"Could I talk to you privately, Tyler?" the woman asked.
He wanted to say no—Jayne could tell by the way his fingers knotted. But with a glance her way that didn't reach her eyes, he pushed to his feet and started toward the door.
"We'll just be a minute," the woman said with an apologetic smile before following him.
"Who's she?" Lucy asked.
"I don't know. A friend of Tyler's."
"I don't think so. Friends are people you're happy to see, and he didn't look happy."
Jayne watched as they crossed the street to the courthouse square, then sat down on a bench there. She'd always thought jealousy was such a petty emotion. When a friend got a better contract or had better sales, sure, she wished the same good fortune for herself, but she didn't begrudge the friend the success. She was blessed in her own life—her daughter, her parents, her strength, her career and, for now, Tyler. The redhead was from his past. Jayne was his present—and hopefully his future.
But that ugly little feeling curling in her gut was undoubtedly jealousy mixed with concern. Even Lucy had noticed he wasn't happy to see the woman. Along with all that, too, was the need to protect him. She didn't want anything he'd thought was over and done coming up now to cause him more grief. He'd had enough of that in his life.
"Hey, Mom?"
She turned her attention back to her daughter. "What, sweetie?"
"Can Charley and me have a sleepover like you and Tyler have been doin'?"
Jayne blinked. "Like…" Lucy was sound asleep long before she and Tyler went to bed, and he was out of the house and gone for work an hour or more before she awoke. "How do you know he's been staying over?"
Lucy rolled her eyes. "I get up sometimes to pee, Mom, and Cameron Diaz are there all night, and sometimes I hear you."
Her cheeks burning, Jayne stammered. "H-hear us wh-what?"
"Talkin'," Lucy replied as if it was obvious. Before Jayne could relax too much, she went on. "And sometimes breathin' loud."
As in snoring? Or trying-to-be-quiet-but-their-lungs-were-about-to-explode heavy breathing? "Oh," she said, and her voice came out unnaturally high and small. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Well."
"So when we go to the farm tomorrow, can I ask Charley to spend the night sometime?"
"I don't even know if I've met Charley's mother."
"You haven't. They're divorced, and she doesn't come to the farm on Sundays because it's Charley's dad's family, not hers. But you met him. He's the one with the blond hair. And since Tyler'll be there, too, it'll be okay."
Jayne spared a smile for Lucy's description. Half the men in the Morris family had blond hair, while the rest had light brown hair or were bald. Tyler was the exception. "Listen, Luce, let's not go around telling everyone that Tyler spends the night with us, okay?"
"Why? Is it wrong?"
"No, not at all. It's just personal. Like I don't tell people how much money I make or how much taxes I pay because that's personal."
"Okay." Then, with a grin she said, "How much money do you make?"
"Enough."
"Enough to buy a pony?"
"Afraid not. I don't need another mouth to feed."
"But you wouldn't have to feed him. He'd eat the grass around the house, and then you wouldn't have to mow, either."
"I don't think it's that easy, Luce. But you know what? You can save your money and when you have enough to buy a horse and take care of it, we'll talk, okay?"
"But that'll take foreevvver." Letting her eyes roll up, Lucy collapsed in the booth, her head tilted to one side, her tongue dangling from the corner of her mouth.
"What's that?" Tyler asked as he slid onto the bench.
With a quick glance outside, Jayne saw the redhead getting into a car parked down the block. She looked back at Tyler but couldn't read anything in his expression. He just looked … tough.
"She's showing me how she'll look by the time she saves enough money to buy a horse."
"That face would scare a horse into running off."
Lucy did her best to maintain the look, but her giggles chased it away. Sitting up, she asked, "Who was that lady?"
He gave the same answer with the same lack of enthusiasm. "Someone I used to know."
"But you don't know her no more?"
"Yeah, I still know her. I just hardly ever see her."
"Does she live here in town?" Jayne asked, hoping she achieved some measure of casual in her tone.
