“No, I didn’t.” He didn’t want to broach this subject with his mother but it needed to be said. He’d held his tongue for too many years and he knew how worried his mother had been when Burt had bought the mortgage.
He walked to the cupboard and took the cookie jar from her. “Let’s sit.”
She blinked at him but didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He could see that same fear in her eyes.
“It’s okay, Mom. Everything’s going to be okay.” He held out a chair for her.
She sank into it. “What do you mean, Tanner?”
“I mean, I’m taking care of the mortgage for you.” The hope that leapt into her eyes was his reward and confirmed that he should be here, live the lie Juliet concocted, for more than just her grandmother.
“But how—?” She covered her mouth. “Your trust fund.” Now his mother’s eyes grew hard. Determined. “No, Tanner. I won’t allow it. That money is yours and it is not meant to bail your father and I out. I will not hear of it.”
“Mom—”
“No. You can’t do it.” She stood and twisted the dish towel that was hanging from her apron pocket. “You have lost out on so much already in your life. All the things that should have been—” She didn’t need to recite the list; they knew it by heart. “I won’t have you losing your future, too. That money is for you. To buy a home, pay student loans, get a car. Whatever you want to do. My father set it up for just that reason and I won’t have you handing it over to us. We won’t take it.”
“Mom, hang on. You misunderstand.”
“No, I don’t. You can’t work up some scheme to tell me that you’re not really doing it when that’s the only way you possibly could. I won’t allow it, Tanner, do you hear me? I won’t. I’d rather live in the poor house than see you give up that financial cushion because of your father’s… well, his troubles.”
“Mom, Dad has a gambling addiction. It’s not just a trouble.”
“Be that as it may, Tanner, you are not to concern yourself with it. We will get the ranch back. Your father, he’s working harder than he ever has and we’re able to see daylight again. It’ll be all right. I promise you.”
He grabbed her hands. “No, Mom, what you don’t understand is that I’m not going to use my trust fund to get it. Juliet’s giving it to me. Free and clear.”
Now her mouth fell open and for once, she didn’t have a thing to say.
But he could see the question in her eyes. “Because I’m helping her with something, and for that, she’s willing to forgive the debt.”
Tears slipped from the corner of her eyes. “Why? What could you possibly be doing?”
He exhaled and released her hands, and leaned back in the knot of hard wood on the chair back. “I’m pretending to be her husband.”
“But I thought you were. Didn’t you just say you weren’t divorced?”
“Yes, but we will be. We’re pretending that that’s not going to be the case, though, for her grandmother.”
“Her grandmother? “
“Nana had a stroke and she wasn’t recovering well. Juliet thought if her grandmother had something happy to focus on, that she’d want to get better. And it worked. She got well enough to be discharged from the hospital before I came. And now she’s doing a lot better. Still tired and has some coordination issue with her one hand, but she’s up and about. Even went to get her hair done the other day.”
“All because you’ve come back to town?”
“Well, because she’s seeing Juliet’s happy and that’s making her happy.”
“But what’s going to happen when Juliet’s sad?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Tanner. You know Juliet. Heck, everyone knows how Juliet feels about you. Do you think for one minute that she’s just going to be able to watch you walk out of her life again and be happy about it?”
“She has to be. It’s our agreement. She just wants her grandmother to get better.”
His mother drummed her fingers on the table. “Well, it’s already done, I guess, so there’s nothing we can do about it now but see it through, but let me be the first one to tell you that I don’t ever want you pretending to be something you’re not for me. And I can guarantee you Penelope doesn’t want that, so you and Juliet need to come to a decision. This limbo you’re both floating in isn’t good for anybody.”
“It’s just for a little while. My birthday at the latest, ironically, though her grandmother is doing so well that it might be over sooner so we can end this.”
“The lie or the marriage?”
“They’re one and the same.”
His mother cocked her head. “Are they?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned forward and cupped his cheek. “I see the way you look when you say her name. The same way you always have. You still care for Juliet and you have a history together.”
“A not-so-great history if you remember.”
“I remember. But I also remember how in love you two were. She was young. You were young. She was scared that you’d leave her.”
“Mom, she planned to get pregnant.”
“I know, sweetheart. But you weren’t exactly making sure it didn’t happen.”
“I wore a condom.” He couldn’t believe he was having this discussion with his mother. His father had read him the riot act at the time—not for the fact that there was a baby involved but because he couldn’t play ball.
His mother opened the cookie jar and pulled out three. She set two on a napkin in front of him on the table and used the other one as a pointer. “But condoms aren’t one hundred percent effective, Tanner. Everyone knows that. So it was always a possibility. You were taking a risk with Juliet every time.” She took a bite of the cookie, wiping stray crumbs with the back of her hand. “Who’s to say, if she hadn’t done what she did, that she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant anyway? Who would you blame then? It’s the nature of the beast, Tanner. If you play with fire, you could get burned. And the more you play with it, the bigger the risk. You got burned. But it wasn’t so bad, was it? I remember how thrilled you were with Keegan. How you and Juliet decorated the nursery and how you kept rubbing her belly. It was sweet. Just like love is.”
