The Truth About Tara

by Darlene Gardner

  “I’m thirty-one,” Jack said. “I think I’ve got some good years left in me.”

  “Of course you do.” Mr. Snyder waved a hand at his friends. “Ignore those guys. They’re always gabbing about things they know nothing about.”

  “Hey!” one of the guys protested.

  Mr. Snyder didn’t acknowledge him. “What brings you here today, Tara? Need more of those energy-saving light bulbs for your mother?”

  “No. They last a long time, just like you said. Actually, I’m going to refinish a mahogany rolltop desk I got from my mom’s house. I’d like to buy stripper and some stain.”

  “You’ll need more than that,” Mr. Snyder said. “You ever done that kind of work before, Tara?”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Tara said. “Just sell me the materials and I can manage.”

  “I’ll help,” Jack offered. “I’ve done a number of pieces for my parents.”

  “Thanks,” Tara said, “but that’s not necessary.”

  “It’s tricky refinishing a rolltop, Tara,” Mr. Snyder said. “Let your young man help you.”

  “He’s not my young man,” Tara began, but she was talking to Mr. Snyder’s back. He’d already stepped away to find her supplies. She and Jack followed. The shop owner stopped at shelves stocked with rubber gloves, steel wool, sandpaper, drop cloths and stain.

  “Let’s see. You’re gonna need most of what we’ve got here,” he said. The chimes attached to the front door of the shop sounded. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to see to that customer. Your young man can help you pick out the right things, Tara.”

  “He’s not—” Tara began again, but Mr. Snyder was already gone.

  Jack jerked a thumb in the general direction of the front of the store. “According to Mr. Snyder’s buddy, I’m your old man.”

  “You’re not my man—young or old—at all.” She caught the gleam in his eyes and frowned at him. “You’re teasing me.”

  “Guilty,” he said. “But I’m staying until at least July, so I am at your disposal for the next few weeks. You can do what you want with me.”

  She gave a short laugh. “I’m not going to ask you to have sex with me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It wasn’t,” he said, his grin spreading. “I was talking about helping you refinish that piece of furniture.”

  “Oh.” She felt the heat spread across her cheeks. “Sorry.”

  “No apology necessary.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I’m flattered that you look at me and think about sex.”

  She wondered how this conversation had spiraled out of control so quickly. He was still touching her hair. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t move away from him. “You weren’t listening. I said no sex.”

  “It’s okay with me if we start out slowly,” he said. “I’m not the kind of guy who has sex on the first date, anyway.”

  Now she did step back. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m asking you to have dinner with me this weekend,” he said. “I don’t have plans, so you can pick the night.”

  She had to grit her teeth so she didn’t say yes. So what if he was handsome and charming and likable? She should have seen this coming and taken steps to prevent it. It wasn’t enough to keep him away from her mother. As she said, she needed to avoid him, too. “Thanks, but no.”

  “Then I’ll pick the night,” he said. “How about tomorrow? That way, we can go out again if things go well.”

  “I meant no, I can’t go out with you,” Tara said. “Not tomorrow, not Saturday and not Sunday.”

  He edged closer to her. Her breath caught in her throat. She could smell him, a clean combination of soap, shampoo and his own warm scent. Not for the first time, she wished his sister wasn’t working on the Hayley Cooper case.

  “Look, I just want to have a few laughs and enjoy your company. Nothing more,” he said. “It’s not like there could ever be anything serious between us.”

  “Why not?” she asked, then could have thumped her forehead. If dating him was out of the question, so was forming a meaningful relationship with him.

  “As soon as my shoulder’s better, I’m signing with whichever pro team offers me a contract,” he said. “You’ll never leave the Eastern Shore.”

  She felt her spine stiffen. “How do you know I’ll never leave?”

  “Hey, I’m telling it like I see it,” he said, raising a hand. “I’ve seen how protective you are of your mother. I can’t imagine you moving away from her.”

