“I’m storing the pillows in the family room for now.” Amy led Jo and Flint through her house to the slate-floored room currently buried in stacks of mill products. “I’ve wrapped them with tarps to keep the kids from bouncing on them. I don’t know how we’ll get all of them down to the tent at the mill.”
“There are enough pickup trucks around here to haul them if you’ve got tarps,” Flint suggested. “What are those things?” He nodded at a stack of colorful fabrics covering the early American settle she’d refinished in its original maple color.
“Ina is trying her hand at making slipcovers,” Jo replied for her. “The elastic is kind of expensive though.” Jo opened one up for Flint to see, draping it provocatively over her shoulder as if it were a lacy gown.
Anyone with half a mind could see that Jo had fallen for her charismatic boss. And Amy suspected behind the neutral mask he wore so well that Flint was having a tough time dealing with his place in Jo’s life. But she wasn’t taking care of her baby sister anymore. She had her own life to hold together.
“I think the quilts will sell better, but they take forever to make. We just don’t have enough time between now and next week.” Amy lifted a blue plastic tarp to distract Flint from Jo’s performance and show him the items the former mill workers were frantically putting together as their contribution to the town’s coffers. She was proud of the miracles wreaked from the damaged fabrics, but the future still looked bleak from her perspective. Her rose-colored glasses had been smashed and ground into dirt.
Flint whistled in appreciation, and Amy smiled politely for the benefit of her guests. Before either of them could comment, the front door slammed open.
“Uh oh, I didn’t lock it behind me.” Amy clenched the tarp until she feared her fingernails would shred it. She’d had the locks changed after her last meeting with Elise so Evan couldn’t walk in on her anytime he liked. She’d never seen him pitch such a fit as he had the day he discovered the locks and had to come looking for her when he thought he’d sneak in and pack his suitcase. She had wanted to feel triumphant at winning a battle, but she hadn’t. Since then, he’d only communicated with her through his lawyer.
She knew what this invasion was about though. The bank had called yesterday to tell her the account didn’t have funds to cover a large check Evan had written.
“Amaranth!” he roared furiously from the foyer. “Where are you?”
Flint stepped protectively in front of her. Jo caught her arm and tried to get her to leave through the back. Amy dug in her heels. “No, I have to talk to him. Both of you, go outside and help Mama keep the kids from coming in.”
Flint looked reluctant. Evan’s footsteps over the hall’s wood floor echoed with anger. Amy prayed she knew her husband better than anyone else. She pointed at the kitchen and set her mouth as firmly as she could to hide the way it trembled.
Giving Amy a hug, Jo dragged Flint out the back.
“I’m in here,” Amy called. “You could have phoned, you know.” She was trying to be more assertive, but that sounded just plain whiny.
Evan burst in looking one volt short of blowing a fuse. Amy wondered if she could pop his circuits like Jo accused her of doing to the café’s. He still looked gorgeous, even if his blond hair needed a trim, and he was wearing a golf shirt instead of a suit. Since when did Evan play golf?
“What is the meaning of this, Amaranth Jane?” He shook his checkbook at her.
“Let me guess.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “Leather, brown, rectangular—a cow died to protect your checks?” Once upon a time she used to tease him like this when he asked obvious questions. He didn’t laugh now.
“It’s empty, Amaranth. I deposited my paycheck in there Friday, and it’s empty.” He flung the checkbook at the table and drove his fingers into his hair. “I put a deposit on an apartment, and they called me this morning to say it bounced. How is that possible? We have a money market to back up the checking.”
“An apartment?” she asked as pleasantly as she was able. She was wilting inside, but she refused to show her spinelessness. “Does this mean you’re no longer living with Linda?”
“That’s irrelevant! Where is my money?” He paced up and down as if he didn’t know what to do any more than she did. For ten years, he’d told her what to do and how to do it. And now he’d lost that right.
His sudden vulnerability raised her foolish hopes. She was almost ready to grant him the right to tell her what to do again—if only the last few weeks would go away.
Just conjuring up the image of Linda kissing that freckle on his neck reduced Amy’s shattered heart to dust. She’d honestly thought Evan loved her, that they would get through rough times together. Instead, he was opting for the easy way out. “You really do think that just because I don’t argue with you, that I’m dumb, don’t you?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her common sense. For the sake of the kids, she really needed to know that there was no hope left for their marriage.
