Sugar Springs

by Kim Law

  “Right. But you’d uproot them in a heartbeat. And then what? You’d want us all to follow you around every few months?”

  “I’d want you to marry me and for the two of us to figure out how it can work. We have five months to get there.”

  “I don’t need five months,” she stated flatly.

  At her words, his face grew taut. “Just like that? You’re going to demand control and just shut down if you don’t get your way?” He gave a harsh laugh. “You haven’t changed at all.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, spitting out the words.

  “I’m talking about the fact you never give credence to anyone else’s ideas but your own. You come up with something and barge forward without so much as a moment’s consideration for what others involved might think.”

  “Is that so? And when exactly are you suggesting I’ve done this before?” She was yelling now, and so was he.

  “When you made plans for us in high school! I didn’t even know what I wanted to do, and you already had me mapped out to vet school and a marriage. I’m sure there were kids in there somewhere, too, but I never listened that far.”

  She gave a short, ugly laugh. “Yet aside from the marriage, which you made sure didn’t happen by screwing my sister, you did exactly what I’d ‘mapped out.’”

  She air quoted the last two words, because she didn’t think it had been as bad as he implied. It wasn’t as if she’d railroaded over him. He’d been there. He could have told her he wanted something else if that was the case. All he’d had to do was say no.

  But he’d never said anything. He’d only slept with her sister.

  The thought brought her up straight. Was it her fault he’d slept with Steph? The irony that Stephanie had blamed her was not lost on her.

  “I’m sorry, Lee.” Cody had himself back under control now. “Let’s back up. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “But you think it’s true.”

  The movement was slight, but she saw his nod. “I was too messed up to be thinking about the future the way you wanted. And I had no idea how to tell you that.”

  “Is that why you slept with her then? Because of me?”

  He reached out for her, but she stepped out of his touch. He sighed and dropped his arms to his sides. “I think I slept with her because doing that proved to me I was the worthless person I’d always suspected myself to be. The person I’d just learned I’d apparently been since a very young age.”

  She would have felt sorry for him if she didn’t hate him at the moment.

  Her breathing calmed, and she stood there in the middle of his kitchen, knowing that she was about to issue an ultimatum that had an almost perfect chance of backfiring. She was going to lose him again.

  “Dammit, Cody,” she muttered. “Why did you have to make me fall in love with you again when you weren’t finished running?”

  Hard eyes drilled back at her. “I haven’t run since I left here the first time.”

  “You haven’t ever stopped.” She picked up the purse and coat she’d set down when she’d arrived and headed for the door. “I can’t do this. The girls and I live in Sugar Springs. We’d love to have you here with us, but if you’re too afraid you might have to face your own crap if you stay, I’ll be agreeable to working out a deal where they can visit you on occasion. But they won’t be changing schools and traipsing all over the country just because you’re too scared to face your past. Where you came from doesn’t matter. Things that happened out of your control don’t matter. Who you are today is the only thing that will ever play into a future with us or anyone else you might let in. If you ever let anyone in.”

  Out of words, she turned to leave.

  “Don’t you dare walk out like that without giving me a chance to say my piece.”

  Hand on the doorknob, she turned slowly back to face him. In a flat tone she said, “Go on then. Tell me how it is.”

  “Dammit, Lee Ann.” He paced across the width of the room, before spreading his arms wide and walking in a circle. “The entire town feels as small as this apartment to me. This closed-in. It’s not me. Can’t you understand that? This place isn’t me.”

  “Why?”

  He barked out a laugh. “I just explained. It’s too small. I want more.”

  “You want to get lost in a place where no one knows you or has the thought to judge you. Because you’re afraid you’ll come up lacking.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll be right!”

  They both jolted back at the shouted words. Shock crossed Cody’s face, and though the comment felt like it might be some sort of breakthrough for him, it was the end for her. She would accept nothing less than what she deserved. And that was everything. She’d spoken her mind, and now she needed to get home before she lost it.

  She shrugged into her coat. “I love you, Cody. I couldn’t hide that if I wanted to. I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you. But no, I will not uproot myself or my girls because you’re too scared to do it right.”

  She yanked the door open. “Thanks for the offer of dinner, but I’ll pass.”

  A thud echoed through the night as she slammed the door closed behind her. She’d just thrown down a gauntlet to the only man she’d ever loved. Take me or leave me. And she feared she knew the outcome. Her hands began to shake. She would soon have to figure out how to live without him.

  Since she’d walked to his house, she had to make it all the way home before collapsing in misery. Ignoring any noises from houses she passed, she kept looking straight ahead and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

  How dare he be willing to give her a part of him but not all. He was so much better than he ever gave himself credit for, but she was tired of trying to convince him. She silently screamed at the injustice of it all, and as soon as she entered her house, she let the scream loose.

  The sound of canned air being pumped into latex was the only noise in the building as Lee Ann and Joanie inflated balloons. The birthday party was tonight. Cody would be there, would make Candy and Kendra ecstatic by helping make it their best birthday ever, and she would have to pretend her heart had not broken when she’d walked out of his place the night before. It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d not even given consideration to staying. He was a runner. Of course he would want to leave. But she’d honestly thought staying would at least be on his radar as a potential option.