"No."
"Did she live here when you knew her?"
He rested his forearms on the table, gripping his hands, before briefly glancing her way. "Look, I don't want to talk about it, okay? It's personal."
Once before, when he'd told her about Angela, he'd cut her off with a similar line. It stung even more now than it had then. Biting the inside of her lip, she nodded once, then looked away.
"I know what personal means," Lucy announced. "It's something that's not wrong but that you shouldn't tell everyone. Like you having sleepovers with Mom is personal."
Again Tyler's gaze cut to her, though Jayne refused to meet it. It felt as sharp as his tone. "You told her?"
"She gets up sometimes to pee," she replied stiffly.
"Mom! That's personal!"
"Sorry, sweetie." She gave Lucy a tight smile, then turned her gaze out the window again. If the other women in Tyler's life were personal and private, what was she? Convenient? Handy? Easy? She certainly hadn't required any effort. Be a little nice to her and her kid, and she couldn't be any more willing.
Honesty forced her to admit that she wasn't being fair to Tyler. He hadn't taken advantage of her, hadn't coaxed her into anything she hadn't wholeheartedly wanted. So she was falling in love with a man who didn't trust her enough to open parts of his life to her. Just because she wanted to share everything with him didn't mean he wanted the same.
And if he couldn't trust her, then he couldn't love her. No matter that he treated her with affection and fondness and respect.
She'd been right about one thing that day.
This was going to be her worst disappointment ever.
* * *
Chapter 12
« ^ »
For once, the tables were turned. Instead of Jayne trying to draw Tyler into conversation, he was trying to do the same with her, but with lousy results. If he asked a question, she answered in as few words as possible. If he made a comment, she nodded or hmmed. The rest of the time she gazed out the window as if there was something of great interest out there.
He'd lived half his life in Sweetwater. He knew there wasn't.
He ate his lunch without tasting much of it. The tension that had spread through him earlier was in the air now, creating a barrier between him and Jayne as real as if it were physical, and he didn't know how to pull it down.
When they got ready to leave, she reached for the check at the same time he did. "I'll pay," he said stiffly.
She refused to look at him. "No, I will. Consider it payment for painting Lucy's room."
He didn't want payment for painting Lucy's room—and if he did, a hamburger and fries at the diner wouldn't be near enough. But he let go of the check, watched her scoop it up and head toward the cash register before he lifted his gaze to the ceiling and sighed.
Lucy skipped ahead, shoved the heavy glass door open, then paused. "Come outside with me, Tyler."
With a glance at Jayne's unyielding profile, he obeyed.
Hopscotching over the lines in the sidewalk, Lucy tilted her head back. "So what do we do this afternoon?"
"I don't know." Before lunch, he'd been thinking that lying in the hammock with Jayne seemed a perfect way to spend a lazy hour or two on a warm Saturday. Now he doubted she would get near him in the hammock unless it was to dump him out, and he had only himself to blame.
Lucy hopped past the truck, then came back on one foot. As she came even with it, she jumped onto the running board, one arm wrapped around the rearview mirror
for balance.
When she tilted the mirror, Tyler saw Jayne approaching behind him. Without turning, he caught her wrist and pulled her up short when she would have walked on by. "Okay. You want to know who that was? Her name is—"
"I couldn't care less who it was."
"Well, you have a funny way of showing it." When she tried to pull free, he held her, gently forcing her to face him. "Look, I'm sorry. I just didn't want to…"
Finally she looked at him, waiting, but when he didn't finish, she shook her head. "You didn't want to see her with us. You didn't want to explain us to her. You didn't want to share any part of your personal life with me. Not a problem. I understand now. Neighbors, convenience, secrecy—"
Gritting out a curse, he slid his hands into her hair and covered her mouth with his, hard, hot, hungry. She held herself stiff for a moment, two, then a tiny moan escaped her as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. For a time he forgot that they stood on Main Street
, in front of Rebecca's diner, there for anyone to see. All he knew was how good she felt, how sweet she tasted, how badly he needed her—
Until the blast of a horn, followed by a shrill whistle, split the air. Few people could whistle like his kid brother, sharp enough to bust eardrums and make wild critters run for cover, their grandfather said. Raucous calls in voices he dimly recognized grew louder as he ended the kiss, as the rushing in his ears receded.
