Saratoga Falls: The Complete Love Story Series

by Pogue, Lindsey

  Mac’s head whips around and she stares up at me, her eyes wide with what I hope might be relief before they turn to angry slits. I know I’m in for it, but it’s worth it if it will get his hands off of her.

  Her friend, Jason, scowls at me, and his posture straightens. “Excuse me? And what business is it of yours?” I can tell he’s fuming enough right now for a fight. Mac’s hair whips around as she glances between us, a somewhat terrified look on her face. The moment I saw this guy at Lick’s, I knew his intentions. Being dissed by a girl after having a few beers is never a good combination.

  “What the hell are you doing, Colton?” Mac grinds out. “This isn’t your business.”

  I refuse to take my eyes off of Jason. “I’m making it my business.” Her dad would kill me if I let some guy grope her when she clearly was uncomfortable with it. Especially seeing how she’s half-naked in a flimsy little shirt. There are just some lessons you never want your daughter to have to learn for herself. Not when she doesn’t have to.

  “Are you serious, dude?” Jason asks and I can feel the tension thickening, his posture pluming, his already ruddy face reddening more. But I won’t back down.

  “Yeah, I’m serious.” I don’t care how big he is, how many touchdowns or sacks he’s made. He’s not intimidating enough to just walk away.

  “You know what,” Mac grumbles, finally standing up, “this place reeks of male testosterone. I’m going back inside.” She drops the blanket wrapped around her and barely takes a step before Jason grabs her arm.

  I’m a split second away from punching that entitled, possessive look off his face when she rounds on him. “What?” Annoyance drips from her words, embarrassment maybe, too, which could arguably be more dangerous.

  Jason nods to me, a sneer on his face. “With him? Really?”

  She rips her arm from his grasp. “No, not with him. By myself.” The bite in her tone is scathing. “Jesus.” Although I know I should care that I’ve pissed her off, I don’t, not in the slightest.

  “I hope you’re satisfied?” she seethes at me.

  “I am, actually.”

  She grumbles and reaches for the god-awful, balled up sweater she’d been wearing. She looks between us, furious. “Feel free to pee on each other after I leave.” And she storms off, straight inside without even looking back.

  Jason eyes me for another minute, no doubt imagining himself beating my face to a bloody pulp and getting off on it. He’s definitely contemplating whether or not he wants to go to the effort of kicking my ass, so I’m relieved when Nick comes up, breaking the tension.

  “What was that?” he asks, glancing between us. “What happened?” He peers in through the sliding glass door.

  Jason stands up and shakes his head. “Nothing. Just a misunderstanding, apparently.” He brushes past me, fists clenched, and I have to give him credit for walking away. I exhale, a little relieved.

  Nick glares at me. “Should I be worried?”

  I shake my head. “No, but Mac’s going to need a few minutes to cool off, I think.”

  Fourteen

  Mac

  My heart’s pounding as I head into the house, leaving them behind to dogfight while I put some much-needed space between me and everyone else. The anger coursing through me is welcome, though, a reprieve from the humiliation and stupidity I feel from putting myself in the position to begin with. I wasn’t ready. I knew that, I let Jason get too close, and now he must think I’m a complete asshole. “I knew this party was a bad idea,” I mutter and let out a long, frustrated exhale.

  The house is crowded and I don’t see Nick anywhere. I keep walking, not sure what I’m looking for, or who, but I don’t want to be in a jam-packed room with drunk strangers right now. I’m too sober for that. Deciding some alone time outside is my best option, I snatch another blanket draped over one of the couches in the living room and head out the front door.

  With a quick yank, I close the door and sit down on the front step, staring out at the still night. There’s a fountain at the gate and the trickling water is a reprieve to the thundering bass of the music inside, no longer Christmas music, which means the party has officially started. It’s quiet and serene out here, exactly what I could use right now—until someone starts coughing up a lung from the shadows of the eaves a few yards to my right.

  I think I see blonde hair, but I squint, trying to discern if it’s a woman. There’s gagging this time and only after I catch a whiff of puke do I realize what’s going on.

  “Shit,” she breathes and straightens. I can see her more clearly now in the porch lighting as she tucks her blonde hair behind her ear and groans.

