Sugar Springs (37 page)

Nope. He had only been concerned with figuring out how to get the three of them to follow him around until he decided he wanted something else. He may have loved them—in his own way—but if the man couldn’t commit to settling down in one place, she couldn’t see how he could ever fully commit to a person. And she didn’t want only half of him. She’d rather continue on her own than go down that path. She’d already had a father who didn’t stick around and a sister who’d hated her. She didn’t need a husband who only gave superficially.

Lee Ann was content to remain silent, avoiding talking about the issue as she and Joanie worked, but she could tell Joanie had a different plan.

Joanie tied a ribbon to a silver balloon and attached it to the growing clump of pink and silver orbs the way Lee Ann had instructed before forcing the discussion Lee Ann had been doing her best to delay. “Okay, let’s have it. What happened?”

Lee Ann kept her focus on the task at hand and her back to her friend. There was no point pretending she didn’t know what Joanie was talking about, but she wasn’t sure how to talk about it yet either. She also wanted to hold that pain all to herself a little while longer. It didn’t seem fair to thrust it on someone else, no matter how well-meaning.

“Come on, Lee Ann,” Joanie urged. She put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, and that did it. The barriers were released. “Tell me what happened,” Joanie begged.

Lee Ann’s eyes filled with tears as she turned to her friend. “It’s over.”

She let the balloon go that she’d been working on, and as it squirted up through the air, she plopped down on the floor. “He wanted us to go to Florida with him.”

Joanie lowered down beside her and nodded in a supporting way. “But that isn’t all that bad. He clearly doesn’t want to be separated. Right? You could make something work. Go down there a few times, take some time off and let the girls spend spring break with him. It could work.”

Lee Ann eyed her. “You aren’t understanding. He wanted us to
move
there.”

“Oh. Like, permanently?”

“Right, only not permanently either. We’d still leave after the contract was up, and then I guess we’d go wherever the whim struck next.”

Her eyes rounded. “But you can’t run all over the country chasing him.”

“Exactly.” Lee Ann nodded. “So I told him to choose. Me and Sugar Springs or not me at all.”

“And he didn’t choose well?”

Pain pressed inside her. “He didn’t choose at all—not really. Just explained how he wasn’t made for a town like Sugar Springs. So I put it out there, then walked out. I texted him this morning that I didn’t need him to pick up the girls and the boy Kendra is bringing. I’ll go get them myself. He simply has to show up and smile and be charming to his daughters’ guests, then a dance or two, and as far as I’m concerned, he can go ahead and head on out to Florida.”

“Except Keri still needs him.”

Selfishly, she was hurt by that, too. She knew it made no sense. He’d signed a contract with Keri. But the thought that he’d stick around longer for someone else irritated her. If he wasn’t going to be there forever, she was ready for him to be gone now.

Lee Ann rose and moved back to the helium tank. She had a party to prepare for, and sitting on the floor crying would not get it done. “He has to change, Jo. He’s got to figure out that some things are worth sticking around for.”

As she finished up with the balloons, her hands trembled with the thought of the hurt Kendra and Candy would soon feel. And there wasn’t a darn thing Lee Ann could do to prevent it. She inhaled a shaky breath. It would be equally hard to help them while she went through the same exact thing herself.

Cody took the stairs to his apartment two at a time. The party would start in less than thirty minutes and he was running late. He’d been finishing up some work he’d started the week before out at Buddy Sawyer’s place and hadn’t wanted to break before it was done. He was repairing a section of the man’s fence around his property.

When he’d gotten the text from Lee Ann that morning telling him not to pick up the girls for the dance, he’d at first been furious. She couldn’t just shove him out of their lives. But then he’d calmed down when it occurred to him she hadn’t said don’t come to the party, just don’t pick up the girls. He could work with that.

So after he’d finished up at the clinic, he’d spent the afternoon doing manual labor and hopefully going a long way to making a man feel better. Cody didn’t care what Buddy thought about him so much, but it did bother him that every time the two passed in town the older man still visibly shook with anger. That wasn’t healthy, and it was his fault. He’d needed to fix it.

He’d also needed to keep busy purely to keep the argument between him and Lee Ann out of his mind. Because if he didn’t do that,
he
was the one who got visibly angry. He was still ticked that she’d refused to even consider his suggestion. It had to be her way or no way. And that infuriated him.

It also scared him to death to think about the fact he was pretty sure she’d ended things between them last night. At least, if he didn’t stay in Sugar Springs. He’d figured out after a busy morning at the clinic that staying focused on something else kept him from thinking too much about
his own problems, and that’s all he’d wanted today. Because walking away was going to be hard.

He couldn’t quite convince himself he belonged in Sugar Springs, though, no matter what she’d said.

It would be nice if he did. That way he could stay and have a family. Have Lee Ann. Make her proud of him. He’d never wanted to let Lee Ann down again, yet it looked like that was exactly what he was going to do. Because he was afraid, just like she’d said.

He was terrified to invest 100 percent of himself in the place and have them turn on him once he couldn’t go back. Losing everything at that point would kill him. And yeah, that probably meant he hadn’t invested everything in himself and Lee Ann, either. Just like she’d accused.

It didn’t make him stand up tall to realize that, but it was what it was.

He pulled his dirty shirt over his shoulders as he headed for his bathroom, then hung his head when he got there. Life without Lee Ann in it wasn’t a life he particularly wanted to live. There had to be a solution. But right now he had to hurry. The
girls
were counting on him this time. Surely the least he could do was not let them down, too.

