Her Reason to Stay (14 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t think straight. I should have talked to you right away.”

“If you’d just said, ‘My ex-wife is coming back to town. I feel a hole opening underneath me,’ that would have worked. I’d have asked you in. I’d have done anything to make you feel better.”

“I’m afraid if I let you into my life, even that much, I’ll never—”

“Be able to get rid of me again.” She stepped away. “Well, you took care of that. Goodbye, Patrick.”

He wanted to beg her to rethink, to consider what never seeing him again would be like, because he assumed it would be unbearable for both of them.

But he’d done enough and then some. She deserved a better man.

“Goodbye, Daphne.”

He half expected to find Raina returning to the bottom of the stairs, but she’d gone back to the big house, or she’d simply walked out of sight. Shame sent him to his car without trying to explain.

Loving Will more than his own life couldn’t excuse what he’d done.

T
HE FUNNY THING
about Daphne’s cleansing shower was that she hated washing Patrick’s touch away. She’d been as desperate as he more than once. She’d done things simply to feel good for a moment, not letting herself consider the consequences of the moment after.

But, as with Danny Frank, she could feel empathy and yet be determined he wouldn’t get away with it.

Drying her hair, she thought she heard a knock on the front door. She straightened and set the blow-dryer on the counter. “Coming.”

She shut the door on her rumpled bedroom and hurried to the front of the apartment. Raina was on the landing.

“I bring commiseration.” She lifted two long brown bags.

“I hope those are baguettes.”

Raina shook her head. “Nope. Yours is sparkling grape juice. Mine is wine—the cheap kind I like instead of the good stuff my mother kept in the cellar.”

“You don’t want to go in the cellar because you remember her down there.”

“I remember her everywhere.”

“Suddenly, I realize I just can’t help analyzing any unsuspecting soul who wanders past me. Possibly as a way to ignore my own problems.” Daphne led the way to the kitchen. “But you shared wine tasting. That was something special you did together, so you mourn for that the way you mourn for her. Every time you go to the cellar.”

“You’re changing the subject,” Raina said.

Daphne opened a cabinet and turned, brandishing two of her best bright blue plastic disposable cups. “Because I feel like an idiot.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I love him, and I’m thinking love makes me stupid.”

Raina took the cups and opened the sparkling grape juice first. “Is it all right for you to do this? Hang out with me while I drink wine? I can have juice with you.”

“It’s probably not a great idea to follow a drown-my-sorrows ritual, but I don’t expect you never to drink again. Your wine is fine as long as I don’t drink it.” Daphne took her cup and went to the fat sofa Raina had remembered her grandmother using. “Are you upset because it was Patrick?”

“I’m pissed as hell,” she said with un-Raina-like emphasis. “He ought to be glad I don’t have a shotgun.”

“I’m not entirely comfortable talking to you about him.”

“I told you a long time ago. He’s my best friend. Nothing more, and not much of that right now.”

Daphne couldn’t forget Patrick’s desperation. He had needed her. Or he’d needed a body that attracted him.

That idea wouldn’t leave her alone. “Would he have found a friendly hometown girl if I hadn’t been so damn available?”

“I look just like you. If he was going after a type, he’d have noticed I’m a woman before now.”

“He notices women.” No man who made love like that could not notice. He knew how to please, damn him.

“He was angry with me because I said he didn’t care for you. Did you think he loved you?”

Did she? Of course she did. And the thought that she’d been wrong hurt. “Raina, do we have to talk about it? I know I made a massive mistake, and I won’t repeat it.”

Raina brought her glass over. She sat on the couch, curling her feet beneath her. “He’s like a brother I take for granted. I do love him, and I worry that he’ll never trust anyone again because of Lisa.” She drank and then rolled her head on the back of the couch. “I don’t want him to overprotect Will so much he’ll be afraid, too.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Will acts first and thinks later. If anything, I’m on Patrick’s side where Will’s concerned. I nearly coughed up a lung that day he hit me with his ball because he’d wandered off again.”

