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Dana Sue gave him her most innocent look. “Why, I don’t believe we ever got caught doing such a thing,” she said.
The school board chairman chuckled. “You can admit it now, Dana Sue. We won’t take away your diploma.”
She shook her head. “Still not talking.”
“Well, you definitely added a little excitement to our meal tonight,” the mayor said. “Things have been a little too quiet in Serenity lately.”
After the last of the customers was gone, Dana Sue joined her staff in the kitchen to do the cleanup. In two hours every surface was spotless, every inch of steel gleaming. Under even the best of circumstances, she was a fanatic about Sullivan’s kitchen being ready for a health department inspection. She’d been doubly exacting tonight. By the time she finally got home, she was exhausted.
Spotting a light on in Annie’s room, she tapped on the door. “Sweetie, you still awake?”
Annie glanced up from her computer and blinked, then looked at her clock. “Mom, where have you been? It’s late. And you smell like smoke again. What did you burn this time?”
“We had a grease fire tonight. It turned out to be nothing, but it created quite a mess in the kitchen.”
Annie’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re okay? You’re sure? Why didn’t you call me? I would have come in to help you clean up.”
Dana Sue heard the worry in her daughter’s voice. Annie knew that any calamity at Sullivan’s could turn their world upside down yet again, so Dana Sue sought to reassure her. “I know you would have, but Erik, Karen and I were able to handle it. Besides, it’s a school night. I’m sure you had homework.”
“Some,” Annie agreed.
“Did you get something to eat?”
“Mom!” Annie protested, immediately on the defensive.
“It was just a question,” Dana Sue said, her own hackles rising. “You didn’t stop by the restaurant after school, so I wondered if you’d fixed something here.”
“No, Sarah and I went to Wharton’s with some other kids, just to hang out,” Annie told her in a calmer tone.
Dana Sue relaxed and grinned. She perched on the edge of the bed, hoping for the kind of girl talk she and Annie had once shared. “I remember doing that when I was your age. I’ll bet not a day went by that Maddie, Helen and I weren’t there, along with whomever we were dating at the time.”
“You were always with Dad, though, weren’t you?” Annie said, then hesitated, as if trying to gauge her mother’s reaction. When Dana Sue said nothing, she continued, “I mean, you guys were a couple when you were younger than me, right?”
Dana Sue nodded, lost for a second in the good memories. There had been a lot of them, but she’d buried most under the anger she’d needed just to keep going after Ronnie left.
“Dad was a hunk, huh?”
“He was,” Dana Sue admitted. “The first time I saw him, after he and his family moved here from North Carolina, I thought he was the sexiest boy I’d ever seen. He had danger written all over him, from his coal-black, too-long hair to his leather jacket.”
“Was that the only reason you liked him?” Annie asked. “Because he was so sexy-looking?”
“No, of course not,” Dana Sue said nobly. “He was sweet and smart and funny, too.”
Her daughter grinned. “I always thought it was because every other girl in school wanted him and you wanted to prove you could get him.”
Dana Sue laughed. “Did your father tell you that?”
“Nope. Maddie did. She said you were so single-minded when it came to getting Dad to notice you.”
“Yeah, I probably was,” Dana Sue confessed. “He was the first boy who wouldn’t even give me a second look. Naturally, that made him an irresistible challenge. And I knew he would make my folks a little crazy.” She leaned closer and confided, “He had a tattoo, you know.”
Annie giggled. “Maddie said he gave you a tough time on purpose, because if he’d made it easy, you’d have lost interest.”
Dana Sue thought back and tried to imagine losing interest in Ronnie. She couldn’t. Her feelings for him had been all-consuming for a long time. Not even nearly eighteen years of marriage had turned down the heat between them. An affair and two years of separation had only driven her to bury the attraction.
“I don’t know,” she told Annie. “I fell pretty hard, pretty fast.”
“And you never regretted it, did you?” her daughter asked. “I mean, not till the end, when he was with that other woman.”
Dana Sue didn’t like even thinking about the day she’d found out about Ronnie’s affair, much less reminiscing about it, but it was evident that Annie had been wanting to ask these questions for a long time. It was as if she’d been saving them up for the right moment. It was also evident she’d been turning to Maddie to find some of the answers she wanted. Dana Sue felt incredibly guilty that Annie hadn’t been able to ask her own mother for the details of her parents’ courtship.
