by Karen Leabo
“I’d much prefer to start fresh,” he said, “pretend we didn’t know each other back then. I’m not real proud of the person I was in high school.”
“Why not?”
He thought that answer was obvious. “I was a hood.”
“You didn’t seem that way to me. I heard things about you. You even told me a few things yourself. And I couldn’t reconcile them with the person you were around me.”
“What you heard was probably all true.”
“I knew the part about stealing a car was true. You admitted that.”
“Yeah, well, there was a lot of other stuff. Audiovisual equipment from school. And hubcaps. Breaking into vending machines. Shoplifting. Man, I was good at that. For every time I got caught, I got away with it ten times.”
Lana stared at him, looking more than a little surprised. “You were a regular little career criminal!”
“I was exactly that.”
“What’s the worst thing you ever did?” she asked, sounding leery and fascinated at the same time.
“Mmm, that’s a matter of opinion. I stabbed a guy once.”
Lana gasped.
“Hey, it was purely self-defense. He came at me first with a broken bottle. But I was the one with the juvey record and an illegal switchblade, so the rap fell on me. Don’t look so stricken. I barely scratched him.”
“I just can’t imagine what it was like for you back then. I thought I knew you because of the time we spent together. I thought I had an insider’s view of your soul. But I guess I was wrong.”
“You saw a part of me that no one else did.” He reached out unthinkingly to caress her arm. “But there was a lot I kept hidden from you too.”
“It’s a wonder you turned out as good as you did.”
“You can thank Chief Johnson for that. He saw something in me, something besides Ollie Bennett’s bad seed. I think he would have ridden my butt the rest of my life if I hadn’t taken some steps to improve my lot.”
Lana shook her head. “I still have a hard time believing this. The Sloan I knew was gentle, and sensitive, and intelligent.”
“But I still wasn’t good enough for you, was I?” he challenged.
That silenced her for a few moments. She lifted her glass to take a sip, then abruptly set it down. “I was a confused young woman back then.”
Her comment invited deeper probing, but he resisted the temptation. She was the one who wanted to talk. He wasn’t going to try to pull the information out of her. She could either volunteer whatever was weighing on her mind, or they could talk about something else.
Silence reigned for a long time. Sloan was deeply aware of every bite he chewed, every rustle of Lana’s napkin in her lap, the incredibly loud ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall.
Finally he said softly, “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I … I just wanted you to know that things weren’t what I led you to believe. And that I know I didn’t handle things very well. I was pretty stupid back then.”
“Weren’t we all.” What, exactly, was she saying? It didn’t matter, he kept telling himself. All that stuff happened so long ago. It had no relevance to the here and now. But Lana seemed to think it did. Like maybe he held a grudge or something?
Okay, perhaps she was right. Getting everything said, so they could move on, would be better. And he did want to move forward with Lana. The realization surprised him. But, yes, he wanted to see more of her without any clouds from the past.
“Look, Lana, we were just kids. We were playing at being grown-up, testing our boundaries. You saw me as a challenge, a way to defy authority, but then you realized what I could do to your reputation and you pulled back—”
“No,” she said sharply.
He shrugged uneasily. He’d been trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, the least offensive motivation for her dumping him.
“That wasn’t it at all, despite what I said.” Lana lowered her eyes so that her lashes cast long shadows on her cheeks.
Sloan frowned. “Is that why you wouldn’t tell anyone we were seeing each other?”
“I’m not saying that appearances didn’t worry me. Mama raised me to be very cognizant of public opinion, reputation, all that stuff. But that wasn’t the reason I broke up with you.”
Sloan’s mind drifted back to that time. He remembered the scene clearly—maybe because he’d relived it hundreds of times, torturing himself. It was a hot spring afternoon, and he’d taken Lana fishing because he couldn’t believe she’d never done it before. They’d stopped at the bait shop, and she’d squealed predictably and refused to touch the worms. Then they’d ridden down to a swimming hole he knew, dropped the line in, and waited.
After thirty minutes and not so much as a nibble, Lana had gotten bored. Boredom had led to kissing, and kissing plus the heat rising off the sun-drenched limestone rocks had led to skinny-dipping, and what naturally followed was the best lovemaking Sloan had ever known.
He’d thought it was good for Lana too. In fact, he’d been on the verge of telling her he loved her right there, that even though they were young, he knew he wanted to spend forever with her.
That’s when things got weird. One minute Lana was right there with him, sharing this incredible moment, staring into his eyes, communicating without words. Then a curtain dropped over her face. She’d turned stone cold in the bat of an eye, and Sloan always imagined that was the moment she’d remembered just who he was and who she was.
With water still dripping from her skin she’d begun pulling on her clothes, mumbling about how late it was and she had to get home. He asked her what was wrong, and she said nothing. He pushed for an explanation, and she denied that any explanation was needed.
Then his temper had gotten the better of him. He’d accused her of thinking she was too good for him. And with her own temper heating up, she’d agreed with him, said that they weren’t right for each other, that she couldn’t see him anymore. She’d said those words without emotion, without tears.
