by Liz Talley
Jack folded his arms. “I’m angry with you, Nellie. You made me hope, made me believe true love was possible. Then you just threw it away. Tossed it out like last week’s garbage. And when I came here, you ignored me.”
“I didn’t ask you to come,” she said. “And I didn’t throw anything away. What we had wasn’t real. You said so yourself. Remember? The first time you saw me, you barely spared me a glance.”
He shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips. “Lady, the real Elle—Elle Macpherson—could have sat down naked in my lap in that airport, and I would have shoved her off to watch a tied game in the ninth.”
He acted like that explained everything. “That’s not true,” said Nellie.
His eyes glittered. “Don’t call me a liar.”
She crossed her arms. “You’re trying to justify the fact you didn’t think I was ‘the one’ the actual first time you saw me. Don’t you think finding your soul mate is more important than a stupid baseball game?”
He lifted one brow but said nothing.
“I felt it.”
“Felt what?” Jack asked.
“Felt that feeling. The first time you touched me. In the airport. It was like sparks shooting up my arm, making my heart feel funny. I couldn’t believe you didn’t feel it too.” She shook her head. God, how stupid that sounded now. Why had she told him?
His eyes softened. “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t remember touching you. My pants were wet, the Cardinals were at bat, and I had an assload of problems on my plate. I wasn’t looking for anything but a base hit from Pujols.”
She rolled her eyes. “But if I had walked into Agave Blue looking like I had in the airport, would you have noticed me?”
He shrugged. “That’s a question I can’t really answer. Why ask it?”
“Because it’s at the heart of the matter.” Nellie couldn’t stop the pain from ripping through her at his words, yet she knew them to be true. Neither of them would ever know the answer to that question.
“I don’t think it’s the heart of the matter. I think my not being interested in you before you had the makeover thing gives you an out, a way to avoid the prospect of a relationship. What are you so scared of?” He let the words fall like books tumbling from a desk, each one smacking her with its own truth.
“Scared? I’m not scared. I’m confused.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re running from me just as hard as you ran that night in Vegas. You’re not fighting. Is what we have just not worth it to you?”
That really slammed into her. He thought she didn’t think him worth fighting for? How had he suddenly turned the tables on her? Why did she now feel everything was her fault?
“Wait a minute. What is ‘it’? Do you even know? Are you talking about love? Or sex? You can’t accuse me of something when I don’t know what you are accusing me of.”
Jack stared off in the distance, his eyes seemingly measuring the horizon. His jaw tightened. “I’m talking about love.”
“Oh, God, Jack. How could that be love—this be love—when you don’t even know who I am?” Her heart was breaking into itty-bitty pieces. He couldn’t love someone who wasn’t even a person, who was just a piece of a person. And his words—oh, how she craved them, but they were false. Just like the night of the party. Illusion.
“You are so wrong. I know who you are, Nellie.” Jack smiled. It was a tender smile, one that reached inside her and twisted her heart. “I see straight inside you. Even at the airport, I could tell who you were. I could see the warm woman, the unsure way you moved, the sweetness in your eyes.”
His words trailed off, but his eyes caressed her. Silence yawned between them. She turned away and drew circles in the sand with the toe of her sandal.
“I know who you are,” he said, his voice smooth as river stones. “The problem is you don’t know who you are.”
Nellie felt as if he’d slapped her. Of course she knew who she was; she’d been in this body for thirty years come August twelfth.
“I know who I am,” she sputtered.
He moved forward. She tilted her head back and looked into his eyes. She could see none of the former irritation. Quiet acceptance had taken its place. “Baby, I came here because I believe what we had in Vegas is real. I believe you walked into Agave Blue for a reason, and that reason is me.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders. Nellie could feel moisture gathering in her eyes. “But, Nell, you’ve got to decide who you are and what you really want. I believe inside that luscious body there are two people—sweet, small-town librarian and hot, loving seductress. Baby, those two just need to meet and get to know one another.”
