by Kay Lyons
“You know, I knew boys at the home who’d spent time in juvey.” She smoothed her coated palms over his shoulders, down the back of his arms, hoping he might open up and volunteer some information on his own. “Some had fathers or brothers in prison. Some just liked the look.” Her hand slid up again until it came to rest on the second tattoo.
Joe pulled away from her and yanked his T-shirt on over his head. “I can be out of here in five minutes.”
“Why?” she asked, confused, more than a little bit fearful of his answer.
Joe crossed the room and pulled his duffel from the closet floor. With it in hand, he turned to face her. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You know about this,” he said, lifting his elbow to indicate the barbed-wire etched on his bicep, “and you want me gone.”
“I’m just trying to figure out some things,” she said bluntly. “Like why you got the tattoos.”
A long pause followed her comment, but he didn’t look away. “Don’t you mean where?” he finally murmured. “I got them in prison, Ashley.”
The last of her hope died. He’d just confirmed the one reality she hadn’t wanted to consider. “For what?”
He didn’t pause. “Drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer and—”
“Did you learn anything?” she demanded, cutting off his litany of offenses.
Silence. Other than locking his jaw he didn’t react, didn’t seem to breathe.
“Joe, talk to me. You owe me that much, don’t you think? Are you sorry? Will you ever do anything to go back?” she pressed. “Or are you one of those guys who’s only sorry you got caught?”
He jerked his head in a negative motion. “I don’t ever intend to go back.”
She inhaled and sighed. She hated being judged. An orphan. A kid nobody wanted. Even the stupid gardening club members had given her the cold shoulder. Not all of them, no, but most. She hated it. And who was she to judge him because of stupid, past mistakes?
A mother. Max came first. Always.
Drunk and disorderly. Resisting arrest. Assaulting a police officer could mean anything from a shove to a punch, and without being told she knew these incidents had taken place after his infant daughter’s death. Who wouldn’t react strongly to that?
“Are we in any danger from you?” she asked point-blank. Ashley watched for a sign that he lied. A flicker of an eyelash. A smirk. Anything.
Joe’s gaze never wavered from hers, if anything it softened with understanding and she tried her best to harden herself against the sight.
“Absolutely not,” he rasped huskily. “I’ve never harmed a woman or child, and I never will.”
She stared at him a long moment, still undecided. Joe stared right back. Her mind raced but no matter what questions she asked herself, she always came back to the same conclusion—she understood wanting to pick up the pieces. Wanting to leave the past behind. Understood what it was like to be thought of as different or less than desirable.
Joe had made mistakes, costly ones, and paid the price. One that would haunt him forever once people knew he’d served time. He wasn’t defending his behavior, wasn’t excusing it. He’d stated it bluntly and offered to leave.
What if Wilson had taken one look at her alongside the road and kept driving? Hadn’t pulled over to help her, or sold her his house or given her the chance of a lifetime?
She pointed a finger at the closet, swallowing, praying she wasn’t making a mistake. “Put your bag away, and come eat before dinner gets cold.”
* * *
JOE FROWNED at the little face staring at him. Max grinned in response, his sparkling eyes identical to his mother’s. Unable to stop himself, Joe felt his lips pull up in a smile before he caught himself and looked away.
“He doesn’t bite, you know. He’s curious about you, that’s why he’s always watching you.”
Silence followed Ashley’s comment. He didn’t know how to respond. Didn’t quite know what to make of her giving him a chance to prove himself when his thoughts were consumed with the guilt he felt at letting her cut him off before he’d completed the list of charges that sent him to prison.
He wondered if he’d ever know how to talk to a woman again. If he’d ever manage to casually insert into a conversation that he’d been imprisoned as a baby killer. Ashley had made it easy by bringing the tattoo question up first. Still, the most serious of all the charges stood between them.
“We never did take that tour of the house. You know, to go over all the changes I want made.”
Definitely a safer subject.
“We can tonight.”
“You’re not going to see your dad?”
The last couple days he’d foregone his morning visits to Ridgewood to start work on the roof, then waited until late so he could arrive at the nursing home at dusk, when most of the visitors and staff had either already left or were busy.
Mrs. H. always saw him though. Gave him a nod of approval each time he passed.
“Not tonight. I’ll call him later.” Max banged his hand on the high chair and garnered Joe’s attention once again. “Max doesn’t look like you. He takes after his dad?”
Ashley stood and carried her dishes to the sink. “Yeah. Blond and light. Mac’s genetics won out over mine, a good thing since he’s…gone.”
Joe didn’t want to go there. “The girls will love him when he’s older.”
“I don’t want to think about that yet.” Ashley turned on the faucet and prepared to wash the dishes. “So…have people treated you, um, differently since you…you know? Got out of prison?”
He nodded, realized she couldn’t see him with her back to him and stood to walk over and stand beside her. He picked up the dish towel she’d pulled out of a cabinet drawer in preparation, and dried the glass she’d washed and placed into the second sink to drain.
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“I know.” But he kept drying anyway. He remembered when his dad dried the dishes every night while his mom washed. It had been their time to talk about the day, good things and bad.
