by Liz Talley
And just to prove the point, he turned around as everyone stood to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” and winked at her.
He might as well have been holding a pitchfork.
The action didn’t escape the notice of a few members in the congregation. Virgil Walker turned and raised his bushy eyebrows at her. She shrugged, tore her gaze from Jack Darby and focused on the lyrics to the hymn.
During the actual sermon on “Resisting Temptation Thrown in the Path of Righteousness,” she’d wriggled more than the three-year-old in the pew in front of her. Talk about hitting below the belt. At one point during the impassioned sermon, Nellie expected someone in the congregation to hop onto a pew, point at Jack, and scream, “That’s him right there. The devil’s temptation!”
Then turn a finger on Nellie and shout, “And she hath partaken!”
But that wouldn’t happen.
Because Oak Stand Bapist was genteel and didn’t stand for caterwaulin’ by its congregation. And Oak Stand wasn’t Salem. Though at times, for Nellie, the town had felt that way.
And it wasn’t Jack’s fault he was so tempting. Just to prove the point, Mary Jo Danvers, who sat right behind him, fanned herself…and Nellie knew it wasn’t because the preschool teacher was overdressed or the sanctuary was warm.
Try as she may, Nellie couldn’t focus on much of anything, so when the benediction came, she grabbed her purse and headed for the double doors. One of the ushers frowned at her, but she kept going. Even when she heard her name.
“Nellie.” She knew it was Jack. The man had gotten up and let everyone see him follow her out of church. Great.
She hurried down the wooden steps as if she had the hounds of hell on her high heels. On the last step, she felt his hand on her elbow.
“Wait a sec,” he said.
Nellie spun around. “You were sitting in my spot.”
His forehead wrinkled. “What?”
“My spot,” she said, gesturing at the church. A few people had slipped out, and one or two threw them an interested look. “That’s my regular spot. Second pew.”
“You could’ve sat with us,” he said, shoving his hands into his khaki trousers. He wore an orange golf shirt with an alligator on the pocket. His hair had been moussed and his loafers probably cost more than the pastor’s weekly salary. Jack Darby looked exactly like what he was. Out of place.
The church bells tolled and the doors flew open, spilling forth chattering women, screeching children and men calling out tee times.
“I’m sorry,” he said, waving over her shoulder at someone. She heard a giggle but refused to turn around.
“No problem.” Nellie saw Dawn and Andrew trot down the steps toward them. She really didn’t want to make small talk, especially with Jack’s family. She wanted to heat up her Lean Cuisine and pretend everything was as it used to be.
Before Vegas.
Before Jack Darby.
Before she fell in love.
Because the Vegas playboy coming to Oak Stand had scared her. The thought of him lurking around every corner made her skin itch and feel too small for her body. She hadn’t asked him to come. He was supposed to stay behind. Be her one indiscretion. Her one fantasy come true. Why had he assumed she would want him here when he so obviously didn’t belong?
“What is wrong with you?” he asked.
Nellie shook her head. “I don’t know.”
She felt moisture in her eyes so she turned on one heel and walked away.
WHEN NELLIE GOT HOME, she skipped the frozen dinner, pulled out her oldest T-shirt and shorts, and headed to the side yard for some therapeutic gardening.
The sun shone hotly and it didn’t take long before sweat poured down her face. The flower bed still had a serious case of nut grass, and she needed to plant the irises she’d left near the potting shed.She set to work, only stopping when a stubborn root blocked the hole she’d just dug. The darned thing wouldn’t come loose. She tugged, but instead of ripping it from the ground, she lost her grip, sprayed herself with loose soil and plopped onto her bottom in the damp grass.
“Great,” she said, blowing an errant piece of hair from her sweaty forehead. She dropped her head to her arms. Besides dealing with Jack around every corner, the Oak Stand Garden Club’s Tour of Homes was a week away. She still needed to weed the bed beside the brick path out back, wash the outer windows and replace the perennials in the side bed.
“Hey.”
Nellie looked up.
Hunter Todd Avery stood in front of her, his bare toes wiggling in the grass. “Mom said I could come over. Whatcha doin’? Your hair looks pretty. Want me to help?”
