by Stuart, Amie
“Please.” She waved a hand and laughed softly. “I guess you’re with Tim?”
“I guess. Now we need to find someone for you.”
“Not in this lifetime.”
“You’re alone too much, Kellie.”
“And you?” She quirked an eyebrow. “You just take off when the best catch in the county pushes a little too hard.” Her frankness caught me off guard and I mulled her words over.
“You’re right. I did.”
“Are you coming back to the dancehall?”
Here we were on safe ground. “Hopefully. I haven’t talked to Susie yet though.”
“She’ll take you back.”
As badly as I wanted to hug her, I didn’t feel I had the right. Instead, I fisted my hands in my lap. “I kept wondering what you were doing, how you were doing, if you were keeping to yourself too much.” I let lose a weak chuckle. “And Tim and his little hellion. That Rene would have driven the sisters of St. Agnes to an exorcism with her mouth. And Susie and Rowdy, such shameless flirts. And Jessa with her mouth! No wonder Rene swears so much.”
“You were homesick.”
“I suppose I was,” I said in surprise. “It’s been so long since I had a home, I didn’t even know what it was like to miss it.”
I was unloading groceries from my car when Susie’s SUV pulled into the driveway. I had a feeling my chat with her wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice as my chat with Betti and Jessa had been.
She climbed out, slammed the door, and said, “Here. Let me give you a hand.”
Before I could protest, she’d grabbed the last three bags from the trunk. I adjusted the bags I was holding, slammed the trunk with my elbow, and then led her inside.
“I’m sorry.” Which seemed to be my word of the day.
“I’m sure you are.” She set her bags on the counter and began unloading them. I did likewise while waiting for her to continue speaking. Finally, she said, “I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this. Did you know that Rene asked her grandfather if she could move in with them?”
I nearly dropped the five-pound bag of potatoes I’d been searching for a place for. “No, I didn’t.”
“This—” Susie held out her hands, gesturing to the kitchen, and more importantly the house, “—has the potential to be a disaster of catastrophic proportions. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” I said, but was interrupted before I could say more.
“This isn’t just about you and Tim, which is bad enough. This is about a little girl who doesn’t have a mama, who’s pretty much never had a mama, because her mama ran out on her before she was even potty-trained. Did Tim tell you about that?”
I shook my head and opened my mouth, but Susie wasn’t done. “Bless Tim, for all his philandering ways, he’s never brought a woman into this house. And as much as I liked you, as good a bartender as you were, this is a huge mistake and it won’t end well.” She exhaled, grumbling under her breath. “If you had any sense, young lady, you’d leave before you get in any deeper and do irreparable damage to that poor child.”
My cheeks were so hot from embarrassment I felt like my face was literally on fire. Susie’s speech had hit every one of my buttons—from hot to guilty. It’d been a long day. A long couple of days. And while I understood where she was coming from, I’d had enough of being censured. “Did you replace me at the dancehall?”
She frowned at me, blinking a few times in obvious confusion before she finally spoke. “No. Why?”
“Because I need a job, of course.” I turned to face the counter and began emptying another bag of groceries. “I’ll see you Thursday night.” Picking up two cartons of eggs, I finally turned to face her again. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be here forever, but then, forever is very long time.”
My confrontation with Susie had left me rattled, and I did what I always did when I was upset. I cooked.
DESPITE HIS BEST intentions, Tim checked the house repeatedly all afternoon, worried that just maybe Toni wouldn’t come back from the grocery store—not that she’d get far with a hundred dollars. He didn’t think his excuses about checking fences went over well, when Zack came hunting him down. “What’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
Zack leaned on his saddle horn and peered at him. “First she’s gone, now she’s back, and your made-up half-assed excuses about the fences isn’t fooling anyone.”
“She needed me, I went and got her.” He breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her pink GTO turning onto the ranch property.
“You got it bad.”
She slowed and waved at them both before gunning the engine and heading for the house. He watched for a minute before replying. “Yeah, so, what’s your point?”
“I’ve just never seen you like this with anyone. Wonder if she’d model for me,” he added absently.
“Model?” Tim frowned at him.
“Keep your hat on. I don’t do nudes. At least, not that anyone’ll ever see,” he added with a grin.
“I wanted to know that?”
“Nothing wrong with me sketching my pregnant wife, is there?”
“Well, no, but you didn’t have to share.”
They rode toward the barn in an easy silence before Zack spoke again. “I may come by after dinner and see if she’d want to. If that’s okay.”
“Fine with me.”
“Good. I could do some interesting things with those eyes of hers.”
Just then their dad rode up, his attention on Zack. “I need a minute with your brother.”
Zack nodded, kicked his heels into his mount, and took off. Tim couldn’t say that he was surprised at being cornered by his dad. What did surprise him was what his dad had to say when he finally spoke.
“Rene wants to come and live with us.” His hat was pulled so low, Tim couldn’t quite make out what he was thinking. They circled their horses around one of the older pecan trees before either of them spoke again. “You know I don’t like getting involved in y’all’s business, but when it concerns my grandchildren, I feel like I have to.”
