“Ain’t that the truth?” Thea said, and Tess glared at her.
“How come?” Winnie asked, even though understanding was already blossoming in her clear blue eyes.
“Because the alternative was going under,” Tess said softly, explaining about her father’s leaving, her mother’s lack of involvement.
“Damn, honey,” Thea said. “I had no idea things had been that bad.” She looked up at Flo. “Couldn’t you have taken her when she was a kid?”
“You have no idea how much I wanted to,” Flo said, stunning Tess with the depth of pain in her eyes. “But your uncle…he said no. That it wasn’t our problem. An’ then we moved away, an’…” Tears bulged in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I feel like I let you down—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tess said, grabbing her aunt’s hand. “If anything, you were a lifeline. Even if only over the phone. And in any case—”
“I wasn’t your mama.”
“No. You weren’t.”
“Wait a minute,” Rachel, who’d been dead silent all this time, finally said. The teenager’s confused, angry eyes darted between Tess and her aunt. “Are you saying your mother didn’t want you?”
Thea swatted her. “Rach, honestly—”
“And your father walked out when you were a kid, right? Holy heck, that’s like almost exactly what happened to my dad! And it seriously messed him up for a long time. You know, about love and stuff,” she said, aiming a quick grin at her stepmother before returning her gaze to Tess’s. “Man, Tess, Flo’s right—you’re freaking amazing.”
“Yeah,” Tess said bitterly, slumping back in the chair with Annabelle’s head on her lap. Absently, she stroked the dog’s silky head, her mouth pulled down at the corners. “So freaking amazing that I…”
“Believe you can’t trust love?” Flo said, her arms crossed over all that gleaming goldness. “That Eli is too good to be true? That…” She gripped the arm of the chair to look into Tess’s eyes. “That you don’ feel worthy of being loved?”
“No!” Tess said, rearing back. Then her mouth twisted. “I don’t think.”
Flo sighed. “When you told me about Eli—way back when, I mean—I was angry for you, that your first love should end so badly—”
“Your first love?” Winnie said, frowning.
“I’ll fill you in later,” Thea whispered.
“—but what Enrique did to you…” Flo straightened, arms crossed, brows plunged nearly as much as her neckline. “Him, I was furious with. I know you saw him as your Prince Charming. To be honest, I saw it, too. I remember thinking, finally, somebody worthy of my precious girl.”
“Yeah,” Tess said. “Me, too.” She shrugged, taking in her audience. “Made it kinda hard to admit my marriage was falling apart.”
“Boy, can I relate to that,” Thea muttered, sighing.
From where she sat on the rug in front of the footboard, Winnie sent Thea a sharp look, then faced Tess again, frowning. “But things were still okay when you had Julia, right? I mean, I was there. You were so worried about Enrique making it back okay.”
“Yeah, well,” Tess said, sighing. “You tell yourself what you want to believe. And I didn’t know then he was cheating on me.”
“Bastard is so dead,” Thea said over the others’ collective gasp. Annabelle jumped to her feet, ready to save the day, as Flo cupped Tess’s face with hands reeking of fancy moisturizer.
“An’ you thought the baby would save the relationship, didn’t you?”
“Lord, this is serious déjà vu time,” Thea said, as Tess said, “Guess I thought it was worth a shot—”
“You know,” Winnie said, “all this is really interesting, but it seems to me y’all are missing the point.” She looked directly at Tess. “There’s only one question you need to be askin’ yourself—do you love the man?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, it is. Do you or don’t you?”
“It’s like…I want to, but I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or won’t let yourself because you’re afraid?”
“Same thing.”
“No, not the same thing at all.” This from Thea. “Trust me, I’ve been there, too. Not to mention that sobbing thing we all just witnessed? Not the action of somebody who only wants to love somebody. Honey, you may as well admit it—it’s too late. You’re gone. So you gotta ask yourself…which would be worse? Taking another chance?” She shrugged. “Or not taking it?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“Can I say something?” Rachel said, lifting a black-finger-nailed hand. “For what it’s worth, Tess—Jess thinks the world of his brother. When everybody else was having five fits when we got pregnant and we weren’t married or anything? Eli was the one who talked the rest of his family down. He also was the one who talked Jesse down, making him see he couldn’t run away from his responsibility just because he was scared.”