Nellie smiled. The last time Hunter Todd had “helped,” he’d trampled a couple of daylilies. “Nope. This can wait. What color do you want?”
“Blue!”
She scrambled to her feet and brushed her hands off. “Okay. Wait for me on the porch. No swinging till I get there.”
Nellie headed around to the front of the house, trotted up the steps, washed her hands and fetched Hunter Todd’s favorite color. The front door hadn’t closed before he held out one abysmally dirty hand, demanding his treat. Nellie started to make him go wash up, but then mentally shook her head. She wasn’t the child’s mother.
“Here you go. One blue Popsicle.”
The treat hit the child’s mouth before he could mutter “Thank you.” He did, of course, say thanks, or at least she thought he did. It came out garbled.
Nellie peeled her own Popsicle and joined the child on the porch swing, kicking them into motion. Nothing like orange sugar and the chatter of a four-year-old to make her feel better. The swing creaked as they sailed as high as it would allow. The porch groaned a bit, but Nellie knew the sturdy beams would hold. Her great-grandfather had made sure of it.
“Why don’t you have any kids?”
Nellie sighed. “I told you already. I’m not married.”
Hunter Todd’s earnest brown eyes met hers. “You ain’t got to be married to have kids. My aunt Stacy has one and she ain’t married. It throws up all over everything. Gross.”
Nellie laughed and wondered why it felt rusty to do so. “You’re right, I guess.”
Hunter stuck his Popsicle back into his mouth, which by now had a nice blue ring around it. His little feet dangled, brushing against hers as the swing slowed to a gentler rhythm. Something about the way he leaned trustingly into her warmed her, like her grandmother blowing on a scraped knee after putting on Mercurochrome.
“So, you gonna get married then?”
Nellie stopped an orange rivulet of syrup from trailing down her hand. The direct question felt like a solid punch. Kids. They didn’t hold back.
“I don’t know.”
“My uncle Jimmy can be your husband. He’s got a tattoo. It’s real cool—a skeleton head. And he rides a motorcycle. My mawmaw says he shouldn’t ’cause the last time he had a crash and got a suit. Now he lives with Mawmaw. He ain’t got a wife.”
Nellie stifled a smile. Jimmy Newsom had gotten drunk, hit a seventy-three-year-old-postal worker who had promptly gotten out of her Buick and beaten him senseless with her umbrella, then he’d spent the weekend in a correctional facility. After a nasty lawsuit, he’d been forced to sell his house and move in with his mother. No thanks. “He sounds like a prince, Hunter.”
“He ain’t a stupid prince. I hate those dumb guys. I like Transformers. They’re awesome.”
Nellie stopped the swing with the toe of her shoe. “So true. Look, I gotta get back to my flower bed. You can stay here and swing. Just don’t let Beau out of the house. Okay?”
“Okay, but he likes to play with me.” Hunter Todd held the conviction her cat Beau loved to play chase with him. Beau did not like Hunter Todd, and he darned sure didn’t want the four-year-old to chase him.
Nellie patted the boy’s leg and rose. She brushed some dirt from her old denim shorts—shorts that had definitely seen better days. The hem had fallen out on one side and bl
each spots dotted the front. The T-shirt she wore had a faded heart on it. She’d pulled her hair back, but it had come loose, falling in bedraggled clumps around her face. Her spare set of glasses perched on her nose, because as soon as she’d gotten home, she’d longed to go back to her former self.
Nellie picked up the trowel she’d dropped earlier. She had a lot to get done before the sun sank into the East Texas horizon.
So she set to work.
But before too long, she heard Hunter Todd carrying on a conversation. Dang. He’d let Beau out.
Nellie struggled to her feet and headed back around the corner. But Hunter Todd wasn’t talking to Beau. He was talking to Jack.
She nearly skidded to a stop and lunged behind the sweet olive bush. But she didn’t. She just took in the sight of Jack sitting on the top step, holding an action figure and listening to the four-year-old explain how the slime would come out of its eyes.
