She took a sip of her water, avoiding Kelly’s sympathetic gaze. Girlfriend knew enough of the Barry Saga to read between the lines.
“And yet—” Kelly stretched her bare feet out on Laurel’s coffee table “—he keeps hanging out. Doing stuff for you. Why do you think that is?”
“We’re friends?” The other woman rolled her eyes. Laurel was tempted to lob another ice cube at her. “And if you eliminate that option, what’s left?”
Kelly’s brow furrowed. “I got nothing.” Then her eyes veered to Laurel. “He ever talk about his history?”
“Only vaguely. Not that I haven’t tried to get him to open up, but he always changes the subject.” She sighed. “Food, fountains, his time...those, he shares. His thoughts? As if. Although he did make some comment, weeks ago, about having been a ‘pain’ as a kid.” She frowned. “So I sometimes wonder if... Oh, this sounds crazy.”
“Which means you now have to tell me.”
Laurel smiled, then said, “Sometimes I get the feeling...it’s almost like he’s trying to atone for something. To, I don’t know...make up for the past? Except he’s certainly not a bad kid now.” Kelly’s brows lifted. “Okay, so not a kid now.”
That got a soft laugh. “It’s okay. It took me a minute to remember how old he was, too, when I first got back last year. Like he stalled out at twenty-five—”
“Thank you. The hair, for one thing.”
“And the general goofiness,” Kelly said, and Laurel lifted her condensation-dotted glass in agreement. “It drives Matt nuts. But...” Her face scrunched, her friend pulled her legs up under her and leaned forward. “Not sure if this will help or not, but from what I know, I don’t think Tyler ever really got to be a kid. Not when he was one, I mean.”
“Meaning?”
“You...know he’s adopted, right?”
“That much he told me. When he was ten, I think he said.”
“Do you know why?” When Laurel shook her head, Kelly said, “I’m not privy to the whole story, of course, but I do know he landed at the Nobles as a foster the year before, because his mother was doing drugs. And I only know that because Sabrina was a champion eavesdropper and we basically lived in each other’s pockets. But there was also something about a cop finding him roaming the streets really late one night? And his mother had no idea he was even out?”
“Oh, my God—that’s awful.”
“Yeah. So CPS removed him. I actually remember when he first arrived. He was like...this scrawny, snarling stray dog who didn’t trust anybody, even though he was starving. You know?”
Maybe he wasn’t snarling anymore, but, yeah, Laurel thought, her eyes stinging. She knew. She’d seen.
“Yeah. Gran adopted a stray like that once. Wanted the food, but didn’t trust us. He’d cower in a corner of the porch, growling. While wagging his tail.”
“Exactly. And it seemed as if the more the Colonel and Jeanne—Jeanne, especially—would try to make him feel part of the family,” Kelly said, “the more he’d say he wanted to go back. To go home. Those first few weeks, especially. He even ran away a couple of times, as I recall. And Jeanne and the Colonel would haul his butt back and start over again.”
Laurel cupped her belly, her heart breaking for that little boy she’d never known. Except, in a way, she did, didn’t she? “And his mother...?”
“Relinquished her rights a year later. And the Nobles adopted him. Which of course was the best thing that could have happened to him.”
“But...” Laurel sighed as the picture came a little more into focus. “But try explaining that to a ten-year-old boy whose mother gave him up.”
“Exactly.” Kelly leaned back again, the breeze from the fan stirring the ends of her hair. “And he was still a handful when I moved away two years later. And continued to be, I gather. Got into trouble at school quite a bit. Nothing horrible, just stupid pranks, ditching class—a lot—stuff like that. Mostly rebelling against the discipline he’d never had before. Meaning, against the Colonel. They butted heads constantly, until Ty moved out the instant he turned eighteen.” She smiled. “His saving grace, however, was Abby, who was a toddler when Tyler arrived. For some reason she glommed on to him, and he was as patient and sweet with her as could be. It was the craziest thing, how he bonded with that baby.”
