Page 2 of The Candle Palace (Jamison Valley 6)
“We’ve decided you’re getting everything tonight,” Emmeline said from a pedicure station. She pointed to the empty chair at her side. “Take a seat.”
Again, I didn’t argue.
“Thank you.” I relaxed into the chair, the tub of water at my feet warm and waiting.
As I settled into the second pedicure station, Maisy gave me a smile, then disappeared down the hallway for her massage. The nail tech started on me right away as Gigi brought me over a glass of wine.
“So besides winter, what’s bothering you?”
I sighed. “Milo and I had a fight. He’s being an asshole.”
“What happened?” She went back to her seat between Felicity and Sabrina. The spa had a small lounge area with just enough seats for us all.
“My mother is coming to visit.”
Gigi winced. “Uh-oh.”
The two of us had worked together
at the Jamison Valley hospital for years. It was a quiet job, for the most part, which meant Gigi and I often found ourselves at the nurses station, talking. She knew a visit from Mom had the potential to end in disaster.
“Do they not get along?” Felicity asked.
“Not really.”
Gigi knew about Mom and why Milo didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her. But because I didn’t talk about Mom often, it was no surprise that Felicity, Sabrina and Emmeline were staring at me, waiting for an explanation.
“Milo and my mother do not like one another. At all. But she hasn’t met Hudson yet, and she’s been asking and asking when she can come out for a visit. She’s been . . . persistent. And I finally just gave in.”
With the roads snow packed and icy these past few months, it had been easy to persuade her to stay in Spokane. I hadn’t had the energy to play mediator between her and Milo while trying to adjust to life with Hudson.
But Mom wasn’t waiting any longer. She was dying to meet her grandson. Even though the temperatures were ridiculously frigid, the roads were mostly clear. She was coming in two weeks, whether we liked it or not.
She’d been waiting years for a grandchild. I didn’t talk to Mom often, but after Milo and I’d gotten married, not a phone call had gone by when she hadn’t asked if I was pregnant.
It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know how hard it was to choke out a no. I hadn’t told her how long Milo and I’d struggled to get pregnant.
Hudson was our miracle baby. I was thirty-five years old. Milo was thirty-eight. We couldn’t afford expensive fertility treatments, so after years and years of failed pregnancy tests, we’d all but given up hope. Then he’d come along, and even though my mother irritated me beyond belief at times, I wanted him to know his grandmother.
“Milo always gets jumpy when she comes for a rare visit. We got in a fight tonight over where she was going to sleep. I said the guest bedroom. He said the basement. On the floor.”
“That doesn’t sound like Milo,” Felicity said. “He’s so sweet to everyone.”
“It’s coming from a good place.” I sighed. I’d forgotten that while we’d been fighting, but Milo’s reaction to my mom was because he loved me so much. “Mom and I have always had a strange relationship. She did some things years ago that hurt me. Milo hasn’t let it go.”
“That sucks.” Emmeline reached over and patted my hand. “Sorry.”
I shrugged. “We’ll get through it. She’ll come and visit. Drive Milo crazy. Then she’ll leave and we won’t see her for another year.”
“What did she do?” Felicity asked.
“Short story? She chose to believe my archenemy instead of me.”
“I’m afraid to ask, but what’s the long story?”
“It’s long. It goes way back to when Milo and I met.”
“You know what’s crazy?” Sabrina snuggled deeper into the plush chair where she was curled up. “I can’t believe that in all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve never heard the whole story of how you two got together.”
