He glanced briefly next door as he descended the rear steps. If things were different between him and Ally, if he hadn’t misread that look in her eyes this afternoon and climbed the fence and tried to kiss her, he could go over there now and seek sanctuary.
But he had, which meant he couldn’t throw himself on her mercy again.
He made his way across the yard to the shed. The double doors rattled noisily as he pushed them wide. He flicked on the overhead light. The smell of damp wood and old oil hit him as he surveyed the jumbled mess.
When he and Jon were kids, this place had been strictly off-limits unless they were accompanied by their father. Every tool had had its home on the PegBoard on the wall, lumber had been stored neatly in the overhead racks, and precisely labeled shelves had housed his father’s many power tools.
A far cry from the shambles of today.
Tyler wondered why he was surprised—the house had been a disaster, after all—but somehow he was. This shed had always been his father’s domain. His fiefdom. The place where he was most in charge of the world. And now it was a chaos of stacked boxes and grimy engine parts and old paint cans and moldy camping gear and rusty garden equipment.
Tyler almost returned to the house, but the memory of the blaring television was enough to make him stay. He needed to get some work done.
He dusted the top of a nearby carton and dumped his papers on it, then rearranged some of the junk. If he could clear the decks enough, he could use a couple of boxes as a work surface in the short-term, and in the long-term he could make a quick trip to Melbourne to grab his portable drafting table. It would be hotter than hell inside the tin shed during the day, but he figured it would cool down quickly enough at night with the doors open. Enough for him to have several hours of quiet and privacy to work in. Several very necessary hours if he was to maintain the design side of the business while taking this extended leave of absence.
He’d almost cleared a viable space when he shifted a stack of boxes and found an old table, draped with a paint-spattered sheet. It was too small to be any use to him, but something about the height and scale of the piece gave him pause.
Many years ago when he’d first finished his apprenticeship he’d made a side table for his mother. It had been a chance for him to show off his skills in marquetry and he’d spared no effort in creating an elaborate pattern in the round mahogany tabletop. He’d given it to his mother on Mother’s Day with more than a little pride. She’d been flatteringly pleased with the gift, although, as always, she hadn’t been able to resist one of her habitual backhanded digs. It’s beautiful, Tyler—but, of course, I have to say that. I’m your mother.
Tyler had been too preoccupied over the past few days to register that the table had not been on display in the house. And perhaps it wasn’t a huge surprise that his father had relegated it to the shed. He’d hardly welcome having a constant reminder of his estranged son cluttering his home.
Tyler tugged the sheet from the table. It had been a long time since he’d looked at any of his earlier pieces. No doubt he’d be embarrassed by how derivative the design was. If his memory served him, he’d taken many of his design cues from a classic Chippendale table. And he’d gone a little crazy with the marquetry, determined to impress his mother.
The sheet slid free. Tyler went very still.
It was his table, but in name only. The height, the shape were still the same, but the carefully polished circular top was now a scarred mess of chewed-up wood. Saw marks marred the rim in several places and nail holes pitted the surface, destroying the delicate inlay of satinwood, cherry and beech. Indentations marked where a hammer had smashed the wood, compressing the timber in regular circles. A large symmetrical gouge bit deeply into the wood on the far side. It took Tyler a few seconds to recognize it as the imprint a portable bench vise left behind when it had been clamped in place for a long time.
When he’d first started his own business, he’d taken on some restoration and insurance work to see him through the lean times. He’d seen pieces that had been left outside in the weather, mauled by pets, damaged by hot dishes and cigarettes and solvents. He’d seen scratches and gouges and breaks. But he’d never seen willful, intentional, extensive damage like this. This was…brutal.
There was no other word for it.
His father had destroyed the table. Systematically, deliberately. He’d taken a finely crafted piece of furniture—a labor of love that Tyler had offered to his mother—and turned it into a common workbench. He’d hacked at it, pounded it, scarred it. Then he’d cast it aside, his mission complete.
Tyler rested his hands on the marred surface, feeling the rough edges and pits beneath his fingers, trying to understand. Trying to get his head around the kind of vindictiveness, the malice, that it would take to do this to a once-beautiful piece of furniture.
Was it jealousy that had driven the man? Hate? Resentment that Tyler had given the table to his mother instead of his father? Anger?
But it was beyond him. Tyler simply couldn’t comprehend the mind of a man who would wreak such senseless damage. Just as he’d never been unable to understand a man who would torture a family pet to punish his own child.
His father was a monster.
The thought drove him out of the shed toward the house. The door hit the wall hard as he entered. He strode straight to the living room and yanked the television plug out of the wall, silencing the deafening roar.
His father opened his mouth to protest.
Tyler took a step toward him, his hands fisted. “Why’d you do it?”
“What are you talking about? Put my show back on.”
“The table. Why’d you destroy it?”
