Guarded Passion

by Bonnie Dee

“I’m good. Thanks for everything you did. I really appreciate it. How is Travis?”

  “Good. That reminds me.” I took the bird whistle from my pocket and offered it to him.

  Jonah frowned. “You don’t want Travis to have it?”

  “It’s not that. This was a gift from your mother. You should have it to remember her by.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to remember her.”

  “But maybe you need to anyway,” I said gently. “And someday you might regret giving it away to some random little kid you knew once.”

  He looked up at me sharply, the feverish glaze gone. “Travis isn’t just some kid, and I expect to know him for years to come. His mom too.”

  I thought he was reaching for the bird, but he grabbed my hand and held it. “I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but I like you, Rianna. I don’t have much experience with women, so maybe I haven’t made it clear.” The dark pools of his eyes sucked me in deep. “After the way I treated you, I don’t blame you for not believing me, but I really care about you and Travis a helluva lot.”

  How was I supposed to stick to my cautious stance under the onslaught of those words and that gaze? I could already feel my wall crumbling. Before I lost it completely and threw my arms around him, I dragged my hand away. “I really have to go.”

  I beat a hasty retreat, practically running down the stairs, shoving on my boots and racing to my car as if demons chased me. I sat in the car, breathing hard, fingers drumming the steering wheel, my heart beating out of my chest. Jonah had said things I’d longed to hear, things I would have seized and hugged to me only last week. But now… I’d worked for days to shift my thinking, to get used to the idea that nothing was ever going to happen between us, and to return to my old attitude of “me and Travis against the world.”

  I’d let Jonah through the cracks and into my heart once. Did I really want to take a chance on being wounded again?

  Chapter Twenty

  Jonah

  Rianna flew from my room like a sparrow evading a hawk. Except sparrows can be vicious and peck the hell out of hawks, can’t they? She delivered a sharp jab to my heart with her nonresponse to my putting my feelings out there, but I deserved it. The last time we’d talked, I’d basically booted her out of my life, so I couldn’t expect her to do a 180 in attitude just because I’d declared my affection. Why should she trust I meant what I said?

  I had to show her. What could I do to illustrate just how much I wanted her and Travis in my life? Lying in bed with a head like a lead balloon, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to come up with an ingenious idea. I hacked up another lung with a racking cough, then collapsed back on the bed—clean and fresh-smelling since Rianna had changed the sheets. I turned my cheek against the pillowcase and inhaled. How nice it had been to have her fussing around me, bringing me soup, fluffing my pillow, tucking me in. No one had ever done those things for me. If my mother had, I didn’t remember it. I loved having Rianna take care of me. I loved having her around my house. I craved more of that, more of her presence in my life.

  But I couldn’t keep paying her just to keep her around. What did Rianna need from me? How could I convince her I saw her as a wonderful, amazing woman and not merely someone accommodating my needs, some employee worthy of a bonus or raise? What did a guy do for a woman whose heart and mind he wanted to win?

  I picked up the bird whistle she’d dropped on the bed beside me and looked at its tin face. The paint was mostly worn off, but the pressed-in features of the beak and eyes were still there. I brought it to my lips and blew a soft toot. I remembered Mom giving me the toy and telling me how her mother had given it to her. Just a cheap little dime-store trinket, but it signified something more. Whatever I did for Rianna must hold special meaning for her. I couldn’t simply buy her with cash or secondhand cars or theater tickets. I had to offer much more to convince her I cared.

  My cold or flu, whatever it was, lasted another couple of days before it broke, and I was back on my feet again. I texted Rianna once to thank her again for taking care of me, and she responded with a brief No problem. I gave her a little space, thinking as soon as I was well I’d turn the full force of my attention on her.

