instincts, who either didn’t see or didn’t want to see the warning signs. Or were too scared to act on them. So if what you’re saying is true...then what you’re doing? Takes balls.”
With that, he finally left. Only somehow his presence remained, all that ubermacho protective energy vibrating around her. Through her. And she thought, This is bad.
Because what she had brewing here was a perfect storm of overwrought, celibate woman colliding with honorable hunk...to whom, alas, Kelly wasn’t less attracted than she had been in days of yore.
So, yeah. Hell.
By rights, she should have felt more safe, more secure, that Matt took his protective role so seriously, his justified ambivalence notwithstanding. He’d keep her babies safe, and that was all that mattered. And God knew it would be so easy to simply...let go, let someone else do the thinking, the planning, the worrying.
Except leaning on men—her father, then Rick... She’d done that her entire life. Until that support got ripped away and she’d nearly drowned in her own insecurities.
A ragged breath left Kelly’s mouth as she squatted to dig clean clothes out of the jumbled mess inside her suitcase. She wasn’t stupid. And heaven knew if pride had been an issue she wouldn’t even be here. But there was a fine line between knowing when to ask for help and expecting other people to fix your problems for you. Having barely figured out the difference, for damn sure she wasn’t about to slip back into old habits. Not just for her sake, but especially for her children’s.
Meaning as much as the old Kelly ached to let Matt be Matt, the new one didn’t dare.
* * *
Showered and dressed in at least a clean variation of what she’d worn the day before, Kelly checked on her still-sleeping children before following the heady aroma of brewing coffee to the kitchen. By now the sun had hauled its butt up over the horizon, blasting the space with light and making the countertops glisten more than the patchy snow outside. Matt, bless his heart, had made enough coffee for half the town, and Kelly gratefully filled the huge mug sitting by the maker.
She took that first, glorious sip and sighed. Amazing, what a shower, sunshine and a shot of caffeine could do to brighten one’s mood. Or at least make one feel...hopeful. What tomorrow—shoot, the next hour—would bring, she had no idea. But right now things were better than they had been last night. And that she could work with.
The Newfie clicked over to the French doors, parked her big old nose against one of the panes and rolled back one eye. “No,” Kelly said, and, with a heavy sigh, the dog lumbered off to plop down in a pool of sunlight. Wow. If only the kids were that easy to wrangle.
Inside her jeans’ pocket, her phone vibrated in tandem with her mother-in-law’s ringtone, and the hopefulness wavered.
“Hi, Lynn,” she said softly, searching for something, anything, the kids would eat, since her cooking skills were totally lost on them.
“You really took the kids away?”
Lucky Charms! Yes! “I really did.”
“Far?”
“Far enough. Doubt Rick and I will run into each other in the supermarket.” An unlikely possibility, in any case, since Rick hadn’t seen the inside of a grocery store in decades. She unearthed a pair of plastic bowls from the cupboard, set them on the counter.
“Why now?”
Kelly leaned against the counter, her heart hammering as she squinted into the sun pouring into the formal dining room through two sets of French doors. Since the last thing Kelly wanted to do was add to Lynn’s pain, she’d refused to gripe to the woman about her son, either before or after the divorce. Now was no different. One day, maybe, she’d tell her...everything. But not this morning. So a little fudging was in order. “Because, for one thing, he keeps showing up drunk—”
“Showing up where? To your place?”
“Yes.”
“When the kids are there?”
“That would be his point, unfortunately. And when he’s drunk he’s...not a nice person And last night he called—really late—and he got pretty...belligerent. And I just felt we needed to get away. At least for a while.”
“Without telling Rick where you went?”
“Yes.”
A moment’s pause preceded Lynn’s quiet comment. “So what you’re saying is he’s getting worse.”
The despair in the older woman’s voice seared Kelly’s insides. “I’m so sorry, Lynn, I know this must feel like I’m punishing you, too—”
“And why should you be sorry? This isn’t your fault.”
Kelly swallowed, trying to ease the thickness in her throat. “I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me.”
“For God’s sake, sweetheart... I do have two eyes in my head. Okay, maybe I had a hard time at first, accepting the truth—what mother wants to believe her own son could turn into...” Kelly heard Lynn take a shaky breath, and tears welled in her own eyes. “Into s-somebody she doesn’t even recognize anymore. But I saw how hard you fought to keep your marriage together. And frankly, if it’d been me in the same situation? I don’t know if I could’ve held out as long as you did.”
Her former mother-in-law’s kindness nearly did her in. And only further muddled the whole sordid mess.
“Thank you,” Kelly whispered, and Lynn made a sound that was half laugh, half sigh.
“For what?”
“Being...you.”
That got a snort. “Like I’m going to be somebody else? So maybe this’ll be the kick in the pants Ricky needs. Maybe one day—soon, God willing—he’ll pull his head out of his butt and see what he’s doing, get back on track. And who knows? Maybe the two of you could work things out—”
“Lynn. Please...don’t.”
Another sigh. “I know. It’s just... I want you to be happy, sweetheart. For all of us to be happy again. Like we used to be. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
Finally, Kelly picked up the box of cereal, started to pour it into the bowls. “Not a bad thing at all. And I won’t keep the kids from you, I promise—”
“Hey. That’s mine.”
At the young woman’s Jersey-tough voice, Kelly dropped the box, sending little marshmallow and sugary oat bits skittering across the kitchen floor and the dog into a feeding frenzy. Wresting the box from underneath the Newfie’s elephant-size paw, she heard Lynn say, “Okay, I gotta get going. But you call me anytime, okay? I love you, baby—”
The person attached to the voice clomped across the floor, snatched the box off the counter. Glowered at Kelly. Who pointed to her phone, then said into it, “I love you, too, Lynn.”
“I know, honey. I know.”
Her chest aching, Kelly disconnected the
