His Small-Town Girl

by Arlene James

  “I guess your grandfather is happy about that.”

  “I’m not sure he’s really thought about it. He loves this life, and I don’t think he ever imagined I wouldn’t.”

  “Do you?”

  “Sure. I wasn’t certain at first.” She shrugged. “Teenagers just want to be like everyone else, you know, even when they’re working so hard to be different, and living in a motel is not the same as living in a house. That bugged me for a while.”

  Tyler chuckled. “I don’t see you as a rebellious teen.”

  “Not at all,” she admitted, “but I had to make my peace with this life. After Gran got sick and her heart weakened, I started taking over more and more of her work, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that it gave her comfort at the end to think Granddad wouldn’t be shouldering all this alone.”

  “I can’t imagine that he’s up to much of the physical work,” Tyler said carefully. “Arthritis?”

  “Among other things,” she confirmed, “but he doesn’t let it get him down.”

  “Yes, I noticed that. He seems, well, happy. You don’t know how lucky you are that he’s so upbeat.”

  “Oh, I’m blessed, and I know it. My mother was just the opposite, you see, always worried, always feeling slighted and threatened. I sometimes don’t know what my father saw in her.”

  “I do,” Tyler said softly, “if she looked like you.”

  Stunned and dangerously thrilled, Charlotte floundered a bit, responding pragmatically to what she knew had not been a strictly practical comment. “Oh. No, actually. Her hair was much darker and…b-blue eyes. She was shorter, too.”

  His smile tightened. “I mean, she must have been as pretty as you, as wholesomely attractive.”

  Charlotte gulped. Of course she’d known what he meant, but for some reason she’d made him say it, and now that he had, she felt even more flustered. “Uh, yes. Th-that is, she was quite stunningly beautiful, actually. And I should’ve said thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” A grin flashed across his face, then he threaded his fingers together around one knee, saying lightly, “Sounds as if you might have had some issues with your mother.”

  Charlotte ducked her head. Silly of her. It had been so long ago. Still, it was not a pretty story, not one to discuss with the merest acquaintance, anyway, even one who made her want to know him better, especially one who made her want to know him better. And especially with a man like him. Rich, probably even spoiled. What could he possibly know or care about her life? She adopted a light, airy tone.

  “Doesn’t everyone have issues with their mothers?”

  He chuckled. “I suppose.”

  She changed the subject by inviting him to speak about himself. “I seem to recall that you mentioned a brother and sister.”

  “That’s right.” Nodding, he named Cassandra, who was just fourteen months older than him, and Preston, twenty-six months younger. “We all work together.”

  “Really? That sounds like fun.”

  “Hardly,” he scoffed. “All that sibling rivalry makes for a crazy dynamic, especially since someone has to be the boss.”

  “And that someone would be you,” Charlotte murmured, somehow knowing it.

  He leaned forward, forearms against his knees. “That would be me,” he admitted, “and my brother and sister both resent it. When they’re not fighting with each other or our mother and stepmother, they’re ganging up on me.”

  Charlotte absorbed that for a moment, thankful that she and her brothers had always gotten along quite well, though Holt and Ryan had been known to bicker and quarrel as youngsters. Their father, she recalled, had worked hard to make them friends. Many times he had told them that if they were kind to one another they would be best friends when they grew up. Apparently Tyler’s parents had not succeeded in that regard with their children.

  “Sounds difficult. I notice you didn’t mention your dad.”

  Tyler clasped his hands. “He died about nine months ago from pancreatic cancer.”

  Charlotte sat forward. “I am sorry.”

  “Thanks.” He studied her as if trying to decide whether or not she was sincere before adding, “The cancer came suddenly and hit hard. His death changed everything and nothing, if you know what I mean.”

  Charlotte shook her head, eyebrows drawn together. Her own beloved father’s death had changed everything, absolutely everything, in her family’s world. She couldn’t imagine it being otherwise. “I’m not sure I do.”

  Tyler spread his hands, looking down at them pensively. “I-I’m not sure I can explain.”

  “You could try,” she prodded gently, sensing that he needed to talk about it.

  He sat in silence for so long that she began to feel embarrassed. Then suddenly he spoke.

  “My parents divorced when I was twenty-four. I wouldn’t say that it was a particularly acrimonious marriage, but no one was really surprised, not even when Dad married his secretary.” He speared Charlotte with a glance. “Shasta is only five years older than me, and no one will ever know what she should have looked like, if you follow me.”

  “I’m assuming there’s plastic surgery involved,” Charlotte said, disciplining a smile.

  “At sixty-one, Mother is a whole lot resentful, not that she hasn’t had some tasteful work done herself, you understand.”

  Charlotte lifted her eyebrows slightly. “Sounds as if you have a very interesting family.”

  “Interesting I can handle,” Tyler muttered, sitting up straight. “The real problem is that ours is a family business, and everyone has seats on the board, along with some longtime employees and investors. My brother and sister and I received shares throughout the years, always on an equal basis, mind you. Mom got hers in the divorce, and Shasta inherited hers when Dad died. Throw in the fact that Dad named me CEO a month before he passed, and it makes for some, shall we say, volatile board meetings.” He lifted a hand to the back of his neck, adding, “To tell you the truth, I walked out of one of those meetings yesterday. That’s how I wound up here.”

