Chapter 17
It was some minutes before the children dared creep out of the bushes again.
—Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children
Watch began to bark as Kristin stormed the hot tub, blasting Dancy with maternal brimstone. “You let go of my son right this
minute!”
Dancy sprang away and sank deeper into the water, a useless gesture considering the lack of bubbles. Watch, having done his
duty, set his head back on his front paws while his eyes stayed alert.
Clint had no idea where his mother had come from or what she was doing here. He did know she was on the warpath.
Her sandals slapped the flagstones. “How dare you think you can pop back into his life after what you did to him!”
He hadn’t heard anybody say “how dare you!” in a long time.
Kristin reached the edge of the hot tub. “I have a long memory. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
He needed to intercede. And he would. But how bad a guy would he be if he admitted he was kind of interested in seeing how this Clash of the Titans would play out?
At fifty-six, his mom was still a head-turner. His sister, Rory, used to say that Kristin looked like every toned, blond,
blue-eyed socialite who made a career out of hosting high-society events. But his mother was far from a socialite. While other
people were winding down their careers, Kristin had found new life as Rory’s hardworking business partner.
Now she loomed over the hot tub like a well-groomed gargoyle. “I haven’t forgotten what happened, and I don’t care how long
ago it was. You still know exactly what you’re doing. Life isn’t working out for you, so you’ve decided to sink your claws
into him all over again!”
Instead of fighting back, Dancy huddled meekly under the water. He’d never been so disappointed in anyone. “Okay, Mom. That’s
enough. Do me a favor and grab a couple of towels from the laundry room. Dancy’s self-conscious about being naked when she’s
not in front of a camera.”
“You’re a despicable human being!” Dancy hissed at him as Kristin stalked across the patio and into the house. Dancy snatched
her underpants from the stone deck and struggled to put them on underwater, her breasts bobbing. “Why did you tell her I was
here?”
Those breasts . . . “I didn’t tell her.”
“Then how did she find out?”
“Beats me.” He tore his eyes away. “And I’m telling you right now that I’ve lost all respect for you. Acting like a scared
rabbit instead of standing up for yourself.”
“She’s your mother!”
Before he could say more, Kristin came charging out of the house carrying the towels and looking like some sort of Viking warrior woman. He figured Kristin must have found out about Dancy from Clint’s last conversation with his sister, who should have kept her damn mouth shut.
Kristin dropped the towels on the edge of the hot tub, turned her back, and crossed her arms over her chest. “And you! You
should know better.”
He emerged from the tub, wrapping the towel around his waist. “I appreciate you watching out for me when I was a kid, but
now you need to back off.”
Next to him, Dancy came out of the water, towel anchored so high in her armpits, she was practically choking herself.
Kristin turned back around. “Don’t you start with me, Clint Garrett! You have never had any sense when it comes to women! Here I am, nearly sixty years old—”
“Fifty-six.”
“—forced to drive halfway across the country when I should be at home with my husband.”
Driving here from Chicago was hardly driving halfway across the country, but he did plan to have a word with his stepfather,
Daniel, about letting Kristin take off alone when she was so upset.
Kristin gave Dancy a stare cold enough to drown a campfire. Instead of staring right back, Dancy ducked her head, picked up
her clothes, and called out for her dog. “Let’s go, Watch.”
He needed to talk to her, but first he had a demented mother to deal with. “You,” he said to Kristin. “Inside.”
Still wrapped in the wet beach towel, Dancy sat on the log by the vodka bottle, her teeth chattering. This was the first time since she was seventeen that she’d seen Kristin. She hadn’t needed tonight’s encounter to know how Kristin still felt about her betrayal of her beloved son.
Kristin had been good to her. Surely she’d had concerns about Clint’s relationship with a girl raised by housekeepers and
babysitters, but she’d still welcomed Dancy to the family dinner table. She’d been interested in her school projects, her
friends, and what she was reading. Dancy had never warmed up to Clint’s dad, but Kristin had been everything Dancy’s own mother
wasn’t, and Dancy had adored her.
She gazed at the vodka bottle. She’d barely noticed it these past few days. Now she wanted to empty it right down her throat.
But the bottle represented everything she’d let go wrong, so she snatched it up, twisted off the cap, and slowly dumped it
out. When it was empty, she set it in the leaves and rose from the log. With Watch following her, she went inside.
