by Liz Talley
“Thanks,” she called out to the girl with a wave. Unusual for a teenager to check on someone like that.
Tess pushed the sweat-dampened hair from her face and sucked in the humid air as she turned back the way she had come. Around her the quaint, expensive neighborhood hummed with children laughing, the sound of a lawn mower and the swoosh of cars down Metairie Road, which was strung with businesses, some open, others not. She’d run a decent way for a chick in ballet flats.
The phone in her front pocket vibrated and she pulled it out.
Michael.
She wasn’t ready to talk to her brother about her father. Too close to home and the sadness would sheet off of Michael—the man felt everything so deeply. Tess didn’t want to feel anything at the moment. She wanted to hide. To avoid. To pretend. For at least fifteen minutes. Maybe an hour. Or maybe she could hide from the entire afternoon.
Pressing the button to bring up her contacts, she hit Gigi’s number. Several rings and a voicemail later, she hung up. A ding sounded. Text message from Gigi.
Found a date to the wedding. I’m trying him on right now. Catch up with you tomorrow. This might take a while ;)
No Gigi.
Tess wondered if she should call Nick. He’d been calling lately. Probably because he was lonely. But Nick was a dead end. At one time she’d hoped they could end up as more than what they were, which was a sometimes convenience. No sense opening that can of worms.
The phone vibrated again. Michael was a persistent devil...for a priest.
“Hey,” she said into the phone. “I’m not ready to deal with Dad and this shit, okay? I can’t—”
“Tess?”
She pulled the phone from her ear, looked at it and then tugged it back again. “Graham?”
“Yeah.”
“What—why are you calling me?” Tess asked as she looked both ways and crossed the street that led to her parents’ house.
“I don’t know. Well, I do. There are a couple of good reasons, I guess, but mostly I wanted to check on you.”
He knew about her father...knew Frank would tell them today. “You know about Dad’s cancer?”
Duh. Of course he knew. Graham was her father’s new golden boy, his trusted right-hand man, and she was, yeah, just his daughter. Resentment burned in her gut before she batted it down. She couldn’t handle any more negative feelings. She could barely deal with what was squeezing the breath out of her. So Graham knew her father was dying. Big deal. The important fact was her father was dying.
She stifled a sob, catching it with her hand.
“Actually I guessed something was wrong,” Graham said with a sigh. “Last week when your father came in to tell me you went to work for Upstart, he finally told me the truth. Shocked me to realize if he weren’t facing what he’s facing, I wouldn’t be here in New Orleans...or at least not at Ullo. And I would never have met you.”
Tess swallowed at a different emotion burgeoning within the grief swelling within her gut. The only reason she and Graham had happened in the first place was because her father had gotten sick. Bittersweet emotion coasted on crippling regret.
“What do you want me to say?” she said, stopping, realizing she’d rather walk all the way home than go back to that dining room table and her mother’s tears. She just couldn’t do it. She wasn’t strong enough. Not yet.
“Nothing,” he said, his voice weary. “I just worried about you.”
His words hit her between the eyes. Graham cared. She already knew this, even if his initial actions after they’d slept together proved differently. But in the light of the afternoon, his slight felt very, very small compared to learning her father was dying.
“What are you doing right now?” she asked.
“I’m driving back from Monique’s. Emily spent the night with me last night. Headed toward the grocery.”
“What area? What street?”
“Uh, West Esplanade and Transcontinental.” He sounded confused.
So was she. “Can you come get me?”
A surprised pause. “Where are you?”
“On the corner of Old Metairie and Sycamore,” she said wondering what in the hell she was doing asking him to come get her. In her mind, hell, in everyone’s mind, Graham was the enemy. She was supposed to hate him for what he’d done, not ask him to rescue her from the tidal wave of grief threatening to wash her away.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
Clicking the phone off, Tess sank down on the curb and set her head against her knees. Her body ached to cry, to release all the bitterness she’d held within. She needed something. Maybe a cocktail. Or maybe she needed therapy. Could a shrink help her figure out her life? Inside, Tess felt like a ripped sail on a forgotten boat, fluttering in the gale with no hope of repair.
In the past her family had always reeled her in and stitched her up, assuring her all would be right again. But her father couldn’t fix this. Nor could her mother or brothers. No one could.
A car turned onto the street, slowing down. But it was a red convertible Mercedes with a thin blonde at the wheel. The over-sized sunglasses blocked the woman’s eyes, but somehow Tess knew she looked concerned.
Tess raised her hand and waved.
The woman waved back and sped off.
And people thought some New Orleanians weren’t friendly. Two strangers in the space of twenty minutes checking on her.
Eight minutes later Graham pulled up, rolling down the window. “Tess?”
She lifted her head and suppressed the sob rising within her. Why Graham? Why the man who’d stolen her dream? Why was he the one she wanted on the day she found out her daddy was dying?