  Nope. He had only been concerned with figuring out how to get the three of them to follow him around until he decided he wanted something else. He may have loved them—in his own way—but if the man couldn’t commit to settling down in one place, she couldn’t see how he could ever fully commit to a person. And she didn’t want only half of him. She’d rather continue on her own than go down that path. She’d already had a father who didn’t stick around and a sister who’d hated her. She didn’t need a husband who only gave superficially.

  Lee Ann was content to remain silent, avoiding talking about the issue as she and Joanie worked, but she could tell Joanie had a different plan.

  Joanie tied a ribbon to a silver balloon and attached it to the growing clump of pink and silver orbs the way Lee Ann had instructed before forcing the discussion Lee Ann had been doing her best to delay. “Okay, let’s have it. What happened?”

  Lee Ann kept her focus on the task at hand and her back to her friend. There was no point pretending she didn’t know what Joanie was talking about, but she wasn’t sure how to talk about it yet either. She also wanted to hold that pain all to herself a little while longer. It didn’t seem fair to thrust it on someone else, no matter how well-meaning.

  “Come on, Lee Ann,” Joanie urged. She put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and that did it. The barriers were released. “Tell me what happened,” Joanie begged.

  Lee Ann’s eyes filled with tears as she turned to her friend. “It’s over.”

  She let the balloon go that she’d been working on, and as it squirted up th
rough the air, she plopped down on the floor. “He wanted us to go to Florida with him.”

  Joanie lowered down beside her and nodded in a supporting way. “But that isn’t all that bad. He clearly doesn’t want to be separated. Right? You could make something work. Go down there a few times, take some time off and let the girls spend spring break with him. It could work.”

  Lee Ann eyed her. “You aren’t understanding. He wanted us to move there.”

  “Oh. Like, permanently?”

  “Right, only not permanently either. We’d still leave after the contract was up, and then I guess we’d go wherever the whim struck next.”

  Her eyes rounded. “But you can’t run all over the country chasing him.”

  “Exactly.” Lee Ann nodded. “So I told him to choose. Me and Sugar Springs or not me at all.”

  “And he didn’t choose well?”

  Pain pressed inside her. “He didn’t choose at all—not really. Just explained how he wasn’t made for a town like Sugar Springs. So I put it out there, then walked out. I texted him this morning that I didn’t need him to pick up the girls and the boy Kendra is bringing. I’ll go get them myself. He simply has to show up and smile and be charming to his daughters’ guests, then a dance or two, and as far as I’m concerned, he can go ahead and head on out to Florida.”

  “Except Keri still needs him.”

  Selfishly, she was hurt by that, too. She knew it made no sense. He’d signed a contract with Keri. But the thought that he’d stick around longer for someone else irritated her. If he wasn’t going to be there forever, she was ready for him to be gone now.

  Lee Ann rose and moved back to the helium tank. She had a party to prepare for, and sitting on the floor crying would not get it done. “He has to change, Jo. He’s got to figure out that some things are worth sticking around for.”

  As she finished up with the balloons, her hands trembled with the thought of the hurt Kendra and Candy would soon feel. And there wasn’t a darn thing Lee Ann could do to prevent it. She inhaled a shaky breath. It would be equally hard to help them while she went through the same exact thing herself.

  Cody took the stairs to his apartment two at a time. The party would start in less than thirty minutes and he was running late. He’d been finishing up some work he’d started the week before out at Buddy Sawyer’s place and hadn’t wanted to break before it was done. He was repairing a section of the man’s fence around his property.

  When he’d gotten the text from Lee Ann that morning telling him not to pick up the girls for the dance, he’d at first been furious. She couldn’t just shove him out of their lives. But then he’d calmed down when it occurred to him she hadn’t said don’t come to the party, just don’t pick up the girls. He could work with that.

  So after he’d finished up at the clinic, he’d spent the afternoon doing manual labor and hopefully going a long way to making a man feel better. Cody didn’t care what Buddy thought about him so much, but it did bother him that every time the two passed in town the older man still visibly shook with anger. That wasn’t healthy, and it was his fault. He’d needed to fix it.

  He’d also needed to keep busy purely to keep the argument between him and Lee Ann out of his mind. Because if he didn’t do that, he was the one who got visibly angry. He was still ticked that she’d refused to even consider his suggestion. It had to be her way or no way. And that infuriated him.

  It also scared him to death to think about the fact he was pretty sure she’d ended things between them last night. At least, if he didn’t stay in Sugar Springs. He’d figured out after a busy morning at the clinic that staying focused on something else kept him from thinking too much about his own problems, and that’s all he’d wanted today. Because walking away was going to be hard.

  He couldn’t quite convince himself he belonged in Sugar Springs, though, no matter what she’d said.

  It would be nice if he did. That way he could stay and have a family. Have Lee Ann. Make her proud of him. He’d never wanted to let Lee Ann down again, yet it looked like that was exactly what he was going to do. Because he was afraid, just like she’d said.

