by Cindy Gerard
I’m fine, his smile said. Because she wanted to believe it, she let it be.
“Motherhood agrees with you, Spanky. Where is the little tricycle motor, anyway?”
Another truck door slammed just then, and his brother-in-law, Jed Cooper, walked toward the gathering on the porch, a tow-headed toddler in his arms. “Did I hear someone ask for trouble?”
Wyatt exchanged a quick hello and a smile with Jed, noticed that the former high school all-conference quarterback still kept himself in good shape, then focused all of his attention on the boy.
“Holy God.” He glanced at Annie. “He could be your clone.”
The little guy was close to two—Wyatt knew that because his mother had told him about Will Cooper. Will had Annie’s silky blond hair, sky-blue eyes, and devil grin and his daddy’s athletic frame.
“Down,” Will demanded of his father, who set him on the grass beside a brick walking path that led to the house.
“Not so fast, little man. Someone wants to meet you.” Annie ran after her son, who had made a beeline for the tire swing Grampa Savage had hung from a bough of the ancient live oak that shaded the west side of the house.
Annie scooped him up, nuzzled his neck until they were both giggling, then carried him back to the porch. “Meet Kid Chaos.” She delivered approximately thirty pounds of wriggling boy into Wyatt’s arms.
“Hey, big guy.” Wyatt smiled into Will’s bright blue eyes and, out of nowhere, felt a tug of longing so deep and so unexpected and so painfully out of reach that it stole his breath. This child was vital and beautiful and a living extension of his sister, and damn, it hit him that maybe the absence of this kind of innocence, this kind of hope and promise of tomorrow in his life, might have been what had brought him home.
He looked into those trusting blue eyes and thought of Sam and Abbie’s little guy, Bryan, and finally understood why Sam had left BOI and come alive as Wyatt had never seen Sam before.
Talk about awakenings. And talk about pain, when the little guy’s grin changed to pure ornery, and he hauled back and smacked Wyatt in the nose with a tiny fist.
Both Annie and Margaret gasped in horror.
Despite the pain, Wyatt let go with a whoop of laughter. “Yep. Just like your momma.”
“Sorry. Shoulda warned ya,” Jed said with a smile that held as much amusement as apology.
“He’s probably just hungry.” Wyatt reluctantly handed off the toddler to his sister. “Speaking of which, since everyone’s here, maybe we’d better eat that supper you fixed, Momma.” He gingerly touched his fingers to his nose. “Feed the boy before he draws blood.”
Wyatt caught the look his momma and Annie exchanged and felt his gut clench. He knew that look. “What? What did you do?”
Annie hitched Will higher on her hip and stared at their mother with narrowed eyes. “You didn’t tell him?”
“What’s to tell?” Margaret said with a dismissive shrug. “It’s not like Carrie’s company or anything.”
Carrie? “Carrie Granger?” Wyatt glared from his mother to his sister, already knowing what came next.
“Momma invited her to supper.”
Margaret blinked rapidly and hurried for the door. “I’d better check on the chicken.”
Wyatt turned to his daddy.
“Don’t be lookin’ at me, son.” Ben Savage rose slowly from the chair. “I learned to stay out of that woman’s path a whole lotta years ago.”
“Welcome home,” Jed said with a man-to-man and very sympathetic grin as he walked past Wyatt into the house.
Fried chicken. Peach pie. Meddling.
Yep, Wyatt thought, as he spotted the dust trail of another vehicle bearing down on the Savage place. He’d hit the Margaret Savage trifecta.
Night had fallen by the time supper was over. Outside on the porch, a miller fluttered against the window screen; crickets chirped in the dew-damp grass. Summer smells filled the night air, but the scent Wyatt remembered best was the subtle fragrance of the white Cherokee roses his momma had planted all around the porch years ago. He breathed deep as he lifted a hand, indicating that Carrie should sit down on the swing, and worked on forgiving his mother for putting them both in this position.
“So,” Carrie said, breaking an uncomfortable silence as she took a seat, “should we just talk about the pink elephant and get it out in the open?”
