Reunion at the Shore, page 17
“It’s a loss, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” She sounded philosophical about the whole thing. “Would I like my kids to take over the business, live the same life my grandparents did? Sure, but things change. And we can’t know the future.” Her voice lowered a few notes. “Speaking of, what’s your future? You going to stay in Pleasant Shores? Remarry your wife and help raise your girls?”
The question came out of left field, but Drew supposed he deserved it after asking her so many personal things. “There are a few issues standing in the way of that.”
“Such as?”
“Such as I barely have a job, I’m still adjusting to being legally blind, and I wasn’t the best husband and father even when I had my vision and some money.”
“You’re there,” Bisky said, raising her voice a little over the increasing noise of conversation and laughter. “You’re available for your kids. That’s worth something.”
He lifted a shoulder and shook his head. “I can’t take care of them, not the way I used to. Can’t protect them.”
“Seems to me you’re pretty protective,” she said. “Anyway, that’s not what we want you men for. Macho stuff, it’s overrated. Hey, there’s...” She paused. “Never mind.”
Something had come into her voice. “What is it?”
After a beat of silence, she sighed. “Your ex-wife is here.”
“Ria?” His heart did a little dance and he couldn’t keep the happiness out of his voice. “Where?”
“With someone else,” she said.
Drew’s happiness rushed out of him like air from a punctured balloon. “Wait—don’t tell me. Blond guy? Rich looking, wearing a suit?”
“Yeah.”
Drew’s head dropped and he sighed. “Can they see us?”
“Do you want them to see us?”
“I don’t know.” Drew scraped a hand over his face. He wanted to teleport home without having to walk by his wife and her lunch date.
Bisky scooted her chair. “There. You’re kind of behind a potted plant and now I’m blocking the rest of you, too. Just until you decide whether you want to try to make her jealous or not.”
That surprised him. “I don’t want to make her jealous. I’m not playing games.”
Bisky laughed. “Don’t you know that love is always a game?” she said. “It might be interesting to see how she reacts if she sees us together.”
“Thanks, but no. That’s not my style.”
Just then, he heard the rich peal of Ria’s laugh, accompanied by a baritone version, certainly Ted’s.
Heat rose in Drew’s chest and adrenaline clenched his fists. Another man was making his woman laugh.
And he couldn’t be that type of caveman; it was the twenty-first century. Drew fumbled for his cane as a huge sense of inadequacy came over him.
It wasn’t going to work between him and Ria. He wasn’t enough for her, couldn’t give her enough. Ria deserved so much more than he could offer.
He needed to make sure he didn’t rouse the girls’ hopes that they could be a family again, because they couldn’t.
For his own mental health, he needed to douse his own hopes, too.
He stood and snapped open his cane. “Thanks for the interview,” he said to Bisky. “Are you walking out now?”
“Sure,” she said. “Take my arm if you want to.”
He didn’t want to and started to walk toward the door, but his leg banged into a chair, knocking it over. He could see, just barely, that Bisky righted it. What he couldn’t see, but could imagine just fine, was that everyone was looking at the clumsy blind man. Including his ex-wife and her new squeeze.
He took Bisky’s arm and kept his face expressionless while emotions churned inside him. How could he compete with a man like Ted when he couldn’t even get across the room without a woman’s help?
* * *
THE DAY AFTER meeting with Ted at Goody’s, Ria pulled into Drew’s driveway and turned to her extremely cranky daughter. “You can—” But Kaitlyn was already out of the car and slamming the door.
Their mother-daughter outing had been a complete bust.
Ria climbed out of the car, back aching, mentally exhausted. It had seemed like a good idea, spending the afternoon bonding with her daughter. There had been an early dismissal from school, and Kaitlyn needed new clothes. Initially, Kaitlyn had been enthusiastic.
But within half an hour, she’d gotten sulky and uncooperative, not wanting to try anything on, not wanting to take a walk together, wanting to go back to Pleasant Shores and to Drew’s place.
Ria’s gut twisted as she watched her daughter’s head-down rush away from her. She wanted so badly to help Kait, and it just wasn’t happening. She was making things worse.
If only it had been a bright, sunny day to improve Kait’s mood, instead of gloomy November weather. If only the Chesapeake would sparkle, rather than toss gray waves at the shore.
Kait was almost at the door of Drew’s cottage when he came out and intercepted her, reaching out and gripping her by the forearms. “What’s wrong?”
“Mom’s wrong!” Kait gestured back toward Ria. “She wants me to walk, like, ten miles on a horrible day and wear nun clothes to cover up how fat I am! Make her stop, Dad!” She broke away from him and rushed into the house.
Drew stood on the steps, facing Ria’s direction, arms crossed. If she hadn’t known him so well, she’d have thought he was flexing his muscles for her benefit, but he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t vain; in fact, he had no idea how good-looking he was.
She took a deep breath, trying to quell her automatic visceral reaction to him. “Hey, I’m here,” she said to orient him. “Sorry to bring her over in an upset state.”
“What happened?” His tone was cool.