Raising his head, he focused on the old farm truck idling in the middle of the street. Alex was behind the wheel, and a half dozen of his buddies filled the cab and the bed, all of them grinning ear to ear. They weren't the only ones watching, either. Old man Tennys and his wife were on the sidewalk across the street. Rebecca and Carla stood at the diner's plate-glass window. And a gaggle of his grandmother's church lady friends were paying close attention from down the block.
"Can I be next?" Alex called.
"You're not my type," Tyler replied. "Does Grandpa know you've got all those passengers in his truck?"
"I asked if I could borrow it to haul some stuff for Justin. He didn't ask what stuff."
Tyler scowled at him. "Pay attention to your driving. And be careful."
"Yeah, same to you, Bubba." With a laugh, Alex drove away.
As the sound of the engine faded, Tyler turned his attention back to Jayne. If he was any kind of man, he would spill out everything right there and beg her to understand, to forgive him, to give him a chance to prove that he deserved her and Lucy in his life.
But if he was any kind of man, he wouldn't have any secrets to spill.
Before he could find something he trusted himself to say, she spoke. "Just tell me one thing, will you?"
His throat tight, he nodded. One question, any question, and he'd answer truthfully.
"Was that Angela?"
"Good God, no." The words burst out of him in a rush of relief. She was jealous? The notion was as foreign to him as kissing a woman on Main Street
. Angela had been too sure of him, too sure of herself, to even consider the idea that he could get involved with someone else, and there had never been anyone besides her. "Her name—"
Again Jayne interrupted him, but without anger this time. "I don't want to know, not until you want to tell me."
"I do—"
"No, you don't," she said with a rueful smile. "You just don't want me to be mad at you. And it's okay. I'm not mad."
But she was still a little hurt. It was in her eyes. He raised one hand to gently touch her face. "Just for the record, Jayne, you are the most inconvenient woman I've ever known." She made him want things he couldn't have—made him want to be a man he couldn't be. He would try if he had the chance, would spend the rest of his life trying, but that chance could come only with the truth. With her trust and understanding. Even then…
It was too damn big a risk.
She rewarded him with a teasing smile. "Thank you. My goal in life is to be inconvenient." Rising onto her toes, she kissed his cheek, then pulled away. Catching his hand at the last instant, she drew him toward the truck, where Lucy was now making faces at herself in the mirror.
Tyler swung Lucy off the running board while Jayne opened the door. The kid grinned up at him. "I guess you do like kissin' and yucky stuff," she remarked.
"Like I told you, Lucky girl, when you get older, it won't seem so yucky." Not that he wanted to imagine Lucy old enough to kiss someone the way her mother had just kissed him. There couldn't possibly be a man out there good enough for her, not that Tyler would have any say in the matter.
The reminder renewed the ache in his gut.
They stopped at the grocery store, where they ran into Charley and her mother, Ellen, and left a short while later with a week's worth of groceries and without Lucy. Since the middle section of the seat was empty, Jayne slid over to sit next to him. The simple act made him feel like the kid he'd never been.
Soon after passing the turnoff to Sassie Whitlaw's place, Jayne gestured into the woods on the right. "Look, there's a cemetery back there."
"Yeah." He wasn't surprised she'd never noticed it before. There was no sign, the trees grew thick and the dirt lane was barely wide enough for a regular car to get through, much less a hearse. "That's the original cemetery for Sweetwater. Edna's buried there."
"Can you show me her grave?"
He slowed to a stop, checked the rearview mirror, then shifted into reverse. Once he turned off the road, it was a bumpy quarter-mile drive to the clearing under the trees that passed for parking.
