Authors: Nona Raines
"I bet I know what happened next. You got to your hotel in Orlando and
Danielle
never showed."
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"She left a message on my cell phone that there'd been a delay. Something with one of her little girls. She said they'd be catching a later flight...but you're right, they never arrived."
"She made a nice little bundle, with the cash for those airplane tickets. A few thousand? More like ten." Andie shook her head, sickened that this woman had abused her father's trust so cruelly. "You were taken, Dad. You realize that, right?"
His response was basically a non-sequitur. "I tried calling her number, but no one ever picked up. At first I was worried something had gone wrong. I couldn't believe Danielle would...she seemed so nice, so good to her little girls."
"What did you do down there?" Andie was horrified by the thought of her father sitting in a hotel room all that time waiting for some mystery woman to show up.
"I finally realized she wasn't coming. But the trip was supposed to last entire weekend. I couldn't think of an excuse to come back early. And I couldn't face anyone after I'd been so stupid." Mr. Benedetto's voice trailed off.
"Oh my God." And that explained why her father had been so happy before his trip. He hadn't been "moving forward" at all. He'd been falling for someone who wasn't even real, someone who was using him while he was vulnerable.
Andie wanted to throw up. Her revulsion toward that bitch scam artist had no outlet, rendering her helpless with frustration. Her emotional tumult must have shown on her face because her father tried again to explain. "I know you're 158
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upset. What I did was stupid. But I miss your mother so much. It's been so lonely—"
"I miss her, too, you know," she snapped. "It's not just you."
Her father looked stricken at her outburst. "I know, Andrea."
Andie forced a lid down on her churning emotions. As disappointed in her father as she was, she understood why he'd shown such poor judgment. He'd been lonely and desperate to fill the yawning hole in his heart. Hadn't she in her loneliness turned to Matthew?
Be honest, Andie. It wasn't
just loneliness. You wanted him. Be real. You were hot as hell
for him, even before you knew about Douglas and Gretchen.
She was angry at Matthew for using her to feel like a hero, a good guy—but hadn't she been using him, too? To bolster her self-worth, to play out her fantasy of being a bad girl?
It's the truth
, she told herself glumly.
No more moral high
ground for you.
"Let's...let's not talk about this right now. We've got to focus on making sure you're all right," Andie told him. "I know you were drinking yesterday. You could have died, you know. Plenty of people have died from falls. Remember that famous actor? He fell and hit his head. He bled to death. That could have been you, Dad."
"But it wasn't. I'm all right." Her father shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. "I'm lucky Matthew found me when he did."
"Yeah, you are lucky. You're lucky Daisy started barking.
You're lucky Matthew heard and came over when he did.
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You're lucky for a lot of reasons." She wondered if even now he realized how fortunate he was. "But you might not be so lucky next time." She paused. "Do you
want
to die?"
Her father looked at her as though she'd lost her mind.
"That's crazy. What happened was an accident."
"What's crazy is the way you're drinking. You didn't
accidentally
happen to slip in the kitchen and hit your head.
You were drunk."
"Andrea..."
"You were drunk, Dad." Her tone brooked no argument.
She stared him down, refusing to let him hide from the truth any longer. "So I'm asking. I really want to know. Are you trying to kill yourself? 'Cause that's what you're doing."
Shame made him drop his eyes, but his tone was defensive. "It's not like that."
Andie realized she was not getting through to him. She had to show him some tough love now.
"All right. Here's what's going to happen. I'm taking both sets of your car keys with me. Until you get some help, I'm going to make sure you're not driving. If you need groceries you'll have to take a bus or a cab. The Kwikie Mart is close enough for you to walk to if you need milk or bread. I'm not going to have it on my conscience if you're out there driving under the influence."
Her father's eyes flashed and his face flushed with anger.
"I've never done that."
Andie looked at him coolly. "Well, I can't trust you won't. If you want to risk your own life, I guess I can't stop you. But I'm going to make damn sure you're not endangering 160
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anybody else. And one more thing—I'm taking Daisy with me.
You're not even taking care of yourself, now. I'm not leaving her here so you can neglect her, too."
"I don't neglect Daisy! You have no right, she loves me..."
"I love you!" Andie burst out, startling herself as much as her father. Angry tears flooded her eyes, but she blinked them back. "I love you, and I'm not going to watch you do this to yourself. So I'm not going to clean your house or do your laundry or anything else you've neglected because of the alcohol. When I come to see you, if I think you've been drinking, I'm going to turn right around and go home. That's it."
Her father looked bewildered, as though he didn't understand what she was telling him. She took a deep breath.
"I made some calls this morning. I called AA. They have a meeting every day at different places around town, churches, and other spots. For someone just starting the program, they suggest ninety meetings in ninety days. I left the number by the phone. You have to call them and decide to get help. I can't do it for you.
"I called Al-Anon, too. The man I spoke to was very kind and spent a lot of time talking to me. I learned a lot, and I'm going to learn more. I'm going to start going to their meetings. I'm not going to make it easy for you to hurt yourself. That's over."
And wasn't that what Matthew had been trying to tell her?
But she hadn't wanted to listen. Why was it easier to accept advice from a faceless stranger over the phone than from the man she cared about? She never meant to care. It was never 161
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supposed to come to that. A sickening sense of loss passed through her.
Resentment flared as she gazed at her father, but he looked so shrunken and scared her anger dissolved into pity.
Resolutely, she pushed it aside. Pity was what had allowed matters to get so out of hand.
Her dad was shaking his head, his mouth set in an obstinate line. "I'm not an alcoholic."
"Dad, I don't know if you are or not. But you can't keep going like this. I'm scared for you." This time she didn't even try to hold back her tears.
