Heartbreaker

by Diana Palmer

  “You can’t help that. You can’t love people just because they want you to,” Marge said wisely. “Tellie’s going to make some lucky man a wonderful wife,” she added gently. “She’ll be the best mother a child could want. Don’t rob her of that potential by giving her false hope.”

  Tellie, with a child. The anguish he felt was shocking. Tellie, married to another man, having children with another man, growing old with another man. He’d never considered the possibility that Tellie could turn her affections to someone else. He’d assumed that she’d always worship him. He’d given her the best reason on earth to hate him, by mocking her love for him.

  “I’ve been taking a long look at myself,” he said quietly. “I didn’t like what I saw. I’ve been so busy protecting myself from pain that I’ve inflicted it on Tellie continuously. I didn’t mean to. It was self-defense.”

  “It was cruel,” Marge agreed. “Throwing Bella up to her, parading the woman here in Tellie’s home, taunting her for wanting to take care of you.” She shook her head. “I’m amazed that she was strong enough to take it all these years. I couldn’t have.”

  “What about Grange?” he asked bitterly.

  “What about him?” she replied. “She’s very fond of him, and vice versa. But he isn’t really in the running right now. He’s a man with a past, a rebel who isn’t comfortable in domestic surroundings. He likes having someone to take to the movies, but he’s years away from being comfortable with even the idea of marriage.”

  That made J.B. feel somewhat better. Not a lot. He was thinking how miserable Tellie must be, having been force-fed the most horrible memories of her recent life. Coltrain said that her mind had been hiding from the trauma of the past. He didn’t know that J.B. was responsible for it. He kept seeing Tellie on the gurney as she came into the emergency room, bruised and bleeding, and unconscious. If Grange hadn’t shown up, Tellie would have drowned. He’d have had two dead women on his conscience, when one had always been too many.

  The thought of Tellie, dead, was nauseating. She’d looked up to him since her early teens, followed him around, ached to just have him look at her. He’d denigrated those tender feelings and made her look like a lovesick fool. That, too, had been frustration, because he wanted a woman’s passion from Tellie and she hadn’t been able to give it to him. Not until now. He was sorry he’d been cruel to her in his anguish. But he couldn’t go back and do it over again. He had to find some way back to Tellie. Some way to make up for what he’d done to her. Some way to convince her that he wanted a future with her.

  “Tell her that I’m sorry,” he said through his teeth. “She won’t believe it, I know, but tell her anyway.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  He met her eyes. “For everything.”

  “She’ll be all right,” Marge told him. “Really she will. She’s stronger than I ever imagined.”

  “She’s had so little love in her life,” he recalled bitterly. “Her mother didn’t really care much for her. She lost her grandfather at the time she needed him most. I shoved her off onto you and took it for granted that she’d spend her life looking up to me like some sort of hero.” He drew in a long breath. “She was assaulted, you know, when she was fourteen. I’ve pushed that to the back of my mind and neither of us insisted that she go on with therapy after a few short sessions. Maybe those memories had her on the rack, and she couldn’t even talk about them.”

  Marge chuckled. “Think so? Tellie beat the stuffing out of the little creep and testified against him, as well. He never even got to touch her inappropriately. No, she’s over that, honestly.”

  “Even if she is, I made her suffer for having the gall to develop a crush on me.”

  He sounded disgusted with himself. Marge could have told him that it was no crush that lasted for years and years and took all sorts of punishment for the privilege of idolizing him. But he probably knew already.

  He looked up at the darkening sky. “I know how it must look, that I’ve had Bella staying at the house, and taken her on trips with me. But I’ve never slept with her,” he added with brutal honesty.

  Marge’s eyebrows arched. That was an odd admission, from a rounder like her brother. “It can’t be from lack of encouragement,” she pointed out.

  “No,” he agreed. “It couldn’t.”

