Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) Read Free Page B

you stay calm and what we call ‘regulated’ throughout the day. Now, why don’t you tell me about the situation that brought you here?”
    Adam shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “I’ve been feeling angry for a while. My ex-wife drinks. Grade-A, certifiable alcoholic. I confronted her one too many times, poured out her booze one too many times, and she took the kids and left six months ago. We divorced.” He scrubbed his hands down the roughness of his work jeans. “I miss those kids.”
    “So they were her children?”
    “Yes, but just toddlers when we got married. I’ve been the only dad they know. They’re six and seven now.”
    “So you were angry. And your wife had left you. Then what happened?”
    “Lost my temper with one of my workers. Stupid sonofabitch left one of the saws on and unplugged it. Almost took my hand off when I plugged it in. So I gave him something to remember.”
    He could see Dr. Suzuki reading down a referral paper. “Says here you agreed to six weeks of anger management and to pay Tim Tindale’s hospital bill in return for dropped charges.”
    Adam frowned, folded his arms. “Never should have got to that point. There were no hospital bills. I just gave him a shove in the shoulder and a few choice words and fired him. He took himself down to the hospital and filed a complaint against me with the contractor’s association. Eventually, the cops threw out the charges—we had a dozen witnesses—but I agreed to go to anger management just to shut the guy up. At least I didn’t have to hire him back.”
    Dr. Suzuki glanced up, sharp brown eyes narrowed, and he felt them probing into his head. “So you don’t think you’re angry?”
    “I never said that.” He shook his head. “This whole thing was Tim trying to get back on the job, trying to save face. But I never said I wasn’t angry. In fact, I’m hoping you can help me deal with losing the kids.” He hunched forward, elbows on his knees, rubbed his eyes against a telltale prickling there. “They were everything to me.”
    He felt a flash of memory—one of them on either side of him, tucked under his arms, Diego snuggled against him and Serena sucking her thumb as he read them a story.
    “It feels so wrong that because I’m not their biological father, I have no rights to see them, while God knows what their mother is doing. At least from what I can tell, she’s living at her parents’ and the kids will have some care. Her parents are good people, even if they wouldn’t take my calls.”
    “Did you adopt them?”
    “I always meant to. Their dad is a total deadbeat; he seems to have disappeared out of the state. But we never got around to it.”
    “Have you filed anything with the court? An appeal for visitation rights?”
    “I tried. Met with a lawyer. Said it would be a long, expensive thing proving ‘best interests of the child.’ I got discouraged, didn’t want to drag them through that with their mother bad-mouthing me to them along the way.”
    “Does she have any ammunition to use against you? Any experiences of this anger we’ve been talking about?” Dr. Suzuki’s delicate inflection implied what he knew she wasn’t coming right out and asking.
    “Did I ever abuse her or the kids, you mean. No. Never.” He found himself breathing hard, his arms folded tight. She inclined her head in a graceful, accepting nod.
    “In through the nose, one-two-three. Out through the mouth, one-two-three-four-five.”
    He let her lead him through a couple more breaths and was surprised to feel his arms unfold and his blood pressure recede. “I’d come home from work, and she’d have Diego and Serena parked in front of the television, all the drapes pulled. She’d smoke and be passed out drunk on the couch.” He leaned forward, consciously loosening his hands to hang them between his knees. “I tried not to yell at her in front of the kids. I’d fix them a snack, send them outside, then throw the drapes open