Raina sat back. “Why? Has Patrick infected you with his suspicious nature?”

“Maybe Patrick and I believe the worst can happen because we’ve seen it. What are you thinking that has your forehead tied in knots?”

“That maybe you and Patrick aren’t as impossible together as I thought. That kid needs breathing space.”

“He’s five years old.”

Raina sipped her wine. “Patrick should get over it all so that Will can.”

“Get over it? Will’s his child. Imagine losing a child because a woman you loved cannot and will not take care of him. Because right now she loves drugs more.”

“I’m sorry for that, and you can count me among the adults who’d protect Will with their last breaths. I’m grateful Lisa’s never managed to get her hands on him, and I hope she’ll have to jump through hoops to be his mother again, but you’re my family, and I don’t want to lose you.”

Daphne sat back, surprised that Raina couldn’t see how much she loved her. “You nut. I’m not going anywhere. Even though I’m going to feel a little shame for being so stupid every time I see that man.”

“For caring too much, you mean. Listen to me. Forget I’m the sheltered little girl you saw in that chair in Patrick’s office. You don’t have the corner on human behavior. Patrick thinks you can’t stop drinking, but he couldn’t control a couple of his basic instincts tonight, either. And no matter what you say, I am afraid you’ll go away again. What if you decided you couldn’t live in town and look Patrick in the eye?”

Her voice broke. Daphne stared, her throat tight. “What’s in this grape juice?” She held up her fine plastic stemware. “I feel like crying.”

Raina stared at her, both eyebrows lifted.

“Sorry,” Daphne said. “I meant I love you, too. I thought you’d be on his side if we ever came to this.”

“You’re my sister.” She set her glass down. “Not that I want either of you to make me choose.”

Daphne pulled her own feet up underneath her, smiling because she realized she and Raina probably looked like bookends. “I’m glad you didn’t take sides the moment you saw us tonight.”

“I sort of did. I told my best friend to stay away from my sister until he could explain himself. And I want a damn good explanation.”

“That’s a reasonable stance, Raina. Not one that works in emotional situations, I fear.”

“He didn’t embrace it as great advice, either.” Raina grabbed a pillow and punched it into the chair beneath her other arm. “Do you love him?”

Daphne ducked a straight answer. “He goes out of his way to help people. I’m seduced by that. He came to me the first night, when I was staying in the hotel, and he tried to talk me into moving. He didn’t know me, but he wanted me to be safe.”

“He does think he knows best about everything.”

“Raina, he’s still your friend. Don’t assume he’s in the wrong.” She had a sip of grape juice so sweet it made her grimace. “I didn’t forget where the door was after I let him in.”

“He knows he’s not ready for a relationship right now. Coming here was selfish.”

“He loves Will so much he’s pretty much given up his own life. I’ve never known a parent like that. I may hate the way he thinks of me, and I won’t see him again, but he believes it’s all for Will. Until he figures out he’s the problem, there’s no way to fix it.”

Raina went back to refill her cup. “I’m not sure he wants to fix it. No matter how much he wants you, he doesn’t want to get hurt again, either. He really loved Lisa, too.”

“So he’s capable of love.”

“I didn’t say that to hurt you.”

“I was serious. He knows how to love. We’re just not right for each other.”

“You are fine. Don’t let Patrick persuade you—”

“Patrick’s already in my past.”

“I doubt it,” Raina said, “and I’m supposed to the be naive one.”

“I can’t help wondering what’s going to happen with Lisa.”

“She’s Patrick’s problem. Yours is getting over him.”

“That would be fine, except I can’t stop loving him just because I want to, any more than he can stop holding back.”

Raina had no snappy answer for that. But she sat next to Daphne, tugging her close.

“I don’t know how you stop, but my shoulder’s here for you.”

“Maybe I’ll just lean on you then. Leaning is so much nicer than crying like a kid.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t help.” Raina wiped a tear off her own cheek and they laughed.