It was hard to believe that Wyatt had forgotten how pretty Carrie Granger was. And how smart. “Sorry about—” He lifted a hand, debated what to call it, and finally settled on “the blindside. I shoulda seen it comin’.”
“For what it’s worth, I missed it, too. Your momma told me this was a welcome-home party.”
The chains holding the swing from the ceiling of the porch creaked when he eased down beside her. Inside the house, his momma and Annie washed the supper dishes, while his dad and Jed, with little Will asleep in Jed’s arms, caught a baseball game on ESPN, conveniently leaving Wyatt and Carrie alone.
Margaret had insisted. “Go on outside now, you two. Enjoy the lovely evenin’. Can’t imagine how much catchin’ up y’all have to do. We can handle these dishes.”
“It sounded like there was going to be a lot of people here. Not just family. And me,” Carrie added, sounding a little embarrassed and looking mighty fine.
“Momma has a way of understating what should be obvious.” He felt relieved when she smiled.
He also remembered why he’d always liked her. And why he’d been so hot for her in his randy youth. The soft rays of the porch light cast flattering shadows on her face, accentuating her model cheekbones and perfectly arched brows and a cupid’s-bow upper lip he used to just love to nibble on. Man, he’d had a big bad thing for this blue-eyed blonde. She’d been pretty back then. She was gorgeous now. Sophisticated. Poised and all woman.
“So tell me something, Miss Granger.” He smiled when she tucked a shiny fall of long blond hair behind her ear. “Is there not one man in the county smart enough to realize that women like you are as rare as a cool breeze in August?”
She smiled at the hands she’d clasped in her lap, then turned amused eyes on him. “You mean other than Jim Bob, Ray Bob, Joe Bob, and Bob Bob?”
Wyatt chuckled. “Yeah. Other than them.”
“Well, then, no. Apparently, you were the only smart one, and you left,” she said, tongue in cheek.
Yeah, he had left. A long time ago. Just like it really had been a long time ago when they’d been an item. He appreciated that she hadn’t made it sound bittersweet. Just sweet. They’d been kids, and they’d both moved on—at least, he had. Something in her eyes, though, something soft and vulnerable and interested, made him realize that maybe she hadn’t moved quite as far as he had.
“I really am sorry Momma put you in this position.”
“Hey.” She lifted a hand. “I scored Margaret Savage’s famous fried chicken and peach pie out of the deal. And I got a chance to catch up with an old friend. What’s to be sorry about?”
“You always were a generous woman, Carrie Ann,” he said, looking past the porch rail toward the yard, where lightning bugs glided in the warm summer night.
“So how are you, Wyatt? Other than single and in dire need of a wife?”
He grinned again. “Other than that, I’m doin’ fine, sugar.”
“It’s the little guy, you know,” she said. “Margaret’s got a taste of grandbabies. It’s in her blood now. Like a fever. She wants more. Annie can’t do all the heavy lifting.”
“He’s quite the boy,” Wyatt admitted, and felt that tug of longing again. “I’m glad I got a chance to meet him.”
“How long are you home?”
He looked at her sideways, intrigued and a little uneasy about an almost undetectable edge of hope riding lightly on her question.
“Just for the week. I felt the need to check up on them. Touch base, ya know?”
When her bright expression wavered ever so subtly, he felt a little pang of guilt
. She’d been hoping for a different answer. Maybe something that hinted at long-term.
“So … you’re checking on the folks … and maybe reconnecting with home?” she suggested after a short silence. “Getting a good dose to carry you through whatever lies ahead?”
Whatever lies ahead. He wondered what she knew—or what she thought she knew about what he did.
“There’s talk,” she said, when he said nothing. “Ever since you blew out of here all those years ago, people have been telling stories about you. Speculating.”
“Now, that’s a sad and sorry commentary on Adel if I’m the most excitin’ thing they’ve got to talk about.”
“You know how it is. Local hero and all.”
He grunted. “I’m no hero.”
