Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South

by Linda Winfree

  Marie handed off a basket of rolls to Troy Lee. “Troy, you’re not from here, are you?”

  “No, ma’am.” He took a roll and passed them to his right. Darryl received the basket without moving his gaze from the television. “I’m from Atlanta.”

  Hope eyed him again. “Did you go to college up there?”

  “I started out at Georgia Tech, then transferred to UGA when I changed my major to criminal justice.”

  Angel slanted a glance at him from beneath her lashes while buttering her roll. “What was your first major?”

  His attention narrowed to her mouth as she bit into the fluffy bread and licked a bit of butter from the corner of her lips. He dragged himself back to the question, lifted his gaze to her eyes, which glinted with a wicked awareness of what she’d done to him with the innocent action. “Um, physics and aerospace engineering. Mainly propulsion theory.”

  Darryl turned his head. “What’s that?”

  “Rocket engine design.” He accepted the gravy boat from Marie and drizzled the thick sauce over his potatoes.

  “Rocket science.” Hope turned toward Angel and some sort of unspoken communication flashed between the two.

  “Kind of. A lot of math, a lot of research into alternative energy options.”

  Darryl frowned, looking at the television again rather than him. “Well, how the hell did you end up driving a cop car down here?”

  Images flashed in his head, his father’s bruised and swollen face, head swathed in bandages, ventilator tubing invading his mouth, the flatline on the monitor once the life support had been disconnected. “Being stuck in a lab all day, crunching numbers, wasn’t for me.”

  Hope shrugged. “That doesn’t explain how you ended up here.”

  She was seriously beginning to get under his skin. He forced himself to resist the urge to lay his arm across Angel’s shoulders, just because he suspected it would get Hope’s goat. Instead, he smiled. “I graduated about the time Sheriff Reed was appointed. Two FBI agents with his and Tick Calvert’s professional reputations rebuilding a department from the bottom up? I was all over that.”

  A saccharine smile graced Hope’s face. “So what do you do when you’re not working? Fishing, hunting?”

  Darryl’s head swung in their direction again. “Hey, yeah. Ron and I leased some land from the Terrells this year. We’re out there about every Saturday.”

  “Actually, I’m not a hunter.” He could have sworn Angel kicked her sister under the table, but only serenity shown on Angel’s pretty face. Uninterested, Darryl turned away. Troy Lee shrugged, aware Marie Henderson was hanging on his every word, sizing him up, but without Hope’s distrust. “I play guitar with a local band and I run.”

  “Run?” Marie forked up the last bite of peas on her plate.

  “Yes, ma’am. Distance running. Mostly 10Ks, but I’ve run a couple of marathons. Right now, I’m training for the Atlanta marathon.”

  “Oh.” Despite her polite smile, Marie appeared mystified that anyone would run for enjoyment.

  “Mama, did you buy those pillows you were looking at in Dillard’s last week?” Thankfully, the conversation turned away from him with Angel’s question, but he couldn’t shake a familiar sinking feeling.

  Fuck, could he blow this any worse?

  Chapter Nine

  “Hope, what the hell was that?” Keeping her voice a low hiss, Angel closed the guest-bedroom door behind them. Once dinner was over and the kitchen cleaned, with Troy Lee safely ensconced in the den with her daddy and Darryl again, she’d dragged her sister down the hall on the pretext of seeing the room their mother had just redecorated.

  “Better not let Mama hear you talking like that.” Hope perched on the end of the bed and propped back on her hands.

  “I am not worried about Mama. Just what did you think you were doing, interrogating him like that?”

  Hope’s plucked brows lowered. “Looking out for you, since you’re obviously not going to.”

  Angel rested against the door, arms crossed over her chest. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ve been seeing him, what? All of two weeks? You’re obviously sleeping with him and now you’re bringing him home.” Irritation and anxiety twisted Hope’s pretty features. “Didn’t you learn anything from what happened with Jim and Mark Cook?”

  “Yes. I learned neither of them was the right man for me.”

