****
Luke woke up in Chloe’s bed, her warm body cuddled in his arms. He froze as he heard a car pull into the gravel driveway. That would be his mother, ready to begin her work day. He knew she’d go upstairs first with the fresh muffins she’d made at home. She’d set them out with cut fruit and start the large coffee urn.
It didn’t matter. She’d already seen his car in the parking lot. Unless…
“Chloe,” he whispered, gently pulling his arm out from under her shoulders. She stirred and her beautiful eyes opened an inch. “My mom’s here.”
She jumped out of bed without a word while he quietly zipped his jeans. Man, she looked good naked with her sleepy eyes and hair all messed up. He wished he could pull her right back into bed, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ll just say I got here early to pick up the boys for the fishing trip.”
“Right.”
Chloe reached for her robe. They could both hear his mom upstairs, getting ready for the guests who didn’t feel like using their own cottage kitchenettes this early in the day.
Chloe headed for the bathroom. Luke finished dressing and started out toward the kitchen, wishing he at least had a toothbrush. As he walked past the bathroom, Chloe opened the door and thrust a toothbrush with a dollop of toothpaste on it at him.
He brushed his teeth at the kitchen sink and hid the toothbrush in Chloe’s room in the bedside table, right next to the condoms. Crap. His mother would be emptying the wastebasket in here and yep, there was his condom, right on top of the basket. He heard her steps coming down the stairs, so he grabbed the wicker basket and knocked on the bathroom door. The running shower reminded him he needed to take a piss. Really bad.
He opened the door and stuck the wastebasket in the center of the room. He just made it into the kitchen when his mother knocked on the locked door that separated the office from the bungalow’s living quarters. She had a key, but she wouldn’t just let herself in when a guest was using the bungalow. She wouldn’t even normally knock this early but would wait for Chloe and the boys to head down to the beach before she vacuumed and changed sheets. She must know he was here. Of course. She’d seen his truck.
“Luke?”
“Morning, Mom.” He opened the door.
“You’re here early.” She walked into the kitchen.
“Finn and I are taking the boys fishing this morning. As usual he’s running a little late.”
His mother said nothing. She stared at his bare feet and bed hair. He wasn’t fooling her. Not for one minute. He shrugged.
She shook her head and tried to hide her smile. He bet she’d be on the phone to Ursula the minute she could manage it.
****
Four days after their first session, Bettina sat with Spence in front of Dr. Michaels’s desk. The doctor wrote a prescription for a pill that would make him sick if he had a drop of alcohol. He pushed it toward them, and Bettina grabbed it.
“You are not my mother, okay? I can fill my own damn prescriptions.” Truth, he wanted to hold the script. He got an anticipatory surge just seeing the square of paper.
For a week, he had done a detox in the hospital. He had been fortunate—well, he still didn’t feel fortunate, but he worked on that—Bettina had found him and called 9-1-1 before the pills he’d taken had completely engulfed his system. But now there would be no marijuana, medical or otherwise. There would be no uppers or downers. There would just be this one pill.
The doctor checked his notes. “You need sixty days, not six.”
“I’ve done this all before. It never worked then. Why should it now?”
Bettina sat rigid beside him, the prescription slip clutched in her hand. She had not met his eyes, even once. Spence sighed. He took Bettina’s hand. The one not holding the prescription. She let him.
“Listen. I’m getting clean for good. That’s it. I had my party, and it’s not over. It’s just going to be a sober party this time.”
She slowly turned toward him. “You’re not the only one who has been down this road before,” she said. “You cannot promise you’ll never fall off the cliff again.”
“It’s a wagon.” Spence attempted a weak joke.
“In your case, it’s a high steep cliff, Grand Canyon size.”
She shook her head, but he thought he detected a slight smile trying to work its way onto her face. He did not deserve this woman. He knew she would never walk away from him like Chloe had.
“Look, I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me. I hate myself. And if you want me to, I will stay sixty days. But Chloe is taking the boys to Seattle, and I need to stop her somehow.”