H
E’D RARELY DONE
anything more idiotic. He hadn’t meant to use Daphne. He wanted to call her, but when he reached for his phone, he couldn’t find it.

His mother came out of the family room.

“You look horrible,” she said.

He barely restrained himself from looking to see if his shirttail was wedged into his zipper.

“Try not to worry so much about Lisa. The courts have been on Will’s side, and they’ll continue to test her, so she won’t be able to claim she’s better without proof.”

She patted his back. He didn’t tell her the number of his clients who’d beaten drug tests.

“I’m fine. Thanks for staying. Did Will go to sleep easily?”

“I think he’s in better shape than you.”

“I hope he stays that way when his mother gets a court date.”

“He will be better off having a relationship with her as long as the court keeps an eye on her drug use.”

He could too-easily imagine himself going to pick Will up after a visit, finding Lisa, all her possessions and his son missing.

“I hope you’re right.”

“Call me if you need me, son.” She took her purse from the bench and dug out her keys. “I’m a short drive away.”

“Night, Mom.”

As he shut the door behind her, he searched his pockets again for his phone. Not in his jacket or his pants. He must have left it in the car.

Anyway, what could he have said to Daphne to make anything better? He wouldn’t lie to her and he couldn’t tell her he saw their problem differently.

She fully intended to live sober every day of the rest of her life. He believed in her. But she also attended a daily meeting to remind herself not to give in to an overwhelming compulsion.

And the image that stayed in his head was of his son, on a gurney in the E.R., barely moving, calling for his mom who’d left him to nearly die.

Why did Daphne keep saying this was about him? Didn’t she realize he had to keep Will safe?

“I
NEED TO GO
to bed.” Raina stood, her feet unsteady. “How many glasses did I drink?”

“I’m not sure. Want me to walk you to the house?”

“No.” Raina wrapped herself in the grape-soaked remains of her genteel dignity. “Don’t mind me if you find me stringing a homemade alarm across the stairs.”

“Alarm?” Daphne asked.

“Tin cans or something to warn you and me if Patrick comes back.”

“I don’t see him loading Will into the car so he can sneak back here in the dead of night for a hook-up.”

Raina grinned. “I thought better of him, too, until tonight.” She hugged Daphne loosely. “Will you be able to sleep?”

“After I paint a little.” Assuming the paint hadn’t hardened into glue. “Oh, man, I left the can open all this time.”

“Paint, we can replace.”

Daphne walked her sister down the stairs and pointed her toward the house’s kitchen door. Back in her apartment she tossed their cups into the recycling bin and washed up.

At the end of the counter, she came upon Raina’s open bottle of wine. It stopped her like a coiled, hissing snake.

She licked her lips, but dropped the sponge and put her hands behind her back.

One little sip. One small taste to cleanse her palate of the horrible, heart-stabbing day.

No one would ever know. Not Raina or her group at the church. Not Patrick.

She moved closer. Her mouth watered. Her cheeks almost hurt as she thought she could taste the wine’s strong, dry bite.

No one had to know. She wasn’t about to step into a car. She’d hurt no one.

Except herself. She’d break all the promises she’d made, and she’d become the woman Patrick feared most. More important, damn it, she didn’t need wine. She needed to put her paint away and burn her sheets and go to bed.

With a nice sensible to-do list, she set to work.

S
ATURDAY MORNING
,
bright and early, she woke and sat up to find Patrick’s coat on the floor near her door.

Raina could return that to its owner.

Just then, the pocket rang. She stared at it, tempted to answer, but too annoyed to help Patrick out. No doubt he’d discovered the phone missing.

She was tempted to walk on those pockets.

In a while she’d call and let him know it was still here. Until then…She picked up the coat, her only thought to toss it into Raina’s yard.

Instead, she lifted it to her face. How sad must he have been to put on a coat in this weather?

The navy material smelled of Patrick, man and leather from his car and everything nice.

Tears caught at her with sharp claws. She resisted crying and threw the coat on the end of the counter.