  Now he sounded like Mary Dee.

  “So how about that date?” he asked. “In case it helps my cause, your mom would approve. She even told me I should ask you out.”

  He couldn’t have said anything more likely to dissuade her from accepting a date with him. He was far too involved with her family already.

  “Okay, I hate to be blunt, because you seem like a nice enough guy.” She took a deep breath and hoped her lie would sound convincing. “I’m just not interested.”

  “Ouch.” He put a hand over his heart. Despite the overly dramatic gesture, he really did look wounded. “Well, I gave it a shot. No hard feelings, okay? We’ll be working together for at least another week, so we can just be friends.”

  Except they couldn’t. Becoming Jack’s friend would be almost as dangerous as getting romantically involved with him, maybe more so. She couldn’t refuse, though. She couldn’t do anything that would make him suspicious of her.

  “Sure,” she said. “Friends.”

  “I’ll get a handbasket for those materials you need,” Jack said. He was back in a moment, leaning across her to grab sandpaper and stain from the nearest shelf. His arm brushed hers, and warmth spread from her head to her toes. She stepped backward, dismayed by her reaction, hoping he hadn’t noticed it.

  In minutes, they had all they needed. Jack carried the handbasket to the cash register, then insisted on toting the heavier of the bags back to the community center.

  By the time they’d walked a block, more people were out and about, and Tara’s nerves were frayed from trying to hide her attraction to him.

  “When I picked up your mom and Danny yesterday, she said you were kayaking.” He sounded perfectly at ease. “Do you go often?”

  She made a concerted effort to focus on the subject, one of her favorites. “As often as I can. There are a lot of beautiful spots you can’t reach any other way.”

  “So you’re an expert kayaker,” he said.

  “A novice,” she said. “I took up the sport a few months ago.”

  He asked her several more questions about kayaking, which she answered at length. Finally something occurred to her. “You’re trying to put me at ease, aren’t you?”

  He shrugged. “If we’re going to be friends, I don’t want any awkwardness between us.”

  Here was her chance to set some ground rules and possibly minimize the threat he posed to her family. “Then don’t bring up things like my father and sister dying.”

  “Noted,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if the anniversary hadn’t been this week. I know those kinds of rememberances can be tough.”

  “Not as tough as it used to be,” Tara said, uncomfortable with the compassion in his eyes. “It did happen almost three decades ago, you know.”

  “What?” He sounded truly shocked. “I thought it was more recent than that.”

  Tara bit her lip, dismayed that she’d leaked something he didn’t already know. She couldn’t backtrack now.

  “No, it was a long time ago,” she said.

  “But your mother said...” He stopped, as though playing over in his mind exactly what she’d told him. “I got the impression Sunny had gone out for a swim. But given what you’ve said, she couldn’t have been very old.”

  Tara didn’t want to tell him her sister’s age. With the information he already had, though, he could probably find out the details himself. Or worse, get his P.I. sister to do it.


  “She was three.” As recently as last week, before her mother had recounted exactly what had happened, Tara wouldn’t have been able to provide the details of the story. “She was in my father’s arms when a wave swept over them. He lost hold of her.”

  “You had to have been even younger than that,” he said. “You don’t remember her, do you?”

  Tara’s inclination was to claim that she did remember Sunny, except that would be like waving a red flag in his face. Very few people had memories from when they were two years old.

  “That’s right.” Tara needed to add something to throw him off the scent. That is, if he picked one up. “I only know her through pictures and what my mom has told me about her.”

  “What did she tell you?” Jack asked.

  “That they called her Sunny because of her personality.” Tara needed to make up the rest. In truth, her mother hardly mentioned her lost daughter. “And that she loved me. She used to hold me on her lap and feed me my bottle even though we were just a year apart.”

  With a start, Tara realized she’d shared with him the fantasy of only children—having a loving sibling.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “The offer still stands,” he said. “I’m here if you want to talk.”

