Well, at least TJ hadn’t locked her out yet.
Then again, it had taken a good several months for him to take Anna Lee’s name off the list. Norah was downright nervous when she pulled up. His gate stood open, and she had to wonder if he was expecting her.
Her brain clicked. If the gate was open, he was home.
Or maybe the maid had come.
She put the car in park, her heart lost in the cavity of her chest as she climbed the three steps up to the double front doors. With her bottom lip between her teeth, she rang the bell and waited.
She heard footsteps and braced herself, hoping it was him and he’d be happy to see her.
The door opened and TJ stood there with a jar of peanut butter in one hand. He just looked at her. “Norah.”
No happy hugs, and she had no idea what was wrong.
“You’re home.”
“It would appear that way.” He didn’t step back or invite her in.
Norah took a step toward him, forcing the issue. It would have been far too rude to not allow her in, and yet he seemed so indifferent. “I thought you would call when you got in.”
TJ stayed in the front entrance. “So did I.”
She was just so puzzled, and it didn’t help that his eyes glanced away and back, and when they found hers he had lost the façade of non-concern. He looked wounded.
“TJ—”
“Norah, there’s something you have to tell me.” He cut her off before she could say anything, before she could reach her arms out and touch him.
“What? That I love you? I would have been telling you that all week except you didn’t want me to call. I don’t understand this.” Her hands hung useless at her sides.
“I think I do.” He looked at the marble of the floor for a moment, the fountain making an almost peaceful sound while she waited. But Norah waited at the cliff’s edge.
“I cut you off. I thought I had to keep performing. So you went elsewhere.”
She frowned at him.
“I know, Norah!” He showed real emotion for the first time. “I know what you did. Please, just admit it. Let’s get past this. I love you.”
Her hands went out, palm up, “Admit what?”
TJ slammed the peanut butter down on the small entryway table behind him. He leaned back against it, gripping the edges so tightly he turned his knuckles white. “I got home early, I went to your house last night to surprise you. I got surprised instead. I saw you.”
“Saw me what? You saw Mark? I invited you along to that.”
His face turned red and angry, “You slept with him! I saw you!”
“But I didn’t.” She was still bewildered. Even if he’d seen her, all he could have seen was them getting out of the car, and there’d been no sex there.
“Norah, I saw you two together.” His voice was calmer now, but pleading. “We never said we were exclusive, so that’s my fault. I love you, I want us to get past this.”
“I do, too, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Just admit that you slept with him!”
“But I didn’t.” She’d said the same line before and he hadn’t believed her. “Why do you think I did?”
“I saw you. I saw the way he touched you, and you invited him into bed with you.” The last words were hard for him to get out, but he got angry again. “I want you back.”
“You’ve got me.”
“Not while you’re lying to me!” He turned and stalked off into the kitchen.
Almost against her better judgment Norah followed. “I’m not lying.”
He stood facing the counter, his hands braced, his back straighter than she’d ever seen it, and a horrible thought occurred to her. An old saying her father liked, we can only see in others what we have in ourselves. She only ever thought of it in terms of herself, but now she was afraid. He’d even pointed it out, we never said we were exclusive. “Is this about you, TJ? Is this because you cheated on me and so that’s what you saw?”
He whipped around so fast he probably hurt himself. “I didn’t cheat on you. I was faithful.” His eyes bored into hers and there was a world of pain in there.
She could save him all that pain if he’d just listen. She tried saying the words she wanted to hear. They were true, her heart flooded with relief. “I believe you.”
His voice was low and ironic. “Of course you do. I’m telling the truth.”
He might as well have slapped her. “If that was the criteria, then you’d believe me, too. I believe you because I trust you.”
“You can call any one of them. JD, Alex, Craig, Ben who drives the bus! Every single one of them will tell you I was faithful to you.” His eyes blinked too much and the color in his cheeks told her how upset he was, but she was working up a righteous mad herself.
But she had to laugh at that one. “Please, TJ. My sister would call me six shades of stupid if I said ‘he was faithful, his band mates swear he was.’ I think junior high is the last time us girls stopped believing when guys had their friends vouch for them.”
He looked affronted, but Norah continued. “I believe you because I trust you! You could try trusting me, too.”
“How can I trust you when I saw you? When I saw the way he touched you, and you let him. When you told him to sleep in your bed with you? You slept with him.”
“Okay, I did!” She blurted, “I actually slept, as in sleep, in the same bed as him. There was no sex, in fact no touching, he was on the other side. It was like having my sister in bed with me. Would you object if I let Lilah in my bed when she needed one?”
“No, of course not, but that wasn’t Lilah.”
Norah shook her head. “There is nothing between us, TJ. I would never lead a man on by having him in my bed. I offered to Mark out of sheer thought of comfort, and because there never was and never will be anything between us.”
TJ didn’t look up at her. He just studied the floor for a moment, and Norah noticed the half-made peanut butter and jelly sandwich out on the counter.
Finally, he spoke again. “I want to trust you, but I don’t know how I can.”
