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Home At Last

Page 14

by Raney, Deborah;


  Who was she kidding? If things weren’t already over between them after they talked last night, they surely were over after her father dragged Link through the fire. Over, with a capital O.

  The bells on the front door jangled, and she looked up, ready with her usual welcome greeting. “Good morning. What can I—” Her heart stopped. “Link?”

  He gave a little wave.

  “I thought you had to work.”

  “I’m going in a little late today. Can we talk?”

  “Daddy’s out back working on the delivery truck. I have to work the counter.”

  He looked around the nearly empty space. “Doesn’t seem like you’re too busy.”

  “Okay.” She nodded, excited to see him, yet apprehensive at the same time. She didn’t dare let him guess her real feelings, for both their sakes. “But if anyone comes in, you need to leave.”

  “I understand.”

  “And if my father comes in, you may get thrown out on your ear.”

  He looked at her as if trying to figure out whether she was teasing.

  “Just hurry. What is it?” She hated the coldness in her voice, but it was for his own good. It didn’t matter how much she loved being with him, touching him, feeling his strong arm around her shoulders, watching every nuance of those expressive blue eyes. Things would never work for them, and the sooner she accepted that, the sooner she could get on with her life. And Link with his.

  The oven timer sounded and she headed for the kitchen.

  Link followed her around the counter.

  “You can’t be back here.”

  “Sorry.” He raised his arms and retreated to the other side of the display cases.

  She hurriedly pulled a batch of pecan-and-date cookies from the oven and took the pan back out to the bakery counter.

  Link didn’t miss a beat. “First, I wanted to say I’m sorry I didn’t tell you good-bye before I left yesterday.” He rolled his eyes. “Your dad didn’t seem too keen on me hanging around.”

  “I’m sorry if he was rude.” She grabbed a spatula and lifted the cookies from the pan one by one, placing them on a cooling rack.

  “He was just worried about you. I’d probably feel the same if you were my daughter.” His soft smile tore her up. But the smile faded and a hard edge came to his expression. “Why didn’t you tell me about the window?”

  “Window?” She stilled.

  “Your dad told me about the broken window. And about who did it. The guy with the Mohawk?”

  She froze. “Did you tell Daddy about what happened at the movie?”

  “Of course I told him. I can’t believe you didn’t. Why would you keep that from him?”

  “What did he say?” Daddy had to be furious that she’d kept that from him, and yet, he hadn’t confronted her. Of course, she’d avoided him all morning. Thankfully, the broken down delivery truck made that easy.

  “What did he say?” he scoffed. “He lectured me for an hour, that’s what. Pretty much the gist of it was, there is no way in heaven, on earth, or any other planet, for that matter, that I’m going to touch his daughter.”

  Shay steeled herself. “And he’s right.”

  Link studied her. “Is that you talking? Or your father?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Link. The results are the same.”

  “No. I’m not ready to accept that. But we’ll talk about that topic after we talk about the window. Why didn’t you tell your dad? Is it because you couldn’t tell him we were at the movie together? Have you lied to him about us spending time together?”

  She huffed. “As if I could keep anything secret with Portia around.”

  A hint of a smile played on his features but quickly faded. “Why didn’t you tell me about the window? Why would you keep that from me—or your dad? The police need to know what that guy did.”

  She closed her eyes. “You don’t get it, Link. My dad didn’t report it, and he’s not going to do anything about it. That would only make the situation worse.”

  “How can you say that? And how can he be so irresponsible? Especially when he told me he thinks that thug followed us to the bakery that night after the movies. That makes sense. How else would he know where you lived? He targeted you and you could have been—”

  “Link! Listen to me.” She tossed the metal spatula into the sink and it landed with a clatter. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then help me understand.”

  “If you’d lived your whole life getting routinely pulled over—multiple times in a year—just because you were a man who happened to have black skin—”

  “Pulled over? Well, then I must have some black blood in me, because I’m paying sky-high insurance premiums right now, thanks to two speeding tickets.”

  The smug look on his face made her clench her teeth.

  She tilted her head. “And were you speeding?”

  “Well, yes,” he admitted.

  “And therein lies the difference. My dad was not.”

  He had the decency to look shocked. “Not even a little?”

  She stared at him. “If anything, he drives five miles an hour below the speed limit. You know that stereotype don’t you? Well, there’s a reason for it.”

  “Whoa, are you serious, Shay? I guess I—” He regarded her. And apparently her expression made him change gears. “I guess I’ll shut up before I dig myself in any deeper. I didn’t realize it really was that way, Shay. I mean, you hear things, but . . .”

  “But you don’t believe them. I know you don’t get it. Most of you don’t.” She released a sigh. “And sorry if that sounds racist. But until you’ve experienced it again and again, you can’t understand.”

  “Well, I guess I can imagine how I’d feel if I’d been stopped if I wasn’t speeding. Unfortunately, I earned my tickets fair and square.”

  “Like I said, therein lies the difference. You have a choice, Link. You can stop the pull-overs if you just quit speeding. Not everybody has that privilege. And I’m telling you, my dad is not going to report what happened. We’ve had enough run-ins with the police to last a lifetime. Some of them deserved, with Jerry. But many of them not. For sure not with my dad. So you can see why Daddy’s sure not going to call the authorities about some bigot vandalizing the bakery.”