  “And he is?” Hope waved a dismissive gesture in the general direction of the den. “Good Lord, Angel, he can’t be more than twenty-four—”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Fine, whatever. He went to college to be a rocket scientist, Angel. A rocket scientist. Do you know what kind of smarts that takes? And he’s a marathon runner. Talk about discipline. What exactly do you have in common with this boy, outside the bedroom?”

  “You’d be surprised.” She tried to shrug away the crushing hurt and disappointment clutching her throat. Tilting her chin, she looked up at the ceiling and blinked hard before pinning Hope with a stare. “Basically, what you’re insinuating is that obviously it’s not going to last because I’m not enough for him. Not smart enough, not disciplined enough—”

  “I never said that.”

  “Darn it, Hope, you didn’t have to.”

  “Angel.” Hope leaned forward, body vibrating with intensity. “What do you have in common with him? What makes him the right man?”

  “We value the same things. Hard work, time to play, our families. He makes me laugh and being with him makes me happy. He likes spending time with me, which is more than I could ever say for Jim.”

  “I don’t want to see you hurt again.” Hope’s voice trembled, and tears pricked at Angel’s eyes.

  “He’s not going to.” Disbelief bloomed in Hope’s eyes, but stone certainty cemented in Angel’s mind. Hugging the sweet conviction to her, she crossed to sit by her sister. “I know you think that sounds naïve, but he won’t. He’s a sweetheart, Hope, kind and considerate, and he makes me a priority.”

  “I just wish you’d slow down a little.”

  “I slowed down for almost twenty years with the wrong man, Hope. How much more of my life do you want me to waste?”

  Hope’s exhale was long and shaky. She rocked back and forth, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Finally she slid a familiar teasing look in Angel’s direction. “Distance running, huh? Isn’t that all about the endurance?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Angel laughed. “And he definitely has that going on.”

  “I’m jealous.” Hope flopped back on the bed. “Darryl’s idea of endurance is staying awake past Jay Leno.”

  Angel collapsed beside her. Immediate regret flooded her, as her head swam and her stomach pitched. Geez Louise, she was never touching anything Hope cooked again. She laid an arm across her eyes. Lord, she was tired. This afternoon was destined to be naptime for sure.

  Hope poked her in the side. “He’d better be good to you or I’ll hurt him.”

  The idea of her petite sister attempting physical harm to Troy Lee’s tall frame struck her as funny and she giggled.

  Hope joined her, lifting an arm to flex a small biceps. “Hey, I’m serious. I could take him.”

  “You probably could.” Hope might be the perfectly behaved daughter, but she had a protective mean streak under the mannerly exterior. Angel lowered her arm and examined the tiny crack in the plaster ceiling, the one that had been there since this had been her bedroom. “But you won’t have to. He’s not going to hurt me.”

  The deep sense of contentment and security still glowed within her when she went looking for Troy Lee minutes later. She found him in the den with her father and Darryl, and he jumped to his feet as she entered. She leaned against the doorjamb. “Ready to go?”

  “Yeah.” A hint of desperation darkened his eyes and he rubbed a hand over his hair. “I’ve got to be on duty in an hour or so.”

  “Bye, Daddy.” She came down the steps to drop a kiss atop her
father’s head. He touched her cheek in absent affection. “Bye, Darryl.”

  Her brother-in-law grunted in response.

  Troy Lee cleared his throat and offered her daddy his hand. “Nice meeting you, sir. You too, Darryl.”

  She patted Troy Lee’s chest as she passed, and he fell into step behind her. “I need to speak to Mama real quick before we go.”

  Tension seeped from him in a relieved exhale as they entered the hall. She cringed. She loved her daddy to pieces and accepted his foibles for what they were, but between him and Darryl, and Hope’s prickly interrogation, Troy Lee had to think she had the craziest, and probably rudest, family ever. Good thing he seemed determined to hang on to her.

  In the kitchen, Mama and Hope pored over the advertising circulars from the Sunday paper. Angel leaned down to brush a kiss over her mother’s cheek. “Mama, we’re gone.”

  Her mother spun to wrap her in a quick hug. “Bye, sweetheart. I love you. Troy, it was good to meet you.”

  His grin seemed a little strained. “You too. Thank you for dinner. It was wonderful.”

