Mother, Please! - By Brenda Novak & Jill Shalvis & Alison Kent Page 0,87
He’s a wonderfully insightful man, and quite cute to boot! I refuse to stand in the way of the rest of your evening together.”
Suzannah laced her fingers and held her hands at her waist. The look she gave Avery conveyed both repentance and concern. “I am sorry, sweetie. I should have been up-front in telling you about Leslie.”
“Considering how adamant I’ve been about keeping Daddy’s memory alive, it’s no wonder you didn’t.”
“I had hoped that meeting him without having formed expectations would give you a chance to see him for who he really is. And to see how happy he makes me.” Suzannah asked, “Avery, are you pouting?”
“Of course not.” Pouting? No. About to cry? She feared exactly that. Her emotions were all over the map. Tonight had been a series of highs and lows as she’d considered how often she’d rejected a challenge, refused an adventure because she didn’t want to open herself up.
“You look miffed.”
“I’m not miffed. I’m…frustrated, I suppose. I’ve been so wrapped up in keeping the status quo. I thought having me around after Daddy’s death would make things easier on you.”
“And it did. It has. You’re my daughter. I love you being here where I can be reminded daily of my greatest accomplishment.” Suzannah took Avery’s hands in her own, stroking her thumbs over the backs, bringing Avery to the verge of tears.
“Oh, Mom.”
“Shh, sweetie. Let me finish.” Suzannah took a deep breath. “What I don’t love is wondering if you’ve given up living your life to the fullest out of a sense of responsibility to me. I haven’t stopped living my life at all.”
“I know.”
“I see the friends I want to, take the trips I want to. The only status quo being kept is your own.” Suzannah then lifted the brow that had inspired compliance in decades of students.
“I think it’s time you let the past go and stepped into the future.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LISTENING TO LESLIE and Suzannah’s laughter as they made their way down the staircase, David closed Avery’s front door and turned toward her.
She wasn’t there. She’d been standing beside him until moments ago, having seen her mother and Leslie to the door. The second the older couple stepped from the apartment onto the landing, Avery had obviously flown the coop.
He barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Such typical Avery behavior, backing away when the heat was on. And more often than not, backing into the kitchen. It was as if she found whatever comfort she needed in food.
Not in eating, but in the preparation and the presentation. The familiar routine. The expectation of having things go her way and turn out exactly as planned.
He’d wondered why of all the things she could’ve done with her life that she’d chosen to open a bakery. In the light of her food fetish, the business made sense. Avery Rice was a creature of habit, one at home in her element, one who had done everything in her power to secure her safe harbor—a harbor she was about to have buffeted to the ground.
He headed for the kitchen, where he heard her banging around, and stopped in the doorway to watch as she flipped on the switch for the garbage disposal and began to shove a perfectly good and barely half-eaten loaf of French bread down the drain.
The motor ground and whirred, chugging hard as the bread became nothing more than wet floury goo. Undaunted, Avery continued to feed the loaf to the unforgiving blades. It was time for an intervention.
David crossed the kitchen and flipped down the disposal’s switch. The motor halted mid-grind. Avery looked up, her eyes wildly bright and red rimmed though as dry as the proverbial bone.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, her anger palpable though he didn’t know the source.
“You have something against leftovers?” he asked, using his height to advantage as he towered above her.
“No, I’m just cleaning up.” Mouth clamped shut, she waited for him to move his hand from the switch. When he didn’t, she tossed the rest of the loaf into the sink and returned to the table for the casserole dish of lasagna.
David moved to intercept the food before it suffered the same grinding fate. “Avery, destroying the rest of dinner isn’t going to make anything better.”
A dark blond brow went up. “Who said I’m trying to make anything better? Unless you consider cleaning up this mess making things better.”
It was the way she said the word mess that got to him. She