by Maggie Wells
Her small hands hit him square in the center of his chest, but this time he stood his ground. “Now, wait—”
“No, you wait,” she spat, but then stopped. Her jaw stiffened and she somehow managed to stare up and him, but down her nose at the same time. Jake swallowed, more than ready to take whatever she wanted to dish out, because, damn, she was sexy as hell when she was preparing to take a chunk out of someone. “You do not get to do this,” she said, her voice low and vibrating with anger.
“Do what?” The question idiotic, but he didn’t care. He wanted to keep her there. Talking to him. Even if their talking was about to escalate into arguing.
“You don’t get to treat people this way.” She tried one more little shove than switched tactics. “I understand you’re angry with me—”
The misconception was easy to remedy. “I’m not angry with you.”
Darla continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “—but you don’t get to take your issues out on my friends.” She poked him in the sternum with her index finger. “You don’t get to come in here with your pre-pubescent dates and treat people like dirt.”
He brushed her jabby finger away, and ignored the ache in his chest as he bowed up. “That’s the second time you’ve accused me of being some kind of pervert.”
“If the shoe fits,” she snarled.
“You know damn well it doesn’t,” he shot back.
“Is she even old enough to drive, Jake?”
“What the hell do you think was going on here?”
“I know what’s going on here. You came in to flaunt your little girlfriend. Well, you did. Now go!”
He waved an arm toward the door, frustration firing like a Bunsen burner deep in his gut. “I was coming back in to make things right with Zelda Jo!”
But Darla didn’t back down. She never backed down. Her backbone was one of the things he loved about her. Thrusting her chin up, she fixed him with a laser-sharp glare. “Damn straight you’re gonna make things right.” She held out a hand, palm-up. “But you’re not coming back in. Give me five dollars.”
“Five dollars?”
“Tip plus pain and suffering.”
A grin threatened as he reached for his wallet, but he held back. He didn’t dwell too long on the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d smiled or that he was getting the shakedown from a woman who barely reached his shoulder. “I miss you. I came in here today because I couldn’t take not seeing you any longer. I wasn’t showing anyone off. I wanted to see you.”
She made a skeptical humming noise in the back of her throat, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “So you brought a date?”
“Not a date, a meeting.” Opening his wallet, he ran a thumb across the bills, looking for the five she’d requested. “I want to be with you. For real,” he added in case she was thinking he’d be willing to settle for less again.
“Stop.”
He sucked in a sharp breath when her hand landed on top of his. Every muscle in his body tensed. But he couldn’t stop now. He needed to get everything he had to say out there, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Bending his knees, he ducked down until she could no longer avoid looking at him. “I love you.”
Darla bit her lip. He watched, his heart pounding in his ears as he waited for her to respond. Perfect white teeth sank into the plump flesh and her eyes turned bright and glassy with tears. Then she dropped her gaze to his open wallet and his stomach flipped over.
“I love you, Darla,” he repeated, some of the desperation he’d felt earlier edging its way back into his voice.
But instead of answering him, she brushed his hand away, reached into his wallet herself, and extracted a crisp ten dollar bill. “Well, now, that’s gonna cost extra,” she said, flashing a pale facsimile of her sassy smile.
Before he could recover, she turned and fled for the door, leaving him and his foolish heart gutted on the sidewalk.
Numb, he turned back to the parking lot and set his sights on his car. He had to get out of there, but he hadn’t the faintest idea of where he should go. Certainly not back to work. He couldn’t deal with thinking about stars or space or thrust to weight ratios. Not when the world was crashing down around him.
And not to the condo. The place still smelled like her, even though he’d done everything short of repainting.
He blinked twice as the notion of a fresh coat of paint took hold. Starting toward his car, he pulled the key fob from his pocket. Nothing pale or neutral, he decided, recalling the endless cans of eggshell-white Brian had hauled home when they were finishing his house. Nor did he want the slate-gray and concrete-colored accents Harley’d used when he’d finished the condo. He wanted something warmer. A color that made him feel as if he’d finally come home.
The door to the tiny smokehouse flew open as he reached for the driver’s door. He looked up to see Zelda Jo standing there, her hand still on the handle, his ten dollar bill clutched in her other hand. He stood frozen as she crossed the lot, occasionally darting a furtive glance over her shoulder.
“Don’t give up on her yet,” she called out to him. “She needs time to come around to things herself, and she’s almost there.”
His eyebrows rose, but he had no idea exactly what he was supposed to say. So he nodded instead.
Message delivered, Zelda Jo smiled wide and waved the money as she backed away. “My tip for you.”
By the time she reached the smokehouse door, he managed to peel his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “Thank you,” he called after her.
The older woman simply waved and rushed through the door.
Jake gripped the steering wheel as he climbed into the driver’s seat. No matter what Zelda Jo said, the look on Darla’s face spoke volumes. Blue, he decided as he closed himself into the cabin. Picturing the skylights above his bed, he imagined the whole room painted blue. Not any blue, but the color of the night sky just before full dark. The magical time when the moon and the stars defied the odds and showed themselves off to the light.