  She felt inadequate to the task at hand. She wondered if she was doing the right thing by asking him not to approach Tellie. But she didn’t really know what else there was to do. She felt sorry for both of them, especially for her brother who’d apparently discovered feelings for Tellie too late.

  “I don’t want a wife right now,” he said, but without the old conviction. “She knows that, anyway.”

  “Sure she does,” his sister agreed.

  He turned and looked down at her with soft affection. “You doing okay?”

  She nodded, smiling. “Nell’s going to be a treasure. I can’t do a lot of the stuff I used to, and the girls hate cooking and housework. With Tellie gone, it’s up to us to manage. Nell will make my life so much easier. I can probably even go back to work when the medicine takes hold.”

  “Do you want to?” he asked curiously.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m not the sort of person who enjoys staying at home with nothing intellectually challenging to do. I’d at least like to work on committees or help with community projects. Money isn’t enough. Happiness takes more than a padded bank account.”

  “I’m finding that out,” J.B. agreed, smiling. “You take care of yourself. If you need me, I’m just at the other end of the phone.”

  “I know that. I love you,” she said, hugging him warmly.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Me, too.” Expressing emotion was hard for him. She knew it.

  She pulled away. “Go home and eat your frozen dinner.”

  He grimaced. “I sent Bella home in a cab. It’s probably carbon by now.”

  “Albert will fix you something.”

  “When he finds out why Tellie’s gone, I wouldn’t bet on having anything edible in the near future.”

  “There are good restaurants all over Jacobsville,” she pointed out.

  He laughed good-naturedly. “I suppose I’ll find one. Take care.”

  “You, too. Good night.”

  She closed the door and went back inside. Tellie’s light was off when she went upstairs. The younger woman was probably worn completely out from the day’s turmoil. She wished Tellie had never spent any time with J.B. at all. Maybe then she’d have been spared so much heartache.

  Tellie was hard at work on her last day at the feedlot. It was a sweltering hot Friday, and storm clouds were gathering on the horizon. The wind was moving at a clip fast enough to stand the state flag out from its flagpole. When she went to lunch, sand blew right into her face as she climbed into Marge’s car to drive home and eat.

  The wind pushed the little car all over the road. It wasn’t raining yet, but it looked as if it might rain buckets full.

  She turned on the radio. There was a weather bulletin, noting that a tornado watch was in effect for Jacobsville and surrounding counties until late that afternoon. Tellie was afraid of tornadoes. She hoped she never had to contend with one as long as she lived.

  She ate a quick lunch, surrounded by Marge and Nell and the girls, since it was a teacher workday and they weren’t in school. But when she was ready to leave, the skies were suddenly jet-black and the wind was roaring like a lion outside.

  “Don’t you dare get in that car,” Marge threatened.

  “Look at the color of those clouds,” Nell added, looking past them out the door.

  The clouds were a neon-green, and there was a strange shape growing in them, emphasized by the increasing volume and force of the wind.

  While they stood on the porch with the doors open, the sound of a siren broke into the dull rumble of thunder.

  “Is that an ambulance?” Dawn asked curiously.

  “No,” Nell said at on
ce. “It’s the tornado alert, it’s the siren on top of the courthouse.” She ran for the weather radio, and found it ringing its batteries off. There was a steady red light on the console. Even before it blared out the words tornado warning, Nell knew what was coming.

  “We have to get into the basement, right now!” Nell said, rushing to the hall staircase. “Come on!”

  They piled after her, down the carpeted stairs and into the basement, into the room that had been especially built in case of tornadoes. It was steel-reinforced, with battery-powered lights and radio, water, provisions and spare batteries. The wind was audible even down there, now.

  They closed themselves into the sheltered room and sat down on the carpeted floor to wait it out. Nell turned on the battery-powered scanner and instead of the weather, she turned to the fire and police frequencies.

  Sharp orders in deep voices heralded the first of the damage. One fire and rescue unit was already on its way out Caldwell Road from a report of a trailer being demolished. There came other reports, one after another. A roof was off this building, a barn collapsed, there were trees down in the road, trees down on power lines, trees falling on cars. It was the worst damage Tellie had heard about in her young life.

