Authors: Ruth Ann Hixson
Mark pushed past without saying anything. Inside, Rose had Sherry in a wheelchair. "The media vultures are out there," he told Rose. "Let's try to get her through without too much hassle." He leaned down to Sherry, "Ignore them. I'll try to keep them away."
She nodded. "Let's get it over with. I just want to go home."
Mark held the door open until Rose had the wheelchair through. Then he ran to his truck and opened the front passenger door. The pushy female reporter shoved the microphone under Sherry's nose. "Can you give us a statement, Miss Winnette?"
"Yes. Get away from me. I just want to go home." Sherry pushed the microphone away.
As she passed, Rose ran the wheelchair across the reporter's toes. "Oh, excuse me. You really shouldn't stand so close." She parked the wheelchair beside the truck and Mark lifted Sherry to the front seat. Rose pulled the chair back out of his way so he could close the door.
"Do you have a comment on this, Mr. Blakely? Weren't you engaged to Miss Bayshore at one time?"
Mark closed the door and turned around. "If you don't get that dang mic out of my face, I'm going to take it from you and put it where you don't want it." He pushed the microphone aside and stalked around to the driver's door.
Rose looked down at the reporter from her six-foot height. "You want to try for seconds?" The reporter stepped back and let her pass.
When they were headed up the four-lane, he looked over at Sherry. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine," she responded bitterly. "Your ex is trying to kill me and I'm just supposed to act like nothing happened. There were five men in that room not twenty feet away. And she put a spike heel in my back. Three of those men are law enforcement officers."
"They had their backs to you," he excused. He knew it was a weak argument. If only he hadn't stayed to talk to Darryl Bayshore.
She seemed to withdraw inside herself as she pulled her bloody sweater around her like she was cold. She said nothing nor did she look at him until his cell phone rang.
He flipped it open. "Yeah, Mom?"
"How'd Sherry make out this morning?"
"It was determined that she acted in self-defense. The case against Elena is going to trial. That's the good news."
"I'm almost afraid to ask what the bad news is."
"Elena attacked Sherry right there in the courtroom. She put one of those dang spike heels in her back. Mom, will you call Alison and let her know? We're on our way home now."
"I don't like it but I'll call her. Alison and I haven't been on speaking terms for twenty years."
"The numbness is beginning to wear off," Sherry complained. "It's really starting to hurt."
"I get you home ASAP." Mark pushed the peddle down sending the red truck speeding along the road.
"You can turn that heater off. I'm not cold. I'm depressed."
He couldn't fault her for being grouchy with what she'd been through the past week. He just wished he could say something to comfort her. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her. But she sat over there wrapped in her misery until he parked in her driveway.
As she stepped inside, her mother grabbed her in a tight embrace. "Oh, I've been so worried about you since Jan called."
"Please, Mom, you're hurting me." Sherry pulled back but Alison still held her.
Mark grabbed Alison's arm. "She said you're hurting her."
"Take your hand off me," Alison ordered. "I guess I can hug my own daughter."
Sherry stepped past her mother and sat down at the end of the table. She picked up her bottle of pain pills. It was Mark who brought her a glass of water. Sherry's hands shook as she opened the pill bottle and took one out.
"Look how you're shaking," Alison observed. "I told you to eat breakfast. But, no. I don't know anything. I bought us subs for dinner. I already ate mine." She laid a paper-wrapped sub on the table. "Here's yours. I bought some soda, too. Do you want a Pepsi?"
"Mom, you know I don't like cola. I just want a hot cup of tea."
Mark put the teakettle on to boil. "Is there something else I can do for you?"
"Since when did you become man of the house?" Alison jeered. "I'll take care of Sherry."
"Mom, stop it!" Sherry ordered. "Mark's just trying to be helpful."
"Well, where was he when Elena Bayshore was sticking that heel in your back?"
"I was at the other end of the room," Mark snapped. "I can't fly. I'm not Superman."
"Well, you can go home now. We don't need you."
The teakettle whistled and Mark turned off the gas. He got the blue mug from the cupboard and set it on the counter beside the stovetop. "If you will move," he said to Alison, "I'd like to get the tea from the pantry.