****
The stylish slate-colored walls of his bedroom whitewashed with a coat of primer, Jake stuck the edge of his screwdriver under the lid of the gallon can of Nautical Twilight paint and loosened the seal a bit. The name was a complete misnomer. Paint manufacturers felt compelled to give almost all shades of blue aquatic names, and it galled him.
He harrumphed as he worked his way around the edge of the can, loosening the lid, but being careful not to bend the lip. Brian always did that—pulled too hard at the top, leaving it misshapen. The can would never seal properly again, and it made Jake crazy. If his younger brother hadn’t been so obsessed with painting his entire house not-quite-white, he probably would have been thrilled to discover the array of oceanic options out there. But Brian only saw what Brian wanted, and the only thing Brian ever wanted was Brooke Hastings.
Jake smiled as he peered down into the can. The gray-blue shade he’d chosen was much deeper than the sky at nautical dusk. Deeper even than astronomical twilight. Too dark to be classified as any kind of twilight, in fact. But the morons who assigned color names didn’t care.
Tipping his head back, he squinted up at the skylights above the bed. For a few magical moments each night, his room would reflect the night sky. Briefly, he considered adding stars to the ceiling. Not the cheesy glow-in-the-dark ones kids bought at museum shops, but tiny hand-painted pinpoints of silver-white light.
Grace would love them.
Darla would probably mock him mercilessly.
He dismissed the thoughts as quickly as they popped into his head. Neither of the Kennet girls would ever see his stars. Hell, he could paint entire constellations right over his head and they would never know.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. Stifling a sigh, he dug for it as he turned the lid over and set it face-up on a section of newspaper. The plastic drop cloth protecting the sealed wood floors rustled as he wrestled the phone free. He
didn’t bother checking the display. Brian had called three times since he’d opened the primer. Each time, his brother had offered his painting expertise, but Jake had declined. This was his work. His project. And even though Brian had been more than willing to accept Jake’s help with finishing his house, this particular project felt like something Jake needed to start and finish on his own.
Sliding his thumb over the screen, he wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear, picked up a wooden paint paddle, and began to stir. “You into fumes? You looking to come over and get high on the heavenly scent of latex acrylic?”
“Uh, no.”
A woman answered. The woman.
Darla.
The voice he heard in his dreams at night. The same voice dogged him most of his waking hours, too. With a jolt, Jake straightened. Paint dripped off the stir stick and onto the newspaper he’d put under the can, be he couldn’t be bothered. He had another more important mess to clean up.
“Darla.”
“Are you dating her?”
His first impulse was to ask who she meant, but that would be kind of a pissy thing to do, when he knew they both knew damn well who she meant. But he did it anyway, because he was feeling pretty damn pissy.
“Marlee?”
“Yes. I mean, I guess. The girl today.” She paused and he heard her suck in a sharp breath. “Her name is Marlee? Was that Marlee Tucker?”
He felt a surge of vindication at her stammering. “Yes. And she’s a little young, don’t you think? Then again, you seem to think I like much younger women, don’t you?”
“Jake, I—”
“No. I’m not dating her.”
“Can’t we just—”
There was the slightest hint of wheedle in her voice. “No,” he said again, but even more forcefully.
He was tired of settling. Tired of having the women in his life dictate all of the rules. He couldn’t control the way he felt about her. If he could, he would, but the whole notion of keeping a handle on his feelings for her flew out the window the first time they kissed. Now, she wanted to use how he felt about her to convince him to let her have her way. A flashfire of fury coursed through him.
“But—”
“I’m not interested in ‘just’, Darla.”
“We both know it’s not ‘just’, Jake,” she shot back, “but it’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t seem like it should be. Do you love me? Want to be with me as much as I want to be with you? Are we a couple? How’s Sunday looking for you and Gracie? Should I tell my mom to set another couple of places at the table?”
“Jake, please—”
He stared into the dark blue paint, his heart slowing to a dull thrum as he realized where he’d seen the color before. Contrary to what he and the paint namers thought, he wasn’t duplicating the night sky or the deep waters far off the coast. He had chosen a dark blue the exact color of Grace Kennet’s eyes. Clenching his teeth, he tore his gaze from the open can of paint and let his head fall back. Wetting his lips he asked the last of his questions.
“Who is Grace’s father?”
Silence hummed between them. Jake pulled the phone from his ear to check the connection. His heart heavy, he closed his eyes. She was still there, but she wasn’t going to answer.
“I can’t. I’ve never told anyone,” she whispered at last. “Not even Gracie.”
“Don’t you think she has a right to know?”
“Not everything is that simple,” Darla retorted, a sharp edge creeping into her voice.
The words gutted him like a fish. Flashes of memory pelted him like sleet. Don’t you think I had a right to know? Courtney’s face, grave and somber as she broke the news to him. My body, my choice. The news came too late. My child. She’d already terminated the pregnancy. Our future. The last words he spoke to the woman he’d once thought he’d marry. We have no future.
