A Million Little Things (Mischief Bay, #3)

Checking in to see how things are going. I hope you know I said what I said with love. XO

Thirty seconds later, her phone rang. Pam smiled as she picked up her cell only to realize she didn’t recognize the number on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Pamela. It is Miguel.”

Pam felt an unfamiliar swirling in her stomach, which she refused to analyze. It wasn’t the poor man’s fault that he had a delicious voice.

“Hello, Miguel. How can I help you? Is something wrong with Zoe?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

Oh. Okay. So why was he calling?

“I enjoyed our conversation at my daughter’s barbecue,” he told her. “I thought we could continue it over dinner.”

She blinked a couple of times as she considered his statement. She was pretty sure he was inviting her to dinner, which was weird. Maybe he needed advice about redecorating or something.

“Um, sure. We could do that. When and where?”

He suggested a date and time. Pam checked her calendar and said she was free.

“I’ll see you then,” she said. “Goodbye.”

After ending the call, she looked at Lulu. “That was very strange. I wonder if it’s Zoe birthday and he wants help buying a present.” Lulu didn’t seem to have an opinion.

Curiouser and curiouser, Pam thought. Whatever the reason, she would enjoy the evening with a very attractive man. She smiled. When she met with her friends in Phoenix, she would have a fun story to tell, and wouldn’t that be nice?





Chapter Seven

“Your dad said he liked me better than Chad.”

Zoe picked up her wineglass, put it down and sighed. “Please tell me you’re kidding.” Although she was pretty sure he wasn’t. She could see she needed to have a serious conversation with her father. There were personal boundaries he wasn’t supposed to cross.

Steven smiled at her from across the table. They were having dinner in Redondo Beach. Kincaid’s was a nice pier restaurant that featured great steaks and seafood.

“Your dad mentioned it at the barbecue.” Steven grinned. “Something along the lines of a gruff ‘you seem better than Chad.’”

Which was so like her father. “I’m going to kill him.”

“I doubt that. You two get along great and he’s a nice guy. So, Chad. You two were together a long time.”

“Five years.”

“Want to talk about it?”

She didn’t. Mostly she wanted to forget everything about the relationship. Only he’d been a part of her life and she knew that she had to understand her past or she would be at risk of repeating it.

“We met on the 405 freeway when I got a flat.” She held up her hand. “I swear, that’s exactly what happened. He pulled over and helped me. He said he was a master mechanic and he fixed my tire, then he invited me to dinner.”

“Taking advantage of the situation. You have to respect that.”

“An interesting way of looking at things.”

“I’m an interesting guy. So you went out.”

“We did. He was the perfect boyfriend, or so I thought. He was busy with work. He worked at a very upscale garage. They handle luxury cars with demanding clientele. So he was always traveling to work on cars in exotic locations.”

Steven frowned. “They don’t have local mechanics there?”

“Yes, well, it turns out they do. Chad wasn’t traveling—he was married, with two kids.”

She still remembered when she’d finally figured out the truth. How shocked she’d been. No, more than that. “I was devastated and humiliated. I thought I was so smart and together. I thought he was the one.”

Steven’s gaze turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. It was horrible. I broke up with him immediately and that lasted about six months. Then he showed up on my doorstep and told me he loved me and couldn’t live without me. More important, he was getting a divorce.”

“Was he?”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t believe him at first. He showed me the paperwork, took me to meet his lawyer, and when the divorce was really final, he had me speak with the judge. He meant it. He was all-in.”

She wondered how the story sounded. Did she sound like she’d been sensible or had she been a fool? She knew the answer, of course, but from outside—how did it look?

“That’s about when my mom died. I didn’t have the strength to fight him anymore. I’m not saying that as an excuse. I needed someone to lean on and he was there. So we got back together. I bought the house, foolishly thinking it would be our home. We planned how the bedrooms would be for the kids and what our life would be like. A few months later, I was offered the full-time job writing manuals. It was a lot more money than teaching and what with Chad and I getting married and starting a family, it made sense.”

Steven stared at her. “You were engaged?”

“Only in my mind. One day I realized that I’d only met his kids twice in the past year. He said he wanted them to adjust after the divorce, which I got, but twice in a year? I pushed, he pushed back. I realized we weren’t having the same relationship. He wasn’t looking for things to be different between us. He liked the status quo. So I broke up with him again and that’s it.”

“He let you go?”

She thought about their last few conversations. “He’s tried to win me back, but there’s no point. We want different things. I thought I loved him, but now I’m questioning that. Love is supposed to be a positive thing. With him, my world got smaller, not bigger. I made so many bad choices.”

“The house?”

“Not that. I really like it.” She smiled. “Except when the attic tries to kill me.”

“I’m going to fix those stairs.”

“I wasn’t hinting. I’ll be more careful next time.” She sipped her wine. “I wonder if I made the right decision quitting teaching. There are parts I miss and parts I’m grateful not to have to deal with. But I do wonder.”

“You could go back.”

“I don’t know if I want to. So I’m thinking on it.” She rested her hands on the table. “I hate that I was that girl. The one who built her life around a man. I thought I was smarter than that.”