She nodded. “I’m sure. It’s important, Chance, or I wouldn’t be here.”
Now she looked like she was ready to run, and that just didn’t make sense since she had come all this way to see him. And that made him all the more tense, like a cougar on the alert for danger.
“Let’s go then.” He touched the small of her back and felt a tingle of electricity as they walked to the elevators.
Inside the elevator he asked about her father, and she answered that he was coming along, without further elaboration. Outside her room, she fumbled for the key card, and her hand actually shook. “Chance, there’s something I have to tell you before we go in.”
Something in her tone made his heart shudder. He stared at her, waiting. Her face was pale. Her lips trembled. This was going to be bad. Very bad.
Libby inhaled, hoping the gulp of air would calm her nerves. She’d taken a big risk—and it might be the worst mistake of her life. Worse than walking out on Chance the first time.
“What?” he asked, his tone guarded.
“There’s a surprise in my room.”
His expression shifted to worry. “By the way you’re acting, I’m guessing it’s not a good surprise?”
“I think it is. But you might not.” That was an understatement. “Just don’t hate me,” she managed to say before she slipped the key card in and opened the door.
The petite blonde woman, dressed in a loud print dress, probably her best one, with her hair teased into a bouffant do that was the style thirty years ago, stood with her hands clasped in front of her, her lipsticked mouth in a forced smile—and fear in eyes the same gray as her son’s.
*
“Hello, Chance.”
Chance stopped in the doorway and spread his legs in a gunfighter’s stance for support. For a moment, he couldn’t move. He could hardly breathe.
His mother.
She looked old. Much older than he remembered. Lines flared out from the corners of her eyes. More lines etched her brow and feathered around her mouth. The ravages of alcohol, smoking, and age, he guessed, and in that order.
She was the last person he wanted to see.
And Libby had brought her there.
Like steam rising, anger bubbled up inside of him. What right did Libby have? What right did his mother have to interfere in his life? Now? When he was trying to forget what could have been, trying to stand on solid ground again while the earth kept shifting beneath his feet. Instead, here he was hanging off a cliff of flat-out misery, ready to drop.
“Why are you here?” After all this time. He swung his gaze to Libby. She looked terrified. As if he was going to hit her or something. “Why did you do this, Libby?”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, and like a rabbit scurrying into a burrow, she turned tail and closed the door behind her.
Libby Brennan was a coward.
Well, he wasn’t one. Much as he felt like fleeing, he wasn’t moving. Deidre Cochran would be leaving.
“She’s a nice girl, Chance. Like her mama. You’re a lucky man.” That voice, sweet and gentle in its cadence, washed over him, pulling along memories. Too many memories.
“Am I? Funny how I’ve never felt lucky. Not once in my life. And Libby isn’t mine. She walked out on me too. Seems that’s what the women in my life do.”
Deidre cringed. Like when his father would hit her. Hell.
“She’s here now. She convinced me I should come. I was pretty sure it was a bad idea. But I hoped.” Deidre rubbed a hand over her face. But if she was trying to rub away the terrible memories, he could tell her they never went away. They might hide, but they were always there. He expected she knew that.
“It was a bad idea. So you can go.” Chance stepped to the side to allow her to pass. He wanted her out, gone. She’d given up all rights to call herself his mother a long time ago.
But instead of leaving, she squared her bony shoulders. He didn’t remember her being so small. Or frail. She looked bird-like. Scrawny. Not necessarily unhealthy, but as if she’d led a hard life. Guess they both had.
“I’ve got something to say, and unless you plan on carrying me out, I’m saying it. And then I’ll go.”
“No, I’ll go,” he turned toward the door.
“You don’t owe me anything, Chance. Not even to listen to me. But I owe you a lot. Not the least of which is an explanation. I’ve told it to Libby. I’d like to tell it to you. Then I’ll go. I promise.”
Chance whirled back around, surprised to find Deidre trembling. She looked fragile. Her eyes watery. She had cried a lot back then. He suspected she still did. Angry as he was with her, part of him wanted to listen. Wanted to understand why she’d done what she had. And he hated himself for being so weak that he needed that.
“I left. It was wrong. You needed me,” she said.