“I do feel bad about that,” she said. “But I’m the parent. The only parent right now who’s looking out for them. I have to decide what’s best. And bottom line, we need money to live, and I have to earn it.” When she mentioned her salary, he felt a little sick. He might see that kind of money in three or four good years. “I want my kids to have a good life. I want them to go to college.”
Luke tried to move his eyes away, but the way her hair shone in the moonlight made it impossible. Her scent: moonlight and roses. But she had a coldness in her. To do this to her boys, she must. “So it hurt when Spence walked out on your marriage. He may be a jerk, but he doesn’t deserve to lose contact with his children.”
Chloe stared down at her hands in her lap. “Who told you Spence left me?”
“Nobody. I—didn’t he?”
“I left him.”
“Why?”
Chloe had been through this with friends when the breakup had happened. So many times, she’d memorized the words. “I don’t think he’ll ever get sober. Not for good. I think he’ll struggle the rest of his life. I don’t want us to be part of that struggle.”
Luke could understand that. But still. She didn’t have to stay married to the guy. And if they lived here, there would be plenty of supervised visitation. He believed that a split family could mend itself with love. He’d seen it happen with friends. Blue Lake was a small town. People had roots here, and they didn’t leave when they busted up. They stayed and formed a new kind of family. Well, Amber didn’t do that, but most people from around here, the ones who stayed, did just fine.
“And here he is. Breaking us up. I know the signs. Fresh out of rehab. Again.” She started to cry, very softly. He steeled himself not to touch her. She talked on and on about how Spence had not abused her. He had not beaten her, not physically anyway. He had been a drug addict and an alcoholic. Emotionally absent. Checked out. He hadn’t cheated on her. He had been a good provider, once upon a time. Her reason for leaving hadn’t been anything he’d done to her, but more the things he’d neglected to do for her and the kids. Like love them. Respect her. Treat her with kindness. Stay sober for all of them.
Luke didn’t know how to reply. He shifted in his seat and spun the inert wheel. Her words sounded full of pain, and her reasons were sound. How to tell her that half-formed plan in his head, the plan he didn’t let himself think about very often, the plan that moved more than one date at a time, which is how he’d been trying to take his relationship with Chloe? Despite his rule, already broken and tossed away, he’d moved ten steps ahead on the chessboard in his head. He thought she had, too. They loved each other. They were in this thing together. So were the boys. The only thing left to do was settle the details. Or so he’d thought.
“You know that day when Spence dropped off the boys and you were the only person home?” Her voice dragged him back to the reality of the situation now. Not as he’d hoped it would eventually, all in good time, become. He nodded.
“That’s Spence. He doesn’t think beyond his own needs. He never put the boys before what he wanted, and he never put me first, ever.” Chloe raked her fingers through her hair, pulling it away from her face. Now the moon played on her cheekbone. She had exquisite skin. He hated her. He loved her. Hated what she’d done. Blaming Spence and not mentioning them, what they had. Or what they’d started.
He watched her lower her eyes, concentrating on what story to tell next. He didn’t want to hear anything else. He just wanted to leave it, leave them all to sort out their own mess. But somehow, without him wanting it, the thing had become his mess too. He was part of it now. And she deserved to be heard out.
“When I was in labor with Tommy…” She kept her eyes down.
This story was a hard one for her. For one thing, she practically whispered. Longing and hopelessness filled every silence between her halting words. She stopped, and when it seemed she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, go on, she blurted, “You could come with us.” Their eyes aligned, hers widened in shock by what she’d said.
Hell, maybe she’d been thinking ahead, too. A different game than his. Moves he would not dream of making. He let a whoosh of breath out through his nose. “I would never leave my folks. I’m their only child. My work is here. This is my home, Chloe.” He’d had it. He had to leave her now, or she’d be moving him into her Seattle mansion as his pool boy. He turned the key, to start the truck. Her signal to move on. Move up in the world. Away from here and their simple way of living.
Words tumbled from her mouth. Where she’d been slow, now she tripped over them. “My pains came on super strong, right away. I knew something wasn’t right. It wasn’t that way with Josh. I timed them and they were only a few minutes apart. I called Spence around five o’clock in the morning. Still out partying. Spence finally answered after the third call to his cell. He said to have my mom take me to the hospital and watch Josh.”