  But the day I finally felt good enough to shower, dress, and face the world again, I didn’t rush straight over to see my girl. With my mind clear of fever, I allowed doubt to fog it up again. I knew how I felt about her, but was she as certain about me? Rianna was only twenty-one. There was seven years difference between us. Was I really the best match for her? She could do better. Find someone without a criminal past. Find a warmer man who didn’t turn to stone when things got difficult. Besides, if we got more involved, what sort of example would I make as a father to Travis? I had little moral compass and no roadmap to follow. The boy deserved a white-picket-fence sort of dad. Anyway, I’d soon be packing up, selling the house, and moving to Lexington, and how would that work as far as courting Rianna?

  One thing at a time. I needed to check in with my dad, so I drove to the nursing home at the edge of our one-horse town. Twilight Gardens looked as bad as it sounded, like a graveyard full of folks waiting to take that next big step into the unknown. In the common room, which smelled of piss and disinfectant, white heads nodded and gnarled hands twisted on top of lap blankets. I tried not to look at the other residents as I made my way down the hall to my dad’s room.

  The door was open, so I walked in. He sat in a chair facing away from me, light from the window haloing his head. His body seemed small and frail, wispy thin and almost translucent. He was not the man I’d feared as a boy and hated as an adult. He was a pathetic shell.

  But when he turned to look at me, I saw the same fire in his eyes. “This is the best you can do? I wouldn’t put a dog I liked in this kennel.”

  I jammed my hands in my coat pockets so he wouldn’t see them clench into fists. “It’s the only place available around here,” I replied calmly. “If you don’t like it, you could always move back in with Huck.”

  He snorted. “I think I got bed bugs from the few nights I stayed there.”

  “I’m sure you’ve crashed in worse places.” I glanced around the painted cinderblock walls of Sawville’s oldest and only nursing home. “Maybe you’d prefer a hotel suite.”

  “I would. Or a bedroom in a nice house,” he shot back. “Bottom line, family takes care of family.”

  “So you want to move into my place. You honestly think we can live together?”

  He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Listen, son. I already told you, I’m not the man I used to be. I know I wasn’t a great father, but the least you can do is give me a home for these last few weeks of my life.”

  “Like the one you provided for us.” Clinging to old hurts wasn’t doing me any good. I knew I had to let go of my resentment and anger, but damned if I could. I still despised the man and remembered every way in which he’d hurt me.

  His eyes glittered, and I couldn’t tell if it was with tears or sly maliciousness. “But you ain’t me. Be the better man, son.”

  I took a breath and released it slowly. “Look, I’m not going to be around here much longer. The best I can do is move you to a nicer facility in Lexington. That’s where I’m going.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Really? What about your business here?”

  “Closing it down. Starting a legit enterprise,” I answered briefly.

  He smiled. “Well, good for you. I’m proud of you, son.”

  I gritted my teeth at that bullshit word—son, which he was only using to try to manipulate me. Yet at the same time, his praise set off a ridiculous glimmer of happiness. I really was pathetic.

  I glanced at my phone, pretending to check the time. “I have an appointment. I’ve got to go. I’ll see what I can find and let you know.”

  A nicer facility in the city would cost a lot more than Twilight Gardens, but I’d make up the difference. I wouldn’t ask Micah or J.D. to go in thirds on something they couldn’t afford.


  I turned to leave.

  “Make sure the aides are pretty. I don’t want to be washed and handled by some three-hundred-pound heifer.” Dad’s voice floated after me into the hallway.

  I winced. There was the man I knew and despised. He hadn’t changed, would never change; it was way too late for that now. I’d do my best by the old man, but I owed him nothing beyond that. No personal care, love, or respect. He’d never earned those.

  I was so inside my head on the drive to Lexington that I hardly paid attention to the road. A million thoughts bombarded my mind, about the past, the future, my father, my business, and mostly about Rianna and Travis and what they meant to me. With them in my life, I had a chance at a real family—what family was supposed to be. Without them, I had nothing.

  By the time I’d finished talking to my construction foreman at the distillery, and rubber-stamping some final changes, I knew what I wanted to do to convince Rianna to give me another shot. I’d thought of the perfect thing to symbolize my long-term intentions toward her.

