A Good Yarn Page 0,60

She needs assurances that you still care about her and that you want to be part of her life. But only if you're sincere. Don't just pay her lip service - that'll do more harm than good."

He nodded like a petulant child. "All right. I will. I'll call her in a couple of days." He hesitated, then gave her a wry smile. "Thanks, Bethanne."

She shrugged. "You're welcome."

"How's Andrew?"

Bethanne resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Ask him yourself."

Grant cast her a chagrined look. "He wasn't keen to have anything to do with me, with or without Tiff around."

"Show up for a few of his football games in September, and my guess is he'd be willing to remember you're his father again."

Grant seemed to consider that. "Maybe I will."

In other words, if it didn't interfere with his schedule and he had nothing better to do.

She waited, thinking it was time he left, but Grant lingered as if there was something else on his mind. "I understand you and Paul Ormond recently got together," he finally said.

"Who told you that?"

He offered her a half smile. "Word gets around. A guy from the office - you don't know him - saw the two of you at Anthony's the other night. What's that about?"

"How did he know me?" she asked curiously.

"I had your picture on my credenza."

Past tense, she noticed. The irony of the situation didn't escape her. For two years he'd snuck around behind her back, having an affair, and not once had she gotten wind of it. But she had one date in twenty-two years, and someone reported it to Grant.

"Are you and Paul an item?" he asked.

Bethanne stopped herself just in time. It wasn't any of his concern who she saw - or dated. Nor did he need to know that Paul had phoned two or three times since and encouraged her in her job search. They were simply friends, but she'd never had a male friend before.

"That's between Paul and me."

"In other words, I should mind my own business."

"Yes," she said, smiling gleefully. "I think you put it very well a few months ago. I have my own life now, Grant, and it is my life."

CHAPTER 20

COURTNEY PULANSKI

Courtney felt wretched. An enraged Annie Hamlin sat in the middle of Courtney's bed. She'd ranted for a good five minutes without taking a breath, still angry almost two weeks after the rave and everything that had happened.

"You had no right to contact Andrew," Annie finished, whispering fiercely, apparently afraid of being overheard.

Courtney didn't bother to tell her not to worry, that her grandmother was half-deaf. "I didn't do it because I wanted to, you know."

"Andrew says I should thank you, but you can forget that." She glared at Courtney as if she'd purposely set out to ruin Annie's life.

"Fine. I'll forget it."

"I should've known you'd be a goody-goody type."

"Think what you like, Annie," she said, unwilling to let the other girl attack her. "But maybe it wouldn't do you any harm to hear what I have to say."

"About what?"

Courtney sidestepped the question and got directly to the point. "I know what you're feeling."

She shook her head. "No, you don't. You can't know."

"My mother died and - "

Annie's gaze narrowed. "Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"

"No. Now shut up and listen! Your father walked out on you and what you feel isn't that different from what I felt when my mom was killed."

"I wish my dad was dead."

Courtney grabbed the other girl's shoulders and her fingers dug into Annie's arms. "No, you don't! You're angry and the pain is ripping you up inside, but you don't wish that. You can't. My mother is dead and I'd give anything to have her back. Dead is forever, you understand? You haven't got any idea what it's like to have your mother alive and laughing one day, and then on some slab in a morgue the next. You can't possibly know what that's like." Tears clouded her eyes. "It's been four years, and I think about her every single day. Some days it's every single minute. My mom didn't want to die, you know. She was meeting a friend for lunch and a truck blew a tire and swerved onto the other side of the road." She rarely talked about the accident, rarely mentioned it to anyone, but Courtney felt it was vital that Annie understand what she was saying. Courtney had argued with her mother, too. She'd been furious with her a