She wriggled off the bed to squat in front of Tess again, all earnest eyes and newly pierced eyebrow. “Eli’s one of the good ones, Tess. Really. And yeah, I’ve heard the stories, too, that maybe he hadn’t always made the best decisions in the past…but people overcome their pasts every day. I mean, dude—look around you!” she said, her gaze taking in Winnie and Thea. “Everybody’s got crap to overcome, you know? So what’s stopping you?”
Oh, you’re so young, Tess thought as her phone rang.
Frankly grateful for the reprieve, she excused herself to take the call. Hustling into Winnie’s bathroom, she shut the heavy wood door, glancing at the number. No name, unfamiliar area code.
“Tess Montoya speaking—”
“Yes, Ms. Montoya. Name’s Cash Cochran—”
Her heart stopped.
“—and I’m sorry to be calling so late, but I was told to ask you about the house up on Coyote Trail…?”
Between her group therapy session with her girlfriends and Cochran’s call, Tess hadn’t slept worth squat the night before. But now the glittery pinons, the snow-frosted house against the clear, deep blue sky—like something right off an old-fashioned Christmas card—settled her racing heart at least enough to function.
The unexpected call had so stunned her she’d been doing well to make the viewing appointment. Only after she hung up did she realize Cochran hadn’t asked anything about the house, nor had she volunteered any information. When she’d apologized that afternoon after meeting him at the property, he’d only chuckled in that famous low voice of his and said it didn’t matter, that words couldn’t tell a person, anyway, if something was right or not. That he’d only ask questions if he had ’em, after he’d walked through the house on his own.
Now crisp, snow-scented air blasted through the room as he reentered through the new French doors, his expression blank as he stomped snow off his boots onto the mat Tess had just put there. Acknowledging her presence with a curt nod and a slight twitch of the lips, he walked past her and on to the bedrooms. A few minutes later he returned, frowning slightly, then went back to the dining room, which he’d already seen. At last he looked over, patting the table. “This come with the place?”
Her stomach jumped. “I’d just put it in to stage the house, but…I’m sure we could work something out.”
Stroking the beaten-up wood, he half smiled. “Somebody sure put a lot of love into this piece.”
“Yeah. He did.”
Sharp, steely eyes shot to hers. “You know the artist?”
“Y-yes. He’s local. Made the headboard, too.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cochran rubbed his chin, then pushed back his leather jacket to slip his hands into his jeans’ front pockets. “He does real fine work. What’s his name?”
“Eli. Garrett.”
Cochran squinted at her for a second, then looked out the dining room’s wraparound windows again, to the village below and the snow-flocked Jemez Mountains beyond. Cranky and cynical as Tess felt, even she had to admit it was magical. Then, finally, he turned to her,
a look of absolute peace softening his craggy features.
“Sold,” he said softly.
Tess’s stomach jumped again. “You’re ready to make an offer?”
“Oh, we don’t need to go through that rigmarole. Whatever they’re asking, I’m good.” He shrugged. “Makes things easier on everybody.”
“That’s true, but…wouldn’t you like to see a few more properties before you decide?”
One side of his mouth curved up. “You itching to sell me a bigger house?”
“Not at all! It’s just…I assumed you’d be used to something more spacious.”
Cochran came back into the living room to squat in front of the fire Tess had started in the fireplace before his arrival, rearranging the sputtering logs with a poker like he already lived there. “You know, I grew up in a place probably half this size, with two other kids, my parents and my grandparents. Thought the only thing I ever wanted was a house so big I could hear my own echo. Well, I’ve had a couple of those, and come to find out…it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
Straightening, he met her gaze dead-on. “It’s just me,” he said quietly. “No wife, no kids—” a shadow passed over his face “—so this is plenty big enough for my purposes. So. We got a deal?”