  Except she couldn’t talk to him. The more she was around him, the more chance she had of saying something she shouldn’t and arousing his suspicions.

  She’d been right in the first place. She couldn’t be his lover or his friend, no matter how much she wanted to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE BEER MUG CRASHED to the floor and bounced, spilling amber liquid onto the wood. Tara grabbed a rag off the bar and hurried to her mother, who stood staring down at the mess.

  “Look what I did!” her mother exclaimed. “Oh, I never should have agreed to help out at the pub tonight.”

  O’Malley’s Pub, a bar/restaurant in Cape Charles, was owned by the parents of a guy Tara had dated in high school. She’d worked there as a waitress in the summers when she was a teenager. Her old boyfriend had long since married someone else, but Tara still provided an extra hand at the pub on Friday nights, when the clientele nearly tripled because of the live music.

  Her mother was pitching in tonight because one of the regular waitresses had called in sick and the O’Malleys needed an experienced replacement quickly. Her mom qualified, even though it had been many years since she’d been a waitress. Luckily, her neighbor Mrs. Jorgenson had been able to mind Danny.

  Tara got down on her hands and knees to wipe up the spill, breathing in the fragrant smell of hops and barley. She looked up at her mother as she mopped. “Everybody drops something sooner or later. Just forget about it and get a refill.”

  She handed her mother the now-empty plastic beer mug.

  “You’re right,” her mother said. “I used to be a terrific waitress if I do say so myself.”

  Tara stood up and laid a hand on her mother’s arm. Carrie felt fragile, like a porcelain doll. “I know. That’s why I recommended you to help out tonight.”

  “I thought it was because I need the money,” her mother said.

  “That, too.” Of the two of them, it seemed her mother’s

  unemployed status weighed more heavily on Tara. Her mother operated on the assumption that something would come along sooner or later. In today’s economy, Tara wasn’t so sure about that.

  “I’ll try to do you proud,” Mom said, casting an uncertain glance at Tara before bustling off.

  It wasn’t the first time her mother had said something like that. Mary Dee’s claim about how needy her mother was contained more than a few grains of truth. Lately, it seemed as though her mother craved Tara’s approval. Was that because she was seeking forgiveness for snatching a little girl from a shopping mall and raising her as her own?

  Stop it, Tara told herself sternly. She didn’t know that anything of the sort had happened. What’s more, if it had, she didn’t want to find out.

  Tara crossed behind the bar to rinse out the beer-soaked rag, passing another waitress and George O’Malley along the way. The owner of the bar was a large man with a thick mustache, a shaved head and a soft voice. His green O’Malley’s T-shirt stretched over his barrel chest.

  “Is your mom gonna be okay?” Mr. O’Malley asked. “She seems overwhelmed.”

  “She’ll be fine once she gets back in the swing of things.” Tara winked at him. “She passed down her mad waitress skills to me, didn’t she?”

  Now, why had she said that? Was she trying to convince Mr. O’Malley she and her mother were related? Or was she trying to convince herself?

  He laughed, showing a narrow gap between his front teeth. His son had the same trait, yet Tara couldn’t think of a single physical characteristic she and her mother had in common. “My son should have snapped you up when he had the chance,” Mr. O’Malley said.

  “Don’t let Emma hear you say that,” Tara said, referring to Mr. O’Malley’s daughter-in-law. Earlier in June, Tara had spent all day working beside her at the church flea market.

  “I like Emma,” Mr. O’Malley said in a voice that was even softer than usual. He sidled closer to her. “I just like you better.”

  “If you keep flattering me like that, you’ll never get rid of me,” Tara said.

  He winked at her. His eyes were blue, like his son’s. “That’s the plan.”

  “Then it’s working.” She picked up her order pad, rounded the bar and headed for her section of the main dining area filled with rustic booths and wooden tables. With the live music set to start soon, the dining room was full and more customers were arriving by the minute.

