by Wendy Vella
“I’m not that silly little girl anymore, and dreams change... I’m sure yours have.”
“She wasn’t silly. She was kind, and loving, and one of the most amazing people I have ever met. That girl saw something in me no one else ever had.”
Their eyes held for long, painful seconds before Bailey made herself pull away. She walked away from him and didn’t look back, returning to the safe haven of Maggs’s little house as fast as her legs could carry her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joe followed on Bailey’s heels.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Bailey.” He caught up with her as she walked out the door. His fingers closed around her wrist. “I just wanted to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Joe. That was then and this is now. We’re different people, and don’t need each other.”
“I can always use a friend. How about you?”
She pulled her arm free and turned to look at him. Her face was composed, emotions locked away.
“I don’t need friends, Joe, I need a job, and as you are my boss, I don’t want to have this rear up between us again.”
“This being talk of our past, and anything too personal?”
She nodded. “L-let’s just leave it there.”
“In the past?” He wanted to touch her again, see if she softened any and the chill in her eyes warmed.
She nodded. “Exactly. I’m glad that’s cleared up. Bye.”
Joe watched her jump down the steps to the pavement, then hurry away.
“I was never good at following orders,” he muttered, turning to head back inside. His mind was full of her. What had happened to turn her into the person she was today? Where had that open, caring girl he’d loved gone? His Bailey. His savior.
“What the hell was that about?” Pip stood before him behind the counter, hands braced on top, her eyes telling him she wanted answers.
“What?”
“The chemistry between you two.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now bring me more food, woman, or I’ll have to charge you for that meal tonight.”
She didn’t budge.
He sighed... loudly. “Leave it, Pip.”
“We’ve never had secrets, Joe.”
Yes, we have, he thought, and she just walked out the door .
“I just watched you and Bailey Jones talk out there, and the tension between you was obvious, even from here. There’s something between you and her, and I want to know what.”
“It’s complicated.” He couldn’t deny it, not to someone who knew him as well as Pip did.
“Most things are, but in getting them uncomplicated it helps to share.”
“When did you grow up?”
“Stop stalling, Joe.”
He went for an abbreviated answer to appease her. “Bailey lived here for thirteen years of her life. Her parents owned the property we now live on.”
Pip whistled. “You tell her that?”
“I haven’t, no, and my guess is neither has Maggie, as she didn’t bring it up.” But he should have; she deserved to know the truth.
“Is she your age?”
“Three years younger.”
“How old were you when she left?”
“Sixteen.”
“So if she was thirteen….” His cousin’s sharp brain was moving with its usual speed, trying to connect the dots. “Surely you guys didn’t have anything going on between you?”
“No!” The word exploded from Joe’s mouth. “Nothing like that, we were just friends.”
Pip frowned. “Was her home life crap? Was she a bad girl or something?”
Joe wished he’d just kept his mouth shut. “No, she was the only child of two uptight, rich parents.”
“Then how the hell did you two become friends?”
How indeed.
“Can we just leave it that we knew each other?”
“No.” Pip raised a hand to stop him saying anything else. “Sarah, I’m taking a break, call if you need me. You,” she pointed at Joe, “go find a table, I’ll join you.”
“I don’t have time for this, Pip. The story is an old one that doesn’t need airing again. Plus, it’s personal, between Bailey and me.”
“You know I’ll make your life hell if you don’t tell me, and what’s more, you know I can keep secrets.”
“I really don’t need this now.”
“Sure you do, now go and sit.”
He found a table and sat drinking his coffee, thinking about Bailey. She had secrets and shadows in her eyes. Why was she no longer performing? What course had her life taken since she’d left here? He knew she’d gone with her mother and grandfather when her parents separated, but nothing else.
“So, I have food, and coffee. I’m ready when you are.” Pip took the seat across from him.
“Well of course, like my brothers, I live to serve you.”
She smiled, flashing him a row of neat white teeth that had been cemented into braces for two years.
“I like her, FYI. She seems nice. Kind of timid, but nice.”
“You’ve had what, a total of one conversation with her?”
“I know people.”
“Do you now.”
“She’s pretty too.”
“Aha.”
And she had soft skin, and eyes the color of a cool winter sky, and something about her triggered a reaction inside Joe he wasn’t comfortable with. She was scared, and trying hard not to show it. Scared, timid, hell, there was any number of words to add to what Bailey Jones had become. The hell of it was he wanted to know her story. Maybe he wanted to help her now as she had once helped him.
“So spill.”
Joe twisted the wide silver band around his finger, like he always did when he was thinking. He hadn’t told anyone about what he and Bailey had shared, and to do so now was to open a locked vault deep inside him—but then, maybe it was time. She was here, and stirring up things inside him; if he talked about her, it could help. He let himself go back to that day... the first day they’d met.
“This is not something I’ve ever talked about, Pip.”
“You know I’m good for it, and maybe it’s time, Joe. Carrying stuff inside you for years isn’t good. Let it out, it’ll be freeing.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil.”
She waved him on while she ate.
