by Cara Colter
“She didn’t seem like she’d been drinking,” Jake said. “Not today or the last time I saw her.”
“The last time you saw her was at seven o’clock in the morning, before school started,” Andie pointed out.
It would have to be really bad if her mother was drunk then.
“I’m just saying, maybe she’s quit drinking, at least.”
“Which is such a good quality in a mother. She doesn’t seem to be drunk at the moment,” Andie said with as much sarcasm as she could muster. Although, no amount of sarcasm would be enough to express how bitter she felt about the matter. “And the men? What is it with her and men? Is she just incapable of being without one?”
Andie knew teenage girls who felt like that, desperate to find someone new when they’d just gotten rid of someone else who hadn’t been that good to them or had made them miserable. What made them think the next guy would be any better? Or were they just desperate not to be alone?
“I mean, there are some girls my age who do that. Run from one guy to another. But she’s thirty-eight! She’s a grown woman. She should be able to take care of herself.”
Andie would never be that needy, that desperate, that weak. She promised herself that.
She looked over at Jake, who was calmly throwing another rock that he managed to skip across the surface of the water.
“What? Nothing to say?” she asked, all wound up and ready to fight with him, too, if he was willing.
“I don’t know, Andie. I don’t know what she’s thinking. I don’t know if that place she went to, to dry out, helped her or not. And I don’t know what to tell you to make you feel better. I just wish I did.”
“You’re going to defend her, aren’t you?” She sat up and glared at him. He hadn’t yet, but she felt sure he would, for reasons she couldn’t begin to understand. “She told us she was working there—”
“And maybe she is. Everybody who’s seen her has seen her with that dog.”
“And we saw her all over that man.”
“Well, she could still be working there,” he tried.
“And fooling around with her boss already. After … what, a week? She works fast, my mother.”
To which, Jake couldn’t seem to come up with anything to say.
“Couldn’t she just stop making a fool of herself? Chasing after men, like she’s desperate to find one? Couldn’t she just get a normal job and find her own place to live and be respectable again? Is that too much to ask for from your own mother?” she cried.
“Andie, if you want to talk about being respectable, your father walked out on you and her, after they’d been married for almost twenty years. Just walked away and didn’t look back. Did you even see him after he left?”
“Once or twice. I don’t know. I saw him.”
“In how many months? Eight? Ten? Almost a year?”
“Well, he must have been really unhappy with her,” Andie said.
“That’s no reason to leave you,” Jake insisted.
“He’s there for me now—”
“Is he? Because it seems like he’s never there—”
“He has to work,” Andie told Jake.
Jake just looked at her at first, challenging that notion without a word.
“He does! He works hard, to take care of us.”
“He hardly even makes time for his girlfriend. You told me that. And it looks like he moved her into your house hoping she’d take care of you, which you say she does a lousy job of. Not that it’s surprising given the fact that she’s … what, only eight or nine years older than you.”
Andie’s mouth fell open and she glared at him. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a great job! Thank you, Jake! I’ll be fine now!”
And then she’d done it. She’d just blasted him, and sometimes it felt as if he was the only person in the world who still gave a damn about her.
Way to go, Andie.
She got off the car and took off in the direction of her house.
“Hey,” Jake called out to her. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll walk home,” she said.
“Andie, don’t be like that,” he called out.
But she just kept on walking.
Lately she wasn’t fit company for anyone.
Audrey wanted to walk to the dog park to help burn off some of the dog’s energy before they got there. She didn’t want him being too rough with any of the other dogs or their owners in his exuberance and excitement.
When she decided to walk, Peyton wanted to, as well, and then Simon decided if they walked, he would, too. So the three of them, plus the dog, set out together, Peyton chattering all the way, the dog barely able to contain his excitement over being out and about with all three of them.
He was practically bouncing from one to the other as they walked. Or at least from Audrey to Peyton, yipping and tangling up his leash, wanting to check out every bush and tree as he went.
“Damned nuisance,” Simon muttered under his breath as the dog lunged ahead to catch up with Peyton.
Audrey risked looking at him, trying to gauge just how angry he was at what he’d learned and at the scene that had played out in part in front of his daughter. She wouldn’t be surprised if he asked her to leave, no matter what he’d said before he’d taken her into his arms.
She steeled herself not to think about that. Not now when she had so much at stake. Not why he had kissed her or why she had let him or anything about how it had felt. What good was a man who was interested in her, as fleeting as that could be, when her whole life was at stake? And she considered this job and its proximity to her daughter her whole life right now.
Audrey took a breath and tried to calm down, to simply put one foot in front of the other and hold on to the dog.
Of all the times for Andie to show up, why did it have to be then? To see her with Simon like that? As if Audrey hadn’t already suffered enough for her own stupidity. Did she have to keep paying and paying, and keep making the same mistakes? Hadn’t she learned anything from the debacle of last fall?
Today made it seem as if she hadn’t learned a thing.
She was sure her daughter thought so, and that was the worst of all. Audrey wanted nothing more than to show her daughter she had changed, that she had learned, that things would be different now.
