The Woman for Dusty Conrad

by Tori Carrington

  Jolie’s gaze settled on the little blond-haired girl in the seat of Angela’s cart. Angela’s daughter with her husband Jeff should be all of five about now. Eleanor’s chubby fingers were working to free a hard candy from its wrapper, her face contorted in concentration. Jolie’s heart automatically contracted, the way it did whenever she came across a child of the age hers might have been. Had she and Dusty had kids.

  Saying something to Elva that Jolie didn’t quite catch, Angela linked her arm with Jolie’s and determinedly turned her, leading her and her cart away from Elva.

  Angela leaned closed to her. “I still think she’s a vampire,” she whispered.

  Jolie laughed quietly, sneaking a glance over her shoulder to find Elva staring after them in dumbfounded silence. “God, I forgot about that. How old were we when that rumor circulated through school?”

  “Eight, maybe? But that doesn’t matter. While I no longer think Elva goes around sucking people’s blood, I do think she feeds on others’ hardships.” She grimaced. “Always at the ready to sink her teeth into any festering wounds.”

  Jolie smiled at little Eleanor, her words aimed for Angela. “Maybe it’s the only way she can make it through the day. You know, compare her life to others’ and be glad that she doesn’t have the problems that we do.”

  Ellie’s wide blue eyes were firmly on her mother. “Mommy, what’s a vampire?”

  Angela laughed and chucked the little girl under her dimpled chin. “Never you mind, sweet pea. Do you want some Cocoa Puffs?”

  Jolie appreciated Angela’s deft handling of the awkward question, wondering if she could have handled a similar situation so well with her own kids. If she had kids.

  Angela stopped her cart and placed a box of the sugary cereal into her full cart much to Ellie’s delight. She searched the area around them. “I think the coast is clear.”

  Jolie smiled her thanks at her friend. Not just for saving her from a humiliating incident with Elva…but for not asking about Dusty herself. As Angela walked away, she reminded herself to call her later in the week so they could have some coffee together or something. It had been some time since they’d played catch-up.

  Of course, Angela was nowhere to be found when Kathy, the cashier, Justin, the manager, then Ruth, whose chickens she had rescued yesterday, all assailed her with questions. Kathy was well-meaning, Justin was looking for tawdry details; while Ruth offered up some advice on how to guarantee Dusty wouldn’t leave again. Advice involving chicken fat and feathers that made Jolie shudder.

  Finally, she sat behind the wheel of her Jeep, the door tightly closed and locked, her breathing sounding much too ragged in the empty SUV.

  It wasn’t that the questions got to her. It was more that they were far too similar to the questions swirling in her own mind. Clamoring for answers that only one person could give her. Answers she was beginning to fear she’d never get.

  She switched on the ignition and waited for the heater to warm the interior of the SUV.

  Where her nerves had been a mess after Dusty had kissed her mere hours before, now they visually shook with the tension further created by her outing. When he’d left, the world as she knew it had ended. It had taken her a long time just to be able to get up in the morning, face her friends and co-workers, function like more than a robot, her heart bearing scars she didn’t dare show anyone.

  Then just like that Dusty was back and those wounds had been opened up afresh…and the townsfolk had more questions now than they had before.

  Sometimes it seemed that all her life she’d been the oddity. The little girl whose parents had died in a fire and whose grandfather wasn’t fit to raise her. She’d promised herself when she’d come of age that she’d never do anything again to garner such open attention.

  And in all honesty, she hadn’t this time, either. Dusty had.

  She pushed her hair back from her face with shaking hands. Movement from the corner of her eyes vied for her attention and she glanced up from the dash to find Elva bearing down on her full speed, the wheels of her shopping cart wobbling ominously. Throwing the Jeep into reverse, Jolie squealed from the general store parking lot, nearly taking Elva’s cart out in the process.

  She honestly didn’t know what more she could do, merely knew the desire to do something. Even though she’d tried to confront Dusty this morning. Asked him why he’d left. But he had skillfully avoided answering her.

  What was there left to do?

  “You can give him what he wants,” she whispered.

  The words seemed to echo in her ears. Her chest tightened to the point of pain.

  What Dusty wanted was for her to sign the divorce papers.

  She bit down so hard on her bottom lip she feared she’d drawn blood. In front of her, a low-slung sedan was going no more than ten miles an hour, the plates from a neighboring county. She forced herself to let up on the gas and follow at a safe distance, though the temptation to gun the engine and pass the out-of-towner was strong.

  The downtown shops were all so very familiar. But rather than finding comfort in seeing Mrs. O’Malley tending to her autumn garden outside her bed-and-breakfast, and Penelope Moon hanging a sign advertising clearance prices on Halloween goodies, she saw threats looming everywhere. Mrs. O’Malley would tell her she’d been a fool. Penelope would probably say something along the lines of destiny had its own way of working things out and that she should just go with the flow, and would she like some aromatherapy candles to help see her through?

  Jolie rubbed her throbbing temple as the car in front of her pulled to a stop. She halted as well, scanning the brick front of Eddie’s pub. The day was warm enough that Eddie had the front door open, letting the early afternoon sun slant in and illuminate the first few stools. Her stomach dropped to the floorboard as she spotted Dusty sitting next to John Sparks and a couple of guys from the station.

