There's Always Plan B

Harlequin

"I don't know why you always have to torture me," fifteen-year-old Tiffany Spencer said as she folded her arms over her chest and stared out the passenger-door window. "Some moms actually like their children. Some moms care about their happiness. Why can't you be like that?"

Carly Spencer tightened her grip on the steering wheel and tried to figure out why she'd ever complained about her daughter asking, "Are we there yet?" when she'd been younger. Given a choice between that question and the one currently on the table, "Are we there yet?" seemed amusingly simple to deal with.

"I care about your happiness," she said, even though she knew it was a huge mistake to engage her daughter. At this point it was obvious Tiffany simply wanted to be the martyr to all decisions parental.

"Ha! Oh, sure. Because dragging me away from all my friends and my school and Justin Beakly, who looks just like Matt Damon and who was probably going to ask me to the Spring Carnival dance, is going to make me faint with happiness. Here I am. Fainting."

Tiffany collapsed against the door. Carly hoped her daughter would stay mock-unconscious for at least ten minutes or until the headache remedy Carly had popped a few minutes before had a chance to kick in.

But it was not to be.

"And if we had to leave all that because you're so determined to ruin my life," Tiffany said seconds later, "you could have at least let me get my belly button pierced. I mean what's the big deal? It's my body. I bet I'll be the only high school girl here, too, without one. Although maybe not. Have they heard about piercing at the ends of the Earth?"

Her daughter was certainly bright enough, Carly thought, as she desperately searched for a silver lining in what felt like the world's largest dark cloud. Eventually Tiffany would learn to use her highly developed verbal skills for good instead of mother abuse.

"I don't know what they've heard," Carly said cheerfully.

"It's possible they're still existing with horse-drawn carriages and cooking on an open fire. Maybe we'll be so modern, they'll think we're aliens from another planet and they can worship us like goddesses."

Tiffany rolled her eyes. "You're not helping."

"Ditto."

"What do you mean by that?"

"You're not helping, either," Carly said. "This move is tough on me, too."

"But it's your fault we have to go." Tiffany sounded outraged. She turned in her seat and glared. "If you hadn't made Dad leave, we wouldn't be doing this."

Carly drew in a deep breath and counted to ten. When that didn't work, she counted to twenty, then promised herself no matter what, she would go to the grocery store later, buy a pint of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream and eat the entire thing by herself.

Tiffany was a still a child, she reminded herself. Under the carefully curled blond hair, the formfitting clothes and too much makeup lurked a young teenager not yet prepared to deal with the realities of the world.

"Your father and I divorced by mutual decision," she said slowly, going for an "I'm so calm" voice instead of the shrill tone that lurked just beneath the surface. "There were a lot of issues, some of which are private."

"He quit his job." Tiffany sounded both shocked and scared. "Just like that. He says he's sailing to Hawaii."

"I heard that, too." At times she thought her soon-to-be ex was a complete mystery. Other times she hoped he got lost at sea.

"I should have stayed in L.A. with Dad," Tiffany mumbled. "I could have moved into his apartment and not had to change schools."

Carly ignored that mostly because she didn't know what to say. In truth, Neil hadn't been interested in sharing custody of his daughter. It was as if once he'd decided to leave, his only child no longer existed for him. Carly couldn't understand that, but in the past few weeks she'd realized that Neil had become a stranger to her. Maybe he always had been. Maybe she'd been fooling herself throughout their marriage.

What she didn't know was how it was possible to live with a man for sixteen years, have his child, sleep with him, talk to him, plan a future with him and find out she'd been wrong about almost everything. Her mind spun every time she thought about it.

"Are we there yet?" Tiffany asked.

Carly chuckled. At last a question she could answer.

"About another forty minutes."

Now that they were north of San Francisco, Carly found herself studying the changing landscape. The Northern California coastline was as rugged as it was beautiful. She remembered the narrow, rocky beaches, the high cliffs, the storms that would blow through. But mostly, she remembered the beautiful bed-and-breakfast/house where she'd grown up.