by Jill Shalvis
“Which I well know, as I pushed all seven and a half pounds of you out of my vagina. I did what I could, but as I’ve told you, I’m bad with babies.”
“And children.”
“And children.”
“And teenagers.”
Her mom rolled her eyes and went to the bottle of wine on the counter between a strawberry pie and a cheesecake. “To be fair, you were a horrid teenager. But I’m good at adults. Which I’m assuming you’ve finally become.” She handed Lanie a glass and gently knocked their two together in a toast. “To the both of us being adults at the same time.”
Lanie tossed back her wine and reached for the bottle.
“That’s a very expensive Napa Valley cabernet,” she said. “You don’t want to drink it too fast.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, then, darling, next time warn me that you’re having a moment and I’ll drop by the store for a boxed wine.”
Lanie took her second glass in hand and reminded herself she’d come here to see about actually getting along for a change. After Lanie had moved out at eighteen and gone off to college, things had gotten better between her and her parents. They all checked in with each other via a phone call once a month. Very civilized. When Lanie had gotten married just before her twenty-fifth birthday, her parents had come to Santa Barbara for the festivities. Since then, they’d met for some of the holidays but not all. More civility.
But instead of appeasing Lanie and making her feel good, it left her yearning for more.
So here she was. Looking for that more. Only she had no idea how to get it. She perused the counter and picked up the cheesecake. She grabbed a fork from the utensil drawer and headed to the table.
“What are you doing?”
“Having a moment, apparently.” Lanie sat and dug in. “Oh my God,” she moaned around a huge bite. “This is amazing.”
“Did you just compliment something I did?”
Lanie paused, the fork halfway to her mouth as she licked some of the cheesy goodness off her lips, considering something she’d never considered before.
Was she equally at fault for this strained relationship? On the one hand, she couldn’t be blamed for her mom not wanting to be a mom during Lanie’s growing-up years. But now that she was grown up, had she perpetuated the crappy communication out of resentment and festering emotional wounds?
One hundred percent.
She took another bite and swallowed before answering. “Yes,” she said. “I just complimented you. And here’s another one. Thanks for letting me in to eat and drink you out of house and home.”
Her mother looked surprised but recovered quickly. “You’re welcome. And I’d say anytime, but I think I’ll wait until the end of this visit to make sure.”
Lanie choked out a laugh, but remembering her shitty day, it turned into a sob so she carefully pushed away the cheesecake and set her forehead to the table.
Silence from her mom.
After a moment, the bottle of wine appeared in front of her face and the cheesecake was nudged close again.
A peace offering.
Lanie felt her eyes sting, but she ruthlessly beat back the tears. “I’m not falling apart or anything.”
“Well, that’s good, as one, us Jacobses don’t do falling apart, and two, I’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes.”
This got another choked laugh out of Lanie. She lifted her head and grabbed the wine bottle and drank right from it.
“I’m going to assume someone’s dying,” her mom said, sounding more than a little pained. “Because otherwise certainly you would be civilized enough to use the glass.”
“No one’s dying.” Lanie took another long pull of wine. Finally, it was starting to warm her up from the inside out. About time. “He’s already dead. Though there are days when I wish I could kill him all over again.”
“If you’ll recall, I told you not to marry him.”
Lanie shook her head with a mirthless laugh. “Aw, there it is. The ‘I told you so.’”
“Well, I did tell you so. What happened?”
Lanie hesitated. She’d spoken to her mom quite a few times on the phone since they’d seen each other at Kyle’s funeral, but Lanie hadn’t told her about the wife addiction. Maybe opening up and trying for a real relationship had to start with her, she thought, and drew in a deep breath. “A bunch of his other wives keep knocking.”
Her mom stared at her for a full beat. “Are you drunk?”
“Yes.” Lanie sighed. “And he was cheating on me. He married at least four other women. One of them says he had a ring of hers and she wants it back.”
“Tell her to take a fucking hike.”
Lanie choked on the unfortunate sip of wine she’d just taken. “Did you just say fuck?”
“Yes.”
“You never say fuck.”
“No?” her mother asked. “Well, I think it a lot. For instance, fuck using a glass. This situation calls for drastic measures.” Taking the bottle of wine back from Lanie, she lifted it to her lips for a long pull. “Don’t give in to this woman.”
“Her name’s River, and she’s like, twelve.”
Her mom looked horrified. “He was a pedophile too?”
“I mean she looks twelve. She’s legal, barely. She just turned twenty-one.” Lanie sighed. “She also looks like an angel, one that’s about to pop.”
Her mom sat straight up like a hot poker had been rammed up her spine. “She’s pregnant?”
“Yes.”
Her mom stared at her for a long beat and then closed her eyes. “Well, damn.”
“What?”
“I’m going to say two words to you that I’ve never said before and don’t intend to ever say again. I’m sorry.”
