“How about this one?” I asked, holding up a thick tome on Virginia tax law.
“Donate. Oh! Do you remember this one?” She held up a worn law book. “Your father used to quiz Maeve on the legal precedents in family law when she told him she wanted to be a lawyer at ten.”
The memory floated over me like a soft blanket. Dad and Maeve cozied up in the breakfast nook with legal pads and law books while Mom helped me with my homework at the kitchen island.
Dad had been so proud and excited that his oldest daughter wanted to follow in his steps. Teenage Maeve was fierce and determined to be the best.
“Definitely a keeper. Put it in the Maeve box.”
“So I need to ask you something that’s probably going to upset you,” Mom announced, dropping the book in the box.
“Is this what it feels like to be a parent?” I joked.
“Lucian,” she said.
I went still. “What about him?” She couldn’t know about our brief, ill-advised fling. Could she? She would have said something. Unless she was saying something now.
Mom pushed a tall stack of alumni magazines into the recycle pile with her feet. “I know you two don’t really talk, but I was wondering if you’d heard anything about him lately. He canceled our dinner two weeks in a row and hasn’t been returning my calls since. It’s highly unlike him, and I’m worried.”
It appeared as though Lucian had dumped two out of three Walton women. “You two sure seem to spend a lot of time together,” I ventured.
“Don’t get all snooty about it. Your father and I adore Lucian. He’s been part of our lives since he snuck into your room that first time. It was our greatest disappointment that you two didn’t fall in love and make a bunch of beautiful grandbabies for us.”
My mother was joking, but given my current life goals and Lucian’s recent occupation of my vagina, it felt like a personal attack.
“You’re more likely to end up with Michael B. Jordan as a son-in-law than Lucian Rollins,” I said dryly.
“Cute and talented. I wouldn’t be upset having to stare at that gorgeous face every Thanksgiving,” Mom teased. “So you haven’t heard anything? I’m worried. It’s not like him to ghost me, as the young people say. He’s done a lot for your father and me, especially since we moved down here, and I miss him.”
I wanted to quiz her on all the ways the emotionally stunted stallion had supported my parents, but I heard the sadness in her tone and felt like an ass. A guilty ass. If my nonbreakup with Lucian had cost my mother her relationship with him, that meant now she was missing two men instead of receiving all the support she deserved. And I was going to let Lucian know that was unacceptable at the first possible moment.
“I’m sure he’s just busy,” I fibbed. “I bet he’ll be calling you up for lunch next week.” I would rain hellfire down on him to make sure of it.
“I hope so,” Mom said. She dumped the remaining law books on the carpet and sprayed down the bookshelf with a thick layer of lemon Pledge. “Enough about me. How’s the husband hunt going?”
“It’s…going. I had a first date with Kurt Michaels Friday night.” I did not add that I’d all but jerked off Lucian in the hallway during said date. My mother didn’t need to know she’d raised a trollop.
Mom abandoned her dusting. “And?” she prompted.
“And he’s nice. He’s smart. Cute. Obviously great with kids. He’s looking to settle down. And unlike everyone else I’ve dated, he isn’t married, lying, or running from the law.”
She raised a motherly eyebrow. “But?”
“How do you know there’s a but?” I demanded.
“Mother’s intuition. Just like I knew you were planning to sneak out to Sherry Salama’s sweet sixteen when you were grounded.”
I sighed. “On paper, he’s perfect. Hell, in person, he’s perfect. But there’s no…”
Engulfing flames of desire? All-consuming need to tear his pants off? Off-the-charts chemical reaction?
“Spark?” Mom supplied.
Spark seemed too tame in comparison to what I’d experienced with Lucian.
I shrugged. “Maybe I just want too much. Maybe I can’t have it all in a partner. I mean, who gets to have a husband who changes diapers, respects your work, and performs like a romance novel hero between the sheets?”
Mom threw her arm over my shoulder. “You’d be surprised.”
“If you’re going to use this as a segue to tell me about your sex life with Dad, I will send you the bill for therapy.”
“I’ll get my checkbook.”
I groaned and slumped against her. “Why does it have to be such a pain-in-the-ass process?”
“Nothing worthwhile is easy. Finding a partner isn’t about ticking all the boxes. No one is perfect, not even you, Sloaney Baloney. Falling in love is about discovering someone who makes you better than you are alone and vice versa.”
I plucked at the carpet. “What if they hurt you?”
“People make mistakes. A lot of them. You get to decide which ones are forgivable.”
“What kind of mistakes did Dad make?”
“He was always late. He brought his work home with him. When he was working on a case that was particularly important to him, he was in his head and not present with us. He had terrible taste in fashion. He was always sneaking junk food into the grocery cart.”
I chuckled.
“But the good always outweighed the bad. Your father and I had a very robust sex life, you know,” Mom added with a wicked gleam.
“Mom!”
She collapsed on the floor laughing. “Ah, that never gets old.”
“You drive me to drink,” I said, joining her on the carpet and staring up at the ceiling.
“I’m just returning the favor.”
“Mom? I don’t know if I ever really told you, but thank you for being such a great mom. You and Dad never once made me feel like I couldn’t…”
Mom sat up and grabbed a tissue from the box between us and held it to her eyes. “Sloane, I appreciate your heartfelt sentiments, but if you want me to stop crying anytime soon, you’d better insult me in the next ten seconds.”
“Your pot roast is dry, and I think your obsession with teeth is creepy.”
We were still half crying, half laughing when the doorbell rang.
Mom got to her feet. “I’ll get the food.” I heard her blowing her nose noisily through the condo.
I hefted the million-pound box of gardening books and lugged it over to the writing desk. I slid it onto the surface and accidentally sent a stack of paperwork flying.
“Crap,” I muttered. I knelt on the floor and began collecting papers, creating a sloppy pile of death certificate copies, greeting cards, and medical bills.
“Floor picnic or should we eat at the table like civilized people?” Mom called.
“Floor,” I yelled back, spotting one last paper that landed between the wall and the leg of the desk. I crawled over and retrieved it.
A name caught my eye as I transferred it to the top of the stack.
Frowning, I skimmed the document.
Lichtfield Laboratories.
Paid in full.
Lucian Rollins.
I felt an icy rush of shock sweep through me.
Mom stuck her head in the door. “Do you want more wine, a sparkling water, or should we switch to Bloody Marys since I forgot to order tomato soup?”
“What’s this?” I asked, holding up the statement.
She glanced at it, and I saw the flash of guilt followed by an involuntary softening. “That’s what I wasn’t supposed to tell you about.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded, bursting into Lucian’s office waving the statement like I was leading a marching band.
Behind his desk, he looked at me with that cool, flat mask, but there was heat in his eyes. And bruises on his face. He looked like some heart-throbby heroic boxer who’d lost a title fight.
“Sorry, sir,” Petula huffed, screeching to a halt in the doorway behind me. “She’s faster than I thought.”
“It’s fine,” Lucian said, making it sound like it was anything but fine.
“Kick his ass,” Petula said to me under her breath and disappeared.