His stubbornness wavered when faced with her unhappiness. "I didn't mean to scare you." His voice was hoarse. "If your mother was here—"
"She's gone." Andie knew she had to be blunt, even cruel, to keep her father from living in the past. "We're never going to see her again. Except maybe in heaven. But she'd hate to see you like this. She'd want you to be happy."
Her father sounded almost childlike as he asked "Do you think so?"
"Yes. I do believe it, with all my heart. She'd want us both to be happy."
But Andie's certainty was undercut by a sense of despair.
For her, happiness included Matthew, but she'd lost him. No, she hadn't. How could she lose something she'd never had in the first place?
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The old saying went that trouble comes in threes. If only life were that predictable.
Some trouble was tragic and terrifying and heartbreaking—
when your mother's doctor tells her the breast cancer she thought she'd beaten has returned and spread to her other organs. Some trouble wasn't so bad after all—when you learn your boyfriend has been cheating on you with one of his former girlfriends. Oh, it stings at first, and you feel stupid, but when you look back you realize he really did you a favor, and you had a lucky escape.
Some trouble comes out of the blue and hits you right between the eyes when you least expect it—like when that same boyfriend—now ex-boyfriend—shows up at your job a month after he's dumped you. Shows up at the library on a Friday afternoon when customers are in a hurry after school and after work to get their business done before closing time.
Andie stood at her desk, not trusting herself to speak. A jolt of rage surged through her, followed oddly by a thread of fear.
"I'd like to talk to you, Andie." Douglas's throat worked as he swallowed nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Was he trying to make her feel sorry for him?
"This is not the time, nor the place." Her voice trembled.
Damn it. She swept past him and into the Adult Fiction stacks. He followed her. Damn again. Andie grasped the handle of a full book cart and wheeled it in front of her. Re-163
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shelving books was a page's job, but Andie needed to do something with her hands, something to keep them from trembling. God, what was wrong with her? She didn't want him back, was glad to be rid of him. Yet for some reason, she was afraid, too. Afraid she'd soften towards him and let her defenses down? Was she really that weak?
She picked up a book and placed it on the shelf automatically, the call numbers on the spine gone blurry. "If there's something you want from the apartment, leave a message on the voice mail, and I'll make sure it gets to you."
There. No trembling that time. Much better, steadier.
"Andie."
He used
that tone
, the one she'd heard many times before that said she was being unreasonable. He must have picked up on it, felt her fear.
"We're adults, surely we can discuss our relationship intelligently."
When she spoke, Andie's voice was soft, almost gentle.
She turned toward him. "Our relationship?" She always liked Douglas's looks—with those eyeglasses and his longish light-brown hair, she thought he resembled a sexy, rumpled professor. But now Andie recognized the glimmer of triumph flickering in his eyes behind the glasses. Her fear dissipated, and a slow-burning anger took its place. Yes. He thought he had her now. Manipulative jerk.
Douglas's eyes were an icy winter blue. Not the warm autumnal mix of brown and green of Matthew's.
God.
Was she ever going to stop thinking about Matthew?
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"I've wanted to call you." Douglas forged ahead, emboldened by her apparent softening. "But I knew you wouldn't pick up."
Andie bowed her head agreeably. A thought was taking form in her brain, and she began to feel stronger, stronger than she'd ever felt with him. "You know me so well." She glanced up to see Tania approaching with a shark's smile on her face.
"If you're busy right now, Ms. Benedetto, I'd be happy to help the gentleman." The look Tania gave Douglas said
Yeah,
happy to help kick your sorry ass out onto the pavement.
Douglas frowned. There was no love lost between him and Tania, even before he and Andie had broken up.
"It's all right, Tania," Andie heard herself say. Turning to Douglas, she said, "We'll talk, but not here."
Douglas nodded, smiling as if he'd already won. "Cool Beans, then? After work."
"All right."
"Say five-thirty?"
Andie nodded.
Tania's eyes went wide with disbelief while Douglas flashed a smile. "It's nothing we can't work out, sweetheart."
Sweetheart? Douglas rarely used endearments. He was really pouring it on now.
"When we talk, you'll see," he said.
Tania's look of surprise had changed to a glare now fixed on Andie. She ignored the smug expression on Douglas's face by simply pretending he didn't exist. When he was gone, 165
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Tania demanded, "Have you lost your mind? Don't you know what that clown is up to?"
"Yeah, I do," Andie told her. "For whatever reason, he wants me back. And he's going to get me."
Tania was furious and tried warnings, pleas, and even threats to stop her friend from keeping the date with Douglas.
But Andie had made up her mind and now she sat across the table from him in Cool Beans Coffee House with her small skim latte in front of her.
He'd placed his hand on top of hers. "I'm so glad you decided to listen to reason." His tone said it all—she was a stubborn, wayward child, and he was the mature adult. He often turned the tables on her that way. Why was she only recognizing that now? Douglas cleared his throat. "People make mistakes, Andie. It's part of being human."
Andie's eyebrows rose. He spoke as though she were the one to blame for their separation. He was magnanimously extending forgiveness for her sins instead of asking pardon for his own.
Then at least he had the decency to look a bit embarrassed. "You know Gretchen was with me the night you called. I'm sorry you had to find out that way. I wanted to tell you..."
Why didn't you?
Andie might have asked. Certainly he had plenty of opportunity to do so before he moved out. But she knew there were only two possible answers: he'd been too cowardly to tell the truth or he'd wanted to keep Andie on the string in case things didn't work out with Gretchen. As apparently they hadn't.
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It didn't matter now, and Andie didn't put him on the spot.
She wanted to make it easy for him.
"I understand," she told him, smiling and squeezing his fingers.
He blinked in surprise and Andie quickly backtracked. She shouldn't make it too easy—he'd get suspicious. She pulled her hand free. "I mean, I
was
hurt."