Take Me Home for Christmas (Whiskey Creek #5)(67)
Author: Brenda Novak

“You’ve had a hard day. It wasn’t wise to leave you by yourself. I feel bad about that.”

Ted. Great. Just who she wanted to find her. She saw him looming above her and tried to push away, to get up. She didn’t want to humiliate herself, especially in front of him. But who was she kidding? It was too late to pretend she wasn’t drunk. A sober person didn’t fall asleep on the floor of a wine cellar.

“I tried,” she told him. “I really tried. I hope you believe me. But…the AA meeting was too far away. I couldn’t walk there.”

“AA meeting?” He frowned as if he was…what? Angry? Disappointed? Maybe even disgusted?

She couldn’t be sure but assumed the worst. She deserved the worst for succumbing.

“Are you an alcoholic, Sophia?”

She couldn’t trust her own mouth at the moment. She needed to get away from him as soon as possible.

She lunged for the stairs but staggered and would’ve fallen if he hadn’t caught her.

“Whoa, let me help. You’re moving a bit too fast,” he said, but he did more than steady her. He picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the wine cellar.

“Please don’t tell Alexa,” she mumbled as he put her on the couch. “I don’t want her to know that I…that I messed up. She’s relying on me. And now I’ve let her down.”

He checked his watch, looking concerned. “When will she be home?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That makes it easier.” He let his breath go in a whistle. “You’ll be sober by then.”

“I can’t believe I did this. I’m so mad at myself.” She tried to stand so she could go out to the guesthouse. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about what she might say or do, but he held her back.

“I’ll put on some coffee. Stay right there.”

“I haven’t had a drink in three months,” she told him. “Not one. I made it for ninety-four days. Why’d I blow it?”

“I think the answer to that is pretty clear.”

“It is?”

“You didn’t have any support.”

“But I made it this far.”

He knelt down beside her. “Listen, Sophia. You’ve suffered a setback. That doesn’t mean you’re going to give up the battle. Now that I know what you’re up against, I’ll make sure you have a way to get to the meetings. And see your mom.”

She shook her head. “I can’t see my mom.”

“Why not?”

“Like I told you, she doesn’t even remember me. Having her treat me like a stranger is one of my triggers. In rehab, they told me it’s the loss and disappointment that sets me off. But it’s Thanksgiving. What was I supposed to do—not check on my own mother?”

He smoothed her hair off her forehead as if she were a child. “You did the right thing.”

Now that he was close and she had the opportunity to really study him, she admired the laugh lines at the sides of his eyes. Those lines hadn’t been nearly as marked when they were younger, of course, but she liked them. They added character to his face. “Do you think I’m going to turn out like her?” she asked.

“I don’t see any reason why you would.”

“Skip told me I would. He said that someday I’d be in a padded cell.”

Ted’s expression hardened. “Nice of him to ease your fears like that.”

She smiled at his sarcasm. It felt like they were friends, that he was her only friend.

“What else did he tell you?” he asked.

“The truth.”

“And that is…”

“That I’m a no-good, lazy drunk.”

He grimaced. “Don’t say that! You made it three months, didn’t you? You won’t break down again.”

“I hope not.”

Ted took her hand and toyed with her fingers. “Did he hit you, Sophia?”

Part of her knew this was information she didn’t want him to have, but she could no longer remember why. Skip was gone. She could tell the world; there was nothing he could do about it. And after finding her like this…what more did she have to hide from Ted? “Doesn’t matter. He can’t hurt me now.”

“So he did.”

“All the time.” She showed him her front tooth. “See this? It’s not real. He knocked my real one out. I didn’t even know he was mad! We got home, and he accused me of coming on to his cousin. I didn’t like the guy, and I tried telling Skip that. But it didn’t matter because his cousin had pulled out a chair for me, and that somehow signified…something. So, out of nowhere, bam!”

“He punched you.”

“Right in the mouth. It felt like he’d used a brick or…or a pipe, something more than his fist. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground with blood pouring from my mouth. He had to lock Alexa out of our bedroom so she wouldn’t see. But we finally told her I fell and hit my mouth and let her in so she could help us find the tooth. It had flown clear across the room.” She laughed because, when she was drinking, she could. Somehow it all seemed fantastical and not quite real, as if she’d been living in a dream world. “I looked so terrible with that big gap. Skip was horrified. Who’d think he was lucky to have me if I looked like an old hag?”

When Ted didn’t laugh with her, she felt her smile wilt.

“That time you came to coffee with a bruise on your cheek—”

“Oh, that’s when he broke my cheekbone.” She indicated her left eye. “But it was almost healed. I covered it with makeup, didn’t think anyone would notice.”

“It was faint, but we noticed.”

“Anyway, that was nothing. It hurt, but not as much as the tooth.”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Why didn’t you get help?”

“I tried to once. But—” she shook her head “—that was a mistake. By the time he was finished with me, I couldn’t come out of the house for three weeks.”

He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets and began to pace. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t get away from him.”

“It was complicated.”

“How?”

“Because I felt like I deserved it.”

“For marrying him in the first place?”

“For everything I’d ever done wrong.” She struggled to articulate because she knew she was slurring her words. “Causing Scott Harris to get into that—” she winced “—that crash when we were in high school. Acting so spoiled and selfish all the time. Disappointing you by…by getting with Skip.”