Hunter Todd spied her. “Hey, Nellie. Look—I found you a husband!”
JACK’S EYES MET HERS. Then took her in. Tangled hair, ugly glasses, dirt on one cheek and orange droplets down the front of a shirt that had likely been pulled from a rag bag. Bare toes wiggled in healthy Saint Augustine grass.
Nellie had never looked cuter.She shook her head. “Who said I was looking, Hunter Todd?”
“You gotta get married, Nellie.” Hunter Todd jumped down the steps with both feet and grinned up at Jack. “This guy ain’t got a wife neither.”
Jack laughed.
She didn’t.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked, pulling the gardening gloves from her hands.
“You ask that a lot,” he said.
“I have good reason,” she responded.
“Actually, Dawn needed me to pick up some shampoo from the store and I saw the kid alone on your porch.” Not the best explanation, but he couldn’t tell her that the confrontation at church had him worried. She’d looked like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs searching for a way out. Not good. But then again, it had been a better reaction than her sitting there ignoring him.
The kid hopped around like a tree frog while he and Nellie stared at each other. At one point Jack put a hand out to prevent the kid from toppling off the steps.
“Oh,” she said, rubbing her hands on her dirty shorts. “That’s Hunter Todd. He’s my neighbor.”
Well, hell. She wasn’t going to make it easy.
“Besides, I wanted to see your house. It’s nice by the way.”
She cocked her head and the ugly glasses slid down her nose. “You did.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So?” she said, propping her hands on her hips. It pulled the ratty T-shirt tight against her breasts and momentarily he forgot he was standing on her front porch in plain view of the nosy neighbors. He wanted to haul her against him and kiss her prickly demeanor away. Something crackled between them and he wondered if she thought the same. He clenched his hands and shoved them into his jean pockets.
“I—”
A horrific scream split the air.
“Hunter Todd!” Nellie cried, leaping forward to grab the child, who’d just crashed onto the porch and conked his head on a heavy rocking chair.
Jack reached him first, scooping the wailing boy into his arms.
“Hush, and let me see,” Jack said, dropping the kid’s legs and rooting through his unkempt hair looking for blood and carnage. He didn’t see anything but a growing lump.
Hunter Todd just shrieked louder.
“Okay,” Jack said, sinking onto the rocking chair and settling the child into his lap. “Come on, buddy. It’s just a little bump. Nellie will get some ice for it.”
Hunter Todd stopped wailing, but the tears didn’t cease. The child sniffled. “Okay.”
Jack looked up. Nellie stood staring at him as if he’d stripped naked and danced the hula.
“What?” Jack said, shifting Hunter Todd so he could sit up a bit.
She blinked. “Oh. Nothing.”
“The ice?”
Her body jerked. “Oh, of course. I’ll be right back.”
While Jack waited on Nellie, he rocked Hunter Todd, who still emitted a periodic whine or sniffle. Nellie emerged from the house with a bag of frozen peas and an embroidered hand towel. She wrapped the bag in the towel and pressed it against the child’s head.
“That’s cold,” Hunter Todd whined.
“It’s supposed to be,” Jack said, loosening his hand so he could take the bag from Nellie and hold it in place. His hand brushed hers and she pulled away as if it were a hot poker.
Nellie gave him a shaky smile and retreated to the porch rail.
Silence fell as mockingbirds called out from branches and the occasional car whirred around the town square. As Jack sat there in a rocking chair on Nellie’s front porch holding the child, it struck him that perhaps she hadn’t wanted him here in Oak Stand. He had driven the For Sale sign in his lawn back in Nevada and never even thought of the possibility that he might strike out.
Sometimes his own arrogance overwhelmed him.
So now he felt scared. Afraid he’d risked everything and pressured Nellie without considering her feelings.
Nellie looked back at him and Hunter Todd. “He’s asleep.”
Jack slid his eyes down to the child in his lap. Sure enough. He removed the bag of veggies and shifted the boy into a more comfortable position. “You want me to take him home?”
She nodded and took the mushy bag.
