“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
Shrugging again, he looked at the menu. “Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s not.”
“There’s good and bad in everything.”
“Right.”
“So when is it a bad thing?” The edges of her lips still tilted upward, but her eyes were serious. Searching. Curious.
A combination that hit him right in the center of his pants.
* * *
“YOU BUILT A RAMP out of aluminum siding from the town dump and attempted to fly across the creek on your bike?” Addy laughed so hard she almost choked on the steak she’d put in her mouth. Addy couldn’t get enough of his childhood stories. And couldn’t remember ever having so much fun.
She’d enjoyed herself before, of course. Been happy. But...fun? It wasn’t something she was good at.
“I was eight,” he said, jabbing his fork into the rattlesnake he’d ordered for dinner—because it was on the menu and he’d never heard of anyone eating it before. “At least I didn’t put on a red cape and try to fly off a roof.”
Addy stopped laughing and looked at him, the rugged, gorgeous features that were taking up way too much head space these days. “You know someone who did?”
His nod was accompanied by a smile—and sadness, too. “My best friend, Jimmy. Now there was a boy who couldn’t turn down a dare. Unfortunately, he didn’t always take the time to think before he acted....”
She wondered if Jimmy’s death at the plant the year before had come about due to lack of forethought.
Wondered, too, if Mark had been responsible for getting Jimmy a job at the plant in the first place. According to Nonnie, he’d been the first of his friends to have a full-time job. And while he’d worked other jobs on the side, he’d been at the plant for most of his life.
“Jimmy was the one who had the bright idea of filling an old milk jug with rotten eggs and leaving it outside old biddy Buchanan’s bedroom window.”
“Old biddy Buchanan?”
“That woman was old when she was young,” Mark said, attacking his potato with the same gusto he’d shown his rattlesnake. “She hated kids. Any of us happened to laugh or raise our voices anywhere near her yard and she’d be out there telling us to shut up. She put up fences around all of her flower beds, too, afraid one of us might stumble and fall off the sidewalk and trample them. Never put them around her yard, though. No, that would have meant she’d have no reason to yell at us.”
“Maybe she was sick. Or lonely. Or in pain.”
“She was a pain.” He grinned. “I don’t know about lonely, but she wasn’t sick. She was just mean. Even Nonnie said so.”
“So Jimmy put a jug of rotten eggs in her yard.”
“No, it was Jimmy’s idea.”
She was smiling again. So much it hurt her face. “You did it.”
“Yep.”
“What did Nonnie do to you that time?” She’d already heard about his punishment for skinny-dipping in the lake during a Bible school outing. He hadn’t been in Bible school. He’d just been around the bend in the lake when the kids who were in Bible school had shown up. His grandmother had made him wash his own clothes, by hand, for a month—giving him an awareness of the importance of having clothes, and being clean. And of keeping clean clothes on.
“Every meal for a week she put a hunk of bread with Limburger cheese spread on it on my plate. I had to eat it before she’d serve me anything else.”
“That stuff stinks!”
But the memory didn’t seem to be affecting his appetite at all. “Yeah, well, what you might not know is that it stinks more the older it gets and it takes three months for the stuff to age enough to be creamy and spreadable.”
One look at the scrunched-up, little-boy expression on that handsome, masculine face and Addy was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes.
* * *
“WHERE DID ELLA fit in to all this?” Their plates had been cleared away. Mark was having a cup of coffee, and Addy was still nursing the raspberry iced tea she’d had with dinner.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the woman who’d won Mark’s loyalty, if not his heart.
Had Ella fit right in with Mark’s wild side? Addy had never been the kind of girl who’d been turned on by bad boys...
“Ella came later,” he said. “I liked another girl, but her parents were strict, and then I quit school and we rarely saw each other.”
It was the first time Mark had intimated that life in Bierly might not have been as small-town idyllic for him as he preferred to let on. She’d heard about white-trash remarks from Nonnie. About Mark being shunned by the “uppity” folks until it came time to need a favor.
Seeing Mark from a different perspective, as, say, the parents of a young girl might have seen him—the son of an alcoholic mother and being raised by the local barmaid—Addy wondered just how hard he’d had it growing up. As far as parents were concerned, Mark’s quitting school had probably sealed his reputation as a loser that nice girls would be warned to stay away from.
Tears threatened and Addy shook herself. What was the matter with her? Mark was only a friend. Someone she hardly knew and wouldn’t know for long. Besides, he could take care of himself. Had come out the other end just fine.
Better than fine. As Mark stood to move his chair so a large man seated at the table behind them could get out, his denim-encased thighs were directly in Addy’s line of vision. Thighs that came so perfectly together at his fly.
Her lower body tingled and she swallowed. Glanced outside.
She was losing it.