"I'll get it!" Alison opened the pantry and took out the box of tea. She put a tea bag in the mug and poured in the hot water. She set the mug in front of Sherry.
Mark got a teaspoon from the drawer and gave it to Sherry. He then moved the sugar bowl within her reach. He gently touched her shoulder as he moved away to the center of the kitchen.
Alison leaned on the counter with a spiteful look on her face."'Sherry doesn't love you. I already warned her about you. She doesn't need your kind."
"She won't believe your lies," Mark declared.
"Stop it!" Sherry pushed back her chair and sprang to her feet. "Stop it. Both of you. I don't need this. Get out! Both of you. Just go leave me alone."
"Oh, my poor baby. I'm sorry." Alison put an arm around Sherry's shoulder as if she was protecting her.
"I'm not a baby, Mom. I told you to get out. I meant it. You, too, Mark. All I want is some peace and quiet."
"This is what I get for coming to take care of you," Alison fumed. "I don't like it here anyway. You don't have a refrigerator or a washer and dryer. I have to sleep on a mattress on the flour. There's no heat."
"Mom, I do the best I can with what I have.
"Well, if you'd sell those diaries, you'd have the things you need."
"Is that all you came for? To get your hands on those diaries? Get out! Get out right now!"
"I'll have to pack my things." Alison stormed off to the dining room and yanked her suitcase from beneath the daybed. She dumped the folded, clean clothes from the basket onto the daybed and began to sort out what was hers. She snapped the case shut and grabbed her purse. "I'll be back for the rest of my things."
"Let me carry that for you," Mark said politely and took the suitcase from her hand. He followed her to the garage and put the bag on the back seat of her car. He stepped back as she yanked open the driver's door and tossed her purse on the passenger seat.
She glared at Mark as he hit the button to open the garage door. "I can bring your world crashing down around your ears, Mr. Smarty-pants. I warned Sherry; now I'm warning you." She sat down and pulled the door shut.
Chapter 11
"Sherry?" Mark looked around the kitchen. The bathroom door was closed and he heard water running. He guessed she thought he left when he started his truck and backed out of the driveway. But then he pulled over to the other side and drove in the garage, closing the door. He leaned against the counter and waited for her to come back to the kitchen.
She stopped when she saw him. "I told you to leave." Her voice was low and husky and her eyes looked like she'd been crying.
"I'm not leaving," he declared. "And you aren't big enough to make me. I can't leave you alone, Sherry. I love you."
"You can stay as long as you don't come on like Romeo and don't try to tell me what to do." Her lips quivered and tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, darn!" She grabbed a tea towel from the counter and wiped her face. The tears came in a flood.
Mark pulled her against his chest and just held her gently with his left hand on her head and his right arm encircling her. He guided her toward the table where he kicked a chair out and sat down, pulling her onto his lap. He held her stroking her hair and murmuring soft reassurances. When the sobbing finally quit, she lay motionless against his chest.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
At last she sat up straight. "I'm okay." She wiped her face and blew her nose. "I'm sorry I got your shirt wet."
"It'll dry." He helped her on her feet and stood beside her. "You need to eat and drink. If you don't you'll lose strength and it will take longer for you to heal."
She pointed a finger at him. "Don't tell me what to do."
"Sit," he ordered. "I'll make you a cup of tea. Or would you rather have coffee? Your mom made some."
"I'll take tea. You can have the coffee." She unwrapped the hoagie her mother bought. "Do you want half? This is more than I can eat right now."
He set the teakettle on the stove and turned on the gas. "Are you sure? I can get something from the pantry. I'll replace it."
"Don't be silly. I'd have to be really hungry to eat all this." Her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten since supper the previous evening. "That pain pill I took is beginning to work. I just want to eat and lie down. I didn't sleep much last night."
He brought her tea and a mug of coffee for himself before he sat down and picked up his half of the sandwich. "You look like you have something on your mind. I can smell the wood burning."
She attempted a smile. "If I just knew why she is doing this..."