  The car in front of her finally moved, but she stayed completely still.

  Almost as if sensing her presence, Dusty glanced up and through the door, his grin still firmly in place as his gaze collided with hers. His smile froze, then disappeared.

  Give him what he wants, an inner voice taunted.

  All she had to do was go back to the house. Sign the papers still lying on the kitchen table. Then hand them to him when he came back to the house.

  Then again, she could just bring them down here and hand them to him along with his things. Or pin them to the front door and leave his stuff on the front porch.

  John Sparks was questioning Dusty and he looked away, freeing her from his gaze.

  Jolie’s heart felt as if it might race right out of her chest as she carefully placed her foot on the gas. She knew in that instant that she had to do it. She had to give Dusty what he wanted. And she had to give it to him now.

  Long strides took Dusty down the sidewalk of Main Street, his thoughts on everything but his surroundings. Until he turned the corner and the old house he’d grown up in loomed a block away. His heartbeat accelerated. His step slowed. His chest grew so tight it was difficult to breathe.

  This was the only place he’d ever known as home. Every time he blinked, a different memory flashed through his mind, projections of images marked indelibly on his soul. The sprawling front lawn brought to mind Erick. How they would argue over whose turn it was to get the old mower out of the garage. Tussle in leaves that even now covered the lush green expanse. Toss a baseball back and forth, each lob growing a little harder, going a little farther, until his younger brother would purposely try to hit him with the ball.

  But at the end of the day, just after dinner, before either of them were off to do whatever they had to do that night, he and Erick never failed to call a truce and meet as if by silent agreement on the front porch steps. They’d talk about everything. Or nothing at all. He’d always sat with his fingers clasped between his knees. Erick leaning back on his hands, staring off into some unforeseen future path that was mapped out for him in the sky.
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  Back then it seemed as if the day might never end. As if they’d had all the time in the world to tease each other about girlfriends. Debate which sports team was the better, the Detroit Tigers or the Cleveland Indians. Or just sit in quiet companionship while their mother did the dinner dishes and their father either read the paper at the kitchen table or was off at the firehouse.

  Dusty reached those same steps and slowly sat down, considering the view he’d seen a thousand times. Majestic oaks were at the height of color, setting the street on fire with their oranges and yellows, their crisp smell drifting on the air, prompting him to take a deep breath. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly unique about the view itself. No. He presumed that he and his brother had chosen this spot as their own because it was neutral territory. Not his room. Not Erick’s room. Not their parents’ room.

  Of course eventually the entire house ended up his. Yet sometimes it seemed as though this spot alone was truly his. His and Erick’s.

  He looked down to find his hands clasped between his knees. If only he’d been able to save Erick, this spot would still be theirs.

  “Are you going to marry her?” Erick’s voice seemed to drift to him on the cool autumn air, from some long-ago, forgotten time.

  Up until that point, the “m” word hadn’t even entered Dusty’s mind. He and Erick had both been working at the station by that point. And with their staggered shifts, it was rare that they were both off at the same time. But they had been that day. Before their parents sold him the house and moved off to Arizona. Dusty had been dating Jolie for barely a year by then. Erick had been dating Darby. And his brother’s question had nearly knocked him over.

  Dusty snapped upright, much as he had that day.

  “No,” he’d said then, the idea so outrageous he couldn’t even imagine seriously considering it. Marriage was something people his parents’ age did, not him. He was a fireman. Still lived at home.

  “I don’t know,” he’d said moments later, the concept beginning to take root as he thought about the girl next door with the brown curly hair and big blue eyes who had transformed into all woman seemingly overnight. He couldn’t even remember now why he hadn’t asked her out before he had. But he suspected his motivations hadn’t come totally from out of left field, and that Jolie had had a bit of a hand in his asking.

  “Yes…I think I will.” His slow answer had come after Erick hadn’t responded, and then the concept had not only grown roots, the rightness had struck him, flowing through his veins as thickly as his own blood. Just as it had that day he’d met Jolie, when he’d picked her mail up from where she’d dropped it, her heather-blue eyes soft and sexy and all too inviting.

  Dusty swallowed hard. He wondered what his brother would think of what was happening between him and Jolie now. He glanced toward that spot in the sky that Erick had always stared at, that unseen road that he wondered if he’d ever be able to view himself. A path Erick might be on even now.

  Silently, he asked, “Erick, where are you? If ever I could have used your advice, it’s now.”

  He sat for long moments, as if waiting for his brother to stroll from around the corner. Or for some bit of advice from the past to emerge in his mind that he could apply to the here and now. But nothing came. Only the dull, pulsating ache he always felt when he thought of Erick. And how he had died six months ago because Dusty had been unable to save him.

  He pushed off the steps and brushed his hands on the seat of his jeans. Almost as if in slow motion, he turned toward the door, for the first time in his life hesitating before opening it. He had to remember that this wasn’t his home anymore. That the minute he’d left it six months ago, he’d given up all rights to coming and going without announcing himself, despite the weight of the key in his pocket.