  She thought about J.B., alone in his house with memories of his grandmother dying in such a storm. She wished she could stop caring about what happened to him. She couldn’t. He was too much a part of her life, regardless of the treatment he’d handed out to her.

  “I hope J.B.’s all right,” Tellie murmured as the overhead light flickered and went out on the heels of a violent burst of thunder.

  “So do I,” Marge replied. “But he’s got a shelter of his own. I’m sure he’s in it.”

  The violence outside escalated. Tellie hid her head in her crossed arms and prayed that nobody would be killed.

  Several minutes later, Nell eased the door open and listened for a minute before she went up the staircase. She was back shortly.

  “It’s over,” she called to the others. “There’s a little thunder, but it’s far away, and you can see some blue sky. There are two big oak trees down in the front yard, though.”

  “I hope nobody got hurt,” Marge mumbled as they went up the staircase.

  “Call the house,” Tellie pleaded with Nell. “Make sure J.B.’s all right.”

  Nell grimaced, but she did it. Argue they might, but she was fond of her old boss. The others stared at Nell while she listened. She winced and put down the receiver with a sad face.

  “The lines are down,” she said worriedly.

  “We could drive over there and see,” Dawn suggested.

  Tellie recalled painfully the last time she’d driven over to J.B.’s place to tell him about a disaster. She couldn’t bear to do it again.

  “We can’t get out of the driveway,” Marge said uneasily. “One of the oaks is blocking the whole driveway.”

  “Give me your cell phone,” Nell told Marge. “I’ll call my cousin at the police department and get him to have someone check.”

  The joy of small-town life, Tellie was thinking. Surely the police could find out for them if J.B. was safe. Tellie prayed silently while Nell waited for her cousin to come to the phone.

  She listened, spoke into the phone, and then listened again, grimacing. She thanked her cousin and put down the phone, facing the others with obvious reluctance.

  “The tornado hit J.B.’s house and took off the corner where his office was. He’s been taken to the hospital. My cousin doesn’t know how bad he’s hurt. There were some fatalities,” she added, wincing when she saw their faces go white. Arguments and disagreements aside, J.B. was precious to everyone in the room.

  Tellie spoke for all of them. “I’m going to the hospital,” she said, “if I have to walk the whole five miles!”

  Eleven

  As it happened, they managed to get around the tree in their raincoats and walk out to the main highway. It was still raining, but the storm was over. Marge got on her cell phone and called her friend Barbara, who phoned one of the local firemen, an off-duty officer who agreed to pick them up and take them to the hospital.

  When they got there, J.B. was in the emergency room sitting on an examination table, grinning. He had a cut across his forehead and a bruise on his bare shoulder, but his spirit seemed perfectly unstoppable.

  Tellie almost ran to him. Almost. But just as she tensed to do it, a blond head came into view under J.B.’s other arm. Bella, in tears, sobbing, as she clung to J.B.’s bare chest mumbling how happy she was that he wasn’t badly hurt.

  She drew back and Marge and Nell and the girls joined her, out of sight of J.B. and Bella.

  “You go ahead,” she told them. “But…don’t tell him I was here. Okay?”

  Marge nodded, the others agreed. They understood without a word of explanation. “Go on out front, honey,” Marge said gently. “We’ll find you there when we’re through.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” Tellie said huskily, with a forced smile. Her heart was breaking all over again.

  As Marge and the girls moved into the cubicle, Tellie walked back to the front entrance where there were chairs and a sofa around the information desk. She couldn’t bring herself to walk into that room. J.B. hadn’t looked as if he disliked Bella, despite what Marge had told her about his anger that Bella had spilled the beans about Tellie’s past. He looked amazingly content, and his arm had been firm and close around Bella’s shoulders.

