by Lisa Bingham
He worried his hat in his hands for a minute, and then settled it on top of his head. “Well, I’ll say good night to you then. I’ll be back in the morning with Tyson so that he can see to your car. I’ll stop on the way and get you a few of the necessities—milk and bread. It’ll tide you over until you’ve visited Annie in the hospital again and can make a proper trip to the grocery store.”
She opened her mouth, and then laughed softly. “Is everyone here in Bliss this nice to strangers?”
He shifted, clearly embarrassed, and then said, “Only if they’re as pretty as you.”
Then he settled his hat on his head and offered, “Good night, Bronte. Sleep well.”
Before she could think of a response …
He was gone.
Bronte didn’t know how long she stood there, staring into space, trying to corral the disjointed thoughts stampeding through her brain. Somehow, in the block of a few hours, everything had changed. She’d come looking for sanctuary, for a hole that she could crawl into and lick her wounds. She’d thought that if she ran far enough and fast enough, she could leave her troubles behind, not knowing that they’d accompanied her much like the baggage stowed in her van.
But then … even when she thought she would be completely crushed by her sorrow, the kindness, the consideration, and the hint of interest given to her by a stranger had offered her a pinprick of hope, one that threatened to flicker and disappear as his taillights disappeared into the darkness.
Sighing, Bronte forced herself to move. She staggered outside, swearing when she remembered, too late, that there was a loose board on the top step. But when she landed heavily, she discovered that the stoop had been repaired in the last few hours.
Another of Jace’s miracles?
A serenade of crickets accompanied her as she waded through the damp grass to her car and retrieved her overnight bag. Then, too tired to think, she made quick work of washing her face and brushing her teeth.
In the stark bathroom lighting, the bruise on her cheek seemed even more garish. The injury was fading, true. But beneath the harsh fluorescent bulb, she was sure that she could see the outline of a pistol grip.
Whirling away from the image, she sat on the edge of the claw-foot tub, gulping air into her lungs. She’d told herself that once she arrived at Annie’s she could cry and cry and cry until there were no more tears left to shed. But now, with so many people relying on her—Kari, Lily, and Annie—she knew she couldn’t start. If she did, she’d never be able to stop.
Her gaze dropped to the bag open on the floor, to the thick envelope awaiting her response. All it would take was her signature on the legal documents inside. In the swipe of a pen, she could officially dissolve her marriage and relegate a relationship that had lasted half her adult life to the dustbin.
But she couldn’t think about that now. Not when her heart was as battered and bruised as her face. Much as she wanted to move on, to find a new purpose, to dig herself out of this morass of misery, she was stuck in an unfamiliar limbo. She knew she couldn’t—shouldn’t—go back, but she also didn’t know how to go on.
Which was why, in the end, she refused to make any decision at all. She simply flipped off the light and crawled into the high tester bed next to Lily, praying that the gods of sleep would be kind to her tonight.
*
THE Big House was dark and quiet when Jace let himself into the kitchen, closing the door behind him with a muffled snick.
Alone.
He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d had the place to himself. Sometimes, he felt as if his life had become a tag team relay race. As soon as Barry had gone to Elam’s or an activity, Bodey would need his help, or a hired man would need instructions, or a horse would turn up lame, or a cow would escape from a fence. It was as if the universe plotted against him, offering him barely enough time to think, let alone relax.
But now that he had a chance to do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted …
He had no idea what he really wanted to do.
Out of habit, he opened the refrigerator door and stared inside. But there was nothing there that tempted him. The contents were a weird combination of bachelor fridge meets preschool with a selection of beers, half-empty condiments, juice boxes, an economy bag of carrots, and enough ranch dressing to drown a small horse. Jace could get Barry to eat just about anything as long as there was a puddle of ranch sauce on the side. True, sometimes there was more sauce than real food that went into his stomach, but Barry went through weird eating cycles—like this month’s carrot fetish—where he would eat nothing but one specific item. So if Jace had to get creative to make sure his brother got some semblance of a balanced diet, he was willing to do it.