  “Are you okay?” I stand up and wrap the blanket tighter around me to stave off the chill. “Can I get you some water or something?”

  The girl straightens fully, and I finally see her face. A pair of familiar gray eyes shine in the moonlight. “Bethany?”

  She does a double take and groans again. “Great.”

  I roll my eyes. I’m about to look away when she takes an unsteady step into the porch light. I notice what at first looks like a shadow on her temple, then realize it’s a bruise. “Are you okay?” I ask again, taking a step toward her. “Did—”

  “I’m fine,” she says quickly. Not rude or angry, but almost like she’s embarrassed. She sidesteps me. “Why do you care anyway?” It’s not a real question and I’m not offended; I’d ask her the same thing.

  But for some reason I do care. “Did someone hit you?”

  She glares at me. “No. I told you, I’m fine.” She swallows and licks her lips. “Thanks,” she says less brusquely, and she braces one of her palms against the side of the house to steady herself. “I didn’t get hit. So don’t worry your perfectly groomed head of hair. I just needed some air.”

  I don’t let her bait me with her words. This is too serious for that. “Bethany, I know we’re not friends, but if someone hit you . . .” Without thought, I reach out, trying to move her blonde hair away, but she grabs onto my wrist.

  “Seriously, Mac.” She partially laughs and looks taken aback. “It’s nothing.”

  Straightening, I watch as her wide, confused eyes narrow on me. There’s a loud siren in my mind telling me Bethany has caused me and my friends a lot of turmoil over the years, that she doesn’t deserve my sympathy or concern. But another part of me hates myself for even thinking that because none of that matters right now.

  She must see something in my expression that tells her how serious I am. “Really, I am.” Amusement rings in her voice as she shakes her head. She almost laughs. “It was a stupid accident. I fell yesterday and hit my head.” When I don’t say anything, she continues, if a little irritated. “I couldn’t find my brother—he’s ten and gets himself into trouble sometimes—and I started to freak out.” She rolls her eyes. “Turns out he left a pile of laundry in his bedroom doorway. Blah. Blah. Blah.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother,” I say, still skeptical.

  “Yep. Not that you know anything about me, but I do. And he’s a handful, as you can see.” She points to her face, wavering a bit.

  I eye her warily, slowly coming to the conclusion that she’s too drunk to fake it that good.

  Bethany almost smiles, genuinely this time, I think. “This is the most you’ve ever talked to me, like, ever,” she says and turns to face me. Her eyes are shimmery, and she smells like tequila and coconut.

  Probably from her year-round tanning. I can’t help the snippy, internal dialogue that edges its way in. “Yeah, well, you’re sort of a bitch,” I say honestly. “I don’t have many reasons to say hello or get to know you.”

  Her gray eyes turn to slits and she flexes her jaw. The fact that she looks injured temporarily trumps my concern and sympathy for her.

  “You’ve messed with Nick’s heart every day since middle school.”

  Blindsided by the truth, she quickly glances down at her feet like the guilty, mostly horrible person that she i
s.

  “And you know how he’s always felt about you. You were all over Reilly at the lake last summer when you knew he and Sam—”

  Her eyes widen in surprise. “They weren’t even together!”

  “—and you slept with Mike while he was with Sam, so, it’s not like—”

  “What? I did not.”

  Laughing, I shake my head. “I love it. You must be pretty drunk to have forgotten,” I say venomously. “That or you’re really good at the whole innocent eyes thing.”

  She glares at me, her face reddening by the millisecond.

  “You really have no idea how much havoc you’ve caused in our little group, do you? I guess you wouldn’t. You’ve never struck me as someone who cares much about anyone else.”

  In an instant, Bethany is a step closer, glaring daggers that I can almost feel piercing my soul. “Fuck. You,” she bites out. “That’s what you think, in your perfect little bubble of friends?” She sneers. “You have no clue what the hell you’re talking about,” she seethes. “Get your fucking facts straight.” She storms past me and disappears into the house, slamming the door behind her.

