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Daryl was snickering behind me and I rounded on him. “What the fuck is so funny Daryl?” I snapped.
He shook his head and looked at my with eyes full of pity. “You used to have so much promise when we first met Amanda. Now look at you. Stuck in this shit town, with your lumberjack and his kid? Wow. I’ve heard of rags to riches, but not the other way around.”
“You’d better watch yourself,” Brian said, his voice low and dangerous.
I turned to him. “Why don’t you and Lanie grab that pizza and head back home, I don’t have much of an appetite right now. I can handle this,” I told him. The last thing I wanted was for Lanie to see her uncle taking a swing at Daryl.
Brian’s eyes bored into mine, but I stood my ground and nodded to him. Finally, he turned on his heel and walked with Lanie toward the pizza parlor.
I turned back to Daryl, who was appraising me with a low whistle. “So you do still have some spunk left in you,” he said. “Looks like your lumberjack isn’t so tough after all.”
I laughed out loud at his comment. “Please. Brian is three times the man you are Daryl. Just because he chooses not to lay you out right here on the street in front of that little girl, doesn’t mean he isn’t tough.”
Daryl shook his head. “It really is sad, Amanda. I could have given you so much more than this.”
“You couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give me your support, and that’s the only thing I ever really wanted. Go back to New York Daryl. It’s over,” I said.
I pivoted and walked to my car, sliding behind the wheel and picking up my phone. I needed to talk to Sarah. She was always good at helping me sort things out. I started the car and headed back up the mountain.
CHAPTER 22
Brian
After the encounter on the sidewalk yesterday, Lanie and I had grabbed our pizza and brought it home. She had asked several questions about who the man was, and I told her he was an old friend of Amanda’s.
“Hmph, friends ‘pose to be nice. He not nice,” she had answered.
I had to laugh. Kids were way more intuitive than most people gave them credit for. I spent the rest of the day and that evening wanting to reach out to Amanda and see if she was ok. I could see her car in the drive in front of her cabin, but she made no attempt to come over or to contact me. I knew she needed her space.
I figured things would be tense with her after seeing her ex. He was a little maggot, and it was hard for me to figure out what the hell she’d ever seen in that asshole. He was cocky, arrogant, belittling, and full of himself. Maybe that shit got college girls off. Maybe he had money, and she was willing to overlook his idiotic attitude for nice dinners and shit. But Amanda didn’t strike me as that kind of girl, which made it even harder to figure out.
I was worried about her. She left angry yesterday, and I hadn’t seen her since. I wanted to ask her how the interview for the gallery showing went. To let her rant to me about how her ex was a fucking nutsack. I wanted to sit down with her and go over the plans we had already set in motion and make sure she was still okay with them.
But most of all, I didn’t want to lose her.
Not just because Lanie had become attached to her, but because I was falling for her. I craved her. Desired her. Wanted her in ways I’d never experienced, even with my ex-wife. I wanted to listen to her talk about her art and ask her about her future plans. I wanted to do anything I could to help her, especially since she was helping me. I wanted to hold her close to me at night and talk lowly to ourselves. I wanted to continue spending my days with her. She had dropped down onto this mountain on a chance inheritance and had somehow managed to wiggle her way into Lanie’s and my life.
And I no longer wanted to let her go.
Lanie and I spent the day together while I tried to get my mind off Amanda. I chased Lanie around the front yard and held her as we watched a movie. I read her favorite book to her, and we built lots of towers with her blocks. She loved driving her race car into the towers I would create. She would laugh until tears formed in her eyes whenever her car could knock down those blocks.
But as the hours ticked by, Amanda still didn’t show up.