She thought of the friendly way he’d walked with Bisky yesterday, holding her arm. Was he moving on?
She stifled her feelings about that. “I just wanted to take a walk with Kaitlyn, do some shopping,” she explained.
“Why does she think you think she’s fat?”
Ria blew out a sigh and sat down on Drew’s front step. “Because I screwed up. Talked about my step goal on my pedometer, which she interpreted as me saying she needed more exercise because she’s fat. Which she’s not, of course. She’s beautiful.”
“Is that all?” He sat down beside her, but a good arm’s distance away.
“No.” Her stomach clenched with the shame of making such a bad mother-choice. “I also talked about how to dress to de-emphasize...” She trailed off, then decided she might as well finish the thought. “To de-emphasize her chest.” Her face heated as she said the words, remembering how Drew always loved it when she wore clothes that showed a little cleavage.
Drew frowned. “The counselor said not to mention her weight at all.”
“I didn’t! It’s just that she was complaining about how her chest is all that boys look at, and I sometimes have the same issue, so I thought...” She trailed off as Drew went rigid. “I did some bad parenting today. Thank heavens she has you to turn to.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“I will, too,” she promised. “As soon as she’s speaking to me again. I mean it, Drew. I’m so glad you’re here to help with her. I grate on her nerves like squeaky chalk.”
“Does Ted Taylor look at your chest?” he asked, his voice tight.
“What?” She tilted her head, studying him.
“Does he look at your chest? When you’re out on your lunch dates.” Then he waved a hand. “Never mind. I know the answer to that question.”
Ria did, too. She’d caught Ted looking a few times, more than she remembered him doing when they were dating before. Of course, she’d gotten more voluptuous. Maybe looking at her chest was hard to avoid.
“It was business,” she said uneasily. “Our lunch date was just business. Ted’s probably going to invest in my motel.” Except that he wanted a lot of involvement in the running of it, which she didn’t think was a good idea.
“Uh-huh.” He blew out a disgusted breath, obviously not believing her.
“If you want to be that way...why were you out with Bisky Turner?”
Surprise showed in the quick twist of his head in her direction. “You saw us?”
“Goody’s is a small place.”
“I’m interviewing her for my job. And that’s all.”
Relief washed over her, and she impulsively reached out and took Drew’s hand.
He squeezed it and tugged her closer. “You’re perfect as you are, you know,” he said with that telltale little growl in his voice. “Don’t ever feel self-conscious about the looks God gave you.”
This was bad. His touch, the sound of his voice were sending warmth through her entire body. She tried to pull her hand away. “We shouldn’t...”
He held it captive, squeezed it. “We shouldn’t have started a fire if we didn’t want it to burn,” he said.
“That’s true,” she whispered. “But I still don’t think it’s a good idea.” Because if they got close again, they’d still have the same problems they’d had before.
Because you have problems, a little voice in her head said, and she knew it was true. She couldn’t trust a handsome man like Drew not to run around the way her father had, couldn’t trust him not to judge her body as it changed throughout all the stages of a woman’s life.
Besides, if he knew about her miscarriage, he’d hate her for causing that, too.
But would he? She wondered. Drew had become more accepting than he used to be.
She thought of the women she’d shared a meal with on Sunday, how they’d talked about body image. Every one of them seemed to have a healthier one than she did.
That negative way of looking at herself had affected her marriage, for sure. Now it was affecting her mothering, as well. And if she didn’t work on it, she’d continue to mess up in both areas. “I have to go,” she said, standing and pulling her hand from Drew’s, hurrying away before he could say or do anything to try to keep her here.
She had some self-examination to do.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Kaitlyn walked toward the school, for once feeling okay and safe. How could she not, with Venus on one side of her and Sunny on the other?
The sun was finally peeking out and the wind had died down, so there was a slight possibility of a good hair day. Kaitlyn had gotten over her mother’s annoying behavior after Mom had made an awkward apology. And then there’d been an even more awkward conversation with her father about how all bodies were beautiful.
They meant well, and they cared, but ugh.
“I have a good feeling about today,” Sunny said. “We’re gonna figure out who sent those pictures. Easy.”
“How?” Venus asked, frowning.
“Trust me. We’re going to nudge our suspects until they rat themselves out.”
“I kind of think someone who’s good with computers. I mean, someone edited down that video into stills, high-quality ones. They even...” She hesitated.
“What?” the other two girls said simultaneously. They must have heard something in her voice.
“They doctored them,” she said. “I took them home and looked, and they made me even bigger than I already am.”
“How is that even possible?” Venus gave a sideways glance at Kait’s chest.
“Shut up!” Kaitlyn’s face heated. If only she could be a cute, moderate B cup like Sophia.
“Wish you’d throw some of your endowments my way,” Venus said. “I’m still flat as a tortilla, and looking at how my mom’s built, I’ll probably stay that way.”
“It’s not always easy having Kaitlyn’s figure,” Sunny lectured. “It can make boys interested for the wrong reasons.”