His father scowled. “The kitchen table? There’s nothing wrong with it.” But his gaze shifted to the side nervously.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, you nasty old bastard.” Tyler was shaking with fury, barely able to contain himself.
“I don’t have to listen to this. Not in my own home.” His father started pushing himself out of his chair.
“You’re not going anywhere, not until you tell me why. Why you ruined that table and why you smacked the hell out of me and Jon when we were kids.”
His father’s head snapped back as though Tyler had slapped him.
“I never hit you,” his father said with absolute conviction.
It was Tyler’s turn to flinch. In all the years and all the times he’d envisioned this conversation, not once had he imagined his father denying the plain truth of history.
“You used to smack us around all the time. You gave Jon a bloody nose and perforated my eardrum. You beat him down the hallway with the buckle end of your belt.”
“You two smashed the light on the porch with your yahooing around.”
“We were kids. We were mucking around.”
“You were out of control.”
Tyler shook his head. “What about Mom? Every night you used to scream at her in the kitchen.”
His father’s jaw jutted angrily. “Thirty-seven and you’re not even married. What would you know? All the time I spent trying to make ends meet, trying to stop you two from getting in trouble and not one single word of thanks. You’ve got your own business, your brother’s in Canada. You’re both doing well. And not one word of thanks.”
Bob drew himself to his full height. In his expression was the volcanic rage of Tyler’s childhood. A lifetime of memories flashed through Tyler’s mind, a slide show of misery—his mother in tears, Jon cowering from their father’s blows, the sound of his own fear as his father laid into him. Over and over, the memories kept coming.
“You can’t rewrite history,” Tyler said, his voice low and hard. “You got stuck into us every chance you got.”
Something in his father’s face shifted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. My father used to knock me from one side of the house to the other. And you two got a couple of smacks.” His father�
�s mouth worked for a second and he swallowed noisily. “I loved you boys.”
His father turned his back abruptly and took a shuddering breath. Tyler heard something click in his father’s throat.
Then, his shoulders very square, his father walked slowly from the room, across the hallway and into his bedroom. The door swung shut between them.
Tyler was left standing alone. Adrenaline still surged through his body, but the fight was over.
And he had no idea who’d won.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALLY KNEW THAT SOMETHING was wrong the moment she opened the door. Tension radiated off Tyler’s big body in waves and his face was set like stone. Everything about him screamed wounded, angry animal.
“Tyler. What happened?”
“Can I come in? Just for a few minutes.”
“Of course.” She ushered him inside. “I was just about to open a bottle of wine.”
She’d actually been in the middle of a yoga session, but she’d never seen a man more in need of a drink in her life.
She led him to living room, then ducked into the kitchen. She gathered two glasses and a bottle of red wine, her mind racing.
He and Bob must have had another fight. She couldn’t think of any other explanation for the tight, hard expression on Tyler’s face.
She added a packet of crackers to her haul, in case Tyler hadn’t eaten. Then she took a deep breath and joined him.
He was standing in front of the French doors, his gaze bouncing around as though he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.
She didn’t say a word, simply opened the wine and poured him a glass.
“Here. You look like you could do with this.”
He glanced down, then reached out and wrapped his fingers around the bowl of the glass. “Thanks.”
She watched as he tipped his head back and downed half the wine in one swallow. Another tip of his head and the glass was empty.
She sank into the cushions of the couch, her knees drawn to her chest. Waiting.
Tyler stared at his empty glass for a long moment. A muscle flickered in his jaw as though he was clenching and unclenching his teeth. The room was so silent she could hear the clock ticking and the hum of the refrigerator in the next room.
Finally, he looked at her. “He used to beat us.”
She took a deep breath. Nodded. “I wondered.”
It had been a dark, unvoiced possibility in the back of her mind ever since she’d witnessed that moment between father and son the morning Bob came home from hospital.
“Did you? Funny. All those years, and not a single teacher ever asked about the bruises. None of the neighbors, either.”
“Some people don’t want to see.”
He wandered to the bookcase. She watched as he picked up and put down the small trinkets Wendy had displayed there.
“Everyone used to think he was a great guy. Good old Bob Adamson, a man you could rely on. Honest, hardworking, reliable. A regular saint.” He looked across the room at her, his eyes a dark, turbulent gray. “You like him. You think he’s a nice old man.”
She nodded. “Yes. I did.”
“He was a bastard. What he did to me and Jon…” Tyler shook his head.
She shifted to grab the bottle. “Pass me your glass.”
She poured more wine then returned the glass.
“Thanks.”
He drank a mouthful. Then sat on the edge of the cushion of the armchair opposite her, his elbows on his knees, both hands cradling his drink.
His posture was so tight, so protective, every instinct urged her to go wrap her arms around him. She forced herself to remain seated. As much as this man needed comfort, she sensed that the words he was slowly, painfully doling out had been sitting inside him for years. More than anything right now, he needed to talk.