At her question, he stopped and stared. “Have you been drinking? I know your mother used to tipple…”
“Keep my mother out of this.” Suddenly furious at this example of how little he knew about her—and how little he cared—she pointed at the front door. “You can just walk yourself back out of here, Evan Warren. What did you think I would do when I found out you were leaving me? Break down and cry myself stupid? That cash belongs to our kids. If you’re going to desert them, then you can damned well take money from Linda to set up your love nest.”
“Did I ever say I minded supporting the kids? I deposited my paychecks so you could pay the bills.” His gaze swept the family room Amy had so lovingly decorated, his glance taking in her mother’s hopes for the future and seeing only disarray. “But I see no reason I have to support a house this size. You don’t need the place for entertaining.”
“My house?” Amy’s bravery stumbled into retreat at this unexpected blow. Elise had warned her, but she had honestly believed the man she’d married cared about his children. This wasn’t the man she’d married.
“You can’t take the house,” she protested in horror. “This is where your children live.” Ice coated her heart at the possibility that he would rob Josh of his beloved play set in the yard, and Louisa of her brightly colored nursery.
“You’ll have to move when you get a job anyway,” Evan said, shrugging as if he wasn’t ripping lives into tatters. “You won’t have me to suck dry any longer.”
She’d have to move. Away from her mother and Jo and her support system.
Amy shivered and stared incredulously at the man to whom she’d given her heart so many years ago. “Why would you do this to your children? Do you hate me that much?”
Evan looked at her pityingly. “You never had any ambition, Ames. Northfork is a roadblock on the road to success, and you want to stay. I don’t. It’s that simple.”
“You didn’t ask me to leave with you.” She hated that she could even feel hurt after what he’d done, but she needed the pain to cut the ties binding them. “What about all those times you said you couldn’t have done it without me? Did you never mean that?”
He glanced impatiently at his Rolex. “Of course I meant it, but you’re not the only person in the world who can be useful. I have a meeting later today. Give me a check for half of what you’ve stolen so I can pay my rent, and I’m outta here.”
“Useful?” Anger began to steal across the hurt. “That’s all I was, useful? I put you through school, helped you get jobs, gave up my own career to build yours, had your kids, and that was being useful?”
“Look, we can do this the easy way, or I can call my lawyer, all right? I said I’d pay support. What in hell more do you want? Everything I own?”
“Got it in one, big boy.” Her heart had just been hacked out with a hatchet, but for the first time in a long time, Amy smiled—even if it was a malevolent smile. “I invested ten years of my life in you, and that note’s come due, with interest. You owe me what little bit you’re worth and then some. I’m gonna make sure you pay every dime.”
How had she never understood that ambition had turned her husband’s soul to stone over the years? She’d have to learn that trick to survive.
***
“What are the two of you doing?” Marie demanded, joining Jo and Flint at the partially open kitchen door where they’d stationed themselves to make certain Evan didn’t hurt Amy.
“Nothing, Mama.” Jo hastily closed the latch.
Flint winced at her mother’s suspicious regard, and got out of her way when she opened the door to hear for herself.
At the sound of Evan’s shouts, Marie’s eyes narrowed in fury. “I’ll be damned if I let that turd talk to my daughter like that!” Tilting forward at full throttle as fast as her joints allowed, she slammed inside the house, mother hen going to the rescue of her chick. Although in the case of Jo’s mother, it was more like irate eagle after a turkey buzzard.
Jo collapsed into Flint’s arms, and he protectively tightened his grip, but uneasiness crawled beneath his skin. He remembered all too well those days of screaming matches, before he’d walked out on Melinda just so the kids wouldn’t have to watch their world disintegrate. He couldn’t do that to his sons again.
“Amy just declared her independence,” Jo murmured. “Mama’s gonna kill them.”
“You don’t think Evan will hit her?” he asked, expressing his immediate concern.
“Nah, Evan’s not that kind. He’ll hide behind lawyers. Mama’s likely to rip a piece of hide off him before he escapes. We should go put sugar in his gas tank.”
“Not if Amy’s changed the car title to her name,” Flint said wryly. “I’m almost sorry I introduced you to Elise. You Sanderson women are scary enough without legal aid.” It was bad enough watching the lawyer help Jo tear his music apart. What would happen if he and Jo got involved and it ended like this? As it had to. He wasn’t returning to the world opening up for Jo. He couldn’t do that to his kids.