* * *
HE’D TOLD HER they were going to dinner as friends. He’d given her his word and meant to keep it.
She’d been up front about the fact that she didn’t want a relationship. Neither did he.
But as he drove back to Shelter Valley with Addy sitting at his side, Mark was hard and horny—and not sure what to do about, either. Addy was hardly the first woman who’d ridden in his truck. Ella had ridden right where Addy was sitting almost every day for the past two years. He’d never found the experience particularly sexy.
The thought of Addy’s butt against his leather was doing him in.
Like he was that kid fresh off the farm again. Instead of a thirty-year-old mature man who’d been responsible for others since he was sixteen years old.
The woman affected him like no one else.
“Did you ever get in trouble as a kid?” They’d spent the evening talking about his antics. He wanted to know about hers. To know her better.
He wanted her to feel as vulnerable as he was feeling....
“Not that I can recall.”
“You have to have done something wrong. No one’s perfect.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t do things wrong!” She chuckled. “I said I didn’t get in trouble for them. All Gran had to do was call me by my full name and I’d practically break out in tears. I hated disappointing her.”
“Because you were afraid she would leave you?”
He would’ve sworn she stiffened next to him. “It’s a natural reaction,” he said, softening his tone. “I figure you got the same spiel I did as a kid from your counselor.”
“You had counseling?”
“Just at school. After Mom died. Another hazard of living in a small town. Everyone knew her. And they thought, after she’d died, that I’d have a problem dealing with the mixed emotions of hating what she did, but grieving because she was my mother.”
From what she’d said, she’d loved her father. Before she’d hated him. Their situations were different, but some of the childhood processes would have been the same.
Watching the road in the pitch darkness as they sped through the desert, Mark said, “I didn’t like cou
nseling and I certainly didn’t think I needed it. I can’t say I participated, but apparently the things the guy had to say found a way in. It didn’t take me long to figure out that they thought my acting up after Mom died was due to some subconscious need I had to test Nonnie—to push her until she finally shipped me off. The guy—I can’t remember his name—suggested that I had a fear of being abandoned. Because from my first days, I had been.
“I assured him that I had not been left. Nonnie had been with me from the moment I was born and she wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Was that true? You really weren’t afraid of being left?”
“Looking back on it, I’m not sure. I know I didn’t think I was. Mostly I remember being pissed that the guy suggested such a thing. He wasn’t from Bierly and I figured he just didn’t know Nonnie.”
And she’d very expertly turned the conversation right back to him.
He needed to know about her.
* * *
ADDY WASN’T EAGER to get back to Shelter Valley and the work that awaited her.
She’d written a controversial article about border guards that made her stomach churn and dropped it off at the school newspaper office that afternoon. If they printed it, they’d put the university in a tough political position. If they didn’t, they’d be taking away her freedom of speech.
All institutions faced the challenge at one time or another. She had to know how Montford handled it.
She also wanted to know more about Mark Heber and she already knew too much. She was spending too much time with him—and wanted more. It was like he’d deposited a part of himself inside her and that part was breeding. Rapidly.
“There’s a casino with a quiet bar not far from Shelter Valley,” Mark was saying as they neared their exit. “It’s out by the cactus jelly plant, right off the freeway. Some guys from work told me about it.”
“I don’t gamble.”
His chuckle had her turning to look at him. She’d been trying to avoid the temptation to soak up any more of him. At least for the night. “I don’t gamble, either,” he said. “In fact, I’ve never been inside a casino. Never saw the point. If I have extra money to spend, which I never have, I’d invest it in something a little more stable than a game of chance. I was going to suggest that we stop in for a drink. Unless you’d rather get straight back.”
If he wanted to spend more time with her as badly as she did with him, she had to get straight back. But what if he just needed a little more time out in the world before he went back to the home he shared with his grandmother?
“A glass of wine sounds good,” she said, afraid of just how good it sounded.
She only wished it was the wine compelling her to agree. But she had half a bottle chilling in the refrigerator at home.
Adele Kennedy’s home.
But she wasn’t really Adele. And now more than ever, she’d better not forget that.
* * *
“YOU SAID YOU’VE never been engaged.”
The little round table separating her and Mark didn’t put enough distance between them. She could still make out the flecks of darker blue along the rims of his irises in spite of the dim lighting in the bar. She could see him so clearly she felt as though she was slowly becoming a part of him.
Or he was becoming a part of her.
Either way, this had to end. “I haven’t been.”
“What about friendships? Have you had any that were long-lasting?”
She’d asked for this by asking him so many personal questions over dinner. Going out with him had been a bad idea.
She thought of Will Parsons. She’d kept in touch with him for twenty-five years. She’d come running when he’d called, saying he needed her.
“Yes, I’ve had long-lasting friendships.”
“In Colorado?”
