Where Azaleas Bloom Read Free Page A

over the information with him the way
she used to?
    Because she’d been trying to figure out how to make that paltry
$24.35 last another week, she thought angrily, while her soon-to-be-ex was off
dining on steak himself, no doubt.
    “I’m getting you up a half hour early,” she told Jeremy. “We’ll
go over the material together.”
    “Mom!” he muttered with a dramatic groan.
    “And don’t even think about faking a stomachache or a sore
throat or an earache, you hear me?” She leaned down and gave him a noisy kiss
that had him giggling, despite the required protest that he was too old for such
displays of affection.
    Leaving her son, she tapped on Lexie’s door. “Still
studying?”
    To her dismay, Lexie looked up from the book she’d apparently
been pretending to read, her cheeks streaked with tears. “I miss Daddy,” she
whispered. “I’m sorry, but I do.”
    Lynn sat down beside her on the bed and gathered her into her
arms. “You don’t ever have to be sorry about missing your father,” she assured
her.
    “But it must make you sad when I say that,” Lexie said
knowingly. “I know how hard you’re trying to make everything seem normal.”
    Lynn managed a smile for her daughter. She sometimes wondered
if faking a smile would get easier with practice, but so far it hadn’t.
    “I think it’s obvious that things aren’t normal and no amount
of pretending is going to change that.” She tucked a finger under Lexie’s chin.
“Now look at me. You love your dad and, despite what’s happened between the two
of us, I know he loves you. I will never stand in the way of that.”
    “Then how come he hasn’t been around for so long?”
    Lynn sighed. “I wish I could explain your father’s actions, but
I can’t. Maybe he’s been extra busy at work.”
    “I tried his cell phone, but it went to voice mail, and Noelle
in his office said he’s away,” Lexie said, proving that she’d gone as close to
the source as she could get for answers. “She sounded kinda funny when I called,
so I don’t think it’s on business. Do you know where he went?”
    Lynn didn’t want to explain about the golf trip to Lexie. Lexie
was feeling unimportant enough as it was. Besides, Lynn didn’t know for sure.
Rumors were always rampant in Serenity. Only some of them proved to be true.
    “Not really,” she told her daughter, whose tears were finally
drying up, though the stricken expression on her face was still there. “Why
don’t I see what I can find out tomorrow, so you’ll know when he’s due home.
Will that help?”
    Lexie nodded. “You know what I don’t get? How can I still miss
him so much, when I’m so mad at him?”
    Lynn allowed herself a small and this time genuine smile at the
very complex question. Hadn’t she wondered the exact same thing herself more
than once? As furious as she was at Ed most of the time these days, there were
moments when the thought of never having his arms around her again made her want
to weep.
    “Relationships are complicated, sweetie. Love doesn’t go away
just because someone’s done something to disappoint you. You know how mad I get
when Jeremy drinks milk right out of the carton or when you leave damp towels
all over the bathroom floor?” She tickled Lexie. “I still love you.”
    “Or what about when you tell me ten times to clean up my room?”
Lexie asked, getting into the spirit of the teasing. “I get annoyed, but I still
love you. ”
    “Or when you deliberately disobey me no matter how many times I
tell you you’re not allowed to have a snack right before dinner?” Lynn said.
    Unfortunately, that one caused Lexie’s grin to fade. “Like
there’s anything here to have for a snack these days.”
    Once again, Lynn felt the weight of every bit of unanticipated
fallout from the divorce. There were the huge things, like Ed not being around
when the kids needed him or the mortgage payments being late again and again.
And there were the seemingly