She broke away to perch on a deck chair and watch his sons teaching Josh to bounce on the trampoline. “Elise has been helping Amy find a good divorce lawyer. We both owe you.”
She hesitated, and Flint figured she was trying to find some way of bringing up the subject they’d both been avoiding. They’d all been working 24/7, which had made it simple to avoid confrontation. But the angry shouts inside raised ugly images.
“Elise says the record label won’t sue you if I take the cash,” she said tentatively.
Flint shrugged and tried not to let his gut grind at the thought. “I’ll still pay. The lawyers will negotiate for some of the settlement to come out of our royalties.”
A year of hard work, down the drain. His hopes for a future income for his boys, gone. He’d be much safer not calculating the extent of his losses. Anger at the injustice simmered just below his skin, but he had no business taking it out on Jo. “They never put my name on the album, so I have a bargaining chip or two,” he continued, rubbing the bent fingers of his left hand. “Elise explained that you can get more if you continue with the lawsuit instead of settling now, didn’t she?”
Might as well dig his own grave while he was at it. A drawn-out lawsuit with a shark like Elise would ruin his reputation and guarantee he wouldn’t have an income for the next decade.
Beside him, Jo nodded. “She told me I could get my name recognized and put on those songs, and I’d be paid royalties for the rest of my life, plus Randy’s advance money. It just might take years. What do you mean, they left your name off the album?”
He couldn’t sit still and discuss this. He got up and paced the deck. Accidentally kicking a tennis ball, he leaned over to pick it up, then squeezed it between his fingers as he tried to find words that didn’t make him sound like the sorryass he’d become. “Since I dropped out of sight, our business manager has been pushing Randy’s career, helping him kiss Martin’s butt. That’s the head honcho at the record label.”
He didn’t know why he was helping her tear his heart out. Except for that one spectacular night a week ago, they weren’t even sleeping together. “Reckon they figure it’d be better for sales if everyone thinks Randy wrote and sung those songs himself.”
Jo’s eyes went wide and she jumped up, apparently on the verge of erupting like Mount St. Helens. “We wrote those songs, and Randy still gets credit for them, even if I make him pay through the nose?”
“If you take the cash route and don’t sue,” he agreed. “Look on the bright side, he’ll have to pay someone big bucks to write songs for the next album. There’s your opening.”
His reward for trying to be peaceful was Jo’s fist slammed into his biceps. Flint stared at her in disbelief. He knew better than to tell her she was beautiful when she was mad, but she lit up like a July Fourth firework display.
That his heart could do back flips in admiration at a time like this told him what he’d been denying for too long—this ache in his middle wasn’t going to go away any time soon. He loved her beyond reason—which was why he was willing to let her go.
“You’re building up a caseload of resentment to get rid of me, aren’t you?” she demanded. “You’re shoving me away just the way you did Melinda and your music and your family. Well, maybe you’re right. If we’re going to be staring at each other across a courtroom for the next decade, we can’t ever be friends, can we?”
Or anything else. Flint’s rage at fate found an outlet in this stupid argument. “I’ve already given you the rope to hang me, what more do you want?” he shouted, flinging the tennis ball at the basketball goal on the drive rather than shove her against the wall and kiss her until she promised him everything he wanted. Only little boys believed they could have everything they wanted.
“A little trust would be good,” she shouted back. “For just once in your life, Flynn Clinton, admit that you can’t do it all yourself!”
“Oh, right, this is coming from someone who thinks her brains are in her boobs, and that she’ll never be more than a friggin’ waitress! Grow up, Joella. This is the real world. Every prize has a price. You gotta fight for what you want and not quit just because a couple of dickheads took you for a ride.”
Her big eyes stared at him in astonishment. “Look at the pot calling the kettle black.” Before she could hit him again, she stalked off, head high, golden curls flying.
Flint figured she’d walk clear back to town that way. What in hell had made him say those things to her?
Maybe she was right, maybe he was trying to tell her to get the hell out of his life.
And maybe he was right, and that’s what she needed to do.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was right and he was a friggin’ shitpot who needed to stand up and fight for what he wanted. Except what he wanted meant messing up her future just like Evan messed up Amy’s.