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4

When the doorbell rang just after lunch on Saturday, Maddie gladly left it to the kids to answer the door. She had no desire to face Bill after the frustrating week she’d had. These days she didn’t want to see him when she was at her best, much less when she was feeling defeated.

She was about to run a hot bath for herself when she heard Tyler’s raised voice from the front hall.

“What the hell are you doing here? We don’t want you in this house!”

Horrified by his language and his attitude, Maddie rushed from her bathroom wrapped in an old terry-cloth robe, her hair piled atop her head in a haphazard knot. “Tyler Walker Townsend, what on earth?” she said, then came to an abrupt stop beside him as she spotted the very pregnant Noreen standing on the doorstep.

Maddie had first met the young nurse when she’d interviewed candidates for the job in Bill’s office. She’d been impressed by the woman’s résumé and composure. In the weeks after Bill had hired her, Maddie had noticed the woman’s efficiency and her warmth with the young patients. She’d had no idea that Noreen’s attentiveness had extended to her husband.

On the two occasions when she’d seen Noreen since discovering the woman’s involvement with Bill, Maddie had been struck by how self-possessed she seemed, even dressed in her end-of-the-day wilted nurse’s uniform. Now, despite her designer maternity outfit, she looked far less sure of herself. There were patches of red on her cheeks from embarrassment and her eyes were shadowed with distress. She looked even younger than her twenty-four years.

“Dad sent her to pick us up,” Tyler said, his body radiating outrage. “I’m not going anywhere with her. And neither are they.” He scowled at Kyle and Katie, who were standing nearby in wide-eyed dismay. Kyle whirled around and ran upstairs. Katie promptly burst into tears and flung herself at Maddie.

“I miss Daddy!” she cried, hiccuping with sobs. “When is Daddy coming home?”

Despite her disapproval of her son’s tone, Maddie couldn’t help wondering the same thing Tyler had asked: knowing how his kids felt about her, why would Bill send Noreen in his place? Even as she tried to soothe her daughter, she pinned Noreen with an accusing look.

“Where is their father?” she asked.

“Bill was tied up at the hospital,” Noreen explained, clearly shaken by Tyler’s verbal attack and Maddie’s cold reception. “He asked me to pick up the kids. I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

“Well, you can forget it,” Tyler said. “We’re not going anywhere with you!”

“Tyler!” Maddie said sharply. She kept her gaze on Noreen’s face, trying very hard not to let it stray to her protruding belly. “Obviously, this was a bad idea. Tell Bill he’ll have to arrange another time to see the kids.”

“But I don’t understand,” Noreen said. “Saturday afternoon is his time. It says so in the divorce settlement. He went over all the terms with me.”

“That’s right,” Maddie agreed. “It’s his time, not yours. Now I think you should go. Your presence here is clearly upsetting my children.”

“Please,” Noreen said. “Can’t we talk about this? I’m just giving them a ride, Maddie. Bill will be really upset if he misses his time with them.”

“He’ll just have to get over it,” Maddie said, refusing to back down. “Maybe next time he’ll arrange to be here himself.”

For an instant, she almost felt sorry for the other woman. Maybe it was of her own doing, but even Maddie could recognize that Noreen was caught in an impossible situation.

Noreen’s lower lip trembled. “I just don’t get why they hate me so much,” she said miserably.

Maddie looked at her son. “Tyler, take Katie in the kitchen and get yourselves a snack, please.”

“But, Mom,” he began. At a warning glance from her, he sighed and took Katie from her arms.

When Maddie was certain they were out of hearing, she turned back to Noreen. “You’re a pediatrics nurse, Noreen. Surely you must have taken some child psychology courses.”

Noreen nodded. “Yes, but I still don’t get it. Whenever they stopped by the office to see their dad, they were always such great kids. I thought they liked me.”

“I’m sure they did when they thought of you as their father’s nurse,” Maddie said.

When Noreen still looked confused, Maddie added, “I’m sure Bill will explain it to you. He used to have a functioning brain and at least a tiny bit of sensitivity.”