Tanner tapped the edge of the cookie on his napkin. “So what are you saying? That I should forgive her for ruining the life I’d planned and just let bygones be bygones and stay married to her as if nothing had happened?”
His mother took her time taking another bite and chewing it thoroughly, making him squirm under her scrutiny.
Finally, she finished. “In a word, yes. Sure, she’s made some decisions that weren’t the best, but at the core, it was because she loved you. She was afraid of losing you.”
“Yet she did.”
“Exactly. Do you think that girl hasn’t paid enough all these years? Self-recrimination is a horrible thing to have to live with.” His mother blinked and looked away. “I should know.”
Tanner took a bite of the cookie. Or rather, a chomp. “Yet you’re still married to him, Mom. Why?”
She sucked in a breath and blinked, then cleared her throat. “Because I love him. Because there is good in him. Oh, I know you thought I enabled him, and maybe I did, but I like to think that I’d stopped him from being worse. That without me, he would have lost everything.”
“But you could have lost the ranch, Mom, if Mr. Chambers hadn’t stepped in.”
“But he did and we didn’t. And we still won’t, even without your help. Because your father, with my love and support, got help.”
“What sort of help?”
“He’s going to counseling. Has been for a while. He let someone else handle the books. We now have an accountant. Becky is so meticulous in making sure everything is done the right way that we finally have some extra. And your father doesn’t gamble it away. He’s taken me to a couple of nice dinners. Gave me the money to buy a new dress. Is talking about taking a vacation next year. Imagin
e that. A vacation. I can’t remember the last one we took.”
Tanner did. It was to the state fair the summer he made Varsity. After that, the betting on his games had begun. Or, if it’d started before, it’d escalated to a point where his father couldn’t sustain it.
“So it’s working, then? The therapy?”
“Something is. I haven’t seen him this happy in years.”
“That’s not what my buddy Rick said. He said Dad doesn’t look the same.”
“Oh he’s not. He lost weight. I tell him he’s working too hard, but he just shrugs it off and goes about his business. But he gets up every morning and is right there with all the hands. And then… then, at night, he goes to the fishing shop downtown. He’s started putting in some time there. Says it relaxes him. Soothes his mind. And the pay isn’t bad. Gives us our little extra.”
His father had a part-time job on top of running the ranch? He’d hired someone to do his bills? Tanner couldn’t imagine they were talking about the same man who was so controlling over his business that he kept the books locked up in the safe in his office.
Something didn’t compute.
“But a little extra isn’t going to pay off the mortgage, Mom. Let me do this. Hell, let Juliet do this. She owes me. She owes all of us.”
Mom slid her hand across the table to grab his. “Forgive her, Tanner. It’s not good to have that much anger inside of you. It colors your thinking. Your perception. She made a mistake. Lord knows, none of us is perfect.”
“She made two.”
“Okay, so she made two. But how many other right decisions did she make? Surely there was something good you saw in her or you wouldn’t have been with her to begin with. Focus on the good, not the bad. Life’s too short for the bad.”
So she wanted him to, what? Enable Juliet to run his life? No thank you.
That had happened before and everything had been out of his control. He’d been powerless to stop losing everything he’d wanted in life, from the pregnancy to the miscarriage to his scholarship and even to marrying Juliet—it’d all been decided for him, the ability to choose his own way taken from him. That’s why he’d left; he’d needed to regain control of his life.
And now he had.
Some control. You’re hiding a couple hundred miles from your friends, your family, everything you grew up with. Is resentment toward Juliet worth this? Did it get you anywhere other than sitting in your mother’s kitchen eating cookies? What kind of life it this? Limbo is the right word. Jesus, dude, live a little.
He was living, dammit. Or, he had been before he’d been forced back here by Juliet.
She didn’t force you; she asked you. Big difference. This time, you had your eyes wide open to come back here. You came back because you decided to, not any other reason. Think about exactly why that is.
He didn’t need to. He knew exactly why he was doing what he was doing, and why he’d done what he’d done.
And it wasn’t about the mortgage, was it?
Damn that little voice of reason.
He shoved his chair back from the table. “I gotta go, Mom.”
“Oh, but your father—”
‘I’ll see him another time. Right now, I just need to think.”
“You’ve had seven years to think, sweetheart. Don’t you think it’s time you started acting instead?”
Her words had him spinning around. “Acting? I’ve been moving non-stop since I left here.”
“I know. Too busy to come home. Making your way in the world. It’s why I didn’t insist that you come back. I knew you needed time on your own. Remember, Tanner, Keegan was our grandson. We loved him every bit as much as you did. As much as we love you.”
Those words were like a blow to his heart. He hadn’t thought… Hadn’t realized…
Now he really needed to think.
“Mom, I have to… I have to go.”
