Stef Ann Holm by Lucy Back (books to read in your 30s TXT) 📗

2. Why did you quit baseball?

He answered both with the same one-word answer:

Stupid.

I’d agree:

Drew Tolman, you are stupid.

Three

Eighteen years of her life. That’s how long Lucy was married to Gary, and the man left her for another woman.

It had been almost two years, and the burning reality still singed the skin right off her if she let the past fester. And sometimes she did.

Scrubbing the rust stains in the dingy porcelain sink, she thrust her best energy into the job, hoping to get the rejection out of her system. Sometimes it crept up on her, and she hated that feeling of helplessness, that weakness that made her doubt herself. She could tell herself Gary’s leaving had nothing to do with her, but the honest truth was, Lucy still beat herself up over it at the most inopportune times.

Right now she was questioning this move. She’d thought it through with a lot of care before making the jump, so why this doubt was hitting her she couldn’t exactly be sure. But it was there. And it wasn’t going away no matter how hard she jerked a sponge with cleanser over the rust.

Her life was like this sink. Tarnished in some spots, but without chips. She had survived, intact and whole. Or as whole as she’d ever been.

Gary had been the love of her life, her high school sweetheart. They’d met in the tenth grade, dated through graduation, had a parting of ways, lived independently until they got back together and married in 1987. For the most part, her marriage had been wonderful. She’d been so happy, especially after she’d had the boys.

Her husband doted on them and was a good father. But then, as the years passed, and one or two of his business ventures began to fail, he lacked the confidence she’d once found so attractive in him. He began to stay out a little later, go into work a little earlier. Five years ago, he’d had his first affair, and it about killed her.

The boys never knew what happened, but the tension in the house was so thick it was like an insecticide bomb that began to choke the life out of her marriage. She and Gary went to counseling, got more involved in their church, and things seemed to smooth over.

But Lucy never fully forgave him for the affair. Even though he said it only happened the one time. He’d been at a nearby bar and just gotten uninhibited after a night of drinking. Since he’d never really been a drinking man, she believed his story.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

Gary and the new woman Diane, lived a party lifestyle, always going out to clubs and bars, and then packing up and moving across the border—something Lucy was still suspicious about. Diane had plenty of money, so Gary didn’t have to worry about business capital and ventures anymore. Nor was his income what it had once been, so Lucy’s child support was practically nothing.

The state of Idaho based child support on an 80–20 custody arrangement, even though she had the boys one hundred percent of the time. It wasn’t fair. Gary’s $346.00 a month for two children didn’t stretch far. By the time they were done paying off some credit card debt with the equity in their house, the asset balance didn’t leave her much extra.

She’d taken every cent from the sale of the house and socked it away in the bank to tide herself over until she started getting some clients.

Falling into the personal chef field had been a fluke. One of her neighbors knew she liked to cook, and had asked Lucy if she could fix a meal for a party in her home. Lucy jumped on the opportunity, and it was a huge success. Word of mouth spread, and within six months Lucy had been cooking for nine families. The money wasn’t rolling in, but it had kept her and the boys in the black, and she’d made ends meet.

She could have made a reasonable living in Boise if Jason hadn’t taken a wrong turn. Maybe she was jumping the gun, but her son had changed when Gary left, and she was worried about him. The marijuana in his locker and the other incidents were ones she looked at very seriously. She’d had to make a choice. Leave him in a city where he had memories of a father who’d disappeared, or take him out and start them fresh.

The latter seemed her best option.

She liked Red Duck and she hoped things would turn around. Before she made the decision to move, she’d consulted with the only personal chef in town to get his take on potential business.

Raul Nunez was firmly established and had a heavily booked clientele list. He had his hands full, but he’d fitted her into his schedule and had met her for coffee. He’d been very flamboyant, very over-the-top and extremely candid about how much he made and who he cooked for. She’d found his personality rather saccharine. Artificially sweet to the point that her teeth ached as she listened to him go on and on about himself. But clearly, he had a knack for business, and had more than he could keep up with.

Funny how he hadn’t viewed her as a threat. She’d thought about it, and after the fact came to the conclusion he didn’t think she’d give him a run for his money.

She was here to prove him wrong.

In the Timberline area, cooking in people’s homes was like a fast-food drive-through to high schoolers at lunchtime. Many of the wealthy didn’t want to fight reservation lines in the town’s high-end restaurants when the tourist season was in full swing.

While she didn’t have any clients lined up yet, she’d left flyers all around town and on the grocery store bulletin board. So far, she’d received two calls. One from a woman who wanted to know if she could make Raul’s famous chicken adobo Friday night