  A pleased expression brightened her mother’s features. “Why, thank you. It’s nice to be appreciated. Angel, don’t you be a stranger this week.”

  “No, ma’am. Bye, Hope.”

  “Talk to you later.” Hope glanced up from the JCPenney ad, and Angel was reassured to see the animosity gone from her gaze. “Nice to have met you, Troy Lee.”

  “Right.” He inclined his head, then glanced at his watch. “Angel…”

  “I know.” She kissed her mother again. “Bye, Mama. Love you.”

  Outside, she looped her arm about his waist. “Sure you still want me after meeting them?”

  “I’m sure.” A relieved laugh burst from his throat as they walked across the grass, brown after the last frost, to where his Jeep waited under a pecan tree. “Angel baby, that was brutal.”

  “You’re the one who volunteered to come.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He pulled open the passenger door and helped her climb up. “Your sister hates me.”

  She waited until he came around to the driver’s seat. “No, she doesn’t. She’s just protective.”

  “That’s one word for it.” He gave her a look as he fired the engine. “Listen, about that tea-glass rattling thing…how do I get in on some of that action?”

  “Rattle a glass at me just once, Troy Lee Farr, and you won’t be getting any action.”

  He shifted into reverse and looked over his shoulder to back into the drive, that wonderful grin playing about his mouth. “Oh, you’d probably give me a little action.”

  “No. None. Absolutely none.”

  Hand on the gearshift, he leaned in, lips a breath away from hers. “Not even a little?”

  “No. Not even. I don’t do rattling tea glasses.” She laid her hand over his chest, his pulse thudding against her palm. “But you’d be surprised what asking me nicely will get you.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, then straightened, patting her knee before shifting into drive. The warmth engendered by his simple touch lingered long after they’d turned onto the highway.

  ***

  “I’m telling you, man, it was the worst meeting-the-family scenario you could imagine.” With Chris at his side, Troy Lee jogged up the rear steps to the sheriff’s department. A cool breeze swirled a few stray leaves across the parking lot. Silence hung heavy in the late-night air.

  Chris punched in the code to unlock the heavy metal door and dragged it open. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “It was.” Only the soft murmur of jailers’ voices drifting from the space behind the holding area disturbed the jail’s quiet. An occasional radio squawk and a dispatcher’s reply wafted out of the radio room. Troy Lee fell in behind Chris as they started up the narrow stairs to the squad room. “You know that Ben Stiller movie where he’s meeting his girlfriend’s parents and the dad is the former CIA guy who hates him?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This was worse.”

  “How so?”

  “Where do you want me to start? I have zilch in common with her dad, her mother looked at me like I was crazy for running, and her sister? Hell.” Juggling his ticket book and campaign hat, Troy Lee tugged his wallet from his back pocket and opened it to extract a couple of ones for the soda machine. “She kept looking at me the way Calvert does Cookie.”

  “Really? How’s that?” At Cookie’s dry voice, Troy Lee jerked, dumping half the contents of his wallet on the floor. The metallic cover holding his ticket book slammed into the tile with a clatter. F-uck. His face and neck hot, he leaned down to gather everything, then straightened to meet Cookie’s intelligent gaze. Cookie dropped a stack of reports in his outbox and reached for another folder. “So? How does he look at me?”

  “Like the farmer guarding a hen house against a fox,” Chris replied for him. With a slight grin, he slanted a look at Troy Lee. “Is that right?”

  Recalling the suspicion glinting in Hope’s blue eyes, Troy Lee set his hat and ticket book on the counter. “That covers it.”

  Cookie’s brows lifted in inquiry. “And who’s looking at you like that?”

  Troy Lee fed a couple of dollars into the soda machine and tossed a can at Chris before popping the tab on his own. “Angel’s sister.”

  “Meeting the family, huh?” Cookie stapled a couple of copies together and laid them aside.

  “Yep.” The weirdness of this, talking about Angel’s taking him home with Cookie, shafted through him. He shrugged it off. In the scheme of his relationship with Angel, Cookie didn’t matter, any more than Morgan or any other woman he’d dated did.