The moment had rung false, Sloan had realized much later, but his roiling emotions hadn’t let him see it at the time. She’d run into the woods with her clothes still unbuttoned, and Lord only knew how she’d gotten home.
He’d never felt pain that intense. Lana Walsh had been the only person in the world who saw who he really was. The only person who’d shown him true, heartfelt affection. The only person he’d ever felt love for. And she’d dumped him flat, as though those three weeks they’d spent together meant nothing.
The ten-year-old memory still had power over him. His throat felt tight, his chest achy.
“So,” he said, “are you going to tell me the reason? Or should I wait another ten years?”
Instead of blushing, Lana’s face turned paper white. He suspected she was reliving the memory too. “I was scared to death.”
“Scared? Of me?”
“Of myself. Of my feelings for you. Everything was so intense. Do you realize that when we made love at the swimming hole, we didn’t use any protection?”
“I thought about it later,” Sloan mumbled. “Typical teenage male.”
“It wasn’t typical for me. I was such a careful girl before I met you. And then suddenly I was riding motorcycles and skinny-dipping and having sex. And I kept telling myself to slow down, take it easy, but I couldn’t. I was completely out of control.
“It hit me that day we went fishing, when I realized what we’d just done. I could have gotten pregnant, and then things really would have been out of my control. I had to stop while I still could. If I’d spent another hour, even another minute with you, I knew there would be no turning back. If you had asked, I would have run off with you, or lived with you, or married you, or had a dozen kids with you. You had so much power over me.”
“I never knew that,” he said, unsure he could believe what she’d just told him. It seemed so improbable … yet it made a certain amount of sense.
“I guess I didn�
�t want you to know. Ever. So it wasn’t that I thought you weren’t good enough for me. It’s just that I saw my choices in life slipping away.”
“You saw yourself ending up like my parents,” he concluded. “I should never have taken you by there, even for a minute.”
“No. I knew you weren’t like them. But that glimpse into your family life made me realize there were still a lot of things I didn’t know about you. When you accused me of being a rich little snob and all that stuff, it was easier to agree with you than to explain something I didn’t understand myself.”
He saw tears glimmering in her eyes, and that almost undid him. “Are you saying you were in love with me?”
“I loved you with every bone in my body.”
FIVE
He shook his head. “I don’t understand, then.”
“I can’t explain it any better. I was out of control and scared to death, and I bolted.”
“You sure did.” Sloan tapped his fork against the edge of his plate. “Probably just as well. What would we have done about the prom? Could you imagine me escorting the prom queen onto the dance floor?”
“All right. You can make light of this if you want. I just bared my soul to you—”
“No, Lana, you’re right. I’m sorry. Guess I’m just blown away. I never guessed the true situation.”
She surprised him by smiling. “Actually, I did imagine you being my date to the prom. A lot. All the girls would have been sick with jealousy.”
“Lana, get real.”
“You think we didn’t watch you, speculate about you, wonder what it would be like to … well, we did. We stood in line to date football jocks, but secretly we were all wishing we had the nerve to approach you. We were jealous of the girls you hung out with, the bad girls.”
“So you decided to be the brave one and give me a try.”
“No.” She grew serious again. “I never made any conscious decision to go after you. You remember how it went as well as I do. We met at the library. We started talking. I found out you were nothing like what I imagined. And I couldn’t stay away.”
“In the end you managed to though.”
“Yeah.” Was that a look of regret on her face? Or was it merely nostalgia? Abruptly her face hardened. “Didn’t take you long to get over it though.”
“What do you mean? Oh, Nicole Johnson?” He shook his head, then actually laughed at the irony, the ridiculousness of it all. “We all do stupid things sometimes.” He would offer her no more explanation than that. Nicole had cared for him in her own careless way. She’d been a balm to his aching soul, though she could offer him no more than physical comfort, amusing conversation, and an occasional illicit beer.
Neither Sloan nor Lana said anything for a long time. Finally, when Sloan couldn’t stand the silence any longer, he stood and took his plate to the sink, rinsed it, put it in the dishwasher. When he turned back to the table, Lana was still sitting there. He thought he saw the glint of tears on her face, but he wasn’t sure. “Lana?”
She faced him with a tremulous smile. She was crying! “Looks like you did just fine without me. All this time, I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t messed things up. I could have brought out the best in you, I thought. I could have straightened out your life. But it turns out you didn’t need me for that, did you?”
He didn’t quite know how to answer that. Sure, he’d turned his life around. But sometimes he thought that his time with Lana had been the first step. She was the only person at that time who saw good in him, who made him want to be somebody, somebody wholesome and decent who could deserve her.
“I’ve never regretted that time we had together, Lana,” he said. That was all he was ready to admit just then. “And I’m glad you told me what you were going through at that time. I always tried to believe you had a good reason for breaking things off, that it wasn’t just that you suddenly found me repulsive.”
She gave a weak huff of laughter. “Not that. Never that.” The sudden warmth in her gaze melted any residual bitterness he might have felt.
