Waking Up To Love (Lakeside Porches Book 4) (13 page)

“Do you have a sponsor you can talk to about things like this?”

“No, should I?”

“Absolutely. I know you’ve gone through the steps, but I find it really helps to have a go-to person you trust. Gwen’s my sponsor. You know her, right?”

“She was in London with Justin. And she’s Haley’s aunt?”

Manda nodded. “She might not want to sponsor both of us, though. Conflict of interest. Think about asking Gianessa. You two seem to click.”

“She did help me a lot for that breakfast meeting with Justin.”

“You didn’t tell me about that.”

Lyssa filled her in on her behavior at the Cushmans and her apology to Justin the next morning.

“Geez, Lyssa, you could have lost the job.”

“I know. When I get overtired and super-stressed, I have a meltdown. I need to work on prevention and early detection.” She glanced at her phone. “Seven-forty. If Rand were going to be late he’d have called or texted. He’s not coming.”

“What do you think happened? You said he smelled like pot. Maybe he got into something else when he got home, and forgot.”

Lyssa pressed redial, and Rand’s voicemail picked up.
Again
. “Rand, Lyssa here. I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I really wish you’d call to let me know you’re all right. I did find something sexy to wear and waited out front for you to pick me up, as promised, and now it’s seven-forty and I’m officially giving up. Thanks for doing the apple picking with me today. I’ll undoubtedly eat the whole pie as soon as it’s out of the oven, so you’re out of luck with that.” She ended the call with a snap of her thumb.

Manda giggled. “Punish him with no pie. I love it.”

“It’s the one thing he really cared about today. I am so hungry. If Joel’s out for the evening, you and I could go to Ralphs or something. What do you say?”

“Join us for supper,” Manda said. “Joel just texted me, and he’ll be home in, like, five minutes. We picked up lobster meat this morning, and we’re making big salads. There’s plenty for the three of us.”

“Will Joel mind?”

“Not about dinner, but if you want to talk about buying his car, he might be distracted by the slinky dress that barely covers your behind.”

“I’ll change.” She stood and tugged at the hem of her deep blue jersey dress.

“I’ll bet Kyle liked that dress.”

“It was his favorite. Can I contribute something to our meal?”

“Maybe some rolls or bread, if you have any.”

When Lyssa came back downstairs, wearing a mid-calf sundress with a cropped sweater and carrying a hunk of cheddar and a loaf of sourdough bread, Joel opened the door with a smiling proposal. “I hear you’re interested in buying the Passat. I thought we could go for a test drive while Manda finishes making our salads.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Joel.” Lyssa took the food to the kitchen island. She whispered to Manda, “Any sisterly advice?”

“Just don’t drive fast. He can’t stand that.”

Buckled into the driver’s seat, Lyssa let Joel direct her around town, up and down the hills south of town and through the maze of narrow, twisting drives on the campus of Tompkins College. Back at Lakeside Terrace, he pointed to his parking space behind the houses and challenged her to back in. She did. “How did it handle for you?” he asked.

“Easy. It’s very responsive.”

“How about the driver’s position?”

“The seat? Comfortable. Plenty of legroom. The controls are in easy reach. You’re serious about selling?”

Joel nodded. “My new one will be in Tuesday. We can do the handoff Tuesday evening.” He proposed a price, and they shook on it.

As she locked the car, she gave a fist-pump. “Yes!”

Instead of heading inside, though, Joel motioned her over to the side of the street where he had parked before their test drive. “Take a look.” He pointed to a thin, half-smoked cigarette that lay barely concealed in the grass.

Lyssa squatted down, picked it up, and sniffed it. “Reefer. Fresh.” Her heart hammered.

“Yours?” Joel demanded.

“No.” She stood and faced him, her gaze troubled. “But I think it might be Rand’s. I smelled it on him earlier, and he denied it. He dropped me off right about here a couple of hours ago. I assumed he drove off, but I didn’t really look. Maybe he lit up before he left.”

She turned questioning eyes to Joel, her forehead creased with worry. “We had planned to have dinner together, but he never came back.”

