The Time in Between Read online

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t taste the bile that had risen up his throat.

  He was on his way home after Lars Pedersen was cozy in his cell and Coert had confirmed all the arrangements to get his ass out of it and on his way to Colorado the next day.

  He looked down at his phone and saw it said Cady Calling.

  The prickling came back to his scalp.

  He didn’t answer his phone.

  The next day, Coert was sitting at his desk dealing with Lars Pedersen paperwork, when his cell chimed.

  He looked down at it.

  It was a text from Cady.

  Can we talk?

  He let it lie and only answered hours later.

  Busy. Sorry. Lots to do.

  She texted back.

  OK. That’s understandable. Maybe later. Hope you’re OK.

  Coert did not reply to her text.

  Two days after that, Coert was moving to his truck after work and his phone went with a text.

  He pulled it out and looked at it.

  It was from Cady.

  Do you have time to get a drink?

  He waited until he’d driven to Kim’s house before he answered.

  Got Janie starting tonight.

  He turned off the ringer and pulled himself out of his truck.

  “Daddy!”

  Coert crouched and smiled as Janie came at him. When she got there, he swung her up in his arms and smiled at her after she gave his jaw a big kiss.

  “Hey, cupcake.”

  “Hey, Daddy. I’m ready!” she cried.

  “Good.” His eyes slid to Kim then back to his girl. “But can you do me a big favor? I gotta talk with your mom real quick. Can you run up to your room and color for a while? We’ll call when we’re done. Okay?”

  She looked at him, to her mother, back to him and nodded.

  He put her down and said, “Go, baby. But when you come back, be sure you got Shnookie.”

  “I’ll be sure!” she said, tossed him a nothing-ever-fazes-me smile, threw it her mother’s way and then dashed out of the room.

  Coert looked to Kim who was looking freaked.

  “Is everything okay with that guy you caught?” she asked.

  “Everything’s cool with that, Kim. We just need to talk.”

  Now she was looking sick.

  He did that to her.

  Arguably, she’d bought it, but that didn’t mean he had to do it to her.

  “Do you have time?” he asked.

  “I . . . well,” she visibly swallowed, “sure.”

  He moved in from the door and got closer to her, but not too close.

  “I wanted to thank you for keeping it together while that whole thing with Pedersen went down. You didn’t freak. You didn’t freak Janie. I know you were worried and scared, but you kept it together and didn’t give me anything else to worry about and you gotta know, I appreciate it.”

  She stared at him like she’d never seen him before.

  “It was cool of you, Kim. Says a lot. About you, about how you get it that your kid’s dad is the sheriff and about how good a mom you are.”

  “I, um . . . wow, Coert,” she whispered. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me for you having it together.”

  “Okay, right,” she murmured, no longer looking sick, but still looking freaked and now also embarrassed.

  “There’s more we gotta talk about.”

  She shuffled her feet, realized she was doing it, stopped and replied slowly, “Okay.”

  He launched in.

  “Not long ago, you were trying to be cool with me and I threw that in your face. That was totally uncool. However it happened, it happened and even if how it happened wasn’t right, we got Janie out of it and she is right. So I’ve had a think about a lot of things and what’s done is done. I gotta put it behind me and be a good dad. And being a good dad means getting along with my kid’s mom.”

  “Right,” she whispered, her eyes glued to him and they were wide.

  “So Thanksgiving is comin’ up and we have all that stuff doled out with Janie. But I think, since I get her in the morning and you’re takin’ her to your family in the afternoon, instead, you should come to my place in the morning. I’ll make breakfast. We’ll eat it together and watch the parade. I’ll ask but I’m sure they’ll be cool with it, but after that, since I’m having Thanksgiving with them, we’ll all go to Jake and Josie’s and hang together and watch football. Then when it’s time, you can take her to your Mom’s.”

  “I . . . I . . . that would be great, Coert,” she agreed swiftly.

  “If we do this we gotta do it so Janie doesn’t get confused,” he warned. “Not Mom and Dad getting back together. Mom and Dad getting along and being Mom and Dad for her at all times, important ones and the not important ones. So we’ll keep things separate but we’ll still give her together, especially during the important times.”

  He’d been watching her closely, and although her face fell when he noted they weren’t getting back together, she hid it quick and squared her shoulders slightly, indicating she was keeping her shit tight.

  “This would be good for Janie,” she stated.

  “It would. We can do Christmas the same. You get her in the morning, me the afternoon. I’ll come over in the morning for presents and breakfast and then leave you to it. You can bring her to me in the afternoon.”

  “You can stay Christmas Eve,” she said quickly. “Sleep on the couch.” Her voice lowered. “You know Janie gets up early but it’d help a lot, you around to help me play Santa.”

  It also might give Janie the wrong impression, couch or not. She was too young to get that and never had a man and woman do that with her around and old enough to put two thoughts together. She’d just think Mom and Dad were together and might take that in the wrong direction.

