The Time of Her Life

But she’d begun to feel ridiculous and wasteful for taking the car on the short drive, when Jay arrived at the facility every morning with every hair in place. Except for the hair he was always pushing back off his forehead, but Susanna guessed that was a result of a cowlick rather than the morning ride.

She waited until dawn began to fade the sky before heading outside. She hadn’t wanted to tackle the unfamiliar path in the dark even though she’d been raring to go for an hour already.

Two weeks into her new life and the nerves still hadn’t worn off. She crashed at night, bone weary from the long days of information overload. Unfortunately, she was still bolting upright as quickly as she had upon first arriving at The Arbors, and usually long before the alarm, thoughts racing with the upcoming day’s agenda.

With any luck, the ride in the brisk predawn air would start her day off right. God knows she could use some fresh air.

Then there was the fact that she didn’t want to miss anything on this journey. Especially not Jay’s house.

Her phone vibrated as she clambered into the golf cart, and she hoped her plans wouldn’t be derailed by an emergency at the facility that would force her back into the car.

But the name on the display surprised her. “Good morning, Karan. What are you doing up at this ungodly hour?”

“Your guess,” Karan replied. “Saw Charles off to surgery and was wide-awake. Figured I’d give you a call since you’re the only one I know awake at this hour besides my doctor husband.”

Susanna held the phone to her ear and backed out of the shed slowly. “You’re in time for a journey through the arbors to The Arbors.”

“Maybe I’m not as awake as I thought—”

“Remember those acres and acres of flowers I mentioned? I’m taking the golf cart to work so I can see them.”

“I hope you don’t wilt like a flower. Isn’t that what you Southern belles do?”

“I don’t think I’ve been here long enough to qualify as a girl raised in the South.”

“Pshaw. You’ve been a G.R.I.T. from the minute you crossed the Mason-Dixon Line. A Girl Relocated to the South.”

“Tee-hee.”

“You sound awfully chipper this morning,” Karan said. “May I assume work’s going well and you’re getting some sleep?”

One out of two wasn’t bad, and some sleep was relative. “Can’t complain. I’m finally going to see Jay’s house. It should be right off this path.”

“I thought you were supposed to assess the place.”

“Not on the top of my to-do list. That report won’t be due until the acquisition.”

“You sound confident. Things must be going well.”

Susanna held on tight as the cart bucked over a protruding tree root. “We’ve hit a few bumps, but nothing we haven’t been able to work through.”

Yet. They hadn’t tackled the profit-and-loss statements, either. Jay insisted on full disclosure so he could gauge the corporate effects on The Arbors, and she was using every ounce of her financial expertise to figure out how wide the disconnect was between his services and payroll and Northstar’s parameters. Juggling was the key, which put sleepless hours to good use.

“We’re still in the honeymoon phase,” Susanna admitted. “Jay’s walking me through the way things work at The Arbors so we haven’t done a lot of procedural projections. There’s time.”

“You think that’s the best way to handle—”

“Ohmigosh, Karan. I think this is it,” Susanna blurted when a low brick wall appeared through a sudden break in the trees, a vision of manicured civilization in the forest.

“The plantation?”

“Yes. This has to be it. We’ve got formal landscaping. Tiered bushes and ornamental grasses and flowering vines. It is. Here’s the entry.”

There was no gate, only an opening marked by stone urns, both stained by rust from the irrigation water. The flagstone walk bore similar stains and wound into another world.

Jay’s world.

“Ohmigosh.” Susanna whispered reverently into the quiet morning. “This must be the backyard. There’s a huge lawn with those big oak trees you see in movies. Generations old like the arbors. Jay told me his great-grandmother planted them.”

“See the house yet?”

“House doesn’t even begin to describe it, Karan. Seriously. Can you say ‘antebellum plantation’?”

“Tara?”

“Actually, no.” Susanna laughed. “Except for the ambience of another era. The house isn’t even white. Just the eaves.”

Those eaves towered above two floors with massive white columns that outlined a wraparound gallery. The house had been constructed of blond brick, and the walls contrasted with the black shutters that framed every floor-to-ceiling window. And there were a lot more windows than the three that graced the porch of her cottage.

She couldn’t even begin to fathom what might drive someone away from The Arbors, and she knew the curiosity might kill her.

“You know, Karan, my cottage is very similar in design. I’ll bet that was intentional. A miniplantation.”

“Brooke should like that. She’s always loved dollhouses.”

As Karan would know since she’d indulged that particular fancy since Brooke was old enough to be trusted not to gnaw on the tiny furnishings of the ridiculously expensive dollhouses Karan gifted her with.

“Fingers crossed. I really want the kids to consider wherever I live as home base. At least until they settle down.”

“As long as you’re there it will be home base.”

Susanna appreciated the reassurance. The most important thing was being together. “I think I can see the driveway. I’ll bet if I took a left at the fork instead of the right that brings me to the cottage, I’d wind up here.”

“I can’t believe this is the first time you’re seeing the house. With as much as you say ‘Jay this’ and ‘Jay that,’ I can’t believe he hasn’t invited you over for a Bundt cake or pecan divinity or whatever Southerners do to welcome neighbors.”

“It’s not like that, Karan. I told you. But I’m really dying to know what could possibly possess him to sell this place. It’s a total mystery.”

“Ask him.”

“I can’t ask him something personal like that.”

“Why not? Seems a logical question to me given the fact you’re taking over his job.”

“Because I can’t.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end before Karan said, “You’re working awfully hard to delineate boundaries between professional and personal. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Susanna only knew she’d better get a move on. She didn’t want to get caught gawking at Jay’s house like a tourist.

