Robert’s voice drifted on the slight breeze, “…soaking his head in the creek, I hope.”
“What did you say to him?” Barb asked.
Someone hissed something that sounded like a warning to keep quiet.
“Just…how we all feel about…”
Even with missing words, Carly thought she knew what they were talking about. They were talking about her. They’d said something to Tyler about her.
Easy for Tyler to say she didn’t have to take it, even from his family. What was she supposed to do about it? Somehow, she didn’t think sticking out her tongue would be appropriate. His solution, to kick someone in the shin, didn’t sound much better.
Just then Tyler rounded the side of the house, his jaw set at a stubborn angle. He shot a narrow look at the group around the grill, then scanned the yard. When his gaze lit on Carry, the firm set of his mouth- softened, as did his eyes.
He was at her side in seconds, stealing a deviled egg from the platter before her.
“What’s going on?” she asked him. “I’m starving.”
“I mean with your family. Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”
Tyler studied the table, then reached for a stuffed celery stick. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”
When he finally raised his gaze, she gave him a sad smile. “Liar. I’m not totally stupid, you know. The tension in the air around here is worse than the heat”.
Before he could answer, the contingent from the grill headed en masse for the table. Bearing a huge platter of juicy hamburgers, Arthur led the way.
Tyler shifted to Carly’s side and put his arm around her shoulders.
She stiffened. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The look he gave her dripped with feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
By then the others had arrived at the table.
Carly saw their glares, felt their animosity and suddenly she’d had all she could deal with. “Well, I do,” she told Tyler. “You said I didn’t have to take this from anybody, and I don’t have to take it from you, either.”
“You’ve lost me,” he said with a frown.
She jerked out of his embrace. “You’re using me to make them angry. I don’t know why, but I won’t have it, do you hear?”
One of the women gasped.
Her stomach in knots, Carly started up the yard toward the house.
“Where are you going?” Tyler called.
She whirled back to face him and his family. “I’m going to pack. You can take me to the airport at your earliest convenience.”
“When hell freezes over,” Tyler said harshly.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure one of them,” she said with a wave toward his family, “will give me a ride out of here.” She turned away again, so hurt, so angry, she didn’t know how she managed to put one foot in front of the other.
“Carly,” Tyler cried.
“Never thought you were a quitter.”
Arthur’s voice stopped her. Sheer fury spun her around. “Get off it, Arthur. You don’t want me here any more than they do. You’ve been trying to get rid of me from the minute I got here.”
The Old man pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “So maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
Carly couldn’t help but notice the incredulous looks on the faces of his children. All his children.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Arthur went on, “I’m not sayin’ I want to adopt you into the family just yet, but you’ve got a job to do here, and it ain’t finished. Near as I can see, you’re Amanda’s only hope. You can’t leave.”
Carly closed her eyes against the painful truth. She couldn’t leave Amanda. Not like this. She couldn’t let the others ruin the progress Amanda had made.
But God, she didn’t know how much more of this ani- mosity she could take. She didn’t know how much more of Tyler’s games she would be able to handle. When she opened her eyes, Amanda stood before her with wide, pleading eyes and threaded her fingers through Carly’s.
Carly felt the fight drain out of her. She looked at Arthur. “You’re right, of course. I can’t leave yet”,
The man eyed her a long moment, then gave her a sharp nod. “As for us, he said, looking around at the rest of the family, “we all owe you an apology. It’s not our way to be rude. I think we’ve all been a little crazy since you came. For that, we’re sorry. Aren’t we?” he barked at the others.
It was almost funny the way gazes darted to the ground and grown men shuffled and blushed, but Carly couldn’t bring herself to laugh.
“Now,” Arthur said with authority, “let’s eat. This is supposed to be a celebration. We got the damned hay baled and stacked, didn’t we? And we’ve got a new neighbor down the road to celebrate. Tim called this morning. Tammy had a baby girl last night”.
The commotion stirred by the news took the focus off Carly, for which she was fervently grateful.
Tyler finished building his burger and filling his plate, then grabbed a beer from the ice chest and made his way to where Carly sat alone on the grass beneath the shade of the cottonwood.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked quietly.
Without looking up, she muttered, “Suit yourself.”
He dropped down beside her and balanced his paper plate on one knee. He spent an inordinate amount of time nestling his beer can into the grass until the can stood per- fectly straight, then he picked up his hamburger and stared at it.
If he put so much as one bite of food in his mouth, he knew he’d choke. He was still furious. So furious, his stom- ach was in knots. The only trouble was, now he was equally as pissed off at himself as he was the others. He couldn’t believe he’d hurt Carly the way he had. With a sharp curse, he dropped the burger back onto the plate. “God, Carly, I’m sorry. I…I’m sorry.”
She gave a harsh laugh. “Whoever said being right was supposed to make you feel good? I was right, wasn’t I? You were using me to make them mad.”
She still wasn’t looking at him, and he didn’t trust him- self to look at her. He let out a gust of breath. “More or less. But not the way you think. My brothers…said some things—”
“I can imagine.”
“No, you can’t.” He gave a short laugh. “They think you’re leading me on.”
