by Raquel Belle
“So, where were we?” I say, and stand right in front of her again.
“I think we were agreeing that I’m leaving Willow Creek and you’re staying, and that’s that.”
“Really, because I don’t remember saying any of that.”
She’s still standing, her legs crossed at her ankles and her arms folded. “Well, that’s what it is.”
“Yeah? So, how come you still tremble when I do this?” I say and start tracing my finger over her top, and circle her nipples. They get hard instantly.
She swats my hand away and tries to move. I box her in by placing both hands on the wall next to her head.
“Trip, not because I get turned on when you touch me, or kiss me, and not because I like—love—making love to you, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re geographically constrained.”
“We can make it work, Jazz! We just—”
Honk! Honk!
I look up and see Old Fred’s truck out front. “Hey, Tucker? You got a minute?”
Jazz shifts her eyebrows at me, as if she’s wondering if I have to take that. It’s my job to, but this is the second time I’ve been interrupted.
“Don’t move,” I say, and walk off again.
I glance back after a few steps, just to make sure she’s staying put. I know how she is— she’ll leave. She already has her mind made up about leaving, and unless I can convince her otherwise, she will go back to New York, and it’ll be like ten years ago…all over again.
“Good day, Mr. Fred,” I say to the wrinkly-faced man who’s grinning a toothless smile at me.
“Howdy, son. I just wanted to know if you have any tires around. Mine are kinda bald, and I think I need some new ones.”
I pull back and look at the tires. “Yeah, they look pretty worn. Good call. So, what are you thinking? New? Used?”
“Used. Don’t think I can afford two new ones, and I’m going to Nashville in the morning. Can’t go on these eagles, so just want to know what you got?”
I look back and Jazz is no longer standing by the door. I scan the garage and see her milling around, like she’s getting impatient.
“Yeah, I can find a couple for you. You want them now?” I ask, but I’m hoping that he doesn’t need them right this minute.
“I’m going over to Ted’s. I’ll swing by on my way back.”
Whew!
“Okay, great. But if you don’t see me, Bubba’s here. I’ll go find them for you.”
“Thanks, son,” Old Fred says, and grinds the truck into gear, then drives off.
I walk back to Jazz, who’s now walking towards the garage door. “Hey, where are you going?”
“I’ve said what I wanted to say. That’s all there is.”
“No,” I say, folding my arms. “It’s not over between us. Not by a long shot.”
“Trip, there’s nothing you can do about it. You have a life here. How many times do I have to I say the same thing?” She sighs with frustration. Her shoulders slump, and I grip both of them and stare into her eyes.
“Jasmine Taylor, listen to the words coming out of my mouth. It doesn’t matter if you walk out of this yard telling yourself this is over, it’s not. I’ve lost ten years with you, and you expect me to just wave goodbye and watch you walk away?”
Her eyes are glossy, but I’m unyielding. She shakes her head. “Trip, you know I love you, but I can’t do long distance.”
“You won’t have to,” I say.
“I don’t want you to give up anything and then resent me later,” she says, softly, and then looks away.
“That would never—” I start to say, but she just pulls back and walks away.
“I’m sorry,” she says. She does it without even looking back at me.
She’s hurrying back to the car, and I’m standing in the same spot watching her go. My legs take on a life of their own, and I run her down. I grab her arm and spin her towards me.
“Trip, what are you doing?”
“Jazz, you’re my girl, and there’s no way in hell I’m letting you walk away from me,” I say through clenched teeth. “I will not live the rest of my life without you.”
I watch as her eyes soften, and her breathing gets shallow, making her chest rise and fall in quick succession.
Her eyes search mine, and I cup her face, sharing my soul with her, making her see the truth in my eyes and in my heart.
Then she reaches up on her toes, grabs my neck, and pulls me to her. She kisses me with urgency, like it’s the last time she will. I wrap my hands around her waist and crush her to me. Her heart beats rapidly against my chest, and I hold her even tighter. I have no intention of letting her go, and now she knows.
She throws her arms around my neck and hugs me, and I feel her trembling.
I cup her face. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
I hug her again and kiss the top of her head. She slips her hands around my waist, and we stand outside her car, with me holding her, just like I plan to do forever.
This time, when she lets me go, she’s smiling, and she bites her lower lip as her hand slips away. “What am I going to do with you, Trip Tucker?” She opens the car door.
“I can think of a few things…” I say, and grin back at her as she turns the key in the ignition and drives off.
Chapter Seventeen
Jasmine
“Only three more days,” Mom says sadly, as she dries the dishes. “I wish you’d stay longer.”
“Mom, I can’t stay longer.” I heave an exasperated sigh. “You know I can’t. I have a job and a life back in New York.”
She’s silent for a while as she rinses the dishes. I’ve been mechanically handing them to her after soaping them. Suddenly she asks, “Are you going anywhere today? You’ve hardly spent any time with us.”
A dish falls from my hand and clatters in the sink. I sigh out of desperation and wipe my forehead with the back of my soapy hand. “Mom, make up your mind. You want me to spend time with Trip because he’s such a great person and all, but after I’ve done that, you complain that I don’t spend time with you? I can’t please you, can I?”