“No, until the day he cheated on me—or the day I found out about it, anyway—I never regretted a single second with your dad.” She felt Annie deserved total honesty, not an answer colored by far more recent bitterness and resentment.
“So, he made, like, this one huge mistake and that was it?” Annie said, frowning. “None of the rest mattered anymore?”
“That’s the way I saw it,” Dana Sue said. “Some betrayals are just too huge.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
Dana Sue regarded her daughter with a puzzled look. “Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered how you’d feel if Dad came back to town. Could you forgive him now?”
It was the second time in one day that people Dana Sue loved had suggested it might be time for her to get over the past and move on, maybe even with that scum-of-the-earth, cheating ex of hers. She told herself that could only happen if she let her heart—or her hormones—overrule her head. Once Burned, Twice Shy was her motto.
“Sorry, baby. I know you’d like that, but it’s not going to happen,” she said. “When you’re a little older and have fallen in love, maybe you’ll understand why some things are simply unforgivable.”
Before Annie could press her on it, she stood up. “You need to get some sleep, young lady. So do I.”
She brushed a kiss across Annie’s forehead. “Lights out, okay?”
To her surprise, her daughter’s arms came around her waist. “I love you, Mom.”
“Oh, sweetie, I love you, too,” Dana Sue whispered, tears in her eyes. “And wherever he is, I know your dad loves you, as well. More than anything.”
“I know,” Annie said with a sniff. “Sometimes, I just wish he was here, you know?”
Dana Sue bit back a sigh. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I do know.”
There were times when she felt as if someone had carved out her heart and left her aching and empty inside. But that feeling paled compared to the anger she’d felt when she’d found out about his fling with some woman whose name he didn’t even remember. Weighing the two emotions and adding in a healthy dose of pride, she’d had only one choice. Maybe someday she would even get used to living with it.
The phone rang, waking Dana Sue from a sound sleep. She slapped at the alarm, blaming it for the offending noise. When the shrill ringing continued, she fumbled for the phone.
“Where are you?” Helen demanded. “It’s eight-thirty. Maddie and I have been waiting for half an hour.”
Dana Sue sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “Why?” she mumbled.
“Our challenge,” Helen reminded her. “Our goals.”
“I don’t have any, except to go back to sleep,” Dana Sue muttered, and hung up.
Of course, the phone immediately rang again. “Get up. We’re on our way over,” Helen said crisply. “You have ten minutes to get the coffee brewing. You might want to squeeze in a shower, too. You sound like you could use a cold one to kick-start your brain.”
This time when Dana Sue slammed the phone back in its cradle, she resigned herself to getting up. Helen had a key and wasn’t afraid to use it. Nor would she hesitate to toss Dana Sue into that icy shower herself. Bossy woman!
She didn’t bother with putting a robe on over her oversize Carolina Panthers T-shirt, one of the few things of Ronnie’s she’d kept. She’d told herself she’d simply forgotten to add it to the pile of his clothing she’d stuffed haphazardly into suitcases and tossed onto the front lawn, but the truth was she’d slept in it for a long time after he’d gone because his scent had clung to it. Many washings later that was no longer the case, but some sentiment she didn’t care to identify kept her wearing it every night.
She padded into the kitchen and put on the coffee, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and splashed water on her face. She’d barely made it back to the kitchen when the back door opened and Helen and Maddie strolled in.
“Shouldn’t you both be working?” Dana Sue inquired testily.
“We should be,” Helen agreed. “But we had an important appointment with our third partner at eight o’clock this morning. We thought finding out why you didn’t show up took precedence over work.” She wrinkled her nose. “And why does it smell like smoke in here?”
Dana Sue winced. “Actually, that’s me. We had a little grease fire in the kitchen at the restaurant. No big deal, but I was there late, cleaning up the mess. I haven’t had a chance to take a shower and wash my hair.”
“You had a fire?” Maddie looked dismayed. “Why didn’t you call us?”
“Before or after we called the fire department?” Dana Sue said. “Or perhaps you two have become volunteer firefighters without telling me.”
“Why didn’t you call us later?” Maddie asked. “We could have helped you clean up.”
“My staff did that,” Dana Sue said. “And before you ask, I have not even had time to think about my goals or my action plan.”
“Not a problem,” Helen said briskly. She got out cups and poured coffee for all of them. “We’ll help.”
“But this is supposed to be my goal and my action plan,” Dana Sue protested.
