Read Online Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie - Free Book Online Page A

hurt? You’re never coming down here. Will’s never coming down here. Nobody in Columbus will ever know. So I took back my married name.”
    â€œYou didn’t take my name when we were married,” North said, trying to find his footing again.
    â€œI was going through an independent phase. Now I’m going through a practical phase. It’s a good thing to be an Archer down here. Come to think of it, it was probably a good thing to be an Archer up there. I should have taken your name just for the power. As your mother so often told me, I was an idiot.”
    So was I,
North thought, and then shook his head before regret could set in. The past was gone and the present had Mrs. Nash in the waiting room. “I’ll get Kristin on the cable—”
    â€œThat’ll be a help,” Andie said over him. “Because frankly I could use a bargaining chip with the kids, too. I made a hot breakfast this morning and Alice refused to eat it and went for the damn cereal anyway. Mrs. Crumb thinks she’s winning. According to her, the two of you are very close. You think of her as a mother.”
    â€œIs she delusional?”
    â€œEverybody here is delusional, including your nannies. Carter didn’t set fires because he’s crazy, he set them so he’d get kicked out of school and could come home to take care of Alice. He needs to be in a good public school where he can make friends and then see Alice every night. They’re really close, North. If you don’t separate them, I think he’d go to school without a fight.”
    â€œDamn.” North leaned back. “I knew boarding school was a bad idea. My mother tried to send me away when Southie was six, and I wouldn’t go. Kids need each other. But the last nanny kept telling me he needed discipline, so—”
    â€œHe has discipline. He’s so self-disciplined he’s barely breathing. Alice, on the other hand, has no discipline at all. If something’s going on that she doesn’t like, she screams. But it’s not like a normal temper tantrum, there’s something else going on there. Carter I can eventually reach, I think. Alice . . . I don’t know.”
    She sounded worried, and North tried to think of a way to make her feel better and then realized that was ridiculous. She was doing a job for him, she hadn’t called for comfort, they weren’t married anymore no matter what lies she was telling down there, he had Mrs. Nash waiting, and there was nothing he could do anyway . . . “Do you need me to come down there?”
    â€œNo, I can handle this,” she said, her voice as confident as ever. “It’s the kids I’m worried about. I don’t know if I can make things normal for them. I think I can make things better.”
    â€œYou always make things better.”
    The silence stretched out at the other end of the phone as he thought,
Dumb thing to say,
and then she said, “Thank you.” Her voice was softer than it had been, and it brought the past rushing back again.
    â€œYou’re welcome,” he said, thinking,
Get off the damn phone.
“I’ll get you your cable and your contractor and somebody to fix the phones.”
    â€œI know you will. You always come through.”
    Jesus.
“Call me if there’s anything else,” he said briskly, trying to find his way back to normal.
    â€œI thought we weren’t supposed to talk to each other.”
    â€œI was going through an independent phase,” North said, and then closed his eyes as her laugh bubbled through the phone.
    â€œThat was a helluva long phase. I’ll call if there’s anything else. You have a good day.”
    She hung up, and he sat there with the phone in his hand for a minute, trying to find his way back to normal, until Kristin came in.
    â€œShe needs cable down there,” he told her, hanging up the phone. “Get it for her,