“Have you seen him with his dog? Not that crazy.”
“True. And they’re still close. Hence their going into business together.” Kelly chuckled. “Ty and Abby. Not Ty and Boomer.”
“I don’t know, Boomer seems to take his position as door dog pretty seriously,” Laurel said, then asked, “What happened with Ty’s mother, do you know?”
“Here’s the interesting thing. Once she gave up her rights, Tyler stopped talking about her altogether. Or if he did, Matt and Bree never heard him. In fact, Matt said Ty refused to see her, even after she’d been straight for a couple of years and wanted to see him. Which the Colonel and Jeanne totally encouraged. But a couple of years ago, apparently—before I moved back to Maple River—he decided to reconnect.”
“Really?”
Kelly nodded. “I don’t think they see each other too often, but she doesn’t live far. In fact, I gather Ty does yard work for her, things like that...”
Laurel’s heart knocked. “Is her name Starla?”
“I have no idea. Although I’m sure I could find out easily enough. What—?”
“Before he built the wall between our yards, Ty took me over to some woman’s house to look at one he’d done for her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time—why would I?—but now... Yeah, there was definitely a resemblance. And the way she looked at him...”
Shaking her head, Laurel set the water glass down on the straw mat covering the end table. “She seemed—no, she was—so...bighearted. Like her only mission in life was to make people feel better. I can’t imagine...” She shook her head, then frowned. “What about his father?”
“I don’t think he was ever in the picture.”
“Ah. That explains a lot.”
“Meaning?”
“More than once after Ty realized I was pregnant—and doing this on my own—he got on my case about trying to contact Jonny’s father. Almost as though it bothers him more than it does me. Not that it doesn’t bother me. Of course it does—this wasn’t exactly how I’d envisioned doing this—but what struck me was how...personally he seemed to be taking it.”
“And he never told you why?”
“No. Even though he had to know I would’ve found out eventually. Especially considering he was the one all hot to introduce me to the family. To you all, I mean. So did he really think he could keep this a secret?”
Her toes curled around the edge of the coffee table, Kelly poked at the dot of ice in what was left in her drink before saying, “Okay...assuming, for the sake of argument, this Starla really is his birth mother—because we don’t know for sure, right?” Laurel grunted. “Then...maybe Ty’s not trying to keep a secret as much as he simply doesn’t want to talk about it. Men are like that. Believe me, I know. They’re all about doing, but chatting? God forbid. Also, maybe he didn’t exactly feel comfortable introducing Starla as his birth mother to some chick he hardly knew?”
Laurel’s mouth twisted. “Or maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.”
“Or that.” Kelly paused, then said, “So you gonna ask him?”
After a moment, Laurel shook her head. “I don’t think so. Whatever his reasons for not telling me...they’re his reasons. I can’t very well expect him to respect my choices if I don’t extend him the same courtesy. Besides, really—what business is it of mine, or anybody’s, who his birth mother is? Right?”
“True,” Kelly sighed out, sagging back onto the couch. The air-conditioning had done its thing, the cool air purring through the vents having a
dangerously soporific effect on a pair of women already suffering from post-Babies-“R”-Us syndrome. In fact, Kelly released a huge yawn before her gaze languidly drifted to Laurel’s as she took another swig of her tea. “But aren’t you even a tiny bit curious now? To find out the whole story?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Laurel said, and Kelly laughed.
But it was true—she felt as though she’d been given a book with half the pages missing...and she’d read enough to get sucked in, whether she wanted to be or not.
When Kelly got up to go potty again, Laurel hauled her broader-than-it-used-to-be butt into the kitchen to refill her water glass. And as she stood at the sink, her gaze drifted out the patio door and toward the wall, glowing in the late-afternoon sun, where a dove was blissfully splashing about in the lion’s head fountain...and she thought, What do you want from me, Tyler Noble?
Or, more to the point, what did she want from him—?