“Should you check on him?”

“I’ve been calling, but my messages have all gone to voicemail. Manda’s probably right. He probably got into something else and forgot.”

“Probably passed out.” His voice was hard.

“Maybe.” She nodded.

It bothered her that Joel had assumed the butt was hers. He had reason to mistrust her. Manda had asked her to be maid-of-honor for their wedding, but she wasn’t sober then, and she’d made a horrible scene when she flew from Austin to Rochester to shop for dresses. She’d gone into rehab the same night. She had upset and hurt Manda, and that was Joel’s first impression of her.

Joel had been cordial when she’d met him for the first time at their wedding reception. She’d come as a cleaned-up, newly sober, vulnerable stranger.
Joel may never trust me, but I have to keep doing the right thing
.

It was hard to look him in the eye, but she did it. “I’m sorry, Joel. I don’t want anything to do with drugs or alcohol, and I emphatically don’t want illegal substances left on your property by anyone I know.”

“Agreed.” His voice softened. “Let’s talk about it over a meal. We’re both tired and hungry.”

“Thanks.” She said a silent prayer and followed him inside.

After crisp salads topped with sweet, succulent lobster, Manda caved. “I can’t stand it, you two. What happened? What’s bothering you?” She stood to clear the dishes and looked from one to the other.

Joel nodded to Lyssa to take the lead.

“Sorry, Manda. When we got back from the test drive, Joel pointed out what was left of a joint, right out front. It was fresh, and I’m pretty sure it was Rand’s. He probably lit one after he dropped me off and tossed it before it was finished.”

“Lyssa.” Manda drew her sister into a hug. “What are you going to do? You can’t be dating someone who smokes pot.”

“No. I can’t date him again or ride in his car. For most people, a joint or two may not be a big deal, but I’m clean and sober, and I can’t be around pot. And I told him that.”

“You’re sure you did?” Joel asked.

“In those words, yes, Joel.” Lyssa sat back in her chair across the table from his. “And worse, I can’t believe he threw it on your lawn. It’s an illegal substance and that’s just not okay.”

“You told me you’d smelled it on him earlier in the day,” Joel said. “Did he drive home?”

“I drove us back here. Well, no, just as far as the carwash in Canandaigua. He drove the rest of the way.”

“So you drove because you were uneasy with him driving?” Joel drilled her with a look. Manda took the dishes to the sink and rinsed them.

“Yes. And to be honest, I wanted to drive his hot little car.” She laughed self-consciously.

“Did you ask him if he’d been smoking pot?”

She told him Rand’s answers, both times she’d asked.

“So you made it sound like you wanted to drive because it’s a hot little car?”

Lyssa tapped her foot and thought about it. “Correct.”
Joel’s tough and thorough, and he’s making me think straight
. She gave him an embarrassed, but grateful, smile. “I’m muddle-headed, aren’t I? My old sponsor used to call this ‘old thinking in new sobriety.’ I guess I’m not past it yet.” She folded her arms across her middle.

“Good reason to find a sponsor here, Lyssa,” Manda said.

“You’re right. Anyway, at first I didn’t know what to do or say about the pot. It was only when we got back here that I found the courage to tell him I couldn’t be around pot.” She reached for her half-f glass.

“Other than the smell, was there anything else about his behavior that bothered you?”

“His eyes were a little glassy . . .” She watched a rivulet of condensation slide down the outside of the glass. “When he put the apples in the car, I saw something else in the trunk that hadn’t been there on the way over. A good-sized package. I’m thinking it was something he got from Jim Tully. Not that it was necessarily drugs, but he looked startled—nervous—when he realized I was standing right beside him, looking into the trunk.”

Joel took the last swig of his sparkling water. “When he opened the trunk here, did you smell pot?”

“I just smelled apples. They’re really fragrant right off the tree.”

“Tell me exactly what happened when you got back here. Skip the part about the date.”

She gave him the details and finished with, “I don’t think the mystery package was something he bought in the shop at the orchard.”

“What did they sell?” Manda asked as she came back to the table.