She couldn’t stop the tears. They slid down her cheeks. He wiped them away.
“I’m here to stay, Nellie, but just like that night we met in Vegas, I’m not going to push you to do something you don’t want to do. Where we go from here is up to you.”
“That’s not fair,” Nellie moaned, stepping back and wiping her cheeks. “You turned the tables. Made this my fault. My problem.”
“No, I didn’t.” Jack shook his head, a bemused smile on his face. “I know where I stand. You gotta find out where you stand.”
He leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss on her lips, so light and tender it made her heart hurt.
“I got to get back to work.” Jack yanked his shirt from the bush and pulled it over his head. An ancient-looking USC cap followed. She stood watching, not believing he was ending the conversation, leaving everything up to her.
He headed past her toward the other side of the house. Just before he disappeared over the hill, he turned and patted his back pocket. “Oh, and, Nellie, if you change your mind about the thong, just give me a call. I’m as good at puttin’ them on as I am at takin’ ’em off.”
He threw her a typical Jack Darby devilish grin then strolled out of sight, leaving her standing in front of a huge pile of rotted timber and a couple of rusted-out animal pens. She felt a bit confused. More than slightly dazed.
Not know who she was?
The hell she didn’t.
She stomped up the embankment, trampling the scraggly dry grass, ready to tell Jack just exactly who she was. But then she stopped. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was threatened by his being in Oak Stand, because when she was with Jack she was different. It had been easy to let her “Elle” side free in Vegas. But not here in the town her great-great-grandfather had built.
Was she afraid of that part of herself?
The thought made her knees weak.
“Hey, Nellie, want some tea?” Dawn stood on the front porch holding a glass.
She really just wanted to get in the old Buick and leave. Crazy mixed-up was how she felt, and making small talk with Jack’s sister over a glass of iced tea wasn’t exactly what she needed right now.
Her shoulders sagged. “Yeah, that sounds nice.” She couldn’t help good breeding—things like that never wore off. Plus she’d been rude yesterday at the church. No sense in not rectifying that.
She strolled up the cracked walk and took the frosty glass from Dawn.
And then broke into tears.
“Aw, no. What’s wrong?” Dawn grabbed her arm and pulled her the rest of the way up the creaky stairs. Two Texas Longhorn camping chairs sat on the newly scraped porch. Dawn shoved her into one.
“N-n-nothing,” said Nellie when she could manage. “He said…he said…oh, nothing.”
Nellie couldn’t vocalize just why she was sobbing. Maybe because Jack was right. Or maybe because she was in love. Or maybe because it simply felt good to let it out.
Dawn didn’t say a thing. She sank down into the adjoining chair, scooped up her own tumbler of tea and let Nellie cry.
Finally Nellie subsided into sniffles with an occasional hiccup. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her shirt, not even caring it was the first time she’d worn it, or that the price tag she’d cut off had read $120.00.
“Sometimes there’s nothing like
a good cry, huh?” Dawn murmured. “If I don’t do it at least once a month, I break a good piece of china or run someone off the road. It’s like required.”
Nellie managed a laugh. “Yeah, but it sucks when you do it in front of your boyfriend’s sister. Well, except he’s not even my boyfriend. Uh, so stupid.”
“Yep, and being around men makes you stupider.”
Nellie nodded and stared out at the darkening shadows on the lawn. The Bermuda grass showed signs of dying. Huge oak trees lined the driveway to the house, their gnarled branches at once grotesque and elegant. The azalea bushes needed water and the flower beds were so choked with weeds it was hard to tell flower from dandelion. The old Henderson place needed plenty of work.
“You know, when I was little, I hated Jack,” Dawn said, setting her tea in the cup holder of the chair. “He was so stinkin’ cute. Little cherub lips, dark curly hair and those incredible lashes around those baby blues. Everyone thought he was the cutest thing they’d ever seen.” Dawn gave a depreciating laugh. “And I was the opposite.”
Nellie shot her a puzzled look. Where was she going with this?