She’d just changed into the silky ivory sleep set that Erin had found for her when Watch scampered to the door. Seconds later,
she heard a knock. With a sigh of resignation, she opened it.
Clint stood there, all manly and delicious, his gaze taking her in from top to bottom in a way that made her want to drag
him straight to bed. “I’m sorry about—”
“Not tonight.” She cut him off.
“Dance . . .”
“No means no.” She shut the door.
The next morning was cloudy and windy, more like May than early July.
As Dancy finished dressing in her new jeans and a gauzy top, she realized that Clint might be in the water right now, swimming alone across the lake.
Abandoning Watch to the caboose, she hurried toward the dock, even though it wasn’t her job to keep the lunkhead from drowning.
Clint had swum across the lake dozens of times, and she shouldn’t get so worked up about it.
But setting off on long swims without telling anyone he was going didn’t sit right with her.
Just because he’d been lucky so far didn’t mean his luck would hold, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something could go horribly wrong.
The lake was too choppy to see much from the dock, so she hurried up the boathouse steps to the roof deck for a better view.
Other than a few sailboats taking advantage of the wind, no one else seemed to be on the water.
She sank into a chair and took a few deep breaths. She was having serious anxiety issues. In a little over a week, Clint had
become the friend she needed, the person who saw her for exactly who she was and still managed to care about her. The same
qualities that had drawn her to him as a teenager were drawing her to him now, but this time she wouldn’t ruin it. After last
night, it was blindingly clear that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, but she couldn’t bear destroying what they
had over something as transitory as sex. If she wanted to preserve her relationship with Clint, she needed to take a step
back. A big step.
The wind was too sharp for her thin top, and she wished she were curled up in Clint’s sweatshirt, the one she’d lost to the
bottom of the lake. Footsteps interrupted her gloomy thoughts. Footsteps too light for Clint’s solid tread.
Mommy Bear appeared at the top of the stairs and strode onto the deck. She’d already combed her perfectly highlighted blond bob, put on makeup, and dressed for the weather in a light blue hoodie and matching joggers. “Clint says I owe you an apology.”
Dancy leaned back in the chair trying to look relaxed. “No apology needed.”
“Good, because you aren’t getting one.” Kristin wiped the dew from the chair seat next to Dancy with a tissue she pulled from
her pocket. During Clint’s high school years, she’d been the quintessential team mom, hosting pizza dinners and raising money
for the booster club, even though she hated having her precious son play such a dangerous game.
She wadded up the soiled tissue and sat on the dry cushion. “I know you’ve had a hard time lately, and you have to be humiliated
by what happened in Chicago, but maybe it’s the wake-up call you need to get into rehab.”
“I don’t really have a drinking problem.”
Kristin’s smooth forehead wrinkled with concern. “I was at the caboose. I saw that empty liquor bottle.”
In the seconds it took for Dancy to remember pouring out the vodka, Kristin dug deeper. “I’m sure you think I’m hard-hearted,
but I’m not. I’ll do whatever I can to help you get proper treatment.”
“As long as I leave your baby alone, right?”
“I’m not embarrassed to want what’s best for my son, especially after what happened with Ashley,” Kristin said stiffly. “He
acts as if he’s over it, but I’m not sure. And we both know he’s a soft touch for anyone who needs help. You’ve taken advantage
of him, and I don’t like it.”
There was a grain of truth in that, although not entirely in the way Kristin had meant. “This might surprise you, Kristin, but Clint is more than capable of taking care of himself.”
“If that were true, he wouldn’t have let you, of all people, stay here. Your life is a mess, and instead of dealing with it
yourself, you’ve run to him.”
Dancy couldn’t refute that.
“Please, Dancy. Do the right thing. Focus on fixing your life, not on seducing my son.”
It wasn’t clear who’d been seducing whom last night, but Kristin had a point. She touched Dancy’s arm. “I need you to hear
me. Playing at the top of his ability means everything to him. He needs to be focused on getting ready for the season, not
on your problems. You’re standing in the way of greatness.”
Kristin should have been embarrassed to spout that kind of hyperbole, but she believed it, and Dancy thought how lucky Clint
was to have a mother with such faith in him.
Toenails clicked on the steps, followed by a more solid tread. Batman and Robin to the rescue. Dancy was more than happy to