All-American Girl Read Free Page B

death-grip on the phone. If she wasn’t careful, she might snap it in two, and Ryan was so not worth that—or an accident on the freeway. “I’ve got to go. Talking to you while driving is bad for my health.”
    “Listen, Samantha. Ava misses you.”
    Her throat painfully restricted and her eyes burned. “How dare you—” She sucked in first one tight breath, then another. “You called me to tell me my stepdaughter misses me?”
    “Ex-stepdaughter,” he corrected mildly.
    “You divorce spouses, not children, Ryan.” She was shaking. Her grip on the steering wheel wavered. “ You are the one who hasn’t let me see her in over a year!”
    “That wasn’t for lack of trying, sweetie.”
    “Are you for real? You haven’t tried. I’m the one who’s tried to see her. You and your flavor of the month have been traipsing all over the place so I couldn’t even track Ava down. Where in the hell have you been keeping her anyway? She doesn’t like to travel…and she has school…and dance—”
    “I think I know how to be a father, Samantha.”
    “Keep telling yourself that,” she growled.
    A car cut her off. She flipped the driver the bird and sped up to get around him. Honks blared around her as she dipped in and out of traffic, the speedometer climbing higher with each mile.
    “Have you considered anger management classes?” Ryan asked, his voice still calm, smooth and grating at the same time.
    “If I need anger management classes, then you need psychotherapy. You are, after all, the reason I’m angry. Don’t call me again, Ryan. Don’t make me call my lawyer and put the squash on this crap. You got what you wanted in the divorce, now leave me alone. If I have to tell you again, it’ll be in front of judge, and I’ll be getting back every penny I had to give you.”
    “Jesus—wait—”
    Seething to the point of hyperventilation, Samantha flipped the phone shut and flung it across the seat. Suddenly, red lights flashed in her rear-view mirror. Red clouded her vision as she swerved, braking hard and coming to a stop on the median.
    Could her life get any worse? Get yourself together, Samantha. Ryan doesn’t own you. No one does.
    But Ryan took things from her. Important things. And most of all, he had Ava, the big-eyed, bouncy-haired, cute-as-a button little girl who Samantha worshiped, not to mention raised.
    A gloved hand rapped on her window. She rolled it down, plastering her best smile on her face.
    A tan man with dark sunglass dipped his head down. “Do you know why I pulled you over, ma’am?”
    Did she really need to answer that? She gulped, swallowing the sarcastic words on the tip of her tongue. “Uh…yes…speeding?”
    He nodded, frowning. “You were doing eighty in a sixty-five.”
    Her head fell into her hands. “God, I’m so sorry. I’m on my way to the hospital and I…I…people kept cutting me off and practically running me off the road. Then my phone rang and I thought maybe it was news about my grandmother so I answered it, got distracted and…jeez, sorry.” Her shoulders lifted and fell. “Can I just have my ticket?”
    As she yanked her license and proof of insurance out, all Samantha could do was hum a sad little tune she knew so well, courtesy of Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh.
    The melancholy donkey’s voice rang in her head. Ava had loved Winnie the Pooh and, not surprisingly, Samantha had clung to the image and self-loathing of Eeyore ever since her stepdaughter—and her life—had been ripped from her hands. And all for what? Money? A young hot fruit-loop? It’s no wonder Samantha aligned herself with an animal most people called an ass. Samantha was one; she knew it and hated it, but didn’t know how to stop it.

    Samantha swung the rental car into the parking lot of Cedar’s Medical Center and lurched to a stop in the nearest open spot. She shoved the car door open and stepped into the cool Vermont air for the first time in ten years, but barely registered