Sugar Daddy (33 page)

So she cleaned. She started with the mirror and moved on to…everything else. No corner of the room was safe. She cleaned and hoped that in so doing she could also effectively clear her head. Sadly, it hadn’t worked. And when she walked out of the bathroom to her phone vibrating, any of the benefits of the cleaning were already undone. It seemed like Gavin was still thinking they were going to Florida together. He was letting her know he’d only be gone to the office briefly.

Without hesitating, she picked up the phone and called one of the few numbers that she had stored in her phone. It rang three times before it was picked up. Her mother answered in her usual pleasant tone.

“Mom,” she said slowly. “I thought I might come visit for Mother’s Day.”

“That would be lovely, Hannah.” Her mother sounded genuinely happy.

Of course she recognized that other tone in her voice. It was pity. Her mother could already tell something was going on with her. She decided she would spend the four hour drive pulling herself together. With any luck, the farther away she was from this house, the happier she would be.

When Gavin returned, he was pleased to see that the SUV was still there. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Hannah and the girls.
He had called to Hannah when he entered the house. He had looked everywhere…the studio, the boat, the bedrooms…including Hannah’s. Then he went to the garage. Her big, old, half dead SUV was gone. Furious and frightened for her safety he stormed into the house while calling her cell phone. Hannah didn’t pick up, so he left her a message wondering where she was, when she was coming home, and listing the common courtesy rule. Then, just for good measure, he reminded her that he still had 29 days before she could leave him. 29 days. And he would need her for each and every one of them. Gavin stomped into the kitchen and there on the counter he found her phone, vibrating to announce that she had a new voicemail and a missed call.

Gavin sat down on the stool and let out a frustrated growl.

The drive wasn’t long enough. Four hours and she was still just as upset as she was when she left. Worse, because Hannah didn’t have her phone, because she hadn’t taken
the SUV he bought her, if she broke down, as he had so often predicted, she would be good and stuck. There would be a long drawn out ‘I told you so’ and an even longer lecture on common courtesies. Shoot. She’d be getting that lecture any way. What she wouldn’t be getting after 29 days was a paycheck. She would be back to hunting for a job well below her skill set once more. She smirked for a moment. What were the chances that Gavin would give her a reference? She laughed out loud as she imagined how that conversation would go. And that’s when she pulled into the driveway at her parent’s house.

The first night, Gavin had food delivered. He wasn’t going anywhere…except maybe the liquor store. Too bad they didn’t deliver. And he ate alone in his big empty house. The next morning, Madge came at her usual time. She wondered over where Hannah and the girls were. She had found Gavin in the study. It looked as though he might have slept there.
He was asleep in a chair by the fireplace. All the curtains were drawn. The room had been closed up for too long.

Madge paused a moment. She would have simply left him to his own devices, but she knew that Hannah wouldn’t. She thought for a moment on how Hannah might handle the situation. And that’s when Madge straightened her back and walked over to the windows and opened the curtains. Then she threw open the doors. Before she had even crossed the room to exit, Gavin had reacted.

“Hey! I was sleeping!” He nearly growled at Madge.

“Yes, I saw that. And I have a job to do. You should sleep in your room,” she suggested gently. She knew that Hannah would have been far more forceful, but only Hannah could get away with that. Madge knew she was too old and set in her ways to have to find a new family to take care of.

“Would you believe I’m out of liquor?” Gavin asked, slightly slurring his words.

Madge was beginning to get frustrated. “As a matter of fact, I would. I can smell you from here.”

He laughed as if she had said something funny, but at the moment, Madge could not find the humor in this situation. What had happened? She didn’t see Hannah and the girls yesterday, but she thought they were out running errands. And Gavin seemed fine when she left last night. Maybe he was a little irritable, but she wasn’t unaccustomed to his mood swings.

“Would you believe the liquor store doesn’t deliver?” Gavin asked incredulously. “Someone should remedy that right now.”

Madge ignored him and went to work picking up the room. At some point he had removed his shoes and socks. He had also left cabinet doors open and empty glass bottles lying about. Evidently he had finished the last of the scotch, bourbon, and whiskey. That would explain things.

Gavin watched Madge start picking up the bottles. “Did I tell you I’m out of liquor?” He slapped the arm of the chair for emphasis.

“You may have mentioned that,” Madge said before she scurried out the door.

It was hours before she saw Gavin again. When she did, he was sober, clean
, and shaven…a vast improvement. Madge was almost afraid to make eye contact. She wasn’t sure what he was going to say or do next. She really wasn’t sure if she wanted to be around for it either. And that’s why she busied herself cleaning the counter.

Sitting down in front of her, Gavin had a grave look on his face. “I need to apologize.”

That stopped Madge immediately. She looked at him and tried to conceal her shock. “To me? For what?”

“Well, I was a bit drunk.” His face colored some in shame and he looked at his hands, clasped in front of him on the counter. “I messed up. And Hannah is gone. And I don’t know if she’s coming back. And I really reacted badly.” He put his hands over his face. “I don’t know what else to say.” With that, he stood up and walked away, leaving Madge to her duties.

She stood there in shock for a moment…shocked because of the apology, shocked that Hannah had left, shocked that Mr. Meyers would even admit to making a mistake. Hannah had changed him. In all the best ways…she had changed him.

