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No, she was in complete control. Always.
Was it because of what she’d been through with Brandon? Because, like him, she couldn’t cope with the idea of having her life change so completely again?
Or because that’s just how she was? How she had always been?
The funny thing was that up until that day, he’d thought himself to be just like her. In complete control. And yet here he stood, in silk shorts and nothing else, with a life that was completely out of control.
He cared about Darin. And Maddie and Kara, too. So much so that he hadn’t wanted to leave them that night. He’d wanted to keep every one of them, Lynn included, under his roof where he could protect them.
He looked out into the night, into the darkness that mirrored emptiness back at him, and saw a picture of his life to date.
A wasteland.
* * *
LYNN SPENT A sleepless night. She accomplished very little. A couple of loads of laundry. Some ironing.
She watched late-night television.
And made decaffeinated coffee she didn’t drink.
By morning, she was exhausted beyond her ability to cope. But she fed Maddie and Kara. Walked with them to the day care, telling Maddie that she’d have her results for her at lunchtime.
The other woman didn’t seem the least bit concerned.
She’d submitted to the test because Lynn had insisted that that was what would happen if she came to the clinic to see her. But she hadn’t needed the results to know what her body was telling her.
She was pregnant.
And not the least bit upset about that fact.
Because Maddie couldn’t problem solve. Which meant that sometimes she couldn’t see the real problems in her life. She had no idea how much she’d just complicated her life.
Back at the bungalow, Lynn figured she had an hour to rest before Grant arrived. By her best estimation, they’d have another hour, give or take a few minutes, to find a solution to their problems.
And then she’d be facing lunch. And Maddie.
She went to bed and stared at the ceiling. After wasting five minutes of sleep time she moved out to the couch—hoping she’d trick herself into thinking she wasn’t really trying to go to bed.
Five minutes later she started to cry. And knew that wasn’t going to work. She had to sleep. More than anything.
She was a medical professional. Understood the importance of proper rest, most particularly during times of crisis. If she wanted to have the capacity to cope, she had to sleep.
If she’d had a sleeping pill, she might have taken part of one. What she had was a bottle of wine Brandon had brought her from San Francisco several months before. It was in the cupboard above her refrigerator.
A quarter glass of wine would calm her. The effect would be more instantaneous than anything else she could think of.
So she poured—and felt odd doing so in the early hours of the morning. But she drank it. And when it didn’t work as quickly as she liked, she carried the glass—and the bottle—into the living room with her. She’d lie on the couch and sip slowly until the wine took effect. If it happened in the next ten minutes, she’d still have half an hour to sleep before Grant arrived.
* * *
NERVOUS AS HELL and hating the fact, Grant knocked on Lynn’s door ten minutes before their scheduled meeting that morning. In jeans and his Bishop Landscaping polo shirt he could have been facing any other day.
But the only thing familiar about his day so far were the clothes.
Lynn didn’t answer his first knock so he knocked again. Maybe she wasn’t back from the main building yet. He was early, after all….
He heard the door click. She’d unlocked it, pulled it from its jamb and left it hanging there.
Catching a glimpse of her through the crack she’d made, he pushed his way in. The back of her bright green scrubs preceded him into the living room. So he followed, a bit concerned when she sidestepped and almost hit the lamp on the side table.
It wasn’t until he’d skirted the couch where she’d dropped, ready to sit beside her, that he noticed the half-empty bottle on the table.
“You’re drinking?” She didn’t drink much. She’d told him once that she couldn’t tolerate the loss of control.
And unless he was missing his mark, he’d say she’d just consumed half a bottle of wine before eight in the morning.