That stabbed at her. Her lips pressed together, and her eyes threatened tears. “That’s what trust is. It’s what and who you believe when there’s no evidence. Or in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I’m looking you in the eyes and telling you, I did not have sex with him.”
He looked at her, but didn’t otherwise respond.
Norah almost gasped as it became clear that he still didn’t believe her. Desperation made her mouth active if not her brain. Words tumbled out in a plea to make him understand. “You know, Mark and I used to dance together. He touches me like that because dancers touch each other. Because there was never any possibility of anything between us. I have never slept with him.
“And I shouldn’t have given him the other side of the bed,” Tears were rolling down her cheeks now, one by one. TJ’s expression didn’t change and she wasn’t sure why she kept talking but she did. “That’s your spot. I love you and I want you there. And I won’t even give it to Lilah, because you’re right, I shouldn’t have offered it.”
She didn’t add that Mark was drunk and she didn’t think he’d take the couch. Or that she was afraid he’d get up later, still drunk, and drive off. “But I didn’t screw him. I didn’t cheat on you. I need you to believe that.”
TJ took in a breath. “A lot of people think it’s not sex if it’s just oral sex. Did you make out? Let him touch you?” He gestured at her torso.
Norah cried in earnest then.
He asked another question. “Did you do it to get back at me? I’d understand that, what I did wasn’t right.”
Her voice shook. “What is this? The damned Spanish Inquisition?”
“No—”
“Sure it is! You’ve already decided what the right answer is, and if I just confess you’ll make everything okay. But I’m not confessing to something I didn’t do!”
; The outburst stopped her for a moment, then she managed to get it together long enough to speak again. “You say that you love me, TJ, but part of that is trust. And you don’t trust me do you?”
“I don’t see how I can.” He leaned against the counter, tears in his own eyes.
In that moment she hated him. Hated him enough to shove it in his face just how wrong he was.
So she walked away, to the front doorway where she still had a clear shot of him standing at the counter, his head down. “Two words, TJ.”
TJ looked up at her.
“He’s gay.”
She slammed the door behind her, hoping the glass would shatter like her heart, but it didn’t offer the satisfaction. She shoved the car into gear, making a noise with her tires that would disturb all his snotty neighbors and leave rubber marks on his pristine driveway.
She drove straight home, trying desperately to turn off somewhere, but anyplace she could think of that offered solace was busy. As she pulled into the driveway she realized that even her own home was now occupied by her father.
There was nowhere to go to get away.
She threw the car in park and pocketed her keys, leaving her purse on the floorboards. Norah saw her one escape in the corral, and she grabbed Shenandoah’s bridle.
As she did the last buckle on the cinch, blinking back tears, TJ’s car turned in at the bottom of the drive. He’d probably come to say he was sorry. But sorry didn’t change the fact that he didn’t trust her.
Shenandoah finally breathed out and she yanked the cinch one notch tighter, thinking that now was not the time to ride with a loose saddle no matter how tempting it was to just flee. She heard the engine stop on TJ’s car, and the door slam as she slung her leg over the back of her biggest horse. She gained the saddle just as TJ came running over to the corral.
All he got out was her name before she was off like a shot.
Shenandoah cleared the fence at the far end and ran hell for leather across the open land. She heard it one last time in the distance, “Norah!” But she ignored it.
Chapter 60
Norah ignored his attempts to contact her.
He called. She didn’t answer.
He sat on her doorstep. Her father even told her to give the boy a chance. But Daddy hadn’t been there, and she wasn’t airing their dirty laundry to him, even though it was likely all over. So Daddy didn’t know what was going on.
Of course, TJ said he trusted her now. He’d left that much on her answering machine. But that wasn’t trust. It was evidence, science. Mark is gay, end of story.
In spite of all the pain, down deep somewhere was a satisfaction that it had happened now. Not later when it would hurt more. Norah wasn’t sure how it would hurt more than this, but she was certain that it could.
TJ showed up at the studio before class and pissed her off. “Now is not the time.”
He pushed, just like TJ. “Then when is?”
She wanted to hiss out ‘never,’ but she just bit her tongue and tried to be polite in front of their audience. “I’m at work. Don’t do this to me here.”
He turned and walked off.
The third day, the flowers arrived. A huge bouquet of purple tulips.
Norah had to go around them on the front porch to get inside and set her things down. It would require two hands and some strength to lift the heavy vase.
She sighed there on her hands and knees on the front porch. Flowers were bad. Flowers were for men who didn’t know what to say, to women they didn’t really know. But her father’s voice echoed in her head to ‘give the boy a chance.’
So she plucked the small square card off its stick and sat back on her heels.
Pulling it out of the envelope, she turned the card over and read the words.
Norah, I love you. Please give me another chance. Love, TJ.
Her shoulders slumped. Not only was the wording something they probably had on file, it was typed! That made her the maddest. How heartbroken were you if you dictated to the person on the other end of the line?
Fat tears formed in her eyes again.
Everything had gone wrong.