And she couldn’t even blame Simon entirely, because much as she’d told herself to be smart, to be careful and to concentrate on getting Andie back, Audrey was attracted to him. She had wanted to have his arms around her, his mouth on hers.
How could she still want that, after all the trouble the last two men in her life had caused her?
“There it is! The dog park!” Peyton cried out, beaming as she looked back at them.
Tink must have caught sight of it, too, because he started barking like crazy, trying to lurch ahead, causing the leash to jerk hard on Audrey’s right hand and shoulder.
She winced but held on tight.
Simon must have seen it because he swore softly under his breath and grabbed the leash from her.
“Damned dog,” he said again. “He’s too much for you.”
“He’s just excited, and he’s still a puppy,” Audrey said.
“Which means he’ll be dragging you down the street when he’s full grown,” Simon argued.
“No, he’ll be calmer and better trained by the time he’s full grown.” She hoped she could accomplish that with the dog, given time.
If she was given the time.
She glanced over at Simon again, but he was concentrating on trying to control the dog, giving her no clue about whether she’d be around to civilize Tink.
She waited to remove his leash until they got inside the enclosure, and was happy to see that there were only a half-dozen other dogs within the fenced area and no really small children, because Tink still liked to jump up on people when he got excited, and he could knock a small child down. She let Peyton take the leash off him, and h
e sprinted off to meet his playmates, sniffing them and barking a bit in greeting and then bouncing back and forth, trying to entice a young black Lab into playing with him.
She saw Tink playing rather nicely.
Peyton was petting a prissy, white toy poodle in the corner and was happy as could be, and Simon …
Simon was waiting.
She had to explain.
Audrey let out a shaky breath.
God, help her.
How could she explain?
Audrey sat on a bench beneath a tree in the farthest corner of the dog park, with Simon following her, and tried to figure out what to say.
“You can fire me if you want,” she said, once he sat beside her and the silence stretched to the point that she couldn’t stand it anymore. “It’s okay.”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“But you didn’t know what I’d done then. Now you do. So … it’s okay.” She’d accepted that now. This had been a pipe dream, anyway. Coming back here. Being close to Andie. The two of them somehow working out their differences and Audrey reclaiming her daughter at least.
She had self-destructed.
Old life over.
No going back.
She heard Simon sigh heavily, could feel his impatience coming off him in waves and, she thought, him struggling for control.
Peyton giggled as the poodle got up on its back feet and danced for her. Tink was rolling on the ground with the Lab, but they both looked happy, so everything was fine.
Audrey said, “I’m just so tired. I can’t fight with anyone anymore. Not you. Not my daughter or my ex-husband or your housekeeper. Not anybody.”
Chapter Nine
Simon felt like an ass then.
She looked all done in, worn out, too sad even to say anything to defend herself or to explain.
“Aw, hell,” he said, sliding across the bench to her, stretching his arm out behind her and gently encouraging her to rest her weary head against his shoulder, which she finally did.
She seemed so tiny then.
Much too petite to have that fool dog pulling her around all the time or to be spreading loads of mulch. Or to have a daughter she clearly wanted so badly who seemed to hate her.
Way too many troubles for someone so weary and small.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“Does it really matter? I did what Andie said. She didn’t lie.”
Simon closed his eyes and absorbed that.
The other man.
The other rich, married man.
And the drinking.
He couldn’t be surprised by this, not with her being one of Marion’s rescues. And it wasn’t as if he was a saint—not by any stretch of the imagination.
Who was he to judge?
He just didn’t want this to be her.
And it stung. The rich guy stuff stung.
“Why did you come to me for a job?” he asked, his ego still smarting from how much he’d liked her from the start and never gotten that desperate-for-a-rich-husband feeling from her. He usually spotted that a mile away.
“Because Andie lives only five blocks away from you.”
He winced. “That’s the only reason?”
“Because Marion knew you, and it sounded like a job I actually had a chance of being able to do. Dogs usually like me, and I like them. And I’ve always liked working in my yard.” She sniffled. “It’s not like I’m really qualified to do anything, Simon. I was nineteen, waitressing in a bar with a fake ID when I met Richard. I married him, had Andie, took care of them both. That’s really all I’ve ever done. It’s not exactly the kind of thing that fills out a résumé.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me. God, that’s the last thing I want. I’m just … that’s what happened. I had a husband, a home, a daughter I loved. A life. I had a life, and I thought my husband and I were … not thrilled to be together anymore but not unhappy. I thought we had a family and a partnership that was going to last. I mean, it’s hard, you know?”
“I know.” He certainly hadn’t been able to make his marriage work, hadn’t wanted to, once he saw what his wife really wanted, and it wasn’t to be a mother, just to be a rich man’s wife.
Simon looked up and saw Peyton talking to another girl about her age who seemed to belong to the white poodle but was willing to share. He hadn’t quite known what would be best—to stay with his wife for Peyton’s sake, make that life as good as it could be and go on from there or get out and pray he could get Peyton to himself most of the time.
He still hoped for that.
He wanted it more than anything.
