She was still dressed, in a sweater and one of her long skirts, when she opened to door to him. Judging from her lack of reaction, she wasn’t all that surprised to see him standing there.
“We need to talk,” he said.
She opened the door wider and let him inside.
Carly had been so stunned by Sam’s declaration that she’d gone up to her bedroom, changed into her flannel jammies and robe, returned to the kitchen and was halfway through making herself a sandwich she then decided she didn’t even want before it registered her father wasn’t there. A realization that barely even blipped on the old radar screen before she sank like a stone back into the quagmire of her own tangled thoughts.
Where she still was, sitting on the sofa in the dark, when Dad returned some time later.
“How come you’re still up?” he said from the doorway.
Oh, no special reason, other than having a man tell me something I have no earthly idea what to do with. “Couldn’t sleep,” she said.
Lane removed his coat and hung it on the coatrack, then came into the room, sitting in the wing chair. “Yeah, Sam told me about what happened to Libby tonight.” Oh, right. Libby. Something else to drop into the morass. “Anybody hear from the boy yet?”
“Not that I know of. If the kid has a grain of sense, he’s halfway to Canada by now.”
Her father’s chuckle sounded weary. “Not that anybody’s asking me, but from what I saw of the boy, I wouldn’t have pegged him as a monster. Maybe he just got his signals crossed?”
“He tried to rape her, Dad,” Carly said, equally wearily, thinking, And isn’t that rich? As if Dad wouldn’t have strung Reece up by his gonads if he’d found out what happened. “That goes way past crossed signals.”
Her father was quiet for several seconds, then said, “Trying to force somebody to do something they don’t want to do is never right. Or that ‘getting carried away’ is a valid excuse. All I’m saying is it wouldn’t hurt to hear his side of the story.”
Carly’s ears rang, even as she knew her father was right. She’d seen Sean with Libby enough over the past few weeks to get the feeling that, yeah, he was perpetually hot and horny, but he had seemed to genuinely care about her. She pushed out a sigh.
“Sex is such a pain in the butt,” she said, forgetting this was her father she was talking to.
“Tell me about it.”
She roused herself out of the quagmire long enough to realize where he must have been. “You were at Ivy’s?”
“Yeah.” She heard his fingers drumming against the arm of the chair. “I went over there to talk. So we talked.”
“Is it me, or is this not sounding good?”
Another pause, then: “You think I mention your mother too much?”
“The two of you were married for like a million years,” she said gently. “Of course you talk about her. It would be weird if you didn’t.”
“Ivy hates it.”
A fierce protectiveness threaded through all the other junk inside Carly’s head. “Well, for crying out loud—what does she expect? That you’re simply going to forget about Mom, that she’s never going to come up in the conversation again? That would be like…like me suddenly not thinking or talking about dancing, just because I’m no longer a professional dancer. It’s been my life since I was ten years old—”
“And you’re not ready to move on to something else, are you?”
“What?”
“I mean, it’s still too much a part of who you are for you to even think about doing something else, isn’t it?”
“It’ll always be a part of who I am.”
“Because it’s your first love. And it’s not that easy to let go of a first love, is it?”
“Dad? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, that as well as Ivy and I get along, she made me realize that as long as your mother’s still the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, I guess I’m not as ready for a new relationship as I thought. And she’s right—that’s not fair to her.”
Carly finally realized what he was saying. “Ohmigod…you broke up?”
“Sounds a little high school, but I guess you could call it that.”
“Oh, Dad…I’m so sorry.” She squinted in the darkness, trying to make out his features. “You okay?”
“Yes, yes…” He got up, stretching out his back. “I’m fine. It’s Ivy I feel bad for, though. I didn’t mean…well. Guess none of this gets any easier as we get older, huh?”
Carly thought of Sam, his kisses, his confession, his bizarrely calm conviction that loving her was the right thing to do, and shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “No, it sure doesn’t.”