  “Wow.” Charlotte shook her head, half-relieved because Tyler hadn’t come to Eden with a mind to put in an Aldrich store, half-sympathetic because his family obviously plagued rather than blessed him. “And everyone thinks that a family with all the advantages of the Aldrich grocery store chain has it made.”

  Tyler stiffened, a look of such affront and disappointment on his face that Charlotte caught her breath, realizing abruptly how judgmental she must have sounded. Before she could even begin to apologize, he lurched to his feet and stalked away.

  For a moment, she could do nothing more than gape at his retreating back. He’d covered about half the distance to his room before she hastily ditched the coffee and leaped up to follow, without even a clue as to what she would say when she caught up to him. If she caught up to him.

  He couldn’t believe it. There he’d sat thinking that Charlotte Jefford had to be the most refreshing, unassuming, genuine human being he’d ever met, and all along she’d known exactly who he was. She’d probably known from the moment he’d signed the guest registration card.

  He had to hand it to her, though. She hadn’t let on in any fashion. Not one simpering smile had slipped out, not one admiring titter, not one desperately suggestive whisper. Until the end. Until after he’d spilled his guts like some needy guest on one of those tawdry psycho-babble talk shows.

  What on earth had gotten into him? He’d never said those things to anyone. Any complaints he made about his personal life had always come back to haunt him. Generally his family would hear of them before the words were out of his mouth, not to mention his rivals.

  His circles of acquaintance nurtured some notorious gossips, so he’d learned early on to keep his personal thoughts and feelings to himself. Every word out of his mouth could be, and often was, used against him in some fashion or another. He hadn’t realized until just that very moment how confining and…lonely that had become. To his perplexe
d shame, he’d wanted her to know him, really know him, because somehow Charlotte Jefford had felt safe.

  Let this be a lesson to him. Not even a quiet, seemingly serene stranger stuck out here in this small town in the middle of nowhere and nothing made a safe confidant, not for him, not when she had known who he was all along.

  The bitter depth of his disappointment shocked him. She was nothing to him, nothing at all. Yet, he could not deny what he felt. Swamped with angry misery, he did not even hear her run after him, did not hear her calling his name, until she touched him, her hand slipping around to fall on his forearm.

  “Tyler!”

  He turned back before he could think better of it, and found himself looking down into her troubled hazel eyes. Something wrenched inside him, something frightfully needy. Making a belated attempt to extricate himself, he stepped away. “You’ll have to excuse me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry. I’m not usually that blunt or insensitive.”

  His defenses firmly in place now, a ready, hard-won insouciance surged forward, burying his disillusionment. “I can’t imagine what you mean.”

  She looked crestfallen, ashamed. “I shouldn’t have implied that money made you different or could solve all your problems.”

  “Problems?” he echoed lightly. “What would you know about my problems, anyway?”

  He winced inwardly at that last, surprised by the inexplicable need to hurt her. As she, he realized with a jolt, had hurt him.

  The wideness of her mottled eyes proclaimed that his jab had hit its mark; the frank, troubled depths of them told him that she would not retaliate in kind, increasing his guilt tenfold in an instant. Like intricate quilts of soft golds, greens and blues those eyes offered comfort and warmth, as well as surprising beauty.

  “I’m sorry, Tyler. I—I don’t know what else to say.”

  Anger leaked out of him like air from a balloon.

  “No, I’m sorry. I overreacted.”

  Unable to maintain contact with those eyes, he looked away. The unwelcome feeling that he owed her some explanation pushed words from him.

  “How long have you known exactly who I am?”

  When she didn’t answer immediately, he speared her with an incisive glance. She looked confused.

  “You mean when did I put you together with the Aldrich grocery stores?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  She shrugged. “As soon as I learned your name. Why wouldn’t I put it together? It’s perfectly natural to associate one thing with another. I didn’t know for sure, of course, until I saw your reaction to the bread.”

  “So that was deliberate,” he accused, more wounded than indignant.

  “Serving the only loaf of bread I had in the house?” she asked plaintively, but then she bit her lip. “No, that’s not fair. It was the only loaf, but I did want to see how you’d react.”

  Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Could he be a bigger fool? With Aldrich stores blanketing the seven states nearest to Texas, did he really think she wouldn’t put it together?

  “I won’t tell anyone if it’s that important to you,” she vowed softly.

  He nodded, miserable in a way he couldn’t explain even to himself. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

  She moaned. “Oh, no.”

  He looked up. “What?”

  “I’ve already discussed it with my brother,” she confessed, grimacing.

  Tyler threw up his hands, appalled at his own behavior and apparently powerless to change it. “Well, that’s just great!”

  A horrible thought occurred, staggering him. Stupid as it seemed, it spoiled so much that he hadn’t even realized mattered to him. Unfortunately, though, it made an awful sense. Small towns were even more notorious for gossip than Dallas society. Everyone knew it. Everyone.

  “That’s why they were all so friendly to me today.”