“You know the river at the back of the property? The bridge that takes you over leads to a cave in the hill.”
Pip frowned. “I don’t remember a cave.”
“It’s there, you just have to know where to look.” He’d never gone back again after Bailey left.
“Okay, there’s a cave, then what?”
He looked over Pip’s shoulder, thinking back on that day. The memories still caused an ache, but it had dulled over the years.
“She found me there one day. Bailey. She was ten, I was thirteen. My father had just gone a few rounds with me, I was bruised and angry, and that was where I ended up. I’d found it a few weeks earlier when I was out exploring.”
“Jack told me you did that a lot.”
He had, because staying home was unbearable.
“He also told me you put locks on the door to their room. Locks with keys that only they held.”
“They needed to have a safe place to go if he came home drunk.”
Pip leaned across the table and cupped her hands around his face. “You are the best man I know, Joe.”
“No.” Joe shook his head. “There were times I was an asshole.”
She laughed. “Oh well, sure. I know that.”
He laughed as she’d wanted him to.
“Bailey walked in with a backpack on that day. She was dressed in her school uniform, hair in braids, and she had skinny legs and shoes that seemed too big. I was never sure how she got down there, as the top was quite steep.”
“Your memory’s good.”
“I remember everything about that day, because it changed my lif
e.”
“How?”
“I yelled at her, told her to leave, even though I was on her land. She didn’t, instead looking at me with those big gray eyes of hers, and then she came and sat beside me. Not too close, but close enough that I could see she was nervous. She opened her bag and gave me a cold can of soda for my eye, which was swollen.”
“Oh God, Joe.”
“I’m not telling you to make you cry, Pip. You wanted to hear this story, so I’m telling it.”
She waved him on while blotting her eyes with a napkin.
“She then got out a ham-and-cheese sandwich and gave me half. A box of Apple Sours, and an orange. She split them in half too, placing half on my legs that were stretched out before me.”
Pip sniffed while Joe lost himself in the memory.
“She took out a book, I remember the title was Matilda . I sat there for two hours while she read it to me that day.”
“Oh God,” Pip wailed, burying her face in the napkin.
“Get a grip.” Joe’s words were soft as he took her hands in his. “This is my story, not yours.”
“It’s just so... I don’t know. Sweet maybe, painful to hear, but I’m so pleased you found her when you needed someone, Joe.”
“So am I.”
“What happened then?”
“We met there twice a week for two years. We never talked outside that place. If I saw her in the street, we walked past each other, and we both knew it was for the best, because her parents would never have allowed it, and mine would have used her against me.”
“That sucks!”
“It did, but then I was older, and supposedly cooler, and hung with a bad crowd. No one would have understood what we had.”
“What did you have?”
“Friendship... and so much more. When she realized I couldn’t read very well, she taught me. Bullied me into doing my homework, and learning. I had to read to her for hours. And every time we met, she brought food for me to eat, and sometimes more to take home for Luke and Jack.”
“If I hug her next time we meet, do you think it will freak her out?”
“Yes, and you need to keep this to yourself, Pip. I mean it.”
“Okay, but tell me the rest of the story.”
“It’s hers too, so I’m telling you things she may not want anyone to ever hear.”
Piper crossed her heart with a finger.
“One day I was waiting for her, and heard her coming. She was screaming my name, and sobbing. I ran to meet her, watched as she hurried down the hill. She fell, and I caught her. It was the first time we’d ever touched. I carried her inside and she sat on my lap and sobbed out her story.”
Pip grabbed more tissues.
“Her parents were separating, and she was leaving with her mother to go and live with her grandfather in Boston. That was the last time we saw each other, until I found her in the grocery store three days ago.”
“What? No.” Pip shook her head. “Surely you wrote to each other. Made contact somehow?”
She wrote , Joe thought, but not me. I was too busy self-destructing .
“The end,” Joe said, picking up his now cold coffee and taking a large mouthful to ease the dryness in his throat.
“But there’s more, isn’t there? Lots more.”
Joe just shrugged. “Heads up, the rest of the Trainer clan is arriving,” he said.
“Your secret is safe with me, Joe. But talk to her; don’t let her leave without that at least. You owe each other something. A connection like that is never truly severed,” Pip said before she got to her feet to greet his brothers.
She was right, of course. He would always have a connection to Bailey Jones.
“Hey, bud, that’s a serious frown.”
Jack was two years younger than Joe, and tall but built leaner, with hair more brown than black. Behind him came the youngest Trainer, Luke. He was the image of Joe.
“I thought you had a group to take out today?”
“They cancelled,” Jack said, falling into the chair Pip had recently vacated. “One of them is sick, so they’re going out next week.”
“Hey, Pip.” Luke threw his cousin a sweet smile that she totally fell for, and minutes later he had a heaped plate of food in front of him, as did Jack. Joe got to his feet and refilled his own cup.
“I have a lesson this afternoon with that Anderson brat. God’s truth, she’s the biggest know-it-all I’ve ever encountered,” Jack moaned.