“I’m sorry she dragged you into this—”
“—she didn’t drag me into anything, Timothy. She’s my granddaughter and I want what’s best for her.” He pulled up his mount, tilted back his hat and focused his narrow-eyed gaze on Tim. “I told her things would get better, but if they don’t…”
He’d take Rene.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“See that it isn’t.”
His father’s warning haunted him the rest of the afternoon, so you could have knocked him over with a horsetail at the sight of Rene setting the table for dinner. And his kitchen smelled good. Better than it had the previous night, even. His mouth watered as he stood just outside the door, taking off his boots.
“What?” she finally said. “Gram said you wanted me home.” She frowned at him, a fistful of silverware clutched in her hand. “So here I am.” Her face had been washed, and she’d changed into clean clothes.
“Dinner as soon as you clean up,” Toni said from behind her.
“I see that.” He met Toni’s eyes and returned her smile while closing the door behind him. “Give me ten.”
He also didn’t miss Rene’s narrow-eyed gaze as he passed her. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his head when he stopped to give Toni a quick kiss. His daughter had better get used to it. For better or worse her life had just taken a drastic turn.
By the time he returned dinner was officially on the table. Toni nudged him toward his chair and he took a seat.
“It’s pork tenderloin with…peach chipotle glaze,” Rene said.
Considering he could barely cook pork chops, Tim was impressed. Also he could get used to this. Coming home to a pretty woman, and dinner, after a hard day. “Wow! You went all out.”
“It was nothing.” They were halfway through filling their plates when Toni spoke again. “Susie came by.”
Tim froze, the for
kful of food halfway to his mouth. “And?”
“I start back at the dancehall on Thursday.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You’re not going back to work.”
Toni pokered up in her seat and her lips thinned.
“You don’t have to work, sweetheart,” he added with a shrug. He was acutely conscious of Rene listening to their every word, figuring it would all be relayed back to his parents either directly or via Delaney. He sat back in his chair and gave them both an easy smile. “Not anymore.”
“I pay my own way.”
“Yeah, dad. She pays her own way.” Rene beamed at Toni, whose eyes were on her plate, but her lips were twitching.
His eyes flicked back and forth as the both of them. “I just meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Toni said. She leveled her gaze at him. “I pay my own way. That’s nonnegotiable.”
In other words, it was a deal-breaker. “I just meant that you didn’t have to work,” he muttered. From there it seemed like dinner went downhill, and by the time he set his plate in the sink and turned on the hot water, the only person who was still smiling was his daughter. And he didn’t even want to think about why she was smiling. Instead, he very quietly helped Toni finish up the dishes and clean the kitchen as penance. Rene disappeared without a word–probably either in her room or with Delaney–giving them time to talk in private, which they apparently needed. “You want a beer?” he asked as he finished wiping off the table.
“No, thanks. I’m going to take a shower.”
He let her go, figuring he could wait a few more minutes. He hadn’t meant to sound like an asshole, and she was obviously still upset about what he’d said at dinner. He killed some time drinking beer and watching the news while he waited for her to join him, but she never did. Bet she was madder than he’d thought. He shut off the TV, drained the last of his beer, and with one last deep breath, went to check on Toni.
She sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in a tank top and loose cotton pants that looked suspiciously like men’s pajamas, brushing her hair.
“I thought you were going to come out there?”
She ran the brush down the length of her hair before she responded. “Why didn’t you tell me about your ex-wife?”
He froze even as his heart slammed against his ribs. How much did she know, and more importantly, who’d told her? Rene. It had to be. He could see her using Charlene to sabotage his relationship with Toni. His hands fisted at his side as his panic turned to rage. “Kind of hard to have a conversation when you take off in the middle of the night,” he shot back.
“Tim, we went out for four months and you barely mentioned your ex-wife. So don’t put this on me.” She pulled her hair to one side and split it into three sections so that she could braid it.
“You’re right. We went out for four months and I didn’t tell you about my ex, but you…you didn’t tell me anything.”
“I told you about Nichole.” Her cheeks turned red, her mouth tightened and then she exhaled heavily. “What else do you want? I left. I ran away, and I never went back. Ever.”
He felt bad—almost. If it wasn’t for the knot in his stomach. The truth gnawed at him like it always did. Toni had finally been honest; how could he do any less? “I know,” he said softly.
With a sigh, he stretched out on the bed next to her. He trapped his hands underneath the pillow, his eyes on the ceiling, a part of him wishing he had another beer. “Charlene left when Rene was three, and I didn’t hear from her for years. I divorced her for abandonment and got full custody of Rene.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and added, “I thought she was dead.”
“Jesus,” she muttered.
“She’s in prison.” Eyes back on the ceiling, he pushed past Toni’s soft whimper and continued to talk, “apparently she’s been there for a while for some armed robbery gone wrong. But hey—” he forced himself to give her a cheeky smile, “—at least she’s found God.”
“I guess that explains…”
“Yeah,” he said as his fake smile twisted into a pained grimace he couldn’t conceal.
“Rene?”
“She knows. She knows everything. I told her after you left.”