“Guess I’ll go on to bed, then,” her father said. “Whaddya say we go over to Claremore tomorrow and pick up some appliances for the barn?”
She felt as though, somehow, her life had detached itself from her, and was speeding ahead, giving her the choice of getting the lead out in order to catch up, or getting left behind in the dust—
“Lee? Are you okay?”
How much effort she’d put into running from what she saw as the prison of her father’s protectiveness for so many years. How strenuously she’d balked at any attempt on his part to simply do his job. How fiercely she’d resisted any relationship that ceded control of her feelings—of anything, really—to another human being.
“No,” she said at last, on a long, ragged breath, then blinked when her father turned on a small table lamp nearby. “Sam says he’s in love with me.”
Her father’s brows lifted, but when he crossed back to sit beside her, wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders, she could feel his understanding.
“That’s quite a gift he’s offering you,” Lane said, his chin resting on top of her head.
“I know.” She swiped at a tear trickling down her cheek.
“You know yet whether you want to keep it?”
His chin was sharp, roughened with beard stubble, when she shook her head.
“Well, does knowing this make you feel good? Or bad?”
“Would it make me sound like one messed up chick to say…both?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
She wasn’t sure if that made her feel better or not.
The next day, Carly and Lane hadn’t been back from the Home Depot in Claremore more than ten minutes—there were now more appliances and bathroom fixtures than you could shake a stick at in the bed of Dad’s truck—when she heard Sean’s Eclipse wheeze up in front of the house.
Mildly annoyed at having to wait to play with her new toys, Carly glowered at the very stricken young man on her porch. A very stricken young man who looked for all the world as though he’d spent the night in a ditch somewhere. Carly crossed her arms, not inviting him in. The kid actually hung his head, peering up at her through his bangs.
“C’n I talk to you?”
“Why me? I’m not the one you—”
“I know, I know. It’s just…Libby’s always talkin’ about you, about how cool you are and stuff, so I thought maybe…” The sentence ended in a shrug.
“There is no way I’m pleading your case, Sean,” she said, as coldly as she could manage. “What you did was reprehensible.”
That he didn’t protest was a point in his favor. A tiny point, but a point. The kid stuffed his hands into his back pockets and glanced away, his breath frosting in front of his face. Behind him, dark, mean-looking clouds tumbled over one another, threatening to let loose at any moment. Obliquely, Carly remembered she now lived in Tornado Alley, then reassured herself that this was late October—tornado season was over.
Sean’s gaze was once again trained on her face, the wind whipping his long, blond hair across his forehead. “I know what I did was wrong. I guess…things got out of hand, okay?”
“No, not okay. Not okay at all.” She uncrossed her arms to cram her hands inside her hoodie’s pouch. “Do you have any idea how frightened and upset and si
ck you made Libby?”
The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Then he said, eyes lowered, “I really thought that’s what she wanted.”
“In the auto shop? For God’s sake, Sean—what the hell kind of first time would that have been for her?”
To her shock, the boy’s lower lip started to quiver, as two huge tears crested on his lower lids, and she silently swore, realizing, Oh, hell—Sean was only a kid himself. A stupid, over-libidoed kid who had very possibly just screwed up any possibility of Libby’s ever talking to him again, but a kid, nonetheless.
She shut her eyes for a moment, reminding herself that this wasn’t Reece. Reece, who’d never even given her a phony apology, never admitted his culpability, never showed her, or anyone else, that he’d had even a sliver of regret for what he’d done. Still, as much as she hated what Sean had tried to do, it wasn’t right to judge him for somebody else’s sins.
“It’s not up to me to run interference between you and Libby. Or even to give you permission to see her, or talk to her. That’s up to her father.”
Sean nodded, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. On a sigh, Carly removed a wad of tissues from her pocket, peeled off a clean one and gave it to him. “Well, come on, then,” she said, pushing past him to walk over to his car. “Might as well get this over with.”
