I had to go slowly and concentrate, which was harder than usual because I was so emotionally drained. I couldn’t get the girl, the horrible loss from yesterday, out of my mind. I also couldn’t stop the endless replay of the way I had thrown myself at Nash from rolling over my eyes every time they drifted shut last night, which led to a sleepless night. Twice now we had shared a kiss in the midst of an emotional upheaval, both times it had made the situation more tolerable, more a shadow than a suffocating fog of bad feelings and hurt. I didn’t want to name what that meant, but I couldn’t deny that kissing him made me feel restored and set me back on solid ground. The fact he didn’t push me away, didn’t grill me endlessly about it, forced me to question all the memories I had that reminded me over and over again that I was supposed to think Nash was a heartless jerk.

I’d been seconds away from accepting his invitation to the wedding, even though the idea of spending time around him, around his friends and a bunch of strangers, made me want to hyperventilate. Thank God he had told me to think about it. There was some kind of current dragging and pulling between us that I didn’t trust, didn’t particularly like, but it was strong, and fighting its momentum was wearing me out, wearing me down. I actually wanted to spend time with him.

When he told me about his mom, how he used the words I know how it feels, Saint … it altered my entire perception of who I thought he was and who he really might be. Hearing that you were fat and ugly, that no one liked you, and that you would never have friends or get a boyfriend sucked coming from kids your own age, but kids could be mean and hopefully they would grow out of it. Being made to feel worthless and unwanted by a parent … that had to be devastating and nearly impossible to get over. I couldn’t even get my head around it. I didn’t want to examine too closely why that made a pang near my heart start to throb in pain or why the idea of him being against marriage and forever with one person made me a little queasy.

By the time I pulled into the driveway of my mom’s house, the trip had taken an hour longer than it should have and a full-on snowstorm was working through the mountains. I jogged up to the front door and rang the bell. I did a double take when my mom pulled open the door. It was one in the afternoon, she still had her pajamas on, and she was holding a half-empty wineglass in her hand. As she swayed slightly and glared at me, I didn’t believe for one second it was her first glass of the day, and that made my stomach drop.

“What are you doing here, Saint?”

There was no welcome in her tone, so I maneuvered past her and walked into the house. Before the split, she would have pulled me into her arms and hugged the life out of me whether I needed it or not. She would have asked me about work and my dating life. Now she looked irritated that I had crashed her pity party.

“Faith called me. She told me about the fire and I thought I should come and check on you. We’re worried about you, Mom.” I fought the urge to reach for her drink so I could dump it out.

She scoffed at me and slammed the door shut. I winced when some of the wine in her glass sloshed over her hand.

“You should be worrying about yourself, Saint.”

We might not have the kind of mother-daughter relationship where we were the best of friends, but my mom had never purposely lashed out at me in anger before. I reached out and snatched the wineglass out of her hand and stomped to the kitchen. Stung and annoyed by both her tone and her attitude.

“You shouldn’t be drinking anything alcoholic while you’re on so many different medications. This is ridiculous, Mom. You want to push me away by being purposefully nasty and by trying to force Faith to choose between you and Dad. You’re making this situation harder on everybody. The stunt with the fire …” I shook my head at her. “Is that a desperate cry for attention? Who did you think was going to swoop in and save you if you got arrested for arson? Dad? Well, I hate to break the news to you, but he’s moved on and so should you. Faith and I love you, Mom. That should be enough.”

She ground her teeth together and glared at me. Her eyes were glassy and she was even more unsteady on her feet than I thought. It sucked to see her this way, but it strengthened the idea that opening yourself up to someone else just to have them hurt you in the end was such an awful idea.

“What do you know about anything, Saint? You’ve never had love ripped away from you, never even had a man of your own. I feel empty inside.”

I sucked in a breath through my teeth and tried to remember that this was the wine and pills talking, but she was pushing the limits of what I was going to tolerate. I was going to tell her in no uncertain terms to knock it the hell off when she suddenly burst into tears and teetered over to the massive island in the center of the kitchen. She curled her hands around a stack of papers I didn’t notice before and waved them around in the air between us. I saw a sheen of glossy tears coat her wild eyes.

“I got the final divorce papers in the mail last weekend, and on top of that, your sister let the kids spend the weekend with him and that … that woman. How could she do that to me? She knows how I feel about his new girlfriend being my family. I just lost it. I literally went a little crazy.”

She was breathing really hard and looked so jagged and frayed around the edges that I had to walk over and wrap my arm around her too-thin shoulders. I felt an additional pang of alarm. She was shaking really hard and I felt like I could actually touch her sadness. This is what loving someone unconditionally ended you up with. I never wanted to be here.

“That had to be really hard, Mom. And I understand that you’re hurting, but almost burning down the house isn’t going to change any of it. There has to be a healthier way for you to deal with what you’re feeling because I don’t think claiming temporary insanity is going to keep you out of the hot seat for very long.”

She peeked out between her fingers at me and I winced at the makeup smeared across her normally pretty face. She looked like a drunken and demented clown. I wanted my mom back, wanted my family to be like it was. Unfortunately, that was no longer an option.

“What should I do, Saint? Pretend like your father doesn’t exist even though he lives in the same town and is flaunting his new, younger, prettier girlfriend in my face every chance he gets? You tell me, Ms. Smarty Pants, what should I do that’s healthier than what I’m doing now?”

I let her shoulder go and moved back around to the other side of the island. Mostly I needed a little space to avoid wringing her neck. I hated that it was so easy for her to be mean now.

“I don’t really know the answer to that, Mom. Maybe you just need some space away from it, away from them.”

She snorted and tossed her head back to wipe her cheeks off with the back of her hand. All she succeeded in doing was making a bigger mess. She looked absurd and miserable.

“You ran away when it happened to you, Saint. You didn’t come back for holidays or to visit, not for anything. All because you wanted to get away from a boy and hurt feelings. When college was done you took the first job you could find out there when all your family was here. Even when Faith started having all those babies, it wasn’t enough to bring you home. Try and tell me all about the healthy ways of dealing with things, Saint, go right ahead.”

I blew out a breath and curled my hands into fists on the marble top of the island. That was a low blow. She was on a roll and there was no getting through to her, and if I kept trying to reason with her while she was in this state, there was going to be irreversible damage done to our relationship, and as irritated as I was at her childish behavior, I didn’t want that to happen. Part of the reason I was back in Colorado was to work on things with my mom, not to drive us further apart.