It couldn’t still be like this between them, she thought, with one last attempt to cling to sanity. It was wrong to want him this badly, to want his hands to make good on the promises being made by his kisses, to want him inside her, bringing every part of her to life again.
But it felt so damn right, she admitted, as his body pressed against hers, surrounding her with heat and undeniable evidence that his desire was as powerful as hers.
Long before she was ready, he dragged himself away, looking as dazed as she felt.
“Remember that the next time you question how any man—how I—could want you,” he said, his voice a low rumble next to her ear.
“Uh-huh,” she said, her thoughts so scrambled she couldn’t come up with anything more.
Then he was gone, leaving her to sink onto the nearest chair and reach for a bottle of water chilling in a cooler filled with ice. If there hadn’t been a dozen people around, she would have poured it right over her head without a thought to the damage it would do to her hardwood floors. Instead, she settled for taking a long, slow swallow that did nothing to cool the heat still simmering inside her.
“Quite a performance,” Maddie commented, pulling up a chair and sitting beside her. “Those steamy kisses are getting to be a habit. I was afraid for a minute I was going to have to dump this ice over the two of you.”
“Why didn’t you?” Dana Sue asked, a plaintive note in her voice. “It might have snapped me back to my senses.”
“Doubtful,” Maddie said. “It’s going to take more than ice to put a chill on what’s going on between you two.”
“Don’t say that,” Dana Sue pleaded.
“It’s true. Why not accept it and run with it? You know you haven’t been happy without him.”
“And I was miserable because of him,” Dana Sue retorted.
“He made one terrible error in judgment,” Maddie said. “He learned his lesson.”
“How can I be sure of that?”
Maddie started to respond, then shrugged. “Maybe you can never be sure of anything, sweetie.” She glanced around until her gaze fell on Cal, who was chatting with Erik, Katie half-asleep in his lap. “Maybe you just have to grab on to what makes you happy now and then work like crazy to hold on to it.”
“I thought that’s what I was doing when we were married,” she said. “And he still slept with another woman.”
“Have you asked him why?” Maddie asked.
Dana Sue shook her head. “I’m not sure I want to know. What difference would it make, anyway?”
“It might reassure you that it had nothing to do with you,” Maddie said.
“He was my husband. I’d say it had a lot to do with me,” Dana Sue said, her tone sarcastic.
“I meant that it might not have been about you at all. Sometimes men just lose their heads for a minute and do something incredibly stupid.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“Of course not. But do you give up on your marriage because of it any more than you would give up on your marriage because one of you wrecked the car?”
Dana Sue frowned at her. “It’s hardly the same.”
Maddie sighed. “I’m not explaining this very well. All I’m suggesting is that to Ronnie that one-night stand might have held no more long-term importance than some accident that smashed up a car. It happened. It’s over with. No long-running affair, no emotional entanglement, the way there was with Bill and Noreen. Ronnie’s one-night stand was about sex. The other was about a relationship, a real, ongoing intimacy between two people that took away from what Bill and I shared.”
“I suppose,” Dana Sue said, not entirely convinced. “But it hurt just the same.”
“Of course it did. And it was wrong, no question about it. But, sweetie, weigh it against the big picture. Ronnie loves you with everything in him. What happened was one little blip, barely noticeable when you look back over twenty years together.” Maddie patted her hand. “Just think about it, okay? Don’t let your pride rob you of what you really want.”
“It’s not about my pride,” Dana Sue said defensively.
Maddie’s brow rose. “Isn’t it?”
Dana Sue turned away from her knowing look. “I need to check on Annie. She could be getting tired.”
“Annie’s fine,” Maddie said, gesturing toward the porch. “She’s out there with Ty, Sarah and Raylene. But we probably should get going, just the same. What time is your family counseling session in the morning?”
“Ten o’clock,” Dana Sue said. “I have to admit, I’m scared.”
“What of?”
“What’s going to come out in there,” she confessed. “What if all this turns out to be my fault?”
“I don’t think it’s about casting blame. I think it’s about moving forward so Annie won’t fall back into the same destructive pattern.”
“I know you’re right,” Dana Sue conceded.
“Then what are you really worried about?”
“Annie wants Ronnie and me back together. And right now, I would do almost anything in the world to make her happy,” Dana Sue explained. “But that?” She shook her head. “I can’t go back to Ronnie because it’s what Annie wants.”
Maddie grinned. “Maybe you should do it because it’s what you want.”
Before Dana Sue could protest again, Maddie pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Talk to you tomorrow. I’ll gather up my crew and get out of here. That should signal the others it’s time to go, too.”
“Thanks,” Dana Sue said gratefully.
Of course, with everyone gone there would be no one to serve as a buffer between her and Ronnie. The memory of the kiss he’d laid on her a short time before stirred her blood all over again.
But when she looked around as everyone was leaving, there was no sign of him anywhere. She glanced at Annie as she closed the front door behind the last guest.
“Where’s your dad?”
“He cleaned up the kitchen, then left,” Annie said, her expression knowing as she watched Dana Sue for a reaction. “Disappointed, Mom?”
