Between the Sheets

by Molly O'Keefe

  But when he was truthful with himself, he knew he hadn’t given Vanessa much to recommend him as a father.

  “She had her reasons for not wanting me around Casey; it’s not like we brought out the best in each other.”

  “So, she was arrested. Casey was put into a foster home.”

  “Two. Two different foster homes. The first one was too crowded.”

  “They moved him to a second one and he ran away and found you?”

  It was like one of those stories about dogs that got moved to the other side of the country, but ran back thousands of miles and found their old home—except Casey’s story was way more sad and terrifying. He’d crossed state lines, from Memphis to West Memphis; he’d crossed the damn river, walking for hours with nothing but an address in his pocket. The thought of it could still wake him up out of a deep sleep with nightmares.

  “She’d told Casey enough about me that he found my grandfather’s repair shop and then found me.” She stared at him slack-jawed and he laughed. “Sounds unbelievable, I know.”

  “It is unbelievable! It is amazing. Casey—”

  “Bravest kid I know. Bravest person.” It felt good to say it out loud, as it reminded him that there were other sides to Casey than what he was seeing on a day-to-day basis.

  “You were able to just take custody?”

  He shook his head, trying to get comfortable in the tiny chair. “There was no ‘just’ about it. I took him back to the foster home; we called his case worker and started the process.”

  “Blood tests, court dates, counseling …”

  “All of it.”

  “And then you moved to Bishop?”

  “Fresh start. For both of us.” He didn’t want to talk about all the trouble Vanessa had gotten into, or the things Casey had seen. That was all shit he wanted whitewashed. He wanted it painted over with good memories. Safe memories. Normal childhood stuff. “I thought it was a good idea. We both needed a clean slate.”

  “And this was all four months ago?”

  Ty wasn’t sure why he remembered, but when Casey had walked into Pop’s old shop the boy’s shoes had been untied.

  Tall and gangly, he’d walked in the first bay and had stood in the shadows until Ty noticed him. And the second Ty got a look at Casey, with his chin up like he was daring the whole world to take a swing, something cold pierced his snake brain. Something knowing.

  “Do you know Vanessa Ponchet?” the boy had asked.

  “I did. Long time ago.” Ty wiped his hands off on a rag, fixing his feet to the ground to absorb the hit he’d somehow known was coming.

  “I’m her kid,” Casey said. “And I think you’re my dad.”

  He’d stepped back, putting his weight against the red tool cart behind him, because his knees had buckled.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “She told me. Like a million times.”

  “A million times,” he’d said, because his mind was blown blank. Funny. She hadn’t told Ty, once.

  “Hey, you got a bathroom around here I can use?” Casey had asked, and Ty, on legs that did not feel the ground, walked the boy through the shop to the can in the back.

  Casey had gone in and shut the door, and Ty stood outside listening to the kid vomit his guts out and felt his life irrevocably change.

  That day seemed like it was both yesterday and a hundred years ago.

  “Yep,” he told Shelby. “Four months.” He stretched his arms out wide because he felt the need to move. It was a current under his skin that he didn’t know what to do with. The current came and went, part stress, part anxiety, part guilt, and the knife’s edge of failure he felt against his neck. Part wanting to get the hell away from the constant, grinding fear that he was screwing things up for Casey. The current made him want to drink until he forgot everything. Or find a soft, willing woman to make him feel good.

  It made him want to leave.

  “So, as you can see, we’ve got some issues.”

  He tried to make it a joke, but Shelby wasn’t laughing.

  “That’s a lot of change in a short time. It must be so difficult,” she said.

  He didn’t like pity. There was nothing about his life that was pitiful. Pops taught him that; as long as you were trying, as long as you were fighting, no one should pity you.

  But it wasn’t pity on her face and fuck if he didn’t wish it was, because compassion just wrecked him.

  He folded his hands together, turning his knuckles white. When he’d moved in with Nana and Pop after his parents’ accident, Nana had made him hot chocolate. The real kind, on the stove with milk and melted chocolate—he’d only ever had the powdered stuff. And that only once or twice. Nana put in a whole bunch of marshmallows and she hummed while she did it. Didn’t make conversation, didn’t try to pretend that everything was great. She just let everything suck, because she knew nothing she said could change it.

  But she put that mug in front of him, looked him right in the eye, and cupped the back of his head in her hand and he’d fallen apart. Bawled like a baby.

  Shelby’s level eyes had the same effect.

  So he looked down at his blistered and callused hands. At the grease stains caught in the ridges of his thumb that never came out. Would never come out.

  “It hasn’t been easy,” was all he said. “I had just moved back to West Memphis, too. Like a year and a half before he came and found me, and some nights I can’t sleep thinking—what if Vanessa had been busted earlier, and I missed him? What if he walked all that way and I wasn’t even there?”

  “But you were,” she said, emphatically. Still, nightmares were nightmares and not so easily banished.

  “Mrs. Jordal says Casey is a good kid,” she told him as if she knew he still didn’t have any clue what kind of kid he was.

  He pressed the pad of his grease-stained thumb against the edge of the table, hard enough that his finger went white. “That’s great.”