Lanie nearly fell off her chair. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because I have to revise my statement. She’s young, alone, pregnant, and came to you for help. You, when you’re most likely the very last person on the earth she wanted to need anything from. My God.” Her mom rubbed her forehead like her head hurt. “Do you have any idea how desperate and terrifying that is?”
Lanie stared at her. “Why do I get the feeling we’re not talking about River anymore?”
Her mom finished off the bottle of wine and swiped her mouth with her arm, the most undignified thing Lanie had ever seen her do in her life. If she’d burped the alphabet, Lanie couldn’t have been more surprised.
“We need more wine,” her mom said.
“Actually, I don’t think that’s what we need at all,” Lanie said carefully, because yes, her mind was a little muddled, but not so muddled as to not realize they’d just acknowledged the elephant in the room.
The big, fat, huge pink elephant, who might be a little drunk to boot. “I feel like I’m missing a piece of my own puzzle here,” Lanie said. “A big piece too, like one of the corners or something.”
“I was nineteen when I got married,” her mom said. “And I thought I knew everything there was to know about love. I didn’t, by the way, and neither did your father. I caught him boffing my best friend up against my refrigerator and immediately retaliated with my own torrid affair with the mailman. I was the only one stupid enough to get pregnant.”
Lanie stared at her, shocked to finally learn the truth of this story. Her story. “But . . . Dad cheated first.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right, Lanie.”
“No kidding, but it seems to me you’re the one who paid the most.” Lanie shook her head. “And you stayed married.”
“We worked through it. Bottom line, we’d both been young and stupid, but after about a year of hating each other, we realized we still also loved each other.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Lanie asked.
“Oh, come on,” she said with a rough laugh. “That kind of baggage doesn’t fit into the overhead, you know what I mean?”
“Not even a little bit,” Lanie said.
“I didn’t want your pity!”
“Well, you know what they say. A pair beats . . .” She shook her head. “What does a pair beat?”
Lanie knew this one because she’d been married to an asshole who’d loved poker. “Depends on how good of a bluffer you are,” she said, setting the plate on the table between them.
“Well, then, we’re in fine shape.”
Lanie actually laughed a little at that.
“Do you realize we just spent an entire hour together and didn’t yell or hurl insults at each other?”
Lanie looked up at her mom and caught a glimpse of wistfulness on her face before she schooled her expression back to her usual implacable, unruffled calm. “Yeah,” Lanie said slowly. “You’re right. Should we go at it just for old times’ sake?”
Her mom shrugged. “Why feel emotions when we don’t have to?”
Yeah. That made perfect sense, but at the same time it squeezed Lanie’s heart a little, making it hurt. Because for once, for damn once in her life, it’d have been really nice to have someone want to feel emotions when it came to her.
Chapter 22
Is it the anxiety or the two double espressos?
Fifteen minutes later Lanie ordered a Lyft and stood on the sidewalk, waiting. She’d chosen to wait outside instead of pushing her luck and the relatively decent visit karma.
Fifteen minutes later, her Lyft pulled up and she slid into the back of . . .
Uncle Jack’s car.
He grinned at her via the rearview mirror. “Hey, cutie.”
She gaped at him. “What are you doing here?”
“You requested a Lyft. I’m a Lyft driver.” He looked very proud of this. “It’s great side money. Plus I get to talk to people. Something wrong with your car?”
“No, I’m sort of toasted.”
“Ah,” he said, and with absolutely zero judgment drove her toward the address she’d requested—the Whiskey River—driving like a complete madman.
“Um . . . there’s no rush,” Lanie said, holding on to the “oh shit” bar above the window as they took a turn on two wheels.
“I’m not in a rush,” Uncle Jack said and pulled into the lot, where he was honked at—loudly and repeatedly—by the car behind him.
Uncle Jack’s response was to flip the guy off.
“Maybe if you used your blinker to signal you’re turning,” Lanie suggested.
“Hey, it’s no one’s business but mine where I’m going,” he said and then handed her a card with his phone number on it. “Call me direct when you’re ready for a ride back.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
His smile went a little sad. “Because not every human who has a dick is a dick. Have one on me, cutie.”
She thought about that as she headed inside and straight to the bar.
Boomer the bartender recognized her and smiled. “Your usual?”
“I’ve only been here once before.”
“I remember all the pretty faces.”
“Do you flirt with all of them?” she asked.
“Nasty habit.” He leaned on the bar, his smile harmless. “But it’s not going anywhere. I’m taken.”
“Good, because that’s the only kind of man I can handle right now,” she said. “Vodka and lemonade, please. Heavy on the vodka, light on the lemonade. Ice cubes optional.”
He served her drink just how she liked it and kept them coming. Apparently she’d been deep in denial, because it’d taken her a whole week to lose her shit. But it was official now. Her shit was lost. She was mad. And hurt.
Not a pretty combo for her.
Boomer made another drive-by and with a sympathetic smile, left her the bottle. “Been a rough week, I hear.”
With a sigh, she reached for the bottle. She didn’t even particularly like vodka but she hated that people knew how screwed up her life was. When her vision was pleasantly blurry and she could no longer feel pain in the region where her heart usually sat, she stood up.
