Tangled Up in Love (24 page)

And every time, she let herself capitulate, let herself play along for just a while longer, let herself bask in indescribable pleasure and enjoy the company of a man who turned out not to be the world’s biggest jackass, after all.

She planned to keep that little nugget of truth under wraps for the time being, though, especially considering she’d based the better part of her career
and
personality on shouting it from the rooftops and disparaging him every chance she got.

But no matter what they did behind closed doors, or how well they got along when no one was looking, it wasn’t going to last.

She was sure he knew it, too. That as soon as . . . whatever was going on between them . . . ran its course, they would go back to hating each other.

So why, then, had he given her his father’s phone
number and whispered, “Call him. He’ll help you out,” before he’d left?

Why was he so willing to help her overcome her fears of never having enough, and let her be in contact with his family when he knew she would be referring to him by any number of unflattering, thinly veiled four-letter descriptions in future columns and dares?

Staring down at the piece of paper in her hand, she debated calling Dylan’s dad right that minute to pick his brain about her financial future. She really wanted to talk to the man and find out what she was doing right, what she was doing wrong, and what she could be doing even better.

But she didn’t think that simply talking to a knowledgeable accountant would fix her problems. Not all of them, anyway. She had a feeling—heck, she
knew
—that her anxieties ran deeper than just how many savings accounts or mutual funds she tucked money into.

Until she dealt with the underlying cause of her personal demons, she thought, feeling like she was channeling Dr. Phil, she didn’t think she would be able to take positive steps, move forward, and truly breathe easy.

Crossing the living room, she tucked the phone number beneath the edge of her cordless phone base, then continued on to her bedroom, where she changed out of her Austin Powers
Do I make you horny, baby? Do I?
shorty pajamas, which she’d finally had the courage to wear in front of Dylan.

Courage—ha! She’d had the time of her life donning them in the dark while he was sound asleep and snoring lightly in her bed, then rousing him with kisses and making sure he saw the lime-green message on the tank top’s iron-on front.

He’d wasted no time in answering the groovy question, either . . . by pressing the proof of his randiness against her hip, stripping Austin and his shag-o-rific slogans from her body, and then spending the better part of an hour kissing her from head to toe. Licking her from head to toe. Making her whimper and beg and shiver with ecstasy from head to toe.

Yes, these were good, good pajamas. She might never wear another pair again, at least not when Dylan was around.

Slipping into comfortable blue jeans and a burgundy knit pullover, she pulled her hair into a loose ponytail, grabbed her purse, and left her apartment.

The trip to her parents’ house in Mercer, Pennsylvania, wasn’t one she made very often and took longer than she remembered. Still, it was a nice, relaxing drive, and once she got out of the city, the traffic thinned out, the roads turned more rural, and she was able to enjoy the changing leaves on the trees and the brisk autumn morning.

Her parents lived in a small town, in a moderately sized, two-story house that sat a few yards back from the road. There was a medium white birch in the front yard, a couple of pines in the back, and flower beds lining the porch and driveway that—thanks to her mother’s green thumb—bloomed into wild bursts of color during the spring and summer months.

She pulled into the gravel drive and parked behind her mother’s tan, two-door sedan. Getting out of the car, she took her time walking around to the narrow walk-way as her gaze landed on a new wooden swing sitting motionless beside the thin, leafless trunk of the birch.

It was a beautiful, golden oak with rounded edges
and hearts cut out of the backboards, hanging from a matching frame. Her father’s handiwork, no doubt.

While she’d been growing up, he’d worked as a carpenter and handyman whenever he could, and when they’d bought this house, he’d spent a good deal of time fixing it up and getting it to where he wanted it. Now it seemed that he’d moved on to the aesthetics.

Taking the two wide steps up to the front porch, she used the brass door knocker to announce her presence, then turned the knob and walked in.

She would never dream of leaving her apartment unlocked in the heart of Cleveland, even though the city’s crime rate was down significantly over previous years, but her parents felt completely safe in Mercer. They locked their doors at night, but left them open during the day so they could come and go as they pleased, and so that neighbors could get in to borrow something if they needed it, whether her folks were home or not.