Satisfied that the barb had hit its mark, she quietly closed the door in the woman’s face, then went to deal with her kids.

In the kitchen, she pulled Katie onto her lap, then tried to compose herself before facing Ty.

“Young man, if I ever hear you speak to another adult the way you spoke to Noreen just now, you’ll be grounded for a month.”

Ty looked as if she’d slapped him. “She had no business coming here,” he said defensively.

“That’s not the point. We’ve had this conversation before, but you don’t seem to have gotten the message. My children are respectful of adults, period.”

“Even when they’re nothing but—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” she told him. “Go upstairs and check on your brother while I try to get Katie calmed down.”

A half hour later she was physically and emotionally drained from walking the tightrope between what she knew was right and the vicious words she wanted to utter herself. She needed a break and the kids needed a distraction. Bracing herself for a slew of questions she didn’t want to answer, she called her mother. If she’d been willing to babysit once, maybe she could be persuaded to do it again.

“What’s wrong?” Paula Vreeland asked the second she heard Maddie’s strained voice.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” she said. That was the way her relationship with her mother went. Even the most innocent question had a way of getting her hackles up. Maybe it was because she always sensed some inherent disapproval in her mother’s tone, if not her words.

“You sound as if you’re on your last nerve,” her mother said. “What’s Bill done now?”

Since there was little point in denying her husband’s role in her mood, Maddie gave her mother an abbreviated version of the scene that had just played out on her doorstep.

“It’s plain he wasn’t thinking, but women are usually more sensitive to these things. What on earth possessed Noreen to think that she’d be welcome at your house?” her mother demanded.

“I doubt she thought about it at all,” Maddie responded. “I imagine she was just doing what Bill told her to do.”

“Or she wanted to rub this situation in your face,” her mother said heatedly. “Isn’t it enough that she destroyed your marriage?”

“Apparently not,” Maddie said.

Paula drew in a deep breath. “Okay, there’s no point in belaboring the woman’s lack of good sense. What can I do to help?”

“The kids could really use a change of scenery,” Maddie said. “I hate to ask, but would you mind taking them to your place for a few hours? It won’t be the same as going to their dad’s, but maybe it’ll distract—”

“How about I take them to Charleston instead?” her mother offered. “We’ll see a movie, eat hamburgers and greasy fries and I’ll bring them home exhausted.”

Maddie was surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Believe it or not, I find your children highly entertaining and they don’t seem to mind spending time with me. We’ll enjoy ourselves.”

Maddie decided not to remind her that she’d once vetoed the idea of spending any time babysitting them. At the moment, she didn’t really care why that had changed. She was just grateful for it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No thanks necessary,” her mother replied. “But one of these days I would like it if we could sit down and talk about why you hate asking for my help not just with the kids, but with anything.”

Maddie sighed. How could she tell her mother it was because asking for help—especially from a woman as competent and self-sufficient as Paula Vreeland—always made her feel like a failure?

“Well, you look downright pitiful,” Dana Sue observed when Maddie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen at Sullivan’s later that afternoon after depositing her surprisingly upbeat kids with her mother. “Come on in here and sit down. I’ll fix you a plate of spiced shrimp.”

“Save the shrimp. I’ve already eaten lunch with the kids,” Maddie told her, not entirely certain why she’d dropped by. When a leisurely bubble bath had done nothing to soothe her, she’d sought out the one person who could understand what she was feeling. Dana Sue had been through her own nasty divorce from a cheating husband, but at least Ronnie hadn’t stuck around Serenity to rub the situation in her face.

Dana Sue set a plate piled high with shrimp in front of her anyway. “Peeling those will keep your hands occupied while you tell me what’s going on.”

“Are you sure you have time to talk?” Maddie asked, regarding the shrimp without interest but picking one up anyway.

“The lunch crowd has dwindled and it’s hours till people start showing up for dinner,” Dana Sue said. “But even if I were busier than an ant at a picnic, I’d still have time for you.”

