Baby, Don't Go. Stephanie Bond

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СКАЧАТЬ for the car,” Alicia added, then came up short in the driveway at the sight of an old blue pickup truck sitting next to the rental car she’d offered to trade for her mother’s sedan so she wouldn’t roll into Sweetness looking like a temporary visitor.

      “Oh, I meant to tell you,” Candace said, her voice animated. “While you were packing, Bo said it would be better if he took my car to work and you took his truck to the mountains. It has four-wheel drive.”

      Alicia tucked her tongue into her cheek—she supposed he’d meant it as a generous gesture.

      She glanced up at her mother and felt a pang of sympathy. Candace Randall had met her idiot boyfriend in Atlantic City. Still slim and beautiful with creamy skin and dark hair, Candace was hanging on to her youth with both hands. She was obsessed with her exercise and beauty routine, constantly fussed with her hair and makeup. What little time Alicia had spent with her mother and Bo, she was glad she’d opted to stay at a hotel because the man—and she used that term loosely—fed Candace’s insecurities with sly, denigrating remarks.

      It left Alicia feeling sick at her stomach to see her mother so desperate for affection. Worse, her mother seemed at loose ends, playing housewife in a small rental house in a shabby subdivision while her sweaty boyfriend worked landscaping jobs—a skill he did not put to use around their own residence, Alicia noted wryly, stepping over tall weeds in the seams of the concrete driveway.

      And Jesus, it was hot down here. The temperature was at least a hundred degrees, and the air was as thick as cream. The sweet-scented breeze her mother had promised seemed to have died, along with the luster of her whirlwind romance.

      “That was nice of him,” Alicia said, then took the keys her mother offered. She’d never been behind the wheel of a truck before, but it couldn’t be much different than any other vehicle. And maybe a pickup would help her blend in better once she arrived in Sweetness. She opened the passenger door and stepped back as a wave of pent-up heat rolled out.

      “So you’re doing a story on Sweetness?” Candace asked.

      “Maybe,” Alicia said vaguely as she lifted her suitcase into the seat. The cab of the truck was an oven. “I won’t know until I get there.”

      “Since you borrowed my wardrobe, I assume this is for your Undercover Feminist column? Is something strange going on up there?”

      “That’s what I intend to find out,” Alicia said mildly.

      “I remember reading something in the newspaper about the town building a covered bridge. It sounds like a very pretty place,” her mother said, her voice wistful.

      Alicia closed the passenger door, then reached forward to squeeze her mother’s hand. “Are you okay, Mom?”

      Candace hesitated, her dark eyes troubled. Standing in the unforgiving sun, she suddenly looked her age. She glanced back at the small house in the little neighborhood, a far cry from the posh home she’d once shared with Alicia’s father. Then Candace conjured up a smile. “I’m fine.” She pulled something from the pocket of her worn jeans and extended it to Alicia. “I made something for you.”

      Alicia took the item, a bracelet made of braided leather and silver wire, with a metal charm in the shape of a blossom. “You made this?” Her mother had always admired and acquired beautiful jewelry, but Alicia had never known her to be artsy.

      Candace nodded and helped her fasten the clasp. “The charm is a magnolia blossom. It stands for beauty and strength, fitting for my successful daughter.”

      Alicia was touched. “It’s lovely. Thank you.” She admired it, then looked up. “Mom, are you sure everything is okay?”

      “I’m sure.” Candace wet her lips. “Have you talked to your father recently?”

      Alicia hesitated. Was her mother in a funk because she’d heard about the upcoming nuptials? “He sent me an email the other day.”

      “I heard he’s getting married again.”

      Bingo. “So it would seem.”

      “I’m sure the girl is your age,” Candace said, studying her manicure.

      “Younger,” Alicia confirmed. “Only a young woman could put up with Robert, you know that.”

      “You shouldn’t call your father by his first name,” her mother chastised. “Are you going to the wedding?”

      “I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought.” Alicia pushed aside the hurt she felt for her mother and smiled. “And you shouldn’t either.”

      Candace’s smile was slower, fainter. “You’re right, of course. You’re always right. Drive safely, my dear.”

      Alicia clasped her in a hug. “I’ll call you after I get there and get my bearings—who knows, I might be back tomorrow.”

      Her mother brightened. “Then maybe we could dress up and go into the city, have a nice dinner.”

      So her mother was well aware she’d taken a big step down in her expectations by shacking up with Bo. And she was obviously still pining for her ex-husband, who had married four times since their divorce twenty-five years ago.

      Alicia wondered how it was possible to love someone for so long, although she conceded that her parents hadn’t dealt with their feelings at the time of their split. They’d lost a baby to miscarriage, her mother had told her later, when she was old enough to understand. Candace hadn’t been able to shake herself from the melancholy, didn’t want to be a wife anymore…and hadn’t been too keen on mothering Alicia either. Now in the afternoon of her life, she was nursing regrets.

      All the more reason to avoid the complications of a relationship in the first place, Alicia thought.

      “Going into the city would be nice,” she agreed, then gestured to the truck. “I’d better get on the road.” She shouldered her purse, opened the driver’s-side door of the pickup truck and pondered how to get up into the stained cloth seat.

      “There’s a handle,” her mother said, pointing to the top of the door frame, then down to the bottom. “And you can step on the running board.”

      Alicia reached for the handle and put her foot on what she assumed was the running board, then swung awkwardly into the seat. She crinkled her nose—the interior was filthy and smelled like cigarettes. She’d definitely be turning on the air conditioner full blast.

      “The air conditioner is on the fritz,” her mother said. “Sorry.”

      Alicia gave her a tight smile. “I’ll roll down the windows.”

      “Only the passenger window goes down,” her mother said, then winced. “Halfway.”

      Perfect. “Anything else I should know?”

      “Um…Bo said you might need some gas.”

      Alicia reconsidered her rental car still sitting in the driveway, with a working air-conditioner and a full tank of gas. But the last thing she wanted to do was drive into the small town and advertise the fact that she was a reporter on an expense account. Besides, this was an adventure, СКАЧАТЬ