  The door to the entrance swung open as she was passing by. She paused, intending to tell the new customer that a few of the bar stools were still empty. The words died on her lips. The customer was Jack.

  “Tara!” His sensuous mouth curved into a heart-stopping smile. His jeans and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up would have looked pedestrian on anyone else. On Jack, the clothes called attention to his broad shoulders, hair-sprinkled forearms and long muscular legs. “What a surprise.”

  It seemed too coincidental that Jack should ask her out for tonight and then show up here at the pub where she worked nearly every Friday. “Is it really?” she asked.

  “It sure is,” he said. “I figured you for a homebody.”

  Since that was essentially true, Tara didn’t know why it sounded like a criticism.

  “I work here whenever there’s live music,” she said. “That’s just about every Friday and some Saturdays during the summer.”

  “Wow,” he said. “You work at a lot of places.”

  “Only in the summer, a couple hours here and there to help out friends and to make some extra money. I like to keep busy.”

  Somebody jostled her from behind, causing her to take a step closer to him. Her chest came up against his and her heart sped up. He smelled clean and fresh, like the outdoors. She retreated, breaking the momentary contact.

  “You’ll want to grab a stool at the bar before they’re all gone,” she said. “The music should be starting soon.”

  “Can’t wait,” he said. “Who would have guessed Gus played flamenco guitar?”

  “Gus is providing the live music?” Tara asked. Mr. O’Malley had mentioned he’d scrambled to get a replacement after the originally scheduled act canceled. He hadn’t provided any more details, though.

  “You didn’t know?” Jack asked. “How did you think I found out about this place?”

  She thought her mother had told him where Tara worked on the weekends, the same way Carrie had shared a half dozen other confidences with him.

  “Hope you enjoy it here. Seems like everybody else does.” She gestured at the crowd around them. “I need to wait on my customers so they don’t start flagging down the other waitresses.”

  “Catch up with you later,” he said easily before heading to the bar. She watched him go, her gaze slipping from his broad shoulders to
his nicely shaped rear end. Just as quickly, she redirected her attention to the restaurant.

  She entered the dining room, greeting friends, stopping by booths and tables, taking orders and clearing dishes, trying not to think about Jack DiMarco. She delivered a pitcher of beer and four orders of wings to two middle-aged couples, turned to head back to the kitchen and spotted Gus. Not the Gus who dressed in T-shirts and shorts at Camp Daybreak. In black pants and a black short-sleeved shirt, with the barest hint of gray at the temples of his black hair, this Gus resembled a musician. She intercepted him before he reached the stage.

  “Hey, Gus,” she said, smiling at him. “I just found out you were the entertainment. I didn’t even know you were a musician.”

  “I didn’t know you were a waitress,” he said.

  “Only sometimes,” she said.

  “Same for me with the music,” he said. “I haven’t performed in a while, so it’s good to have a friend in the audience.”

  “You’ve got more than one friend,” Tara said. “Jack’s here, too. And my mother.”

  His dark eyebrows rose. “Carrie’s here?”

  “The O’Malleys were shorthanded tonight, so I got her to fill in,” Tara said.

  His face split into a smile that lit up his green eyes. “Then I need to be extra good, the better to impress her.”

  “You’re interested in my mom?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I know she’s a widow. I’m trying to take it slow, but patience isn’t one of my virtues.”

  “Did you know my dad and Sunny died in the early eighties?” Tara asked.

  His eyes widened and his lips parted. Nope, he hadn’t known. Barry Findley, the accountant who did her taxes, motioned for her from one of her tables, where he and his wife, a county librarian, were sitting. No time to elaborate. “I’ve gotta go, Gus. Good luck tonight. Or should I say, break a leg.”

  She hustled over to Barry’s side, promising she’d bring him a fresh drink pronto. With the pub this crowded, she shouldn’t have taken the time to approach Gus.