  I picked up the necessary item and took the long trip back to Sawville, reaching the hollow around dusk and driving up the hill to the trailer park in the dark. My headlights hit the faded blue-and-white trailer trimmed with Christmas lights and the inflated plastic Santa tethered in a snowdrift.

  I’d completely forgotten the holiday was close. Well hell, maybe my gesture could serve as an apology and a Christmas present all in one.

  I got out of the SUV, leaving footprints in the freshly fallen snow as I made my way to the front door. Christmas music drifted from inside. Light and warmth and family lay on the other side of that door, only darkness and cold on my side. But I didn’t have to live that way anymore. I would reach out and take what I wanted, become a part of something bigger than myself—if Rianna would have me.

  *

  Rianna

  The knock at my door nearly made me jump out of my skin. In my experience, a pounding fist in the night rarely meant anything good. I gave Travis another kiss as he snuggled under his covers and told him to stay put in bed, then I hurried to check the peephole of the front door.

  Jonah stood on my doorstep, his dark coat and hair feathered with snowflakes. He looked like a large bear that had lumbered out of the woods.

  Crap! I looked like crap in my threadbare pajama pants and mismatched top. I hadn’t gotten around to washing my hair, and it was pulled into a messy ponytail. I’d smeared night cream on my face. It would look greasy and gross. But what did I care what he thought of how I looked? I was supposed to be putting distance between us. That was what I’d sworn to do, right? Right?

  I hurried to the kitchen and wiped my face as clean as I could with a paper towel before answering the door. Though Jonah stood on the step below me, I had to look up to meet his eyes. “Hey.”

  “Hello.” He smiled, and I nearly melted from the heat even though cold air was blowing in through the open door.

  “We’re letting all the heat out,” I mumbled.

  “Then you could invite me in.”

  I was afraid to and I longed to with every fiber of my being. “All right,” I said as casually as if it was no big deal. “Come on in.”

  He loomed into my tiny trailer and shut the door behind him. The chill of outdoors radiated off him and his big black coat.

  “How’s your cold? Feeling better?” I filled the silence with politeness.

  “Yes.” His eyes burned into me as he audibly caught his breath. “I came over to… I wanted to say…”

  I waited, determined not to help him along. Let him spit out whatever he was going to say to me. But I hadn’t counted on actions instead of words.

  All of a sudden, Jonah reached out and pulled me off my feet. He clasped me to his damp snowy coat with arms like bands of steel. He kissed my taken-unaware mouth until I couldn’t breathe, and when I finally pulled away, he muttered, “God, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you too,” I breathed back, my mouth tingling so I could hardly form the words. I didn’t want to talk or think of reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this. I only wanted more of his arms wrapped around me and his body pressing against mine.

  He took my shoulders and moved me away from him. “But I didn’t come here just to kiss you or to paw you all over, much as I might want to.” His gaze slid down the length of my huge Hello Kitty bed shirt and faded flannel pants, and I felt as sexy as if I were wearing silky lingerie.

  I folded my arms over my hardened nipples and tried to regain my composure. “Why did you come?”

  “To give you something.” He reached into one coat pocket and pulled out a small package. “Something to show you how I feel about you.”

  For a brief crazy moment, I thought he was going there, making a huge romantic gesture, which would be insane. I’d have to turn him down. We hardly knew each other. People didn’t make lifetime commitments based on sexual chemistry and a couple of dates. But then I realized the bag was flat, not as if it contained a jewelry box unless it was a necklace or something.

  He thrust the package toward me. “I hope you’ll enjoy this.”

  Candy? What else came in smallish flat packages? I grasped the bag and felt something hard inside.

  “You didn’t have to do this. I don’t have a gift for you.”

  “This isn’t a Christmas thing. It’s a… I guess you’d call it a token of my affection and a promise for the future.”

