“Love?”
“Well…yeah.” She was looking into his eyes, and Jimmy Joe could see that she was thinking about how close she’d come to being in that same condition herself, and feeling the wonder and awe of her own miracle all over again. It was something he had no trouble understanding, since it was his miracle, too.
She gave her head a shake, pulling herself away from her own scary thoughts. “What I think is, something happened to Charly when she was young, and that’s why she ran away. I think she must have gotten hurt somehow. I don’t mean just some broken love affair-I mean really hurt, you know? So badly that I don’t think she’s ever gotten over it. I think she’s just made up her mind she’s not ever going to let herself get hurt again.”
“Minds can be unmade,” Jimmy Joe reminded her, dipping his head until his lips found the sweet, fragrant softness of her neck.
“Mmm…never happen…” Her words grew slurred; she moved her head slowly back and forth. “Charly’s pretty stubborn.”
Jimmy Joe chuckled. He could feel her begin to tremble as he laid her gently back against the cushion of his arm and whispered against her lips, “Never underestimate the power of a Starr.”
“Breakfast first,” said Troy as he backed the Cherokee out of the Mourning Springs Motel parking lot. “And a gallon of coffee. Then the car.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said it; Charly had been all for going out and chasing down her rental car first thing, and it was taking some doing to dissuade her. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to get her suitcases back, but he also knew what blood sugar could do to a body when it bottomed out.
“Jeez…” She gave in with poor grace, muttering and swearing, and with conditions of her own. “All right, here’s a Burger King-we can go through the drive-through.”
“You kiddin’?” Troy glanced in the rearview mirror at Bubba, who he knew was going to be panting and drooling all down the back of the middle seat at the mere mention of Burger King. “That fast-food stuff’ll kill you, don’t you know that? Naw, what we need is some real food.”
Her snort was ripe with sarcasm. “By which, being Southern, I imagine you mean grits.”
He smiled good-naturedly but didn’t say anything for a second or two, not being exactly sure which she was feeling sarcastic about-the South, or the grits. Then, squinting into the morning sun, he said, “Okay, then, you bein” Southern-”
“Ex!”
He could have told her there was no such thing, that it was almost a scientifically proved fact that you could take the girl out of the South, but no way in hell you could ever take the South out of the girl. But the mood she was in, he thought maybe he’d best make that point some other time. So he nodded and conceded, “Ex-Southern. So what do you eat with your eggs, California? Quiche?”
“Hash browns,” she snapped, and threw him a bitter look, like a disappointed child. “Preferably those little greasy stuck-together patties they give you at fast-food places.” He laughed. She studied him for a while, then said, “No smoking, no fast food-so, I suppose you’re some kind of a health nut, too.”
“Too?”
“Mirabella.” She sat back with a resigned sigh. “She’s always getting after me about my eating habits.”
And that was something that just about boggled Troy’s mind. He kept trying to imagine those two headstrong, feisty women-the Mirabella he knew and the Charly he’d just met-being best friends. He decided such a volatile combination would have to be either highly entertaining or highly hazardous to a person’s health. Either that, or there were facets to both women he hadn’t discovered yet. The more he thought about it, the more he decided he’d like to. Especially after last night.
“Way I see it,” he drawled, “you only get one body. I try not to abuse mine, is all.”
He could feel her studying him again. It gave him a pleasurable little tingle to think she might be wondering about some of his undiscovered facets. He thought to himself, Darlin’, if you’ll show me yours, I’ll show you mine…
After a moment she said, “So, is it true? You’re a SEAL?”
“Used to be.” He glanced over at her, but she had turned her head and was staring out the window, gazing at the buildings they were just passing.
“Mourning Spring High School,” he said, reading the letters on the sign at the base of the flagpole as it flashed by. “That where you went to school?”
“For a while.” Her voice seemed faraway, and had that hollowness he’d heard before. “Never graduated.”
“Never graduated?” He frowned, thinking she probably hadn’t meant it just that way. “How come?”
“Moved.” Her voice had a new, bright edge, an artificial lightness. She turned her head toward him again, giving her hair a little flip that made him think of his own high-school days, of bands playing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and cheerleaders flirting.
“Hey, I bet you were a jock-football player, right? Hell, I’ll bet you were the quarterback.”
“Shows how wrong you are.” Troy grinned, still riding on those memories, allowing himself to strut a little. “Wide receiver. All-conference, junior and senior year-voted best hands in the state.”
“That I can believe.”
He thought she probably hadn’t meant to say it like that, with her voice going husky and a catch in her breathing. But suddenly there was silence, except for Bubba’s panting, which sounded too much like heavy breathing and didn’t help matters. And if she hadn’t meant to say it like that, she sure knew right away that she had. She put her head back against the seat and whispered under her breath-most likely swear words, if he knew her. And he thought he was beginning to, a little.
At first he thought the best thing would be to ignore it. But the silence kept getting thicker and heavier, and his mind, looking for ways to fill the vacuum, kept wanting to give him reminders of the very things he was trying to forget. He found himself growing light-headed.
So he finally said, “Hey, look-it happened. It’s not like it’s gonna go away if we don’t talk about it.”