  I’ve never seen that side of her. Then again, she’s right: we’ve never had a real conversation before, either. I glance around at the silence surrounding me, wishing someone else was around to witness what just happened. Bethany’s surprise and rage seemed genuine, the hurt in her eyes, too. I replay the handful of interactions I’ve had with her since middle school, and for the first time in my life, I have no idea what to think about Bethany Fairchild.

  Fifteen

  Mac

  Bobby patiently waits with me outside the café as I gather myself, oblivious to the first white flurries of winter. It’s time to have a conversation with our mom, and if Bobby’s nervous, he’s not showing it. Today, he’s all the things I’m not: calm and collected, his expression more of concern for me, I think.

  “Alright,” I breathe. “We might as well get this over with.”

  We step inside and the familiar, sickly sweet smell of every sugary confection in Colby’s Café wraps around me, filling my senses and calming me a little. With great, ladylike restraint, I moan internally, salivating and thinking of every tasty morsel I’m going to buy before leaving this place. Salivating or stalling?

  “Mac,” Bobby says and nods past me, to the tables I haven’t dared scan yet in fear I’d see her sitting there. Part of me hoped she would have flaked today so that I’d have another reason to be angry with her—red-hot anger seems a more tangible thing amidst all my uncertainty.

  I look at Bobby, into his sympathetic, protective eyes. I don’t feel like the big sister today, but more like my nine-year-old self again, even if I know I’m being ridiculous. I don’t know how to have this conversation.

  Removing my earmuffs, I fold them up and stick them in my bag hanging from my shoulder. Together, we head toward our mom on autopilot. I’m not sure about Bobby, but I’m a tangle of nerves that I try to steady with each step.

  We stop at the four-person bistro table as she stands. She’s perfect in a wealthy housewife sort of way. Her navy blue sweater matches her khaki pants and gray kitten heels. I know nothing about her, but I picture her meeting friends at a tennis club for lunch in such an outfit.

  “Thank you, both,” she says, her voice a bit raspy, then clears her throat. “For deciding to meet with me. I know this isn’t easy for either of you.”

  Slowly, we pull our chairs out from the table. Unsure what to say, I give her a tight-lipped “yeah, sure” sort of expression and shrug off my peacoat and drape it over the back of the chair. I sneak a glimpse at Bobby, who seems a little more affected now as he takes the sight of her in. I busy myself, removing my scarf and resituating my cardigan as silence falls over the table.

  “Um, would either of you like a coffee?” she asks.

  I look up and nod. “Ah, yeah.” I notice her mug in front of her is half empty already, and I glance at my watch.

  “You’re not late,” she says, a hint of embarrassment in her voice. “I’ve been here for a while. Thinking.”

  In all of my own mind-numbing emotions, I’d never thought about how nervous she might be, though aside from the waver in her voice, you’d never know it. Her hair is perfectly combed and straightened around her face, and the same pearls I noticed the other day decorate her neck.

  “What can I get for you two?”

  I peer up at the waitress as she glances between me and Bobby.

  “A vanilla latte, please,” I say and fold my hands in front of me.

  “And for you?” she asks Bobby. There’s a simpering sweetness to her voices.

  Bobby’s looking up at her with his baby-blue eyes and a cocky grin on his face. He’s flirting with her, probably has been locking eyes with her since we walked in.

  “Really, Bobby? Now?”

  His mouth quirks in the corner and he shrugs. “Just water for me, thanks.” He turns and watches her strut away and I shake my head. When Bobby’s eyes meet mine again his libido shuts down and the weight of the moment catches up with him. His face turns beet red. He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

  My mom laughs in the seat across from me. “I forgot what young men are like at your age.” She says it almost whimsically. “That’s the way your father used to look at me, way back when.”

  Though Bobby seems intrigued, for some reason, the mention of my dad sobers me, and I settle back into my chair, reregistering the immensity of this conversation we’re about to have.

  Backbone rigidly in place and ready for whatever my mom has to whirl at me, I unfold the napkin in front of me and place it in my lap. “So . . .”

  She offers me a weak smile and takes a deep breath. Her hair is dark, like mine, and save for a few lines around her brown eyes and on her forehead, she looks younger than she is.