“No, of course not,” she insisted. But she was, and that most definitely was not a good thing.
“Liar,” Annie accused with a grin. “If you’d let him move back in, he’d still be here.”
“Not an option,” Dana Sue said tersely.
“Maybe it should be,” Annie taunted. “’Night, Mom. See you in the morning.”
“Good night, sweetie. I am so glad you’re home again.”
“Me, too.”
Annie started toward the stairs, then came back and wrapped her arms around Dana Sue’s waist. “I love you. Thanks for sticking by me.”
“Always,” she answered. “No matter what.”
She just prayed there would never be another crisis like the one they’d just been through and, in the months to come, that they’d all have the strength to navigate the bumps in the road to Annie’s recovery.
Ronnie’s hasty exit the night before had been deliberate. He knew how much his kiss had rattled Dana Sue. He’d been just as shaken. He’d also known that to expect anything more right now was out of the question. Better to slip away than to make a move that would alienate her just when they were making real progress.
He’d also wanted to get a good night’s sleep before this family counseling thing. He had no idea what to expect or how much of the blame for Annie’s problems was going to come down on his head. He was prepared to accept some of the responsibility, but Dana Sue bore some of it, as well. In fact, she seemed inclined to heap all of it on her own shoulders, right along with condemning herself for her weight gain.
An hour before the appointment, he pulled into the driveway at the house, noting that the trim on the brick house was in need of a coat of paint. Maybe he could get to that this weekend. It would be yet another peace offering to Dana Sue.
The kitchen door opened and Dana Sue emerged. “You coming in?” she called.
He left the car and head
ed inside.
She eyed him warily as he entered. “Have you eaten? I could scramble some eggs for you.”
“No, thanks. I don’t have much appetite this morning.” He let his gaze travel over her very slowly. “Except for things I shouldn’t have.”
Her cheeks immediately turned pink. “Ronnie!”
“It’s true. I thought about that kiss all night.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Then you shouldn’t have made it so memorable,” he said, then deliberately changed the subject to something more neutral. “Where’s Annie?”
“Getting dressed.”
“Are you as scared about this morning as I am?” he asked, and saw a hint of relief in her eyes.
She nodded. “Crazy, isn’t it? It’s like being called to the principal’s office.”
He laughed. “I definitely know more about that than you do, but yes, it’s exactly like that.”
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be,” she said. “I mean, we’re all after the same thing, right?”
“Seems that way to me,” he agreed. “Why don’t you go hurry Annie along so we can get out of here? The sooner we’re there, the sooner it’ll be over with.”
“Good idea,” she said at once, and headed upstairs.
While she was gone, Ronnie poured himself a cup of coffee and took a long, satisfying swallow. Dana Sue still made the best coffee he’d ever tasted.
Two minutes later, she was back, looking shaken.
“What?” he asked. “Is Annie okay?”
“She was in the bathroom,” Dana Sue said, her voice catching. “Ronnie, she was throwing up. I heard her. She’d eaten every bite of her breakfast. I sat right here with her to make sure. Then she went upstairs and threw up.” There was panic in Dana Sue’s eyes when she met his gaze. “What are we going to do?”
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, feeling as helpless as he had the first time he’d seen Annie in the hospital. “Whatever it takes,” he said grimly. “Did you confront her?”
Against his chest, he felt Dana Sue’s quick head shake. “No,” she whispered.
“Probably just as well. We’ll deal with it with Dr. McDaniels. You stay here. I’ll go up and get her, make sure she’s okay.”
He took the stairs two at a time. A part of him was angry, so angry he wanted to punch something, but overshadowing that by far was the terror that they were heading into a whole new territory with Annie. Was she about to replace one eating disorder with another? Did kids do that?
Before he could make himself crazy with more unanswerable questions, he spotted Annie coming out of the bathroom. She gave him a halfhearted smile.
“Hi, Daddy.”
His heart flipped over in his chest at her woebegone expression. “Hey, baby. You okay?”
She gave him a knowing look. “Mom heard me, didn’t she? I know she came upstairs a few minutes ago.”
He nodded.
“I wasn’t throwing up on purpose,” she said, leveling a gaze into his eyes that begged him to believe her. “I wasn’t! I just got scared all of a sudden and then I felt sick.”
“It’s okay,” he soothed. “You feeling better now?”
“I guess.”
“We’ll talk about this some more when we see Dr. McDaniels.”
She seemed to wilt a little. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
He tucked a hand under her chin and looked into her eyes. “I want to, baby. I really do.”
“It’s the truth. I swear it. I couldn’t make myself do that,” she said with a shudder. “I just couldn’t.”
Ronnie had no response for that.
Annie regarded him with regret. “I know I have to earn your trust again, yours and Mom’s, but it’s hard, you know?”
“I know. Something tells me this is like a lot of other things that just take a while to sort out. We’ll have to take it one step at a time.”
“Like you and Mom?” she asked.
Ronnie smiled. “Yes, just like me and your mother.”
Suddenly Annie grinned, and all of his heartache vanished at the beauty of it.
“I saw you kiss her last night,” she told him. “Way to go, Dad!”