“I was eleven. You know, braces, those little bumps before breasts, not to mention about thirty pounds overweight. I was plain miserable. So I took it out on cute Jack.”
“Why?” asked Nellie.
“’Cause he got all the attention. All the oohs and aahs. I hated it. Made me feel like crap, so I would pinch him, torment him, push him down when Mom wasn’t looking.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I’m not proud of it or anything.” She laughed. “Anyway, one day, Jack was out on his trike. We lived on a dairy, you know.”
“You grew up on a dairy? Jack grew up on a dairy?”
Dawn looked startled. “Yeah, a real dairy with cows and everything.”
“Hmm.” Jack milking cows? There had been nothing about rural life in his Vegas bio. Nellie couldn’t imagine using “cow” and “Jack” in the same sentence.
“So, anyway, it had been raining and Jack was racing up and down the driveway on his trike. I’ll never forget it. He was wearing these red boots, probably pretending to be a fireman or something, and mud flew up and splattered his legs and arms. Mom and Dad had left us with Frannie—she helped Mom out. She never really watched us very well, so I could pretty much do what I wanted. Cheryl, our other sister, was always reading. Even at seven, she was a big ol’ nerd. I was bored, so I decided that I would crank up the old tractor and drive it around.”
Nellie could almost see where this was heading but was too enthralled to stop her.
“That old tractor was stubborn as a mule, and I had no business driving it. But I thought I was big enough. I cranked Bertie—that’s what my dad called the tractor—and started windmilling around the property. I remember pretending I was in a convertible going over to meet my boyfriend. Well, I came around the corner, and there was Jack. I didn’t see him until Bertie was on him.”
Dawn’s eyes glazed over as she stared out at the swaying branches. Long shadows reached for the porch and gloom descended as if it were lending itself to her tale.
“I remember his little face. And the feeling that shot through me. The emptiness, the sheer acceptance that I was about to kill my little brother. It was weird, you know, that kind of disconnect. But I swerved at the last minute. That big wheel came about a half inch of crushing the tricycle and pulling Jack underneath.”
Nellie shivered despite the suffocating humidity.
“I don’t remember much else. How I turned off the tractor, how I climbed down. How Frannie came out screaming at me at the top of her lungs. But I remember Jack. I sprinted over to him. He just sat there on that dumb tricycle. He looked up at me and gave the biggest grin.”
Dawn’s wistful eyes were chocolate soft in the waning light.
“You know what he said?”
Nellie shook her head.
“He said, ‘Hey, Dondee, you can drive a tractor.’ That sweet little boy I sometimes hated was proud of me because I could drive a tractor.”
Poignant silence fell around the two women who were strangers yet had one simple thing in common: they loved Jack.
Dawn shot her a small, sad smile, but her voice held an edge. “So you see, it’s very hard for me to sit here and comfort you, give you tea and sympathy.”
“Why?” Nellie squirmed, a bit uncomfortable at the change in Dawn’s tone.
“Because that day as I held that squirming little boy, bawling my eyes out, I swore I wouldn’t let anyone hurt him. And you have.”
She pierced Nellie with eyes that were no longer velvety and welcoming, but hard as the nails sticking up out of the loose porch boards. “That man gave up his life for you, bought this dump and moved halfway across the country. You need to think long and hard about that, about what he did, and what it says about the way he feels about you.”
Nellie couldn’t stop her own anger from rising. Dawn wanted to lecture her, make her think about Jack? She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Couldn’t get anything about their relationship out of her mind. And his sister wanted to preach to her? “So what are you going to do if I hurt him more?”
Dawn shrugged and flashed a quasi-grin. “Whatever it takes.”
Nellie struggled up from the camping chair, setting her half-full glass of tea on the rickety porch rail. “Look, Dawn, I admire your sisterly concern, but I didn’t ask Jack to show up here. Besides, surely you realize you can’t control what happens to another person’s heart.
“And what about what I feel? What I want?” Nellie was far from finished. “You’d rather I lie to Jack so he could be happy? Don’t you know how those relationships end?”