“Who are you looking at?” Piper asked, noticing how Luke’s eyes were still on the door.
“That woman, Bailey Jones. I just saw her coming out of the pharmacy a few minutes ago. She looks better than the last time I saw her. She was kind of dazed then.”
“What? When did you bump into her?”
“A few days ago. She was on the street and stepped off the curb and would have been hit by a car if I hadn’t grabbed her.”
“She did what?” Joe’s heart was thumping hard in his chest at the prospect of Bailey doing that.
“Like I said, she seemed dazed. I pulled her back on the sidewalk, introduced myself, just wanted to get her talking to see if she was okay. She looked at my uniform then, and told me she was glad I was a firefighter, then walked away. It was a weird moment, I tell you.”
That had to be the day they’d met in the store, Joe realized. So she’d been as unsettled by their meeting as he had.
“She’s seriously hot,” Luke added.
Joe bit back his irritation as Luke looked back to the door. He had no claim to Bailey, but he felt protective of her. Their history gave him that right at least, and the fact that she was running from something. He’d stake his bar on that.
“She’s certainly cute,” Jack said, joining the conversation now that he’d cleaned his plate. Jack took food seriously.
“She’s just arrived, so give her a break,” Joe said calmly. Best way to deal with his siblings, he’d learned when they were finally all back together, was not to show any weakness.
“And what the hell does that mean?” Jack scowled. “You make me sound like some kind of predator.”
“A slight overreaction,” Joe said. “What I mean is, she’s here for a break, so don’t hassle her.”
“I have never hassled a woman!” Indignant now, Jack’s scowl darkened. “I’ve never forced myself on a woman either.”
“I never said you did, I was just telling you about Bailey, and that she seems a bit wound up, so give her some space if you run into her.” Joe wasn’t sure why he just didn’t shut the hell up.
He watched the scowl fall from Jack’s face, to be replaced by a smug smile.
“So you’re warning me off because you’re interested?”
“What? No,” Joe said. “I’m just saying give her some space.”
He was then subjected to a double sibling stare down. Joe was up to it, he’d spent most of the last ten years wrestling his brothers into the halfway respectable, decent humans they were today. They didn’t intimidate him.
“Space, is it? Well, it’s okay with us, big brother. If you want the path left clear, we’ll do that for you.”
“Don’t be insulting,” Piper snapped, returning with more coffee. “Bailey’s a person, not a doormat, and you need to learn to respect women... both of you.”
“How come he’s exempt?” Jack glared at Joe.
“Because I like him more than you.”
“Now we know that’s a lie,” Luke said, sending his cousin a gentle smile that never failed to make her do whatever the hell he wished.
“I’m gonna puke,” Jack growled.
“There’s also Angie to consider,” Joe said.
Pip scowled. “You need to move on there. She’s not right for you. Besides, I thought you said that was casual, and it’s been, what… two months?”
“Angie is a lovely woman, Pip,” Joe said, “and yes, it’s casual because I’ve kept it that way. I made that clear from the start, just a movie or meal occ
asionally.”
“So she knows where you stand then. Besides, there’s Ted.”
“Ted?” Joe looked around his family, who all seemed suddenly busy doing a shitload of nothing but avoiding eye contact with him.
“Ted?” he said again, this time louder with some steel behind it.
“You and she are just casual, you said so yourself,” Luke said, looking uncomfortable. “And Jed from the station said he saw Angie with Ted from the lodge a few weeks back. They looked….” Luke waved a hand, looking, if possible, more uncomfortable.
“Happy?” Joe said. “Pissed off? Like they’d had at each other?”
“That.” Luke pointed a finger at him.
“You’re twenty-fucking-five, Luke, you can say the word sex,” Joe teased him. It didn’t bother him overly about Angie. They’d only been casual, and then not very much. He liked her, but it was never serious, even it sometimes he wondered if she believed different.
“I agree with Pip,” Luke said.
“Ditto,” Jack added.
“About?” Joe asked.
“Angie not being right for you. She’s nice, but not for you.”
“Because I’m not nice?” Joe messed with his little brother.
“Oh, lay off him.” Pip stepped in like she always did. “You didn’t feel a thing when you heard Angie had been seen with Ted, so that just confirms what we think. Bailey would be better for you.”
“As she’s just arrived back in town after many years and we’ve barely conversed, I’m not sure why you think that.”
“Because you warned us off, and you never do that unless you’re serious,” Jack said.
“We’re not continuing this discussion,” Joe said, now the uncomfortable one. He gave his family the look.
Thankfully they let the subject of Angie and Bailey drop, and discussed business for a while. The Trainer siblings owned the cafe, several rental properties, and an industrial business in town, plus the ranch. After he’d straightened himself out, with the help of two friends Joe found he had an aptitude for playing the stock market. He’d then bought his first property, and their portfolio grew from there with the help of his family.
“I heard Mrs. Howard got into you again the other day, Joe. Why the hell do you put up with it?” Jack said. “Woman’s a bitch.”