  He was terrified to invest 100 percent of himself in the place and have them turn on him once he couldn’t go back. Losing everything at that point would kill him. And yeah, that probably meant he hadn’t invested everything in himself and Lee Ann, either. Just like she’d accused.

  It didn’t make him stand up tall to realize that, but it was what it was.

  He pulled his dirty shirt over his shoulders as he headed for his bathroom, then hung his head when he got there. Life without Lee Ann in it wasn’t a life he particularly wanted to live. There had to be a solution. But right now he had to hurry. The girls were counting on him this time. Surely the least he could do was not let them down, too.

  He reached in and started the shower but heard a knock at the front door before he could do more than turn the knob. His heart took off at a gallop. Lee Ann? Had she had second thoughts?

  Since no one other than her ever came to his place, the chance of it being anyone else was slim, so he snatched a shirt out of the narrow closet and hurried to the door. But when he pulled it open, what he saw brought all the hurt and pain of the past back in a flash. The sight that greeted him was the same one he saw in his reflection every day. He was looking at his twin.

  Teenagers packed the building Lee Ann had rented for the girls’ party. Music blared while boys and girls laughed with one another. A few ventured to the dance floor, but most hung back keeping the perimeter of the room company. Even Kendra had become too shy to ask Derrick to come out on the floor with her. They’d talked a lot of the night, but the boy looked terrified. Just like Cody had said. Funny how Lee Ann had never noticed that about them when she’d been that age.

  She checked her watch and worked to keep a frown from her face. They should have cut the cake twenty minutes ago, but she hadn’t wanted Cody to miss it. Where was he? She focused the camera and snapped more candids of the twins smiling over their gifts. Lee Ann had at least let them go ahead and open the presents.

  Someone stepped quietly to her side, and the panic subsided. He was there. But when Lee Ann lowered the camera, it was Joanie she saw instead of Cody. And the look on her face was grim.

  “He’s still not here?”

  Joanie shook her head but didn’t make eye contact. Instead she nodded toward the heavy stove at the back of the room. “Don’t worry about the fire. Your mom is keeping an eye on it.”

  The stove was the last thing on Lee Ann’s mind. Yes, it was December and she didn’t want the kids to come to a party and freeze, but the energy released from everyone in the room would keep them warm. All she wanted to know about was Cody.

  “Where is he? We’ve got to cut this cake. Parents will start showing up within thirty minutes, and I can’t have the guests going home without having eaten any cake.” She glanced at her watch again, but only a minute had passed.

  “Let’s go ahead and cut it.” A smile appeared on Joanie’s face, her eyes a little too bright. “Let’s do the cake and pictures, and then you can sit down and relax. You’ve been going all day. If Cody shows up...” Her voice stumbled. “He’ll have to live with the fact he missed everything. And it was his own fault.”

  Lee Ann narrowed her gaze at the woman she’d known for most of her life. Joanie knew something else, so why wasn’t she telling?

  Before she could badger her for more, she watched Joanie’s gaze latch onto someone across the room. Several couples were dancing now, and one of them was pushing the limits on appropriate. Reba surprised her by moving in to pull the two apart while giving them both an earful. Lee Ann wouldn’t have even guessed her mother was paying that much attention.

  She pressed her hand to Joanie’s forearm, panic squeezing her and pushing a headache to the forefront, and whispered, “He’s not coming, is he? What do you know?”

  Joanie covered Lee Ann’s hand and gripped it tight before fin
ally replying. “I don’t believe he is.”

  She couldn’t speak. He wasn’t coming. Joanie hadn’t said why yet, but she didn’t have to for Lee Ann to know it for a fact. With Lee Ann, she never said anything that might hurt her unless she was certain it was the truth. The air drained from Lee Ann’s lungs. He had done to the girls exactly what she’d been afraid of. He hadn’t been there for them. And they’d been counting on him.

  How dare he? She would chop him off at the knees the next time she saw him.

  “What do you know?” Lee Ann asked, her tone dead.

  Again, Joanie didn’t make eye contact. “I’m sorry, Lee Ann. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.”

  She’d never seen Joanie so afraid to say something. That alone made Lee Ann’s words clipped when she spoke. “Just spit it out. What’s he done?”

  Joanie slipped her arm through Lee Ann’s and led her to a corner where the music wasn’t quite so loud. “I just got off the phone with Gina Gregory.” Joanie gave a crooked smile. “What’s the use of having the biggest gossip as a client of your shop if you don’t take advantage of it on occasion, right?”

  Lee Ann nodded as if she knew what Joanie was talking about. What did Gina have to do with anything? When she pictured the woman at the salon clinging to Cody as he came through the door, Lee Ann reared back, horrified. “He’s out with Gina?”

  “No, no.” Joanie pulled Lee Ann close again and patted her arm. “No, nothing like...Well, I’m not sure...but it’s not Gina. That’s got to count for something, right?”

  A brittle smile stretched across Joanie’s face for a second before it crumbled. Lee Ann straightened her spine, outraged. The man was out with another woman! Instead of at his daughters’ birthday party! Instead of with her!

  Her fingers shook as she pulled away and took a step back.