Breaking Ties (8 page)

A wave
? That’s what I got? After all of this time? All of this waiting? Eighteen long years of waiting for my moment, and I finally find a guy worth sharing my first kiss with,
and he walks away
?

I thought it had been a good morning. A
great
morning! I thought for sure that it would happen today. So … what? What happened? Where did I go wrong?

“Gabe?” I said, loudly enough to get his attention but not the attention of every other person in the neighborhood.

“Yeah?” he asked, looking up from his keys.

“So what is it?”

“What’s what?”

“You just … you don’t
want
to kiss me, or what? Am I that repulsive?”

His blank expression turned into an immediate smirk. I could use his words against him if I had to, and I was going to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was keeping him from making that first move.

“Yes, Mandy, that’s definitely the problem,” he smiled. “I find you so incredibly repulsive; I can barely stand to look at you.” I gave him nothing more than an annoyed stare, and he smiled even wider. “I thought you needed to get inside.”

“I do, but … ”

“Come here,” he motioned for me to come closer, and as I started walking toward him, he met me halfway on the yard.

He reached to take my hand, but my excitement had me moving too quickly, and I tripped over my feet. He caught me as my face landed hard against his chest.

“Are you okay?” he asked, breathlessly. I’m certain I knocked the wind out of him.

“I’m bad at this,” I said, standing straight again. I looked to the sky and cursed the universe for allowing me to have such a klutz of a moment right then. Karma. For sneaking out. I knew it. “Moment’s gone, right?”

“Moment’s gone.”

I hid my humiliated expression in the palms of my hands.

“Okay, go,” I said, dropping my arms to my sides. “Just get out of here. I’ll see you whenever I see you.”

He nodded. “I’ll call you.”

“You better.”

He turned away and headed for his car, right as the sight of a yellow blur came speeding into view from the end of the street. The taxi pulled up to the front of our house and stopped, blocking him in the driveway.

We both turned our attention to the cab.

The back door sprang open, and without a moment’s warning, a pair of long, tanned legs popped into view. The small-waisted brunette stood from the car and adjusted her skirt before smoothing the wrinkles from her yellow blouse.

“Oh, that can’t be good,” Gabe said, taking a couple of steps toward me. “Mandy, is that—”

“Yep,” I said, because it was hard to think of any other word. “That’s her. That’s Mom.”

Chapter Eight

“No,” I whispered, and for the second time that morning, Gabe’s strong hand landed gently on my back. He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulled me closer to his side, and kept me under his protective hold. It felt good, nestled against his strong body, but I knew that in that moment, even Gabe couldn’t distract me from the anxiety burning under my skin.

Mom was in Sugar Creek, standing right before us, and it was all I could do to keep from falling to my knees. Tears were biting at the corners of my eyes as I watched her, unable to tear my gaze away from her as I studied each of her fluid movements.

She rose from the cab and turned back only long enough to retrieve her oversized purse from the backseat. The driver let himself out, rounded the car, and discharged her luggage from the trunk.

“She brought bags.”

It wasn’t until after the words fell awkwardly into the air that I even realized they’d spilled from my lips. It was happening. She was getting to me already. I’d lost control over my body. My knees were buckling. My mouth was forming words my brain couldn’t register, and my heart was slamming against my chest, threatening to explode.

She had suitcases—two of them. Two large, overstuffed pieces of luggage.

“She’s staying,” I whispered again, drawing a look from Gabe. I could feel his stare burning on my cheek, and only after I forced myself to look in his direction did I see that he was watching me, studying me with those big, blue, compassionate eyes. “Gabe, she’s staying.”

We turned back to look at her, both of us already well aware of that simple fact. Her reasoning for showing up was beyond us, but the fact that she planned to hang around was certainly not up for argument. No one goes on a brief trip with two full suitcases. Mom was planning to hang around, at least for a while.

“Why is she here?” My voice caught on the tight muscles in my throat. And because I had to concentrate on forming the words, I had to stop focusing on the urge to hold back my tears. As soon as I did, a single stream rolled down my cheek.

“I don’t know,” he answered, matching my quiet tone. But there was something calm about those three simple words. His voice wasn’t weighted down by fear and anxiety. He managed to keep it together a lot better than I did, probably because he didn’t yet understand the magnitude of Mom’s arrival.

We stood there on the lawn and watched as Mom paid off the cabbie. He was back in the driver’s seat and gone before we knew it.

And then there were three.