He didn't have to ask who "she" was. "I can only venture a guess from what I know of Elena. I don't want you to take this personally. I am speaking from Elena's point of view. You are a little bastard, a nobody. But you beat her in verbal sparring last Sunday. You got in the last punch in that fight last Wednesday night.
"Every time she has come up against you, she's lost and ended up in jail. Elena can't bear to lose especially against someone she sees as inferior to herself."
"Well, I'm not going to grovel at her feet just to make her happy," Sherry asserted. "It wouldn't make any difference. I have something she doesn't and money can't buy it."
"What's that?" He took another bite of his sandwich.
"Integrity; resilience. I know how to survive without money."
Mark thought about it as he chewed his last bite of sandwich and washed it down with coffee. "I think you may have hit on something there." He took another swallow of coffee.
Sherry stood up. "I'm going to bed before I fall asleep on this chair. I'll need your help to fold and put away the laundry Mom dumped out on the daybed. And don't go making wisecracks about my uns."
"Can do." He swallowed the last of his coffee and stood up and followed her to the dining room.
She sat down beside the jumbled pile of laundry on the daybed. He sat on the floor at her feet and pulled the two plastic tubs that served as a dresser from beneath the daybed. As she folded her clothes, she told him which tub to put them in. She folded all her panties and passed him the little stack. He couldn't help but grin when she gave them to him.
She kicked him on the knee. "No wisecracks."
"I didn't utter a word."
"You didn't need to. That grin said it all."
"I love you, Sherry. Will you marry me?"
"No." She began folding the towels and washcloths. "These are Mom's but I'm going to keep using them until she comes back for them. You need to take the satin sheet and duvet from her bed. Just put them over in the living room on top of her other stuff." She balled up a sheet from the laundry and threw it at him. "Here. You can make your own bed. I'm going to sleep."
She lay down. "Bring Mom's pillows here. The doctor told me how to lie with two pillows behind my back so I can lean back against them. He said the broken rib on my left side isn't so bad that I can't lie like that. I just have to be careful."
After she got as comfortable as she could, he covered her with her green comforter and leaned to kiss her lips. "Go to sleep. I won't wake you. I'll have to go home to help Dad with the milking this evening but I'll be back as soon as it's done. I'll bring supper."
He sat down at the table to think about Sherry and her quick "no" when he asked her to marry him. No explanation or reason given, just a simple "no." He opened the potato chip bag and looked inside. "Not much left." He took out his cell phone and called his mother. "Mom, will you stop and pick up a bag of potato chips for Sherry? Make it a big one so I can have some, too."
"How is she doing?"
"Okay. She kicked Alison out when she found out Alison wants to get her hands on the key to the safe deposit box. She told me to get out, too, but I didn't leave. I can't leave her now. I asked her to marry me and she said, 'No.' She didn't say why."
"Back off, Mark," Jan advised. "You're coming on too strong. Sherry needs time to heal both physically and emotionally. She's been through a lot these past ten days."
"I read you loud and clear. See you later. After I drink this cup of coffee, I'm going over to help Dad with the milking. Sherry's sleeping off a pain pill. I think it's a relief for her to have the charges against her dropped. She was just defending herself. 'Bye."
"How's Sherry?" Frank sat at the kitchen table with his usual cup of coffee before starting the evening chores.
"She's sleeping right now. She had a good morning that turned sour. Elena's lucky Chad got to her before I did. I would have forgotten she's a woman. Before Chad could turn around and take a step, Elena knocked Sherry down and kicked her . Broke another rib. Mrs. Dale grabbed Elena or she'd have put that spike heel into Sherry's kidney."
"That last cup of coffee's Mom's," Frank told his son.
"I'll make more." As Mark went about refilling the coffeemaker and turning it on, he told his father how he felt. "I love Sherry. I want to be with her, to protect her and take care of her. I want to share my life with her. I want to make love to her. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want to wake up beside her every morning."
"I want; I want; I want. What did I tell you?" Frank asked. "Do you ever think about what Sherry wants? About how she feels? Love and marriage is a two-way street. Not always equal but still two-way."
"I asked her to marry me. She said no."