This Heart of Mine (Chicago Stars #5)(107)

The air was still damp from the storm, so she pulled a sweatshirt over her shorts and top. He was waiting on the screen porch, Roo at his feet. Steam curled from his coffee mug as he gazed out into the woods. She huddled deeper into the warmth of the sweatshirt. "Are you ready to hear the rest of it?"

"I guess I'd better be."

She made herself look at him. "I told Eddie that even though you were selling this place, you were still emotionally attached to it, and you couldn't stand the thought of something happening to the lake. Because of that, you were in denial about it being contaminated. I said you weren't deliberately deceiving him; you couldn't help it."

"And he believed this?"

"He's stupider than dirt, and I was pretty convincing." She trudged through the rest of it. "Then I said you had a mental problem—I'm really sorry about that—and I promised I'd make sure you got psychiatric help."

"A mental problem?"

"It was all I could come up with."

"Other than butting out of my business?" He slammed down his mug, sending coffee sloshing over the table.

"I couldn't do that."

"Why not? Who gave you permission to run my life?"

"No one. But…"

His temper had a long fuse, but now it fired. "What's with you and this place?"

"It's not me, Kevin, it's you! You've lost both your parents, and you're determined to keep Lilly at arm's length. You don't have any brothers and sisters—any extended family at all. Staying connected with your heritage is important, and this campground is all you have!"

"I don't care about my heritage! And, believe me, I have a lot more than this campground!"

"What I'm trying to say is—"

"I have millions of dollars I haven't been stupid enough to give away—let's start with that! I have cars, a luxury house, a stock portfolio that'll keep me smiling for a long time. And guess what else I have? I have a career that I wouldn't let an army of self-serving do-gooders steal from me."

She clenched her hands together. "What do you mean by that?"

"Explain something to me. Explain how you justify spending so much time minding my business instead of taking care of your own?"

"I do take care of it."

"When? For two weeks you've been plotting and scheming over this campground instead of putting your energy where it belongs. You have a career that's going down the toilet. When are you going to start fighting the good fight for your rabbit instead of lying down and playing dead?"

"I haven't done that! You don't know what you're talking about."

"You know what I think? I think your obsession with my life and this campground is just a way of distracting yourself from what you need to be doing with your own life."

How had he managed to turn the conversation? "You don't understand anything. Daphne Takes a Tumble is the first book on a new contract. They won't accept anything else from me until I revise it."

"You don't have any guts."

"That's not true! I did all I could to convince my editor she'd made a mistake, but Birdcage won't budge."

"Hannah told me about Daphne Takes a Tumble. She said it's your best book. Too bad she'll be the only kid who gets to read it." He gestured toward the notepad she'd left on the couch. "Then there's the new one you're working on. Daphne Goes to Summer Camp."

"How do you know about—"

"You're not the only sneak. I've read your draft. Other than some blatant unfairness to the badger, it looks like you've got another winner. But nobody can publish it unless you follow orders. And are you doing that? No. Are you even forcing the issue? No. Instead, you're letting yourself drift along in some never-never land where none of your troubles are real, only mine."

"You don't understand!"

"You're right about that. I never did understand quitters."

"That's not fair! I can't win. If I make the revisions, I've sold out and I'll hate myself. If I don't make them, the Daphne books are going to disappear. The publisher will never reprint the old ones, and they sure won't publish any new ones. No matter what I do, I'll lose, and losing's not an option."

"Losing isn't as bad as not fighting at all."

"Yes it is. The women in my family don't lose."

He gazed at her for a long time. "Unless I'm missing something, there's only one other woman in your family."

"And look what she did!" Agitation forced her to move. "Phoebe held on to the Stars when everybody in the world had written her off. She faced down all of her enemies—"

"Married one of them."

"—and beat them at their own game. Those men thought she was a bimbo and wrote her off. She was never supposed to have ended up with the Stars, but she did."

"Everybody in the football world admires her for it. So what does this have to do with you?"

She turned away. He already knew, and he wasn't going to make her say it.

"Come on, Molly! I want to hear those whiny words come out of your mouth so I can have a big cry."