Luke kept the motor running, pulled the shoulder closest to her away and up. Was she blaming Spence for the break-up of the marriage? Hadn’t it been her decision? Didn’t they have marriage counselors downstate? Everyone knew it took two people to make a marriage and two people to split it up.
“Spence said he’d be there when he could. He missed the birth. He missed the first day of Tommy’s life. He came into the hospital at regular visiting hours that night, stinking of beer. And the first thing he said, before he even asked how I was, before he even saw the baby, was that he’d had a hell of a day and he hoped I wasn’t about to bust his balls.”
Okay. Horrible story and despite his determination to break things off now, while it could still be done relatively painlessly, he imagined how it must have been for her. “What did he say when you told him you wanted a divorce?”
“At first, we tried counseling. I thought that by the end of therapy, I’d be able to somehow solve my problem, live with an addict. He went to one session and then said I had the problem so I should be the one to go to a shrink. It turned out that I did have a problem. A big one named Spence.”
She’d stopped loving him.
Luke would not say this, but the thought came through despite his best intentions to leave her and her long sad story alone.
“I didn’t love him anymore. He’d killed that with his drinking and drugging. He got fired from his job a month before he told me. We almost lost our house. My mom had to bail us out. He’d had addiction problems in the past, but he’d been to rehab and supposedly fixed. Again. Except he wasn’t. One day Tommy came out of Spence’s office with a vial of white powder clutched in his little hand. That was it. The end. I took my kids to my mom’s that day and never looked back.”
“So the guy had to work hard. So he sometimes had a bad day. Addicts relapse all the time. But then they get clean again. And their family stands beside them. Life is not all hearts and flowers and romance.” Luke purposely came up with every reason not to love her, not to beg her to stay. He’d been a dumb ass and broken his rule, and now he was paying the price. He needed it to stop now.
“My therapist said Spence was an emotional abuser.”
He wanted to say he was sorry she’d chosen the wrong man. But “Have a good life” came out instead. He reached over across her lap and opened the passenger door. He gunned the engine for good measure.
She sat there, taking no hints. “So this is it? We’re over? You won’t even consider my offer? You said you loved me. I love you. That’s the important part. That’s what matters.”
“I told you why I won’t move.” He had to get her out of his truck, and then he had to go home and have a beer in his empty living room. “We should have never happened. Would have never happened had I known you were moving to Seattle. When? Tomorrow? The next day?” He didn’t have to fake the venom in his voice. He wanted to hit something. Maybe that wall in his kitchen that needed taking down anyway.
He didn’t look when he heard her scoot off the seat and lower herself to the ground. With most of his mind, he thought about where he’d last seen his crowbar. A tiny part watched her walk past the stand of pines over to Blue Heaven before he backed out of the lot and headed back into town. Home.
Chapter Fifteen
Chloe carefully wove through the stand of pines that divided the park from Blue Heaven. Luke hadn’t even mentioned love. Not once. When she got to the bonfire, the kids were with Spence and Bettina. Her mom must have let Spence take them. They were so happy to see their dad. Chloe’s heart broke for the second time in ten minutes. Her smile wobbled as she called for bedtime.
“The sofa in Kiwi cottage turns into a bed! Daddy says we can sleep on it.” The words toppled out of Josh.
“Please,” Tommy begged.
“Only if your mom says it’s okay.” Bettina, always the voice of reason and the only reason Chloe said yes. It gave her an excuse to go into her room right now and be alone with her misery.
She kissed her boys goodnight and headed for her room in the bungalow, but sleep didn’t come easy that night. She grabbed a few fitful hours, then gave in and got up. She put a pot of coffee on the stove and went out to the porch to watch the sun come up.
Spence wandered out of Kiwi early. He carried his own mug of coffee and sat down uninvited in the deck chair next to hers. They didn’t speak, as if neither was willing to start. Finally, Spence began his familiar tale: he’d stay clean and sober this time, he had returned to work, he would pay her back, turn his life around, blah, blah, blah.
