Where There's Smoke Read Online Free PDF

also know why?
    "You know."
    "Yeah, I, ah, Dad made it sound like they told you hours ago. I wondered why you hadn't called. Are you okay?"
    "Not so much, no. Try minutes, not hours."
    "I'm sorry, Lauren."
    "I better go.” But she didn't want to. She wanted to hold onto the phone, take his comfort. Instead, she had to get answers.
    "Yeah, I guess. Call me if you need me."
    "Yeah, okay, bye."
    Her mother's expression froze. “Seth."
    Lauren wondered, not for the first time, at Valerie's disapproval of Seth. “He just heard."
    "Oscar wasted no time, I see."
    Lauren shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable. “He just wanted to see if I was okay."
    "How serious is this between you two?"
    Could her mother see the change she so recently realized herself? God help her if she was that transparent. If her mother who rarely saw her knew, Seth no doubt did as well. So she fought back. “So very off topic, which I can understand given the question before the court. Was there—is there someone else?"
    Valerie took a deep breath and Lauren thought she'd decline to answer.
    "I have a right to know,” Lauren said.
    "You don't, actually, but I'll tell you anyway. Your father was the someone else."
    Lauren had stiffened, ready to defend her father if Valerie accused him of having an affair—wrong, she knew, but instinctive. She didn't relax at the conclusion of the sentence. Maybe it was her pain medication, but so much didn't make sense.
    "Dad was the other man?” She must have misheard. Stupid pain medicine that didn't do much for a damn broken heart.
    "I was in love with someone else when I met your father.” Her mother's voice, her expression, mellowed, and she looked years younger as she went back in time. “So in love, but there was no future for us. I was afraid to be alone, that I'd never find anyone to love if I didn't marry someone I knew, so I turned to your father."
    Romance, hell. The woman didn't know the meaning of the word, not if she could walk away from a thirty year marriage and seem happy about it. Lauren wanted to shout at her mother to grow up. “And thirty years later this is why you're breaking up? Excuse me if I don't see the connection."
    There went the defenses, right back up. Her mother drew away, and her characteristic frown returned. Damn it, Lauren could have learned so much more by not being so accusatory. Too late. She wondered if she'd ever again be able to talk to her mother without resentment. “You asked if there was someone else. There was always someone else."
    Lauren squeezed her forehead. “In your mind, you mean. The one who left you."
    "Yes."
    "So you're leaving Dad out of guilt?"
    "No! One has nothing to do with the other."
    "I'm confused."
    "You asked a question, I answered it."
    "A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed."
    Valerie stood up then, gathering her purse. Her patience, never her strong point around Lauren, finally was at an end. “You were always difficult. Why do you always have to be difficult?"
    "What did you expect me to do? Say, ‘Oh, great, Mom, so glad you and Dad are throwing thirty years of marriage down the drain, have a nice life?'” She wished she could stand up, go nose to nose with her mother, but the effort would take too much.
    "I'd like, for once, for you to see my side. Just for your information, your hero of a father was supposed to be here today, to tell you with me. Looks like he chickened out."
    And Valerie stormed out, her heels clomping across the wood floor, the glass in the door rattling when she slammed it. Lauren dropped her head to the couch as her mother's last words sunk in. Valerie was right, Lauren did always take Mitch's side, but only because Valerie never seemed to.
    It was sad, though, wasn't it—that the only way her mother could get the last word was to fire a shot and then bolt?
    * * * *
    Lauren was in no better shape when Seth dropped by Saturday morning. The only thing that saved him from the growling temper that chased his