“I didn’t say that, Jazz. It’s just that if you’re here longer, you’d get to do both.”
I throw my hands in the air. “I give up. I’ll finish washing the dishes. You can go do something else.”
“No, this is my house. You’re just the guest now,” she says, bitterly, and takes the sponge from me.
“Fine,” I say, and walk off. The doorbell rings just then, and I dry my hands on my jeans and rush over to it. I pull open the door and suck in a deep breath, careful to temper my rising annoyance so I don’t transfer it to anyone else. “Trisha!”
“Hey,” she says, excitedly.
“Hi.” I glance behind her. “Are you here to see…me?” Somehow, I find that odd.
“Yeah,” she says, and stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans. Her thin hair flutters about her face as the wind dances through it.
“You want to come in?”
“Um, how about we take a walk instead?” She asks, her eyes brimming with excitement.
“You know what, I’d prefer that, too. Let me get my jacket,” I say, and retreat to the coat closet where I find my denim jacket.
It’s not cold out…it’s just right if you ask me. There is a slight wind, but it’s cool against my skin and complements the piercing sun in the clear sky overhead. “So, how are you? Day off?”
“Yeah,” she says, as we walk out of the yard and down Willow Creek Road.
“Where are the boys?”
“With their nana—she wanted them today. Keeps complaining she hasn’t seen them in a long time, and by that she means a week.”
I laugh. “Grandmothers, huh?”
She smiles. “Yep. Have you been to Mill Creek since you’ve been here?”
The question hits a tender spot in me since that was the place where Trip and I had our twilight picnic—and then sex. But I’m not going to tell her that. T
his time, after everything I’ve heard, I’m a little more cautious, even if it’s nothing but rumors. “No, not yet.”
“I barely get time to do these things anymore. You want to go there now?” She asks, turning to me.
I think about it. It’s about a ten-minute walk if we cut through Mr. Fred’s yard, and twice as long if we take the regular trail. But what the hell? I have nothing better to do.
I shrug. “Why not?”
She grins. “Great! It’ll be like old times.”
In a sense, it will, I think. The last time I went to the creek with her, I was with Trip, and she was with Derrick. Trisha is like a child again as we walk along the beaten-down path that leads to the stream. There isn’t anything around as far as the eye can see—just lush, green vegetation.
This is the one thing I’ll miss—the fresh air, the feel of the warm sun on my skin, and that smell that plants and shrubs give off right after it rains. I’m tempted to remove my shoes and wiggle my toes in the grass.
“So, three more days, huh?” Trisha says, when we get to the creek. “You must be really homesick.”
“Nah,” I say, and search for the popular group of rocks we use for sitting—or for launching ourselves into the pool of water. “I’ve forgotten how much I love it here.”
“Don’t tell me you’re planning on moving back,” Trisha says. She laughs and looks at me for an answer.
“Oh, god no. I’m not ready to give up my career. Not even sure what I’d do if I came back.”
She sighs. “It’s just as well…” She sits on the rock opposite me, so she can face me. “I wish I could leave, but you know how it is.”
“Yeah,” I say, without hammering home how tough it is for her. Who would ever want to keep talking about how drab and hopeless their life is?
“Just be glad you don’t have kids,” she says, and I see the look of resentment that begins to form in her eyes—but then she catches herself. “I mean, I love my boys, but without a husband …” She whistles to the tune of her hardship.
“I do plan on having children one day, but just not anytime soon,” I say. “I want to establish my career, plan better, save some money…”
“It’ll happen…when you find the right man,” she says, and looks down at the creek.
I don’t know, but something about the way she says it makes my head spin. I’ve always thought about Trip as the right man for me. Even now he’s still trying to convince me of it. It’s a scary feeling thinking that this time, when I leave, it’ll be for good.
And that he’ll wind up with someone else—someone who might be wrong for him.
“Trip and I bring the boys here all the time,” Trisha says, absent-mindedly. “I swear, if it was just me, I’d work all the time, and they’d never have any fun. He makes such a great father.”
“I can see that,” I say, and stare dreamily at the water…and imagine Trip fathering my children—our children.
“He was a life saver when he got back,” she says. “When I heard the news about Derrick, I almost lost it. The twins had just turned three, and it had been just me since they turned one. He was supposed to come home and make things easier.”
I don’t know what to say, as she recounts the tale, so I just nod.
“And when he didn’t…I…I felt trapped. I got depressed. I started being a bad mom, you know…?” She glances briefly at me, as if to assess my reaction.
“That’s understandable, Trisha. It’s hard raising one kid alone, much less two.”
“It was. But Trip’s the noble kind,” she says and a smile lights up her face. “It’s like he just stepped into Derrick’s shoes and tried to fill them as much as he could. He gave me time to myself to process things while he drove the boys to Nashville, took them to the town fair, went fishing with them—he was just great. Still is. I’m not sure what my life would look like now without his help.”
And that’s the dagger that twists itself into my heart. It’s the reason Trip has to stay. I can’t let our feelings—childish feelings we’ve rehashed—ruin a family. I love him, and I want him, but everything is different, and Trisha needs his help.
