by Diana Palmer
“Your adopted family won’t like it,” he said slowly.
“Marge won’t mind,” she said, certain that it was true. “And I don’t care what J.B. thinks.”
He nodded. “Okay. It’s a date. We’ll work out the details Friday.”
“Fine. Now please go away,” she added, glancing at the door, where Justin was just coming inside the building. “Or we may both be out looking for work on Monday!”
He grinned and left her before Justin got the door closed.
Marge was less enthusiastic than Tellie had expected. In fact, she seemed disturbed.
“Does the phrase, rubbing salt on an open wound, ring any chimes?” Marge asked her somberly.
“But Grange didn’t do anything,” she protested. “He was as much a victim as J.B. was.”
Marge hesitated, uneasy. “I understand that. But he’s connected with it. J.B. will see it as a personal attack on him, by both of you.”
“That’s absurd!”
“It isn’t, if you remember the way my brother is.”
For the first time since Grange had asked her out, Tellie wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to hurt J.B., even if he’d given her reason. On the other hand, it was a test of control, his over hers. If she gave in now, she’d be giving in forever. Marge was her friend, but J.B. was Marge’s brother. It was a tangled situation.
Marge put an arm around her. “Don’t worry yourself to death, honey,” she said gently. “If you really want to go out with him, go ahead. I’m just saying that J.B. is going to take it personally. But you can’t let him run your life.”
Tellie hugged her back. “Thanks, Marge.”
“Why don’t you want to go to the barbecue?” the older woman asked.
Tellie grimaced. “Miss runner-up beauty queen will be there, won’t she?”
Marge pursed her lips. “So that’s it.”
“Don’t you dare tell him,” came the terse reply.
“Never.” Marge sighed. “I didn’t even think about that. No wonder you’re so anxious to stay away.”
“She’s really gorgeous, isn’t she?”
Marge looked old and wise. “She’s just like all the other ones before her, Tellie, tall and blond and stacked. Not much in the way of intelligence. You know,” she added thoughtfully, “I don’t think J.B. really likes intelligent women much.”
“Maybe he feels threatened by us.”
“Don’t you believe it,” Marge scoffed. “He’s got a business degree from Yale, you know.”
“I’d forgotten.”
“No, I think it has to do with our mother,” she continued. “She was always running down our father, making him feel like an idiot. She was forever going to conventions with one of her research partners. Later, they had a serious affair. That was just before she died.”
“J.B. didn’t have a great respect for women, I guess.”
“Not in his younger days. Then he got engaged, and tragedy followed.” She seemed far away. “I lost my first love to another woman, and then my husband died of an embolism after surgery.” She shook her head. “J.B. and I have poor track records with happily ever after.”
Tellie felt sad for both of them. “I suppose it would make you gun-shy, when it came to love.”
“Love?” Marge laughed. “J.B. doesn’t believe in it anymore.” She gave Tellie a sad, gentle appraisal. “But you should. Maybe Grange will be the best thing that ever happened to you. It wouldn’t hurt to show J.B. that you’re not dying of a broken heart, either.”
“He won’t notice,” Tellie said with conviction. “He used to complain that I was always underfoot.”
“Not recently.”
“I’ve been away at college for four years more or less,” she reminded the older woman. That reminded her of graduation, which he hadn’t attended. It still stung.
“And going away for three more.” Marge smiled. “Live your life, Tellie. You don’t have to answer to anybody. Be happy.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Tellie pointed out. She smiled at Marge. “Okay. If you don’t mind me dating Grange, J.B. can think what he likes. I don’t care.”
Which wasn’t the truth, exactly.
Grange was good company when he relaxed and forgot that Tellie was a friend of J.B.’s.
The movie was unforgettable, a film about a misfit crew aboard a space-going freighter who were protecting a girl from some nasty authorities. It was funny and sweet, and full of action.
They came out of the theater smiling.
“It’s been a good year for science-fiction movies,” he remarked.
“It has,” Tellie agreed, “but that was the best I’ve seen so far. I missed the series when it was on television. I guess I’ll have to buy the DVD set.”
He gave her an amused look. “You’re nice to take around,” he said on the way to his big gray truck. “If I weren’t a confirmed bachelor, you’d be at the top of my list of prospects.”
“Why, what a nice thing to say!” she exclaimed. “Do you mind if I quote you frequently?”
He gave her a quick look and relaxed a little when she laughed. “Quote me?” he asked quizzically.
Her shoulders rose and fell. “It’s just that nobody ever said I was marriageable before, you see,” she told him. “I figure with an endorsement like that, the sky’s the limit. I mean, I won’t be in college forever. A woman has to think about the future.”
Grange stared at her in the light from the parking lot. “I don’t think I’ve ever been around anyone like you. Most women these days are too aggressive for my taste.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Like doormats, do we?” she teased.
He shook his head. “It’s not that. I like a woman with spirit. But I don’t like being seen as a party favor.”
“Now you know how women feel,” she pointed out.
“I never treated a woman that way,” he returned.
“A lot of men have.”
“I suppose so,” he conceded. He gave her a smile. “I enjoyed tonight.”
“Me, too.”