“Yeah, sometimes things really can be that simple.”
“There wasn’t only me and Gracie involved.”
“No, there was also her father,” he said hotly.
“And her father’s wife. And a daughter,” she said, every bit as angrily.
Those little bombshells took the wind right out of his sails. “He was married?”
“Very.”
Her reply was short and tight, a clear indicator she didn’t want to discuss the topic any longer. But he couldn’t let it go. Turning the information he’d gleaned so far over in his mind, he matched it up with years of speculation, but still he came up empty. Darla was a master at playing her cards close to her chest. She’d kept this secret for nearly a decade and a half. And he knew without a doubt, she’d hold onto it until she decided she was damn good and ready to let someone know.
“I never could see any of Harley Cade in her. I guess I looked, like everyone else, but I couldn’t really see him as the father. Now I know why,” he said at last.
“Yeah, well, I had a reputation to uphold.”
“And Harley?”
“Is the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“But you two have never been more than friends.” Not a question, but a conclusion. A simple statement of what they both already knew to be true. And she’d told him the truth about Gracie’s dad too. Whether he had all the details or not was irrelevant. He had the data he needed. He blew out a breath. “I’m crazy about Grace.”
“I know you are,” she said quietly.
“I’d never do anything to hurt her.”
“I know that, too.”
“But you don’t know I got my girlfriend pregnant my senior year in college.”
He didn’t know exactly why he told her. Maybe he felt he owed her a little truth of his own. Not tit for tat in hopes she’d spill more. For some reason telling her felt natural. Perhaps because, like Darla, he’d never told another soul.
“No, I didn’t know.”
Her quiet reaction sparked something inside him. Long-repressed anger fired in the pit of his stomach and traveled through him, gaining momentum with every passing second. He felt as if some wily coyote had strung a fuse through every artery, vein, and capillary and piled crates of TNT all around his heart. A part of him wanted to leave the tidbit dangling there like bait. She’d confessed to sleeping with a married man, and he may or may not have a love child running around out there in the world. But then it occurred to him maybe she’d had as little choice in the matter as he’d had. The Earth tilted off its axis. Sheer horror extinguished the flare of anger.
“Darla—” His voice came out in a broken squawk. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking. He had to know. “Did he... Were you...willing?”
“Oh, Jake,” she said, breaking off on a soft sob.
“It’s okay.” He rushed to reassure her, though he was pretty damn sure neither of them felt okay about anything. “It’s not your fault.”
She laughed and then hiccupped, her voice thick with tears. “Oh, but it was. It is.”
“No—”
“He didn’t rape me, Jake. He didn’t coerce me in any way,” she hastened to add. “If anything, I didn’t give him much of a choice.”
“I don’t understand,” he admitted at last.
“I know you don’t. And I’m glad you don’t. You’re a good and decent person who grew up with a nice, normal family.” She laughed shortly. “Never thought I’d lump Brian Dalton in the nice, normal category.”
The need to defend his little brother was as automatic as breathing. “Brian’s a great guy.”
“I know he is. Which proves my point. Your mom was our room mother, Jake. And your dad is the sweetest man.”
Wasn’t hard to see where her train of thought was headed. Part of him totally understood. The other part was annoyed she was falling back on the old ‘my parents didn’t understand me’ gambit. “And your parents weren’t,” he concluded flatly.
“My parents weren’t bad or abusive or even particularly st
rict with me, just controlling.” She chuckled, short and bitter. “My mother liked to approve my clothing. My dad decided I’d go to Samford University, because he went there. I wanted to go to Auburn. Join a sorority. Learn to play beer pong.” She trailed off at the last. “I probably could have used a little strictness. But other than making all my decisions for me, they were uninterested.”
He heard the quaver in her voice as she drew her next breath.
“I babysat for the family. They were friends with my parents. I was eighteen and hadn’t been anything near innocent for a while. And, I was feeling powerful.”
“Powerful?”
She cleared her throat and continued in a much more matter of fact tone. “I knew the guy was interested. I thought his wife was kind of a bitch, so I encouraged his interest. Figured it would be a kick the next time he and his wife came over for dinner.”
“Jesus, Darla.”
“I’m not particularly proud of my actions, Jake. I’m trying to be honest.” She blew out a breath as if she needed to expel the dregs of the memories from her lungs. “When I took the pregnancy test everything stopped.” Again, she laughed, but this time it was more rueful than bitter. “I wasn’t happy by any stretch of the imagination, but I was okay. I’d made the decisions that got me there. They weren’t great ones, but they were mine.”
“Right.” Heaving a sigh, he rolled back until he lay flat on the drop cloth staring up at the skylights. But a thin layer of cloud cover had rolled in. The thickening strata obscured the moon and the stars, and pressed down on him. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he screwed up his courage to ask one last question. “And when you found out you were pregnant, you decided he didn’t have a right to know?”
Her breathing hitched and he covered his eyes with his hand, wishing he could disappear. He’d managed a direct hit, but scoring the point didn’t feel good.