Ryland laid the folder on the table. “What’s this place?”
“My apartment. Have a seat. I’ll just be a minute.”
The room was an expansive stretch of floor to ceiling windows, an L-shaped couch and a corner desk nestled between two file cabinets. The apartment wasn’t big, but the understatement was one he’d seen in the luxurious downtown lofts of his single teammates. Simplicity was expensive.
Resting his shoulder against the windows, his gaze landed on the winding Mississippi River. Tessa Tarrington’s life wasn’t one he recognized. As much as he was fighting it, Tessa was bigger than Gibson’s Run. She needed to be with someone like Joey. Someone whose life was still on the rise, not someone whose life peaked at twenty-one. She deserved more than a small town football coach.
“Would you like something to drink?” She’d swapped her professional garb for torn sweats and an oversized sweatshirt. Her hair was tied in a lopsided ponytail, and yet, she was as pretty as the day his heart first opened his eyes to her.
Sucking in a steady breath he shook his head and shifted to the door. “I should get back to my hotel. I’m sure you have wedding stuff before Joe gets here. I’m sorry about today.”
“Hey,” she said, stopping him with a light touch to his shoulder. “I thought we were going to fight this thing out. Now you’re running away like a girl? Pretty poor conflict management for a coach, don’t you think?”
Heat flamed up his neck to his cheeks. “What’s there to argue about? I messed up. You lost your contract. It’s all my fault.”
“Ryland, please. Today is no one’s fault. I put too much on one little pitch. Please, come sit. Let me make you some lunch and we can plan our next pitch.”
“Our?”
“Sure. You’re the best proxy partner I could ask for. No one will protect Emma’s—and apparently, my—interests as well as you. Terrell wasn’t taking us seriously today. And I’m not sure I want someone representing the book who can’t see the potential for what Guard-Ann and Shelby can be. Your daughter created amazing characters for a series of stories, not just one little children’s book. Please stay.”
“OK.”
She smiled and dropped her hand from his shoulder. “Have a seat on the couch and I’ll get some lunch pulled together. I dropped by the farmer’s market and picked up some veggies and stuff. How’s a little jambalaya and rice sound? I made it ahead for Joe’s visit. There’s plenty.”
The clang of pans and clink of dishes drowned his answer as Tessa began cooking. She prattled about Lily Mae’s wedding, her meeting with her old publishers, and her idea for a second book based on Guard-Ann’s adventures with Shelby.
Ryland barely registered a word. His mind swirled. Why was Tessa so relaxed? The vulnerability she’d showed him this morning seemed counter to the carefree attitude of the moment. She rarely showed him a side of her that wasn’t controlled or ordered. But then again, over the last few weeks Tessa Tarrington was consistently inconsistent.
Since the first moment he’d seen her at the high school, he was struck by the contrast of confidence she’d displayed compared to the timid mouse he’d known through adolescence. The compassion that oozed from her when he’d shared about Macy or when he’d watched her with Emma, her seemingly unending patience, were all various sides to a multifaceted woman. And now the comfortable ease she wore in her own world was intoxicating.
Swaying between the stove and a cutting board, she continued her conversation.
He straddled a barstool, and watched her work. Worn sweats and lopsided hair were no match to seeing Tessa completely comfortable in her own skin. He’d never seen her sparkle quite as blindingly as she was chopping green onions and stirring soup. She belonged here in this urban, slightly exotic setting, not bound to six hundred teenagers and dozens of ungraded midterms.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I’m sorry. Think about what?”
“Haven’t you been listening?”
He shrugged. “My brain’s kind of swirling.”
She lifted a single eyebrow. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Hmmm. I’ve been in love with you since I was six years old and I’m just now realizing I can never be with you because our lives are too different… Not exactly a lighthearted lunch conversation. “Nope. I’m good.”
“OK. But there’s something I wanted to discuss with you.” She said, ladling the thick stew over brown rice. She handed a bowl to him and gestured to the wide sectional. Carrying her own bowl, she balanced a carafe of water and glasses in a single hand, with a long loaf of crusty French bread cuddled in the crook of her arm. Setting the water on the oversized ottoman, she folded her legs under her facing him on the couch.
Tearing his gaze from her graceful movements, he scooped a mounded spoonful of jambalaya into his mouth. The heated spice filled every sense, warming a line of perspiration on his brow.
“Water?” She offered him a tall glass.
He swallowed nearly half of the contents to simmer the heat in his mouth.
“A little too hot for you.” She chuckled as she dug into her bowl. “Make sure to get some of the rice in each bite. It takes a little of the edge off the heat. And the bread is a good counter. I usually can’t take much spice, but jambalaya is a classic.”
He ripped the end off of the bread and chomped the chewy center. “The dish is really good. I’m just a little tentative around spicy food.”
“Well, you might want to take smaller bites.”
Tearing another chunk of bread, he lifted his gaze to the top of her head. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” she said, lifting her hand to cover her mouth as she continued to chew.
“What happened with your publishers?”
She stirred her spoon through the thick soup, ladled a bite to her mouth, and slowly chewed.