“So whatever happened to your grandmother’s rescue pooch?” Kelly asked, joining Laurel in the kitchen. “Did he ever let anyone touch him?”
Laurel smiled. “Eventually, yeah. But it wasn’t easy. Took a lot of patience.” She paused. “Waiting for him to come to us.”
“Bet it was worth the wait, though, huh?” Kelly asked softly, and Laurel’s gaze shot to hers, then skittered away again, back to the fountain, where she could practically see Tyler, after it was installed and working, turning to her with a big thumbs-up and an even bigger grin....
“He turned out to be the sweetest, most loyal dog, ever.”
“The ones you have to work the hardest to win over usually are,” Kelly said, not looking at Laurel as she yanked open Laurel’s fridge. “This is really pathetic.”
“And your point would be...?”
The door slammed shut. A dozen take-out menus fluttered. “And you seriously have way too many of these.”
“What can I say? I like variety—”
“Get your purse—we’re going to the grocery store,” Kelly said, traipsing to the living room to grab her own off the sofa. “The kids are with their grandmother, Matt’s working late... Your first cooking lesson is about to begin. There will probably be leftovers.” She grinned. “Which you can share with Tyler.”
Ah. “How’s about you teach Tyler to cook instead?”
“Because, sweetie, that would defeat my purpose.”
And she thought her grandmother was bad.
Chapter Eight
Tyler had no sooner tossed his keys onto his entryway table and turned on the air-conditioning when his doorbell rang, setting Boomer off as if a horde of Vikings were outside. Sternly commanding the dog to sit, he opened the door to see Laurel awkwardly balancing a cake carrier on top of a covered casserole dish, from which emanated the Best. Smells. Ever.
“Dinner?” she said, about the same time he also noticed Kelly’s van pull out of her driveway, his sister-in-law waving as she drove off.
Ignoring the now-whimpering dog, Tyler’s gaze returned to the tower of food and the woman holding it, and he felt an increasingly familiar, and annoying, wallop in his gut. They hadn’t hung out much in the past month, mainly because he’d been busier than a squirrel in October, although he’d kept tabs on her the best he could. You know, as a friend. Except more and more, friendly wasn’t exactly how he’d describe his feelings toward her. But not like he wanted to jump her bones, either— even if he was guessing her being pregnant probably had a lot to do with that. It was just...
Like...when he looked at her, all he knew was, he wanted. Only, he didn’t know what. And right now, looking into those big blue eyes, seeing that grin, he felt a lot like his frustrated dog.
He crossed his arms and aimed for a smile. “Depends on who cooked whatever that is.”
“Chicken enchilada casserole and sponge cake with lemon icing. And I did.”
“All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. Under Kelly’s eagle-eyed supervision, of course. So odds are you won’t get food poisoning.”
“Reassuring,” he said, stepping aside to let her in. It wasn’t her first time in his house—she’d come over a couple weeks ago to see the floors, although he hadn’t had time to redo hers yet. And he’d told himself her amused expression as she gave the living room a once-over hadn’t bothered him in the least. That it didn’t matter, what she thought, it wasn’t like she’d ever spend much time here.
Except after she left, he took a good, long look at the place and wondered how she hadn’t laughed out loud. Or run shrieking back to her place. Which is when it occurred to him that maybe it was time to trade up from Clueless Castoff to something that looked like an adult human lived there. So he’d gone out and bought a new sofa with all the guts still intact, a couple of chairs, a rug that didn’t look like it’d seen one too many frat parties. Changed out the cinder block/old-door contraption for a real coffee table. Bought some lamps, even, so he didn’t have to use the overhead. Which, when on, made the room look like a pee-filled fish tank.
And if her startled look made his chest tickle, so much the better.
“Look at this,” she said as he took the dish from her. “How’d I miss the House Crashers dudes?”