Chloe tuned out briefly, until he began to talk about moving to Blue Lake. “I put our house on the market yesterday, and it sold to the first guy who walked through the door this morning.”
She sat up straighter and peered into her coffee mug. Empty. She still didn’t feel like talking, so she held up her index finger and gestured with her coffee cup.
Spence followed her into the kitchen. “This is nice. We’d like something along these lines up here. Obviously, not on the lake. Out of our price range.”
“So glad I could help you get your future together.” She couldn’t resist the dig, him basically using her money to create a new life.
Spence went on as if he had not heard her.
“Did you know there’s an empty real estate office right next to Sanchez’s? It seems too good to be true.” He held out his cup and she filled it. “This could work for all of us, Chloe.”
“I already have a plan. A plan that does not include living in Michigan. You signed off on me taking the kids out of state.”
“I know.” They stood, not really looking at each other, unwilling to share the small table that had a window out to the lake. “I was wrong. I should not have done that. As you know, under the influence at the time.”
“We’re leaving in a few days. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Well, there is, but let’s not fight. Can’t you see? This place is perfect for starting over. Housing, especially those old cottages like your mom’s that aren’t on the lake, is super cheap here. People are buying again. When our house sold, I realized there’s a housing shortage and a historic low on mortgage rates.”
“But, Spence, what about Bettina’s career?”
“What about it? She wants to stay home with the baby.”
Of course she did. Chloe thought with a twinge about how lovely it had been this past month being there for her boys every day. Not having to rush off to work or chain herself to her laptop on weekends. All that was about to change. Spence talked on.
“People start over every day. I know I screwed up our marriage and wasn’t there for you and the kids. But I’ve really learned my lesson. I can do it right this time.”
How often had she heard that tune? A click alerted Chloe to Wanda’s entry into the registration office. She checked the clock. Already eight. Wanda of course smelled the coffee and gave a quick knock.
“Come on in,” Chloe said, wondering if Luke had told Wanda about Seattle and her domestic distress.
Another key turned in a lock, and Wanda stood in the kitchen, her mouth opening and closing when she noted Spence.
“Hi,” Spence said, cheery as Chloe was glum.
“Kiwi? Right?”
“Yep.”
“Where are the little ones, Chloe?”
“This is their dad. Spence, Wanda. Wanda, Spence. They spent the night in Kiwi.”
Wanda stared hard at Chloe. That woman did not miss a trick. She must know some of what had gone on yesterday, if not all. Nobody knew Luke had broken up with her. Not yet. Spence’s voice penetrated again.
“Love your town.” He spoke to Wanda with enthusiasm she remembered from the young, sober Spence. “My wife and I, and our new baby, are moving here permanently. Trying to talk Chloe here out of going to Seattle with my boys. She should stay here, too. That’s the proper way to blend a family.”
Cripes. As if he knew the first thing about it. Wanda had yet to utter a word, her mouth opening again to form an O as her head swept from Chloe to Spence.
“Well,” she finally said, “you’re right about this town. It’s a great place to raise kids. We look out for each other here.”
Noise built from the cottagers who craved Wanda’s freshly baked muffins. Wanda transferred the coffee Chloe had made into a large carafe, started a new pot, and went out to say hi and situate the coffee pot and muffins upstairs.
“See? Even she thinks it’s a good idea.”
“Spence.” Bettina came in, a boy holding each of her hands.
“Hi, baby.” He set down his cup and went over to hug his wife. The hug lasted a long time. The boys came to Chloe and began talking over each other about how cool it had been to stay in Kiwi cottage.
“When are we going to the beach?”
“Right now.” Chloe figured the very pregnant Bettina would not follow them there. Plus they were house-hunting. And Spence had to check on his new office space.
Spence’s cell phone rang. He answered and gave short answers. Chloe worried he’d get an injunction to keep her in state. He’d hinted at it, and she knew he could play dirty when he wanted to. God, she hated him.
Spence slipped his cell into his shorts pocket. “That was Ursula.” His eyes shone with excitement. “She told me she put in a good word with the guy who owns the bank.”