Helen gave her a chiding look. “Surely you don’t mind a little input from the two people who know you best.”
“Do I get to critique your plans?” Dana Sue asked suspiciously.
“Absolutely.” Maddie nodded.
At the exact same moment, Helen said, “No.”
Dana Sue grinned. “I thought so. In that case, Maddie, you can help with mine. Helen, keep your mouth shut.”
Maddie laughed. “You are such a dreamer. Don’t you remember? Helen is the biggest control freak of us all.”
“Which is exactly why I want her to butt out,” Dana Sue said.
“This whole challenge was my idea,” Helen reminded them. “That gives me the right to butt in.” She whipped a legal pad out of her briefcase. “Now tell me what your primary goal is, Dana Sue. Losing weight? Keeping your blood sugar in check?”
“Getting you out of my kitchen so I can get ready to go to work,” she countered. “As you noted when you called here, I’m running late. I can’t send all my customers to McDonald’s just because you’ve set some deadline for getting this challenge of ours under way. Why are you in such a rush, anyway? It’s not as if we haven’t needed health goals for ourselves for months now.”
Helen flushed guiltily. “I promised Doc Marshall I would give him a concrete plan by next week with proof I’m sticking to it, so he wouldn’t insist on starting me on medication to bring down my blood pressure. I figured sworn affidavits from the two of you would do the trick. He’s a little jaded where I’m concerned these days, but he trusts you two.” She grinned at Dana Sue. “Well, Maddie, anyway.”
“It might be more effective if you actually got your blood pressure down a little bit,” Maddie commented wryly. “Have you considered, oh, taking a day off, perhaps? Having a relaxing massage at the spa? Trying a little meditation?”
“How can I do any of that?” Helen demanded. “I have two trials scheduled this month. Should I just hand my clients a note from my doctor, then tell them I’m not prepared because I needed a day off?”
“You know, I was reading about exactly that kind of thing the other day,” Maddie said. “It was about the whole concept of the Sabbath, not necessarily in a religious context, but just in terms of people needing more than ever to take time for themselves to reflect and relax. Remember when we were kids and no one did anything on Sunday except go to church and hang out with family and friends? Now it’s just another day to be crammed with things to do from morning to night. No wonder we never feel refreshed.”
“Maddie’s exactly right,” Dana Sue said. “Your mind would probably be a lot clearer and sharper, Helen, if you gave it a break once in a while.” She pointed at the legal pad. “Write that down. It needs to be one of your goals.”
“We were not discussing my goals,” Helen said.
“Actually, we were,” Maddie stated. “And your need to have them so Doc Marshall will let you off the hook. You want testimony from the two of us, you better write down ‘one day a week of actual relaxation’ and stick to it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she grumbled, but jotted it down.
“Very good,” Dana Sue said. “Now I really do have to get ready for work, you guys. I promise I’ll work on my goals today and we can compare notes tomorrow, okay?”
“I suppose it will have to do,” Helen said reluctantly. “I’m due at the office in a few minutes myself. I have a new client coming in for a consultation.”
Dana Sue walked the two of them to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she promised.
They’d already stepped outside when Maddie turned back. “I don’t suppose you had time to talk to Annie about a sleepover, did you?”
“No, but last night we did have one of the best conversations we’ve had in a long time. I’ll bring up the sleepover thing when I see her tonight.”
“Don’t put it off,” Maddie stressed.
“I won’t.” Not only was it important, but as Dana Sue already knew, her two best friends would hound her until she did it. It would be easier just to get it over with.
“Mom, that is so lame,” Annie declared when her mother came up with this crazy sleepover idea. “I mean, how old do you think I am—six?”
“When I was your age, girls got together all the time. We ate pizza and popcorn, experimented with makeup and talked about boys.”
“You and Maddie and Helen?” Annie guessed.
“And a few others,” her mom said. “It was fun.”
“What about boys?” Annie asked.
“We talked about them,” her mother said, looking faintly puzzled.
“I mean, could I have boys over, too?”
“You mean for a couple of hours?” her mother asked.
“No, for the whole sleepover. We’d play music, dance, whatever. It would be really cool.”
“Not a chance! Not under my roof, anyway,” her mom said, as if Annie had suggested some kind of orgy or something. “Are you crazy? That’s just asking for trouble.”
“Mom, it’s not like we’d do anything. You’d be right here.”
“I don’t care. It’s a terrible idea. I can’t imagine the other parents would go along with it.”