She sighed heavily, her lips moving silently as she shook her head back and forth. “What fucked up lives we have.”
He snorted, feeling marginally better now that the worst was passed. “Not so fucked. I mean, like I said, she got religion.”
Toni’s chest bounced up and down as she laughed. “Religion is highly overrated. Highly!”
“Are you speaking from experience? I’m not a huge church person, but Mama did her best.” He gave a tiny shrug. He wasn’t a saint, and had never claimed to be, and Toni knew that.
“I was raised Catholic, so I have many feelings about religion.”
And if he had to guess from the bitter tinge in her voice, none of them were good. He exhaled heavily. “Well it seems to be working for Charlene.” He rolled to face Toni. “At least according to her letters.” Toni’s gaze was on his chest, but she seemed million miles away, so he stayed silent.
“They sent me to a convent,” she finally said. “After I…got pregnant.”
He noted her choice of words but said nothing. It wasn’t his place to mention how she’d gotten pregnant.
“The nuns…the priests,” she said with a roll of her eyes, “let’s just say they never let any of us girls forget what sinners we were. Not me, and not any of the other birth mothers either.”
“I thought you were the only one,” he said as he reached for her.
“No.” With a shake of her head, she raised up on one elbow and grabbed the neck of his T-shirt, pulling him close. Close enough to see the despair in her eyes. “I wasn’t the only one.”
He sat up, too, a part of him unsure of what she wanted—sex or comfort—but she wasn’t done talking, which meant he wasn’t done listening.
“We were just a bunch of dumb girls,” she said as she struggled to yank his T-shirt over his head. “Still dumb enough to think the adults knew everything. Especially nuns and priests.”
He cupped her jaw, his fingertips brushed against the silky hair behind her ear. He pulled her close and pressed his lips to her forehead, content to let her lead.
“Rene?” she whispered.
“She can’t hear us,” he assured her.
“Promise me you won’t tell anybody about Nichole,” she whispered, her lips inches from his neck. Her voice was thick with desperation.
“I promise.”
And then her lips were on his skin, pressed against the pulse in his neck. Her teeth dug into his flesh, a warning or maybe a promise. He fisted his hands in the bedcovers and let her push him back down into the mattress. She tugged at his jeans, and snapping the fly and yanking them down. He was hard and ready for her as he kicked them off, his only concession to helping her. For whatever reason, this time she needed to lead. She straddled his lap, the heat of her seeping through her thin boxer shorts to tease him. “Jesus,” came out as more of a plea when she wrapped her hand around his cock. He’d never even asked her if she’d been with anyone else. It didn’t matter. Not really. Not when she was stroking him like that. He finally had to grab her wrist as he choked out the word, “Condom.”
“Where?” She wet her lips and waited. She was flushed with need even though he hadn’t even touched her, and they were both slick with sweat.
He nodded toward the far nightstand. “Drawer.”
She rolled away long enough to retrieve one, then handed it to him. He tore open the packet and sheathed himself as she watched, then, once again, he tucked his hands under the pillows, a silent signal for her to do whatever the fuck she wanted with him. She straddled his lap and gingerly sank down onto his cock. She was smooth, slick, and sweet, and he could have died happy at that moment. Instead he groaned and fisted his hands in the pillows forcing himself to hang on, to be patient, as she clutched the headboard
and rode him. His body tensed with each thrust and roll of her hips until he couldn’t hang on anymore. Tim came with a harsh groan, as his come spurted into the condom. Above him, Toni gave him a sleepy-eyed smile as her head rolled back and the walls of her pussy repeatedly clenched around him from the force of her own orgasm. Finally, she tucked herself against him, her head in the crook of his neck. And he allowed himself to touch her, to caress her back and tease the damp tangle of curls at her nape. They stayed like that as long as he dared before he gently rolled her off him and disposed of the condom in the bathroom. He shut off the lights and rejoined her in the bed. Toni sighed as he wrapped his arms around her.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” he finally said. He was glad for the dark, glad she couldn’t see the pain in his face or he the pain in hers.
“Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see,” she said, her voice low and rough with sleep. “As far as Nichole, I don’t want anyone to know about her.”
Considering how he felt about Charlene and her current address, he didn’t blame her.
BEING NICE TO Toni was harder than I thought it would be.
A lot harder.
So I rode with Poppy until my ass was numb or hung out with Aunt Delaney whenever I could. I almost couldn’t wait to go back to school. Luckily Toni had already left for work by the time I came in on Thursday. She’d also left a plate for me and Dad. I had to admit she was a better cook than either one of us. Hell, she was a better cook than both of us combined. But I never complimented her cooking like my dad did, and I never thanked her. Had to be careful though. If I was too mean, I’d get yelled at. If I was too nice, they’d get suspicious.
I ate standing at the kitchen counter, washed my plate and headed upstairs. I didn’t want to be around when Daddy came in. Besides, he wouldn’t stay long before he changed and headed up to the dancehall to be with her. Luckily the weekend was more of the same, and on Monday Poppy took me to school since Dad had gotten a slow start.
“How’s it going?”