“Why did you agree to it in the first place? She’d have needed your permission to take them out of state.”
Bettina didn’t miss a trick. Shrewd mind behind that sweet face. He’d have to own up at some point. Might as well be now. “I did it for you. For us.”
Nobody spoke for a full minute. Spence couldn’t bear it, the avoiding, the hiding, the lies. It had to be over. For his own good. For himself. Or there might not be any more of him—the good dad, the nice husband, the sincere person—left.
Bettina just waited for him to finish answering. The doctor, too, clearly expected him to continue.
“She signed the house over to me. Paid off the mortgage.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She gave me clear title.”
“I thought the house was yours?”
“I liked you thinking that. It made me feel less of a loser.” He got a hit of relief for having come clean. Swiftly followed by dread. Bettina’s face paled. Her body shrunk from his side even more. She stared at the wall, not at him.
“What else?” When she finally spoke, she looked him in the eye. He saw fury there. And hurt.
“That’s it. I swear.”
“It’s more than enough. You could have killed yourself. You tried to…” She choked back a sob as he watched her carefully controlled façade fall apart.
Yes. Bald truth. But if he thought Bettina might take pity on him because of his suicide attempt, he now knew that wasn’t going to happen. Just another delusion.
She smacked him on his arm, and then she did it again. The doctor coughed and raised one finger as if to say “time out.”
“Bettina.” The doctor waited while she swiped away tears. She nodded and Spence knew she was ready to listen. “Will you tell Spence why you want to hit him?”
She put her hands in her face, and her shoulders shook as she silently wept. He had done this to her. Devastated, he tried to keep up with his wife’s actions and emotions. To not break down himself. He had to be strong for her.
She sniffed and accepted a tissue from the doctor. “Because he would rather be dead than have a life with me and our baby. He’d rather be dead than do without his precious drugs and alcohol.”
She ripped at her tissue, not meeting Spence’s eyes. He grabbed for her hand, but she snatched it away. “Baby, that’s just not true!”
“What is the truth, Spence?” The doctor held the box of tissue toward him as his eyes penetrated through every defense he’d built up.
Spence touched his face. Wet. Him? Crying? He didn’t think so. Tears fell. Strange. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.
“I didn’t want…I couldn’t stop. I wanted to be a good person. For a long time, I didn’t realize I was an addict. Doctors gave me pills. That made it okay.”
“You doctor shopped. Used more than one pharmacy. You had to know that’s wrong. And what about your alcohol use?”
“That’s what I mean!” Spence’s head wound tight as a vice grip. “Wouldn’t you want to kill yourself if you were in my shoes?”
Bettina began a fresh round of sobs. He wanted his pipe so bad. That was the difference between them. She let it all out, he kept it all stowed inside. Unless his body betrayed him, like with the silent tears.
The doctor wore a pissed expression Spence knew wel
l. “If I had a beautiful, intelligent wife and a new baby on the way? Of course I wouldn’t want to kill myself. You have everything to live for.”
“No!” Spence was not going to let this guy railroad him. Nobody understood. Not one person. “If you were a fucked-up mess who never saw his kids, got money for giving them up, lived off women, never even tried to work…getting high was my full-time job, if you were me, you’d get why I did it.”
“Let me suggest you change the picture a bit. Look toward the future, not back at the past. Lay it to rest.” The doctor’s face had softened a fraction.
“But I don’t want them to go!” In that moment, Spence knew he would do anything to keep his kids close.
“Then I’d say you had quite a mess to clean up before your next child arrives, don’t you?”
Chapter Twelve
When Chloe got out of the shower, she heard Luke talking to his mom in the kitchen. She saw the wastebasket in the middle of the floor and knew immediately what that was about. She smiled, wrapped the used condoms in tissue, and put the wad into the pocket of her robe. She’d discard the evidence later. Then she blew her hair dry and put on her makeup.