“Cute kitchen things, recipe books, cider, frozen pies—what you’d expect. We went there to find something for me to eat, and I got the cheddar. Really delicious. But the bags they used for sales were plastic supermarket-type bags with the orchard’s logo. The package in Rand’s trunk was wrapped in plain, brown paper.”

“Who was this buddy of his?”

“Jim Tully, a history professor. And that’s another weird thing. Before we even got started picking apples, the Tully family came up behind us, and Rand went off with Jim. The wife and daughter disappeared in another direction. And their little boy was left with me. He was a terrific kid and a big help, but who goes off and leaves their kid with a stranger?”

Joel pushed back from the table. On his way to the kitchen, he asked, “Is Tully someone you remember from your student days, Manda?”

“Yeah. I was always uneasy around him, but I don’t have any facts to go with that. Are you thinking Justin needs to know about this?”

Joel came back from the kitchen with his phone. “Yes, but let me handle it. It doesn’t need to come from Lyssa.”

“I don’t know about that, Joel. Aren’t I responsible for this?”

He fixed her with a look. “Do you seriously want to have that conversation with Justin?”

She laughed nervously. “No, I do not.”

“Exactly. It’s an old conversation for Justin and me. The college needed a major overhaul a couple of years ago, and a lot of heads rolled. Maybe not enough.”

“Besides,” Manda said with a lighter tone, “Lyssa and I have our own problem.” She nodded toward the front door. “What are we going to do with that half-bushel of apples perfuming our entry?” They laughed.

“We’ll bake pies, of course, and make a ton of applesauce.”

“Right now,” Joel said, “I think you two should cut up some apples to go with Lyssa’s cheddar, while I give Justin a call.”

Even though Lyssa left Joel and Manda’s apartment just before eleven o’clock relaxed and happy, Rand haunted her sleep.

In the first dream, he followed her up the stairs with the basket of apples, carried it out to the porch and dropped apples one at a time into the waves that smashed the rocks at the base of the bluff. When she caught him in the act and yelled at him to stop, he turned around and pelted her with the apples, one after another.

She shielded her face, shoved the basket out of his reach, grabbed him by the shoulders, and marched him down the stairs, out to his Miata. “And don’t ever bother me again.” With a swift kick to the back bumper, she sent the white car on its way.

She awoke in a sweat.

Rain pattered the porch roof. She cracked open the French door, came back to bed and stretched out. The drops were gentle, so unlike the fury of the rain lashing the trees outside Pennington House her last night. And the smell of rain on Chestnut Lake was milder than the intoxicating smell of rain at the ocean.

She must have dosed again.

In the new dream, Kyle searched for her through the rows of apple trees, through the streets of Tompkins Falls, up and down the hills, all through the campus. “Call me, Lyssa.” His voice compelled her, but as she reached for her phone, Rand knocked it to the ground and backed over it with his filthy car. With a devilish smile, he told her, “I hear cow dung is bad for phones. Good luck with that.”

She awoke to rumbles of thunder.

A flash of lightning enticed her onto the porch. Arms braced on the railing, she watched the light show as it moved up the lake. When strong winds signaled the storm’s imminent arrival, she came inside, closed the door and lay on her bed.

She hugged her pillow and thought of Rand’s sexy kisses and devilish good looks.
Why is he even interested in me? He could have any woman.
The answer eluded her.

She slept. Bridey drifted in, sat on the edge of the bed, then stroked the curls off Lyssa’s forehead until the answer came.

I’m his connection to Justin
. Lyssa said to Bridey, “That’s what you meant by his obsession for status?”

Bridey smiled enigmatically and vanished.

Lyssa came awake, gently this time, and wandered onto the porch.

A gibbous moon hung in the night sky. The wind lifted her curls as she watched black clouds race above the shimmering, silver lake. Waves pounded the base of the bluff and splashed in a noisy display. A faint odor of ozone attested to the recent storm.

“Bridey,” she whispered, “I want to choose, but I’m afraid. What should I do?” No answer came back.

She padded out to the living room, phone in hand. The microwave read 2:07. She pressed Kyle’s number, and he picked up on the first ring.