“Furniture gets cleaned and polished.”
“And sewing machines are delivered to remote locations with a minimum of fuss.”
“He must have some goals.”
“If he does, I don’t know what they are. One day, he came home with a map of Europe and Asia and an airline ticket to Madrid. That was two years ago.”
“The second map.”
Shannyn nodded. “I bought one just like it myself to keep track of his progress. He calls and emails, sends postcards, then suddenly turns up, usually looking for a beer.” She shrugged. “So, that’s it for my family.”
She didn’t think she’d get away with that, and she was right.
“Not hardly,” Tyler said, his voice silky soft. “You left out Cole.”
“I’m not talking about him.” Shannyn risked a glance at Tyler and found him looking as stubborn as she felt.
“You don’t think it’s relevant?”
“No. I should add that to my list of rules. No talking about Cole.”
“Too late for that. You’ve made your list, and by adding him, you indicate that he’s very important.”
Shannyn shook her head. “He’s not. Not any more. I just don’t want to talk about failures.”
“All right then,” Tyler said, surrendering the topic unexpectedly. His eyes were vividly green, though, a sure sign of his interest. He was very still and very watchful, so intense that Shannyn felt a shiver slip over her skin. “Tell me a story instead.”
“What?”
“I’m offering you a deal.” His tone was temperate, but Shannyn heard the steel underlying that. “I think I should know about Cole, whoever he was and whatever happened beyond him leaving. I think your relationship and its end is important, but you disagree. I’m offering an alternative solution.”
“Why?”
“Because I think success is much more likely when you have choices.”
“Success? Is everything about winning?”
“Hardly. I’m defining success as you not turning into a feral cat before we finish this meal.”
Shannyn smiled despite herself. “A feral cat?”
“I always thought you were fierce, but I hadn’t seen the half of it.”
The waiter brought their entrees, which smelled divine and offered a perfect distraction. Shannyn had ordered chicken piccata and it was served with asparagus risotto. She studied the plate, gathering impressions and ideas instead of answering Tyler.
He waited.
He was negotiating.
So would she.
“Do I get to choose the story?”
His smile was quick and triumphant. “Of course. But if you need ideas, I have a list of suggestions.”
“I’ll bet you do. Go on.”
“Well, Cole is an obvious one, but that’s out. How about the third thing you miss about living with a man?”
Shannyn shook her head immediately. There was no way she was going to sit in a restaurant like this, knees brushing at intervals, telling Tyler how much she liked sex in the morning. “That’s out, too.”
“Why you would do anything for your mom?” He clearly wasn’t short of ideas.
“Wouldn’t you do anything for your mom?”
“I would do a lot for my mom,” he admitted. “I would give her a kidney. I buy her flowers on all the right days and I take her phone calls even when she’s driving me nuts, but there are limits.” He eyed Shannyn. “It sounds like you don’t have those limits and I’m wondering why.”
Answering that question would mean confiding the story of her own past and Shannyn figured that would give too much away. An analytical man like Tyler would make all sorts of conclusions from that much detail—not only was he likely to guess right, but he might use that insight against her.
“Nope. I’m not telling that story.” She held his gaze, wondering whether she was breaking her own rule of not provoking him. “What else do you have?”
Tyler’s mouth tightened for just a second and his eyes got a little darker. When he spoke though, his voice was completely calm. “How about the reason Adrian calls you Taz?”
“It’s just a nickname. No secret there.”
Tyler lifted a brow, skeptical, and his voice hardened. “Don’t shit me. There’s a reason.”
He was right.
Shannyn looked at her plate. She considered the options and knew he wasn’t asking a lot. “Okay. I’ll take that one.”
Shannyn was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but Ty had to believe there was a key. He was ready to accept any crumbs, even the smallest bit of data, in his determination to figure out what made her tick.
It took her a few minutes to compose her thoughts, but he didn’t push her. He would have waited all night for her confession and not made an issue of it even if she hadn’t told him.
He had a major case of curiosity, one that only Shannyn could solve.
Finally, she put down her knife and fork, then took a breath as if the confession was going to cost her. “It was my dad’s nickname for me.”
The dad who had died. Ty realized he was in emotional territory.
“He used to love all those cartoons with Bugs Bunny.” She smiled a little in recollection, a bittersweet smile. “He had all the videos and we used to watch them together.”
Ty still didn’t understand. “But Taz was the Tasmanian Devil.”
“Right.”
“Why would he call you that?”
She picked up her fork again. “I’ll take that as a hint that you can’t believe I was a bad kid.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Well, I was. Unpredictable, he said.”
“I’m with him there.”
“And wild.” She widened her eyes as if that was enough, but Ty shook his head.
“Not a chance.”
“It’s true.” There was an edge in her voice. She met his gaze. “Don’t you believe my answer?”
“I do, but that doesn’t answer the question.”
“Technically, it does.”
“Technically, it doesn’t. Your dad called you that, but why does Aidan still use that nickname?”
“Sentimentality?”
“I don’t think he’s a sentimental type.”