“You know what, forget I asked.” He dug his spoon in his bowl, chomping another bite. Sweat pooled at the base of his neck.
“It’s all so weird…” She started slowly sharing the story of the break-in. Her notes stolen. The invasion of privacy. The fear of returning home.
“Someone went through all of my drawers. My closets. Read every email—all of my notes. He not only invaded my privacy but the three clients I was in contract with and every other client I had partnered with in the past. Everything was taken.”
“Do you have any suspects?”
“I asked the building management for the videos during the weekend of the break-in, but there was a power outage and the memories were all erased.”
“This happened over a weekend? Were you out of town?”
She nodded. “It was homecoming and a bunch of us go back to school. Visit the sorority house. Pretend we’re still young.”
“Tessa, we are still young.”
“Not if you go on a college campus, we’re not. We’re ancient—barely days away from Medicare, Social Security, and sitting on the front porch of the nursing home gumming our food.”
“Beautiful picture.”
“Writer.”
He smiled. Tried to temper the expansion of his heart. “How long were you gone?”
“Just two nights. I left Friday afternoon. Stayed for evening worship at The Chapel and then headed home. I guess I returned around 9:30.”
“And was the place ransacked?”
“No. Just a little mussed, but I can be kind of a freak about leaving for a trip. I have this morbid fear someone will have to come in and clean out my apartment.”
“What?”
“If I die or something tragic happens. I wouldn’t want to have dirty dishes in the sink or dirty clothes in the hamper. How embarrassing.”
“Tessa, I don’t think anyone who loved you would care.”
She shook her head. “You’d like to think so, but I remember when my Momma’s great Uncle Leopold passed away—God rest his soul. The old church ladies who cleaned up his place were vicious. Talking about his sta
cks of car magazines and old oil cans. You’d think he was a horrific hoarder the way they carried on. But it changed the way I leave my house every day. I don’t ever want to look down from heaven and hear a bunch of old birds chirping on about how I had dirty T-shirts in my hamper and unfiled papers on my desk.”
“I don’t think you’ll care when you’re in heaven.”
“But do you know that for sure?”
“Revelations 21:4, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’”
“What does John’s vision have to do with my dirty dishes?”
“I think Jesus’s promise of no more tears, includes your dirty dishes. You won’t care, because it won’t matter.”
She narrowed her bright green gaze and laced her arms tight across her chest. “Well, let’s just agree to disagree.”
“Fair enough. So you got home and noticed things out of place. Did you call the police?”
“I called Lily Mae first and she told me to call the police. She actually told me to call the ‘po po’ but that translates. They poked around for a couple hours, but the only thing of value missing was my notes. And since the door wasn’t jimmied they assume it was someone with a key. Which makes zero sense—the only people with keys to my apartment are Lily, Ella, and the manager of the building. Why would he want jumbled notes only another writer could understand?”
“Yep, does seem like a mystery.”
She shrugged. “When Jim and Cheryl first found out they were super supportive. ‘No worries.’ ‘We’ve got your back.’ And all of that nonsense, but as soon as one story leaked directly tied to the notes, they yanked my contract and that was it. I had about a week or so to wallow before my dad’s heart attack. And…well you know the rest of the story since then.”
“Did the police ever do anything?”
“Not really. None of the prints that came back were out of the norm.”
“I’m so sorry, Tess.”
“Thanks, but as a ghost writer all you have is your integrity. Your ability to keep a secret. When the terrible, awful day happened, I lost my credibility. I lost my power to be an effective writer of others’ stories. I kept fooling myself, believing that if enough time passed, Jim and Cheryl would think I was too good of a writer to lose, but after meeting with them yesterday I realized talent has little to do with what they want in a writer.”
“What did they ask?” He scooped another spoonful of jambalaya in his mouth—balancing the spicy stew with the cooling rice.
“They wanted me to bring them a juicy gossip filled story. They don’t care if they have the consent of the subject. They just want a tell-all they can turn into a blockbuster.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I guess that’s the business I associated myself with for the last four years. I thought I was doing something good. Being the fingers that typed someone’s story. I think I did that part of the job with honor. But what Jim and Cheryl want to turn E&E into isn’t a business I want to be associated with, regardless of the payday.” She tore a chunk of bread, tugging the soft inside into a ball.
“You can’t think of anyone whom you’ve made an enemy out of? An old client who didn’t like the finished product? A rival writer? What about your publishers? Maybe they thought you were holding back on the ‘gossip gold’?”
She shook her head. “I guess the thief—whoever he or she is—did me a favor. I wouldn’t have left this job and may’ve been forced to compromise my beliefs. I hate to think what I would’ve done if I had to choose between being a ghost writer and a gossip writer.”
They fell into companionable silence as they ate.
He drank two more glasses of water, forcing Tessa to refill the carafe with a chuckle.
“Hey, before we sat down you said you wanted to discuss something with me?” He scraped his bowl for the last of the rice and stew.
“Yep.” She set her half eaten bowl on the ottoman and pulled her knees to her chest. “I’m not really sure how to start.”
