The Other Woman. Brenda Novak

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СКАЧАТЬ not doing particularly well, from all indications.”

      Pressing her fingers to her forehead in an attempt to ease the headache pounding behind her eyes, Liz sighed. “She’s just disappointed that she didn’t think of a chocolate shop.”

      “I agree. She feels you’ve outdone her, and yet she has as much riding on her business as you do on yours. She quit her job at Slinkerhoff’s law office to make this big career change. She’s a single mother. Her ex-husband has been a total flake—”

      Liz didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t feel sorry for Mary. Maybe Mary’s ex-husband paid his child support in fits and starts and rarely came around, but Mary had it better than she liked to portray. “Are you kidding me? How stressed can she be when she’s still living with her parents? When they’re helping her raise her son and filling in with anything else she needs? It’s their money behind that shop, not hers.”

      “No one our age likes accepting help,” Keith said. Liz knew his parents had had to come to his rescue a time or two during the past eighteen months. Keith hated needing help. But that didn’t mean Mary Thornton felt the same. She used her parents.

      “So why doesn’t she move out? Make it on her own?” Liz asked. “Like the rest of us?”

      Because of her stepmother, Liz had run away from home at seventeen and had never returned. She’d graduated from high school while living with a girlfriend, spending most her weekends hanging out with Isaac at college.

      “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just saying that if you’re having trouble at the shop, Mary could be behind it.”

      Liz stared at him. Was her neighbor really trying to cause trouble?

      “Listen, I’ll pay the plumber to reinstall the sink, okay?” Keith said. “Then maybe you won’t think I caused the damage.”

      Liz didn’t want him to pay the plumber. Because of what Dave had suggested earlier, Liz had accused Keith without any real proof, and now she felt terrible. “Thanks anyway, but…I’ll take care of it.”

      She started out of the store, but Keith caught her arm. “Liz.”

      “What?” she asked as she turned.

      “You believe me, don’t you?”

      She noted his earnest expression. “I believe you. I’m just scared,” she admitted. She was putting everything she had into the shop—all her money, her hopes, her dreams.

      “It’ll be okay,” he promised.

      There was a time when Keith’s words would have encouraged her. But her trust in him had been destroyed when Isaac had revealed his infidelity.

      She nodded, but he still held her arm. “There’s something else,” he said.

      “What?”

      “When you first came in here, I thought…Well, since you haven’t mentioned it, I’m guessing you don’t know.”

      The seriousness of his tone made her leery. “What?” she repeated.

      “Your father’s in town.”

      “No!” The word came out far too loudly. Ollie frowned at the two of them, but Keith ignored his employer.

      “Yes. I ran into him at the gas station on my way to work. He looked a bit rumpled around the edges, as though he’d driven all night, but it was definitely the man I’ve seen in your childhood scrapbooks. I spoke with him briefly and tried calling you afterward, but no one answered.”

      “I was at the shop,” she said numbly.

      “I went by there.”

      “Then I must’ve been at your parents’ house, dropping off the kids.”

      “I figured you were in transit. And since you don’t have a cell phone…”

      Cellular coverage had improved to the point where people in Dundee could now get service. But local reception wasn’t the best, and Liz couldn’t afford it. Keith didn’t have a cell phone, either. Since he’d left Softscape, they’d both been forced to tighten their budgets.

      She blinked, wondering how she could even be thinking about cell phones.

      “Are you okay?” he asked.

      She took a deep breath, trying to dispel the shock. “What does he want?”

      “You haven’t talked to him recently?”

      She shook her head. The past two Christmases, she’d sent her father a card containing a few photos of the kids. In more than ten years, that was the extent of their contact.

      “That would explain why he didn’t know we were divorced.” A muscle flexed in Keith’s cheek. “It was pretty damned embarrassing.”

      “Embarrassing?”

      Regret filled his eyes. “Right before we got married, I called to see if he’d meet us in Vegas. He gave me some flimsy excuse, which made me mad, so I told him not to bother. I said you didn’t need a bastard like him, that I’d take care of you.” An uncomfortable-looking shrug followed this admission. Keith didn’t spell it out, but Liz knew what he was thinking. When he’d spoken to her father, he’d already been married to Reenie. It had only been a matter of time before he’d broken both their hearts.

      But another thought surfaced on the heels of the previous realization. Was the way her father had responded part of the reason Keith had gone ahead with the marriage? In addition to the fact that she’d been pregnant with Mica? “You never told me you were going to call him,” she said.

      “After I’d spoken to him, I was glad I hadn’t told you.”

      The heat of the day seemed to grow worse, become stifling. A large fan whirred in the corner, but Ollie was too conservative to use an air conditioner in May. “What does he want?” she asked, wondering why her father’s actions still hurt so badly.

      “He and Luanna have split up.”

      Liz’s heart leaped into her throat. How many times had she prayed that her father would separate from the woman who’d made her life so miserable? How many times had she dreamed of reclaiming his love and approval?

      “Is he here to see me or Isaac?” she asked.

      “I’m guessing he wants to see both of you. Who else does he have, now that Luanna’s out of the picture?”

      There was Luanna’s son, Marty, but he was Liz’s age and on his own. Liz couldn’t imagine her father being attached to him. Luanna had spoiled Marty so terribly that hardly anyone could stand him. But maybe he’d changed. Liz couldn’t say for sure what kind of man he’d turned out to be. She hadn’t been in touch with him either since she’d run away.

      “Liz…”

      She lifted her eyes to his. “What?”

      He sighed. “You СКАЧАТЬ