“I could chop or dice or something,” Maddie offered.

“No offense, but this is my kitchen. Any chopping or dicing will be done by me and my experienced staff. Besides, judging from the expression on your face, I’m not sure you ought to be trusted with sharp objects.”

Maddie managed a faint grin. “You have a point.”

“What’s Bill done now?”

“What makes you think my mood is his fault?” Maddie inquired. Dana Sue was the second person to leap to that conclusion. Obviously her life and her moods were becoming too predictable.

“Because you loved him for more than twenty years. Just because he’s turned out to be a low-down skunk doesn’t mean he can’t still twist you into knots.” She looked Maddie in the eye. “What did he do? Do I need to hunt him down?”

“I wish it were that simple. I wish a good swift kick or a smack upside his head would knock some sense into him, but I think he’s hopeless. Clueless, anyway.” Maddie shrugged. “How could I have been so wrong about him? For twenty years I lived with a man who was smart and reasonably sensitive. Now it’s as if he checked his brain somewhere and can’t remember where.”

“Well, we know he’s thinking with another part of his anatomy,” Dana Sue offered. “What did he do?”

“He was tied up at the hospital today, so he sent Noreen by to pick up the kids.” She twisted the tail off a shrimp with such force that both the shell and the shrimp went flying across the kitchen in opposite directions. She scowled at Dana Sue. “He sent that woman to my house to pick up my kids.”

“I can just imagine how that went,” Dana Sue said as she retrieved the scattered remains of the shrimp.

“I doubt it,” Maddie told her. “Tyler answered the door and told her to get the hell away from our house. Kyle ran upstairs and locked himself in his room and Katie burst into tears. It took me a half hour to calm her down. It’s breaking my heart to see how much she misses her dad.”

“And what did Noreen do during all this commotion?”

“Stood there wringing her hands and telling me she just doesn’t understand why the kids don’t like her anymore. I told her to ask Bill. I should’ve said that maybe even her little pea brain could come up with an explanation if she really tried.”

Dana Sue chuckled. “That would have been a nice shot.”

Maddie sighed. “One she deserved, but it hardly solves anything. I’m sure Bill is going to be on a tear once he hears how she was received by me and the kids. I’ll have to listen to another of his tirades about how we’re not giving Noreen a fair chance, that she’s in his life now, that she’s having his baby, that I promised to help smooth things over and now they’re worse than ever, and on and on and on.”

Dana Sue gave Maddie a penetrating look. “Something tells me you’re not this upset just because Bill’s going to have himself a hissy fit.”

“Of course not. I’m upset because my kids’ lives have been turned inside out and I can’t seem to do a thing to help them. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Where are they right now?”

“My mother’s taken them to Charleston to dinner and a movie.”

“Her idea or yours?”

“Mine, if you must know, at least the part about them spending the afternoon with her. I was desperate. I figured they needed a break from me as much as they needed one from Noreen and their dad. All this tension has taken a terrible toll on them.”

“And on you,” Dana Sue reminded her. “What are you doing for yourself?”

“Running to you,” Maddie said.

“If we had our spa, you could soak in the hot tub and have a massage,” Dana Sue reminded her.

Maddie frowned. “My thirty days have barely begun. Stop pressuring me. I really don’t need that on top of everything else today.”

“Just pointing out one of the advantages of going into business with me and Helen,” Dana Sue said mildly. “I could list more.”

“Not necessary. I think I have a handle on most of them,” Maddie admitted.

Dana Sue studied her intently. “Meaning?”

“Nothing,” Maddie said. “Ask me a couple of weeks from now.”

“You know you’re going to agree to this. You’re just being stubborn.”

“Maybe I’m just enjoying keeping the two of you dangling on the end of my hook,” Maddie retorted. “It’s rare that I have the upper hand.”

She finally popped one of the peeled shrimp into her mouth and savored the burst of spices. “Mmm, these are fantastic!”

