or slept on the floor in hers.” She laughed maniacally. “One night I could forgive. Two was a joke. It had to be. By night four, I was mad. Okay, I was mad before that.” She jumped to her feet and stomped circles around the bench.
Carly had to turn around to keep her in sight. Tanya wrapped her arms around herself either to block the cool breeze or to hold herself together.
“There’s more to it than just this, isn’t there?” Her heart wept for her friend. First, her wedding was hijacked, then her honeymoon. Brutal.
“You have no idea. She booked the two of us for a pedicure. I said I’d meet her there because I had a favorite polish upstairs.” She stared up at the sky, hands on her hips. “I cornered George in the room.” She started sobbing.
Carly rushed to the other side of the bench and hugged her. “It’s okay,” she murmured.
“He said,” she hiccupped. “He said she was watching to ensure we didn’t consummate the marriage.”
“What?”
“Is everything okay, Tanya?” a passerby called out. Carly gave her the thumbs up.
“Yup. I knew he was marrying me for his own reasons. He told me that up front. I knew it, and I was okay with it. But I liked him. Maybe even loved him.”
“If you didn’t love him, why the rush to marry?” This was getting more and more messed up by the minute.
Tanya growled. “I had my reasons. We were friends from an online class his mother didn’t know he was taking. We met for coffee and after a few ‘dates’ hashed out a plan. He needed to marry someone by the end of summer in order to inherit his maternal grandfather’s estate.”
“Why you?”
“Why not? I had my own reasons for agreeing.”
“How does his mother fit in?” Carly asked.
“She was in agreement with the wedding, so she could get her hands on the money which bypassed her in favor of George. She wanted to keep us from consummating so she could help him have it annulled once they had the cash.”
“Jeez. That’s messed up.”
“You’re telling me. Somehow, it was my breaking point. If we were never going to have sex, I couldn’t ... never mind. I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my life with that miserable witch around and I told him so.” She laughed, the sound cold and achingly painful. “I booked my own flights back. Thank heaven I have my own money. I stayed in Calgary and beat them to the punch. I started the process to have my marriage annulled.”
“That fast? I thought it would take longer.”
“When you can prove that you’ve never ....” She blushed. “It’s easy.”
“You’ve never? Holy smokes. Girl, you need a hug.” They embraced for a long moment. “This calls for carbs. What’ll it be? Pizza? Pasta? Sweets?”
“Yes. All of them.”
“Come on. I’ll let Mike know he’s got Layla for the night. We’ll go to my place and eat ourselves into a carb coma. Then, we’ll figure out how to tell your family. I assume they don’t know.”
“They don’t. You know what? Marriage sucks.”