But he was finding himself lonely, too, at times. The deep-down, aching kind of loneliness he didn’t quite know what to do with. He didn’t think he trusted himself to pick another woman to bring into their lives, and yet he didn’t really want to be alone, either.
He was a man who truly hated to make mistakes, and his first marriage had been a whopper, one he was still paying for, one his daughter was paying for. He hadn’t chosen the divorce, his ex-wife had. Not that he’d tried that hard to talk her out of it, either. His wealth gave him a huge bargaining chip, and he’d hoped to use it to get Peyton, but that hadn’t happened.
He still hoped it would one day.
Which meant he and Audrey were fighting for the same thing.
Daughters they both loved.
What were the odds?
“So, it was the drinking,” he asked, “that made you lose custody?”
“No. I wasn’t drinking when we divorced. I mean, I had a glass of wine with dinner, went to cocktail parties and threw them at our house for my husband’s business connections. Things like that. But I wasn’t getting drunk. After Richard left, I had custody of Andie.”
“He left you?”
Audrey whispered, “Yes.”
“So … another woman?” He guessed.
“Twenty-five years old,” Audrey said. “I have trouble thinking of her as a woman, but, yes, that was the reason Richard left. He walked away from me and Andie, and he never really looked back.”
“Bastard,” Simon said.
Audrey laughed just a bit. “I thought so, but then I’m biased.”
“You weren’t … seeing anyone, too?”
“No!” She stared at him with weary eyes, seeming hurt that he’d even asked. “I was married. It meant something to me. I didn’t do that.”
“Okay. Sorry,” Simon said. “Your daughter said—”
“Later, I did, and it was stupid and wrong. I know that. I … I was just so mad and scared and hurt. Richard had just found someone else and gone right on with his life. He seemed happy as could be, and there I was, trying not to fall apart for Andie. To hang on to the house without any money. Richard’s an accountant. He knew just how to hide everything we had, and he was hoping the longer he could drag out the divorce settlement—with him hardly paying anything in support during the process—he’d get me to agree to the divorce on his terms.”
“Bastard,” Simon said again.
“Yeah, he was. I just never thought he’d treat me like that. I was sinking faster and faster into debt, and I just kept thinking Richard had to come around, be reasonable, for Andie’s sake. Even if he didn’t love me, he loved her.”
Simon knew men just like that. Out for all they could get in a divorce and never looking back.
“I tried to hang on to the house,” Audrey said. “Just until Andie could finish high school. Maybe that was a mistake. I don’t know, because we really couldn’t afford it once Richard left. But it was our house, our neighborhood. Something familiar in a crazy situation. We’d raised our daughter there. It was our home, and I just got so mad.”
“I would have, too,” Simon agreed.
Audrey met his gaze for a moment, then hid her head against his shoulder, as if she couldn’t stand for him to see her anymore. “It was like it was all on me, to pretend
things were okay, to hide how angry I was and the fact that I didn’t know what to do. I started not being able to sleep at night, and I’d have a drink or two to help me sleep. And then I figured out that if I drank enough, I wasn’t scared anymore. At least, not for a while. I didn’t really feel anything, and it was so nice not to be scared or mad.”
Simon hated thinking of her being so scared and so alone, and he could imagine her trying to be so strong and trying to hide everything from her daughter. That’s who he thought she was.
“Tell me the rest,” he said.
Audrey shook her head, sighing against his shoulder.
“It was like taking a vacation from everything lousy in your life, and I needed it. I didn’t think I could make it without those times when I wasn’t feeling anything at all. I drank because it made me numb, and then I wanted to be numb more and more, and then … for some reason, I decided finding another man was the answer.”
He stiffened at that.
That other man.
“I mean, that’s what Richard did,” she said “And everything seemed fine for him. He seemed happy, so why shouldn’t I do the same thing. It just … I don’t know. It seemed like a way to … not feel so lousy all the time.”
“Who was he?” Simon asked, hoping he didn’t sound as jealous as he felt, however irrational that was.
“A guy in the neighborhood. He’d been coming on to me at parties for years, and I’d always turned him down. Although, I have to admit, it was nice thinking someone else wanted me, at least, even if he was married. I’d heard rumors at times that he was seeing another woman, but I didn’t really know for sure, and he and his wife stayed together, so I thought maybe they weren’t true. And then … I just stopped caring, I guess. I drank to feel nothing, and then I chased after him, thinking if Richard could do it and be happy, I could, too. And at least I wouldn’t be all alone anymore.”
“So, what happened?”
“His wife found out, at a charity fund-raiser with half the neighborhood attending. I got drunk. Really drunk. She got very mad at both of us, and the next thing I knew, everyone knew all about what I’d been doing with her husband.”
“Ouch,” Simon said.
“The worst part was that Andie had followed me there because she was worried about me. She saw the whole thing. Parents of her friends were there, so all her friends heard about it. She ended up dragging me out of that party.” Audrey winced. “Can you imagine? I’m the grown-up. I’m supposed to save her from things like that, and there’s my sweet Andie, trying to save me.”
