Willow Brook Road(84)
After delivering Jackson to Noah, Carrie couldn’t bring herself to go back to her empty house. If she discovered that Susie and Mack were still hanging out at Sam’s, her sour mood would sink even lower. Instead, she headed to O’Brien’s, though she wondered if that was a good choice. This was hardly a problem she could dump in Luke’s lap. Susie was his sister.
Fortunately the pub was already busy and there were no seats at the bar, so she found a table in a corner near the front window and settled in with a glass of wine. With the view of the bay across the street, it was surprisingly soothing. There was time to listen to her own thoughts...about the day care, about her cousin and, of course, about Sam. Individually she could have coped with any one thing, but combined? Was she destined to make a bad decision about any one of them, just because she was too busy to think things through? All were too important for missteps.
She’d been there less than half an hour with no resolution to any of her dilemmas and was debating ordering dinner, when she looked up and found Sam by her table.
“Interested in company?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, then glanced around. “Where’s Bobby?”
“Susie and Mack are at the house with him. He didn’t want to leave his haul of toys, so they offered to hang out.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked, then winced. “Sorry. Not my business.”
Sam reached across the table and took her hand. “Carrie, what’s going on? That’s the second time I’ve picked up on some sort of tension between you and Susie. You carefully avoided giving me a straight answer earlier. How about now?”
She debated brushing off his observation for a second time, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. This was a man she might want to have a future of some kind with. Lying or even hedging was no way to move forward.
“Okay, maybe there is an issue,” she conceded, then added earnestly, “but it’s not my doing.” She hesitated, still not convinced she wanted to air this particular bit of family laundry.
Sam didn’t press. He ordered an ale, then watched her and waited. When Carrie realized he apparently had an endless supply of patience to go along with his keen powers of observation, she continued.
“Did you know that Mack and Susie were in the process of adopting?”
He nodded. “Mack mentioned how excited they were.”
“Well, the baby, a girl, was born a few weeks ago, but the mom backed out of the adoption.”
Sam looked shocked. “Can she do that?”
“Apparently.”
“That must have been heartbreaking,” he said. “But what does it have to do with you?”
“It shouldn’t have a thing in the world to do with me,” she said. “But you brought Bobby to town around the same time. Susie’s apparently focusing all that love she was so desperate to give a new baby on Bobby now.”
Sam looked momentarily stunned, then nodded slowly as understanding dawned. “A lot of things suddenly make sense to me. The very first day Mack brought her by to see Bobby, he was clearly worried. He thought she was going to get a little carried away, didn’t he?”
“More than likely.”
“And those toys she picked out. That’s part of her attempt to be a part of Bobby’s life,” he concluded.
“I’d say so.”
“Is it more than that? Is she waiting for me to screw up, so she can take legal action or something?”
Carrie was stunned by that possibility. “Of course not,” she said, then hesitated. “Honestly, I don’t know what she’s likely to do. She’s not thinking clearly right now. I’m trying to make allowances for that myself.”
“Because you’re somehow caught up in whatever’s going on with her,” he concluded. “But how? I still don’t see the connection.”
She smiled. Typical male, oblivious to any nuances when it came to women. “Don’t you see? She thinks I’m in her way, because you and I have gotten to be friends. You’ve turned to me a couple of times when you needed help with Bobby.”
“But that’s crazy,” Sam said at once. “She’s married to my boss, happily as near as I can tell.”
“Sam, it’s not about you. It’s about my relationship with Bobby or the access that my friendship with you has given me to him.”
“Oh, boy,” Sam murmured.
“See what I mean about how complicated things have suddenly become?” She noticed the worry building in his eyes and knew she had to offset any panic she might inadvertently have caused. “Susie’s really a good person. She’s just going through a truly terrible time. You don’t have to worry about Bobby or anything like that. He’s in perfectly good hands, especially with Mack there. And it can’t hurt, having so many people caring about him, right?”