“The beginning always seems best.”
“It’s about Joey.”
His heart slammed against his ribcage. Ryland didn’t want to talk about Joey. The idea of her with anyone else—including his best friend—scraped at his soul. “What about Joey?”
“Have you noticed anything odd about his behavior?”
Odd? Ryland thought about the confrontation in his gym a few days earlier. In those moments Joe confirmed Ryland’s greatest fears for his friend, but he wasn’t certain how to answer Tessa’s question without betraying long held confidences. “What do you mean odd?”
“I don’t know. He seems cagey about how his career is going. He just doesn’t seem his old self. He doesn’t sparkle.”
“Well, speaking as a man, I’m sure Joe is glad he doesn’t sparkle. Sparkle isn’t exactly the description most men are striving toward.”
Throwing a pillow at his head she grunted.
“Tessa Tarrington. Who knew you were so violent?”
“I’m being serious and you’re joking. Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you about Joey. I just thought since you’ve been best friends since the beginning of well, the beginning, you would want to help him with whatever he’s going through…but I guess compassion wasn’t something they handed out in the coaching line, was it?” She burst to her feet.
With a flick of his wrist, he tugged her back to the couch, tucked neatly to his side. “Enough. You really need to learn how to take a little good natured teasing, Tarrington.”
Her sigh melted into his body. He tried to remember they were better apart, but her fragrance filled his lungs and wrapped around his heart jumbling his mind. He could be content to sit on this couch with Tessa stretched against his side for the rest of his life. A flash of Emma’s broad smile shot across his mind and gave him the strength to make space. He couldn’t burden Tessa with his readymade family. After seeing her today, he wouldn’t be the barrier to her flourishing.
She scooted to face him with her legs laced under her. “I’m sorry I overreact. Years of response. I guess I’m as guilty as any of Pavlov’s dogs. Forgive me?”
“Forgiven. And the same to you. I over-tease. Will you forgive me?”
The corner of her mouth lifted in a devilish grin. “Forgiven.”
“Now…how do we solve a problem like Joey?”
24
The waning sun blanketed her loft as she and Ryland continued to chat. Hours had passed and she felt she was closer to understanding the source of Joey’s pain, but she was still unsure of how to best help him move forward. Ryland was guarded about what he shared, but reading through the lines was her specialty. Joey was dealing with lingering injuries and instead of owning them he was relying on medication—only he didn’t have prescriptions.
“Would you like a little more coffee?” She lifted the tray holding their empty dessert plates and coffee mugs.
“Naw, I’m good.” He glanced at his watch and straightened to stand. “I should really get out of your hair. You probably need to get ready for a rehearsal dinner.”
“What time is it?” She loaded the dishwasher.
“Nearly 4:00 PM.”
A wave of dread flowed through Tessa. She needed to be at the church by 5:30 to be told how to walk—something she’d thought she’d mastered at two years old—and she would have to see Bobbi Ann Risdy-Jones for the first time since she’d lost her writing career.
She could almost feel the superior sneer from her sorority sister. Why had Lily insisted on having Bobbi Ann in the wedding? Just because her father had rented all of Bobbi Ann’s sorority sisters high end loft apartments for next to nothing after graduation, shouldn’t make every sister indebted to her for the rest of their young adult years.
“You OK?” Ryland asked, leaning a shoulder against the fifteen foot pillar flanking her kitchen.
“Sure. But I’m out of time.”
She watched the muscles of his broad back ripple as he reached for the sliding door, and Spontaneous Tessa spurted again. “What are you doing tonight?”
~*~
The din of the small army of guests and attendants grew as Tessa led Ryland to the backroom. The private event facility would be transformed into a fairy tale reception in less than twenty-fours. A server greeted them with champagne, but both declined.
“I just really need a giant glass of ice water,” Ryland answered.
“Mouth still have a little lingering heat?”
“Funny. Would you like anything to drink?” He nodded at her order and wove his way to the bar that dominated the back of the room.
Tessa watched him retreat.
Turning from him she walked to the windows set deep into the high brick walls. The rehearsal was smoother than she’d anticipated.
Lily Mae placed Bobbi Ann at the front of the processional, keeping two cousins and one sorority sister between her and Tessa. Now if she was strategic about her seat at the long family style table, she could reduce her potential interaction with her nemesis to mere minutes waiting for the pre-wedding photos and the church vestibule line-up tomorrow. Her eyes shut in a silent prayer of thanks.
“Well, as I live and breathe.”
Ice poured through Tessa’s veins.
“If it isn’t little T-squared Tarrington. It’s just been months and weeks since I’ve seen you last.”
Puffing a sigh through her smile stretched lips, Tessa turned. “Well, hey, Bobbi Ann. Long time.” She stepped into Bobbi Ann’s outstretched arms.
At barely five feet tall, Bobbi Ann never tipped the triple digits on her scale unless her hairspray was slightly more generous or her sequins were double-rowed over her entire dress. Balancing on four-inch heels, the top of her hair nearly scraped Tessa’s cheek.
Life on the Porcelain Edge Page 17