That Boy From Trash Town

by Billie Green

  "Mad? Mad? That doesn't even come close to describing how I feel. What in holy hell do you think you're doing? Do you know how scared your mother is? And your uncle—" He broke off and gave a short laugh as he raked a hand through his hair. "Your distinguished uncle has very quietly, very discreetly, gone right around the bend. He's been calling out the FBI, the CIA, Pinkerton's and the sainted Mounted Police! Where is the Jaguar? Why in hell are you driving a car that's older than you are? Damn it, Whitney, do you have, any idea what you've done? I've been chasing after you for ova: a week. My practice is going down the tubes and I can't do a damn thing about it because I'm too busy wandering around skid row hunting for you."

  "Who asked you to?" she demanded through clenched teeth. "Do you see me sending up smoke signals? I was doing just fine. At least I was until you strolled in looking like a Wall Street version of James Bond. I can take care of myself, thank you very much. And like I said, who asked you?"

  Dean stared at her face in the dim light. She had that look he remembered so well. Stubborn, rebellious. God, it was good to see her. He hadn't dreamed it would take so long to catch up with her, and each day that had passed without finding her had intensified his fear. He had told himself that when he found her he would kill her. But first he would hold her so tight that she wouldn't be able to breathe.

  Of course, at the time Dean hadn't known that when he finally did find her, she would be wrapped around some stranger in a bar.

  Once again, he forced the anger down. "Your mother asked me," he said. "She's really worried about you, Whit. And if she knew I found you wandering around a parking lot in the middle of the night, she'd have a very refined hissy fit." He paused. "You have a right to your own life, honey, but surely you can see this is no kind of place for you."

  Whitney stared straight ahead, willing herself not to be seduced by the caring in his voice. "What you mean is, Rick's might be all right for someone else, but not for a pampered, useless Harcourt brat." She shook her head, annoyed that she was letting the hurt show in her voice. "I'm doing just fine, Dean. Since I've been coming here, you're the only one who's given me any real trouble.

  "Whitney."

  Whitney didn't look at him, but she felt his gaze on her as he spoke.

  "Whitney, I'm sorry.. .I'm really sorry about the things I said when— That day in my bedroom, you took me by surprise, honey. That's all there is to it."

  "I didn't know you needed a warning before you could see me. Do you have to prepare yourself to be nice to me?"

  When he hesitated, as though he were having trouble formulating an answer, a tiny, piercing pain went right to the center of her.

  "And that kiss just now?" she asked, her voice hard with suppressed emotion. "You can't say I caught you by surprise tonight. And if it was supposed to be some kind of object lesson, I'm afraid you supped right into overkill."

  "Don't you damn well mink you could use—" He broke off and drew in a slow breath. When he continued, his voice was calm once again. "No, I wasn't trying to show you what can happen when you don't watch your step. My only excuse is, I was mad as hell. You know what my temper's like."

  "I'm beginning to find out," she muttered. "Forget it, Dean. I have. It doesn't matter anymore."

  Lies, she told herself sadly, all lies. It mattered more than she cared to think about. It mattered more than he would ever know.

  She turned and met his eyes. "Since you're here, in Dallas, I assume you know I came here to look for my father." When he nodded, she said, "I found him, Dean. That's why I'm at Rick's. That's why I'm living in this part of town. I want to be close to him. I want to get to know him. I want to let him get to know me.

  "The man at your table? Did he recognize you? Does he know who you are?"

  "No, not yet. I can't tell him yet." She bit her lip. "It's complicated... but the reasons don't really matter. The important thing is, we're building a friendship. We're right on the brink of getting close." She gave her head a little shake. "This is important to me, Dean. I'm not going to give up now."

  Dean exhaled a slow breath. It hurt a little that she felt she had to explain how important her father was to her. Hadn't he tried for most of his life to help her cope with Lloyd Grant's absence? Hadn't he held her in his arms when she cried from grief that, although diminishing through the years, never quite left her?

