One Night Stand Bride

Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. The fact that he hadn’t told Roz meant he never had to deal with it. Instead, he was hiding at his mother’s house.

He didn’t deal well with relationships, either. He’d spent the whole of his life yearning to belong and holding on with a death grip where he did eke out a place. Neither had led to a healthy balance.

“You don’t deal well with it because you have no experience with it. Plus it sucks,” she told him. “No one wants to stand in line to let another person hand out pain and misery. But sweetie, Roz makes you happy, not miserable. Why don’t you want to fight for that?”

“My father...” He swallowed. He hadn’t mentioned the bastard in probably fifteen years and he didn’t like doing it now, especially as his mother’s mouth tightened. “He didn’t even know me and he rejected me. How much worse would it be if I told Roz that I wanted to stay married and she said no anyway?”

“Let me ask you this. How bad does it hurt now?”

Horrifically bad. Worse than he’d allowed himself to admit. Talking about it wasn’t helping. “Pretty much like a constant stomach ache.”

She rubbed at his arm in that comforting way that only moms knew how to do. “That’s also what it will feel like if she says no. So you’d be no worse off. But if you tell her and she says yes, how much better will that feel? Also, you should remember that your father didn’t reject you. He rejected me. You didn’t even exist yet, not as a real live person he could look in the face and then say he didn’t want. You can’t let someone else’s mistakes cause you to make mistakes of your own.”

“You think letting Roz go is a mistake?” His gut was screaming yes at a million and five decibels, drowning out the very excellent points his mother was making.

“The important question is whether you think that. But I wouldn’t have encouraged you to marry her if I didn’t think she could be much more than a mechanism to fix a problem. I’m shocked you didn’t realize that already.” His mother’s voice broke unexpectedly and he glanced at her to see tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “Just when you think your kid can’t surprise you... You really were doing this whole thing for me, weren’t you?”

He scowled. “Of course. Well, at first. You’re the only mom I have and you’re the greatest. Why wouldn’t I do anything you needed from me?”

It hadn’t hurt that marrying Roz on a temporary basis gave him the perfect excuse to avoid rejection. Too bad it hadn’t worked out that way.

“Good answer.” She grinned through her tears and then turned him toward the door with a little push. “Now I need you to go home and tell Roz to stop packing because you have important stuff to tell her. Do that for me and at some point in the future we’ll laugh about how you almost really screwed this up.”

His spirit lightened so fast that it made his head spin. She made something hard sound so easy. Hendrix took two steps toward the door and then stopped. “What if—”

“What-ifs are for losers who can’t carry the name Harris, sweetie. In other words, not you.” She hustled him toward the door in an almost comical one-two shuffle. “I didn’t raise a coward and I’m not going to be satisfied until I have grandbabies. So just keep that in mind.”

Babies. The same emotions reappeared that had flooded him back at the hospital when he’d had a small suspicion Roz might be sick for reasons that had nothing to do with clowns. That might have been the clincher. He was too far gone to do anything other than take his mother’s advice. “More favors? Marriage wasn’t enough for you?”

“That’s right. And more important, it’s not enough for you, either. Chop, chop. I have a brunch to get to.”

His mother closed the door behind him and he got all the way to his car before letting loose with the smile he’d been fighting. Helene Harris was one-of-a-kind. And so was his wife. He had to take a chance and tell her how he felt about her, or he’d never forgive himself. This was his best shot at being a part of something that made him happy and he’d given it a pass instead of fighting for it.

Hopefully, Roz was still at home so he could convince her to stay for reasons that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a promise of forever.

* * *

The moving company Roz had called made short work of transporting the boxes of clothes, shoes and other personal items she’d taken to Hendrix’s house. Good thing. She wasn’t in any mood to handle logistics right now.

Hendrix had left earlier, probably to go celebrate his forthcoming independence, and the fact that he was gone was good, too. She could leave without an extended goodbye that would likely yank more tears from her depths that she didn’t want to lose. The first and second crying jags of the morning had already depleted what small amount of energy she still had after packing the boxes.

What was wrong with her? There had never been a scenario where she wasn’t going to lose this marriage. Wh

y was it hitting her so hard? Because she hadn’t prepared properly for it to end? Maybe because it had ended so quickly, with almost no protest from the man she’d married, never mind that she’d stupidly begun to hope things might turn out differently.

That was the problem. She’d fallen into this bit of wonderful she’d found with Hendrix and forgotten it would soon vanish like so many other things in her life.

The moving truck pulled away from the front of Hendrix’s Oakwood home and there was nothing left for Roz to do except follow it to her loft. Except she couldn’t force herself to pull into the parking garage. She kept driving. The moving company had preauthorization with her building security and they were professionals who didn’t need a neurotic, weepy woman supervising them.

Clown-Around could always use more attention. The boost Helene had given the organization surpassed Roz’s wildest dreams. Becoming a Harris had launched her into a place that being a Carpenter had never touched. In more ways than one. The thought of how often she’d been touched as a Harris depressed her thoroughly.

The paperwork on her desk held zero appeal. She scouted around her tiny office for something else to do, finally landing in the supply closet. It could use organizing. All of the clown makeup and props had fallen into disarray after Helene had stopped by, and frankly, the last thing Roz had wanted to do was surround herself with the trappings that still held so many horrible memories.

But she was already so out of sorts that for once, the wigs lining overhead shelves and the multicolored outfits on hangers at her back didn’t bother her. They were just costumes. Easily donned and easily taken off. She grabbed one of the wigs and stuck it on her head.

See? Easy. Not scary. Just some fake curly hair in an outrageous color.

All at once, she sank to the ground and put her face in her hands as the sheer weight of everything overwhelmed her.