Mom turned her attention to us as if she hadn’t seen us standing there all along.

I can’t remember ever living through a quieter minute. But that’s what it was—one, solid minute before anyone made a single sound—and it was her. She’s the one who finally had the nerve to say—

“Look at you … ”

The first three words my mother spoke to me in almost four years.

Look at you
. As if she were a grandparent I hadn’t seen in a month or a tiny, helpless baby in a passerby’s stroller.
Look at you
. Like I was some priceless piece of art, hanging around to be admired.

I stared at her, still snuggled under Gabe’s arm. Her eyes shifted to him for a moment, back to me, and then right back to him.

“And you must be Gabe,” she said, taking a few steps forward, pulling her large bags behind her. She stopped in the grass just feet away from us, extended her hand, and waited for Gabe to take it. He didn’t. Not at first. But I knew Gabe well enough to know he wasn’t going to snub someone, especially the woman who’d given me life, even if she had left me broken along the way.

“It’s nice to meet the man who’s caught my daughter’s eye. Victoria,” she introduced herself, and their hands folded together. I couldn’t help but notice the way his large palm swallowed her tiny fingers. He pulled his hand away from hers, only giving her the faintest smirk. Mom continued, “I’ve been keeping my eye on the two of you. You’ve caused quite a stir out here with the press lately, huh?”

We didn’t answer, and she stared between the two of us with a deep look of concern as if she couldn’t believe that neither of us were giving her anything to work with. It was troubling that she thought she could show up here and make small talk, like nothing ever happened, like she hadn’t forced us out. And then to stand there and look at us like that, like we owed her some kind of welcome or explanation.

“It’s great to see you two actually worked this whole thing out,” she said, still trying. “When I first saw the video online—”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

That was it. Hearing about the video, seeing it, talking about it … it was bad enough without having it come from my mother. She was the last person I wanted to discuss our relationship with.

“Oh,” she rounded her lips and looked down at the bags at her feet. “Your sister didn’t tell you, then?”

“Bailey knew you were coming?”

“She didn’t know, Mandy,” Gabe assured me. “I would’ve known.”

“I told her,” Mom said. “It’s not my fault that she chose to ignore my texts and voicemails.”

“And you can’t take a hint?” I asked. “Bailey didn’t answer her phone because she didn’t want to talk to you.
No one
here wants to talk to you.”

“Maybe you should go inside,” Gabe said, turning to me. I nodded because I wasn’t going to argue that. There was nowhere else I’d rather be but inside—far, far away from Mom … or at least far enough away that there was a door between us.

“
Amanda
,
” she said, and I closed my eyes at the chilliness of her voice as I turned away. There it was—the reason I hated that name so much. The way those three syllables rolled off her lips was enough to put chills up my spine for a lifetime. I’d hoped I’d never have to hear it again, but she wasn’t about to give me anything I wanted in life. “I just flew halfway across the country. Don’t walk away from me.”

“I’m sorry, but the last time I checked, you gave up your right to hand out orders,” I said, turning to deliver her a scathing look. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Please,” she said. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I only wanted to see my family.”

“We are
not
your family,” I said. “You don’t get the honor of calling us that. Dad, Bailey, Gabe, Jones …
they’re
my family. But you, no.”

“
Amanda—”

“Go away,” I said, biting back a world of nastier things I wanted to say to her. There were so many things she deserved to hear, so many things on the tip of my tongue. But I couldn’t say any of them, not in front of Gabe. Not after the morning we’d had. I wasn’t going to let her ruin my day any more than she already had. “You need to leave. No one here has anything left to say to you. We’ve made our peace. We’re happy.”

I started to turn again, Gabe right at my side, and this time we made it all the way up the steps before she called out again.

“Amanda—”

“
Stop calling me that
!” I yelled, whipping back around.

“Listen to me,” she said, a breathless quality in her voice. She slumped her shoulders and let her head hang low for a few seconds. “I wanted to see you so that—”

“
What
?” I asked. “So you can have a guilt-free wedding? Because you can’t go through with it until you have our blessing? Okay. Sure. Go ahead, Mom. Marry Ronnie. No one here’s going to stop you. Do whatever it is that you need to do to be happy, and go on with your life. Just leave us out of it.”

I didn’t even know if that was it, but rational thinking was gone at that point. I only had what Bailey had given me to go on, and that wasn’t much. Plus, Dad himself had told me that she and Ronnie were headed down the aisle at some point. I couldn’t have been too far off in my assumption.