Because he felt like someone to watch over her as much as he felt like someone who could move her forward. Any other lifetime, and Graham Naquin would be the perfect man.
But not in this life.... Graham could never be her Mr. Right because he’d already stepped into the shoes of Mr. Wrong.
“Hey,” she said, reaching for the door. Climbing inside the cool exterior, she tried not to give in to the tears, but her heart didn’t get the memo her brain sent out.
“Sorry, sorry,” she choked on the sobs, wrapping her arms around herself, rocking slightly. “I don’t know why—”
His hand on her back felt so good and it only made her cry harder. The car moved, but only a swerve to the curb before he put it in Park.
“Tess,” he said, his voice soothing like a velvet night skimming over her.
“I can’t stop. I can’t—”
“Hey,” he said, sliding his hand up to push her hair back, “Just get it out. Just let it all out, Tess.”
So she did. For a good five minutes she sobbed against the dashboard of the car her father had brought her one-time lover and present rival. The entire time she cried, Graham rubbed her back, comforting her.
Finally, Tess sat back, wiping her face with her hands.
“Here,” Graham said, pulling a travel package of tissues from the compartment that separated their seats. “Use this.”
Tess took the tissue and wiped her face, before grabbing another to blow her nose.
A few seconds ticked silently by. The world outside the car moved—a man on a lawn mower, an older lady walking a fluffy dog and squirrels scampering up and down the graceful oaks. All going about their business on a Sunday afternoon.
“I’m pathetic,” Tess said finally, tearing her gaze from a bed of tulips dancing in the breeze to his. “I don’t know why I called you.”
His smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “How is it pathetic? Besides, I called you.”
“Oh, yeah. But I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
He issued a soft laugh. “Thi
ngs are weird between us, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, Tess.”
“I know,” she said exhaling, looking back down at the tissue wadded in her hand.
“I’m very sorry about your father,” he said.
Tess’s heart squeezed and she pressed her fingers to her temples where a dull headache throbbed. “It feels surreal. All of this.”
Graham draped his hands over the steering wheel and stared at the sunshine filtering through the leaves. For a long while he didn’t speak, and somehow the stretch of quiet comforted her more than empty platitudes. Eventually he turned back toward her.
“You want to go somewhere?”
Tess nodded. “I can’t go back yet. My thoughts are too mixed up, and I don’t know what to say to my dad yet.”
“He’ll understand,” Graham said, turning the key, bringing the car to life. Pulling away from the curb, he hooked a quick left and backed around so they were headed back toward Metairie Road. “Coffee?”
Tess shook her head. Her rolling gut couldn’t handle the acrid brew or the shot of caffeine.
“Something stronger?”
“No.”
Graham said nothing more. Merely drove toward New Orleans, bypassing the on-ramp and going under I-10, passing Delgado and the cemetery with the raised tombs sitting vigil over the city. As he drove, radio on a soft rock station, Tess tried to gather up her shredded pride and erect the defenses she’d put in place weeks ago. She didn’t want to open the door to Graham again.
So why’d you ask him to come get you?
She didn’t have the answer.
Turning off the boulevard, he looped around and entered City Park. Pulling into a parking lot, he shut off the engine. “Let’s walk.”
Without waiting for her answer, he climbed out and shut the door. Her door opened and Graham leaned in, extending his hand.
Tess looked at it. She didn’t want to touch him. Didn’t want him to crawl inside the walls she’d so carefully put back into place.
“You don’t want to walk?”
“I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t—”
“Get out,” he said, not unkindly, but with a firmness that told her he was used to stubborn women...or stubborn seven-year-old girls. “You need to process. You need to walk.”
“I already walked.” She looked up at him.
He arched one eyebrow, looking quite dashing in the bright afternoon light, wearing a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt pushed up his forearms.
Tess sighed. “Fine.”
He locked the car behind her and started down the nearest path. Around them kids shrieked, adults jogged and a group of twenty-somethings played Frisbee golf. Unlike the lush privacy of Audubon Park, City Park was more open, with a golf course, several playgrounds, tennis courts and even a small amusement park. And there were lots and lots of paths to pound while examining the ups and downs a gal’s life took.
For a long time they walked, side by side, footfalls falling soft.
“How am I supposed to be angry at him?” Tess said finally.
“Good question.”
“You’re not much help, you know.”
“I’ve pretty much screwed up every relationship in my life, Tess. I’m not here to give you advice.”
She stopped. “What are you here for?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. To be your friend?”
“To be my friend?”
“We can be friends, can’t we?”
“I don’t know. For two people who don’t really know each other, we sure have a lot between us.” She fell in step beside him again.
For several more minutes they walked without talking. Arriving at a small pond, Tess veered off the path and sank down onto a bench. Graham settled beside her and they both contemplated the water buzzing with dragonflies, lined with lanky irises.
“I feel empty. Numb,” Tess said.
Graham sat down, clasped his hands and said nothing.