Her chest tightened. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” she said, more because she didn’t want to answer than because she wanted clarification. “I had a best friend in high school, Trudy Whalen. She’s in Florida now, married to a cop, and we keep in touch.”
“I was referring to male-female friendships. You know about Ella. I just wondered if there’d ever been anyone special in your life.”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
His eyes were only inches away—seeing far more than was safe. “I don’t know. I’m not a virgin, or anything,” she assured him, telling herself the conversation was no big deal. “I just...I don’t know. There’s always been a bit of a disconnect. I’m sure it’s me.”
She could admit it to him. They weren’t a couple. And weren’t going to be one.
“I’m not.”
She sipped her wine. In too big a gulp. Her head was already spinning, although she hadn’t even finished half a glass. His beer wasn’t finished yet, either. “You have no way of knowing that.”
“Probably not, but you’re so compassionate, so...open...to accepting me and Nonnie into your life. That doesn’t sound like someone with a disconnect.”
“Being neighborly is very different from being...intimately...attached.”
“Of course it is, but the ability to connect comes from the same source.”
He was confusing her with his odd conversation. Probably because she knew she couldn’t engage on a real level. “Maybe.”
“I have to be honest with you, Addy. I think I’m falling for you.”
No.
“I don’t mean to scare you, or make you uncomfortable,” he said, his gaze locked with hers. “It doesn’t change anything. I understand you aren’t looking for a relationship and neither am I. I just need you to know.”
She nodded. And a little bit more of her gave way to a little bit more of him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARK COULDN’T SLEEP. Home from his nondate, not long off the one glass of beer he could have while driving, he’d hoped to fall into bed and catch a few hours of shut-eye before he had to be at the plant.
Thursday was Jon’s first day of work. Mark wanted to be there. Not that he had anything to do with the janitorial department, or would oversee Jon in any way. He didn’t need to be present, but he wanted to make sure the guy had no problems getting his locker and learning the lay of the land.
After tossing and turning for a long time, Mark got up, tiptoed out to the kitchen, got a beer out of the fridge and quietly let himself out the back door. Nonnie was a sound sleeper, but she also woke up many times during the night. He didn’t want company.
Or, more accurately, he didn’t want Nonnie’s astuteness poking around his psyche.
He noticed the body occupying the chair on the other side of the wall too late to retreat.
* * *
SHE’D COME OUTSIDE to get away from Adele Kennedy. To think.
And then the object of her thoughts was standing there—in nothing more than a pair of basketball shorts and a sleeveless undershirt. Almost as though she’d conjured him up.
That was the problem with falling for your neighbor. He was always right there.
“I’m sorry,” Mark said in a near whisper. “I thought you’d be in bed.”
“It’s no problem, I can go in.” She started to rise and remembered that all she had on was the short terry-cloth robe she’d belted around herself when she got out of the shower.
“No.” He glanced at her, and then away, uncapped his beer. “Please, stay. I’ll go in.” But he didn’t.
Holding up his bottle, he said, “I hope I didn’t blow things between us, with my pronouncement tonight. I just had to be honest in case you don’t feel safe around me, or something.”
“Of course you didn’t blow things.” She’d spoke
n too quickly. “You were being honest. I admire that.”
“A lot of people say they do, but real honesty makes them uncomfortable.”
“I’m not one of those people. I prefer to know where I stand.”
For her, honesty meant that she wasn’t her father’s daughter. She was mentally and emotionally strong. And morally determined to choose right.
So what was right? Helping Will in the only way possible, which, at this point, meant living a lie? Or being honest with Mark Heber about who and what she was?
He sat down.
In her world, complete honesty was rare. By nature, lawyers tended not to say anything at all if the truth would hurt their case.
There were those in her profession who didn’t seem to care about right or wrong, truth or justice, at all. To them the world seemed to revolve around winning. It was all about having the best argument. The ability to read and manipulate a jury.
Not that she could tell Mark any of that.
He sipped his beer. She held a cup of decaffeinated hot tea.
She must be a better lawyer than she thought, the way she was lying to Mark.
But what choice did she have?
She already knew the answer. She just didn’t like it. There really wasn’t a choice to make. She’d given Will her word. She’d known him a lifetime. Owed him.
She’d only known Mark a few weeks. And she’d soon be leaving...
“You ever think about going back to Bierly?” She didn’t know the place, but it wasn’t Shelter Valley. Maybe, if he went back, and wanted to get to know an educational lawyer from Colorado, she could be friends with him in real life.
Maybe even more than friends. Sitting with no underwear on so close to Mark, Addy couldn’t deny certain things. Uncomfortable things. She crossed her legs, pulling the edges of her robe together, and her arm brushed against her nipple. She practically jumped out of her skin. Since when did touching her own nipple send shards of pleasure down below? She clasped her hands tightly around her cup of tea.
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