  Again, he was bitten by this terrible loneliness and it seemed she was the perfect antidote for it. Before in his life, moving around so much, when he was lonely, he went to a bar. Met a girl. Met a group of guys watching whatever game was on TV. Ty had taken his easy way with people for granted. The way he made friends everywhere he went. Until moving to Bishop, where he didn’t know anyone and he was so deeply off balance, so terribly raw and irritated, he couldn’t seem to remember how to talk to people.

  But somehow this woman, the contained universe of her with her stern eyebrows and deep, unruffled quiet—she seemed like the kind of friend he needed right now. Or if not a friend, a surprising ally. An intriguing confidante.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  He shrugged. “Listening.”

  “Well.” Her pale skin glowed pinker and he loved it. Loved that reaction. Loved that he’d somehow caused a ripple across her calm surface. “It’s … it’s no problem.” She opened the yellow file and took out a business card. “These are the therapists that I’ve worked with in the past. Dr. Osmond is my favorite. Kids respond very well to her, but I’m sure she’ll put Casey on a waiting list. In fact, most of these counselors are going to put you on a waiting list. No one, unless it comes with a court order, is going to see you right away.”

  “Waiting list?” Damn it! He was drowning, and every single piece of floating wood that drifted by sank when he grabbed it.

  “Probably a month.”

  Ty wasn’t sure Casey had a month. Not at this rate. Suspension from school loomed and Ty didn’t have any tools to make sure it didn’t happen.

  Frustration boiled through him.

  But he said, “Thank you.” She handed him one of each of the cards from the files.

  “Please use my name when you call them,” she said. “I don’t know if it will help, but I doubt it would hurt.”

  She had this habit of catching the corner of her lower lip under her tooth. Just a little, just enough that she seemed somehow les
s … removed. Less cold. It made her seem doubtful or worried. Human. And he liked that. He liked it a lot.

  Because all of his wires were crossed these days, because nothing was as it had been or what he was used to, the sight of that full, pink lip caught under the edge of a perfect white tooth turned him on.

  She was a hot mix of stern and tolerant. Reserved and open. The humanity of her: of her tennis shoes and ponytail. The color-coded folders, that flower wall behind her that was somehow the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. The cling of her pants on her long legs, the way he had to work for her smiles but never had to work for her attention—it all joined forces against him and made him think of sex. With her.

  “I wish there were more I could do for you.”

  What he’d told her, he’d only told a few people. Counselors. A few friends. And suddenly this barn was the most intimate place he’d ever been. Which said probably way more about how sad his life was than the everyday magic of this barn.

  He was attracted to her because she was decent. Because she’d listened to him.

  Because the way she bit her lip made him think about sex.

  Because he was so damn frustrated with his life, he needed a release or someone was going to get hurt.

  He imagined her letting him in. All the way in. Opening her arms, kissing the anxiety from his head. The doubt and worry and fear. He imagined her letting him work out all his aggression inside of her willing body. He thought of causing more than just a ripple across her calm surface. He thought of her screaming under him. Sweaty and undone.

  The thought spread like spilled motor oil; thick and viscous, it covered everything in his brain. And he couldn’t think about anything but her.

  You could do that for me, he thought. You could help me forget just for a little bit that so much is at stake.

  That electrical current that traveled through his body, making him crazy, making him want to leap out of his skin half the time, it lit him up from the inside. Focused and hot, vicious and violent, it roared through him. He wanted to fuck all the ice from her, sort through all the different and surprising pieces, the sharp edges and hidden softness, until he got to the heart of her. The animal of her.

  He shifted in his chair, hiding his hard-on.

  “Mrs. Jordal says he doesn’t have many friends.” She pushed the edges of the blue file in front of her, to match up with the yellow file. Perfectly straight. He wondered what she would do if he pushed all those files to the floor and laid her out on that table. Pulled down those yoga pants and fucked her with his tongue, his fingers.

  Messy and hot and wild.

  “Wyatt?”

  “Hmmm?” He jerked himself away from the porn running in his head. Stoic and silent, she blinked at him, and his filthy thoughts shamed him, utterly shamed him. She was lovely and smart and kind and … serious. The opposite of every single woman he’d ever dated or fucked or looked twice at. He pulled the reins on his thoughts, his animal lust.

  “Does Casey have any friends?”

  “Not that I know of. Not that he talks about.” He’d been so worried about school and houses and counseling and court dates and starting fresh he didn’t think about friends. Another check under the total fail column.

  “Does he like sports or anything?”

  Ty shifted again in the chair. His butt was now totally numb, which combined with the semi hard-on was a deeply uncomfortable feeling. “I … I don’t really know.”

  “Well, I run some after-school and evening classes here for all different ages and there are a few of his classmates that come. Most of the other kids go to his school, too, so there would be some familiar faces.”

  “You’re talking about art classes?”

  She nodded. “If you’re interested.”

  “Yes.” God, yes. “Sign him up. When is it?”

  There were plenty of women who were prettier when they smiled. His last girlfriend … Christ, a year ago? She’d had a smile that loosened his knees. Shelby didn’t just get prettier … she changed. Her face, her whole vibe; it was as if a door opened and he got to see inside for just a second.