He reached in and started the shower but heard a knock at the front door before he could do more than turn the knob. His heart took off at a gallop. Lee Ann? Had she had second thoughts?

Since no one other than her ever came to his place, the chance of it being anyone else was slim, so he snatched a shirt out of the narrow closet and hurried to the door. But when he pulled it open, what he saw brought all the hurt and pain of the past back in a flash. The sight that greeted him was the same one he saw in his reflection every day. He was looking at his twin.

Teenagers packed the building Lee Ann had rented for the girls’ party. Music blared while boys and girls laughed with one another. A few ventured to the dance floor, but most hung back keeping the perimeter of the room company. Even Kendra had become too shy to ask Derrick to come out on the floor with her. They’d talked a lot of the night, but the boy looked terrified. Just like Cody had said. Funny how Lee Ann had never noticed that about them when she’d been that age.

She checked her watch and worked to keep a frown from her face. They should have cut the cake twenty minutes ago, but she hadn’t wanted Cody to miss it. Where was he? She focused the camera and snapped more candids of the twins smiling over their gifts. Lee Ann had at least let them go ahead and open the presents.

Someone stepped quietly to her side, and the panic subsided. He was there. But when Lee Ann lowered the camera, it was Joanie she saw instead of Cody. And the look on her face was grim.

“He’s still not here?”

Joanie shook her head but didn’t make eye contact. Instead she nodded toward the heavy stove at the back of the room. “Don’t worry about the fire. Your mom is keeping an eye on it.”

The stove was the last thing on Lee Ann’s mind. Yes, it was December and she didn’t want the kids to come to a party and freeze, but the energy released from everyone in the room would keep them warm. All she wanted to know about was Cody.

“Where is he? We’ve got to cut this cake. Parents will start showing up within thirty minutes, and I can’t have the guests going home without having eaten any cake.” She glanced at her watch again, but only a minute had passed.

“Let’s go ahead and cut it.” A smile appeared on Joanie’s face, her eyes a little too bright. “Let’s do the cake and pictures, and then you can sit down and relax. You’ve been going all day. If Cody shows up...” Her voice stumbled. “He’ll have to live with the fact he missed everything. And it was his own fault.”

Lee Ann narrowed her gaze at the woman she’d known for most of her life. Joanie knew something else, so why wasn’t she telling?

Before she could badger her for more, she watched Joanie’s gaze latch onto someone across the room. Several couples were dancing now, and one of them was pushing the limits on appropriate. Reba surprised her by moving in to pull the two apart while giving them both an earful. Lee Ann wouldn’t have even guessed her mother was paying that much attention.

She pressed her hand to Joanie’s forearm, panic squeezing her and pushing a headache to the forefront, and whispered, “He’s not coming, is he? What do you know?”

Joanie covered Lee Ann’s hand and gripped it tight before finally replying. “I don’t believe he is.”

She couldn’t speak. He wasn’t coming. Joanie hadn’t said why yet, but she didn’t have to for Lee Ann to know it for a fact. With Lee Ann, she never said anything that might hurt her unless she was certain it was the truth. The air drained from Lee Ann’s lungs. He had done to the girls exactly what she’d been afraid of. He hadn’t been there for them. And they’d been counting on him.

How dare he? She would chop him off at the knees the next time she saw him.

“What do you know?” Lee Ann asked, her tone dead.

Again, Joanie didn’t make eye contact. “I’m sorry, Lee Ann. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.”

She’d never seen Joanie so afraid to say something. That alone made Lee Ann’s words clipped when she spoke. “Just spit it out. What’s he done?”

Joanie slipped her arm through Lee Ann’s and led her to a corner where the music wasn’t quite so loud. “I just got off the phone with Gina Gregory.” Joanie gave a crooked smile. “What’s the use of having the biggest gossip as a client of your shop if you don’t take advantage of it on occasion, right?”

Lee Ann nodded as if she knew what Joanie was talking about. What did Gina have to do with anything? When she pictured the woman at the salon clinging to Cody as he came through the door, Lee Ann reared back, horrified. “He’s out with Gina?”

“No, no.” Joanie pulled Lee Ann close again and patted her arm. “No, nothing like...Well, I’m not sure...but it’s not Gina. That’s got to count for something, right?”

A brittle smile stretched across Joanie’s face for a second before it crumbled. Lee Ann straightened her spine, outraged.
The man was out with another woman! Instead of at his daughters’ birthday party! Instead of with her!

Her fingers shook as she pulled away and took a step back.

“Wait.” Joanie’s hand reached toward Lee Ann but fluttered back to her side when Lee Ann stepped even farther away. Joanie scrunched up her shoulders. “Don’t you want to know the rest of it?”

A quick nod. “Oh, yes. Don’t hide anything from me.” The harsh voice coming from her throat surprised Lee Ann. “I’m not wasting one more minute of my life because of that man, so go ahead and spill it. Get it all out there.”

Silence was the only answer for several long seconds, and then Joanie finally spoke in a low voice. “Gina said she’d just seen him at the Bungalow with Holly.”

The Bungalow was the local watering hole.

“They were apparently...close.”

Lee Ann paused and looked up. “Close?”

“Alcohol was involved, slow music, and no space between the two. In fact Gina said each of his hands had a butt cheek gripped tight.”