Driven To Distraction

by Judith Duncan

  Her lungs compressed from laughing and the position she was in, she gasped for breath. “I take it back.”

  He considered her a moment, as if deciding whether to believe her or not, then grinned. “I won.”

  “Let me out, Parnelli!”

  Still grinning, he unfolded her, using his foot to secure the support. Bracing his hand on the arm of the lounge, he leaned down and gave her a kiss that knocked the wind right out of her. “Now behave yourself,” he said against her mouth.

  Maggie was about to respond when Kelly’s voice intruded. “Dad! What are you doing here?”

  It was a shot of cold water, and Maggie froze. Bruce? Here? She grasped Tony’s wrist and sat bolt upright, swiveling her head. Yes, it was definitely Bruce standing by the garage, dressed in an immaculate gray business suit and crisp white shirt. And he looked about as stunned as she felt. She glanced up at Tony, who had straightened and was staring at the newcomer, a hard glitter in his eyes. The sudden silence was deafening.

  Feeling at a disadvantage sitting down, she got out of the chair, brushing against Tony as she turned to face her ex-husband. She folded her arms and spoke. “This is unexpected.”

  Bruce looked from Tony to Maggie, then back, his expression rigid. “I would like you to leave. I want to talk to my wife.”

  Kelly rose off the picnic bench like she’d been shot out of a rocket, and Maggie felt Tony stiffen behind her. She saw red. “If you want to talk to your wife, I suggest you call her in Vancouver. And you don’t have the right to tell anyone to leave my house.”

  Bruce’s face turned livid, and he looked at his daughter. “Kelly! Go in the house. I want to talk to your mother.”

  Kelly moved over to stand beside Tony. She looked her father square in the eye. No,” she said, deliberately provoking him, “I won’t.”

  He opened his mouth again, but Maggie cut him off. “Just what are you doing here, Bruce?”

  He looked at Tony and back to her, anger mottling his face. “I want to know what’s going on here,” he demanded.

  It was a struggle, but Maggie kept her voice perfectly even. “Actually, it’s none of your business.”

  “When my daughter’s involved, it is my business,” Bruce snapped. “Now I want to know what’s going on here. And whose motorcycle is that?”

  Maggie counted to ten under her breath, then answered in the same even tone, “I don’t have to make any explanations to you.”

  Bruce took a couple of steps toward her. “Well, I just happen to disagree. You’d better grow up, Margaret, and start acting your age.”

  Tony started to brush past Maggie, and she caught his arm, holding him back. Her heart took a little nosedive when she saw the look on his face. He was furious, and he was staring at Bruce as if he wanted to tear him apart with his bare hands. Turning her back on her ex-husband, she squeezed his hand. “Tony?” she said softly. He acted as if he didn’t hear her, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he glared at Bruce. She gave his hand a little shake. “Please.”

  He finally met her gaze, his face set, white lines of anger carved around his mouth. She could barely believe it—two men ready to bash each other over her. A sliver of humor surfaced, and she couldn’t help but smile. The smile was something Tony obviously wasn’t expecting, and he narrowed his eyes, as if not entirely sure it was real or not. She’d never wanted to hug anybody so badly in her whole life. “Maybe I should call 911 again,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear.

  He stared at her, then one corner of his mouth lifted a little. She smoothed her hand up his arm, trying to calm him. “I’m going to have to talk to him,” she said very softly.

  The muscles in his jaw contracted, and he glanced at Bruce, his face hardening dangerously. Maggie ran her hand up and down his arm, hoping to distract him. “Please, Tony,” she pleaded. “Just give us an hour.”

  He turned his gaze back to her, his eyes like ice. “If he so much as lays a hand on you, I’ll break his damned neck.”

  Maggie tried to produce another smile. “He won’t. He just wants to give me a-big lecture.”

  Continuing to stare at her, Tony didn’t say anything for a moment, his expression flat and unreadable. Then he expelled his breath. “Okay. An hour.” Gripping her shoulder, he very deliberately kissed her. With one final warning glance at Bruce, he started toward the steps, fishing his bike keys out of his pocket. Sticking her chin out in defiance, Kelly followed him.

  The veins in Bruce’s temples looked as if they were ready to rupture when he stepped in front of his daughter. “Kelly Lynn! You aren’t going anywhere.”

  Kelly gave him a murderous look and stepped off the sidewalk to avoid him. “Just watch me,” she retorted. Then she ran and caught up to Tony. She said something to him, and he put his arm around her shoulder, then bent down and swept up both helmets. They reached the bike, and Maggie saw Tony hand one helmet to her daughter. Her own anger making her stomach roil, she turned and started for the back door.

  “Are you actually allowing her to go with him on that?” Bruce demanded.

  Maggie whirled and glared at him. “She can go with him if she wants to. But if you want to talk to me, then you’d better talk to me now. Because you aren’t going to get another chance.” With that, she turned and yanked open the door, letting it slam behind her. She stomped into the kitchen, so furious with him she couldn’t keep still, and she had paced back and forth across the kitchen three times by the time Bruce followed her in.