“Very funny,” he said, and she chuckled, and it made him feel good, so he decided to go with that. He carted the cake and the casserole dish to the kitchen, setting the cake aside to remove the top from the dish...and his mouth watered from the savory scents of green chile and onion, the bubbling cheese, chunks of chicken peeking out from the curled edges of corn tortillas.
“This looks amazing. You sure you want to share it?”
Laurel waddled—yes, by now she was definitely duckwalking—into the kitchen, before, with a slight grimace, bracing against the edge of the table to lower herself to the chair. “Seriously, I cannot believe I have six weeks left. At this rate I’m gonna get stuck in doorways. And not only am I sharing, it’s basically yours. Since, thanks to His Highness, I’m full after two bites these days. And Gran doesn’t do onions. Or chile.”
“Her loss.”
“That’s what I thought. The plan had been to do pizza. Except the Mexican stuff was in the same aisle as the pizza stuff, and I had a roommate from New Mexico one year who turned me on to green chile, and—” she shrugged “—we got derailed.”
Tyler cut squares of the casserole and served it up, then poured them two glasses of milk. The dog sucked in a quart of slobber, looking hopeful. “Forget it, mutt. No way are you getting onions and chile. Unless you want to spend the night outside. In the next county.”
Boomer seemed to consider that for a moment, then slogged to the patio door, where he lay down with a huge, pity-me groan.
Well aware that Laurel was watching him, Tyler forked in a big bite of the casserole. Chewed for a moment, then speared her with a glance.
“You really made this?”
“I really did. Even shredded the cheese. The chile’s canned, of course, not fresh, but one works with what one has. Well?”
“Trust me, it will not go to waste. No, I mean it—it’s freaking awesome.”
Laurel grinned and took a bite of her own, nodding in agreement. “It’s not bad, huh? Of course, all I did was follow Kelly’s orders. God knows what it’d come to if I’d been left to my own devices.” Then she pricked her fork into a blob of melted cheese before saying, “I love Kelly, I really do, and I’m so grateful you introduced us, but...man, she is one bossy chick. And why are you laughing?”
“Because when I think of her from before? When we were all kids, I mean? She was this mousy little thing, totally overshadowed by Sabrina. Who’s probably always been bossy. At least, she has ever since I’ve known her.”
“You mean,” Laurel said, her eyes lowered to her plate as she cut off her next bite, “when you came to live with t
he Nobles?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, his own gaze dipping, as well. God knows he thought about his childhood plenty, but he’d never liked talking about it. Maybe because he didn’t want to get asked questions he didn’t have any real clear answers for.
And if Laurel started poking around inside his head now, it was his own fault, for introducing them to begin with.
When he dared to glance up, he saw Laurel looking at him in that steady way she had, and it killed him, wondering what Kelly’d told her. If anything. But he didn’t dare ask, did he? Not without getting into a conversation he didn’t want to have. With her or anybody.
Then, her mouth curving slightly, she scraped what was left of the cheese and sauce from her plate, sucked it off her fork. “Look,” she said quietly, “if there’s stuff you don’t feel comfortable talking about, that’s okay. But if you ever need a sounding board...I’m here.”
Which is when he realized...she knew. Enough, anyway. But before he could come up with something, anything, that didn’t sound totally lame, she said, on a changing-the-subject exhale, “Anyway. Kelly being bossy. She’s absolutely determined to give me this shower, even though hardly anybody I’ve invited is coming—”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, it’s okay, I’m not surprised.” He could tell she was disappointed, though. And that, in turn, made him want to punch something. “But whenever I even think about trying to talk Kelly out of it...I can’t. Isn’t that nuts?”
Partly because his tongue was burning from the chili, partly because he needed a break from those damn eyes for a second, Tyler got up to refill his milk glass. The dog scrambled to his feet, ears perked. “Trying to talk Kell out of anything’s a waste of energy, believe me. But if it makes her happy...” He let the fridge door slam shut, then leaned against it to take a big swallow. “What’s the big deal?”
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