  “I still—”

  She held up a hand. “It’s over and the window is fixed. The last thing we need is rumors about the bakery being targeted.” She waved a hand over the dining room, empty except for the students studying in the nook. “Although I’m guessing news already got out that it’s not safe to come in here anymore.”

  “What? You can’t be serious, Shay. Of course it’s still safe.”

  Apparently her expression revealed just how serious she was. His face fell, and his shoulders slumped, his expression revealing so much. Regret. Anger. Comprehension. “Shay, I’m sorry.”

  “I realize you didn’t grasp the possible consequences of what you did at the movies that night. But now you do.”

  “Your dad accused me of not understanding some of the things you guys face, that I don’t face. He was right. I feel terrible. And that’s the other reason I came. I’d like to offer to pay for the window.” He nodded toward the front of the store. “Or at least part of it. Your dad said it didn’t meet the insurance deductible. I feel really bad about everything.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, Link, I’m telling you right now, don’t even offer. Don’t even suggest that to my dad—”

  “Too late.”

  She stared at him.

  “I apologized. And I did offer to pay. It didn’t go over so hot.”

  “I don’t think you understand what a proud man my dad is. To him, it looks like you’re offering charity, and he is nobody’s charity case.”

  “That’s not how I meant it. I told him I feel responsible. So, what can I do?”

  “Do?”

  “To get his blessing, to get permission to be friends with his daughter again—his
thirty-three-year-old daughter.”

  She stared at him trying to decipher his sarcasm, trying to decide whether to ask him to leave or try to make him understand. Again. “How can you even want that—to be friends—after everything I told you last night? After my dad’s lecture?”

  “Because I know what I want, Shay.” The piercing look he gave her said he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  “Link . . .” She didn’t have the first clue how to respond to that. “Hang on. I . . . I need to make sure I turned off the oven.” She hurried back to the kitchen, thankful he couldn’t see her face, read the longing in her eyes. I know what I want. Why did he have to go and say things like that? Why did he have to make it so much harder than it already was? Bracing her arms on the counter, she took in deep breaths.

  Finally, composing herself, she went back out to the dining room where Link stood. “Sit down.” She pointed to a table where he’d be hidden from view if Daddy came in the back door. The weight in her chest was almost more than she could bear. But she knew what she had to do. “We need to talk.”

  ***

  Link perched on the edge of the chair. Across from him, Shayla watched his face with an expression he couldn’t read. “What’s going on?” He glanced toward the bakery’s entrance, then the back door, praying no one came through either. Especially not her father.

  “Link, I laid awake half the night wrestling with God, struggling to plot out some scenario that would make this work. But I can’t get past the truth—there isn’t a scenario. We can’t do this. It just won’t work.”

  “Are you saying . . . because of your father?”

  She sighed. “It’s so much more than that. I don’t even know where to start. And I feel like I’ve given you all the ammunition you need. I don’t know why you can’t take a hint.”

  “I’ll tell you why. Because I don’t believe you.” He exhaled. Was he really ready to put it all out there? He’d chided her for keeping things from him. If they were going to be honest with each other, let it start now. “Tell me you don’t feel something, Shay? Tell me you don’t think we’re good together. Good with Portia even. You’re not giving us a chance, and I don’t understand why. It’s not fair. It doesn’t even make any sense.”

  “If you weren’t so blind, it would make perfect sense.” She scrubbed her face with her hands and gave a growl of frustration. “Link, if it was just you and me and we could move to a desert island, everything would be just peachy. But we can’t. We have to consider the real world we live in. And the different worlds we live in. That’s where we’d have to make us work. In the midst of both of our families. With me working right here at the bakery. And with Portia in the picture. All the time. Every day. And people like that stupid Mohawk character everywhere we go. Not every day. No. Most people are kind and understanding and accepting. But not everybody. And those are the ones we have to think about.”

  “No.” He straightened and leaned closer. “Why should we let those kind of people dictate our lives? Why would we do that? Why not expect the best of everybody and ignore the idiots of the world?”

  “Oh, you mean the way you ignored Mohawk? No, Link, because the idiots won’t ignore us.”

  “So we deal with it, Shay.” He held up a hand. “And I don’t mean the way I did. I might be a slow learner, but I can learn. And maybe we can set an example and change the world just a little bit along the way. At least our part of the world.”

  “I wish it was that easy, Link. I truly do. If we both came from families that supported us in this. If Portia wasn’t in the picture, we might have a prayer. But there’s so much going against us. And it’s not going to get better. Someday Jerry will get out, and then things could get a whole lot worse.”

  “You don’t know that. Why are you borrowing trouble? Why are you building an impossible case against us?”

  “I’m not building anything, Link. I’m showing you the blueprint. I’m trying to save you from building something that’s doomed to collapse.”

  He shook his head and looked at the table. He didn’t want to keep arguing with her. But he hated hearing the hopelessness in her voice.