  Why, Tellie asked herself, did she continually bash her stupid head against brick walls? Love was such a painful emotion. Someday, she promised herself, she was going to learn how to turn it off. At least, as far as J. B. Hammock was concerned!

  She didn’t see Bella walk past the waiting room. She hardly looked up until Marge and the girls came back.

  “He’s going to be all right,” Marge told her, hugging her gently. “Just a few cuts and bruises, nothing else. Let’s go home.”

  Tellie smiled back, but only with her eyes.

  J.B. buttoned his shirt while Bella stood waiting with his tie. He felt empty. Tellie hadn’t even bothered to come and see about him. Nothing in recent years had hurt so much. She’d finally given up on him for good.

  “We can get Albert to fix you something nice for breakfast,” Bella said brightly.

  “I’m not hungry.” He took the tie and put it in place. “At least Marge and the girls cared enough to brave the storm to see me. Tellie couldn’t be bothered, I guess,” he said bitterly.

  “She was in the waiting room,” Bella said blankly.

  He scowled. “Doing what?”

  Bella shrugged one thin shoulder. “Crying.”

  Crying. She’d come to see about him after all, but she hadn’t come into the room? Then he remembered that when Marge and the girls came in, he had Bella in his arms. He winced mentally. No wonder Tellie had taken off like that. She thought…

  He looked down at Bella shrewdly. “I’m going to have to let Albert go,” he said with calculated sadness. “With all the damage the storm did to the house and barn, I’m going to go in the hole for sure. It’s been a bad year for cattle ranchers anyway.”

  Bella was very still. “You mean, you might lose everything?”

  He nodded. “Well, I don’t mind hard work. It’s a challenge to start from scratch. You can move in with me, Bella, and take over the housekeeping and cooking…”

  “I, uh, I have an invitation from my aunt in the Bahamas to come stay the summer with her,” Bella said at once. “I’m really sorry, J.B., but I’m not the pioneering type, and I hate housework.” She smiled. “It was fun while it lasted.”

  “Yes,” he said, hiding a smile. “It was.”

  The next day was taken up finding insurance adjusters and contractors to repair the damage at the ranch. He’d lost several head of livestock to injuries from falling trees and flying debris. The barn would have to be rebuilt, and the front part of the house would need some repair, as well. He wasn’t worried, thou
gh. He could well afford what needed doing. He smiled at his subterfuge with Bella. As he’d suspected, she’d only wanted him for as long as she thought he was rich and could take her to five-star restaurants and buy her expensive presents.

  When he had the repairs in hand, he put on a gray vested business suit, polished boots and his best creamy Stetson, and went over to Marge’s to have a showdown with Tellie.

  Nell opened the door, her eyes guilty and welcoming all at once. “Glad you’re okay, boss,” she said stiffly.

  “Me, too,” he agreed. “Where is everybody?”

  “In the kitchen. We’re just having lunch. There’s plenty,” she added.

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her wrinkled forehead with genuine affection. “I’ve missed you,” he said simply, and walked her into the kitchen.

  Marge and the girls looked up, smiling happily. They all rushed to hug him and fuss over him.

  “Nell made minestrone,” Marge said. “Sit down and have a bowl with us.”

  “It smells delicious,” he remarked, putting his hat on the counter. He sat down, looking around curiously. “Where’s Tellie?”

  There was a long silence. Marge put down her spoon. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone?” he exclaimed. “Where?”

  “To Houston,” Marge replied sadly. “She phoned some classmates and found an apartment she could share, then she phoned the dean at home and arranged to teach as an adjunct for night classes. Orientation was today, so she was able to sign up for her master’s classes.”

  J.B. looked at his bowl with blind eyes. Tellie had gone away. She’d seen him with Bella, decided that he didn’t want her, cut her losses and run for the border. Added to what she’d remembered, the painful things he’d said to her the day of the wreck, he couldn’t blame her for that. She didn’t know how drastically he’d changed toward her. Now he’d have to find a way back into her life. It wasn’t going to be easy. She’d never fully trust him again.