They’d gone that route before. And it had left them both standing right where they were now. Leah divorced and considering reconciling with her ex-husband. Him wanting her so badly he had night sweats. And both of them wondering what if.
Basically it left them nowhere.
Leah backed out of the driveway of her mammoth brick colonial-style house and drove in the other direction. An older man wearing a wool housecoat opened the door to the house in front of him, bent to pick up his morning paper, then stared at J.T. with open curiosity and suspicion.
J.T. gave him a small nod, started up his bike, then turned around and went in the opposite direction from where Leah had gone, the morning air brisk against his skin, the sun making him squint.
Not ready. Completely in the dark. Ill-prepared. All three descriptions fit where he stood right now. When it came to relationships, his experience was between zero and nil simply because never in his life had he had the chance to learn the art. Lord knew his father, Delbert, had done all he could. As the son of a mechanic, Delbert had grown up without much use for a dictionary and more than a handful of words. And he’d raised his own son the same way, making J.T. forever the outsider when they traveled from town to town in search of a better job, a better life. To J.T.’s way of thinking, the only time they had achieved that goal was during that brief stretch the summer of his eighteenth year when he’d met fiery, sixteen-year-old Leah and had been given his first taste of the woman who would haunt him from then on.
J.T.’s mind circled back to his father. Del hadn’t said one way or another whether he approved of J.T.’s decision to go on to college when he was offered a scholarship, but J.T. had suspected he’d been disappointed his son hadn’t followed in his footsteps and became a mechanic. And the old man had merely nodded when that road had became a dead end two years later, leaving a young woman dead, sending a falsely accused J.T. on the run and destroying any future he might have imagined for himself.
Over the course of the next ten years he’d ridden from place to place, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time, a way of life his father’s own traveling had well prepared him for. In the beginning he’d worked various minimum-wage jobs to cover his expenses, but that required lying about his social security number, his name. Then he’d rented a room from an old man, not unlike his father, who had taught him carpentry. And he’d found the perfect job for a man who couldn’t afford to stick around long. A free agent, he was paid a flat fee, erasing any need for uncomfortable questions about his past and his identity.
He smoothly shifted gears, resisting the urge to increase his speed when traffic opened up. Considering his resistance to ending up a mechanic, he was surprised to find he liked working with his hands. More than that, he enjoyed the feel of a virgin piece of wood under his fingers, watching as it slowly told him how to cut it, then gave in to his will and became furniture that was not only functional but bore the mark of its original beauty.
Not all that unlike the way Leah opened up under his hands, freeing the girl he once knew as spunky and smart and gutsy, afraid of nothing. Passionate, greedy, demanding. So unlike the Leah of today whose eyes were devoid of any emotion at all and whose movements seemed automated, uninspired.
She had once told him that she loved the feel of his rough skin against hers….
J.T. set his jaw. Of all the women he’d been with in his life, including the one that had ended up stealing his freedom, he had yet to determine what it was about Leah Dubois Burger that touched him so profoundly.
But if there was one thing he planned to do before leaving Toledo, Ohio, it was not only to unearth if she felt the same way about him, but whether or not she could accept who he had become.
4
“MEET ME AT TEN TONIGHT.”
Leah stood outside her car in the University of Toledo parking lot later that day, the midday sun warm against her face, her fingers trembling as they held the small piece of paper that had been under her windshield wiper. The longing that had been burning through her veins for the past week sent a warm shiver careening through her body. J.T. had written the name of a small bar and where it was just outside the western city line. He hadn’t signed his name. But she didn’t think any of the twenty-year-olds in her classes had left her the note. No, it was definitely J.T.
She stuffed the paper into the pocket of her slacks then unlocked the door to her car and climbed in, sitting for long moments staring through the window.
She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the confines of the closed car. She couldn’t go. Wouldn’t.
Her watch chimed off the hour and she absently glanced at it. It took her a moment to register that she was due to meet Dan at the therapist’s office in half an hour, the one time a month when they met at lunchtime as opposed to after five.
She picked up her cell phone, lightly rolling her thumbs over the numbers. She’d never cancelled a session before. But how could she possibly go and face her ex-husband and the counselor feeling the way she did?
And how did she feel?
Flustered. Needy. Alive. Like the woman she’d once been who hadn’t expressed her sexiness through lingerie hidden under her clothes, but in everything she did.
Stupid.
She blinked at the last word, her movements even more sluggish than they’d been recently. Hadn’t she gone this route before? Hadn’t she put everything on the line for a man who had a history of disappearing? Who offered her nothing beyond the moment, only the here and now? Hadn’t she sacrificed her marriage, her relationship with her daughter and the only way of life she had known for a few hours of escape in another man’s arms?
She reached to slip the cell phone back into her purse and it vibrated. She looked at the display. Her sister, Rachel.
Leah idly considered not answering.