She looked at him askance, and there it was again. That faint but unmistakable look in her eyes that said she still thought he was someone special. “Anyone who leaves here is a hero.”
Yeah, in some people’s playbooks, he supposed that was true. Not much happened in Adel, Georgia. That’s why he’d left, after all. Traded the slow pace and the easy grace of the South for the “thrills and chills” of the spook world. And when he’d parted ways with the CIA, Nate Black and his team at Black Ops, Inc. had been waiting. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
“Word is you’re one of those shadow-warrior types who disappears into jungles full of bad guys with nothing but a knife and a length of piano wire.”
Oh, yeah. She saw him as a hero, all right. He grunted again, then put things in perspective. “Right. Well, except that I always take my manservant along to press my fatigues and buff my nails.”
She smiled. “It’s okay, Wyatt. You don’t have to talk about it. Probably couldn’t even if you wanted to. Just know there are people thinking about you. Thanking you. Praying for you.”
Jesus. What did he say to that?
As it turned out, he didn’t have to say anything, because Carrie shifted on the swing so she was facing him. Her blue eyes sparkled with that old familiar mischief that had drawn him like a bear to a honey pot, and he knew even before she leaned toward him that she was going to kiss him.
Just as he knew he was going to let her. For old times’ sake. For her sake. Maybe even for his sake.
Nice. Very, very nice, he thought, as she slowly pulled away from a kiss as sweet as a long-ago memory of the two of them making out on a blanket under the stars in Old Man Larson’s pasture.
“That’s so you know I never forgot about you, Wyatt Savage.”
He touched a hand to her cheek, brushed his thumb along her hairline. “You always did know how to knock the pins out from under me, sugar.”
Back in high school, she’d knotted him up ten ways from Sunday with a certain look, a flirty smile, a spontaneous kiss like the one she’d just surprised him with, and taken him back to a time of such simple innocence that for an instant there, it made him want it all back.
Clocks didn’t march backward, though, and neither could he.
“Carrie,” he said, as her eyes searched his, then transitioned from expectant hope to understanding regret.
“No. It’s okay. And it was worth a shot.” She forced a smile and attempted to make light of her action. “It’s those damn baby blues. Guess I’m still susceptible.”
Aw, damn. He’d hurt her. “Sugar—”
She shook her head, cutting him off, then leaned in and kissed him once more, this time a quick, soft peck of friendship to undo the expectation of the other kiss.
Just that fast, she shifted back into safe mode and, smart woman that she was, pretended the kiss had never happened as she started talking about mutual friends, filling him in on who was married, who was divorced, who had children, who had surprised her.
A good woman, Wyatt thought as he used his foot to rock the swing and listened to the soft Southern cadence of her voice. A real good woman. If he had a lick of sense, he’d do exactly what his momma wanted him to do. Settle down. Get married. Raise those babies he hadn’t even realized he wanted with a woman like Carrie Granger, who was clearly open to all kinds of possibilities involving him and her and a future.
“Now might be the time,” he heard her say, and wondered if he’d spoken his thoughts out loud.
“For me to make my getaway,” she clarified when he jerked his head her way. “While everyone’s busy inside.”
“You don’t have to go,” he said, suddenly realizing he wanted to see more of her but knowing it would be unfair to ask that of her when he couldn’t offer what she wanted. “Although I wouldn’t blame you. I haven’t exactly been stellar company. Someone’s bound to break out a deck of cards soon. If I recall, you play a mean game of Spades.”
“This is true,” she agreed with a smile, “but I’d hate to have to beat you in front of your family—being they think you walk on water and make it rain and all.”
Yeah. She was pretty, smart, and funny.
“And I very much enjoyed your company, Wyatt. It’s just that I’ve got an early morning. I’m approaching the hospital board first thing about funding for a dialysis center, so I need my game face on.”
Sometime during supper, his momma had pointed out that Carrie was the hospital administrator at Adel Memorial. What a catch, her smile had said. His momma was right about that.
“It’s really been great seeing you, Wyatt.”