The two of them talked so normally about bodies. Not like Mom, who was all tied up in knots about it. “Anyway,” Kaitlyn said, “in addition to Chris and maybe Tyler, we think Kyle Sprang could be involved, right? So you know the drill by now.”
Both girls nodded, because this was the third time they’d gone through it, casually discussing loaded topics with their targets, eliminating suspects each time.
They walked into the school and down the hall three abreast, Kaitlyn in the middle, Venus on one side and Sunny on the other. Today was an all-school assembly—about bullying, ironically enough—which Kaitlyn usually hated. School assemblies were a chance for kids to yell stuff, catcall and make mean remarks, because they were outside of their normal school routine.
But with her friends flanking her, she felt protected.
“There they are,” Venus said, nodding in the direction of Chris, who was finding a seat next to popular Tyler Pollackson. Ugh. Normally, Kaitlyn would have sat as far away from them as possible.
Her heart pounded as they found seats directly behind Kyle, Chris and Tyler. “So, Tyler,” Venus said, leaning forward, “what do you think about the topic of today’s assembly?”
He frowned back at her, obviously surprised to have been spoken to by a mere mortal. “What is it?”
“Cyberbullying,” she said patiently. “You know, like posting inappropriate photos of people to make them feel bad.”
Did Chris and Tyler look a little uneasy? It was hard to tell.
“It’ll be boring just like all assemblies,” Chris said and glanced over at Tyler, his forehead wrinkling. Then he reached into his pocket. He pulled out a contraband Juul and took a hit.
Tyler laughed, and then Chris did, too. Obviously, doing something against the rules—making their own rules—made them feel in control again.
Hearing their cocky laughter made Kaitlyn’s stomach hurt, and she wished she was sitting anywhere else. But Sunny and Venus didn’t seem to feel any of the same fears.
“How come you’re vaping, Chris?” Venus asked. “Nervous about the assembly?”
“No.” Chris sneered back at them, and Kaitlyn wondered why she’d ever thought he was cute or would make a good boyfriend.
“Feeling guilty?” Sunny asked. “Done any cyberbullying lately?”
Chris shifted in his seat. “Shut up! Why are you even talking to us?”
“Dude! She’s still hot for you!” Tyler guffawed loud enough for a bunch of kids nearby to turn around and look at him.
He seemed to notice the attention, and he smiled even bigger and spoke even louder. “Maybe next time you can do a real photography session.”
Kaitlyn’s gut clenched.
Sunny nudged her. “He knows,” she whispered. “Maybe he put the pictures in your dad’s door.”
Several teachers headed in their direction, probably drawn by the sound of Tyler’s big mouth, just as Chris took another hit on his Juul.
One of the really old teachers sniffed the air. “Is that marijuana I smell?”
“What did you just put back in your pocket?” the other teacher asked Chris.
Chris opened his mouth and put on an innocent expression. Then, after looking at the teachers’ stern faces, he stood and pulled out the pipe. “It’s a vape pipe! It’s not drugs!”
“I’ll take that,” one of the teachers said, neatly lifting the Juul out of Chris’s hand. “And since it’s against the rules to vape on school property, I’ll take you down to the office.” She frowned at Tyler. “Are you involved in this?”
Tyler lifted his hands, palms up. “Not me. I don’t believe in vaping.”
From the other side of him, Kyle, so scrawny that he hadn’t even been visible before, let out a laugh.
Chris glared at them both as he was led away.
After the assembly, Kaitlyn, Sunny and Venus eased out of their seats and hurried to the back of the auditorium. There was no security guard at the main doors of the school, so they took a chance, sneaked outside and high-fived each other. “We got to Chris, and we got him in trouble.”
“He totally looked guilty.”
“He definitely was involved in the video, not an innocent victim. Now he’ll be afraid of us.”
But Kaitlyn wasn’t so sure. They’d gotten Chris in trouble for vaping, and they’d gotten a hint that he felt uncomfortable about cyberbullying. But knowing he’d likely been involved in the video, not just a dupe like she was, didn’t make anything better. Now she knew he was the jerk she’d suspected he was, but she also knew he’d be really angry about getting in trouble.
* * *
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Drew walked down toward the docks with his father beside him.
It was an unexpected visit. When Dad had called last night, he’d sounded like something was wrong. For his father to display any emotion at all was rare, so Drew had agreed to the visit even though he had an interview to conduct that afternoon.
Dad hadn’t wanted to talk the minute he’d walked in the door, and Drew knew from experience that there was no point in rushing him. So after making him a sandwich, Drew had invited him along for the interview. Everyone had been okay with Kaitlyn coming along for the interviews, and bringing his father shouldn’t be much different.
Actually, bringing Kait along on his interviews hadn’t happened as often as Drew would have liked. Then again, that was because she was making friends and doing things with kids her own age, which was all for the good.
Thinking about Kait, and worrying about Dad judging him, made Drew less sure of his route, so he stopped on the next street corner, getting his bearings. “Is this Main?” he asked.
“How would I know?”
Drew consciously relaxed his jaw. “Look at the street sign.”
