Controversy (20 page)

M
ichael watched Kyson's car disappear into the distance. Her body trembled with despair while her heart shattered into a million pieces. “Don't go.” Her words vanished into the wind.

Frankie approached. “Are you okay, Michael?”

She nodded, hoping to keep her emotions in check. Instead, when she turned toward her sisters, the truth tumbled out. “No,” she croaked.

Frankie opened her arms in time for Michael to collapse in her embrace.

“I can't believe he left.” Michael moaned pitifully. “What did I do? I messed up. I messed up bad.”

“Shh, Mike. It's gonna be okay,” Frankie soothed.

“No, it's not,” Michael contradicted. “How can it be?”

“Yes, it will. You'll see,” Frankie insisted. “C'mon. Let's get you home.”

Michael allowed her sister to guide her back across the street to where the rest of the family had witnessed her heartbreak. No one said a word as loud, heart-wrenching sobs racked her body.

There was no party that night. When everyone piled into their childhood home, Michael almost immediately sought refuge in her old bedroom. She didn't feel like celebrating. How could she?

The man whom she'd hoped to have a second chance with had rejected her from his life—forever.

“Why don't you just get yourself some sleep,” Sheldon suggested and then led her weeping sister into bed.

Michael curled in between the sheets while Sheldon, Frankie, Joey and Peyton helped tuck her in. Tears rained from her eyes, soaking her pillow.

“Try to get some sleep,” Joey said, placing a kiss against her forehead.

Each sister murmured something more or less the same as they peppered their kisses along her forehead before filing out of the room. When they clicked off her light and left her to the darkness, Michael's tears and sobs increased.

“Kyson,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry. Why won't you let me make it up to you?”

The responding silence crushed her spirit while flashes of the brief time she'd shared with Kyson replayed in her mind. Instantly, her body ached in remembrance of his touch, his taste, his everything.

She now knew what she'd lost. Kyson had been the one for her. She'd known the first time she'd laid eyes on him, the first times she'd kissed him and the first time that their bodies joined.

But they were a match doomed from the beginning. Why couldn't they have met under different circumstances? Why not at a store, a restaurant or a club? If given a chance, she would have done things so differently. She would've been completely honest and earned his trust, his heart, his love.

“Oh, God, make him change his mind,” she prayed. “I'm so sorry. Please give me another chance. Please.” Michael's eyelids grew heavy. Her pleas and tears exhausted her.

“Please give me another chance,” she whispered drowsily. “Please. I want to do it all over…”

“Michael, wake up!”

“Please, God. Give me a second chance.”

“Michael!” the voice persisted. “Wake up.”

“Come back,” Michael begged. “God, please make him come back.”

“Michael,” a chorus of voices insisted while hands rocked her body violently awake. “Michael, wake up.”

“What?”

“I think she's delirious,” Sheldon said, concerned.

Finally, Michael's eyes fluttered open, but the piercing light from the ceiling fixture stabbed her brain like a rusty dagger. She quickly slammed her eyes closed again. “Please turn off that light,” she croaked.

“Well, at least she's still alive,” Joey said with a note of sarcasm.

“Why are you yelling?” Michael asked, her mouth a big cotton ball.

The girls chuckled above her.

“That's what you get for trying to drink the Damon twins under the table,” Frankie said.

“What?” Michael struggled to sit up. “Shut off that damn light,” she commanded again.

One of the girls hit the switch.

“Here. Drink this.” Peyton shoved a hot tomato drink to her mouth.

Michael gagged. “Ugh. What is that?”

“Linc's famous remedy for a hangover,” Peyton said.

“It's horrible,” Michael croaked, attempting to open her eyes again. When she did, she blinked in confusion. “What the hell are you doing still pregnant?”

“Trust me. I wonder that every time I wake up, too.” P.J. laughed. “Nobody is more anxious than me to have this baby.”

Michael glanced down and saw her mismatched polka-dot and plaid pajamas. It then occurred to her that she wasn't in her old childhood bedroom, but her bed at her new home. “I don't understand. What day is it?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sheldon shook her head. “You had way too much to drink.”

“Whatever. Here.” Peyton shoved something into her hands.

“What's this?”

“A bill. I had to get the backseat of my car cleaned since you felt the need to unload your dinner back there.”

Just thinking about vomiting made Michael's stomach lurch; she peeled out of the sheets and raced toward the bathroom where she emptied what was left in her stomach.

“Oh, good Lord.” Sheldon's maternal instincts kicked in and she prepared a cool washcloth for Michael's head.