  What the hell? I reached into the bag and pulled out an envelope stamped with the Lexington Legends icon, a mustached baseball player wielding two bats and gritting his teeth. “Tickets? You got me”—I opened the envelope—“season tickets?”

  I took out the packet and fanned out the tickets for all the home games.

  “You can just download them these days, but I wanted you to have something to open,” Jonah said.

  “But I don’t live anywhere near Lexington. I couldn’t make it up there for all these games. I mean, thank you, but…” I trailed off, staring in bewilderment at the amazing tickets I couldn’t possibly use.

  “You could if you lived in Lexington.” Jonah reached out and pushed a tendril of hair back behind my ear. “You could if your new house was only about twenty minutes from Whitaker Ballpark.”

  My suddenly nerveless fingers almost let the tickets slide out of my hands. I clutched them tighter and stared up at Jonah’s face. He licked his lower lip and swallowed. “What are you saying?”

  “I have to move because of my new business. I can’t drive over two hours every day.” He took a breath. “I’d like to keep courting you slow and easy, but things being the way they are, I need to move soon. If you’re up for it, I’d like you to move with me.”

  My jaw may have dropped to the floor just then.

  “Not move in with me. I’d help you find an apartment and work, and we could keep, um, dating.” He frowned. “This is stupid to ask. I can’t ask you to change your life to make thing more convenient for me. In my head, it seemed romantic, but now I see it’s just—”

  I put up my hand, still clutching the tickets, to shush him. “It is romantic. Very romantic.” I gestured at the trailer around us. “And it’s not like I’d be leaving the Taj Mahal behind. I can clean houses or wait tables anyplace. But…”

  “But what?”

  “I’ve made the mistake of trailing after a man before. I need to stop making knee-jerk impulsive decisions. I have a kid to think about.”

  “Who you could provide for much easier in Lexington,” Jonah pointed out.

  That was true enough. The job opportunities would be much better in the city. I’d never lived anyplace but small Kentucky towns. What would it be like to leave hill country behind and join the urban sprawl? The idea scared and thrilled me, as did the proposition of diving into a full-fledged relationship with Jonah.

  I stared at the tickets before tucking them back into the envelope. “I’d have to think about this.”

  “Of course
. It’s a big step. I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you in any way. If you don’t choose to move, I’ll drive down here to see you and Travis and take you to whichever games you can make it to. But I’m not giving up. I want to prove to you I’m someone worth your time.”

  He took my hands in his and looked into my eyes with that intense gaze that always did me in. “We started off on a really bad foot. About the worst way possible which was my fault because I didn’t have the basic social skills to simply ask you out. I’ve learned since then. I don’t ever want you to think I’m trying to buy your affection. I like you, Rianna.” He paused. “Hell, maybe I love you. This is my awkward way of trying to tell you that.”

  I weighed pros and cons and possible responses until I’d tied myself in knots, but underneath my thoughts the quiet buzz of maybe I love you wouldn’t stop repeating over and over. “What about Travis?” I finally said. “You wouldn’t just be dating me. We kinda come as a pair.”

  “Travis too. I care about both of you. I want both of you in my life.” He gave my hands a squeeze, then slipped his around my waist. “We could be a family. If it’s way too soon to bring that up, well fucking shoot me. I have to put it out there.”

  “Wow” was all I could manage to breathe.

  Jonah began to laugh, a warm rich sound I’d heard too little of since I’d known him. “If either of my brothers could hear me now, they’d never let me live it down. I’m the one always telling them to stop and think, approach things with logic, and never be impulsive.”

  “Look before you leap. My Gran used that one a lot.” I smiled. “You’re supposed to be the levelheaded one.”

  “I’ve rarely made a move in my life without thinking through all the possibilities. Caution is what kept my business protected. And now, I want to leap. I want to be carried away by feelings. I don’t want to guard my emotions anymore.”

  I thought about the dangers of throwing your heart out there and trusting someone to catch it, but also the joy that might come from taking that chance.