  The instant he entered the kitchen, she rounded on him, so infuriated that she was shaking. “You’d better have a damned good explanation for the way you acted out there,” she snapped. “I am not your wife. I haven’t been for a very long time, and I resent the hell out of you acting like I am. I don’t have to make any explanations to you—not a single damned one.”

  Bruce stripped off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of the chair; then he looked at her, his face stiff with anger. “You don’t need to sink to the same kind of language as your…companion, Margaret. You didn’t used to be that crass.”

  Maggie took two deep breaths, determined to get her own anger under control. When she spoke, her voice was shaking. “Who I spend time with and my use of language are none of your business, either, and I’ll be crass if I feel like it. Now what are you doing here?”

  “I had to fly into town on business this morning, so of course I wanted to see Kelly Lynn. I was very disappointed that she wouldn’t come to the coast for spring break.” He gave Maggie a bitter smile. “Which, I’m sure, you encouraged.”

  Maggie stared at him, unable to believe her ears. He knew darned well why Kelly had refused to go, and it had nothing to do with her. She gritted her teeth, waiting for the new burst of anger to ease, then laid it on the line. “The problem between you and Kelly isn’t my problem, it’s yours, Bruce. You make it pretty obvious that you disapprove of most everything she does, so of course she resents you. She’s not going to take ballet just because you and Jennifer think it would give her some grace and refinement. And she doesn’t want to go to some private girls’ school because you think it would expose her to a better class of people. She’s her own person, but you keep trying to change her into something she’s not. You make her feel inadequate and awkward, so of course she doesn’t want to go to visit. So don’t make it my problem, Bruce. It’s yours.”

  He couldn’t hold Maggie’s gaze, and he looked down and began picking microscopic lint from his trousers. Maggie knew from the way he compressed his mouth that she had hit a nerve, and that he didn’t like being smacked in the face with the truth, but she didn’t really care. He had crossed a line today, and she was angrier at him than she’d ever been.

  He finally looked at her, a stiff expression around his mouth. “I only want what’s best for her.”

  Maggie’s head felt like it was going to explode from a new surge of anger, and she clenched her teeth, trying to hold it all in. She gave herself a good thirty seconds
, then exclaimed, “No, you don’t. You want what’s best for you.”

  He gave her another unpleasant smile. “You’re a fine one to talk. From what I’ve seen today, you aren’t exactly setting a sterling example. Cavorting around in front of her with some muscle-bound biker half your age. I didn’t think you’d ever sink to that level, Margaret.”

  Maggie folded her arms and tipped her head to one side, giving him a tight smile. “And just how old is the new Mrs. Burrows? Thirty-six, if I remember correctly. And it wasn’t me who abandoned my wife and kids to run off with a younger woman.”

  He stared at her, and she caught the flash of guilt in his eyes before he looked away. He shoved his hands in his pockets and went to stand in front of the window. He stared out for a moment, then spoke, his voice clipped. “Who is he?”

  It took Maggie a few seconds to answer. “Tony Parnelli.”

  “What does he do?”

  Figuring she owed him that, Maggie answered, “He and his brother have a business building high-performance engines for race cars. They have the shop next door.”

  Bruce shot her a startled look. “Not Mario Parnelli.”

  She studied his face. “That’s his brother. Why? Do you know him?”

  Bruce broke eye contact and looked back out the window, a peculiar expression on his face.

  “Do you?” she prompted.

  He looked very uncomfortable. “Well—ah—well, no, I don’t know him personally. But he was a client of the firm here.” Bruce ran his finger along a ledge on the window, then brushed off the dust. “Are you sleeping with him?” he asked abruptly.

  She considered telling him it was none of his business. Then she changed her mind. “Yes.”

  There was a long, strained silence, and Maggie closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, a tight feeling in her scalp. Lord, she wished he would just pick up his suit jacket, go home and leave her alone.

  Bruce finally broke the silence, a tinge of bitterness in his voice. “I see. So it’s just sex.”

  The anger that had settled down flared up again, and Maggie’s pulse started to pound. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have anything to compare it to,” she answered, her tone cutting.

  He turned and looked at her, his lips white with indignation. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  She stared right back at him. “Figure it out for yourself.”

  He gave her a twisted smile. “Well, you’d better have a long hard look at yourself, Margaret. Not only are you a good ten years older than he is, but you don’t exactly have a lot going for you. If you think a man like that, who moves in the circles that he does, is going to be content to spend the rest of his life with you, you’re in for a surprise. Do you really think you’re going to fit into that crowd? You’re going to be nothing but an enormous embarrassment to him—an albatross around his neck. But then,” he said, his tone cold and vindictive, “that’s nothing new.”

  Stunned by the viciousness of his attack, Maggie stared at him, a cold, cold feeling spreading through her. It was a bull’seye hit.

  The tension crackled in the ensuing silence, and she finally dragged her gaze away, her one overriding thought to get out of there. Her movements stiff and jerky, she closed the cupboard door and picked up her car keys from the counter. An albatross. He might as well have stabbed her in the back. Numbed to the bone, she lifted her chin and walked past him, her chest hurting, her face frozen. He had flattened her with one killing blow.