“You sort of suck as someone to talk to.”
At that, he laughed. “I told you. No good with advice.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did call you. I’d been thinking about you all morning. The whole time I was with Emily, I kept thinking about how much I love her and want to protect her. And then I thought about Frank and you.”
“I don’t mean today. I meant after our night together.”
“Oh, that,” he said, staring down at his clasped hands. “It’s hard to answer. I can say a lot of things about why I didn’t, but I suppose I’m embarrassed by the real reason.” He looked out at the pond and said nothing more.
“I shouldn’t have asked. Don’t know why I keep bringing it up. Guess it seems so unlike you. Jeez, the thing is I don’t know you well enough to even say that,” Tess said, shaking her head. “I’ve got way more important things to think about, don’t I? A new job and my father dying. Yeah, my plate’s sorta full right now.”
“Come back to Ullo.”
Tess stiffened. “What...what do you mean?”
“You need to be there. It’s where you belong.”
“You’ll step down?”
Graham made a face. “I can’t step down—I need the job.” He glanced away from her, hiding from her any vulnerability.
“My father doesn’t need me at Ullo. If he did, he would have appointed me the CEO. He would have given me what I have worked so hard for. In case you didn’t get the memo—I’m not wanted.”
She might as well have added “and you didn’t want me, either,” but she had to let that hurt go, had to stop clinging to the sucking wound in her pride...to the idea she wasn’t worth the effort. Why did she hold her fist so tight around Graham’s rejection? Did she really think love had blossomed between them?
Stupid.
And now because she couldn’t let the offense go, she came off as pathetic. This was now her issue, not his. He’d apologized.
Graham brushed his knee against hers, jarring her out of her reverie. “So much would be solved if you would just change your mind and come back.”
“For you,” she said quietly. “But not for me. Falling back into who I was, forgetting the total dismissal my father gave me, would be taking the easy way. But it wouldn’t be the right way. Not for me.”
“So you’re going to teach the old man a lesson, huh? And in doing so, make my task harder? Hurt the company you loved?”
“I’m not being spiteful. I’m doing what is right for me.... My father manipulated me again today. He knew what his announcement would do to me, but he tossed that ace onto the table.” She wondered if her father had used the cancer card to manipulate her. Otherwise, why hadn’t he told her and her brothers when he’d been diagnosed? Why hadn’t he told her before going to a headhunter and hiring someone to run the company? She didn’t understand him any more than she understood the reason she sat beside Graham in the dying light of the day.
“So you’re going to keep this wall between you. You’re going to work for Monique...work on stealing the very accounts you helped bring to Ullo? That’s your plan?”
“You make me sound like a bad person. I’m not. I’m just not giving in to my father’s wishes. I’m not accepting his vision for my future. He wants me to fall in line and do what he expects, but I’m not going to do that. I’m devastated about the cancer, but that doesn’t change anything.”
She stood and stepped away. She didn’t want to talk about her father anymore. No more allowing the love she felt for him to mold her intent. Nothing had changed her goal: to prove herself to everyone. To prove to herself she could make her own future without her father’s name, without her father giving her all she had. This was business. Wasn’t that what her father had said
?
It’s not personal....
But it felt that way.
“Tess,” his voice followed her, pricking at her resolve. It was business between her and Graham, too. She shouldn’t have asked him back into her world, shouldn’t have showed weakness in front of him.
“We should head back to the car,” she said, moving in the direction they’d trod minutes before, not bothering to look over her shoulder.
He spun her around. She jerked her arm away, but he didn’t release his grasp. “Tess.”
Armor in place she looked up at him, at the softness in his blue eyes. “What?
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You know what’s wrong with me. The same thing that has been wrong with me since the day I walked into an ambush in my father’s office. Life has been bitch-slapping me, serving me up shit sandwich after shit sandwich. I’m pretty full on what life’s been giving me. Look, you were nice to come and get me, to play the knight on a white horse, but I shouldn’t have asked it of you.”
He dropped his hand. “So nothing between us has changed?”
“How can it? You’re still you. I’m still me. And between us is a gap full of hurt, anger and betrayal. Nothing has changed.”
Graham’s mouth formed a line and gone was the softness he’d lent her when she’d needed it. “I’ll take you back.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
* * *
GRAHAM LOOKED DOWN at Tess as she stood in front of him, chest heaving with emotion, green eyes resolute, and his heart ached.
He should take her home and be done with her. After all, she’d made everything so damn difficult in his life. Things were supposed to be good—he had a decent job and a steady paycheck. Emily had fallen back into the same easy relationship they’d shared that summer. Monique had taken the high road...for a little while at least. Life smelled like a summer rose.
Yet Tess was the thorn pricking him.
He thought about her constantly. The way her skin felt beneath his fingertips, the scent of her hair, the way she’d made love to him, fierce and tender at the same time. He wanted her desperately. Wanted to sink inside her, brand her, make her his.