It was a nice attitude to have. A little naive, maybe, but nice. And a part of small-town living that Ronnie only now realized she missed.

“Mom? Dad?” she called out, closing the door behind her and kicking off her shoes in the entryway. She left them on the brightly colored mat that already held a pair of her father’s work boots and her mother’s tennis shoes.

“Veronica?” She heard her mother’s muted voice a second before she appeared in the hallway from the direction of the kitchen.

“Veronica! What a surprise.” Wiping her hands on the apron that hung around her neck and tied at her waist, she came forward to give Ronnie a big hug.

Seeing her mother was like looking into a mirror
twenty years in the future. They had the same build, the same smile, and the same brown eyes and wavy brown hair, though her mother’s was a tad lighter these days, colored to hide the gray.

“I must have sensed you were coming. I just put a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven.”

“My favorite,” Ronnie said with a smile.

Her mother smiled back. “I know. So what are you doing here?” she asked, taking Ronnie’s hand and pulling her farther into the house, toward the kitchen.

With a shrug, Ronnie said, “I woke up this morning with no last-minute work that needed to be done by tomorrow and decided I wanted to see you.”

“Well, you should have called first. I’d have fixed lunch and made sure Daddy was home.”

“He’s not here?”

“No, but he should be back soon. He went over to the Wilsons’ after church to help them put up the railing on their new deck.”

While her mother moved around to the side of the center island nearest the stove, Ronnie sat on one of the stools on the other. She hoped her cheeks weren’t visibly red with the knowledge that while her parents had been in church, praying and asking forgiveness for their sins, her body had been twisted like a pretzel around Dylan and they’d been willingly beating a path straight to Hell.

Thankfully, her mother didn’t seem to notice that her thoughts had turned decidedly un-holy. She set a glass of milk in front of Ronnie and then returned to filling a cookie sheet with dollops of sweet, buttery dough.

Both the cookies in the oven and the raw dough in
the large mixing bowl smelled delicious, and Ronnie was reminded of those rare times as a child when her mother would splurge on the ingredients for cookies and let them all help mix the batter and plop it onto the sheets. Only about half of it ended up as actual cookies, though, since the kids tended to eat the dough straight out of the bowl before it ever made it to the oven.

That was a happy memory from her childhood, and she found herself smiling. Maybe Dylan was right. Not everything she’d been through growing up had been bad, and she’d do well to spend more time remembering the good stuff than worrying about the bad repeating itself.

For old times’ sake, she reached out and ran a finger through the glob of raw cookie dough in the center of the bowl, then brought it to her mouth. Her eyes drifted closed in ecstasy as sugar and flour and butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips melted on her tongue and slid down her throat.

Her mother laughed, leaning out of the way when she went back for another swipe. “I remember when you kids used to do that. I let you because you liked it so much, but I was always worried one of you would get sick from eating all those raw ingredients.”

“None of us ever did,” Ronnie mumbled around her sticky index finger.

“No, but it’s a mother’s job to worry.”

Ronnie finished licking her finger, a ball of tension starting to form low in her belly. It was a mother’s job to worry—though she didn’t necessarily think that should be the case—but was it also a daughter’s?

The oven timer began its annoying beep, and her mom turned to remove the first sheet of cookies, done
to a perfect golden brown. She slipped them off the parchment paper and onto a rack.

“Don’t burn yourself,” she reproached as Ronnie immediately reached out to snitch one.

But, of course, she did, and she didn’t even care. Burnt tongue or not, she didn’t think there was anything in the world better than homemade chocolate chip cookies hot out of the oven.

After polishing off two, she brushed her hands on the legs of her jeans and took a sip of milk to wash them down.

“Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Without bothering to look up, she slid a fresh sheet into the oven, then started filling another.

“How are you and Dad doing these days? Financially, I mean.”

A quizzical expression crossed her mother’s face. “Fine, sweetheart, why?”

Ronnie was surprised that her mother didn’t understand, didn’t immediately sense what she was after. “Because, you know . . . of the way things were while we were growing up.”