“We’ll do it again sometime.”
She smiled back. “Suits me.”
Grange dropped her off at Marge’s house, but he didn’t try to kiss her good-night. He was a gentleman in the best sense of the word. Tellie liked him. But her heart still ached for J.B.
Tellie assumed that Marge and the girls were in bed, because the lights were all off inside. She locked the door behind her and started toward the staircase when a light snapped on in the living room.
She whirled, surprised, and looked right into J. B. Hammock’s seething green eyes.
Four
“What…are you doing here?” she blurted out, flushing at the way he was looking at her. “Has something happened to Marge or the girls?” she added at once, uneasy.
“No. They’re fine.”
She moved into the room, putting her purse and coat on a chair, her slender body in jeans with pink embroidered roses and a pink tank top that matched. Her pale eyes searched his dark green ones curiously. She ran a nervous hand through her wavy dark hair and grimaced. He looked like an approaching storm.
“Then why are you here?” she asked when the silence became oppressive.
His eyes slid over her body in the tight jeans and tank top and narrowed with reluctant appreciation. He was also in jeans, but his were without decoration. A chambray shirt covered his broad, muscular chest and long arms. It was unfastened at the throat. He usually dressed casually for barbecues, and this one didn’t seem to be an exception.
“You went to a movie with Grange,” he said.
“Yes.”
His face tautened. “I don’t like you going out with him.”
Her thin dark eyebrows arched. “I’m almost twenty-two, J.B.”
“Jacobsville is full of eligible bachelors.”
“Yes, I know. Grange is one of them.”
“Damn it, Tellie!”
She drew in a steadying breath. It was hard not to give in to J.B. She’d spent most of her adolescence doing exactly that. But this was a test of her newfound independence. She couldn’t let him walk all over her. Despite his reasons for not wanting her around Grange, she couldn’t let him dictate her future. Particularly since he wasn’t going to be part of it.
“I’m not marrying him, J.B.,” she said quietly. “He’s just someone to go out with.”
His lean jaw tautened. “He’s part of a painful episode in my past,” he said flatly. “It’s disloyal of you to take his side against me. I’m not pushing the point, but I gave you a home when you needed one.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You gave me a home? No, J.B., you didn’t give me a home. You decided that Marge would give me a home,” she said emphatically.
“Same thing,” he bit off.
“It isn’t,” she replied. “You don’t put yourself out for anybody. You make gestures, but somebody else has to do the dirty work.”
“That’s not how it was, and you know it,” he said curtly. “You were fourteen years old. How would it have looked, to have you living with me? Especially with my lifestyle.”
She wanted to argue that, but she couldn’t. “I suppose you have a point.”
He didn’t reply. He just watched her.
She moved to the sofa and perched on one of its broad, floral-patterned arms. “I’m very grateful for what your family has done for me,” she said gently. “But nobody can say that I haven’t pulled my weight. I’ve cleaned and cooked for Marge and the girls, been a live-in baby-sitter, helped keep her books—I haven’t just parked myself here and taken advantage of the situation.”
“I never said you did,” he replied.
“You’re implying it,” she shot back. “I can’t remember when I’ve ever dated anybody around here…!”
“Of course not, you were too busy mooning over me!”
Her face went white. Then it slowly blossomed into red rage. She stood up, eyes blazing. “Yes,” she said. “I was, wasn’t I? Mooning over you while you indulged yourself with starlet after debutante after Miss Beauty Contest winner! Oh, excuse me, Miss Runner-up Beauty Contest winner,” she drawled insolently.
He glared at her. “My love life is none of your business.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she retorted. “It’s everybody’s business. You were in a tabloid story just last week, something about you and the living fashion doll being involved in some sleazy love triangle in Hollywood…”
“Lies,” he shot back, “and I’m suing!”
“Good luck,” she said. “My point is, I date a nice man who hasn’t hurt anybody…”
He let out a vicious curse, interrupting her, and moved closer, towering over her. “He was Special Forces in Iraq,” he told her coldly, “and he was brought up on charges for excessive force during an incursion! He actually slugged his commanding officer and stuffed him in the trunk of a civilian car!”
Her eyes widened. “Did he, really?” she mused, fascinated.
“It isn’t funny,” he snapped. “The man is a walking time bomb, waiting for the spark to set him off. I don’t want him around you when it happens. He was forced out of the army, Tellie, he didn’t go willingly! He had the choice of a court-martial or an honorable discharge.”
She wondered how he knew so much about the other man, but she didn’t pursue it. “It was an honorable discharge, then?” she emphasized.
He took off his white Stetson and ran an irritated hand through his black hair. “I can’t make you see it, can I? The man’s dangerous.”
“He’s in good company in Jacobsville, then, isn’t he?” she replied. “I mean, we’re like a resort for ex-mercs and ex-military, not to mention the number of ex-federal law enforcement people…”
“Grange has enemies,” he interrupted.
“So do you, J.B.,” she pointed out. “Remember that guy who broke into your house with a .45 automatic and tried to shoot you over a horse deal?”
“He was a lunatic.”
“If the bullet hadn’t been a dud, you’d be dead,” she reminded him.