Her body jerked slightly, and she turned her head to give him an angry glare. “I hope you don’t think I do-”
He held up a hand and stopped her right there, then shook his head and growled, “I can’t believe you’d even say that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you did think it,” she countered in an edgy voice. There was a pause, and then she gave a tight, high laugh. “I mean, God, I wish I could say it was because I’d had too much to drink. But I don’t think one light beer would do it, do you?”
“You had too much of somethin’,” Troy muttered, narrowing his eyes and staring straight ahead through the windshield. Like trouble, stress and heartache, maybe.
And the worst of it, as far as he was concerned, was that he still didn’t know why, or what in the hell it was all about. He wished to God he had it in him to just come right out and ask, but he kept telling himself it was her business, not his.
He let out a breath through his nose, calling on all his patience and self-control. “And I…took advantage of the situation. That’s not something I’m proud of. But on the other hand I don’t feel particularly inclined to apologize for it, either. Unless you feel like I ought to.” He looked over at her, issuing the challenge. “You want me to?”
“What?”
“Apologize.”
“No!” She threw him a furious look, then put her head back against the headrest and finished it on a soft exhalation. “Of course not. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t yours, either.”
“Okay,” she snarled, “so it wasn’t anybody’s fault It just happened.”
“Yeah, it did. And you want to tell me why we’re sitting here tryin’ to attach fault to something that felt so damn good?”
They were just coming into the town square, on a Saturday morning as bright and blue and sunshiny as an Alabama June day knows how to be. Out there in the park, people were
going about their business, kids playing ball, old folks sitting in the sun. And inside the Cherokee where they were sitting the atmosphere was as charged and sultry as it had been in the night with the lightning flickering and the thunder growling and one hell of a storm coming on.
Some of the growling was coming from Troy’s stomach, and it wasn’t all from hunger-at least, not the bacon-an’-eggs kind. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charly shake her head, then look down at her hands, which were all knotted up in her lap. But she couldn’t find anything more to say, and neither could he.
Troy found a shady parking place on the square across from Kelly’s and pulled into it. While he was rolling down windows and explaining the program to Bubba, and trying to get him to understand that all that howling and carrying on wasn’t going to change things one bit, Charly sat and stared through the windshield at the sign that said Kelly’s Kitchen.
She told herself she was behaving like a child. More accurately like the emotionally racked teenager she’d once been. It was time she remembered that that girl, Charlene Elizabeth, didn’t exist anymore. It was time she remembered who she was now-C. E. Phelps, Attorney-At-Law, according to the brass letters on the door of her plush-carpeted offices on the twentieth floor of a downtown L.A. high-rise. And time she started demonstrating some of the character that had gotten her to that place.
She knew that the first thing she was going to have to do was come to some kind of understanding with Troy. And that in order to do that, she was going to have to level with him-at least up to a point. She owed him that much. Okay. She knew it was the right thing to do, and she’d made up her mind to do it. She just hadn’t realized how hard it would be to work up the courage and self-control to make it possible.
By the time Troy had finished sweet-talking his dog and was giving her an “Are we getting out or what?” look, she was ready. Or thought she was.
“I…” It was a false start, but enough to stop him in the act of reaching for the door handle. She cleared her throat and tried again, in a voice still too raspy for the calm, in-control image she was trying for. “I’m the one who should apologize.”
He gave a faint “Here we go again” sigh. “What for?”
She could feel his eyes on her, but couldn’t bring herself to meet them. Instead she went on looking at the Kelly’s Kitchen sign. “Please understand-I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain.”
“No need-”
“Yeah, there is. I shouldn’t…” She tried to take a deep breath and was surprised by the pain-physical pain, this time. She’d forgotten the seat-belt bruise. Because of it, her voice was an air-starved whisper. “I had some things…happen yesterday.”
“I kinda got that idea,” Troy said dryly.
She held up a hand. “But that’s no excuse. It’s my problem. I shouldn’t…have dragged you into it.”
He gave a soft huff of laughter. “I don’t recall doin’ any kickin’ and screamin’.” He paused, then added, “Well, maybe a little screamin’.”
Ah, damn. She didn’t want to smile. She bowed her head and looked at her hands and tried her best to hide it, but his chuckle was like a sensual massage along her auditory nerves. And then she felt his hand on her shoulder, pushing upward to nudge under her hair and his fingers gently probing the tense places in her neck. Heat crept up into her throat and cheeks, and oozed down into her stomach and pooled in the sensitized places that still remembered that touch…
“Feel like talking about it?”
She wanted to. She really did. She’d intended to. She’d thought she was ready to tell him, that she’d talked herself into it. But now… Maybe it was his hand, the way he touched her, the incredible gentleness of it, but suddenly there was a dangerous ache all through her, and a useless lump where her voice should be. She knew if she talked about the past in this fragile, vulnerable state, she would almost certainly cry. And that was something she had promised herself she would never do again. Ever.
There was only the softest whisper of an exhalation to betray Troy’s frustration when she firmly shook her head. And she was sorry, truly sorry.