  And for some strange reason, he was still determined to find a way to keep seeing her. In some ways he was surprised she hadn’t scared him off with all the drama that seemed to dog her family. He’d gotten the feeling his dad thought he should bail while the bailing was good. But something drew Link to her. Something more than just the physical attraction he felt for her.

  He scooted his chair closer to the table, closer to her. “Would you give me some time? Give me the rest of the year to convince you that we—”

  The front door opened, jangling the bells, and two guys strode in wearing coveralls with the local auto parts shop logo on their breast pockets.

  Shayla jumped up, pasting on a smile Link knew she didn’t feel. “Hey, Rick, Gary. Is it coffee break already? What can I get you guys?”

  She waited on the men, pouring coffee and bagging pastries, making friendly small talk. That was the Shayla he’d fallen in love with. The one he’d flirted with whenever he came in. He hadn’t known all the undercurrents that were there.

  Link willed the men to order their food to go, but they took their coffee in mugs and settled in at a corner table. Thankfully, they were soon engaged in a good-natured—but loud—political discussion.

  When Shayla came back to the table, he lowered his voice. “You guys have been through a lot,” he said. “But I think maybe I understand your dad’s feelings a little better now.” His talk with Dad had helped.

  “Then you know why I can’t see you any more, Link.”

  He leaned back. “No, I don’t know that at all. Why would you say that?”

  She looked at him with a pained expression. “Did you hear anything I just told you? I’m sorry I ever let you think this could go anywhere. I wanted it to. I really did, Link”—her voice broke—“but it won’t. And it can’t. It just . . . it wouldn’t work.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  At that moment, the back door opened and someone came in, whistling.

  Mike Michaels strode around the corner and stopped short when he saw Link. His gaze panned the room, and seeing the guys from the auto parts store, he motioned to Shayla. “You’ve got customers.”

  “They’ve been taken care of, Daddy.”

  Link prayed the men’s coffee cups weren’t empty. Even though the sign by the coffee pots clearly offered free self-serve refills.

  “Then you can take the day-old stuff in to the shelter in Cape. I’ll man the counter. I can’t do any more on the van until I get a couple of parts in.”

  “Daddy.” She said it respectfully, but through gritted teeth. “I have company.”

  “It’s okay,” Link said, patting her hand. “I need to go anyway. I’ll call you.” He turned to her father. “Good morning, sir. I was just leaving.”

  He didn’t wait to see what kind of reaction that got from Michaels but strode to the front door, returning the brief greeting from the auto parts guys with a nod before giving the door a decent slam.

  18

  That was rude, Daddy.” She followed him to the kitchen, not looking back to see whether the auto parts guys were watching. “What did Link ever do to deserve that kind of treatment from you?”

  The line of her father’s jaw tightened and he grabbed a bar rag and twisted it. Shayla got the impression he wanted to do the same thing to her neck.

  “I thought I made it clear he is not welcome here.”

  “He’s my friend. Are you truly telling me my friends aren’t welcome here now?” The truth was, Daddy hadn’t exactly been welcoming to the few friends she had left. Kind of like now.

  “Sit down, Shay.”

  “What?” She reached for a stool at the baking counter, even as she wondered why she let him boss her around like that. Speak to her that way.

  “Listen, baby, I just don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. Whethe
r we like it or not, Portia is our responsibility. It’s just a fact that no guy is going to be happy about that. I just don’t want you—”

  “Daddy, Link already said he doesn’t mind about Portia. He told you that. And he knows she’s part of the package. That she comes with me. I explained it all, and he’s fine with it.”

  “He says that now, baby. But you mark my words. It’ll start to wear thin. That’s a lot to ask a man to take on.”

  “But that’s my decision to make! Not yours. If I get hurt, I get hurt.”

  “And what about Portia? She’s already crazy about the man. You let him get any closer and it’ll break her heart.”

  Hadn’t she told Link that same thing? And meant it. She’d always been careful that Portia didn’t get attached to any guy—well, the few guys—she’d dated. But that didn’t make it fair that she had to consider her niece, as if it was her fault Jerry had saddled them with his daughter.

  She looked at her father and though she knew she shouldn’t let the words fly, a rebellious spirit rose up in her. “What about my heart, Daddy? When will it be my turn? You say Portia is our responsibility, but why is it always me who ends up with her?” She couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth. Her father had never laid a hand on her in anger, but given the rigid set of his jaw, she half expected him to strike her now.

  But he didn’t, and it made her brave. Too brave. She’d never dared to speak to him this way. Still, she was a grown woman. And she had put in her time with Mama. With Jerry. Even with her dad. “I love Portia, and you know I’m in it for the long haul with her. I’m resigned to that. No, I accept it. I love her. You know I do.” Her voice broke.

  But he only stared, as if waiting for her to finish.

  She took a deep breath, fighting back tears. “Daddy, I can’t do this if I have to be in it alone.”

  “Alone? And what am I? Chopped liver?”

  She knew he was merely trying to tease her out of a fight, to stave off her tears. But she had things she needed to say while he was still listening. And while she still had the courage. “I know you do what you can, but I’m burning out. Link . . . he brought some fun and laughter back to my life. And Portia’s too. He’s good for us. Why can’t you see that?”

 

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