always know where I am, Mol, but you will always, always be able to reach me. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll always have the cell phone on for you.”
“But something could happen to the cell phone. It could break. Or fall in the sink. Or drop in a lake. Or a car could run over it.”
“You’re right. Even having a very, very, very good cell phone isn’t totally foolproof. Things happen. But I would never leave you with anyone who couldn’t find another way to reach me.”
“Okay. I think. Mom.”
“What?”
“You were at the vet today, weren’t you?”
“No. Where’d you get that idea?”
“It just came into my mind. I don’t know how it got there. But if you weren’t at the vet’s, where were you?”
Amanda had prepared that answer before coming home, so it could slip off her tongue, fast and easy. “I was talking with some attorneys about some business.”
“Well, don’t talk to those attorneys again. Just talk to Mr. Mike. He’s an attorney. We don’t need any other attorneys. And then you wouldn’t have to be gone for a whole afternoon.”
“Hey. I’ve been gone lots of afternoons, and you never had a sweat before. Think of swimming with Grandma. And the Curious Kids Museum with Grandma and Grandpa. And you used to do mornings in daycare when I was working. You know I always come back.”
“I know.”
“I can’t be with you every second. And you can’t be with me every second. But that’s okay. Then we come back together and can tell each other about our adventures. Right?”
“Yeah. Right.”
“So are we square?”
“We are very, very, very square. But, Mom.”
“What, hon?”
“Just don’t go wherever you went today, okay? Anywhere else is okay. But not to that
“I’ll try my best, ragamuffin. And now, you try your best to sleep really good, okay?”
“One more kiss?”
“Three more kisses, and don’t you dare try to escape a great big old hug, too.”
There. A few more giggles, more hugs, and finally, Amanda could ease the door closed and tiptoe out into the hall.
Her smile died; her shoulders sagged, and she lifted a shaky hand to pull the pins out of her hair. Her mother had left a message on the machine. An old friend from high school had left another message, said he’d be in town over the weekend, and hoped they could get together.
She turned the volume off the phone, switched off the light in the kitchen. She wanted a shower, to shake off the dirt of this terrible day. She wanted a glass of something alcoholic, too, but couldn’t work up enough ambition to actually get it.
Feeling boneless-tired, she sank into the blue chair in the living room and leaned forward with her head in her hands.
Most women she knew felt destroyed by a divorce. Maybe she’d been there, too, but she’d tried to see it as an opportunity to build herself into a better woman. A stronger woman. The kind of competent woman who wouldn’t just
Well. She’d faced some facts this afternoon.
She’d failed to protect her daughter.
The only job in the universe that mattered.
She felt a claw on her ankle, sighed, and lifted Darling to her lap. A heap of purring fur leaped to the top of the chair and then delicately tried to wind herself like a scarf around Amanda’s neck. She loved both pets. Hugely. And they were overdue attention today, but just then, all she wanted was some nice, long, wallowing silence.
Somehow, someway, she had to get up the next morning.
Somehow, someway, she had to find a way to say the right maternal things to Molly.
Somehow, someway, she had to find a way to believe she hadn’t failed in everything that mattered to her.
“Hey. I knocked. But I wasn’t sure if you heard me…and the back door wasn’t locked…”
Her head shot up. The last person she expected to see was Mike, much less standing in the arch of her kitchen, holding a two-inch kitty-cat purse. The purse looked downright funny, hanging from the beefy wrist of a six-foot-two hunk.
More to the point, she’d assumed he’d be comatose by now, after dealing with two four-year-olds for most of the day. For sure he was wearing torn old jeans and a tee that looked as if it lost a wrestling match-it was that wrinkled and ragged. But he wasn’t.
He looked like the Mike she’d fallen in love with. Brash and unbrushed, a smile as natural as sunshine, that easy, earthy way of moving that was so purely male. It wasn’t hard to imagine him fighting down and dirty. It was easy to imagine him cleaned up, in a navy suit and white shirt, fighting to win with a forceful presence, and slow, quiet words. It was just as easy to imagine him being there, through thick and thin, no minor irritation like earthquakes or avalanches keeping him from those he loved.
He was just a bigger-than-life kind of guy. It wasn’t his fault.
But she wasn’t going to be on the list of loved ones he dug through those avalanches for. As often as she remembered the night they made love, she winced every time her heart replayed the messy hurts that showed up the next day.
And faster than pride, she straightened. Possibly she couldn’t find another fake smile today to save her life, but she tried for a normal, pleasant expression. “Aw, Mike, I’m sorry you went to the trouble. You didn’t have to bring over Molly’s purse. We’d have gotten it tomorrow.”
“Yeah, right. I’ve spent one-on-one time with Molly now. Once she realized she’d forgotten something as important as this-” he carefully removed the purse from his wrist and set it on the couch “-I figured there’d be hell to pay for someone. I didn’t want it to be me.”
She still couldn’t smile, but darn it, almost. “Uh-oh. Am I sensing she was a tad difficult this afternoon?”
“Are you kidding? She was perfect. I’m in love with her. She is absolutely honest. Just says everything like it is. That was cool,” he said, as if they were starting another conversation, “about the two jelly beans in the purse.”
“What? Oh. Yes. I told her, one for Teddy, one for her. I figured they’d be a conversation breaker when she first came over-”
“Great thinking, Mom. It really worked. And in the meantime…” From behind his back, he produced a sturdy box with fancy lettering. “I had something to celebrate. Had a bottle of Talisker hidden away for the past couple of years, needed an excuse to bring it out. Share a glass with me?”
“Thanks, Mike, but no. Honestly, I’m half asleep. Just really, really tired-”
“Just one short glass.”
“I’d like to, really, but just not tonight-”
It was like talking to a brick wall. Maybe he didn’t hear her, because he went into her kitchen and returned with two glasses. And maybe he couldn’t see her shaking her head.
“Very short. I promise,” he said genially, not looking at her face, just gathering the box, the glasses, some paper towels for napkins, and then settling-not on the couch or other chairs-but on the ottoman right in front of her. “You hold the glasses, okay? It’ll take me a minute to get this open.”
It was going to take him longer, because Darling leaped off Amanda’s lap and headed for Molly’s room. Princess, on the other hand, decided she’d rather sit on Mike’s lap than hers.
She loved them. But just then she wasn’t up for the cuteness of pets, or Mike this close, or Mike here at all. She’d put on a strong face all day. For Molly, she could do that. But for Mike…she wasn’t sure she could fake anything with Mike.
He didn’t act as if he noticed anything wrong. Just kept talking. “This cat has more fur than a coat. And I