“He probably suffers from survivor’s guilt too,” I say.
“What?”
“Trip… He lived, and Derrick didn’t. He probably thinks it should have been the other way around, especially considering Derrick was the one with a family.”
“I guess so,” she says. “We talk about it sometimes, but he just clams up and changes the subject. He won’t let me in. But I’m sure he will one day, when he’s ready. I can’t imagine the things they must have seen and gone through.”
I sigh. I had those same thoughts ten years ago when Trip told me he was leaving. I was sure the next time I saw him, if I ever did, it would be at his funeral. I’d buried him that day in my heart, to never revisit the feelings I’d carried for him.
Now that he’s very much alive, I’m not sure what to do with…those feelings.
“War is kind to no one,” I say, “but I haven’t seen any signs of it yet with Trip.”
Trisha waves me off. “You haven’t been here long enough. I’ve seen the faraway look in his eyes when we have dinner together. Or when we’re out, and Derrick’s name comes up. Or someone asks him about those wars.”
I think about the Trip I’ve seen since I’ve been back in Willow Creek, and I haven’t seen any of that. He and I haven’t even had many conversations about Derrick. He’s been totally focused on hooking up with me again.
What if he’s just blinded by his feelings? Is he hiding his pain from me?
“Once we went to the mall in Nashville,” Trisha says, “and someone, a lady, complimented him on how precious his sons were, and he didn’t even deny it. He’s something else.”
“That he is,” I say, and think about all the times we spent together that aren’t appropriate to share with her. I’m not sure if what Marcy said before is true, but you’d have to be dead not to be attracted to Trip…so I get that.
“Do you have a boyfriend, Jazz?”
“Nope. Never seemed to have much luck in that department.”
“What about Trip?” she says, and glances over at me.
We’re still sitting on the rocks overlooking the creek, like birds. “What about him?”
“What do you want from him? I know how it used to be, and you two have gotten pretty close since you came to town…”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Trisha. I really don’t know.”
She smiles and rubs my shoulder. “It’s okay. I guess in a couple of days, things will go back to normal. Hey, you want to take a dip?”
“A dip?” I ask, and look at her like she’s crazy. “I can wade in the water, but no way. I didn’t bring a change of clothes or anything.”
She grins and starts to undress. “Too bad for you.” She kicks off her boots and shimmies out of her jeans.
I begin to laugh as I watch her. “You’re still so crazy.”
“Ain’t no one around for miles. They’re at work or wherever,” she says. She laughs and slides down the slope…into the water below. I remain perched on the rock, watching her.
She’s not joking about swimming in only her underwear. You can’t even call what she’s doing swimming. She’s just splashing around, and dipping in what I imagine to be really cold water.
“Come on in,” she says. “The water’s great.”
“No, thank you,” I shout. “I like warm water. From a shower.”
“You’ve really changed,” she shouts back. “Remember when we used to come by here every day after school?”
“That was a long, long time ago, Trisha. I’m not doing that,” I say, at the same time I feel my phone vibrating.
I smile when I see it’s Cara. “Hey, hun.”
“Hey, Miss country bumpkin,” she says. “How did it go with Trip at Christmas?”
I begin to blush when I remember how the day ended. “It went great. I took your advice, and Trip ac
tually left with me after I delivered the food.”
“Ah, aren’t you glad you have a friend like me to save your ass?” She says, and laughs. “So, you planning on visiting often, or is he moving back to New York, or what? Because the Jazz I know is not moving back to Willow Creek.”
I giggle. “You know me too well. I don’t know what’s going on with Trip. He has some issues he needs to work through before we can even think about it. As far as I can see, this can’t be more than a holiday hook-up. Plus, there are people here who need him.”
“You mean Trisha?” Cara says, and I can hear the judgement in her tone. “Are you sure she isn’t after him? Was she even sick on Christmas?”
I groan. “You’re beginning to sound like Marcy. Is this your legal brain calculating all the angles? Extrapolating the outcomes?”
“Jazz, if there’s one thing I know…it’s human behavior. It’s my job. People are motivated by just a handful of emotions. I don’t know who Marcy is, but she sounds like a smart girl,” Cara says.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, and glance back to see Trisha coming out of the water. I laugh when I see how awkward she looks when she climbs back up the slope. I’m not even sure what she’s going to use to dry herself off.
Cara continues, “It sure as hell does matter if that’s the reason he chooses to stay, or if that’s what you’re acting all guilty about.”
“Who’s that?” Trisha asks, and reaches for her jeans.
“Friend of mine from New York.”
“Who’s that?” Cara asks.
“Trisha,” I say, and cringe, waiting for the rebuke I know is coming.
“You’re hanging with the enemy?” Cara says.
I turn away, so Trisha doesn’t hear me. “She’s not the enemy. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Fine, but it better be good news.”
I groan. “Ugh…I love you too.”
She laughs and hangs up, and I turn back to Trisha. “Ready?”
“Yep,” she says. “I’m going to have to get out of these pretty soon.”
“Okay,” I say, and we walk back to the main road.
When we get back to my house, Trisha says, “I have some errands to run, but it was great spending time with you today,” and hugs me.