Rachel was a year younger and a whole world happier than she was. In two months she’d be marrying the man of her dreams. A man with a past even darker than Leah’s was, but a heart as big as Ohio. All you had to do was look at Gabe Wellington to see how much he loved Rachel.
Had Dan ever looked at her that way? She briefly closed her eyes, trying to remember. No, he hadn’t. Maybe. Way back in the beginning.
“For a minute there I thought you weren’t going to pick up,” her sister said when Leah finally answered just before the call would have rerouted to voice mail.
I wish I hadn’t. “Class ran over.” Liar.
“What are you doing for lunch?”
She glanced at her watch again though she didn’t have to. She knew what time it was every moment of every day, if only because it seemed to drag by. “I have to be at the counselor’s in twenty minutes.”
“Oh.”
Leah caught the flat tone of her sister’s voice as she said the simple word. “And that would mean what, exactly?”
A pause then, “You don’t sound like yourself. What’s going on?”
Rachel. The smarter of the two sisters who had not only made it through college, but had gone on to law school to become an attorney and a city councilwoman.
Sometimes Leah hated her.
But she’d always love her.
“Nothing. I guess I just didn’t sleep well last night. And Sami read me the riot act this morning for not washing her volleyball shorts.”
“And you’re going to counseling like that? May be you should cancel and meet me for a margarita.”
Leah sighed and relaxed slightly into the driver’s seat, wondering if the muddled emotions crowding her chest would ever leave. “I can’t tell you how good that sounds.”
“So do it then. And meet me at Carmel’s in ten.”
Leah opened her mouth to refuse but Rachel had already hung up.
She absently pushed disconnect and stared at the cell for a long moment. She’d never canceled a session before. Surely this one time couldn’t do any harm.
She called Dan’s office first only to learn he’d already left.
Maybe she should go. Dan was probably already on his way, if he wasn’t already there. Either way, he would have his cell switched off.
She dialed the therapist’s office next and told the assistant she couldn’t make it but that she’d be there for their regularly scheduled meeting.
She disconnected, put the cell back in her bag, then pulled it back out again to switch the receiver off, routing all incoming calls directly to voice mail. The instant she did it, she felt ten pounds lighter, though it did nothing to stop the moths fluttering around in her belly.
Oh, boy, did she ever need this margarita.
“GABE WANTS ME TO MOVE into his place after the wedding,” Rachel told her from where she sat across from her at Carmel’s Mexican Restaurant.
Leah fingered the coarse salt lining on her extra-large margarita glass then licked her finger. She’d never been much of a drinker and knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to drink more than a quarter of the concoction before her, but somehow it made her feel better to sip from a mammoth glass than a smaller one.
“And the problem is?”
“The problem is I just bought my own house, had it completely renovated and just moved into it three months ago. I don’t want to move again.” She sipped at her own margarita then crossed her arms on top of the table. “Besides, the thought of living in the mausoleum he calls home gives me the creeps.”
Leah cracked a halfhearted smile. “It can’t be that bad. The Wellington place is a part of Toledo history.”
“Then Gabe should turn it into a museum or something.”
Leah didn’t know much about the Wellington estate beyond the sweeping grounds and the towering castlelike spires. She’d fished for an invitation from her sister once or twice, but it sounded like Rachel spent as little time at the house as possible and was trying to find ways to get out of going to the dark manor instead of inventing reasons to have to be there. “It’s not all that much bigger than where we grew up.”
“Yes, but our house is different. Even when it was just Dad and us there, it still seemed…I don’t know, like home.”
Leah cocked her head to the side and considered her pretty sister. “Don’t you think that’s how Gabe feels about his house? Especially since he doesn’t have any family left?”
Rachel ran her fingers through her short, spiky brown hair and made a face. “God, I knew I’d live to regret you seeing a therapist. You’re even starting to sound like one. The next thing you know you’ll be diagnosing my condition and prescribing me Xanax or something.”
Rachel glowered at her, making Leah glad that she could forget about her own problems for a precious stretch of time and focus instead on her sister’s. Why was it so much easier to fix other people’s problems than your own? Maybe because the emotion factor didn’t figure into the equation. Maybe because as an outsider your opinion was a little more objective.
Maybe because you knew that your own problems were easily solved and you were purposely ignoring them for that very reason.
Rachel narrowed her eyes at her. “Uh-oh. I know that look. What’s going on?”
Leah blinked. She’d forgotten that Rachel had been the first one to pick up on her affair with J.T. nearly a year and a half ago. And here she was having an escapist drink with the only person who could finger what was going on.
“Actually,” Rachel continued, “now that I think about it, you’ve been acting strangely for a few days now.”
Leah cleared her throat. “I have not been acting strangely.”
“Yes, you have. It’s been taking you forever to answer the phone. Usually you pick up on the first or second ring. And even when I do get you, you sound distracted and absentminded.”
Leah shrugged, her gaze darting around the restaurant before returning to settle on her sister. “Maybe there is something going on. And maybe there isn’t. I don’t know. I haven’t quite figured it out yet myself.” She stared at her drink. “Would it be all right to say that I’m really not up to talking about it right now?”