Tess grinned, thinking, Merry Christmas to me. “I guess we do. It’s getting kind of late now, but we could start the paperwork first thing in the morning?”
“That would be fine.”
As they walked out to their respective vehicles, Cochran said, “I’ve got some loose ends to tie up back in Nashville, so it might be spring before I can move in.”
Pulling on her driving gloves, Tess smiled. “Not a problem.” Then she paused, her hand on her car’s door handle. “Just curious, though…who told you about the house?”
“Guy wouldn’t tell me his name,” Cochran said from ten feet away, his breath frosting around his face. “Said it didn’t matter.”
A shiver raced through her that had nothing to do with the cold. “What’d he look like?”
Curiosity flickered in those silvery eyes for a moment before he shrugged. “Tall. Anglo. Curly hair. Maybe ten or so years younger’n me. That’s about all I could tell—we were in the Lone Star’s parking lot.” At her frown, he grinned. “I’d been talking on my cell to my manager, guess a little louder than I’d thought. Afterward this fella approaches me, tells me about the house, then gives me your card. That’s all I know. Well,” he said, swinging open the door to a spiffy new truck that would make Eli wet himself, “Guess we’ll meet up tomorrow then. Nine good for you?”
“Perfect. The address is on the card—the office is right on Main Street. You can’t miss it.”
With a nod and a half salute, Cash got into his truck and drove off. After Tess slid behind the wheel, however, she simply sat there, gripping the wheel. Her head felt like a snow globe that had just been given a vigorous shake, her whirling thoughts obscuring whatever she was supposed to see.
Fingering the little teardrop, warm against her skin, Tess thought with a wry smile of her emotional barf-fest with her friends the night before. How she knew, without any reservation whatsoever, that she could count on them to be there for her, to listen, to kick her booty when it needed kicking.
That she’d been trusting love all along, even if she hadn’t realized it.
That she’d been loved all along.
The picturesque scene blurred in front of her as old fears wrestled with the new, tender hope struggling for purchase inside her…a hope she could either nurture, or let shrivel and die.
True, hope had died before, more times than she wanted to count. But never before by her hand. Did she really have it in her to simply give up, to let fear win? Was Eli’s coming back into her life fate’s cruelly taunting her…or offering her another chance at the whole, full-time family she—and her babies—deserved?
She thought of Winnie, daring to take a trip to see the son she’d given up for adoption as a baby, having no idea that journey would lead her to healing, to home, to happiness. Of Thea, giving love one last shot for the sake of not only her unborn son, but for a man who needed her love more than Thea needed to protect her own butt…and finding her happily-ever-after in the process.
That trust meant having the courage to take that first scary step, even if you don’t know where the hell you’re going.
Yanking her car into Reverse, she backed out of the driveway and zoomed back to town to pick the kids up from Carmen’s, praying Eli hadn’t changed his mind over the past two weeks, that, now that he’d had the chance to think things over, he was really better off without the nutcase that was Tess Montoya.
“Get in, fast, and buckle up!” she called to Miguel, scurrying behind him down Carmen’s walkway as Julia and her hippo-size baby bag bounced in her arms.
“Geez, Mom—what’s going on?”
“I’m…not sure,” she said, strapping the baby in and leaning over to give Micky a kiss on top of his head. “You mind if we stop at Eli’s on the way home?”
For a second, the boy’s eyes lit up, before wariness smothered the light, and Tess’s heart fisted, knowing how many times the little boy had been disappointed.
“I thought you liked Eli,” she said softly, cupping his cheek.
He turned away. “He never came back,” he said, then looked at her. “He promised he would, but he didn’t.”
“Oh, baby,” she breathed, a thrill shooting through her midsection. “That wasn’t his fault. And I’m gonna try to fix it, okay?”
She drank in that dark, trusting gaze for what seemed like an eternity before Micky at last nodded and said, “Okay.”