“Why am I so sick? We didn't have a party last night.”

“We sure the hell did. You drank and partied until the Peppermill closed,” Sheldon said. “How could you forget? We were celebrating your divorce.”

“But that would mean…” Michael slumped against the tiled bathroom floor and leaned back against the tub. “It couldn't have been a dream. It was too…real. Phil was murdered and—”

“Oh, God,” Frankie said, rolling her eyes. “There she goes again. Mike, you've got to stop that. If something was to happen you'd feel horrible. I know this may sound harsh, but honey, it's time to move on.”

“He's alive?”

“Don't sound so shocked,” Peyton said. “You're making me nervous.”

Michael couldn't wrap her brain around what her sisters were saying. “What about Daddy?”

“What about him?”

“Is he all right? He's still alive, too?”

The girls looked at one another.

“Maybe she has alcohol poisoning,” Joey suggested. “We should get her to a hospital.”

“No. No,” Michael croaked, her gaze falling to the floor. “I'm fine…I guess.” She pressed the cool towel back against her face. “It was all a dream,” she said with a note of disbelief. “You were all there. Even that godawful Juanita Perkins was there.”

“That old lady leading that crazy Neighborhood Watch group at your old place?” Sheldon asked. “Hell, that sounds more like a nightmare.”

Michael bobbed her head. “It was.”

The Damon twins hadn't kidnapped Phil.

They hadn't shoved him into the car, tied and gagged him and put him in her basement.

A psycho Bonnie and Clyde hadn't killed Phil and his new girlfriend—did he have a new girlfriend?

Her father was alive. Thank God.

At last, her brain seized on another image. “But he'd seemed so real…”

M
arlin and Donna's one-year anniversary was a joyous celebration. Cloistered together in the back of Nicolino's, the Adams clan laughed, joked and shared stories of how Joey's husband, Ryan, had crashed their wedding and had mistaken Joey for the bride to be.

Michael surprised everyone by buying their father and Donna tickets for a luxury cruise. “I figured you'd enjoy it since you didn't get a chance to take a honeymoon,” she said, beaming at the happy couple.

Tears sprang into Donna's eyes and she reached over and hugged Michael. Everyone else at the table just stared, wide-eyed.

“Okay,” P.J. said, leaning over. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

“What? Can't I be nice to my father and stepmother?” Her comment didn't stop the stares, but honestly she was starting to get used to them.

In the last few days, Michael's transformation had been as dramatic as Ebenezer Scrooge's. What surprised everyone the most was her change toward her ex-husband. No longer bitter about the failure of her marriage, Michael decided that it was time to move on.

Sure, she might be single again, but for some reason her heart held out strong hope for the future. Sure, she still wanted to belong to someone, but for the first she realized it was more important to be with the
right
one.

“Buon compleanno! Buon compleanno!”

Michael turned at the sound of a group of people singing. Toward the restaurant's bar, a group of waiters and waitresses surrounded a table.

“It must be someone's birthday,” Joey commented.

Michael nodded through a pang of déjà vu. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said absently, and stood up from her chair.

“Mike, where are you going?” someone asked.

She didn't answer, she couldn't. She waded across the restaurant, trying to get a better view of the surrounded table, but the servers launched into a second chorus and she drifted toward the bar so she could wait.

Move out of the way,
her brain screamed, anxious to sate its curiosity.

Finally she got her wish as the crowd parted.

Michael sucked in a sharp breath when her eyes landed on a man she had only seen in her dreams. Skin the color of dark chocolate, hard muscles bulging along his shoulders and arms. He was just the way she'd envisioned him to be.

The stranger looked up. He caught her stare, cocked his head and smiled.

“It can't be,” she whispered.

The man said something to his male companion and stood up from his table. As he approached, Michael's stomach twisted into knots while her throat constricted painfully.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said in a voice she'd know anywhere. “But have we met?”

Michael swallowed. “I—I don't think so,” she said softly.

“Are you sure?” he persisted. “I very rarely forget a face.”

She smiled.

“Or a smile,” he added.

“No,” she said. “I think I'd remember you.”

His smile took her breath away. “Well,” he said, looking up to see the bar, “it may be my birthday, but would you mind if I bought
you
a drink?”

“I would mind,” she said, loosening up. “I should buy you a drink.”

He sat on the stool next to her. “Before you do that, let me introduce myself. My name is Kyson Dekker, and you?”

Her heart took flight. “Michael…Michael Adams.”

She watched his eyes twinkle as they roamed over her. “Well, Michael. I'm pleased to meet you…”