“Is it Dan?”
Leah wished she were anywhere but there in that one moment.
No, scratch that. Despite everything, she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. If she were back at the house, she’d be climbing the walls until Sami came home from her volleyball game after school. If she had gone to the counseling session, she’d be sitting next to Dan trying to work out a situation her mind wasn’t completely on right now. And if she was with J.T….
Well, he wasn’t much of an option, was he? Even though his gift of a coffee, a roll and a rose that morning and his note this afternoon told her he was nearby, she didn’t know how to get in touch with him. Not that she would. It was just that knowing being with him wasn’t an option helped.
Marginally.
She shifted in her seat. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”
Rachel was silent for a few moments as she studied her, then her gaze cut to the approaching waitress.
“Saved by the food,” her sister said, offering up a smile.
Leah smiled back at her and moved her glass so her salad could be put down in front of her.
Within moments they were alone again. Leah speared the crisp lettuce with forced enthusiasm while Rachel did the same across from her.
“I know I can be a little pushy sometimes,” Rachel said quietly.
Leah raised her brows in feigned shock.
“Cut it out.” Rachel chewed a bite then swallowed. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that, well, you know I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk, don’t you?” she said quietly, her hazel eyes steady.
Yes, she did know that. And that simple knowledge calmed the edginess in her, however slightly. But how could she talk about what she had yet to understand?
Leah nodded, feeling ridiculously close to tears. “I know. Thanks.”
IT WAS NEARLY TEN-THIRTY and there was no sign of Leah.
J.T. sat at the end of the long bar, his fingers wrapped around a still-full beer bottle that was growing warmer by the minute. In the corner the jukebox played an old Johnny Cash song while at the two pool tables four men traded shots, the winners destined to play the owners of the next quarters on the nicked lips of the tables. J.T. had seen his share of drinking holes and this one was better than most, but not as good as some he’d been in.
He’d long ago discovered that a different set of rules existed in bars. No matter who you were, where you came from or whom you were there to meet, it was your business, as long as you didn’t start any problems for others and paid your tab. And if you said just enough to make you friendly, but not too much to make others curious, your face was forgotten as soon as the other men turned their backs, making you just another guy looking to knock back a few brews after work.
J.T.’s gaze slid back toward the door as another just such guy walked in.
He stared down at his beer.
He’d been aware of the odds of Leah’s not showing. But he had still hoped she would come. He needed to talk to her. And the only way to do that was in public. Because when they were in private…well, suffice it to say he had a hard time keeping his hands to himself and they didn’t get much talking done. As for this particular bar as his choice of public places, well, he’d wanted to make anonymity attractive to her. If he’d chosen a restaurant or someplace closer to her home then the risk of her running into someone she knew would have been high.
But he admitted that perhaps he had jumped the gun a bit when it came to timing. He should have waited a little longer before suggesting they meet.
The only problem was he couldn’t wait. The more time that passed, the more he wanted to have Leah. In his bed. Writhing under his body. Her thighs spread wide for him as her back arched up to meet him. Every second that he wasn’t able to do that ticked by like an eternity until the next second and the next eternity. He felt like he could have died and been reborn at least ten times since he’d rolled back into town. He threw him
self into his work refurbishing the old Victorian farmhouse a few miles from the bar, but had to pace himself lest he work himself right out of a reason to stay in the house.
The door opened.
Another faceless man entered.
J.T. picked up the beer bottle and swallowed deeply from it, barely registering that it was warm and tasted like deer piss. He put it back down, fished a couple of bills from his pocket then stepped toward the jukebox. It looked like his only options were to go back to the empty farmhouse or stick around here and get stinking drunk.
LEAH WRAPPED TREMBLING fingers around the doorknob to the Lantern’s Light Tavern and slowly pulled, entering the bar before she could change her mind again. She’d approached the bar no fewer than five times only to head back to her car parked around back. At one point she’d even driven halfway home before hanging a U-turn and coming back to the bar….
Coming back to J.T.
She’d spotted his bike right out front so she knew he was still there. Although she couldn’t really figure out why. Dan would never have waited more than fifteen minutes for her before leaving. She shivered at the change in temperature and temperament, wondering how long J.T. would have waited. Another fifteen minutes? A half hour? An hour?
All night?
She still had on her slacks and blouse that she’d worn that morning. She hadn’t wanted to make a fuss for fear that Sami would pick up on what was going on. As it turned out her daughter had been too wrapped up in her own drama, something to do with her best friend siding with another girl during the volleyball game. Much telephoning between the three girls ensued. When she’d left, Sami seemed to have patched everything up with her best friend, Courtney, and she’d been sprawled across her bed talking about a new boy at school. She’d barely given her mother a halfhearted wave when Leah had told her she was going to Aunt Rachel’s to help her sort through some stuff for the wedding.
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