“Thanks.” Ashley slid him a glance from beneath her lashes. “I guess it would be hard. Being raised here and facing everyone.”
He shrugged. “What was it like for you growing up in the children’s home?”
She chuckled. “That’s subtle, change the subject.”
A grin caught him unaware. “Whatever works.” He put a glass away in the cabinet, and they shared a smile like…lovers.
In your dreams, man.
The glasses and plates washed, Ashley scrubbed a pan with a vengeance, her expression thoughtful. “Believe it or not, it was…okay. Not great but…decent.” She smiled. “For as much as it could’ve been better, it also could’ve been worse.”
She shrugged and started on a new pot. “I was five-six in the fifth grade and taller than most women with a body to match.” She laughed softly, the sound a bit bitter. “The wives would take one look at me and give their husbands a glare. Getting adopted didn’t matter though.”
He frowned at the hint of hurt in her voice. “Sure about that?”
Silence. “Okay, so it did,” she finally muttered. “I did get taken home one time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once the couples had gone through all the paperwork and interviews and gotten the official okay, they could take the child they were interested in adopting home over a long weekend or out for a day trip. Something where they could…bond. An older couple had gone through the process, passed all the requirements and I was one of three girls they thought they might be interested in. I got taken home first and we hit it off. They—they even took me to the pound and let me pick out a puppy so that whichever girl they chose would have a companion.”
Joe didn’t like where the story was headed. “What happened?”
Her hands stilled in the water, her expression carefully distant. “While I was there, the woman found out she was pregnant. Then S
unday afternoon rolled around and they took me back.” She laughed softly. “They kept the dog though. One mutt was apparently enough.”
One minute he stood there drying dishes and the next, Joe tossed the towel aside and pulled her against him, her soapy wet hands against his chest.
“Don’t degrade yourself like that.”
She stared up at him, eyes wide. “It’s what the kids called me—us. We were mutts nobody wanted.”
He raised his right hand and smoothed his knuckles over her face, down her sharply angled cheek and the jut of her chin.
Ashley’s soft skin, the color of honey, called out to be touched. Her lips were darker than her skin tone, more tawny-colored. Full, bare of cosmetics, her mouth beckoned. Wide and kissable and infinitely tempting.
“Joe, we agreed not to make another mistake.”
That they had. And despite wanting to do otherwise, he heeded the warning he heard in her tone and released her to pick up the towel again. “Sorry. But don’t put yourself down like that. You’re not a mutt and neither are any of the other kids out there in that situation. They’re just kids.”
She laughed again, the sound strained. “Yes, sir.”
They both got back to work, silent for a time.
“I didn’t thank you earlier,” he murmured finally. “For letting me stay.”
She didn’t raise her head from her task. “Don’t thank me too much. I can’t toss you out when you’re the only one willing to take on fixing my house.”
Joe flinched. Yeah, there was that.
* * *
FOUR HOURS LATER Ashley learned exactly how Joe knew to do all the things he did. They’d toured the house, gone from room to room and checked out window casings, walls and ceilings. All in all, Joe said much the same as the home inspector she’d hired from Cincinnati. She’d gotten a fantastic deal.
The ceiling where the roof had leaked needed repairing, but would soon be good as new. The wiring had been updated in the early eighties, and Joe said extra support boxes might be needed if the house’s nine bedrooms were ever filled to capacity, but little else.
“So you took classes?”
He nodded as he descended a ladder. “I’d always been a fixer. I got lucky because the judge who sentenced me sent me to a medium-security prison instead of a max, and after I’d paid my dues, I got taken out on a work detail. One of the trucks broke down and I fixed it when nobody else could. Pretty soon that snowballed and I was allowed to transfer to a different prison where they had teachers come in. They taught us building, plumbing, electrical, you name it. Some sort of rehabilitation program.”
“Good for me,” she said with a laugh. “I’m glad.”
Joe shot her a smile, and her heart beat faster in response. Appreciating his talents and abilities for fixing up her fixer-upper was one thing, but the man himself? No way.
She shook her head. Joe was tall and muscled and gorgeous in a rough sort of way, but he was also hard. Scarred. With a darkness behind his eyes she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Maybe one day you can own your own company and put all those classes to good use.”
“Maybe.”
The hardships of taking on such a project hit her then. Finding jobs when everyone knew his past would be next to impossible. Accusations would inevitably be made.
How did someone go about rebuilding their life after prison?
Joe grabbed the ladder and folded the frame. “This was the last room?”
“Yeah.”
“Then once I get the roof done, I’ll work on ceilings so you can start painting. After that, I’ll work on repairing the damage to the outside of the house and then get started on remodeling the kitchen.”
A weight lifted from her shoulders. “Seriously? It’s doable before spring?”
Joe confirmed her words with a nod. “With two people working on it full-time, definitely.”
She clapped her hands together. “I can’t believe it! Come on—this calls for a celebration.” She led the way back to the kitchen and retrieved an apple pie from the rack on the stove.
“Wilson will hate us,” Joe commented, his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth in anticipation.