At her sharp gasp of denial, he raised a hand. “I know, I know. That’s about as far from the truth as it can get. They also think I’m falling for you.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not, but that’s another subject entirely.”
He chanced a glance at her and caught her staring at him openmouthed. He looked away quickly. “Anyway, they had no right to say anything. Whatever’s going on between you and me is none of their business.”
“There’s nothing going on between you and me.”
He met her gaze then and held it. No more fooling around. No more tiptoeing. “Don’t kid yourself, honey. It’s here, and it’s not going away.”
She shivered. He held his breath, waiting.
“You’re wrong,” she told him.
Tyler let out his breath. She’d said exactly what he’d expected. Not what he’d wanted, but she was fighting him, denying whatever it was that happened when they were together. It was natural for her to tell him he was wrong. “I’m not, and you know it.”
Amanda sat on the porch swing and watched her father and Carly. Poor Carly, she was so sad. Amanda knew what it was like to be sad.
Before long her daddy carried his plate to the trash can and stopped to talk to Cousin Bev.
The other kids were through eating already and had started a game of tag on the lawn. They looked like they were having so much fun, Amanda felt all alone and left out.
Just like Carly.
Amanda knew what she was going to do about feeling sad and left out. She was going to eat the biggest bowl of homemade ice cream her grandad would give her. Ice cream was so good, it always made her feel bet
ter. She figured it could fix just about anything.
Then she remembered—Carly didn’t eat ice cream.
Why would anyone not eat something that tasted so good and was such fun to eat? Ice cream made people happy. If anybody needed ice cream today, it was Carly.
Amanda carried her paper plate to the trash, then stood in line behind Uncle Joe for the ice cream Grandad was dishing out of the ice-cream freezer at the end of the porch.
“There you go, little darlin’, Grandad told her after heaping two big scoops into a bowl for her.
Amanda smiled her thanks, then stood at the steps.
Maybe Carly would change her mind about eating ice cream today. Surely she didn’t want to feel all sad and alone, did she?
Amanda walked to the big tree where Carly sat and of- fered her friend the bowl.
“Thank you, sweetie, but no. Remember? I told you I don’t eat ice cream.”
Amanda frowned and walked back to resume her seat on the swing. She let out a big sigh. She knew why Carly wouldn’t eat the ice cream. It was because of that story she’d told her about her daddy.
It wasn’t that Carly couldn’t eat it, like Amanda couldn’t talk, but that Carly wouldn’t eat it, like Amanda wouldn’t wear anything but the pretty dresses her mother had liked so much.
Amanda frowned again, thinking hard. Carly’s ice cream and Amanda’s dresses weren’t things God was doing to them. God was only keeping Amanda from talking. And she deserved that, she knew.
But the dresses were her own doing.
Just like not eating ice cream was Carly’s own doing.
Didn’t Carly know how much fun she was missing by not eating the very best thing in the whole wide world?
A squeal from the yard drew Amanda’s attention.
Oh, goody, she thought, grinning. One of her cousins must have smuggled in a squirt gun. Sissy had it now and was chasing her brother, Bobby.
Amanda remembered playing with squirt guns, back be- fore Mother had taken her to Chicago, when Amanda had been little. Squirt guns were almost as much fun as ice cream. They were even fun when somebody else was doing the squirting, as long as you were the one getting squirted.
She looked down at her pink ruffled dress. No, she couldn’t play squirt guns with her cousins. She would ruin her dress. The dress she wore because of her mother.
Was that why her daddy and Carly kept trying to get her to wear jeans? So she could play and have fun?
Was that what she was doing, wearing dresses so she couldn’t have fun? Just like Carly wouldn’t eat ice cream because she used to like it so much?
It looked to Amanda like she and Carly were both being silly. Maybe…
Tyler sat next to Bev, his cousin Frank’s wife, on the picnic bench under the awning and watched Amanda watch the other kids play. He saw her offer her ice cream to Carly, knowing as she did so that Carly would refuse.
Then Amanda had returned to the swing and seemed to ponder some weighty matter. Tyler ached for whatever was running through her mind. She kept looking from the kids to her ice cream to Carly. A look of…he could only call it determination, crossed her face. Then she got up and started over to him.
When she arrived, she solemnly set her bowl of ice cream on the table before him.
“Are you giving this to me?”
She gave him an arch look, as if to say, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You want me to just hold it for you?”
She nodded, then turned and walked into the house.
“What’s she up to?” Bev asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” he said. But she was up to something. He glanced toward the cottonwood and found Carly staring thoughtfully at the door where Amanda had disappeared.
Tyler stayed at the picnic table and waited for his daugh- ter to come back outside. Just when he was about to give up and go after her, the front door opened, and out she came.
Tyler’s chest tightened. Gone was the pretty party dress, the full, fluffy petticoats. In their place, Amanda wore spanking new blue jeans, a red checkered shirt and the cow- boy boots he had about decided she would outgrow before ever wearing.
“Look at that,” Bev whispered in awe.
Tyler blinked to clear his vision. “Yeah. Did you ever see anything so beautiful in your life?”
The several conversations among the adults on the porch trailed off into silence as one by one, the family realized what they were seeing.