Instead of hurling Patrick’s goods into the great outdoors, she’d go out herself. Raina had said she could plant a small garden behind the garage.

Better to anticipate beautiful crocuses and tulips next spring than whiskey and a man she couldn’t trust.

She’d already dug up the bed and prepared the soil. So she put on jeans and a T-shirt and drove into town to buy bulbs.

A
FTER HE’D SEARCHED
his car and his office and Mitch Espy’s parking lot, Patrick finally realized he’d left his coat and his phone at Daphne’s.

For a second, he considered asking Raina to pick it up, but she’d call him a selection of well-deserved names and tell him to get it himself. Again, he dropped Will off at his mother’s.

“Where are you going?” she asked as Will ran to the kitchen to set out Play-Doh makings.

“I have to get my phone, Mother. I left it at Daphne’s yesterday.”

“What’s wrong with you, Patrick? I think you’re frozen inside.”

“Why does everyone keep saying something’s wrong with me? I’m handling a problem that might cause pain for my son.”

“And for you?”

“I’m attracted to Daphne. Mother, this isn’t a conversation you and I need to have.”

“I’ve been young. I’ve even loved the wrong guy once in a while—before I met your father, of course. I know how the world works.”

“I’m the bad guy. Daphne did nothing wrong.”

“You left your phone on purpose?”

When he thought about it honestly, he couldn’t say his unconscious wasn’t smarter than he was. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

“You need to leave that young woman alone. She cares about you.”

“I know. You’re right.”

“I saw her after an AA meeting.”

“You knew, too?” he asked.

“She wanted to tell you herself. I thought that was brave.”

“I meant I was trying not to mention it to you until you had to know. I never wanted to hurt her.”

“What did you do?”

“All the worst things you can imagine. I can’t defend myself, and I’ll be lucky if she hasn’t set my coat on fire. I’ll be back. Okay?”

She followed him down the hall. “I’m not happy with you.”

“Neither am I.”

“Okay, then, but don’t hurt that girl again just to scare her off.”

He stared after her as she went to join Will. What did she mean about scaring Daphne off?

He’d been worried about women. He’d managed to alienate every one who meant anything to him. Daphne. Raina. His mother.

He drove, squinting at the sun, to Daphne’s place. He half hoped she’d be gone, and then a second later, he swore at the thought of not seeing her again.

He parked in front of the garage. Her car was there. He searched for the ruins of his coat. It wasn’t outside. He ran up the stairs to her apartment and knocked, but no one answered.

He leaned over the rail, searching Daphne’s yard.

“Hello?”

He froze. And then looked straight down.

“Daphne.”

“You’re looking for your coat?”

“It is here?”

“The pocket rang earlier.”

“Why didn’t you answer it?”

She peeled off gardening gloves and peered at him as if his brain might have stopped functioning.

“Ah,” he said. “Dumb question.”

“I’ll come open the door.”

“You lock it?”

“It’s Raina’s house.” She climbed the stairs, digging the key from her back pocket. Those faded jeans were his favorites.

She opened the door and stood aside for him to pass. He saw the coat the second he was in. She’d hung it across the kitchen counter. He went straight to it and saw an open wine bottle.

He swore.

“What?” she asked. But when she reached his side, she knew. “Oh.”

“Oh? That’s all you have to say?”

Images flashed in front of him. Lisa, asleep with her head on the table when he got home from work. Will on that damn gurney, too tired to breathe.

And Daphne, assuring him she wasn’t that kind of woman. He could trust her. She didn’t want another drink. She’d never hurt his son.

His temper went for the roof. “I’ve felt guilty for—”

“This is your moment of truth,” she said.

“Like that was yours?” He pointed at the beautiful bottle of glinting liquid.

“You have a choice.”

He stared at her. “To join you in a glass?”

She breathed out as if he’d hit her.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, Daphne.” He couldn’t see her lifting that bottle to her lips.

“Don’t let me off the hook. Think about this. I trusted you yesterday and you used me. I care about you so much I made love to you even though I knew something was wrong. What would make me drink?”

