Conflict of Interest by Marie Johnston

Author:Marie Johnston [Johnston, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LE Publishing
Published: 2017-09-30T18:30:00+00:00

***

The plows had rumbled down the road while they’d been eating dinner, but Dillon had recommended letting them dry first. She’d waited until midafternoon before broaching the topic of her leaving.

“You call when you get home.” Dillon pressed her against her car and stole a kiss.

“I promise.”

Dressed back in her work clothes from Wednesday, she was ready to brave the mucky road and head back to town. Her first stop would be to check on her dad, but she needed to extract herself from Dillon first.

She needed to want to extract herself from him. She’d had more sex in the last three days than the last couple of years combined. Anytime she wanted, he was ready. Anytime he gave her that look, the one with the hooded eyes and suggestive tilt to his full mouth, her clothes peeled themselves off.

She gave him one last nip on his lower lip and opened her door. “Good-bye, Dillon.”

“Call me, Elle.” He said it like he worried she was driving out of his life.

He wasn’t the only one.

She drove away with him standing in her rearview mirror.

The roads were as bad as he’d said. She used all of Dillon’s tips for driving on sloppy gravel. Twice, the mud almost won, pulling her car into the pile of snow on the side of the road. But she let off the gas for a second and resisted pulling the wheel sharply in the other direction.

The sound it made when she turned onto the highway was like dozens of tennis balls hitting the body of her car. In both side mirrors, clumps of mud flew off the tires all over the road. Her car must weigh at least two hundred more pounds with all the grit caked on it. The gas station on the edge of town was open twenty-four hours; she’d stop for a quick wash.

The spray took off at least a hundred pounds, but her car still left thick tracks pulling away from the gas station. It would have to do; she needed to check on her dad. She had missed a call from the nursing home while washing her car.

When she reached the nursing home, she stopped at the office before going to her dad’s room.

“Hey, Elle. Sorry to bother you.” The charge nurse beckoned her in to speak in private. “We just wanted to give you a head’s up that the doctor cut down your dad’s pain meds and he’s not happy about it.”

Blood drained from Elle’s face. The reality she’d been escaping from for the past three days crashed back into her life.

Once an addict, always an addict.

“He was abusing them.” It was a statement not a question.

Wanda nodded. “Given his history and how well he’s recovered from the surgery…” She spread her hands. “He was past the point of requiring them, especially at the dose he insisted on.”

“I understand. Thanks for letting me know.” Woodenly, she walked to her dad’s room, dreading the tirade of how unfair everything was, and how unreasonable people could be, and how he was a damn adult.

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