But tonight, nothing looked tempting enough to expend the energy to fix it.
Restless, Jace shut the door and threw his hat on the table. He supposed he could head to Vern’s and get some dinner—maybe find some adult company. But even as the thought appeared, he dismissed it. Since Bodey had apparently hooked up with a new woman, he had the whole house to himself. All alone. Wasn’t that what he’d been saying he needed?
Disgusted at his mood, Jace headed upstairs, intent on showering and changing into a pair of sweats. But even as he padded toward the master suite at the end of the hall, his steps slowed, and without thought, he veered toward the attic steps.
The flight of stairs was steep and narrow and covered with a fine layer of dust. Jace hired a local woman to come clean the house once a week, but there was no need for her to go up there. He supposed he should tell her to sweep off the treads, but this way …
He would know if anyone had been up here, prying into the person he’d once been.
Once at the top, Jace stopped, his hand closing around the knob to the upper door. There he paused, knowing full well that to open it would be the equivalent of poking a nearly healed wound with a pointed stick. He’d be better off heading to his study to get some book work done.
But even as he told himself to walk away, his fingers tightened around the worn brass.
Slam. Thump, thump, thump.
“Jace! Where are you? Jace!”
Jace released the latch as if it had caught on fire. Hurrying down the steps, he’d barely managed to reach the hall when Barry barreled toward him, all gangly arms and legs, his brow furrowed with intent. He held a brown paper sack in his hands, which he thrust toward Jace.
“P.D. told me to give you this.” His face screwed up into a caricature of concentration as he tried to remember Prairie Dawn’s exact words. “She said, ‘Tell him not to bother with his own nasty cooking. And don’t you dare spend a blessed …’” Barry paused to think. “‘… a blessed minute of this ideal doing ranch burps or pest reports.’” Barry’s eyes blinked in rapid succession, his lips twisting into a frown. “I don’t know what that means. And who’s Ed?”
It took a few seconds, but then, as if he could hear P.D. herself scolding him, Jace understood. And don’t you dare spend a blessed minute of your idyll doing ranch books or pesticide reports.
Jace’s lips twitched, but rather than answering Barry directly, he decided to have some fun and said, “I’m not sure who Ed is. Why don’t you ask Elam?”
“Oh-kay!”
Without taking a breath, Barry whirled and thundered back the way he’d come. But he must have gone only midway down the staircase before he turned around and came running back again. Jace barely had time to brace himself before Barry wrapped his arms around his waist and squeezed him with the unrestrained force of a sixteen-year-old boy who didn’t know his own strength.
“Love you, Jace,” Barry said. Then, he raced back down the stairs and out the front door, slamming the screen behind him.
Jace stood rooted to the spot, his chest seeming several sizes too small.
Shit, shit, shit.
In that display of uninhibited affection, his brother had once again wrapped Jace around his finger, and all the “coulda, woulda,
shouldas” turned to ashes on his tongue.
Turning his back on the staircase to the attic and past choices that still haunted him, Jace followed Barry’s path much more slowly. The scent of pizza and garlic wafted up from the sack—homey and comforting. Some borrowed affection.
That would have to be enough.
Jace had knowingly charted his current course when his brother had reached toward him from a hospital bed, his cheeks streaked with tears.
“Wait for me, Jace! Please wait for me!”
Jace had made his brother a promise all those years ago. Since then, he’d tried his best to keep it. So what if his future had veered away from the path he’d originally planned? He’d built a career and a life for himself that he could be proud of.
He was happy enough. He had to be happy enough.
Because there was no turning back now.
*
BRONTE woke to sunlight streaming through lacy Priscilla curtains, flowered wallpaper … and the smell of bacon.
Bacon.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d awakened to that heady scent. A year into her marriage, Phillip had grown rabid in his attempts to best his own marathon scores. He’d insisted on lean, center-cut bacon at first, then turkey bacon, then no bacon at all, merely a tofu bacon-flavored substitute with the consistency of overcooked liver.