Kid didn’t even comment on anyone’s Christmas decorations as they drove through the softly swirling snow and past the shop. “Please, please, please be home,” she muttered, blowing out a sigh of combined relief and terror when she spotted the old pickup in front of his house. Ten seconds later, they all stood under his tiny portal, Julia swaying and singing in Tess’s arms, Micky kicking a ridge of snow off the edge into the yard, Tess closer to throwing up than she’d been since the State Fair incident.
His door swung open. She tried a smile. “Um, hi?”
The look of utter confusion in Eli’s eyes slowly, sweetly melted into a combination of hope and tenderness and love unlike anything she’d ever seen in another man’s eyes, ever…except, perhaps—in a much less mature form—in Eli’s, all those years before.
“Um…hi back?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” she said, and he grinned, then leaned over and kissed her. Julia clapped her mittened hands and launched herself into his arms, kissing Eli’s cheek. He laughed, then got down on his haunches, Julia balanced against his side.
“Micky?”
Over by the edge of the porch, Miguel turned. Eli held out one arm, whispering, “It’s okay, buddy,” and the little boy smiled and ran to him, plastering himself against Eli’s chest.
Tess smiled, as the last bit of fear melted faster than the snowflakes on her son’s curls.
Just don’t do anything stupid, Eli thought, barely breathing as he watched Tess and Miguel troop into his house. The baby squirmed to get down, then toddled over to Maybelline, sprawled in a lingering patch of late-day sun on his carpet. Julia calmly flopped on her belly, chin in hands, to stare at the cat. The cat in turn lifted bored green eyes to him—Do I have to make nice to it?—then seemed to sigh, lifting herself up just enough to bump the little girl’s chin.
Micky, on the other hand, made a beeline for the TV. “You got any games an’ stuff?”
“That I’d let him play?” Tess said under her breath. Grinning, Eli walked over and pulled out Mario Kart, holding it up for her approval before setting it up for the kid.
Short people engaged, he turned to Tess. Who crossed her arms, her head tilted. “I sold the house.”
“You did? That’s terrif—”
“Why didn’t you give Cash Cochran your name?”
Eli walked to the kitchen to check on the pot roast he’d put in the slow cooker before work. “Because I didn’t want it to look like I was trying to manipulate you.”
“Goober,” she said softly, and he looked back and grinned at her. And there it was, in her eyes, her smile, even the way she was coming closer to peek into the pot:
Trust.
“Smells good,” she said as relief rushed through Eli’s entire body. “You make it with carrots and potatoes?”
“Is there any other way?”
She smiled, then sat at the table where she could keep an eye on the baby, who was lying beside the prone cat, sucking her thumb. Eli replaced the lid, then leaned back against the counter, waiting. Tess’s gaze flitted to his before, laughing softly, she straightened out a crooked placemat, then tucked her arms across her ribs. “You must think I’m a couple sandwiches short of a picnic.”
“No more than the rest of us,” Eli said with a shrug, joining her at the table. “But what I think is that I was expecting too much of you, too fast. Look, just because I’ve got visions of minivans and soccer balls dancing in my head—”
“Really?”
“Really. But…” Glancing away, he blew out a breath, then met her gaze again. “But I’m fine with slow, if…if you’re not just here to tell me you sold the house.”
“I’m not. Just here about the house.” She glanced down, then back up. “Or fine with slow.”
“Really?”
She smiled. “Really.”
“So all that about autonomy…?”
“There’s a difference between being safe and being happy. My problem was, I thought they were synonymous.”
Eli reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Who says they can’t be?” he said, his chest aching when tears welled in her eyes. Then she lifted their clasped hands to her cheek, kissing his knuckles, and his throat got all clogged up until he finally pushed out, “What made you change your mind?”
Tess half laughed, half sighed. “Lots of stuff. My girlfriends, who now know more about me than my own mother. Which isn’t saying much, I realize,” she added, shaking her head. “But what finally pushed me over the edge was your eyes. At least, when I finally let myself believe what I saw in them.”
A Marriage-Minded Man Page 19