  "Okay," he said slowly, "I can see you feel deeply about this. And I'm glad you found your father. You can't doubt that." He glanced at her. "Do you like him, Whit? Is he the way you remembered?"

  Whitney had opened her mouth to tell him about the gentle, troubled man she'd found, to explain about the insecurity she felt when she thought about telling Lloyd who she really was, but before the words were fully formed, she swallowed them. She couldn't force Dean back into the role of counselor and confidant. She had to deal with this on her own.

  "I like him," she said simply. "He looks different from the man in my memories, and right now we're not much more than casual friends, but I think maybe there's some kind of genetic bond, or maybe we're simply on the same wavelength. Whatever it is, I can feel us pulling closer. It's like real affection, true affinity, is just sitting there waiting for us to discover it,"

  She smiled. "I'm learning to be patient, Dean. That should please you. And in the meantime, I have my job at the factory." Whitney felt more than saw his startled reaction. "Oh, yes," she said with a smile. "I have a real honest-to-goodness job. I use my background in art to get all those little wheels symmetrically arranged on those little toy trucks."

  "Assembly line?" The words sounded strangely choked.

  "Yup," she said cheerfully. "And I don't want to hear any disparaging remarks. We blue-collar workers are very sensitive to slurs. We take a great deal of pride in what we do. And for your information, I like my work. Very much. I work hard all day, come out here to Rick's to unwind with my friends, then go home to my new apartment to sleep the sleep of the righteous."

  "I knew about the apartment," he said slowly. "That's how I found you tonight, but the rest..." IBs voice faded away, and he leaned forward to rest his chin on the steering wheel. "You'll have to give me a minute to take in the rest of it. An assembly line, Whit?"

  She laughed. "Believe it or not, I'm getting good at it. Mother would have a stroke if she saw me. I even wear a scarf to keep my hair out of the way. Frankly, I think the peasant look suits me."

  After a moment, she turned to meet his eyes in the dim light. "The fact is, my whole life suits me now, Dean. So if you came here to take me back, you'll have to forget it. I'm staying."

  A long moment passed before he spoke. "I told your mother that I would let you make your own decisions. I refused to either force or coerce you." His lips twisted in a rueful smile. "It's easy to be unbiased from a distance, but now that I'm here, I find my objectivity is shot to hell. I am biased, Whitney. I might as well admit that up front. And I'm worried about you. You were never taught the coping skills necessary to survive in this kind of place.

  She turned away from the affectionate anxiety in his eyes. "You're wrong," she said quietly. "You taught me. You taught me to adapt, to handle any new situation that came along. Without flinching. Without complaining.'' She drew in a slow breath and turned to look at him again. "These people... They like me, Dean."

  He made a sound of exasperation. "Of course they like you. That was a stupid thing to say."

  "Not so stupid." Her lips curved in a small smile. "What I meant was, they like me without knowing I'm a Harcourt. Back home, I was treated with respect, even awe, because of who I was. But here, they respect me for what I am. That kind of thing is addictive, Dean." She paused. "I need to stay here and get some answers. I need to know why Daddy left, why he never came back, or even got in touch with me. And I need to know what kind of person he is when I look at him from an adult perspective instead of with the adoration of a little girl. But—and maybe this is the most important thing—I also need to find out what kind of p
erson Whitney Grant is."

  She reached out and touched his cheek. "I'm sorry if I caused problems for you. I never wanted to do that" She let her hand fall to her lap. "Go home now,

  Dean. And stop worrying about me. I'm fine." She bit her lip. "Tell my mother I'll call her when...when I'm settled in."

  He nodded slowly. "If that's what you want," he said finally. After a moment he moved to open the door. "You'll take care?" he asked without looking at her as he stepped from the car.

  "Sure," she said, keeping her voice light. "And you do the same."

  She slid into the driver's seat and watched Dean walk away, into the darkness, out of her life, then she started the Buick and pulled out of the parking lot

  Fifteen minutes later, when she walked into her apartment, Whitney turned on everything. All the lights, the television and the radio in the kitchen.