She went through the hall and closed her bedroom door without greeting Wanda. Usually, Wanda stayed in the office and upstairs. She didn’t come into Chloe’s area of the house until she was sure of the timing. And yet, this morning, there she sat, in the kitchen, at the table, taking a coffee break. Chloe had seen all this from the corner of her eye as she went from the bathroom to the bedroom.
What was that all about?
Her cell rang before she even finished dressing. Her mother.
“I hear Luke is taking the boys fishing this morning,” her mom said.
“Uh-huh.”
“They’re still sleeping.”
Chloe checked the time. A bit after eight.
“What time did you have them up until?”
“We watched late night TV. Then they were too wound up to sleep, so we put in a movie.
“Well, Finn’s not here yet, so let them sleep.”
“But Luke’s there. My friend Alice saw his truck parked at your place at 5 a.m. this morning. And Carrie said his truck was parked there at 2 a.m. when Fast Eddie’s closed.”
Chloe let her mother come to her own conclusions. She didn’t deny, and she didn’t admit. After she hung up the phone, she sat on the bed and let the sadness she’d been trying to push away since the day her boss had manhandled her take over. Why was it rushing out now? Was this about last night? About what happened and why it happened, and the fact that if it was ever going to happen again, she’d have to tell Luke about Seattle. She dreaded telling him but prayed they’d be able to work out some kind of long-distance commitment. Well, unless that wasn’t part of his plan. Unless she was just a one night girl. But she didn’t think Luke played that game. For one thing, he would not choose a single mom for a fling.
****
Luke smiled a silly smile. He couldn’t wipe it off his face. The boys were having a great time. Finn was good to Zak, his only nephew. He had a way of being easy with the boys that Luke took cues from. Luke had not really been around young boys much, well, not since he’d been one.
He put worms on their hooks, untangled their lines, got them juice boxes from the cooler, reminded them to put sunscreen on. He helped the three boys while Finn fished in a few spots they knew along the lake, inlets where they could catch bass and perch. So they were used to being quiet with each other. They were also used to drinking more beer, but Finn’s sister had contemplated the six pack in the cooler and removed two of the beers.
Chloe had done something similar. She’d checked and rechecked the boys’ canvas bag that held towels and sunscreen and two small pair of sunglasses. The boys refused to wear the sunglasses, and they had to be forced to apply sunscreen. They hated it, Chloe had warned him.
Meanwhile, she’d thanked Finn sweetly for bringing the picnic lunch and the extra poles, and for including her boys in such a fun day. Luke, who hoped he had rocked her night world, got a quick kiss on the cheek when her boys weren’t looking. Finn must wonder about that, but, a stroke of luck, he knew better than to bring it up with the little guys around. What would he say to Finn? That he and Chloe were taking it slow? He wasn’t sure if that was true for her, but for him, absolutely true. He’d like to take their relationship to the next step, even though it meant breaking his number one rule, which Finn knew about, and would not hesitate to use.
“Uncle Finn,” Zak said, “can we go swimming?”
“What? Tired of fishing already?”
“We’ll fish some more later after we swim,” Josh promised.
“Might as well let them swim before we eat,” Luke said.
“Okay, but you all have to wear life jackets.”
A chorus of complaints, but eventually they all zipped into jackets while Finn navigated the boat next to a sandbar at an inlet only the locals knew existed.
The boys jumped into the water, and Finn handed Luke a beer. They both faced the three bobbing heads in the water. Both kept constant count through the splashing and screeching. Alive and content on a beautiful day, not a cloud in the blue, blue sky, the water full of ripples and splashes and laughter.
Then Finn erased Luke’s good mood by saying, “So you’ve got a thing for another single mother. Don’t you ever learn?”
He shook his head. “I guess not.”
“Word is you spent the night.”
Damn small towns. Everybody knew everything all the time.
“Why would you want to do that? After the last time, you moped around for months.”
Years was more like it. He still got mopey every Christmas when he took out the ornament that Bella had made him in preschool. A little foam coffee cup, a red pipe cleaner through the bottom shaped like an ornament hook, and silver glitter rimming the top of the cup, so that turned upside down it resembled a Christmas bell.