“Ah, hell, it’s not like we could have made it last,” he said, forcing the casual tone just a bit. “I had some growing up to do before I’d have been any good to a girl.”
“Yeah, me too.” She stood and began clearing the table of the rest of the dishes. He helped, and she let him.
Lana’s hands trembled slightly as she put the rest of the green beans into a plastic storage container while Sloan stood right beside her, within touching range, wrapping the remaining pork chop in foil. She hadn’t meant their conversation to get so personal, to touch on such raw spots. She’d wanted only to explain, because she didn’t want him to think their brief relationship hadn’t been important to her.
But just talking about those times brought all kinds of emotions to the surface. He might not have any regrets, but she sure did. Yeah, it had all turned out for the best that she’d never found him. He’d moved to Dallas, gotten an education and a start in police work.
And she’d gone on to marry the first guy she could catch, the one her mother had thought was so “suitable.” The one who’d battered her self-esteem almost beyond redemption. Ironic that the prom queen had messed up her life while the hoodlum had become a shining example of stability.
“I’ll be back tomorrow around four,” Sloan was saying, “to finish the roof, if that’s all right.”
She nodded. “Sure.”
“It shouldn’t take me too long. Would you like to have dinner afterward? We could still have those hamburgers at Spinner’s.”
With regret, she shook her head. “Can’t. I have class tomorrow night, and Rob goes to his dad’s house.” It was for the best, she told herself. It was foolish to think they could recapture anything from the past. They were two different people now. He still got her all stirred up, but unlike when she was eighteen, she had control, something she’d fought tooth and nail for. And she intended to keep it.
He invited you for hamburgers, an alluring inner voice reminded her. What would be the harm? But she knew. If she could just date Sloan, that would be fine. But somehow she knew that a few casual dates with Sloan Bennett would be impossible. They would find themselves in bed at the first opportunity, and then where would she be?
A victim of her emotions and her hormones once again. She couldn’t risk it, especially at this stage in her life, when she needed all her energy and resources to make a living and raise her son right.
Lana tried to concentrate on her botany lecture. But her thoughts kept wandering to her home, her roof, and more significantly, the man fixing her roof. She wanted to be there at least to offer him a drink of water, or maybe a slice of the pie he’d missed the night before because he’d been in such an all-fired hurry to leave.
Maybe she shouldn’t have brought up the past. Other than those few little quips he’d made the night he took her to the wedding, he hadn’t acted as if he’d borne her a big, hairy grudge over her treatment of him ten years before. It probably meant very little to him. He’d succeeded quite nicely without the prom queen.
“Meez Gaston? Ayee haven’t heard from you tonight. Whas da deeference between a sepal an’ a calyx?”
Oh, drat! She hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention and she was behind on her reading. It took her a few moments to decipher her instructor’s heavily accented English. “Um, a sepal has, um—” She ground to a halt.
“Meester Calhoun, how ’bout you?”
Mr. Calhoun went on to respond to the question at length, but by the time class was over, Lana was still no closer to knowing the answer.
She had to drive out of her way to swing by Bart’s house. It was an errand she hated, because the man never failed to say something to demean her. The purposeful way he went about undermining her confidence infuriated her, but no more than the fact that she let him get away with it. She always thought of a clever, stinging comeback, but usually she couldn’t make herself say it in front of Rob. She
refused to stoop to Bart’s level.
When she rang the doorbell of the home that used to be hers, Westminster chimes played. Moments later, Bart’s current girlfriend, twenty-three-year-old Charlene, pulled open the massive front door. Wearing a stylish exercise leotard, her hair artfully mussed, she smiled smugly at Lana.
“Come in, dear,” she said as if Lana were her seventy-year-old maiden aunt. “Rob is in the kitchen having ice cream with his father.” She made a production out of smoothing her hair away from her face. That was when Lana saw the rock on her hand.
Outwardly she didn’t react at all. Inwardly she was thinking, Oh, Charlene, you poor dear. He once gave me a diamond like that too. Enjoy it while it lasts. Because now that he had Charlene securely reeled in, he was probably already casting out lures for new prospects. Bart quickly tired of anything within his grasp. He was always seeking new challenges, whether in the stock market, the squash court, or the dating game.
The thought of this creature being Rob’s stepmother was unsettling, but since she virtually ignored Rob from what Rob had said, Lana could hardly feel threatened. Bart’s doting housekeeper, Lucia, was more worthy of jealousy.
“Won’t you come in? The decorators have just finished with the living room.”
“No, thanks, I’ll wait out here.” Lana had no desire to enter Bart’s home. The degree of luxury didn’t bother her. He was, after all, an attorney, and attorneys generally made good money. It was the fact that Bart constantly complained about his child support payments being such a hardship that made her furious. The payments on his Jag had to be higher.
Rob appeared a few minutes later with his backpack. At first Lana thought she’d lucked out, that Bart had decided not to put in an appearance. But then the door opened wider and there he stood, looking down his nose at her.
“Before you take Rob home,” he said, “I want to know what you intend to do about the garage roof. I won’t have my son living in a dangerous—”
