LITMIR.BIZ

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Audrey said, standing her ground.

      “How could you do this to me?” Andie asked, shaking her head. “Haven’t you done enough already to ruin my life!”

      Audrey didn’t know what she would have said to that, but then she didn’t have to respond, because Tink saved her. He must have felt the tension between her and Andie and decided to make it clear that he was on Audrey’s side.

      He started growling at Andie and Jake.

      “Tink, no,” Audrey said sternly.

      He looked at her as if she might be too dumb to understand he was defending her.

      “It’s all right,” Audrey told him. “I’ve got it.”

      He quit growling but stood by her side bristling and ready to step in, if need be.

      “So, you think you’re going to force yourself back into my life? Just like that?” Andie asked.

      No, she simply thought she’d live nearby and hope eventually something would change. That Andie would need her.

      “I just took the dog for a walk, Andie. I had no idea you were going to be here. How could I? I haven’t seen you in two months.”

      “But here? You had to do it here? Where I live? Well, it’s not going to work,” Andie told her. “I don’t care what you do. It won’t work.”

      And then she stalked away. Jake stood there for a moment, looking as though he wanted to say something, but in the end just shook his head and walked away without a word.

      Tink pitched a fit, barking for all he was worth, chasing away the enemy.

      “No,” Audrey tried to explain to him. “That’s my baby. My little girl.”

      She stood there watching as Andie got into her car and drove away, and then she sank down onto a bench in front of the ice cream store, shaking, the dog practically in her lap and making that fussing, crying sound, not understanding what was wrong but wanting to help in any way he could.

       Chapter Three

      Andie was still shaking when she pulled into the driveway at her family house, which she now shared with her father. Jake had tried to calm her down all the way home, but it didn’t work. He’d wanted to come home with her and talk some more, but she wouldn’t let him. Not that he could really do anything anyway.

      She was too furious for that.

      Plus, it was better to handle things like this on her own. It wasn’t as if she could really count on anybody to help, anyway.

      Her life.

      Her problems.

      It was safer that way.

      Still, after everything her mother had done last fall, everything the entire neighborhood was still talking about and probably would be for years, her mother dared show her face here?

      And planned to live nearby?

      Andie couldn’t believe it!

      She got out of the car and slammed the door, then swiped away angry tears. Her father’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which meant he wasn’t home, as usual, but judging by the other car in the garage, his embarrassingly young, snotty, blond girlfriend was.

       Great!

      If only her parents had held things together for two more years, she’d have been gone to college, and it wouldn’t have really mattered. As it was, Andie couldn’t wait to escape from both of them. How she’d make it through another year and a half living with her father and Barbie—that’s what Andie called her because she was like a Barbie doll come to life—and her mother now living nearby…

      Well, that just sounded like seven different kinds of torture.

      Andie went inside through the garage door, not quite slamming it but shutting it none too gently, and stalked through the house.

      She was nearly to her room before she came face-to-face with the new love of her father’s life. They nearly collided in the hallway, Barbie wearing a robe, slippers and some kind of green gunk on her face.

      She gave a huff of displeasure, stopping short just before Andie plowed on by. “I thought you were Richard,” she said.

      “At this hour? You’re kidding, right? When was the last time he made it home before dark? I mean, it’s not easy, making enough money for all the things you need. Your new car, and your home-spa days, Barbie.”

      Barbie gave her one of those sickeningly sweet smiles that seemed to say, You won’t get rid of me that easily. Or maybe, I’ll outlast you. Just wait and see.

      Andie told herself she didn’t care. She went on to her room, fell back onto her bed and pulled out her phone to call her father.

      “Please, be there. Please,” she whispered. “Just this once.”

      She got his secretary, of course, who was actually willing to grant Andie an audience with her own father. This time.

      “Dad!” Andie groaned as he came on the line. “The most awful thing happened just now. I ran into mom at the ice cream place. She said she’s going to be living in Highland Park!”

      He laughed. “Andie, there’s no way your mother could afford to live there. Unless…”

       Unless she’d found another man to support her.

      He didn’t have to say it.

      Andie knew it better than he did.

      Highland Park was as fancy a neighborhood as any in town.

      “She claims she got a job,” Andie told him.

      “Doing what? She’s not trained to do anything.”

      “I know,” Andie said.

      Which meant…what? That her mother had lied to her? That was nothing new. She’d told any number of lies last fall.

      “I can’t have her back here,” Andie said. “Everything was finally starting to quiet down, and I just can’t go through all that again. Will you just call her and tell her to go away, please? Tell her if she really loves me to stay away.”

      “I…Hang on, Andie. I’ve got a call on the other line I’ve been waiting for. I have to take this—”

      “Dad, please!”

      “I’m sorry—”

      “No. Just call her. Promise me, you will. Please—”

      And then he was gone.

      Andie clicked off her phone, barely managing to resist the urge to throw it across the room.

      Of course, he had an important call.

      This was only her life, her mother about to ruin it once again, and he had a call. No big surprise there. She was lucky if she could get five minutes of his time in a day, maybe even a week. He’d come back to live in the house these past few months, but he wasn’t really here. Not any more than he had been before her parents separated, she realized.

      He breezed in, breezed out, did his own thing, and now he had Barbie to entertain in what little time he did spend here.

      She really was all alone.

      Audrey didn’t have many things of her own to pack.

      She’d left her own home three months ago with nothing but the contents of one suitcase and an overnight bag and arrived at Marion’s two months ago with the same things. In her time here, she’d accumulated no more than what would fit in two boxes, and they were already in her car. She zipped up the suitcase and looked longingly around the tiny guest cottage of Marion’s feeling something akin to sheer panic.

      “Now, now,”

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