Tyler shot a glance at Carly and saw her fighting tears. She, better than anyone, must know how hard this move had to have been for Amanda. He wondered what had made. Amanda finally give in. Someday, when she could talk again, he would ask her.
Amanda must have noticed the way everyone was staring at her, for she ducked her head and wouldn’t look at any- body on her way back to Tyler. She stopped next.to him and slowly raised her gaze.
His heart pounding with excitement, Tyler said, “Hi, there. I like the new duds.”
She smiled at him shyly.
“I don’t suppose it was too easy, giving up the pretty dress.”
She shook her head slowly as her eyes watered.
“I’m proud of you, sweetpea.”
She sniffed, then her gaze darted across the yard to Carly before coming back to him. Except her gaze didn’t come back to him. It rested on her bowl of ice cream. She picked it up and looked at him, all trace of shyness gone from her face. In its place he again saw determination.
She looked back at Carly, at the ice cream, then at him.
Oh, good God. A slow grin widened his mouth. He gave Amanda a nod. “You’re gonna make her do it, aren’t you?”
Amanda nodded back solemnly.
“Well, go to it. She owes it to you now.”
With no other look or sign, Amanda took the bowl of ice cream and walked directly to Carly. But instead of sit- ting down beside her, Amanda took her by the hand and tugged her up off the grass.
“What’s going on?” Bev whispered.
“Just watch,” Tyler answered, his heart thudding like crazy.
Amanda led Carly past the end of the lawn onto the dirt driveway, then she sat down, right in the dust, and pulled on Carly’s hand until Carly sat beside her.
Tyler nearly choked on emotion. His baby, his sweet, sweet baby, was deliberately getting dirty for the first time in probably two years. And she was doing it to please him, to please Carly.
“What—”
Tyler hushed his father, who’d come to stand beside him. “She’s going to make Carly eat ice cream.”
“So?”
“So, Carly’s father had a heart attack and died going to the store to buy her ice cream. She hasn’t touched the stuff since she was nine years old.”
“Amanda knows this?”
“She does.”
A long silence, then, “Why, the little dickens.”
“By putting on those jeans, she gave up a big piece of her mother. Now she expects Carly to let go of her father.”
Arthur grunted.
Out on the driveway, Amanda had tears on her cheeks. So did Carly. “Oh, baby, I’m so proud of you,” Carly said.
Then carefully, deliberately, Amanda scooped ice cream onto her spoon and held it out toward Carly.
Carly stared wide-eyed at the girl, the ice cream. “Oh, I get it.” Even from halfway up the yard, Tyler heard the quiver in her voice. “If you can do it, I can, right?”
Amanda nodded once. Firmly.
Carly took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. “All right. Here goes nothing.” She put her hand over Amanda’s on the spoon handle and raised the ice cream to her lips. Tyler could see the battle plainly on her face and in the way her hands shook. She didn’t want to eat it.
But in the next instant, she closed her lips over the spoon and pulled the ice cream into her mouth.
Tyler held his breath, waiting for her to swallow, waiting for her to get sick. He could tell by the look on her face after
she finally managed to swallow that she, too, was waiting.
She closed her eyes and held her face up toward the sky. Then, slowly, she grinned. She opened her eyes, looked at Amanda and laughed out loud.
Tyler let out his breath. By the time he got his feet under him and made it out to the driveway, the two were laughing and crying and hugging and feeding each other ice cream. When he knelt beside them, a painful lump rose in his throat.
He couldn’t talk. All he could do was put his arms around them both and pull them close to his chest. He kissed Amanda’s nose, then turned to Carly.
Her eyes were bright with tears and joy. Her lips were moist from ice cream. He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her. It was brief and hard, and oh, so sweet, tasting of vanilla and tears. “God, I’m so proud of you two,” he said in a choked voice. “You okay?” he asked them both.
They each nodded and laughed and cried. Carly seemed not to even realize he’d just kissed her on the mouth in front of his entire family. She was too caught up in the excitement of the moment.
Then he remembered what she’d said had happened the last time she’d eaten ice cream. “Is it going to stay down?”
“You bet,” she told him. “And it’s wonderful. Deli- cious. The best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
She leaned down and hugged Amanda. “Thank you,” she told the girl. “You were much braver than I was.”
“I think you’re both incredible,” Tyler said “Now, who’s gonna give me a bite of that ice cream?”
Chapter Ten
“You keep on like that,” Tyler said that night, “and we’ll have to widen the doors around here.”
Carly gave him a big smile. “I believe the appropriate response to that comment is, “Blow it out your ear, Bar- nett.”
He tossed his head back and laughed.
It was good to see him so happy. His laugh was music to her ears. Her own laughter felt pretty damned wonderful, too, she decided.
“Pretty cocky, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah.” With a grin—a cocky one—she dished up an- other spoonful of homemade vanilla ice cream. “I guess I am.
She felt another round of laughter bubbling up inside her and let it loose. All sorts of things had been building up inside her since that afternoon. Good things. Warm and tingly things. Laughter, pride—not only in herself, but in Amanda, too, for the giant step each of them had taken that day—gratitude to Amanda for forcing her past her old guilt.
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