The cemetery was nothing fancy. The graves were dug in neat rows and overgrown with about an equal mix of grass and weeds. Straw from the pine trees towering overhead blanketed the ground, and long-faded plastic and silk flowers marked every site.
They walked between rows of headstones to Edna's plot, right next to her husband's. There were more Millers around, along with a half dozen Brauns, Edna's family.
"What a lovely place," Jayne remarked softly.
"It's a definite improvement over the newer one in town. There the grass is lush and the markers are flat so they don't interfere with the mowing."
"Is your father buried there?"
He pulled a weed from the base of Edna's tombstone. "I don't have any idea where he's buried."
Jayne looked up at him. "You didn't go to his funeral?" Two weeks ago she would have sounded stunned, but knowing what she did, she wasn't even surprised—merely asking for confirmation.
"Nah. His parents showed up in Nashville, claimed the body and left again." He gave her a sidelong look. "They blamed my mother for his death."
"They should have looked a lot closer to home."
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, but she didn't notice as she bent to touch Edna's marker, pressing her fingers against the warm concrete for a moment, before straightening. "We'd better get the groceries home."
Sure. They could talk at home.
They returned to the truck, and once again she slid over to sit beside him, her hand resting lightly on his thigh. Steering with his left hand, he slid his right arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. "You know, there are lots of places in these hills where people go parking."
She rested her head on his shoulder. "Remember? Two houses? Four bedrooms?" After a moment, she sheepishly added, "A chaise longue? A worktable?"
"Aw, where's your sense of adventure?"
"You must have mistaken me for someone who has a sense of adventure. I write about it. I don't live it."
"I don't know. You packed up, moved to a new place where you didn't know anyone and started over. That seems pretty adventurous to me."
"Lucy thinks so, too," she said with a satisfied smile. "It's been A Good Thing … though I have to admit, I had my doubts that first day. All that snow and the house was such a disappointment and we had no power or firewood. If we hadn't had such a neighborly neighbor, Lucy and I probably would have frozen to death."
"I'm not neighborl
y," he said automatically as he turned into her driveway.
She gave him a sly look before she slid across the seat. "You go ahead and tell yourself that. The rest of us know the truth."
They put the groceries away, then went to the bedroom down the hall and made love. Neither of them suggested it or made the first move. They just did it, as if it was the only thing on both their minds.
Afterward, Tyler lay on his back, all the pillows stuffed behind him. Jayne sprawled half over him, her hair tickling where it had come out of its braid. Their skin was slick with sweat where they touched, but he didn't mind. He'd gone so long without this kind of touching—and would again. He wanted to enjoy it while he could.
The windows were open, and a box fan balanced in one was turned to low, blowing cool air across them and scenting the room with the wildflowers that grew just outside. Though he rarely slept during the day, he could manage a nap if he lay there long enough, quietly enough.
He didn't. "Her name is Gail Gennaro," he said and felt Jayne tense, then relax. Though she didn't look at him, she was barely breathing. "Outside of my family and Angela, she's been the most important woman in my life. She's my shrink."
Finally Jayne tilted her head so she could see him. Her gaze was steady, carefully composed, but he identified the faint signs of relief in her eyes.
"You watch television. You read. You know a lot about abusive relationships. You know that daughters raised in that environment are more likely to find themselves in the same situation when they're grown."
She nodded once.
"And sons raised in that environment—" he swallowed hard "—are more likely to become abusive themselves when they're grown."
Another small nod. "Without intervention."
His chest was tight, his muscles on the verge of trembling. He tried to force a breath, but it didn't help. "Dr. Gennaro was—is our intervention. When our grandparents got custody of me and the kids, they were ordered to seek counseling for us. We did the first four years with Dr. Gennaro's partner. When he retired, she took over. I quit going in regularly when I turned twenty-one, though I've seen her from time to time since then."
SOMEBODY'S HERO Page 19