“When I left here, I never wanted to see him again. I tried to stay away, but after a few years I realized I couldn’t do it to Mom. So I saw them once a year, on her birthday, until she died. And then I figured I was off the hook. It was over, and I’d finally escaped.”
“And then I came to see you.”
“Then you came. And I told myself I didn’t give a shit that he was sick, that he was dying. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I decided that I’d come and say my piece—all the things I’d never said to him. Get it off my chest once and for all. Then we really would be done.” He shook his head in disgust.
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t do it.” He flicked a glance at her. “I walked into his hospital room, ready to give it to him… He looked so old. So small. And I couldn’t do it. So I figured I’d just walk away, leave it at that. But I couldn’t do that, either.” He sounded so angry with himself.
“You think that’s a bad thing?”
“He knocked me and Jon around every chance he got. Told me I was no good and I’d never amount to anything more times than I could count. Even when he was decent, I was scared of him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. So, yeah, I think that’s a bad thing.”
“I don’t think compassion is ever a bad thing.”
He shook his head, rejecting her words.
She abandoned her casual posture and shifted to the edge of her seat. “Something happened tonight.”
“No, it didn’t.” He laughed, a hard, sharp sound. “All those years I imagined sticking it to him. Looking him in the eye and telling him what he was. And nothing happened.”
Ally was struggling to keep up. “You finally confronted him? That’s what happened tonight?”
“Yeah. I was out in the shed, trying to find quiet to work in. I cleared away some old junk and I found a table I’d made for my mother when I finished my apprenticeship.”
He took a big gulp of the wine before continuing. “He ruined it. Cut it up, nailed holes in it. Just…totally screwed it up.”
Ally pressed her fingers to her lips in shock. Tyler glanced up at her, his expression tortured.
“What I don’t get, what I will never get is why. What did I ever do to him to make him hate me so much? What did I ever do or say to earn that kind of treatment?”
It was a child’s plea, issued from a man’s mouth. Ally’s chest ached for all the years of doubt and hurt he’d endured. This time she didn’t resist the urge to go to him. She sat on the arm of his chair and slid both arms around him, pressing her cheek against the top of his head.
He remained locked in his rigid posture, unable to accept her comfort, but she didn’t let him go. She couldn’t.
“What did he say when you confronted him?” she asked quietly.
Tyler’s shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath. “He blanked me. He said he’d never hit us, then he claimed we were out of control and he’d had to discipline us. Then he told me I didn’t know what a knock was and that he loved us.”
He dropped his head, fighting the emotion washing over him. The muscles beneath her hands felt as though they were carved from granite.
She’d seen him like this once before, hunched over the steering wheel of his truck. She held him more tightly.
“It’s okay, Tyler,” she whispered. “It’s okay to be upset.”
She could feel the resistance in him. Then, suddenly, he broke, turning toward her with a fierce neediness, his arms coming around her. His body shuddered and she felt the rough, choppy gusts of his breathing as he sobbed against her chest.
She splayed her hands over his back, holding him close, keeping him safe while he let out years of grief.
He made an inarticulate sound, his arms holding her so tightly it was almost painful. She smoothed her hand over his head and didn’t let go.
Tears pricked her eyes but she blinked them away. Tyler did not need or want her pity.
As his breathing slowed and finally normalized, tension crept into his body in small degrees. She guessed what he was thinking, how much he must be regretting his moment of weakness. She knew without asking that he rarely, if ever, t
alked about his relationship with his father. That what had passed between Tyler and her was a rarity, that she was incredibly privileged to be trusted with his closely guarded truths.
She felt the honor keenly, as well as an aching awareness that she was not what this man needed in his life. Not with her track record with personal relationships. And yet he was here, and she was holding him and now that she knew his full measure, now that she understood, she could no longer ignore the urging of her own heart.
She’d tried. She’d kept him at a distance and told herself she was doing the right thing, that it was for the best that nothing happen between them. But he’d come to her and he needed her and it was beyond her to deny him.
His arms tensed and she let him put some space between them. He used his forearm to wipe the tears from his face, not looking at her. “Sorry about that.”
“Why?”
He glanced at her briefly. “I didn’t come over here to dump on you, believe it or not.”
She could see him pulling himself in more with every word, putting his armor on.
She dropped to her knees in front of him and caught both his hands in hers, forcing him to look at her.
“You think I pity you because of what you told me? You think that I think less of you because you cried?”
“I was wound up. I probably should have gone to the pub and gotten shit-faced.”
He was so strong, so used to simply soldiering on. He couldn’t conceive of a place where he could be safe. Where he could put down his burdens for a few hours and allow himself to feel and to grieve.
She acted on pure instinct, reaching out to cup his jaw in both hands, rising up to bring her face to his. She kissed him, pouring all her admiration and liking and lust into the contact, determined to prove to him that his revelations did not make him less of a man in her eyes.
After a long moment, he pulled away and she let him go.
“I don’t want your pity, Ally.” He sounded almost angry.
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