Page 92 of Wild For You
“To-may-to, to-mah-to. Same person, different name,” she blew me off with a flick of her hand in the air. When Andrew tried to step away, she reached for his arm. He stiffened as she slithered her hand up his forearm.
“Don’t touch me,” he seethed before pulling away.
She pouted. “Come on, baby. Don’t you want to finally take a ride?”
“Absolutely not,” he responded, and her gaze shifted over to me as he repeated his earlier question. “I’m going to ask you again. How did you find me?”
She took a healthy gulp of the Reisling. Even from here, I could see her eyes glossing over. “It wasn’t hard, sugar. Actually, my dear daughter helped.”
“I did not!” I shouted. “I have never mentioned where I was staying.”
“You didn’t, but that ex of yours did. Caleb didn’t need much convincing,” she said, and she smacked her lips. “If you know what I mean.”
My stomach was rolling worse and worse by the second. First, Andrew, and now Caleb. I knew my mother used her body to get what she wanted, but this was a new low, even for her.
“He’s engaged,” I pointed out, and she shrugged.
“Didn’t stop him from shoving his dick down my throat.”
“Mom!” I admonished.
“Finish answering,” Andrew inserted. “How did you find us?”
“Well, by happenstance, really. Once Caleb got what he wanted, he told me Kelsey was living in a small town named Ashfield.” She flipped her hair. “Now, I watch a lot of those investigation shows and did some digging of my own. Did you know this town has the cutest social media page?” she asked me, continuing without waiting for an answer.
“Adorable, really. I scrolled through some pictures from a festival or whatever that took place a while back, and only a couple of pictures in, there was my Kelsey. And lo and behold, five pictures down, there was the man I’ve been searching a decade for!
“Knowing that my Wyatt was in this town, I immediately started searching through posts to see if I could find more about you. I knew it couldn’t be too hard. Then I saw the headlineNew Owner of Sunny Brook Farms.
“That was my ticket. So, I drove straight from Nashville and stopped at a coffee shop, half expecting you to be there, sweetie. Spoke with the sweetest woman and explained I was a vendor for the farm and that I was looking for the owner. She said the head of Sunny Brook Farms lived in the main house there, but that the new owner was staying in a rental.”
She shook her head and giggled maniacally. “Would you believe that friendly woman even gave me directions? So, here I am. Now, we can run away and be together, Wyatt. It’s like a dream come true.”
I sat across from her in complete shock, my mouth hanging wide open. I knew she was a narcissist, but she was totally mad as well. Completely and utterly off her rocker.
When the shock wore off, her words started running through my head again on repeat. She had the audacity to sit across from me, tell me that she gave my ex head to figure out where I was, and show up on my boyfriend’s doorstep, and now was propositioning himin front of me!
“Andrew,” I seethed at her as I stood, and then everything that was bottled up inside me came bursting out. “His name is Andrew, and he is not interested in you,Mother. I don’t know what kind of sordid thing youthinkyou two had, but that ended as soon as it began. He doesn’t want you now, and he probably didn’t want you then, but you wereeasy. And I bet it wasn’t even Andrew you set your sights on; you would’ve gone after whoever won the money that night.” I scoffed, eyeing her up and down with a disgusted sneer. “God, you’re just like Dad said you were—a manipulative whore. Someone who uses their body to get what they want, usually at the expense of others, and you don’t care at all about those you hurt along the way.”
My mother stood abruptly, her wine glass still in hand.
Whack!
I never saw it coming. Never expected my mother to raise her empty hand and slap me across the face. But maybe I should have.
Maybe I should have realized this woman would never care about or love me the way I wanted or deserved.
“You shut your mouth, you little brat.”
“No,” I said, ignoring the pain along my cheek.
“This is the last time you use me for anything,Tasha,” I hissed. I couldn’t even call the woman before me Mother any longer. All she’d ever be was the person who gave birth to me. She was never the mother I wanted or needed her to be. All she cared about was herself.
“All I ever wanted was for you to love me, but the only thing you loved was what you could get from me. But no more. I’m done.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked in a tone that made me think of a slithering snake. Tasha bent down to set her glass on the coffee table, then reached into her handbag. I took two long strides backward, worried about what she was going to pull out. The day had been crazy enough that I wouldn’t put it past her to pull out a knife or gun. Instead, she held an orange envelope.
“Seems to me you’re in quite the predicament. You’re pregnant, dear daughter. Having Caleb’s baby, and he doesn’t want it. Surprise, surprise. Well, after I sucked him good and dry, he asked me to give these to you and to tell you to never contact him again.”