“Honey,” she said, quietly, following us up to the porch, leaving her bags on the lawn. “I’m not here to ask for your blessing.”

Gabe took it upon himself in that moment to move between us, not to let her get any closer than the few feet away that she already stood. He then turned to me, his back to my mother, and lowered his face.

“Mandy,” he said, his words low and calm, intimate, and only meant for me. “You don’t have to do this—not here, not now, not like this. You have a choice. You can go inside. You can get away from this—at least until you’ve calmed down, until you’re ready to face her on your own terms.”

“She won’t leave,” I said, shaking my head. “She wants something.”

“She’ll go,” he promised. “I’ll see to it. I’ll make sure she gets set up at a hotel. You won’t have to see to her again until you’re ready.”

“But—”

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said, the warm whisper of his breath brushing across my face. “I’m just advising you. Before you say something you regret, please go inside. Please?” he asked, framing my face with his hands.

And right then and there, I knew the argument was closed. There was no way I could argue with someone who only wanted the best for me, and in that moment, getting away from my mother was the best possible thing I could do. He was right. I had to give myself distance, get away from her. I knew that if I stood out there, I would only make the situation much, much worse.

“Okay
.
”

“Go on,” he whispered, leaning over to press the softest, most gentle kiss on my cheek. “I’ll call you later.”

I turned away from Gabe, letting myself inside without another look in my mother’s direction. Back inside the comfort of our house, I stood with my back to the door, already hearing his muffled voice on the other side, pleading with her to leave my family and me alone. I couldn’t make out the words, but they matched each other in determination with their separate arguments. He wasn’t going to back down. He was going to do what he thought was right. He would get rid of her.

I closed my eyes and listened, hoping that their muffled voices would soon fade into the morning. Gabe would see to it that she left, and then he’d report back to me with nothing but good news. I was confident of that much. And as I started to hear their voices quiet, another voice caught my attention. I looked up to find my sister standing only feet away with a grin stretched from one ear to the other.

“Oh, Mandy, you better run. You are in
so
much trouble,” Bailey said, shaking her head. “Dad is on a tear, you know that? He’s going to absolutely destroy you.”

“I don’t have time to focus on that right now,” I said, peeling myself off the door. I started down the hallway, but Dad cut me off as I walked by his room, blocking my path. Arms crossed at his chest, he glared at me.

I threw my head back and stared at the ceiling, knowing nothing that Dad could say or do would make me feel any worse than my mother had made me feel.

“You want to tell me where you’ve been?”

I turned away from him and headed back for the kitchen. Bailey was propped on the counter, allowing herself a prime viewing spot for our impending argument.

“Changing location isn’t going to make this problem go away,” he said, following closely behind. “Where were you?”

“I’m not sure that’s what we need to discuss right now,” I said, pointing back at the door, ready and willing to tell him all about Mom’s impromptu visit. “Did you know—”

“I told you that you were
not
to leave this house.”

“Okay, that’s fine, Dad, but I think—”

“I gave you orders
.
”

“Yes, I know, but I think you’re going to feel a bit silly for putting so much focus on this teensy-weensy-nothing-of-a-problem once you hear—”

“Did you
seriously
think you could get away with it? Did you honestly think you could sneak out of this house without being caught?”

“Okay. You want to talk about this now, then fine.
Yes
. I did. And obviously that’s not the real issue,” I said. “I snuck out just fine without being caught. It was the sneaking
back
in
part that tripped me up. But seriously, Dad, I think you need to know what’s going on out there.”

The doorbell rang.

“Who in the world?” Dad said, glancing at his wrist to check the time, but he hadn’t yet put on his watch.

“See, that’s what I’ve been trying to say,” I said. “We have company.”

“Oh, that’s just Jones,” Bailey said from the counter. She jumped down and headed for the front door.

“Jones?” Dad asked, now momentarily focused on his other daughter. “At nine o’clock in the morning?”

“He’s coming over to pick up his—” she opened the door. “
Mom
?”

“
To pick up his Mom
?” Dad asked, shoving by me and out of the kitchen. “What in God’s name is—”

Then he saw her.

As Bailey stood at the open door, looking out at our mother on the porch, Dad rounded the corner and acquired the same view. And though I could feel Gabe’s apologetic stare, I never looked his way. I only looked between Mom, Bailey and Dad, waiting on one of them to say something—
anything
.

After a few long seconds of silence, Mom spoke up again. With nothing more than a plain and simple, “Surprise.”