The You I Never Knew by Susan Wiggs Page B

stop. It was frightening sometimes, knowing how completely out of her control he was. “Let’s not argue, Cody. Gavin and I have an appointment in Missoula and we need to get going. In case you’ve forgotten, we’re here for Gavin.”
    Cody tugged on his jacket, yanking out a pack of Camels, flashing them as he jerked open the door. “Yeah, I almost forgot. You’re here to offer spare parts to your long-lost father.”
    The kid had great timing. He knew just when to pick a fight. She had to call Brad, drop off Cody, and accompany her father to Missoula. She didn’t have time to deal with the rage and the hurt that had been ricocheting between her and her son since he turned sixteen.
    The kid’s mad at the world.
Sam had seen that instantly.
    She snatched up the phone and punched in Brad’s number. He sounded groggy when he picked up.
    “Oops,” she said. “I forgot you’re an hour earlier.”
    “Hey, babe.” A sleepy smile softened his voice.
    Michelle tried to relax, but she was too jumpy. “I wanted to call and say hi. I miss you.”
    “Miss you, too. Is everything okay out there? Do you need me to come out?”
    What she needed, she realized suddenly, was for him to come without asking. To understand her well enough to know that of course she needed him. She was facing a terrifying ordeal; he was supposed to support her.
    Dumb. If he showed up now, he’d be bored and fretful about missing work, and Michelle knew she’d feel guilty and that would make her cranky, and then she’d have a terrible attitude about the surgery. She shook her head, trying to veer away from that line of thinking. It was enough that he’d promised to fly in the day of the surgery.
    “No, we’re fine,” she said. “Did anyone call?”
    “Natalie.” Distaste rumbled in his voice; he’d never liked her best friend. An oft-unemployed cellist, Natalie Plum was the original free spirit. She drove a diehard planner like Brad crazy. “She’s bringing her stuff over to your house today.”
    “Good. I was hoping she’d house-sit while I’m away. So how was your weekend?”
    “Excellent. Dinner at Canlis with the Albrights. A round of golf at Port Ludlow. Babe, we should really look into getting a place up there. Mike was saying the lot values for the waterfront area have really shot up…”
    She tuned out the monologue about real-estate investments. She did that a lot lately. He loved to collect things—resort property, sports equipment, luxury cars—displaying them to the world like hunting trophies. She admired his ambition, the way he was so driven to succeed in his career. In addition to the pharmacy, he had made a killing in the stock market, and money was an obsession with him. Sometimes she wished he’d slow down.
    “… he’s a vascular surgeon at Swedish, got into the resort development on the ground floor…”
    Michelle made the appropriate murmurs as her mind wandered further afield. She remembered the day she’d finally figured Brad out. He’d just put money down on a thirty-six-foot Hunter yacht, and she told him he was crazy. The vacation home, the ski lodge, the golf membership at Lakeside, the ski place at Whistler—he was wearing her out.
    “Brad,” she’d told him last summer while standing on the dock next to the gleaming new sailboat. “Wouldn’t it be easier simply to
become
a doctor?”
    His reaction had been unexpected and sharp. “No, goddammit. It wouldn’t. What the hell sort of question is that?”
    He so rarely spoke in anger that she didn’t press. But she knew she had touched a raw nerve. He used to want to be a doctor the same way she used to want to be an artist. Now he owned a chain of pharmacies and she was a commercial illustrator.
    She listened patiently as he finished his recitation. She waited for him to ask how Cody was doing, but he paused in the middle of talking, yawned, and said it was time to get up and into the shower.
    “Wish you were here,” he said, the