  Charlotte blinked, obviously taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

  “The whole town must know!” he erupted. “Why else would they fall all over themselves?”

  Her jaw dropped, and for some reason that just stoked his temper, that and the secret, niggling knowledge that he’d gone from overreaction to completely unreasonable. It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t help who he was or what she knew. How could she know that he’d hoped to remain incognito, so to speak?

  “Now, that’s just silly,” she finally told him, folding her arms. “Folks in Eden are naturally friendly. It has nothing to do with who your family is!”

  “How do I know that?” he demanded.

  The compassion warming her eyes made him want to run and at the same time to reach for her. In the end, to his everlasting shock, she was the one to reach out, wrapping her slender arms around his shoulders.

  “Oh, Tyler.”

  She placed her bright head on his shoulder, her face turned away from him. His indignation evaporated like so much mist, leaving behind a sheepish sense of foolishness and a deep chasm of pure need.

  His hands somehow landed at her waist, tentatively clasping the delicate curves. For several long, sweet moments it felt as if some calming, invisible balm flowed across his savaged nerve endings. Like parched earth soaking up gentle rain, he absorbed the comfort that she so effortlessly offered. How had she known that he needed this when he hadn’t known himself?

  “I always thought it would be a terrible burden to have too much money and to be known for it,” she whispered.

  He sighed, confessing, “It is not a simple life, that’s for sure.”

  After several moments, she quietly asked, “Who hurt you so badly that you would be this suspicious of people who just want to be friendly?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Who hasn’t? he thought. He said, “When money’s involved, you never know who your real friends are. I’m not sure you can even have real friends.”

  She pulled away at that, folding closed the front of the oversize cardigan that she wore over a simple plaid shirt, its tail tucked primly into the belted waistband of slender jeans. “Of course you can. Not everyone is after your money.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d been around when my father lay dying,” he told her, pushing a hand through his hair. “Everyone behaved like a pack of jackals, snarling and snapping over every nickel and dime of his personal fortune. Contractors, business associates, even the upper management at our own company….” Tyler shook his head remembering that even his father’s broker had wrenched every penny from the estate that he could by freezing his father’s accounts and dumping them into interest-bearing escrow then slapping on every management fee he could dream up.

  “Charities called up begging for final bequests,” he told her. “Complete strangers accosted me on the street claiming that my father had promised them money.” He threw up his hands. “The blasted doctor asked for a grant to do cancer research!”

  He went on, telling her the details of those awful last weeks, the words pouring out of him as if they’d been too long pent up.

  Granted, Comstock Aldrich had been a formidable force, and he’d never taken a step without calculating the return in dollars and cents, but surely he’d deserved some dignity in death, some consideration of his basic humanity. Instead, everyone around him had turned into vultures, picking over the corpse before he’d even drawn his last breath. It had fallen to Tyler to hold the scavengers at bay.

  Her eyes sad, Charlotte listened patiently, murmuring occasional condolences.

  “That’s how it is when you have real money,” Tyler finished glumly.

  “I’m not surprised,” she admitted softly. “I always imagined it would be like that. I’d rather have Christ, frankly.”

  Tyler tilted his head. He didn’t have the faintest idea what she meant by that. How could anyone have Christ? And what did that have to do with anything?

  Suddenly he felt out of place, out of sync. With a pang, he realized that he’d done it again, told her much more
than he’d ever told anyone.

  Shocked, he backed up a step, lifting a hand to the nape of his neck. What was it about this woman that turned him into a babbling lunatic? Gulping, he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to know.

  “I-I’ve kept you long enough,” he said politely, backing away.

  She started as if just coming to herself. “I have to check the oven.”

  “I have to…” He waved an arm. Do something. Anything. But what?

  Already moving away, she lifted a finger. “Could you hold that thought for a minute? I’ll be right back.”

  Tyler watched her move across the pavement to the kitchen door of the apartment, then stood awkwardly while she went in, the screen slapping closed behind her.

  He wanted to flee—and to stay, for some inexplicable reason, except, of course, that he didn’t really have anyplace to go or anything to do. And he didn’t want to be alone.

  For once, Tyler realized with a pang, he really wanted not to be alone.

  Chapter Five

  Tyler had never known a moment of real want in his lifetime, but he realized that he had somehow always been alone. Even with servants in the house and a mother who had nothing better to do than socialize and shop, he’d spent a great deal of his childhood virtually by himself.

  True, he’d basically done as he pleased, and as a boy he’d often preferred to tag along with various friends and their families rather than bicker unsupervised at home with his sister and brother. There had been whole years when he’d probably slept over at a buddy’s place as many or more nights as he’d slept at home, and the fact that his family hardly seemed to notice had made him feel rather bereft at times.

  Tyler didn’t like feeling needy, but he liked even less the idea of spending the evening alone in that shabby little room behind him. Even as he warred with himself, he wandered closer to that kitchen door.

  “Sorry, Granddad,” he heard Charlotte say.

  Hap said something in return, but Tyler couldn’t make out the words. It had been a long time since he’d felt so much on the outside looking in. He didn’t like it one bit, but he didn’t move away.