“Just don’t go far this time, Tanner. You can’t outrun your memories.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
He tried to. Lord, did he try to. But it seemed, as he went for a jog to clear his head, as if he was running toward them.
Tanner slowed his pace as Juliet pulled into her driveway when he was half a block from her house. He slid in behind an overgrown bush someone seriously needed to trim off the sidewalk. But right now, he was enjoying the hiding space it provided him.
Hiding space? Really? From his own wife? A girl he’d known his entire life?
Or so he’d thought.
But this Juliet… He watched her climb out of her car, the leg she was showing making his mouth go dry in a way his run hadn’t. He didn’t know this Juliet. That dress should only be for nights on the town. With him. No one else should see her in it and he was suddenly very angry that that Steve guy probably had. That any number of guys probably had.
He watched her round the back of her car, the dress clinging to her backside. And those heels she wore… son of a bitch, they had straps that wrapped around her ankles.
He ought to just keep running.
But his mother was right. That was the realization he’d come to during his run. He and Juliet needed to talk. To clear the air. To say things that needed to be said. They weren’t kids anymore and if this was the end of it, the end of their relationship and their marriage and everything that’d gone on between them for the past almost thirty years, there needed to be some closure.
And if it wasn’t…
Which did he want?
That was the ultimate question: what did he want? A lifetime of painful memories of a woman he’d once loved? Or a life with the woman he still loved?
He stumbled. He still loved her? How? Why? Just because she’d, what? Grown up? Gone to college? Was running her father’s company? Had swallowed her pride and her hurt enough to come find him not for herself but for her grandmother?
Yes. Those. They were reasons to look at the Juliet he’d known before and see she was so much more now.
Maybe there was a chance for them.
His mother’s words ringing in his ears, Tanner jogged to the front door. They needed to talk.
Unfortunately, when he walked inside, he heard her in the shower. That would not be the place to hold the conversation he wanted to have.
And then he heard her singing.
He had to laugh. Juliet had a beautiful voice—it’d been her talent in her pageants—but the woman could not sing a country song to save her life. Since he didn’t like country music, it wasn’t an issue, but Juliet did. So she sang. Tried to put the twang in there, but it came out sounding like she’d garbled the words. It’d irked her no end while it’d made him smile.
Like he was doing now.
Juliet made him smile. She made him laugh. She made him feel things.
Feel alive.
That was it, this feeling coursing through him. It wasn’t the high from his run—that paled in comparison. Juliet made the world seem brighter, the days longer, the nights better, the highs higher, the lows lower…
He looked around her home. It said so much about her. She’d worked and studied to be able to make it on her own. Make her way. The house wasn’t grandiose or overdone, but with just enough rooms and decorated comfortably… The perfect home for her.
And she was home for him.
He exhaled. This could all be his if he just forgave her.
“Meow.”
The kitten wound against his ankles, her green eyes blinking up at him.
He picked her up. She, too, reminded him of what a home should be. Buddy had given his apartment life. Had filled the emptiness of being alone in it. Since the cat had died, he’d been there as little as possible because it just wasn’t the same. Yet he hadn’t gotten another cat.
He knew why. He’d been protecting himself from caring. From loving someone or something so that he wouldn’t have to lose someone again. But that wasn’t living.
This, having a home, someone to come home to, sharing the highs and lows
of life, the cares and the triumphs… That was living. That was what life was about. His mother was right. Juliet’s grandmother was right.
He did still love her and he wanted to make that life together happen.
He set the kitten on the sofa then stripped off his shirt and flung it down the hallway toward the laundry room, stepping out of his running shoes and shorts on the way to the bathroom.
His wife was in there and it was time he started living again.
Juliet washed the shampoo out of her eyes as she finished the Rascal Flats song, wishing she could wash the image of that pouch out of her mind just as easily.
Why couldn’t Tanner’s father have waited to give it to her? Why’d it have to be now? Why not next month when it’d be a moot point? But now she had the responsibility of telling Tanner, giving him the perfect reason to leave. The mortgage hold would be gone, he’d have his trust fund, and Nana was definitely on the road to recovery. He’d have no reason to stay.
Unless she gave him one.
She brushed the water out of her eyes. What other reason could she give him? They’d slept together but that hadn’t changed things. They needed time to be together for him to forgive her. And hopefully fall in love with her again.
That was the thing; there was no guarantee he would. And that was what scared her the most. The idea of her life without Tanner in it…
Now she brushed some tears out of her eyes.
She didn’t want to lose him, but if he found out about his dad’s money, she would.
She straightened her spine. She wasn’t a teenager anymore; she was an adult. One who had to own up to the truth and deal with the chips as they fell. She had to come clean. No more playing games.
She’d tell him when he got home.
She picked up the soap and was about to launch into her favorite Carrie Underwood song when the door to the bathroom opened.
“Tanner?”
He shoved back the shower curtain over the tub and there he stood in all his naked glory.
And it was glorious.
“You were expecting someone else?” He stepped into the tub.
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