Dawn flinched at her words. Her mouth opened but no sound came out.
Nellie shook her head and walked down the stairs. Off in the distance she could see Bubba and Jack stacking random pieces of wood in a pile. Bubba was laughing. She waved.
She opened the door to her Buick and looked back at Dawn. Jack’s sister sat, stony and silent. Nellie felt a bit sorry for her. She had been trying to protect Jack.
“Thanks for the tea, Dawn,” Nellie called, sliding behind the wheel. Dawn managed a small wave. She seemed lost in thought.
Nellie cranked the car. It purred to life. Fifteen years old and only 25,632 miles on the odometer. Grandmother Tucker had hardly ever gone any farther than the town square. Nellie had sold her small convertible just after her Grandmother had died. Driving it had seemed impractical. Now she wished she’d kept it.
As she set off down the lane, she glanced back at Jack. He stood in the field watching her drive away.
He looked lonely. Hopeful. Sexy.
She wanted him. And she loved him.
But he’d been right. First, she needed to do some hard thinking. She loved her job, loved her town, loved the fact she could cook up a pot of butter beans and batch of corn bread without dragging out a recipe. But she also despised much about her life. Okay, despised was a strong word, but she had to face a few issues about herself.
Jack’s words held truth. She needed to figure out who she was.
Was she Elle or Nellie? But maybe they weren’t separate entities? Sure, playing the part of Elle in Vegas had been liberating, but Nellie had still been herself. Nothing about Elle had been forced. Nellie had allowed herself to be what she sometimes longed to be. She wasn’t two people in one body. Elle was just another facet of herself.
Jack hadn’t fallen in love with Elle, he’d fallen in love with Nellie.
Changing her name hadn’t changed who she really was.
Nor had highlighting her hair, or buying new clothes or wearing a fake tattoo on her shoulder.
By the time she’d pulled out of the bumpy driveway, Nellie knew what she wanted. It was time to show Jack he’d come to Oak Stand for all the right reasons.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. There are other ways, trust me.
But they are a bit more dangerous and could get you pregnant.
—Grandmother Tucker after watching The Barefoot Contessa one afternoon.
JACK SPENT the next several days trying not to think about Nellie, but it was easier said than done. For one thing, the town had been founded by her family. From streets to statues, he ran across the Tucker name almost daily in one context or another. And though Nellie technically was a Hughes, everyone called her a Tucker. He understood. He’d grown up in a rural area where people still called his sisters “those Darby girls” though they’d been off and married for over ten or so years.
Still, Nellie’s name came up often, thanks to Bubba Malone, who mentioned her at least once every hour. Usually it was in regard to her cooking. Seems she’d been over at Bubba’s taking care of his momma. Bubba reaped the benefits, bringing leftovers every day and making annoying “mmm” noises. Jack wasn’t pleased Bubba got to spend time with Nellie while he sat at home fantasizing about tumbling the long-limbed, hot woman in the sweet-smelling pasture out back. Country living did have its benefits—no neighbors for miles.Not that he hadn’t met his neighbors. They’d come out of the woodwork trying to catch a bite or two of gossip. After seeing him follow Nellie out of church, everyone had suspicions. He was from Vegas. Nellie had just been to Vegas. Small-town people were a lot smarter than all the big-city people portrayed them to be. To them, “if it smells dead, it mostly likely is dead.”
So he got lots of information on Miss Nellie Hughes, along with a watermelon, a lemon pound cake and a fruit basket.
He had to give them credit for lacking big-city bluntness. The conversation seemed to go something like this.
“Welcome to our little town, Mr. Darby.”
“You can call me Jack.”
“Oh, Jack then. We hope you like living in Oak Stand. It’s a fine town. Did you know our town was founded by Rufus Tucker? His great-great-granddaughter still lives here, can you believe? Her name is Nellie. Have you met her by chance?” Eyes slide to his, gauging a reaction, studying him, waiting for his answer like a spider waits on the hapless mosquito.