Ashley laughed. “Yeah, but it’s not like he’s at the hall playing bingo,” she countered. “They have a buffet-style dessert bar. He only goes for the sweets.”
Joe chuckled as he walked to the cabinet where the plates were kept. Ashley liked his easy familiarity. Liked how he didn’t expect her to wait on him.
He retrieved a couple of plates while she sliced the pie. At the table she leaned forward and plucked up the book she’d left lying there earlier.
“You ever do any landscaping? I went to the diner today and the garden club was meeting. I acted interested and one of the ladies invited me to sit down.” She looked up in time to see his expression change. “What’s wrong?”
A muscle spasmed along his jawline. “You didn’t say anything about me, did you?”
“No, why?”
Joe ran a palm over his face, his apple pie forgotten on his plate. “If you had they probably wouldn’t have treated you very well.”
Her mouth twisted. She remembered how hard it had been to stand there and wait while everyone looked their fill and whispered to each other as to why she’d come to their little group. The outsider.
“It probably wouldn’t have mattered. All of them pretty much pretended I didn’t exist except for one lady. She was nice. She didn’t mind Max squirming all over the place, either.” Ashley hesitated. “If you don’t want me to say anything about you being here, I won’t.”
Joe shoved himself to his feet. “Good. Wilson said—”
When he broke off, she blinked up at him. “Wilson said what? It’s not like I haven’t figured out Wilson knew about your past. He seems to know everything that goes on.”
Joe walked away from her to stare out the window over the sink. “He thinks I might have a better time of it if I work hard, stay low and prove myself again, ease my way back into their good graces a little at a time.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” She hoped for Joe’s sake it worked. “You don’t agree?”
“Maybe…guess I’ll find out.”
Chapter 9
ANOTHER WEEK PASSED while Ashley mulled over Joe’s response to her question. He’d looked sad, so vulnerable, that she’d wanted to reassure him and tell him time would dull everyone’s memory to his ex-con status, and he’d be one of Taylorsville’s “good stock” again.
A fat lot of good those kind of reassurances would be coming from someone who didn’t fit in herself. How could she possibly know how long it would take for Joe to make it back into everyone’s good graces? Or what it would take. If she knew, she’d be doing it herself even though a part of her rebelled and wondered why she—or Joe—should have to do anything to belong at all. They shouldn’t.
Except Max deserved the best life she could give him.
That meant she couldn’t stay in her big, safe house any longer. Ashley squared her shoulders and hefted Max higher on her waist. Juggling him, the book on landscaping, a diaper bag and purse plus one humongous case of nerves took some doing. But as she walked into Ridgewood Extended Care, her efforts at making sure she and Max were both immaculate and presentable were worth all the trouble she’d gone to given the welcome she received.
“Oh, my. Look at him!”
“Well, hello there!”
“What a gorgeous little boy.”
Ashley forced herself to make eye contact with each and every person who greeted her, and returned the smiles shot their way as she walked to the desk and the older woman behind it.
“Mrs. Hilliard. Hi.”
“Hello, Ashley. I’m glad you decided to accept my invitation.”
She glanced down at Max, suddenly understanding why he always buried his head in her shoulder. “It was, um, it was very nice of you to ask me here to lunch. I appreciate it.”
The
older woman grabbed her cane to help her stand. “It’s my pleasure. Now follow me, dear. I thought we could sit down on the couches in the cafeteria while they get things ready.”
Ashley fell into step beside the woman. Mrs. Hilliard carried herself with her head held high. Although the woman was bone-thin and fragile, Ashley knew how deceptive looks could be.
She saw past Mrs. Hilliard’s thin, elderly appearance to an ingrained kindness and strength she hoped one day to achieve.
Mrs. Hilliard stopped in one corner of the large cafeteria and seated herself on a couch. Ashley set the diaper bag and purse on the carpeted floor before lowering herself and Max down beside her.
Please, Max, behave.
“I, uh, read the book you loaned me and learned a lot.” She grinned. “Probably more than I ever wanted to know about geraniums, too,” she added, earning a smile in return from Mrs. Hilliard. “Have to admit it seems easier to hire a professional, but I honestly can’t afford it.”
“It isn’t as daunting as it might seem, dear. All you have to figure out is your vision for things. Did you bring pictures?
“A couple,” she said as she held on to Max with one hand while digging the pictures out of the diaper bag’s side pocket. She straightened and handed them to her. “I bought the house about six months ago and—”
“Willow Wood?” Mrs. Hilliard’s startled exclamation drew interested looks from several people nearby. “You’re the woman who bought Willow Wood?”
Wondering if maybe Mrs. Hilliard was a friend of Mr. Thompson’s from the hardware store, she hesitated. “Yeah, uh, yes, I did.”
The black rims of Mrs. Hilliard’s glasses rose on her wrinkled cheeks. “Oh, my dear. The rumors, are they true?” she asked. “You’re turning it into a bed-and-breakfast? Oh, it will be beautiful, if so!”
Startled at the praise, Ashley could only nod. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Hilliard looked at her expectantly and Ashley realized she hadn’t answered her other questions.
“Y-yes, I hope to open my B and B in late spring or early summer.”