She couldn’t abide liver.
She couldn’t abide tofu.
But that hadn’t seemed to matter to Phillip. Just as, a few years later, the marathon scores would drop by the wayside as well.
“That man is here again.”
Bronte started, twisting on the bed to find Kari looming over her like one of those vultures in a Snoopy cartoon. Her daughter must have retrieved her bag because Kari’s hair was carefully arranged and her makeup firmly in place. She was wearing her favorite tight jeans and at least three layers of shirts. Obviously, she hadn’t figured out yet that the chances of her meeting anyone she could impress with her efforts were slim.
“You look nice,” Bronte said, her voice still thick with sleep.
If Kari heard the compliment, she gave no indication.
“Grandma doesn’t have Wi-Fi,” she said, disbelief coating every word.
“I wouldn’t imagine that she would,” Bronte mumbled in return. If Annie refused to buy presliced bread, Bronte doubted her grandmother had an iPad stashed away somewhere.
Kari stamped her foot in impatience. “How much longer before we head home? I don’t like it here. There’s nowhere to go and nothing to do.” Her voice rose siren-like into a frustrated whine. “All my friends are going to school activities and their parents have promised to take them somewhere great this summer—and I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere in a creepy house that doesn’t even have Wi-Fi! It’s lame!”
“Get over it,” Bronte mumbled in return, ignoring her daughter’s petulance. Yawning, she settled deeper into her pillow. But her eyes had only been closed for a second when they popped open again. “What man is here?”
“Jack, Jess, Jethro …” She shrugged. “You know …” she mumbled, distracted by whatever game was on her iPod “… that guy who took us to the hospital last night. He’s downstairs making breakfast.”
“There’s a man doing what downstairs?”
“Making breakfast.”
As soon as Kari’s words sank into her consciousness, Bronte sprang out of bed as if she’d been touched with a cattle prod. “Do you mean Jace Taggart?” she asked frantically, searching for her overnight bag. “Jace is making breakfast? How long has he been here?”
Kari shrugged. “I dunno. Half hour maybe.” She paused her game and grinned, meeting Bronte’s gaze in a rare moment of eye contact. “But his hired hand is hot with a capital H-O-T!”
“Kari!”
“Just sayin’.”
“Where’s Lily?”
Kari shrugged, saying, “I dunno. It’s not my job to keep track of her.” Then, she wandered from the room with the same blind indolence that she’d begun using since Phillip had bought her that damned electronic device years ago. It was a wonder to Bronte that her daughter hadn’t fallen down a manhole somewhere. Kari seemed to take it for granted that the universe would protect her while her mind roamed the infinite diversions to be found in a sixteen-gig hard drive.
As soon as Kari disappeared, Bronte scrambled to gather her clothes and rushed into the bathroom. With the smells of food permeating even the steam of her shower, she made the world land-speed record getting ready. Granted, she’d never make the finals in a beauty pageant. But she managed to tame her dark, wavy hair into a ponytail and throw on some makeup. Since they’d been on the road for days, her wardrobe selection was limited, but her jeans were clean and the white T-shirt wasn’t too wrinkled.
She galloped down the stairs, slowing only on the last few treads so that she didn’t run headlong into the kitchen.
When she crossed the threshold, Jace looked up from where he was frying eggs in a cast-iron skillet, and the intensity of his gaze had the ability to bring her to a stuttering halt.
Geez. The man had cut a powerful figure in the dark, but that was nothing compared to the way he looked in stark daylight. Jace Taggart was tall and lean with powerful shoulders and thickly muscled arms. His T-shirt was worn, clinging to him in a way that hinted at a chiseled chest and abdomen. Below the wrinkled hem, his long legs were lovingly sheathed in faded Wranglers.