Dana Sue chuckled. “I’m glad you like them. For a while there, I thought you were just going to mangle them as some sort of bizarre therapy. How about a glass of wine to go with them?”

“Sure. Wine sounds good,” she said as she ate another shrimp, then licked her fingers.

“You know,” Dana Sue said, “I think you’d feel a whole lot better about your life if you had something positive to look forward to. You need to remember how capable and smart you are, that marriage to Bill didn’t define you. I know launching this place kept me sane when I kicked Ronnie out.”

“But you’d been dreaming about opening your own restaurant for years,” Maddie countered. “I’ve never envisioned opening a fitness club.”

“Neither did I,” Dana Sue admitted. “Not till Helen brought up the idea. Then it just seemed to fit with where we all are right now.”

“Just give me some time to catch up,” Maddie pleaded. “I’m afraid if I agree to it now, when everything else is so overwhelming, I’ll just freak out and ruin it.”

“I’ve seen you in a crisis, Maddie. You don’t freak out. You dig in and get the job done. Remember prom when the money we’d been counting on suddenly vanished? You charged out and got donations from every business in town and managed to pull off the best senior prom our school had ever had.”

“That was a long time ago,” Maddie reminded her.

“But you still have that same drive and ingenuity,” Dana Sue insisted. “You just need a new challenge that’s more interesting than the annual hospital ball to kick ’em back into gear.”

Maddie listened to the conviction in her friend’s voice. She wanted desperately to believe her, but after the day she’d had, she didn’t have the energy to do much more than eat shrimp and finish the glass of wine Dana Sue had poured for her. When she’d swallowed the last bite and taken the last sip, she stood up and gave Dana Sue a fierce hug.

“Thanks for being here for me.”

“Anytime. You were there for me when my marriage broke up. This is the least I can do for you.” She studied Maddie worriedly. “You’re not going home to sulk and undo whatever good I’ve done here today, are you?”

Maddie laughed. “No.”

“What, then?”

“I’m going to go home and crunch some numbers and see if all three of us have lost our minds.”

A grin spread across Dana Sue’s face. “Well, hallelujah!”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” Maddie warned.

“But you’re on the verge of it. I’m calling Helen.”

“Don’t. She’ll just come over and pester me. It’ll ruin my concentration.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t call her tonight, but I’m telling her first thing in the morning. Then you’re all coming here after church to celebrate. I’ll bring Annie and you bring your kids and your mom. We’ll turn it into a party.”

“Let’s hold off on any celebrating. It might turn out to be a wake, if I decide the numbers don’t make sense.”

“We can wait but you won’t,” Dana Sue said confidently. “You seem to have forgotten how you helped me to squeeze every last penny till it squealed when I was opening this place. I’m sure you’ll be just as creative with Helen’s capital and my contribution.”

Maddie shuddered. “Creative is not a word I like to hear associated with bookkeeping.”

“Whatever,” Dana Sue responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. “We’re going to open a health club. How wild is that?”

“Pretty wild,” Maddie confirmed.

Maybe flat-out insane.

Cal knew Maddie Townsend the same way he knew all the parents of the kids on the team, which was to say better than most teachers knew the parents of their students but far from well. Maddie had always impressed him by never missing a game and being one of those rare adults who didn’t torment their kids with unrealistic expectations or him with irrational harassment when their sons were on the field. Her husband was the same way.

Today for the first time when she arrived in his office for their scheduled appointment he noticed deep shadows under Maddie’s eyes and a nervous tic in her cheek. Despite the care she’d taken with her appearance, which would have passed inspection at some fancy Junior League function, she seemed uneasy about meeting with him.

“Should we wait for Dr. Townsend?” he asked.

“He’s not able to be here,” she said tightly.

Cal heard a faint note of bitterness in her voice. “Oh? I’ve never known him to miss a game or a meeting.”

“Actually, I didn’t tell him about this one. Tyler asked me not to.”

“I see,” Cal said, though he wasn’t sure he did. “Is there some sort of problem between Ty and his father?”