That seemed to give her mother pause, her brows knitting in a bit of a frown while her hands slowed their repetitive motions.

“What things?” she asked.

Again, Ronnie was startled by her mother’s response. She sat back on her stool, her fingers tightening imperceptibly on the edge of the island.

Softly, with her heart pounding in her chest, she said, “Everything, Mom. We had nothing growing up. There were times we lived in the car, times we went without enough food to eat or shoes that fit. How can
you not be afraid of that happening again every day of your life?”

Finally grasping the gravity of the conversation, her mother set aside the bowl and spoon. When the oven timer went off again, she quickly punched the button to silence it and removed the tray of baked cookies, placing them on the stovetop to keep them from burning. Returning to the island, she shed the pair of oven mitts and slid onto the opposite stool, holding Ronnie’s solemn gaze.

“There’s no doubt that your father and I were too young to get married and start a family. If we’d known in the beginning how difficult things would be, I’m sure we both would have chosen to wait a few more years before jumping into anything. But we loved all of you kids very much, and did the best we could.”

“I know that,” Ronnie acquiesced, feeling a pinch of guilt. “But, Mom, we had
so little
. There were times when we literally had nothing. And now . . .”

She swallowed, her throat growing tight with tears and long-suppressed emotional trauma.

“And now, I find myself constantly worrying about money. I clip coupons like I’m on a fixed income. I buy generic
everything,
brand-name
nothing
. I buy all my clothes and shoes at thrift shops. When it comes time to pay bills every month, I practically have to load up on Xanax and cheap wine to keep from having a panic attack, and I have plenty of money in the bank, so I
shouldn’t
be panicked. I live with this constant sense of foreboding, scared to death that I’m going to wake up one day to find myself with nothing, needing to live in my car, eat out of Dumpsters, beg on the street . . .”

“Oh, darling.” Hopping off the stool she’d only
climbed onto a minute before, her mother came around to wrap her in a giant bear hug. Holding her tight, she rocked Ronnie back and forth, pressing her cheek to the side of her head.

For long moments, Ronnie let herself absorb her mother’s warmth, float in the comfort and security of her embrace.

“I had no idea you felt this way, sweetheart. Times were tough when you were little, I know, but I didn’t realize you’d carried that all the way into adulthood.”

“How could I not?” Ronnie asked in a watery voice. “I remember how cramped that car was when the seven of us had to squeeze in and sleep there every night. I remember how often we went to bed hungry, or you and Daddy stayed up into the wee hours worrying about how far you could stretch his pay from one odd job or another.”

Pulling back a fraction, her mother ran her fingers through Ronnie’s hair. Both their faces were lined with tears. With the hem of her apron, her mother dried Ronnie’s cheeks first, then her own.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wish I could go back and change things for all you kids . . . for myself, too, sometimes.”

“I know. I know that. And I’m not blaming you or Dad. That’s not why I brought it up,” Ronnie rushed to assure her. “I just . . . I guess I wanted to know how you and Dad are doing now. If everything is okay, if you’re hurting for money at all, if you worry about your future or paying your bills or one day ending up on the street again.”

When Ronnie once again started to cry, her mother went for a box of tissues for them both.

“Your father and I are doing just fine now. I love my job at the bakery, and your father never seems at a loss for work. We’ve got a nice nest egg tucked away, and this beautiful house you helped us buy is ours now, free and clear.”

“And you don’t worry?” Ronnie pressed. “At all?”

“I don’t. Oh, I won’t say the thought doesn’t occasionally cross my mind—or your father’s. After all, no one knows what tomorrow might bring. But I don’t let it keep me up at night or stop me from enjoying my life to the fullest.”

She placed her hands on either side of Ronnie’s face and looked her straight in the eye. “And you shouldn’t, either.”

Blinking rapidly, Ronnie wished she could take her mother’s words to heart. They sounded nice, so sensible. But saying was easier than doing, and while Ronnie might agree, might want to throw herself into that approach enthusiastically and without reservation, she wasn’t sure she knew how.