Phillip wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing Wranglers. He was more a proponent of designer jeans, which was a shame. But then again, Phillip wouldn’t have looked nearly as good in the fitted denim. Jace Taggart had a tight ass and long, long legs and—
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
Tearing her gaze away, Bronte forced herself to concentrate on something else—the sunny yolks of the eggs in the skillet, the deftness of Jace’s fingers as he handled the spatula. The long, slender fingers, and the—
Seriously?
“Feel free to start eating now, if you want.”
Bronte bit the inside of her lip to keep her mind from leaping to an entirely inappropriate interpretation of Jace’s remark. But she must have betrayed herself somehow, because Jace offered her a slow smile that caused her stomach to flip-flop like a landed fish.
She yanked her gaze away from Jace, only to discover that on the counter beside him was a platter heaped with bacon—heaped! Her mouth watered at the sight. Turning, she saw a table positioned beneath a large picture window. It was already laid out with paper plates, cups, and utensils. There was a carton of orange juice, a tower of toast, a bowl of crisp hash browns, and inexplicably, a plate of carrots with a small cup of ranch dressing.
“Sorry, my culinary skills are strictly from the frozen-foods section,” Jace said as he scooped the eggs onto a dinner plate and carried it to the table. As he bent to set it down, Bronte was able to see that his jeans had begun to mold themselves to the shape of his butt and the bend of his knees. The man had a really great butt.
What was wrong with her this morning?
“I hope you don’t mind the way I made myself at home,” Jace was saying. “Annie and I have slipped into a habit of having breakfast together, and I figured you wouldn’t have had much time to figure out where everything is.”
Bronte quickly yanked her gaze away from Jace’s backside. “No. I don’t mind at all.”
Mind? She couldn’t remember the last time—if ever—that someone had taken the time to cook for her. Right now, staring down at a hot breakfast straight out of a Waltons rerun, she knew that if Phillip were here, he’d be complaining about the three “Deadly Cs,” carbs, cholesterol, and calories. But she didn’t care. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation of solid food rather than the coffee and diet soda that had been her mainstays during their hasty road trip.
Suddenly eager, Bronte leaned into the hall to call, “Kari, Lily! Breakfast!”
The side door squeaked open and a tall, gangly teenager stepped insid
e. He had a shock of brown-black hair that hung straight and thick into his eyes, pimpled cheeks, and a frame so long and lean he appeared more legs than body. He kept his gaze downcast as he moved toward Jace, all but hiding behind a paper bag bulging with groceries.
“You can put the sack on the counter, Barry.”
As the boy moved forward, she could see that he used his whole body to propel the motion rather than merely his leg muscles.
“Do you want me to put the stuff away, Jace?”
Barry’s voice was curiously monotone and measured, and Bronte immediately realized that the boy suffered from some sort of disability.
“No, you can leave it there.” Jace gestured to me. “Say hi to Mrs. Cupacek. She’s going to be staying with Annie for a while.”
From behind his bangs, Barry directed his gaze to a point off Bronte’s left shoulder.
“Hi.”
She smiled, sensing that his stress levels had ratcheted up to infinity at being forced to talk to her.
“Hello, Barry. You can call me Bronte.”
His gaze skipped to Jace. “Why is she named after a dinosaur, Jace?”
It took her a moment, but then she realized that he had linked her name to a brontosaurus.
“I’m actually named after an author. Charlotte Bronte.”
Again, his face aimed in her direction, but his eyes remained a few feet off center.
“Why?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. My parents were looking for trendy names for me and my siblings. Each of us is named after an author.”
Clearly, Barry didn’t see the logic in that. “I think you’re named after a dinosaur.”
Grinning, she shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”
Jace touched his brother lightly on the shoulder. “Breakfast is ready. Why don’t you go see if Tyson is finished with Bronte’s car and tell him to come inside?”
Barry nodded, shuffling out the door. “I’m going to go get Tyson, Bronte.”
When he moved out of earshot, Jace said, “Sorry about that. Barry has no edit button. He speaks his mind.”
She watched the boy through the lacy curtains. “I like that in a person.”