  And inside, Shelby Monroe was radiant.

  “Well, there’s one tomorrow after school.”

  “He’ll be here. What’s the cost?”

  “Let’s see if he likes it first,” she said and stood up. He was being dismissed, and that was okay. He stood up, too, blood flow returning to his ass with a hot rush.

  “I don’t know what to say.” It was unusual for him to be at a loss. Casey got his mouth from him and there was no such thing as speechless for either of them. “The way we started out, I never would have expected you to stick out your neck for us this way.”

  “It’s a small town, Wyatt.”

  “Please, call me Ty. My grandfather was Wyatt. It’s weird to hear that name.” Sad, was what it was.

  “Okay. Ty, it’s a small town. Sooner or later we’re all sticking our necks out for each other.”

  He shrugged into his coat and Shelby picked up her folders.

  “You’re working with Brody Baxter?” she asked.

  “Yeah. We’re working on Cora’s back deck, plus doing some stuff for The Pour House.”

  “That’s gotta be dangerous,” she said. “Spending your day at Cora’s.”

  Ty laughed, tucking the cards in his back pocket. “It’s torture when she makes those fritters.”

  “I have to walk on the other side of the street when she makes them. I usually go in on Sunday mornings with my mom.”

  It wasn’t surprising she had a mom; everyone did. But it struck him that he’d told her so much about himself and he knew nothing about her. It was awkward, as if she was fully dressed in a snowsuit and he was totally naked.

  He had never let a person like Shelby into his life, never wanted someone like her in his life before. His past was littered with drama queens and women of a certain what you see is what you get, asshole mentality. It wasn’t just the obvious good girl, bad girl nonsense, though she was very clearly a good girl. It was the containment of her; she was a universe unto herself. A mystery.

  “You want to go out for dinner?” he asked.

  “Dinner?”

  He nodded, very aware that as much as he liked the idea of a woman like her in his life, she probably had zero interest in stepping any further into his chaos. He had an image of him and Casey clinging to her boots like mud as she tried to figure out how to shake them off.

  “Never mind.”

  “Okay,” she said at the same time. She had that corner of her lower lip caught under her tooth and his blood sizzled at the sight.

  “Okay never mind? Or okay let’s have dinner?”

  “Let’s have dinner.”

  Well, holy shit. Look at that. He grinned at her. “Great. Saturday night?”

  “Saturday night is perfect. I’ll meet you at your house. Seven thirty?”

  He nodded, wondering how he was going to handle Casey. Did he need a babysitter? It was already weird leaving him alone in the house to come over here for ten minutes. Dating was complicated all of a sudden.

  At the door, he turned back to wave at her and wondered how a guy dated a woman like Shelby Monroe.

  Chapter 5

  Friday morning, Ty put down the drill and stood, twisting to get rid of the kinks in his back.

  Half of the deck was framed and it wasn’t even noon. He’d spent an hour in the morning getting Sean’s awning to work and then he’d hightailed it over here to put up the posts and start framing. He could keep going and knock out most of the rest of it before quitting time, but inside Cora was frying chicken. And if there was a better, more distracting smell in the world, Ty couldn’t think of it.

  “Going to lunch?” Brody asked.

  Ty rolled his eyes. “I can’t take it anymore, man.”

  Brody’s lip lifted, about as much expression as Ty could get out of him.

  “All I’ve been thinking about is chicken for the last
half hour,” Brody said. “I’m waiting for—”

  “Brody!” a woman called, and Ty didn’t have to turn around to see that it was Ashley Montgomery. Brody, that silent, serious former Marine, just relaxed. It was as though he carried a load every minute of every day that he was away from that woman. And then at the sight of her, he was finally able to put it down.

  The only other time Ty ever saw that version of love was with his grandparents. And they’d been so rare, so outrageously out of his ordinary, that he never imagined other people had a shot at that. But here it was again. He wasn’t sure if that gave him hope or depressed the hell out of him.

  “I thought you could break for lunch,” Ashley said.

  “You smelled the chicken?” When Brody smiled at his girlfriend, Ty had to look away, because there was a world revealed in that smile. A secret, warm, loving, sexy world.

  “The wind shifted and now the smell is all over town. This place is about to get packed, so we’d better get some now,” Ashley said.

  She hooked her arm around Brody’s waist and gave Ty a big grin. She was pretty in a seriously wholesome way. Like she should be on a box of breakfast cereal. “Hey, Ty! Great job on the deck.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You want to have lunch with us?”

  “You guys go on in—I’ll clean up here.” He didn’t like being with both of them. No matter how nice Ashley was, or how cool Brody was, he couldn’t help but feel like an intruder. He felt like an intruder with everyone, unable to get comfortable with himself, much less anyone else.

  Instead of arguing, Brody just started picking up tools and putting them in the lock box. Ashley helped and it was done before Ty even bent over to pick up his drill.

  “Let’s go,” Ashley said at the door, her cheeks pink in the cold, her eyes glowing when she smiled at Brody.

  “Seriously, you guys go ahead. I don’t want to be a third wheel …”

  Ashley leaned forward, grabbed his jacket, and pulled him into Cora’s behind her.