“Ancient history,” he said. “You’re avoiding the subject.”
“I am not likely to be shot by one of Grange’s mythical old enemies while watching a science-fiction film at the local theater!” Her small hands balled at her hips. “The only thing you’re mad about is that you can’t make me do what you want me to do anymore,” she challenged.
A deep, dark sensuality came into his green eyes and one corner of his chiseled mouth turned up. “Can’t I, now?” he drawled, moving forward.
She backed up. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she warded him off. “Go home and thrill your beauty queen, J.B., I’m not on the market.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her flush and the faint rustle of her heartbeat against her tank top. “Aren’t you?”
She backed up one more step, just in case. “What happened to you was…was tragic, but it was a long time ago, J.B., and Grange wasn’t responsible for it,” she argued. “He was surely as much a victim as you were, especially when he found out the truth. Can’t you imagine how he must have felt, when he knew that his own actions cost him his sister’s life?”
He seemed to tauten all over. “He told you all of it?”
She hadn’t meant to let that slip. He made her nervous when he came close like this. She couldn’t think. “You’d never have told me. Neither would Marge. Okay, it’s not my business,” she added when he looked threatening, “but I can have an opinion.”
“Grange was responsible,” he returned coldly. “His own delinquency made it impossible for her to get past my father.”
“That’s not true,” Tellie said, her voice quiet and firm. “If I wanted to marry someone, and his father tried to blackmail me, I’d have gone like a shot to the man and told him…!”
The effect the remark had on him was scary. He seemed to grow taller, and his eyes were terrible. His deep, harsh voice interrupted her. “Stop it.”
She did. She didn’t have the maturity, or the confidence, to argue the point with him. But she wouldn’t have killed herself, she was sure of it. She’d have embarrassed J.B.’s father, shamed him, defied him. She wasn’t the sort of person to take blackmail lying down.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his eyes furious. “You’d never sacrifice another human being’s life or freedom to save yourself.”
“Maybe not,” she conceded. “But I wouldn’t kill myself, either.” She was going to add that it was a cowardly thing to do, but the way J.B. was looking at her kept her quiet.
“She loved me. She was going to have to give me up, and she couldn’t bear to go on living that way. In her own mind, she didn’t have a choice,” he said harshly. He searched her quiet face. “You can’t comprehend an emotion that powerful, can you, Tellie? After all, what the hell would you know about love? You’re still wrapped up in dreams of happily ever after, cotton-candy kisses and hand-holding! You don’t know what it is to want someone so badly that it’s physically painful to be separated from them. You don’t understand the violence of desire.” He laughed coldly. “Maybe that’s just as well. You couldn’t handle an affair!”
“Good, because I don’t want one!” she replied angrily. He made her feel small, inadequate. It hurt. “I’m not going to pass myself around like a cigarette to any man who wants me, just to prove how liberated I am! And when I marry, I won’t want some oversexed libertine who jumps into bed with any woman who wants him!”
He went very still and quiet. His face was like a drawn cord, his eyes green flames as he glared down at her.
“Sorry,” she said uneasily. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it. I just don’t think that a man, or a woman, who lives that permissively can ever settle down and be faithful. I want a stable marriage that children will fit into, not an endless round of new partners.”
“Children,” he scoffed.
“Yes, childre
n.” Her eyes softened as she thought of them. “A whole house full of them, one day, when I’m through school.”
“With Grange as their father?”
She gaped at him. “I just went to a movie with him, J.B.!”
“If you get involved with him, I’ll never forgive you,” he said in a voice as cold as the grave.
“Well, golly gee whiz, that would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it? Just think, I’d never get another present that you sent Jarrett to buy for me!”
His breath was coming quickly through his nose. His lips were flattened. He didn’t have a comeback. That seemed to make him angrier. He took another step toward her.
She backed up a step. “You should be happy to have me out of your life,” she pointed out uneasily. “I was never more than an afterthought anyway, J.B. Just a pest. All I did was get in your way.”
He stopped just in front of her. He looked oddly frustrated. “You’re still getting in my way,” he said enigmatically. “I know that no matter what Marge may have said, she and the girls were disappointed that you missed the barbecue. It’s the first time in seven years that you’ve done that, and for a man who represents as much hurt to Marge herself as he does to me.”
She frowned. “But why? She never knew Grange!”
“You told her what my father did,” he said deliberately.
She grimaced. “I didn’t mean to!” she confessed. “I didn’t want to. But she said it wouldn’t matter.”
“And you don’t know her any better than that, after so long in her house? She was devastated.”
She felt worse than ever. “I guess it was rough on you, too, when you found out what he’d done,” she said unexpectedly.
His expression was odd. Reserved. Uneasy. “I’ve never hated a human being so much in all my life,” he said huskily. “And he was dead. There was nothing I could do to him, no way I could pay him back for ruining my life and taking hers. You can’t imagine how I felt.”
“I’m sure he was sorry about it,” she said, having gleaned that from what Marge had said about the way he’d treated J.B. “You know he’d have taken it back if he could have. He must have loved you, very much. Marge said that he would have been afraid of losing you if he’d told the truth. You were his only son.”