Slowly Gavin walked up the stairs to that room. He had successfully avoided ever going up there for the longest time. Then it was remodeled for Hannah. There were nights spent there reading with her and the girls. There were nights spent there holding her while they fell asleep. And now he was spending all his time worrying over when and if she would return. He forced himself to enter that room. He had to look around, see if there were any obvious clues as to her whereabouts. He just needed to know that she was safe. If she needed time, that was understandable, but mostly he needed to know that she was safe, that they were safe.

In the bathroom, he realized that her toiletries were gone, of course. Her suitcase was missing from the closet. There was a pile of clothes in one corner of the closet floor. He recognized that he had purchased everything in that pile. At least she hadn’t burned it. He sighed. And then he saw her laptop sitting open.

The first tab was to an etsy shop. Did she have an etsy shop? He recognized some of the candles. Apparently she did. He glanced at the number of sales. She seemed to be reasonably successful. Of course she would be. Hannah was smart. He couldn’t imagine her failing at anything she set her mind to or put her heart into.

There was that hope again. She had put her heart into him. She had told him so. They had something here. They couldn’t possibly lose it already.

The next tab was her bank account, which had timed out from lack of use. And the final open tab was MapQuest.
Wilmington. Her family was there. His heart sank. Maybe she wasn’t coming back after all.

Standing, he headed out of the room, wondering what to do with himself next. What he knew for certain was that if he couldn’t be with Hannah, he wanted to be alone. Madge deserved some time off anyway. And with that, he headed to the kitchen to tell her she was on vacation.

The first day, all Hannah wanted to do was sleep. She was worn out from the drive. She was worn out from the lack of sleep the previous night. She was worn out from the emotions that had been coursing through her ever since she discovered Gavin’s motives for moving her in.
Her mother had taken one look at her and announced that she would love to spend some time with her granddaughters. And with that, Hannah had trudged down the hall to the guest room and slept.

When she woke in the middle of the night, she made a cup of tea and some toast to eat out on the balcony. She had always loved the sound of the water she could hear from that spot. And there was a scent of ocean air on the gentle breeze. It was quiet and there were few stars in the sky. The best night sky she had ever seen was when they were sailing. Those nights…were some of her happiest memories…even now. And she was glad that she had them. Soon, she was exhausted and tired again. Not long before dawn she had gone back to bed. Finally, she managed to have a dreamless restful sleep.

Madge didn’t want to leave. Quite frankly, she
was worried about Mr. Meyers’ state of mind. She worried what he would do left to his own devices. The small taste of that kind of freedom had gone badly the other night. Still, she left…reluctantly. And then she did something she never dreamed she’d do. She called his mother.

Unbelievable. He owned a house…a really nice big house. He owned a boat. He had land and lake rights. And he had nowhere to sleep. Apparently Hannah had the right idea. She left. He could
n’t leave. And even if he did, there was nowhere he wanted to go.

Instead he was wandering around his house assaulted by memories, unable to find comfort in any room. Even his study, that had once been his solace, the one place that India had never decorated, the one room she never entered…had partially become Hannah’s domain. They shared that space every evening. He no longer found comfort there, just emptiness. The patio had really comfortable furniture, but he and Hannah had spent the night in it. There went that idea. He couldn’t sleep on the sailboat. All those locations held memories of Hannah. Even his bedroom, a room she had never entered, seemed closed in and stuffy, he couldn’t breathe there. All he could think about was that Hannah should have been upstairs above him, lying on that bed. Having left the house to restock his liquor cabinet, he now went back to his office to make sure the trip wasn’t for naught.

Just before
noon the doorbell rang. Gavin didn’t even consider getting it. No good had ever come of answering that door. The door bell rang more insistently two more times. Then silence.

Minutes later, he heard the front door open, and then his office door. He didn’t even lift his head. If he was getting robbed, he didn’t care. If he was getting attacked or murdered, he welcomed it.

“Honestly, would it kill you to answer the door?” Bitty stood over him with her hands on her hips. She glanced about the room. “And did you have to crawl into a bottle?” She was moving about the room, muttering in disgust. Just as Madge had done, Bitty opened the curtains, threw open the door. She left the room, leaving the study door open, and headed to the kitchen.

It didn’t take Bitty long to figure out where everything was. She made a big pot of coffee, grabbed two big mugs, and returned to the study. In her absence, Gavin had only managed to sit up and hold his head in his hands. With a sigh, she walked purposefully down the hall to his bedroom, opened the door, and walked straight into his bathroom to the medicine cabinet. This looked like it was going to require some extra strength pain reliever. They were well past the two aspirins stage.

“Take these,” She said shoving her open palm of acetaminophen at him.

Without arguing, Gavin reached over and took the offered medicine, the small cup of water, and even started to accept the coffee when he paused. “Not that mug.”

Bitty looked at it. “What’s wrong with this mug?”

“It’s Hannah’s,” he explained. He looked at his other option. “Pass me that one.”

After doing so, Bitty spoke. “You need to pull it together, Gavin. You have a lot of responsibility. You don’t have time to fall apart. Since when do you fall apart over a woman?” She studied him for a reaction. His face was blank; his hands were holding the mug, betraying nothing.

“I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want the company.” He growled angrily. “I’ve wasted my life trying to make our father happy. And he was never happy. I’ve tried to make him proud, carry on after the accident. I don’t remember him ever being proud of me. Do you?”