  “I guess I should start by saying I’m sorry for the mess I’ve created. Sorry is a terrible word; it holds little meaning to you at this point, I’m sure. But I am sorry.” She pauses, her gaze drifting between us. The halo diamond ring on her finger glitters in the overhead lights as she takes a sip of her tea. It’s probably worth more than Bobby’s college education.

  “Your father made it overtly clear that I’ve created a, well, in his words, a shit storm. I know you probably hate me and don’t want to be here—which I can understand—but thank you for coming. It means a lot to me—”

  “Why?” I ask.

  She stops fiddling with her napkin. It’s hard to picture her as my mother—or my father’s wife, for that matter. She doesn’t suit us; she’s nothing like us.

  I clear my throat and clarify. “Why did you come back? Why did you even leave to begin with, and why do you suddenly want to know us? Just”—I clench my teeth together and exhale the thickness in my throat through my nose—“why?”

  “Here you go,” the waitress says and sets the latte on the table in front of me.

  “Thank you,” I say, too anxious to take my eyes off my mom.

  My mom takes another small sip from her mug as the waitress tells us to let her know if we need anything else. “Well,” she says and places her hands back in her lap. She looks between Bobby and me again, and he’s been quiet for so long I glance at him to make sure he’s still sitting there. Like me, he’s listening, waiting.

  She clears her throat and begins again. “To start with, I left because I wasn’t well.”

  “Like what kind of not well?” Bobby asks. We’ve both heard this a dozen times before and never with any sort of detail warranting her to leave without ever looking back.

  She rotates the ring on her French-tipped finger before she starts again. “I’ll explain, but first, I think you should know that your father and I barely knew each other when I found out I was pregnant. I was twenty and we’d been together only a few months. But I guess even then I knew your father cared for me well enough and worked hard enough to take care of me and a baby. I knew he’d be a good fath
er.” She glances up at us and her mouth curves into a small smile. “I was petrified at first to be a mother, given I never had a great relationship with my own, but Cal was ecstatic. He was beaming the first time he held David—his firstborn son, named after his father.”

  “Did you ever meet Grandpa?” Bobby asks. We never knew our grandparents, only ever heard stories about them.

  My mom shook her head. “No, he’d died the year before Cal and I met, which is why I think your dad was so happy when he found out we were going to have a baby. He wanted a family again.” She resituates herself and continues. “Eventually, we moved in together, had a little apartment in town. I had issues with the pregnancy and in labor, so I was just grateful to be alive and have a perfect baby boy when it was all over.” She glances up from her mug. “But a newborn is tough, especially when you’re at it alone. Cal was working so much, trying to save money for a house and his shop.” Her expression darkens. I know how much of a workaholic my dad is, and I try to imagine the struggles of being a mom and doing so much of it alone.

  She smiles to herself. “Of course, he wanted to buy a house and have the perfect family—he wanted to give his children what his parents provided him. But even after we had the house and Cal opened his shop, he was still working all the time. There was always something he thought we needed to save for.” Her crystal-clear eyes meet mine. “We’d had you, Mac, because we didn’t want David to be an only child, plus, I thought it would help fill an emptiness I was starting to feel in your father’s absence. I was tired of being alone. And you can imagine my happiness to learn I was going to have a girl.”

  I can feel Bobby watching me, but it’s my mom’s crinkled eyes that pull me in. She almost smiles again, but she stops herself and clears her throat before she continues.

  “Machaela was my mother’s name. She died about six months ago. I honestly didn’t think I would take it so hard, given our troubled relationship, but I did, deeply so, in fact. I regretted not being closer with her. I regretted a lot of things, and leaving all of you motherless was one of them. There’s a sense of security in having a mother around, even if you don’t get along or talk often. I knew mine would always be there if I really needed her . . . until she wasn’t.” She straightens in her seat and looks at Bobby. “It hit me that you’ve never had that comfort. Then I imagined what it would be like for you to tell your children you didn’t have a mother or that she left you—that you never had any sort of relationship with her through no fault of your own—and that’s when I realized how horrible I’ve been.” She laughs bitterly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve known for a while how horrible I’ve been—what my leaving must’ve been like for you. But it felt different.”