With a deep sigh that let loose another fresh surge of pain inside her, she picked up the vase and carried the whole thing across the driveway to the trash can. Norah let it fall, too hurt to find comfort in the sound of the breaking crystal.
TJ called to check if the flowers had been sent. The shop said they’d been delivered an hour ago. The driver had to leave them as no one was home. So now all he could do was wait.
He was miserable, he tried playing video games, working out, none of it relieved his stress. Then he needed a shower, but wasn’t willing to climb in for fear that he’d miss her call. TJ puttered around the kitchen, making himself another peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He’d lived on this crap pretty much since he’d walked in the door after seeing Norah with Mark that night.
He still wondered why he hadn’t flown out of the car and stopped them. How he had let some man that he thought was going to have sex with his girlfriend go into the house? All he could think was that he’d frozen. He’d also believed he wasn’t seeing the first time, so what was the point?
He wallowed in his string of bad decisions while he ate the sandwich. Ten minutes later he was rewarded for deciding not to climb in the shower. His phone rang, and the name said ‘Norah.’
His chest heaved a sigh of relief. He couldn’t answer fast enough, and his voice came out riding the wave of his lifted burden, “Baby.”
“I got your flowers.” Her voice was neither warm nor cold, just matter of fact.
“I miss you.” He tried again.
“Flowers don’t change facts. Good-bye.”
He felt like someone had plunged him into the next ice age, naked. The phone disconnected.
He wasn’t trying to change facts. She needed to talk to him, and he had to find some way to make that happen.
He had a list. If all else failed, maybe he could kidnap her and make her listen. Okay, that was a little far . . . but he had to get her to listen.
He spent the afternoon in the jewelry store.
He’d found nothing that he liked, so he picked out something similar to show the jewelers, then had them work overtime. She had to understand, had to at least call. This wasn’t flowers. This was something he’d designed for her.
He went back to the jewelers the next morning, with the note he’d written. He checked out the work. It was beautiful and graceful and reminded him of her. And it was just an excuse to get her the note. He’d practically cut himself open and bled onto the paper.
At first he tucked the folded paper into the top of the necklace box, then became afraid she’d miss it. So he settled it over the jewelry and had the store wrap it. With a heart attempting to tear in half from the weight of the dread and the lift of the hope he felt, he drove to the dance studio. TJ was happy to find only Mrs. Kenner behind the front desk.
She smiled up at him like she had no idea Norah had left him. He was glad for that small fact and didn’t care if it was ignorance or kindness. “This is a surprise for Norah. Will you give it to her when she gets in?”
The older woman took the box and turned it over. “It looks like jewelry.”
“That might be because it is.” He didn’t add that it was also the plea of a man who was becoming more desperate.
TJ drove home wondering how his heart still beat, and when this would end. This wasn’t the kind of thing you just got over. He took a long road around the edge of town, skidding to a halt at a ‘For Sale’ sign on a large rolling lot. The sign said 4 to 400 acres. Wondering what that meant, TJ dialed the number. While it rang, he noticed houses on either side of the lot. One on the left was still under serious construction, while on the right it looked complete and occupied.
“Can I help you?” The voice on the other end was gruff.
TJ asked about the sign and was told in the same work-rough voice that the man was old and se
lling off pieces of his own huge holdings along the road. He was willing to sell just the roadside lot, or carve out space behind it, whatever the buyer wanted if the price was right.
TJ told him the price was. Then called his real estate agent and told her the same thing.
Feeling marginally better, he arrived at his own house and shut himself in his studio with his cell phone. Every time it rang his heart flipped. Every time he was disappointed even before he answered it. He fielded calls from JD, Brenda, and Craig. And he waited.
He almost missed the knock at the front door. By the time his brain registered what the sound was, he scrambled to his feet just in case it was Norah.
Throwing open the door, his heart leapt at the sight of her. Her hair was pulled up, and she was in dance clothes, and the necklace box in her hand. She must have come directly here.
“The gate was open.” Her voice was soft.
“Norah.” He wanted to reach out and take her hands and pull her in, but he didn’t know if he had the right to yet. “Come in.”
She shook her head. “No.”
God, no.
“Norah?”
“Jewelry doesn’t cut it. It isn’t what I want.”
That shocked him. From her. “Did you read the note?”
“Yes. But it’s cheap, coming with a necklace.” She handed the box over to him and turned away.
He was too stunned to speak, and too stupid to stop her apparently.
It was too cheap?
The necklace hadn’t been cheap. It had been anything but. She’d found his poured-out heart cheap? Jewelry wasn’t enough?
He shook his head. If she wanted something more expensive, he’d get it. What was the use of his money if not for her? Norah was the last person he’d thought would put a price tag on any of this, but they could talk about that later. He just had to get her back to talking to him.
He made a few phone calls and prayed. Then hit the studio and sang until he collapsed against the wall. Everything sounded heart-broken or hopeful. And he only had a week until they hit the road again. This time for ten days. As he sat there against the padded wall, he began to think in long terms. How would he keep up his assault on her while he was on the road? Because he had to.
Love Notes Page 33