“Let’s get some breakfast,” was all he said, and gave her neck a gentle squeeze before he took his hand away.
Charly had been half hoping Kelly Grace wouldn’t be there for the breakfast shift. There was a lot she didn’t feel like explaining this morning, not the least of which was her companion. But no such luck. They’d just gotten themselves seated in a booth and were looking over menus when Kelly came out of the kitchen and spotted them.
She yelled out, “Charlene! I was hopin’ t’ see you this mornin’!” and intercepted the teenage waitress who was headed their way, coffeepot in hand. “Here, April honey, I’ll take that-this here’s an old friend a’ mine. Hey, how’re y‘all doin’ this mornin’? How’d it go yesterday? I sure have been thinkin’ about you…”
And of course, all the time she was talking away a blue streak to Charly, her eyes were about to eat Troy alive.
Resigned to the inevitable, Charly muttered introductions.
“Hey, Troy.” Kelly Grace offered him her Miss America smile along with the hand that wasn’t full of the coffeepot, oozing Southern femininity from every pore. One thing Charly had forgotten about was how that girl could flirt.
And like any true son of the South, Troy was naturally eating it up, taking her hand like it was the Lady Guinevere’s and he was Sir Lancelot.
Then all of a sudden he got very still. He stayed that way for a second or two, then looked over at Charly and muttered, “Kelly…Grace. You’re kiddin’, right?”
Charly picked up her coffee cup and dipped her head to hide her smile, but Kelly Grace squealed with delight and slapped Troy playfully on the arm.
“No, sir, she is not! Isn’t it just awful? You have to understand, my mama is a strange person. She claims she didn’t plan it that way at all, says she never even made the connection until she saw it written down on my birth certificate, and by then it was too late.”
She plunked the coffeepot down and shifted gears. “Where you from, Troy? I know I haven’t seen you around here before.”
Troy told her he was from Georgia, and she echoed it in a tone of pure amazement, as if she thought he must be talking about the one in Russia.
“He’s helping me out,” Charly reluctantly explained. “I had a little accident last night-”
“An accident!” Kelly Grace’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my Lord, was that you? A couple of the troopers were in here this mornin’, talkin’ about some woman goin’ off the highway last night, up by the spring, but I never dreamed-My Lord, Charlene, are you all right? You’re not hurt, or anything…”
“I’m fine.” Charly gave her chest a reflexive rub. “Just a seat-belt bruise.”
At that, there was a faint, strangled sound from Troy. She threw him an inquiring glance, and found that his eyes were riveted on her chest, his face pale and a muscle working in his jaw, looking as horrified as if she’d just sprouted a third breast. And it dawned on her that what he must be feeling was guilt-for not having thought to ask, in all the time they’d been together, if she might be injured. For all the things they’d done and all the ways he’d touched her. For forgetting to be gentle.
Pictures flashed through her mind; sensations reprised themselves all over and through her body. A strange warmth flooded through her, totally unexpected and indefinably tender. She wanted to tell him it was okay, that she hadn’t thought about it, either, that he hadn’t hurt her-far from it. But in present company all she could do was gaze at him, and hope he would read those things in her eyes and take it no further.
“My Lord, Charlene, why didn’t you call me? I would’ve been glad to help. Or you could have called…” Kelly Grace stopped suddenly, looking confused.
“Kelly, I didn’t know your number,” Charly reminded her, regretfully tearing her eyes away from Troy’s.
“Oh, my Lord, that’s right! I should ha
ve given it to you yesterday. Don’t know why I didn‘t-I surely meant to. Charlene and I go way back,” she explained to Troy, giving him a companionable nudge. “We were best friends back in high school. Oh, that reminds me…I was hopin’ I’d see you again. Brought these with me, just in case.” She plunged her hand into a pocket of the denim skirt she was wearing, brought out several snapshots and dropped them on the tabletop. “Got to lookin’ at ’em last night. Sure does bring back memories.”
Then she hesitated, coffeepot in hand, while her natural effervescence seemed to go flat. She tried to pick it up again in her usual friendly way, but it sounded forced now, and uncertain. “Well, listen, I got pies in the oven-guess I better let you alone, hadn’t I? Let you get you some breakfast. Let me see if I can get April to come take your order, okay? I’ll be seein’ y’all later.”
She hurried away, and it seemed to Troy as if she was fleeing from the memories she’d left behind on the table.
He sipped his coffee in silence as he watched Charly reach for the photographs and slowly, almost as if it was against her will, spread them out in front of her. He couldn’t see her eyes; she was looking down so that her lashes shielded them like curtains. But it seemed to him her face was unnaturally still, and a lot paler than a California girl’s should be.
He watched, and waited, while questions backed up in his throat, and his manners and upbringing choked them off like a too tight collar.
The little waitress-a high-school kid, by the looks of her-came to take their order and refill their coffee cups. When she’d gone away again, Troy reached over and casually picked up one of the snapshots. “Who’s this?” he said, “Charlie’s Angels?”
She acknowledged that with a crooked grin. “Hey, it was the seventies-what can I say?”
“You’re the dark one, right?”
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