  But he and Jolie weren’t divorced yet. And as long as he had a say in the matter, he wouldn’t allow her to sell the place. He’d buy out her half if he had to and let it stand unoccupied before he let that happen.

  With that thought in mind he moved his hand from where he’d been about to rap on the screen door and instead opened it and the inner door, entering the house as he had nearly every day of his life.

  Instantly all that was familiar enveloped him. It was more than the scent of cinnamon that wafted to his nose from a bowl filled with some sort of flower mixture on the hall table; was something other than the collection of family photos that lined the walls, pictures his mother had left behind and that he and Jolie had had reframed and put back right where they were. It was everything combined that made him feel as if he was home.

  Quietly closing the door against the autumn chill, he paused, then moved down the hall toward the back of the house. He knew where Jolie would be if she was home. She would be in the kitchen.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. Funny, he hadn’t realized that he and Jolie had adopted his parents’ behavior. That’s exactly where he and Erick had gone after school, as much to see their mother, where she would be putting supper together, as to get a snack.

  And that’s where he found Jolie now, head bent over the table as she read something, the setting sun beaming through the window behind her and casting her silhouette in a warm yellow glow.

  It wasn’t all that long ago that his favorite pastime had been watching her when she didn’t know he was there. It was confusing to know that that hadn’t changed. That his longing to touch her soft hair was just as strong, maybe even stronger, than it had been before. That her curvy figure tempted his gaze just as it always had, from her small, high breasts and slender waist to the womanly flare of her hips. Even in a purple sweater and blue jeans and tennis shoes, she couldn’t have been more beautiful had she been wearing that slinky black number she’d worn two Christmases ago. No, no, it had been New Year’s Eve. And he’d been so hot for her he remembered slipping his hand up her toned thigh through the decadent slit up the side of the dress and stroking her to orgasm right there in the cab of his truck before going to the party the chief had held at the fire station.

  He swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat and fastened his gaze on her oval face. Her brows were pulled together in that way that told him she was doing something she didn’t particularly like. Such as balancing the checkbook. Or paying the electric bill.

  But he realized she wasn’t doing either of those things. Rather, she was reading their divorce papers.

  “I always hated when you watched me like that.”

  Her quietly said words wound around him, making him smile, if only slightly. “I know. Somehow I don’t think that watching you would be half as fun if you did like it.”

  She looked up at him then, snaring him with her blue eyes, their shadowy depths as haunted as ever. And as irresistible.

  She slowly turned the papers facedown on the table as if hiding what she’d been doing.

  He didn’t advance. He didn’t retreat. He merely stood there looking at her, unsure as to what his next move should be. Or if he should make a move at all. Thinking perhaps he should wait for her to say something. To indicate what she’d been doing.

  To ask him why.

  Instead, she slowly got up from the table, slicing the sunlight as she moved toward the island on the other side of the kitchen and filled the coffeemaker with water and fresh grounds. He watched her, with every passing moment the silence growing thicker, his heartbeat growing louder.

  “Dusty, is there…another woman?”

  Her words were said so softly they were nearly drowned out by the catlike spitting and hissing of the coffeemaker.

  “What?” he choked, afraid he had misheard. Certain she hadn’t said what he thought she had.

  She turned to face him, pressing her bottom back against the counter. She looked so distant. So far away from him. So somber. “Another woman. Is there one?”

  He blinked, just to make sure he still could. Her question, and the implications of it, were so bizarre as to be impossible. “You’re serious, aren’
t you?”

  She nodded slowly, then tucked her chin into her chest and studied the towel she grasped in her hands.

  He began shaking his head. “Oh, no, Jolie. There isn’t another woman.” How could there be? She’d filled his heart and his life so completely there hadn’t been room for anyone else in his heart. Not even his own brother.

  He cleared his throat. “I haven’t even looked at anyone else other than you for more than seven years.”

  She briefly met his gaze, a ray of hope lighting her eyes even as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Then she dropped her gaze again, saying nothing.

  He didn’t know what he expected her response to be. Relief? Curiosity? A follow-up question? Maybe even something to indicate what had made her ask such a question. But she merely turned back toward the coffeemaker, as if it needed her full attention in order to brew.

  Surely she knew that he’d loved her more than anything in the world? That he could never feel for anyone else what he had felt—and still felt—for her?

  And surely she knew that all she had to do was say six simple words and they could have it all back again: I quit the fire station, Dusty.

  Jolie’s heart pounded thickly in her chest as she gripped the edge of the counter and clamped her eyes shut. She wanted so much to believe Dusty. But somehow it was easier for her to think that someone else had come between them. A nameless, faceless someone much more beautiful than she, someone with whom she couldn’t hope to compete. Someone on whom to pin the blame for the distance that separated them like the Great Lakes combined to create a gaping gulf. Yes, the mere prospect of another woman being the object of Dusty’s attention, being the recipient of his hot touch, having permission to kiss his generous mouth, twisted her stomach into knots. But the truth that she might be to blame for what had happened to them…well, that cut even deeper, harsher, the pain a physical burning that threatened to turn her inside out.