She wrenched open the passenger side door; Sean scampered around to the other side and was in his seat with the car started before she’d even gotten herself inside. “Thank you so much, Miss Stewart—”
She held up one hand, stopping him. “You’ve got some major groveling to do before I even think about removing you from my S-list, buddy. If and when Libby says she’s forgiven you, then we’ll talk.”
The boy swallowed, nodded, and took off out of her yard so fast her head bounced off the headrest.
“Daddy,” Wade said, knee deep in pigs. “What’s Sean doin’ here?”
Libby had ventured out of her room long enough to announce, “If Sean calls or shows up, tell him I died,” which was apparently enough to give her brothers the impression she didn’t like him anymore. So his appearance now, less than twenty-four hours after the incident, was cause for some speculation.
His being with Carly—whose expression was that of one mightily pissed woman—was cause for even more.
Sam stomped as much pig muck off his boots as he could, then left the pen, turning his collar up against the biting cold. “Go on,” he heard Carly say, “you’re not going to get anywhere near Libby without getting past Sam first.”
Sam’s gaze touched Carly’s for a second, then veered back to the sorry-looking—in more ways than one—boy in front of him. Wouldn’t be long before the kid was taller than him, but that day hadn’t arrived yet and Sam felt no qualms whatsoever about taking full advantage of that fact.
“Sean,” he said, making his voice as low and menacing as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carly bite down on her lip to keep from smiling, so he threw a warning glare her way. She bit down harder, then turned away altogether. “What are you doing here?”
“I—I came to apologize. F-for my behavior last night.”
Sam slipped his hands into his front pockets and glared some more. “You come to apologize to me? Or Libby?”
“Anybody who’ll listen, I suppose.”
Now it was Sam who had to fight to keep a straight face. Not that his anger had abated any, far from it—Libby had spent far too much time in her room crying her eyes out for that—but it’d been a long time since he’d seen anyone that miserable. Gave a whole new meaning to the word “hangdog.” Wade had gone back inside; now Sam could sense assorted sets of eyes at assorted windows, glued to the scene. He doubted Libby’s were among them, however.
“You know,” he said, “right now I can’t quite decide if your coming out here is one of the bravest or one of the dumbest things I’ve ever witnessed.”
Sean peered up at Sam, a weak smile, like a flickering lightbulb, playing around his mouth. “Me, neither. Sir.”
“Daddy?”
The boy went rigid, like he’d been struck by lightning. Sam turned to see Libby standing at the door, half in, half out, her arms tightly folded across her middle. “Sean says he’s here to apologize,” he shouted over to her.
“Oh. Well, I guess that’d be okay,” she yelled back after a moment over the whistling wind. “Long as it doesn’t mean I’m obligated to forgive him.”
The boy winced as Carly shouted over, “Absolutely not.”
Sean stepped around Sam—a courageous move on his part, Sam thought—and said, “I just wanna talk, Lib.” He paused, then said, “I was an idiot, okay?” and Libby said, “You got that right,” and Carly’s soft chuckle mingled with the relief washing over him that Libby was probably gonna be fine.
Nobody said anything for a minute or two; then Libby disappeared inside the house, letting the screen door slam behind her. Sean seemed to deflate, until she reappeared a couple seconds later, wearing her heavy chore coat over her sweater and jeans. And some sparkly pink lipstick, Sam noticed. She trooped down the steps and over to where they all stood, saying to Sean, “I got stuff to do in the barn, you can talk to me there if you want,” then kept going, her long hair bouncing against her back, gleaming dully in the thick, gray light.
Sean looked back at Sam, hopeful.
“Go on,” he said. “But so help me—”
“I won’t touch her,” the boy said, hands raised in surrender. “I swear.”
“Smart man,” Sam said, and the kid spun around and took off, nearly tripping over himself in his split to catch up to Libby, who could make tracks like nobody’s business when she was mad.
