She’d come here determined that if she got her studio just right, the joy would return. And she was still trusting that it would.
What about the cowboy?
There he was again, the big white elephant in the room. What about him?
Her cell phone rang, saving her for the moment.
Digging it out of her pocket, she glanced at the caller ID. So maybe she was wrong, she’d rather deal with the cowboy than her mom. Bracing for drama, she pushed the touch screen to accept the call.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Not the last time I checked.” Lucy concentrated on keeping her tone light, having long ago grown numb to the melodrama.
“Then why are you living at that dump in the middle of nowhere? You’ve come a long way, Lucy, after what that jerk did to you.” Lucy held back a retort. Her mother had no room to call names, having put Lucy’s father through basically the same thing that Tim had put Lucy through, only her mother had been an open book. But Nicole didn’t see the two as the same thing; everything she did felt justified in her mind.
“Mom, we’ve been through this. I want to be here. I’m loving it.”
“Your father should have stopped this—”
“I’m twenty-six years old and plenty old enough to make my own choices.” Without being dragged through guilt trips and hysterics.
There was a long, exaggerated sigh on the other end of the line. “I never said you weren’t capable of making your own choices.” Nicole’s voice dripped with emotion. “But what if I need you?”
And there was the whole gist of the conversation. Lucy fought off her own exaggerated sigh. “Mother, you are forty-seven years old—”
“Forty-four,” her mother corrected.
Nicole had shaved off three years of her age a few years back. Just knocked them off and somehow didn’t think anyone would notice. It wasn’t worth arguing over. “The thing is, Mom, I moved here to start fresh. I am going to be fine and so are you. After all, you have Alberto.”
“There you go again not paying attention to me. His name is Alonzo and no, I don’t have him anymore.”
Her mother was destined for unhappiness. The one good man she’d ever married had been Lucy’s dad, and Nicole had kicked him to the curb years ago. And when Lucy’s dad had had the audacity to fall in love and remarry—and be happy—Nicole had made it her life goal to try to make his life miserable.
Lucy had been the pawn her mother used most of the time in that quest. As a girl Lucy had suffered because of it and trusted no one with her heart until Tim. A bad move on her part—he and her mother were two of a kind.
“Mom, did you have a reason for this call?” Lucy asked, not happy about being reminded of what she wanted so much to escape.
She was ready to get to work and be done with this bad start to a good day.
“There you go being negative. Can’t a mother just call to check on her child?”
Sure she could, but then Nicole wasn’t a normal mother. There was always a reason for her call.