  But it’d still be freaking fantastic to be there when his baby girl got up on Christmas morning. Since she understood Christmas, that was the best few hours of the year and it sucked, missing every other one.

  “I’ll think about it,” he replied.

  She looked like she was going to move toward him but stopped and told him, “I think this is good, Coert. Really good. And I think it’s gonna work.”

  “I think we need to make it work, Kim, but I also think you’re right. We can do this. We can give this to Janie. If life changes, you get a man, we’ll discuss how we’ll need to alter things. But at least she’ll have it for now.”

  She nodded and said, “And if you get, you know . . . a woman.”

  “Right,” he grunted.

  She gave him a tentative smile. “Okay . . . I . . . okay, Coert. I really think this is gonna be awesome and I’m really glad you had a think about things because I think it’s gonna make Janie real happy.”

  “That’s the goal.”

  She kept smiling at him.

  He tried it out and it worked so he smiled back.

  She took it in, looked like she was going to cry for a second then she looked at the door, drew breath in her nose, and again caught his eyes.

  “It’s time for her dinner so you should probably go.”

  “We should.”

  “But . . . Coert . . .” she said these two words fast but didn’t say any more.

  “Yeah?”

  She took a few seconds, they were long ones, then she went for it.

  “It was messed up.”

  “Kim—” he started, bracing.

  She lifted a hand and shook her head. “I know it was messed up. I didn’t know it then. You were . . .” She paused and when she began again her voice started to get thick.

  Shit.

  She pushed through it.

  “You thought I was funny. It felt so good when I made you laugh. You . . . you just always seemed like you were sad. Not up front, but deep down, like you were trying to hide it. So it felt good to make you laugh. You always made me feel pretty. You made me feel safe. You fixed things in the house and n
ever complained and it was nice to have someone take care of stuff like that. Take care of me. You were so sweet and so protective,” an awkward smile cracked her face, “and not hard to look at. I fell, got deep, knew from things that happened with you and Darcy that I wasn’t gonna . . . I wasn’t gonna—”

  “Kim—”

  “Make it,” she forced out. “I panicked and did something stupid and—”

  “And we got Janie.”

  “I know but—”

  “Kim,” he cut her off, “that’s the focus. It wasn’t right but we got Janie. And that’s our only focus. It wasn’t right but if we both keep focused on that I’ll stay pissed and you’ll keep feelin’ guilty and where’s Janie in all that?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Not in a good place. So it wasn’t right but in the end it was the rightest thing in the world and that’s all. Done. Over. Moving on. Yeah?”

  “Yeah, Coert, but I still want you to know I’m sorry.”

  Shit.

  That felt good.

  “That means a lot, Kim. Know that,” he told her.

  She pressed trembling lips together and nodded.

  “I gotta get our girl fed,” he reminded her.

  She unpressed her lips to whisper, “Yeah.”

  “Janie, baby!” he shouted. “Your mom and me are done talking!”

  “Okay!” he heard shouted back.

  “Don’t forget Shnookie!” he yelled.

  “Shoot!” he heard his girl cry, then footfalls he heard coming their way changed direction.

  At that, Coert smiled at Kim.

  Kim smiled back.

  “You okay, Daddy?”

  “I’m totally okay, baby.”

  They were in his truck heading to his house.

  And he was lying to his kid.

  “What do you want for dinner?” he asked.

  “I love you, Daddy,” she answered.

  Coert’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel and he turned his eyes to the rearview mirror to get a look at his daughter in the dark.

  She was looking out the side window.

  Yeah.

  She absorbed everything.

  “I love you too, Janie. You know that?” he replied.

  “Yeah, Daddy.”

  “A whole lot, you know that too?”

  “I know. I love you a whole lot too,” she said and added, “A whole lotta lotta lot.”

  He felt his face get soft.

  “And I love you a whole lotta lotta lot and then a whole lot more. But you can’t eat love, cupcake,” he teased, glancing back to the mirror.

  He saw her face forward and smile his way.

  Coert looked back out the windshield.

  “I bet if you could, it’d taste good,” she declared.

  She’d be right.

  Because Coert knew what love tasted like.

  It tasted like sunshine and balloons and sloppy kisses with lollipop residue from his little girl.

  And it tasted like cinnamon and moonlight and toffee from redheads with emerald eyes, that coming from lips and tongues and between her legs.

  “I think I know what love tastes like, Daddy,” Janie stated.

  He had to clear his throat before he asked, “What does love taste like, Janie?”

  “Cupcakes!” she proclaimed.

  Coert chuckled at the windshield.

  Then he said, “You’re probably right.”

  “So we can go to Wayfarer’s and get a bunch so we can eat a whole lotta love.”

  “How about we do that? But you gotta have something else so what’s it gonna be?”

  “Grilled cheese and chicken noodle soup,” she decided.

  “That’s a deal,” he told her.

  “Hurrah!” she cried.

  Coert chuckled at the windshield again, and at the end of the street he made a right toward town and Wayfarer’s instead of a left, toward home.