Suddenly, he couldn’t make himself ask if she had. Asking would be beyond the pale.

“Can you be sure? If I tell you I didn’t, will you believe me?”

He stared into her eyes, searching her, looking for the truth in her soul.

“You’re afraid,” she said. “But you have to ask. And then you have to choose whether to believe me or not. And you’ll be choosing the way you’ll believe for the rest of your life, because this is your only chance.”

“Daphne—”

“And I love you,” she said.

Joy slammed through his body the way they talked about it in books or movies. She loved him.

“But you’re going to lose me,” she said, “because you’re afraid of being hurt. Not Will. You.”

Silence ricocheted in that room like a heartbeat. He wanted to tell her she was wrong. He wanted to explain he was a man and he could handle his own problems, but he hadn’t handled a damn thing. He’d reacted, from the day Will had almost died.

He’d been afraid to feel again.

He gasped because the truth was a blow as dangerous to Will, and to Daphne and to him, as anything she could do with wine.

He simply had to believe. He had to choose to believe.

“Stop.” He held out his hand. “You don’t have to say any more. I’ve been doing the same thing you did to hide. You drank to forget you weren’t safe. You wanted to believe you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

She stared at him. Yesterday lay in the shadow of her eyes.

“I’ve been pushing you away because I don’t trust myself. I’m the one who brought danger to Will. I didn’t see what Lisa was doing. I don’t even know if I closed my eyes because I was busy, but Will was in danger because of me, as much as her, and I had to protect him. I had to find a way to keep him safe every day of his life.”

“You can’t do that,” she said.

“Not if I want him to actually live.” He took her hand, but he didn’t dare ask her to come closer. “I believe in you, in the promises you make and the love you feel and the joy you’ve brought me.”

“I love you, Patrick.” She flattened her hand on his chest. “Will and I can learn to love each other, too.”

“He’s halfway there. And my mother would probably rather you were her child.”

“You know I can’t say I won’t ever drink again. All I can promise is that I’ll never do one thing near Will that could cause him a second’s discomfort.” She actually smiled, and his heart banged to get out of his chest. “Except I do indeed throw like a girl.”

“You don’t have to say that again.” He kissed her. Thank God she kissed him back, with a fierceness he couldn’t believe he deserved.

“Daphne.” Her name was a pleasure. “I think about you all day long, and I can’t sleep at night for wanting you.

“We had that physical thing down from the start. It was learning to trust.” She hugged him tight. “In the face of wine bottles and fear.”

No amount of fear was worth losing her. “I do love you.”

“But?” she asked.

“No but.” He pulled her arms around him. “Everything else comes after I love you.”

“We have to be realistic. I could drink again. I need you to know that.”

“If it happens, we’ll work through it. As long as you want to stay sober, we’ll manage. That’s marriage, I guess,” he said, not realizing he’d said it out loud.

Daphne froze. “Marriage? We’d better be sure we can make this work first.”

He kissed her. “That should have hurt, you turning me down.”

“Did it?” She traced the line of his jaw. Her warm, soft, seeking mouth raised his body temperature about a thousand degrees.

“I want you to know I’m not changing my mind because we had sex. I’m making a commitment.”

“What did change your mind, Patrick?”

“Well, every woman I care about has mentioned I have a problem. And when you said this was my moment of truth, I knew I could stop hurting you if I just trusted you. Neither one of us could have stood much more. Maybe you’ve been giving me reasons to believe ever since I met you.”

“Patrick.” She wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Hmm?” He lifted her, and her legs went around his waist. Her breasts and thighs flattened against him, an invitation that ensured coherent thought would soon be impossible.

“Do you want to know about that bottle?”

“No.” He opened her mouth with his and took her back from the darkness of their doubts. She kissed him with generosity and love and forgiveness.

She leaned her head back. “Why don’t we see just how sure you are that we’re right together?”

“I’m damn near dying to show you.”