She regarded him with misery and embarrassment in her eyes. “You may as well know that Dr. Townsend and I are getting a divorce.”

Cal knew his mouth must have gaped at that, because she gave him a wry look.

“I know,” she said. “I was shocked, too, and I lived with him.”

“I’m sorry.” The words seemed inadequate, but what else was there to say?

“Not your problem. Could we just focus on Ty, please?”

“Actually, I’m beginning to see what’s going on with him,” Cal replied. “He’s been having a lot of trouble with school lately. I’m sure his other teachers have been in touch with you about that.”

She shook her head. “I had no idea. He’d mentioned something about a couple of bad baseball practices, but that’s it.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll contact you before things reach a crisis stage—or perhaps you should take the initiative, just in case…”

“Just in case what?”

“Kids have been known not to take home notes they don’t want their parents to see.”

“Surely Tyler wouldn’t,” she began, then shook her head. “Of course he would. I’ll call the other teachers as soon as I get home.”

Cal gave her an encouraging smile. She looked as if she could use some moral support. “Hey, he’s a good student. A few bad grades don’t mean the end of the world. He’ll catch up. More troubling to me is his complete lack of interest in his game. He excelled in his classes because he’s smart, but he excelled in baseball not just because of talent, but because of his passion for the game. He seems to have lost that.”

She sighed. “I thought as much, based on some of his comments to me, but to be honest, I have no idea what to do about it. Baseball was always something he and his dad shared. Bill’s not particularly athletic, but he loved the game. He started taking Ty to Atlanta Braves games when he was a toddler. Then he coached him in Little League. I tagged along, but I didn’t absorb much about the finer points of the game.”

Cal gave some thought to the implications of that. “So, now that his dad’s moved out,” he suggested slowly, “Ty’s rejecting baseball—either deliberately or subconsciously—the way he thinks his father’s rejected him?”

She regarded him with surprise. “Why, yes. I think that’s it exactly.” She leaned toward him as if he might have other answers to life’s mysteries. “What do we do about it?”

Cal hated to admit it with her looking at him so hopefully, but he was as much at a loss as she was. Identifying the problem was a snap compared to solving it, but at least he now knew what he was dealing with. “Let me think about that and get back to you, okay?”

She nodded. “Anything you can suggest will be greatly appreciated. I wish I’d come to you sooner, but the divorce isn’t something I’ve wanted to talk about.”

Cal regarded her with sympathy. “No one does, which is probably why kids internalize their feelings.”

“You’re right again. Believe me, I want to see that old spark back in Ty’s eyes when he walks onto a ball field. He needs baseball right now.” She studied Cal worriedly. “He mentioned you might pull him from the starting rotation.”

“I’ll have to if he doesn’t get his concentration back, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Now that I understand what’s going on, hopefully I can come up with some way to get him back on track. Maybe this is none of my business, but is the divorce final?”

“The paperwork’s done, but we don’t have the decree yet.”

“Are things settling down some at home, though?”

“Some,” she said in a tone that conveyed the opposite.

“They will,” he said, feeling a sudden need to reassure her. It was almost as powerful as his desire to get Tyler back in his pitching groove. “I’ll be in touch soon, Mrs. Townsend.”

“Call me Maddie, please. I’d just as soon not be reminded of anything Townsend right now,” she said, giving him a wry smile. “Besides, it makes me feel ancient.”

Cal laughed at that. “You’re hardly ancient. If I didn’t know you have a sixteen-year-old son, I’d swear you were my age.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Flattery won’t get you much more than an extra batch of chocolate-chip cookies next time it’s my turn to bake for the team.”

“I’ll take the cookies, but it wasn’t flattery,” he told her.

In fact, for the first time since his own divorce from a woman who’d married a baseball celebrity, not a has-been, he was actually feeling a stir of real interest in a woman, and age was the very last thing on his mind. Of course, given the multitude of complications involved, he’d have to be out of his ever-loving mind to do anything about it.