  It wasn’t until much later when Coert got out his phone, turned on the ringer and looked at the screen.

  OK. Maybe we can set something up next week. Have fun with your girl.

  This was from Cady.

  It tore him up.

  But Coert didn’t reply.

  Clean It Up

  Coert

  Present day . . .

  IT WAS RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS when it happened.

  And no matter the shitload of headspace he’d given it, Coert wasn’t ready for it to happen.

  He should have made himself ready. He shouldn’t have delayed. He shouldn’t have put her off.

  He shouldn’t have been weak.

  If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have destroyed her.

  But this happened when Cady caught him on the sidewalk.

  He didn’t know if she was just done and maneuvered a time to face him or if it was a chance meeting.

  It was just that he was about to learn she was done with waiting.

  And he was inadvertently and very unfortunately about to make her done with a lot of other things.

  “Coert!”

  He heard her call, felt his gut clench and turned to see her rushing up to him.

  She was a forty-one-year old woman and still cute.

  And that sucked.

  She looked like she’d been absorbed by Maine.

  She had a wide wool headband pulling back her thick hair and keeping her ears warm. A turtleneck that looked light but was probably made of some expensive yarn that was warm as hell. One of those puffy vests. Jeans. And high-heeled boots that classed up the casual.

  Even if she’d looked like shit, he wasn’t ready for this so this wasn’t going to be easy.

  But Cady had proved back in the day and more recently she was immune to looking shit. Even in a Sip and Save smock or sitting on her front porch first thing in the morning with her mane of hair messy, wearing a pair of pajamas.

  “Cady,” he greeted when she made it to him.

  “I . . . you . . . uh . . . are you busy?” she asked.

  “Kinda,” he answered, indicating his shirt. “On the job,” he explained.

  This was an excuse. But at least the last part was true.

  She looked down to his shirt then to his eyes. “Oh, right. Of course.”

  “I know you’ve been texting and I’ve been putting you off,” he began.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “But I been concentrating on my kid.”

  “Oh, right,” she repeated, her shoulders falling. “Of course.”

  “So maybe we can get through Christmas and then we’ll sit down and . . .” Fuck. What were the right words to use? “Handle things.”

  Her head jerked almost like he’d slapped her.

  He didn’t find the right words.

  Yeah.

  Fuck.

  “Handle things?” she asked.

  It was lame but, unprepared for this, it was all he had.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed.

  “After Christmas?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Christmas,” she whispered, the way she was looking at him suddenly changing.

  Coert felt his stomach turn sour and did his best to ignore it.

  “Christmas,” he again confirmed.

  “You . . . um . . . you—”

  He interrupted her stammering. “So I’ll text you sometime after. Yeah?”

  “You won’t.”

  That was when he felt his body lock and he stared into her eyes.

  “Let’s not do this now,” he suggested gently.

  “You won’t. You won’t text.”

  “Can we not do this now, Cady?” he asked, still trying to go gentle.

  “You won’t do it at all. You don’t want to do it at all.”

  “Cady—”

  “You can’t forgive me.”

  He moved into her but she stepped back and the way she did, the look on her face, it burned through him.

  “After Christmas.” His voice was beginning to sound rough.
/>   “Why make me wait?” Her voice was getting high.

  “So I can get my head together,” he told her.

  “It’s already together,” she shot back, but he could see it.

  She was unravelling and pushing herself to getting pissed instead of falling apart.

  He’d seen that happen before, mostly when she was dealing with her parents, and it was never pretty.

  So he leaned into her and warned, “Cady, keep your shit together.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why do you care if I have it together?”

  “We’ll talk . . . later,” he ground out.

  “About what? About how there’s nothing to talk about?” she asked.

  “Cady—”

  “It’s done already, isn’t it? You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you? It never was even close to changing in the first place, was it? You never were going to forgive me, were you?”

  Now as contradictory as he knew it was, she was shoving him in a corner, a corner he’d felt trapped in for seventeen years, and he was getting pissed she was not giving him time.

  “Don’t push this. Not now.”

  She didn’t heed his warning and pushed it further.

  “So . . . what? You can break my heart later?”

  And he got pissed.

  “I see you don’t get this but a man does not get replaced like you replaced me and just gets over it, Cady. Maybe women can do that kinda shit, but he can dig as deep as there is to go and he just won’t get over it. But you gotta back off and let me try to dig deep just so I can actually talk about it.”

  “And what I’m saying is, if it’s a foregone conclusion, what’s the point?” she fired back.

  “You haven’t changed,” he bit out.

  “You wouldn’t know since you didn’t even know me before,” she retorted.

  “That was bullshit when you tried to feed that to me at the lighthouse and it’s bullshit now. I know you. I knew you then. With this crap, I know you now. If someone told me this would go down,” he pointed to the sidewalk, “I’d lay money on exactly this happening,” he hurled at her.

  He saw her eyes start to get wet before her cheeks got very pink and she turned to storm off.

  “Cady,” he hissed.