  “He doesn’t fit.” Settled in at one of the empty desks, Chris didn’t look up from the end-of-shift recap he was filling out.

  “Yeah? How so?” Cookie scrawled his signature across a report and slid it in the file.

  With a sip of too-sweet cola, Troy Lee dropped into the chair adjacent to Cookie’s desk and waited. After a moment, Chris looked up at him and Troy Lee gestured between them. “You don’t want to answer this one for me?”

  “Smart ass.” Chris dropped his gaze back to the paper.

  Troy Lee twisted in the chair and reached for his own blank form before he darted a look up at Cookie. “The sister doesn’t trust me. The mother doesn’t get me. The dad and I have nothing in common.”

  “Sure you do.” Cookie’s chair squeaked as he leaned back, arms behind his head.

  “Huh.” Troy Lee grunted in disagreement. “Like what?”

  “You both care about his daughter.”

  Silently, Chris lifted a finger and made an imaginary tally point in the air. Struck by the idea, Troy Lee paused with his pen over the report and turned the notion over in his mind. Maybe he wasn’t as fucked there as he thought he was after all.

  “Same with the sister. She’ll come around. It just takes time.” One corner of Cookie’s mouth lifted in a crooked grin. Down the hall, the front door opened, a quiet exchange of voices going on at the front desk.

  Chris signed his recap and took it to the copy machine. “And you’re saying Tick will too?”

  “I will what?” Calvert strolled into the room, dressed casually in jeans and an untucked polo shirt. His bearing spoke of intense exhaustion.

  Cookie darted a look up at the large clock hanging over the counter and scowled. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’ve been at the hospital.” Calvert collapsed into the chair at what had once been Jeff Schaefer’s desk and dragged both hands down his face. “Cait’s catching a nap there and I needed some air. Figured I’d walk over here, see what was going on.”

  “Something happening with the baby?” Chris’s brows dipped in a troubled expression. Troy Lee concentrated on summarizing his shift and keeping his mouth shut. With Calvert in the room, his gut was already jittering, the slight burn starting between his ribs. If he said anything, it would come out
wrong and piss Calvert off. Besides, the guy seemed tense and edgy enough without Troy Lee’s adding to it.

  “He’s back on the ventilator.” Calvert rested his elbow on the chair arm and propped against his fist. “It’s set low, but the longer he’s on it, the higher the chances he’ll develop a lung infection. Plus, we’d just gotten him off the feeding tube and nursing, and this interferes with that, so Cait’s upset and…”

  He shook his head, his voice trailing away. Troy Lee glanced up in time to see the look he exchanged with Cookie, who watched him with concern.

  “Needed a break, huh?” Cookie pulled his gum from his pocket and extracted a piece.

  Calvert nodded, understanding passing between the two. Yeah, they’d be okay. Cookie was right—with enough time, Tick would come around. The lead investigator stretched out his legs on a harsh sigh. “So what’s going on?”

  “We’re getting ready to go home.” Leaning on the counter, Chris capped his pen and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “And ragging Troy Lee’s ass about meeting the girlfriend’s parents.”

  “There’s a girlfriend?” Calvert quirked an eyebrow. “I thought you had a fan club.”

  Like Calvert paid that much attention to anything other than how he screwed up. Troy Lee sucked in a breath, trying to figure out how to proceed without saying something stupid. His chest hurt and he patted his pocket, seeking and not finding the roll of antacids.

  “You’re out of the loop.” Cookie dropped the last set of reports and files in his outbox. “There’s been a girlfriend for two weeks. The fan club is all in mourning. There is great wailing and gnashing of teeth in Chandler County.”

  Calvert gave a huff of amusement. “So who’s the lucky girl?”

  Neither Chris nor Cookie jumped in to answer for him this time. Troy Lee signed his report and rose to make a copy. He glanced sideways at Calvert. “Angel Henderson.”

  “Really.” Calvert fixed Cookie with a pointed look.

  Anger simmered under Troy Lee’s skin. No need to wonder what that was all about. Again, the strangeness speared through him, and once more, he sloughed it off. Whatever had happened that night with Angel and Cookie had been a one-time thing. It didn’t matter.