  It didn't work. The noise and lights didn't even begin to fill the rooms. Although Dean had never been in her apartment, she still felt his absence keenly. And she still had to live goodbye all over again.

  When her neighbor to the east began to pound on the wall, Whitney turned everything off, took a shower, and climbed into bed. As she lay on top of the covers, she stared at the ceiling and willed her body to relax. Tonight she wouldn't pull up memories of him, and she wouldn't fantasize about a someday wedding.

  But there was no way she could keep from thinking of him, about the way he'd looked tonight. Had he lost weight? She was almost positive there were lines in Ins face that hadn't been there the last time she saw him. What had he been doing to himself? He probably wasn't eating right.

  She shifted restlessly on the bed. Being away from his work must have been hell for him. He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have neglected his work to come looking for her.

  It would be better for him now, she told herself. Now that they had actually said goodbye face-to-face, now that he had seen for himself that she was making a new life for herself, he would be able to forget about her and get on with his own life.

  And, acknowledging how well everything had worked out. Whitney rolled over and cried herself to sleep.

  * * *

  Dean closed his eyes so the redhead in the seat next to him would think he had fallen asleep. He was in no mood to flirt. In fact he was in no mood to be on this plane. Had he given in to his real mood, he would have stayed in Dallas and kicked somebody's butt out of sheer frustration, preferably the muscle-bound imbecile who had been kissing Whitney in that bar.

  Get a grip, Dean told himself. Wasn't this just exactly what he'd wanted? He had convinced himself that all he wanted was for Whitney to lose her dependency on him and have a normal life. That was why he had always been so open with her about the women he dated. Hell, it was why he was with the women in the first place, to convince her that she had to let go of her childish obsession for him.

  Not that Whitney hadn't had dates. She'd gone out with plenty of boys in high school. Prep-school types. Boys who were destined to have their names boldfaced in the society pages of the newspaper. Young men wearing natural fiber clothes, who came to her stamped with the Harcourt seal of approval.

  Whitney had dated them; she had even liked a few. But more often than not, she would come to Dean with a wicked imitation of the way they talked and walked and thought. The few she had liked, she kept as friends. All the others she had ruthlessly discarded, heedless of her mother and uncle's outrage.

  When Dean had grown exasperated, waiting for her to form even one romantic attachment, he had become more open with Whitney about the women he dated, trying to show her that he had a personal life, one that didn't include her.

  But, true to form, Whitney hadn't reacted as he'd expected her to. There had been no angry confrontations, no bouts of weeping. Although she made a show of jealousy, it was a teasing kind of thing. It was as though she were waiting, as though she knew that one day he would turn to her.

  And Dean pretended, even to himself, that her obstinacy made him angry. Tonight he had learned the truth. When he'd seen her in the arms of a stranger, he knew he had been lying to himself.

  Turning his head toward the window, he shifted in his seat. Learning the truth about himself was distinctly unpleasant. Disillusioning. He'd believed he was stronger. Now he could see that all along he had been feeding on Whitney's unassuming adoration, using it to sustain himself, to keep his head above water.

  No matter what he faced in the courtroom, no matter how many times he got knocked down, no matter what changes occurred in his life, he knew he could count on Whitney to stay the same. He knew she would be there for him, telling him that whatever happened, he would always be her hero. It was the one constant in his life. Whitney's laughing, loving devotion had grounded him.

  Opening his eyes, Dean stared out the window at the darkness. Clouds obscured the lights from the towns below and night obscured everything else. He had never liked flying at night. Planes were always smaller at night, the surrounding wall of black isolating. The interior of the plane became the whole world.

  He hadn't brought any work with him, which meant there Was nothing to keep his mind occupied, nothing to stop the memories.

  As he stared into the darkness, the window became a screen onto which his mind projected bits and pieces of the past. Flash cards of days gone by.