He winked at her. “Like I said, one step at a time.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, an impish glint in her eyes. “A kiss like that oughtta be a giant leap, at least.”
“Your mother’s a stubborn woman and my mistake was a whopper,” he reminded her. “It wouldn’t be smart to take anything for granted.”
“Just don’t give up, okay?” she said.
“Never,” he assured her. “Not on her and not on you. Not in a million years.”
Annie was starting to feel sick to her stomach again. Everyone was staring at her so expectantly, like they wanted her to say something profound that would make everything okay. But nothing was okay. Nothing had been okay since her dad left.
Could she say that? Wouldn’t it just make things worse if she said food was all mixed up in her head with the way she’d felt when he’d told her he was leaving that day at Wharton’s? What if she said she’d stopped eating so she wouldn’t gain weight like her mom had? That was part of it, too. At least she thought it was.
But if she blurted any of that out, wouldn’t they just feel worse? Would it really solve anything? This was her problem, not theirs.
“Annie,” Dr. McDaniels said, giving her an encouraging nod. “It’s okay to say whatever you’re thinking. That’s the only way to put the past behind you and move on.”
“Maybe we could talk about this morning instead,” Annie said hesitantly.
Dr. McDaniels looked surprised, but nodded. “If that’s what you want. What happened this morning?”
“My mom heard me throw up and I know she freaked about it, because she sent my dad upstairs. He looked all worried and scared.”
“Can you blame him?” the shrink asked.
Annie shook her head. “But I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said, looking directly at her mom. “I was just nervous about coming here, and I got sick. I don’t want you guys to go crazy every time I get sick to my stomach. If I ever get the flu, you’ll probably send me straight to some treatment facility.”
“Did you get sick to your stomach a lot before you developed an eating disorder?” Dr. McDaniels asked.
Annie nodded. “Whenever I had to stand up in school and give a report, I’d throw up in the morning. Remember, Mom?”
Her mother nodded slowly, a faint hint of relief in her expression. “That’s true,” she said.
Dr. McDaniels nodded, too. “Then let’s assume for the moment that this was more about nervousness than food. Maybe next time you feel that way, Annie, you can ask for some ginger ale or crackers or something that might help to settle your stomach, okay? Not only might that make you feel better, but it might reassure your parents.”
Annie suddenly had an image of the way her mom ate when she felt bad. She stuffed herself with whatever she could get her hands on. “No!” she protested sharply, before she could stop herself. “I won’t do that!”
“Do what?” Dr. McDaniels inquired, her voice calm despite Annie’s obvious agitation.
“It’ll be like Mom,” Annie blurted.
She saw the color rise in her mother’s cheeks and knew she’d said exactly the wrong thing, even if it was the way she felt.
“What does that mean, Annie?” the shrink asked, waving off Dana Sue when she would have responded.
“When she’s upset, she eats. She gained a lot of weight, probably twenty pounds, even before my dad left. More since then.”
“Your mother looks fine to me,” the psychologist said. “Why is her weight gain so upsetting to you?”
Annie knew she’d started something that she couldn’t stop if she wanted to. She had to say it all. “Because if she hadn’t gained it, my dad wouldn’t have slept with another woman and my mom wouldn’t have kicked him out,” she lashed o
ut, despite the stricken expression on her mom’s face. “I hate that you did that! I hate it!”
“Hold it,” Ronnie commanded, his voice harsher than Annie had ever heard it. “I did not sleep with another woman because your mom had gained a few pounds.”
“Then why did you?” Annie retorted. “It must have been something she did.”
Her dad looked from her to her mom, then shook his head. “I honestly can’t explain why I did what I did, but I do know it had nothing to do with your mom’s weight. I think she looks incredible.”
Annie wasn’t buying it, but then she thought about the kiss she’d witnessed just last night. He’d definitely been into it. He’d certainly acted as if he thought her mom was pretty hot then. “Really?” she asked uncertainly. “It wasn’t about that?”
“Absolutely not,” he said firmly. “It’s the one thing I’m one hundred percent sure of.”
“Annie, do you think this had something to do with your decision to stop eating?” Dr. McDaniels asked. “Or maybe you were punishing your mom for what you saw as a failure to take care of herself?”
Annie considered both possibilities. “I don’t know,” she said eventually. “Maybe.”
“Doesn’t that sound pretty self-destructive?” the psychologist prodded gently. “Who got hurt the most?”
“Me,” Annie admitted.
“Exactly,” Dr. McDaniels said. “Think about that between now and tomorrow. We’ll pick up where we left off.”
“Do you want us here again?” her mom asked.
“No, I think the next couple of sessions will be just Annie and me. Why don’t we schedule another family session for two weeks from now?”
Her mom and dad both looked relieved. Annie couldn’t blame them. She knew she’d made them feel bad today. She had a suspicion the ride home was going to be pretty tense.
“By the way,” Dr. McDaniels began as they were about to go out the door, “for now let’s keep what’s said in here in this room.”
“You don’t want us to talk about it?” her mom asked incredulously. “Won’t that be like having an elephant in the room that everybody pretends not to notice?”
A Slice of Heaven Page 24