And only weaved very slightly.
Proud of herself, she made her way outside. In the very front parking spot was her silver Honda. Even though she still wouldn’t drive, it’d been sweet of Uncle Jack to somehow get her car to her. Incredibly sweet. Maybe she’d reduce her Capriotti ban for him.
But only him.
She located her key pod in the bottom of her purse and beeped her car unlocked. Only it wouldn’t unlock. No matter how many times she pushed the button, nothing happened. So she carefully set it on the ground and used one of her heels to stomp on it.
Still nothing.
Rude.
She kicked off her high-heeled boot, picked it up, and hit the driver’s side door with it. “I hate you,” she said. The car was the one thing Kyle had bought for her with his own money. She’d forgotten that until right this very minute, but suddenly she couldn’t stand the sight of the car, as it was the very manifestation of everything wrong in her life.
So she hit it with her boot again.
And again.
And on the fourth hit, the window smashed in. It was incredibly satisfying and she stopped hitting the car and stared at the broken window. “Ha!” She pointed at it. “That’s on you.”
The whoop of a siren, accompanied by a flash of red and blue lights, had her holding up a hand in front of her eyes.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to step away from the car and put down your weapon.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
“Put the weapon down, ma’am.”
“I don’t have a weapon.”
In the next beat, her boot was wrenched from her hand and she was turned and pushed up against her car.
And cuffed.
Which is when, cheek down on the hood of the Honda, she realized something.
It wasn’t her car.
Well, crap. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think I made a mistake—”
“Ma’am, we need you to answer a few questions.”
“No, you don’t understand. I thought this was my car, the one my dickwad of a dead husband gave me—”
“Dead?”
“Hey, it’s not like I killed him. I mean, I really wish I had, I really, really, really wish that, but it wasn’t my bad.”
Which was when she took a ride in the back of a squad car to the station.
Chapter 23
Brain: I see you’re trying to sleep. Can I offer a selection of your worst memories from the last ten years of your life?
Mark sat at the desk on the other side of the locked cell, his gaze on the woman asleep on the narrow bench. She was missing a boot, smelled like a bottle of vodka, and half of her hair had escaped its twist, giving her the overall appearance of a fallen Hollywood starlet.
He sipped at the soda he’d gotten from the vending machine. The rest of his cash had gone to the three Snickers bars in front of him, one of which was nothing but wrapper since he’d consumed it and called it a late dinner.
Late, late dinner.
It was midnight, and he stayed where he was as in the cell Lanie stirred, moaned, and sat up holding her head like it was in danger of rolling off her shoulders.
“Ouch,” she said.
Then she focused with what looked like difficulty and leveled bloodshot eyes on him. “You,” she said, looking pissed off.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Why is the sun so loud?” She blinked. “Wait—” She looked around her. “What the hell?”
Standing up, he went to the cell. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Not wanting to see you,” she said and looked around. “Seriously. What. The. Hell?”
He waited while she ran things through her addled brain and saw the exact second it all clicked together.
“I was arrested!” she gasped.
“No. You were brought here to sleep it off, and for questioning in the matter of destruction of property.”
&nb
sp; “I thought it was my car,” she said and put her hands over her eyes. “Oh my God. I beat up the wrong car.”
“Did a good job of it too.”
She dropped her hands and narrowed her eyes at him. “I haven’t been given my phone call.”
“Because after you got here, you went right to sleep.”
She was still glaring at him like this was somehow his fault. “You weren’t there,” she said. “So why are you here?”
“Boomer called me after your parking lot show.”
“So you came here to what, save me?”
“Are you still in a cell?”
“Yes.”
“Then I haven’t saved you,” he said.
“Good.” She crossed her arms. “Because I don’t need saving.”
“No shit.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It means something.”
“Fine. It means you’re the most stubborn, most frustrating woman I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, well, you’re . . .” She grimaced and went back to holding her head. “Lots of annoying stuff too.”
“I didn’t say you were annoying.” He moved closer. “Look, I know this week’s sucked for you and that you feel all alone in what you’re going through, but when are you going to get it? You’re not alone. There’re people here who care very much for you and want to help.”
“You?”
“Yes, me,” he said.
“You have no idea what I’m going through.”
“Because you won’t talk to me. Or, for that matter, River.”
She crossed her arms. “If I’m not arrested, let me out of here.”
“Sure,” he said. “Soon as you’re sober.”
“I’m stone-cold sober.” A statement she ruined by nearly falling over.
The bench caught her.
“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “So I’m not all the way sober. And you know what? I’m glad. No one should be sober for this. Also, I’m hungry.”
He tossed her a Snickers.
“My favorite.” She eyed him. “It might be cute if I wasn’t so mad at you. How did you know?”
“I know a lot of things about you,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Such as your eyes change color to suit your mood,” he said. “They darken when you’re aroused and spark like fire when you’re pissed off.”