Then she did something unexpected. She bent and dropped a light kiss on Hunter Todd’s head. Then she looked right into Jack’s eyes and brushed his forehead with her lips. His heart literally fluttered. A poetic, girly reaction. But, hey, nothing had been the same since she’d eaten the last bite of those pancakes back at Earl’s place. And more importantly, it was just what he needed. Like summer rain on parched earth, her kiss gave him hope.
“But let me go explain to Maude. I doubt she’d take to a stranger showing up with her child in his arms.”
Jack stood, careful to not wake the boy. Blue stains ringed his mouth. Still, there was nothing more beautiful than a sleeping child. He followed Nellie through the flowery-looking bushes, noting how worn the path was. Hunter Todd was likely a regular visitor.
With a smile and question in her eyes, Maude Avery took Hunter Todd from him. He and Nellie walked the path back to her house in silence.
“I’ve got to be getting back,” he said. He didn’t want to go, but something told him he should. That old gut instinct.
“You’ve got dried snot on your shirt,” Nellie said, leaning back against the big cement planter flanking the front door steps.
He looked down at his orange shirt. Yep. Dried snot. “It’ll wash.”
Her eyes softened. Or was it the sun glinting off her glasses? “Thank you for helping with Hunter Todd. It was very…nice of you.”
He shrugged. Who did she think he was? An ogre who couldn’t deal with kids or emergencies or his out-of-control feelings? “Sure.”
He turned toward his truck, which he’d parked out on the street.
“Jack?”
He spun back toward her. “Yeah?”
“What do you think about my glasses? You didn’t say anything earlier.” Her voice sounded funny.
“I don’t think anything about them. They’re not the most attractive frames. They kind of hide your eyes, but they’re—”
“Not me?” she finished for him.
“They’re functional,” he said. He didn’t wait for her to say anything else. Just climbed into his truck and pulled away
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thongs! Why the devil would anyone want to wear one of those things? Of course, I always was a bit bottom heavy.
—Grandmother Tucker after Twyla Peters bent down to pick up her car keys, revealing a bright turquoise strip of satin.
“HEY, MR. MCIVY. Nice morning, isn’t it?” Nellie had to shout over the chatter of the goldf
inches on her feeder.
“Sure is, but it’s gonna get hot.” Mr. McIvy lived next door to her in a little Craftsman bungalow. He and his wife grew prized roses, so he was up every morning spraying and clipping.Nellie put Beau back in the house and trotted down the front steps. She fetched her oversize sunglasses from her bag and headed down the walk toward the library. She wore a short piqué skirt and a sleeveless boatneck blouse in soft grass-green. Her higher-than-normal Kate Spade sandals clacked a merry rhythm on the walk. She had painted her nails lilac and brushed an extra coat of mascara over her lashes. Shiny gloss on just her lower lip made her mouth look plump and kissable.
Just in case.
Monday was usually busy at the library, especially during the summer months. Would Jack drop by? The man seemed determined to invade her world, and she still wasn’t sure what to do about it. But after yesterday, something had changed. Something had broken loose inside her when he’d gathered Hunter Todd into his lap and rocked the child. It had made her wonder if she’d done what he accused her of back in Vegas. Had she committed the cardinal sin of librarians? Had she judged a book by its cover?
Maybe Jack could belong in Oak Stand. And maybe what they’d had in Vegas wasn’t pretend at all. Maybe he felt the same love she felt. The thought made her belly quiver.
Because he had seen her at her worst. Just the way the people in Oak Stand had seen her for the past few years. Plain ol’ Nellie. And the man hadn’t run for the city limits. In fact, she could’ve sworn he’d almost kissed her.
She sighed. No time to analyze it.
Nellie crested the hill and noticed a crowd gathered in front of the library. Rita and Cathy shook their heads and gestured wildly. Fred Lillie, the local paper’s photographer, snapped pictures. Almost everyone else, about seven total, stood shielding their eyes against the bright morning sun and looked up at the flagpole.
Nellie looked up.
Well, the flag wasn’t there. But something flapped in the faint morning breeze.
“Nellie! Can you believe someone would do something so juvenile?” Rita called out.