Sam turned back to find Carly looking inordinately pleased with herself.
“You put the fear of God in that boy or what?” Sam asked.
“From what I could tell, that was pretty much already there when he landed on my doorstep. I just tightened the screws a bit.” She jerked her head toward the barn. “You sure you’re okay with leaving them alone?”
“Not much he can try on a girl with a pitchfork in her hand,” he said, and Carly laughed. Then she sobered, her eyes steady in his, her hands shoved in her pockets of her flimsy sweatshirt. It occurred to Sam she must be freezing.
“Just so you know,” she said, “I don’t think I slept five minutes all night.”
“Was it something I said?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
The boys came shooting out of the house like bullets from a six-shooter. Which pretty much described the sound of the screen door whapping shut behind each of them in turn. Travis wandered over to Sam to wrap around his leg, but the rest took turns diving headfirst into a pile of leaves that Sam fully intended to toss into the compost heap, one of these days. He watched Carly’s attempts at not flinching every time one of the guys let loose with a bellowed, “Carly! Watch what I can do!” or “Carly! Did you see that?”
Her eyes lifted to his. “You, um, wouldn’t by any chance be having second thoughts? About what you said last night?”
“’Fraid not.”
“Just checking.”
Travis let go of Sam’s leg to sidle over to Carly; woman and child stared silently at each other for several seconds, then resumed their observation of the goings-on in the yard. When Travis slipped his hand into Carly’s, her head snapped to Sam’s, panic huge in her eyes.
Sam chuckled. “I had a pup once, when I was a kid, who’d cornered one of the barn cats one day and got popped on the nose for his efforts. From then on, every time he saw that cat, he got pretty much the same look on his face you’re wearing right now.”
That earned him another smirk, but her shoulders did seem to relax some. She glanced down at Travis, who’d plugged his thumb into his mouth, then sighed. “I don’t know how to do this. Any of it.”
“Let you in on a secret—neither does anybody else.”
“Is that supposed to make me f
eel better?”
“Is this you tellin’ me that maybe there’s a reason you’re worryin’ about any of this?”
After a long moment, she said, “Maybe.”
He nudged her arm with his elbow, bringing her eyes back to his. He winked. “This mean you like me?”
She angled her head toward Travis, who grinned up at her around his thumb. Pulling Trav’s and her linked hands inside her kangaroo pouch to keep it warm, she again focused on the rest of his rowdy boys. “Yeah, S-Sam,” she said, shivering. “I l-like you.”
He lifted one hand to massage the tight muscles at the base of her neck, savoring the tiny thrill of victory when she let him.
Chapter 13
“Ladies and gentlemen…” Carly caught Sam’s grin as he twisted the thermostat dial, then executed an exaggerated courtly flourish. “We have heat!”
Her applause echoed off the rafters. Amazing what two men—and whichever friends they could hoodwink to help—could accomplish in a week. But the barn was now fit for human habitation, with appliances and running water and heat, which, with three south-facing windows, she’d only need on cloudy days. Like this past week, when a series of storms sweeping across the state had kept things damp and bone-chillingly cold.
But at least she had a place of her own, now. And, much to her amazement, she thought, skimming her palm across the top of the double barre her father had helped her install against the one wall, a business of her own. God knew she wouldn’t be turning out a string of candidates for the Joffrey or New York City Ballet, but by the time Faith Andrews—and Faith’s mother Didi (there was a lot to be said for being a pastor’s wife), and Ruby at the diner and about a half dozen other ladies Carly wasn’t even sure she’d met yet—had gotten through spreading the word, she had a fairly sizable dance-exercise class for the women, a couple “movement” classes for the kids, including something for the teenagers, and maybe even a real ballet class or two for some of the girls. Faith had helped her come up with a fee structure she thought most folks could afford, although she said Carly might want to consider trading goods or services from time to time for those folks who might be short on cash. Carly thought that sounded perfectly fair to her.
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