  By the time Bruce got out to the garage, Maggie was in the car, the engine running, waiting for the big double door to fully open. He grabbed for her door handle, but she had set the door locks. Unable to even look at him, she turned her shoulders the opposite way and backed out of the garage, nearly sideswiping his maroon rental car. Yelling at her to stop, he pounded on the car roof, but Maggie ignored him.

  Trembling from head to toe, her vision so blurred she couldn’t see, she had to try twice to get the car into drive. Then, staring straight ahead, she gripped the wheel, thinking of nothing but escape. Clenching her jaw against the pain, she tromped on the accelerator.

  One part of her brain flashed up the message that he would probably try to follow her. But Bruce always locked his car, and he always put his car keys in the right-hand pocket of his suit jacket.

  Numb to the core, Maggie turned down the first alley she came to, then methodically took every alley that would take her away from home. For a split second she considered going to the office, but she knew that would be the first place Bruce would look. So she drove. She didn’t know where she was going, and it didn’t matter. Because she was still going to have to face herself when she got there.

  Maggie spent most of the afternoon sitting on a bluff overlooking Glenmore Reservoir, staring starkly out over the glassy surface of the lake, trying to recover from Bruce’s attack. His spiteful comments had been like a slap in the face. But it wasn’t really the attack that had numbed her; it was the ugly revelation that had come afterward. Ever since she’d been seeing Tony on a regular basis, there had been an awful, awful feeling that would rise up to haunt her—a feeling that would gnaw away at her and leave her hollowed out inside. Only before, she hadn’t known its source. But now she did. Bruce had put it into words.

  When he’d told her that someday she would be nothing but an embarrassment to Tony, that awful feeling had coalesced into a hard, cold knot. Because that was what she had been afraid of all along—that someday she would be an albatross around his neck.

  The age difference was a big part of it, but it was more than that. She wouldn’t fit into his life. Other than Spider and Tony’s family, she didn’t even know what his life consisted of. They had been living in such a private little world, nothing had intruded. But she knew that someday it would.

  She reconfirmed one decision, though, sitting there staring at the lake. It would never work. Never in a million years.

  It was late afternoon when Maggie left the bluff and headed home. She probably wouldn’t have gone back then if it hadn’t been for Kelly. She felt so totally chewed up inside that she just wanted to go somewhere and hide, but she knew her daughter would be worried about her. And as much as she wanted to crawl into a hole, she couldn’t do that to her.

  Maggie drove down the street first to make sure Bruce’s rental car wasn’t parked out front; then she turned down the alley. The garage pad was also empty, and she felt a nearly incapacitating rush of relief. The thought of having to face him again made her feel almost sick.

  She parked in the space beside the draped Studebaker, then shut off the ignition. She sat there for a long time, numbness weighing her down, making her reluctant to move. She didn’t want to have to deal with Kelly, but she couldn’t put that off, no matter how much she wanted to. And she prayed to God she wouldn’t have to face Tony until tomorrow, when there was more of a chance she’d have everything under control. Releasing a tired sigh, she removed the keys from the ignition and got out of the car, shutting the door behind her. The place had never seemed less like home.

  At the side door of the garage, she hit the button to close the big door, then stepped out into blinding sunlight. Feeling as if she was on remote control, she started up the walk, clutching the keys in her hand. Her face felt like wood, and in spite of the heat, she was cold right through. Once she dealt with her daughter, she was going to unplug the phone, crawl into bed and try to block everything out.

  The back door was standing open, just like she’d left it, and she pulled open the screen and entered, weariness washing over her. The house was absolutely still, and Maggie experienced a twist of relief. Kelly was probably still off somewhere with Tony. Entering the kitchen, she dropped the keys into the pottery dish on the counter, then pulled her blouse out of the waistband of her slacks. There was a sealed envelope lying on the table with some writing on it, and she turned it around to read it. It was a message from Bruce, asking her to please read the letter inside. Feeling nothing at all, Maggie left i
t lying there.

  “I was about ready to send out a search party.”

  Maggie’s heart gave a lurch and she turned, a crazy flutter taking off in her chest. Tony was standing in the archway, his shoulder resting against the frame, his arms crossed. He had changed into jeans, and he was watching her with a steady look. Maggie’s stomach promptly dropped to her shoes.

  She evaded the issue. “Where’s Kelly?”

  “I figured it would be a good idea if she wasn’t here, so I gave her and Scott twenty bucks to go in-line skating.” He continued to watch her. “So where were you?”

  Maggie held his gaze for a moment, then looked down, rubbing her thumb against a mark on the back of the chair. “I had some things to sort out,” she said, her tone soft.

  “What happened?”

  She lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug.

  “Don’t do that, Maggie,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Don’t clam up on me. I want to know what happened.”

  She managed a small, humorless smile. “He was disgusted because he caught me cavorting around with a muscle-bound biker who was half my age. And he was very upset because Kelly refused to go visit him at spring break, and he thinks it’s my fault.”

  “Did you see the letter?”

  Running her fingernail along a groove in the chair back, Maggie nodded.

  “Are you going to read it?”

  She finally lifted her head and looked at him, grateful she felt so dead inside. “No,” she answered.