  There Dean could see the day he'd found her, sitting on the curb, no part of Trash Town but there just the same. And now a picture of Whitney showing him the beaver costume she would wear in her third-grade play. He saw her dressed in riding clothes and a little hard hat, holding up her first riding trophy. He saw her on the night before her first school dance, wearing the poufy pink dress her mother had chosen, the running shoes on her feet spoiling the too adorable look.

  And then the scene changed, and Dean saw the first time he'd known that he wanted her.

  Drawing in a deep, shaky breath, he closed his eyes against the vision, but it didn't help. It was still there, more vivid than ever.

  In the vision he was twenty-four and Whitney was sixteen. Even now, when he was looking at it rather than living it, Dean didn't know why it had happened at that particular moment. There had been no reason or rhyme to it. The jeans and T-shirt she wore were, by no definition of the word, provocative. And there had been nothing flirtatious either in her words or in her attitude.

  They had been sitting side by side on the back stoop, close but not touching, as she told him about sneaking out of Sweet House in the middle of the night so she could ride without anyone critiquing her performance on a horse. As she described the moonlight ride, sharing her feelings of exultation when she and the horse flew together across Harcourt land, Dean found himself watching her mouth. And that was when it happened. That was when he knew he wanted her.

  At twenty-four, physical needs held no mysteries for Dean. He had been with women. But he had never fete anything as overwhelming as what he felt right then, sitting on the steps beside Whitney.

  As she settled back, their bodies overlapped slightly and she leaned comfortably against him. It was the kind of touching that frequently took place in a friendly relationship. Nothing out of the ordinary. No sensual intent behind it. But, God, it felt sensual to Dean. And as she continued to talk, he suddenly realized his hand was resting on her waist. He had no idea how it got there, but now that it was, he couldn't seem to shift it. He felt the heat of her flesh burning into his palms as though the T-shirt were nothing more than a figment of his imagination. And when she moved her head, he felt each separate strand of black hair that brushed across his lips, as though they had taken on a life of their own, deliberately taunting him, willfully seducing him.

  As he held her in an almost embrace, every muscle in his body grew hard and tight and hot, and his breath came in labored drafts. He couldn't seem to concentrate on what she was saying. Although he could feel her laughter in the palm of his hand, he had no idea what caused it.

  When his hand began to move at
her waist, as though his fingers felt an independent need to touch more of her, Dean knew he had to stop it. Jerking abruptly away from her, he forced himself to stand up and move away, his hands shaking, his lungs on fire.

  He had spoken sharply to her then, telling her he didn't have time to sit around gossiping, and walking past her into the house, he had closed the door and locked it.

  Dean had known Whitney since she was six years old, and their relationship had never been simple. It wasn't merely friendship. And he didn't see her as a little sister. He wasn't sure just how to define the ties that held them together, but he had felt, felt from the very first day, that it was his job to take care of her.

  But on that day when she was sixteen, out of the blue he found himself wanting her with an unbelievable urgency. He wanted to take her. He wanted her naked beneath him. He wanted to feel her body moving beneath his. He wanted to taste her, every inch of her.

  The sensations were so strong—the scent of her in his nostrils, the taste of her on his tongue—that the very air around him felt electrically charged, as though he had actually felt her naked flesh against his.

  Confused and embarrassed, it had taken Dean weeks to get over the experience. And the worst part, the part that haunted his darkest hours, was that Dean knew he could have Whitney. He was her champion, and she made no secret of the fact that she had a crush on him. She was so warm and loving, she would have come to his bed gladly, joyfully.

  And sometimes, in the middle of a sleepless night when desperation took hold of him, he considered asking her to do just that. He considered using her misguided, unformed emotions to get what he was so desperately wanted.

  He was ashamed that he had even allowed the thought to cross his mind, but shame didn't make the craving for her go away. It was as if his desire had been a tethered demon, and once unleashed, it refused to be contained again.

  For most of her life, Whitney had come to Dean for affection ... understanding ... compassion ...- companionship. For all the things she didn't get from the Harcourts. And suddenly he was afraid to touch her, afraid his need for her would get out of hand.