He stood when she did, then walked her down the porch steps and down the brick path to her car. “You’re an amazing, beautiful woman,” he said, because it was important for her to understand that he knew. “Too good for the likes of me. I did you a favor when I left town.”
And he’d be doing her a favor when he left again.
He opened her car door for her, and she turned and looked up at him with more than a hint of regret shining in her eyes. “Guess we’ll never know. Stay safe, now, Wyatt.” She hugged him then. He hugged her back, both of them clinging for a moment, remembering what it had been like to be young and in love, with their entire future still ahead of them. “Thank your momma for me, okay?”
“Will do. Take care, now, darlin’.” He let her go, then worked at convincing himself that what he saw in her eyes in that brief moment was simply the same kind of wistfulness he was feeling. They were both missing their lost youth.
“You, too.” She flashed a quick smile and was on her way.
Fingers tucked in the hip pockets of his jeans, Wyatt watched her drive down the washboard road, thinking that he probably was a fool for letting her go. Thinking that there was a scent of rain in the air. Thinking that he really had missed this place called home.
He turned and strolled slowly back toward the house while a whole bunch of unexpected feelings closed in. Melancholy for one. Maybe even a little regret.
“Wyatt?”
Annie hurried down the porch steps, carrying the portable phone. “You’ve got a phone call. She says it’s urgent.”
He stepped up his pace. “She?”
“Said her name was Sophie. That you’d know who she was.”
He damn near dropped the phone when she handed it to him. He knew only one Sophie, and he’d been working on erasing her memory for the better part of twelve years.
Stupid, yeah, but even after all this time, Sophie remained the main reason he hadn’t encouraged Carrie just now. No woman deserved to play second chair to the one woman Wyatt would always put first.
He pressed the receiver against his chest to muffle the sound. “You sure she said Sophie?”
Annie nodded, her brows knitted in concern.
God.
Heart slamming, he turned his back to his sister and lifted the phone to his ear. “Sophie?”
“Wyatt. Oh, Wyatt, thank God I found you.”
She sounded breathless and hoarse, but he recognized her voice. Would recognize it anywhere. The sound knocked the breath out of him. “Sophie—”
“I need your help,” she cut in, her desperation sharp and thick. “I need�
�” That was all she got out before a heart-wrenching sob stopped her.
He clutched the phone tighter. “Sophie, where are you? Are you hurt? Are you in danger? Talk to me.”
“No. No, I’m fine. God, I’m fine, but—”
“Hugh?” he interrupted, concern for her shifting to concern for her husband and his old friend. “Jesus. Did something happen to Hugh?”
“No … it’s not Hugh. But I can’t reach him. He’s out of touch, some op in God knows where. Oh, God, Wyatt!”
“Slow down, Sophie. Deep breath. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s our daughter.” She fell apart again then.
For about a nanosecond, so did he, as he processed the fact that Sophie and Hugh had a child. They were married, for God’s sake, for damn near twelve years now. But a child? He hadn’t ever let himself think about that. About a child with Sophie’s eyes and Hugh’s lanky good looks. He’d never wanted to go there. Wished he didn’t have to now.
“Sophie.” He hardened his voice. “Pull yourself together. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s happened.”
He sat down on the bottom porch step and listened, his palm sweating on the receiver.
“Jesus,” he muttered, when she’d finally gotten it all out. “I’ll be there. Just hold on, okay? I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
He gave her his cell number, got hers, and told her he’d be in touch. Then he pressed the disconnect button. For a moment, he just sat there, stared at the phone, then stared into the dark.
“Wyatt?” Annie sat down beside him. She laid a hand on his arm. “What is it?”
He’d forgotten she was even there. “I have to go.”
“Yeah, I got that. Who is Sophie?”
He turned his head, looked at his sister, but didn’t really see her as the porch light spilled into the dark. Instead, he saw the image of the only woman he’d ever loved. Rich coffee-brown eyes, sable-brown hair, a smile that had glowed with happiness the day she married his best friend.