Her smile was quick and a little bit guilty.
Ty dug in. “You said you were adopted. Was this your biological father?”
Shannyn was quick to shake her head. “No. I have no idea who he was. Maybe my biological mom didn’t either. I never met him, as far as I know.”
Her defenses were rising and she was getting prickly, which meant Ty was close to an interesting confession. “Tell me about the dad you did know,” he invited, keeping his tone light.
“Now you’re asking two questions?”
“I’m still pursuing the answer to the first one.” Their gazes held and Ty was sure that she was going to blow him off. He didn’t look away and to his relief, she nodded agreement.
“Okay. Fair enough. Aidan and I were adopted together, even though we aren’t biological siblings.” Ty frowned and she held up a hand. “I’ll save you a question,” she said lightly. “We were at the same foster home.”
“How old were you?”
“Five. Remember what I said about my being a bad kid. No one wanted me, and I don’t blame them. Aidan, though.” She sighed. “Everyone adored Aidan. I hated his guts.”
Ty chuckled. “I can understand that reaction.”
Shannyn laughed at him. “But that was because of your own assumptions.”
“What about your five-year-old-self’s assumptions about Aidan?”
“True. He was cute. Like a little teddy bear. He followed me around, even though I didn’t want him to. He never cried and he never complained. He just rolled with whatever was happening.”
“Sounds like he hasn’t changed much.”
“No. He’s a lot taller and he eats more, but his character is exactly the same. I have to wonder what he’d be
like if he ever found anything he really cared about.” She frowned at her meal and Ty thought she wouldn’t say any more.
But Shannyn spoke again, surprising him both by the quiet heat of her words and the fact that she was admitting more. “My biological mother left the hospital without me,” she said softly. “I don’t know anything about her and I don’t want to. I went straight into foster care and was always being moved to another family, another home.” She impaled him with a glance. “You probably don’t know that a lot of foster kids carry their few possessions around in garbage bags.”
Ty hadn’t known that. He was startled and he was sure it showed, because Shannyn nodded wearily.
“Even for a little kid, it’s hard to miss the connection. Nobody wanted me. Nobody cared. I wasn’t wanted, much less loved, and I didn’t deserve to be. I might as well have crawled into that bag myself.” She swallowed. “So I was bad. I ran away and I talked back and I defied everyone who tried to help me.”
He didn’t make any comments about feral cats. “You had nothing to lose.”
“No wonder they didn’t want me. I made sure of it.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine her being provocative. “Because you were afraid,” Ty guessed quietly.
“I think I was furious, actually. And when I was five, they brought Aidan to the foster home where I was staying. Like I said, I hated him on sight. Not only was he adorable, but he was so easygoing. He was always being held up as an example, especially for trouble like me. Of course. I acted out even more. I was punished by my foster parents but it made no difference. They didn’t know what to do with me. I probably drove them crazy.”
Ty could understand that reaction.
Shannyn paid close attention to her plate as she pushed around her chicken. Ty didn’t want to say anything in case she stopped talking. He was transfixed, and astonished that her history could be so different from his own.
Never mind that someone so strong and creative could have such a background.
“And then my parents came. Not my biological parents, my mom and dad. They came to see Aidan, because they wanted to adopt a boy, and he was beautiful. I was so jealous.” Shannyn shook her head and Ty saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “I broke something in a tantrum and ran to hide in my room. I knew that he was going to get a family and I wasn’t. I smashed a few more things there but I really wanted to hurt him.” She took a breath but it caught and her next words were husky. “It just wasn’t fair.”
No, it wasn’t fair. Ty couldn’t imagine why anyone would give her up.
Shannyn’s throat worked for a moment. It was as if she couldn’t stop telling the story once she’d started, like she’d uncorked a bottle and had to pour it out until it was empty. She shook her head and her tears fell, the sight killing Ty. She didn’t even try to stop them. Maybe she didn’t know they were falling.
She was reliving that devastation and there was nothing Ty could do. He couldn’t charge in and fix this. He couldn’t even console her because if he reached out, she might realize how much she was confessing and stop talking.
All he could do was listen and it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He should be getting used to Shannyn demanding all he had to give and a little bit more.
“But that’s not what happened,” she whispered. “She came to me, the woman who would become my mom, and she talked to me. She was so nice, even though I wasn’t. She asked to meet my doll, the only one I had, which surprised me. My doll was dirty and scuffed up, but my most prized possession. Maybe my only one. Maybe she caught me in a weak moment because I showed her the doll. She straightened her clothes carefully as I watched, as if my doll was beautiful.”
Ty watched her tears well again.
“She combed her hair, then went to get her own purse. I was fascinated that she had a little sewing kit in there and came closer to watch. She replaced a button on my doll’s dress and mended the hem, talking to me all the time. She didn’t wait for an answer. She just talked, explaining to me how to sew on a button, how to knot the thread, how to make little stitches. And when she was done, she gave me back my doll. My doll looked so much better. I loved her but I hadn’t taken care of her and that shocked me a little.”