“I’m talking about how many times you’ve mentioned getting personal with this man. I hear it every time we talk. You’re curious about him, Suze.”

“Of course I’m curious. Why doesn’t he simply parcel off the land, sell The Arbors and keep his family home?”

“Why don’t you ask him? Oh, wait. That’s personal. Are you interested in Jay? I mean interested, interested.”

“Stop it. That isn’t funny.” Neither was the heat rushing into her cheeks at the mere mention of being interested in Jay. “I’ll have a hand in deciding the fate of the man’s house.” And wherever Jay was headed must be incredible considering what he’d be leaving behind. “That’s all, Karan.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I can’t even believe you. Some best friend.”

“What can’t you believe—that I know you so well? What kind of best friend would I be if I let you lie to yourself?”

Susanna slowed the golf cart to a stop, pulled the phone away from her ear and scowled at it, a thrill of annoyance overshadowing the excitement of a moment ago. “That’s unfair.”

“Are you sure?”

Susanna didn’t answer because that simple question had a complicated answer. Karan wasn’t entirely wrong. Susanna couldn’t think about being interested in another man, not Jay or anyone. The very thought made her uncomfortable deep inside, not so much guilty as...unable.

She hadn’t realized until this very moment.

“I’m broken,” she admitted.

“No, my dear sweet friend,” Karan said in a thoughtful tone. “You’re just making peace with the hand life dealt you. You and Skip had big plans, and things didn’t turn out as you expected. You need a new plan.”

“Is that what’s happening?”

“I think so. You were with Skip for your entire adult life. Now he’s gone. It’s got to be easier to shut down a part of yourself than it is to open up and take chances on living a life you didn’t imagine.”

Susanna let the idea filter through her, stared down the path beneath the arbors in the paling dawn, vines winding through trellises and archways so twisted it would be difficult to follow any one to the root. Impossible to separate.

She and Skip had been like that. Their lives entwined into one, so now she couldn’t find her own roots, didn’t think she’d ever bloom again.

“I’m broken. If I wasn’t, I’d be able to figure out how to move on, because I know better than to waste a second when none of us have any idea what the future holds.”

“True, true,” Karan said. “But you’re not wrong to feel the way you do, Suze. You know, but you’re human.”

“I have everything in the world to be grateful for. I shouldn’t be stuck—”

“You are grateful. You’re the most grateful person I know. You don’t waste a second with your kids or me or anyone you love. I’m just saying that you need to branch out. Before you’re old and gray and no man would ever want you.”

“Karan.” But Susanna found herself smiling.

“There’s nothing wrong with being interested in Jay.”

“This isn’t about Jay. It’s about me.”

But Karan laughed a knowing laugh. And kept laughing until Susanna hit the gas and took off, obligated to drown out the laughter with some very rational arguments.

“He’s helping me learn the ropes around here. And even if that wasn’t the case, even if I was stupid enough to jeopardize the acquisition by mixing business with pleasure, Jay couldn’t possibly be in the running.”

“Why’s that?”

“The man is younger than I am. Seven years younger. That’s another lifetime. And, oh, did I mention he’s leaving? As in selling this place?”

“I hear what you’re saying. Now hear what I’m saying. I know you. Listing all the reasons you can’t be interested in a man isn’t going to change the fact if you are.”

“I’m not. I just met him, for heaven’s sake.”

“I’ll reserve opinion if you don’t mind. I’m the one you used to drag through Ashokan High so you could accidentally run into Skip, remember? ‘He has second lunch so let’s walk all the way around the freaking school to get to our lockers so we have to go through the cafeteria.’ This ringing a bell?”

Susanna crushed the phone against her ear as if that might block out the sound of Karan’s voice. Her heart suddenly pounded too hard. “You’re ridiculous, Karan. I’m not in ninth grade. I’m forty years old—”

“You’re not forty yet, thank you very much.”

Of course she wasn’t, because then Karan would be forty, as her birthday was nearly a full month before Susanna’s. “Whatever. I outgrew crushes a long time ago.”

“So long ago you might not remember what one was?”

“Puh-leeze.” She sounded alarmingly like Brooke. Daughters grew up to be like their mothers but Susanna had had no idea the reverse was true. “I’d remember a crush. Trust me.”

“You sure about that, Suze? The last time you had a crush on anyone you were a virgin. That makes the sum total of your experience, one man, a really long time ago.”

And he’d been the right man.

“I had a lot of sex in my fifteen years of marriage, thank you.” Likely even more than Karan, who’d had three marriages to two men plus one long-term relationship and a lot of time off in between. Susanna kept that observation to herself.

“It matters. You were comfortable with your husband. You both grew together. That’s different than dating.”

“My kids are dating.”

“Sounds like their mother might want to be, too.”

“I have not had enough caffeine for this yet.”

The path wound around the west side of the lake. Zipping past her own office window, too dark to see inside except for the tiny red glow of the emergency exit sign above the door, she headed toward the maintenance and engineering building, relieved to see empty space where she knew Jay normally parked.

She didn’t want to see him, not with all these thoughts Karan had planted in her head.

“I have to go.” She needed to recover from their topic of conversation.

“Susanna, seven years does not make you a cougar if he’s an adult and not a man-child. Biological age doesn’t make that distinction. Maturity does.”

Susanna mentally twitched. Cougar. Just the thought was enough to conjure visions of Jerry Springer and celebrities older than herself who dressed like Brooke.

“You are killing me here.”

“Don’t be silly, and don’t shut me down. You’ve been alone a long time.”

“Like I’ve had time to even think about that.”

“I know you haven’t had time. But I don’t want to see you blow right past something good if the time is right.”

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