“Chloe’s different. She’s worth it.”
“She’s hot.”
“No shit.”
They sipped their beer and munched on the sandwiches Finn’s sister had made. Finn ripped open a bag of chips, and they took handfuls of those.
“Why, dude?”
Finn wouldn’t let it go.
“I didn’t mean for anything to happen. It just did.”
Then the boys were climbing back into the boat demanding towels and sandwiches and chips.
“I hate bologna,” Josh said.
Luke went through the cooler Chloe had packed. Sure enough, he found a big plastic container of peanut butter crackers, which he passed around. Then Josh got the idea to put chips inside the crackers.
“These are really good, you should try them!”
So they all did. And the chip crackers tasted pretty good, Luke had to admit.
“You’re a smart kid, Joshua,” he said.
Josh beamed.
“Now put on some more sunscreen.”
Josh’s smile disappeared, but he complied, taking great pleasure in telling Tommy he had to wear some goop, too.
****
While the boys fished, Chloe went to the spa in town for some pampering. Her mother had talked her into it, and the truth was, she needed something to ground her, something physical and concrete to take her mind off Luke and Seattle and the uncertain future. Just when she thought she had it all figured out, events conspired to make chaos of her emotions.
The town consisted of one long street with a single traffic light at the center. A bank and a gas station anchored that corner, with a small grassy park on the other side of the street. On either side of the street were shops that sold beach and resort wear, sunglasses, art, pottery, candy, ice cream, fudge. Even an indie book store (sure didn’t see those in Sterling Pines) and a movie theater. There were many restaurants, but Luke had told her that almost all of these businesses were only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
She drove along the street,
past the old fashioned lamp posts with hanging baskets of pink and white petunias. She had always loved it here.
She pushed into the door of the day spa, a little surprised by the hum of activity inside when the weather was so beautiful outside. She guessed you got used to it, living here. Or, if you were a tourist, on vacation, you got a bit of pampering. That had been her plan, but now she wasn’t so sure. Everyone seemed busy, and her, just a walk-in.
“Chloe?” the young woman behind a sleek column of solid blond wood asked.
“Yes,” she said, surprised. How did she know her name?
“Your mom called. I’m Ginny. We live next door. It’s so nice to meet you. We just love your mom.”
“Oh.” Chloe sort of remembered teenaged Ginny, but she’d grown up since last year. Chloe wanted anonymous for a few hours. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, most of them about last night, but that didn’t seem like it was going to happen.
“She said you wanted a mani-pedi, but let me just show you what all we have…” Ginny handed Chloe a colorful brochure with a babe in a barely-there bikini on the cover. Chloe did a double take. The babe was Ginny.
“We do a great Brazilian wax.” Ginny winked.
Chloe shook her head, stunned by the choices offered. Finally, she picked a natural manicure and a reflexology pedicure.
“Ooh, good choice,” Ginny said. She slide her finger through the pages of a laptop, checking the bookings. “And one of our massage ladies will be finished with her client by the time you’re done with your manicure.”
Ginny came from behind the desk and led Chloe over to a manicure station. Chloe had never bothered with manicures, unlike some of her friends, who treated beauty routines like a religion, but common sense said she should pay first, so she wouldn’t ruin her pretty painted nails afterward.
“Oh, didn’t your mom tell you?” Gin said when she saw Chloe pulling her wallet from her purse. “Today’s on her.”
Chloe was pleased, hopeful that her mom had come to terms with the move. Guilt also probably rubbed Mom for not cancelling her mah-jongg game to spend the day with Chloe.
Chloe put her wallet away and turned to the wall of polish to choose her color. She normally kept her fingernails short and put pink or red polish on her toes. Today she decided, since her nails had grown out without her even noticing, that she’d splurge and do something different. “I’m going to do the pink and white French,” she said to the young girl behind the manicure desk.
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