Shannyn took an uneven breath. “Then my mom asked if she could comb my hair and I let her, even though I always fought anyone who wanted to touch me. She straightened my clothes and sewed a tear in my pocket, talking quietly all the while. She was so gentle. I felt like someone cared, for the very first time I could remember. I liked having my hair combed and my clothes straightened. I liked feeling as if I mattered, just a little bit to somebody. When she asked if I wanted to come and live with them, I cried. She picked me up and hugged me, then carried me and my doll right out of there.”
“They adopted you both,” Ty guessed.
“They had to foster us first, and I was bad. I was so afraid to believe that anything good was happening.”
“If it was going to go south, you’d rather it happened sooner.”
“I guess so. It seemed like I couldn’t stop myself, but she never yelled at me. She worried about me when I ran off, and they came looking for me, and they always hugged me when I came back. I had a room with pretty things and clean clothes and I had a little suitcase instead of a trash bag. My doll got a new wardrobe, too, and gradually, I started to trust that I had a home. I even began to get along with Aidan.”
Ty smiled at that and she flicked a glance his way. “I hear a but,” he said.
Shannyn nodded and sobered. “My dad died. It was very sudden. He had an aneurysm at work. He just went to work one Tuesday morning and never came home again. My mom was devastated. They were very much in love. We’d only been there a few years and I figured that was the writing on the wall.”
“The other shoe was dropping.”
“It made perfect sense to me at ten. I was determined to stay with Aidan, although I had no idea how it could be done.”
“You’d gotten used to him.”
She smiled a little. “He wore me down.” Ty wished she was talking about him. “When my mom called us into the kitchen after the funeral, I was convinced that the moment had come. I took my suitcase with me. I was packed. I was ready.”
Ty could just imagine, this fierce little girl with her chin held high, her suitcase in her hand and her heart filled with fear.
This was why Shannyn always waited for people to let her down.
They often had.
Including Cole. He didn’t have to know the details to recognize that.
“Instead, she told us that there wasn’t going to be a lot of money, that she’d have to work hard and that she’d need our help. She told us that we would make it work together, because we were a family. It was Aidan who said the words out loud, who said he’d thought she would throw us back, and she was so horrified that we’d worried about that, even for one minute. She was the one who unpacked my suitcase and put everything away.”
“That’s why you’d do anything for her,” Ty concluded quietly.
She took an unsteady breath. “She saved us both, but mostly me. Without her, I’d probably be dead by now, or in serious trouble somewhere. I would do anything for her, anything at all. She can have both my kidneys, every cent I possess, anything she asks for, because I owe her my heart and soul.” She gave him a raw look, tears spiking her lashes, and her eyes dark with passion, and Ty couldn’t look away.
It was ten times the confession he had expected and it explained so much.
He wanted to reach for Shannyn, to take her hand, to gather her close. He wanted to slay all her dragons and make sure no one ever betrayed her or disappointed her again. But even as he had the impulse, he knew Shannyn wouldn’t allow that.
She tore her gaze from his and visibly composed herself. “I guess you got two answers for the price of one, even though I didn’t plan it that way.” She wiped her eyes and ate another bite of her dinner. Her tone was cool when sh
e continued. “This is very good.”
Ty thought the next bite would taste like dust after that. “I like this place,” he said easily. “I’m glad you do, too.”
They sat in silence for a long moment. “You’re way too easy to talk to,” Shannyn complained and Ty knew she was making a joke to cover her emotional vulnerability. “I didn’t mean to tell you all that.”
“I can tell. Thank you for trusting me with it.” Ty meant it. He held her gaze when she looked, wanting her to see that he understood, at least a little bit. “You’re right. That does make a sewing machine look like small stakes.” He was humbled by her confession and didn’t care if she knew it. “You make me appreciate how lucky I’ve been.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “Every kid should grow up with every advantage. That would make the world an ideal place.”
“But I can see why you’d hate me.”
A ghost of a smile touched Shannyn’s lips. “It’s okay. You’re redeeming yourself.”
Ty would take victory where he found it, however incremental it was. He changed the subject, wanting her to smile more. “How good was it?” he asked, indicating her plate. “Enough to be inspiring?”
“It is,” she said, clearly falling on the excuse to talk about something else. She tasted a bit of the sauce again. “The chef has done something different with this than I do, and I can’t figure it out.”
“Then let’s ask him,” Ty suggested and summoned the waiter. It wasn’t busy and he was a regular. He was ready to use any and every connection to make Shannyn smile.
It also would give him a few minutes to decide how to proceed.
Dangerous man.
Tyler didn’t need poetry to undermine Shannyn’s defenses. His penetrating gaze and his curiosity were obviously enough—along with a delicious dinner. It was seductive to have the undivided attention of this particular sexy man, never mind to realize that he remembered pretty much everything she’d ever told him. Shannyn had never been with a man who was so intent upon her, and she liked it a lot.
Just One Fake Date: A Contemporary Romance (Flatiron Five Fitness Book 1) Page 22
