by J. L. Leslie
So, I told my daddy I wouldn’t see him. Yes, I am the preacher’s daughter, and I lied to him. I do pray for God’s forgiveness because I know lying is a sin. I don’t know what else I can do to convince him to give Tauren a chance, and I’m not quite ready to stop seeing him.
It isn’t that the thought of giving up on this hasn’t crossed my mind. It definitely has. Each time I think of giving up, wondering what the point is, he smiles at me and tells me to trust him, he’s worth the trouble. His words.
He grins at me now, holding Willow and tickling her midsection until she convulses in laughter. After she squirms and tells him she has to potty, he puts her down.
“Potty alert!” he calls out to Kaler, and I hear his brother hustle from the kitchen to meet Willow in the bathroom.
“Were you finished with her session?” Tauren asks me, holding his hand out to me.
It registers to me that I am the one who is always going to him. Such a simple gesture, but all he has to do is hold his hand out to me, and I never hesitate.
I look down at his outstretched hand and decide to test my theory. I stay rooted to my spot beside the couch and wait for him to come to me this time. Every fiber of my being is demanding that I go to him. That I don’t deny him.
“You miss me?” he asks quietly, dropping his hand to his side. He still doesn’t take a step toward me.
“I just saw you,” I reply, a smile playing at my lips.
“I guess I can go then,” he responds, slowly turning his back on me.
I immediately go to him, falling right into his trap, going to him instead of making him come to me. I failed miserably.
I place my hands on his sides and sigh, “Okay, I missed you.”
He chuckles and grasps my hands, bringing them around him so that I’m hugging him, my chest pressed firmly against his back.
“The mark on your neck is gone,” he remarks.
“Almost. I covered it with makeup today.”
“I guess I’ll just have to put another one on you,” he teases.
“Yeah, I don’t plan on wearing scarves throughout the summer,” I inform him.
“Speaking of summer, Kipton is training, and if he makes the pro qualifier, he’ll have some rodeo trips scheduled for June. I remember you telling me before how much you used to love riding horses when you lived in Tennessee. Maybe I can take you one day.”
“My mama used to always take me when I was little. Gosh, I don’t remember the last time I even went,” I admit.
“Kaler and Jenna take Willow pretty often. We should go for a day.”
Tauren makes it sound so easy, and it honestly should be. I should be able to make the decision to go wherever I want to for a day.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Tomorrow, we’re going swimming,” he informs me, turning around to face me. “I’m working in town and I’ll call you as soon as I get off work.”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I have class tomorrow afternoon.”
“Skip it.”
He traces invisible lines on the top of my hands, and I relax against him. We stand like this a moment, me resting my head between his shoulders and him holding my hands. As much as I love being here with him, enjoying the few seconds of quiet that we have, I can’t stay.
“I have to get home. My daddy will be wondering where I am,” I explain, not giving him a definitive answer about tomorrow. “He knows my session with Willow is finished.”
“Tell him you’re eating supper with Kaler and Jenna.”
I laugh, sadly. “He knows they eat before I come here. He asked Kaler the last time I used that excuse.”
He frowns. “Tell him you had a flat tire. That your car broke down. Anything.”
I shake my head. “You’re daddy services my car. That will never work.”
He groans in frustration, snatching away from me and running a hand through his hair. “I don’t give a shit what you tell him, Helene. I’m tired of sneaking around. Fuck him!”
I flinch at his words. I know he doesn’t like my daddy, and although I don’t agree with his views on our relationship, I still respect him. I don’t appreciate Tauren talking about him like that.
“Tauren, don’t say that,” I warn him. “I understand that this is hard ‒”
“Hard?” he interrupts, raising his voice. “What’s hard for me to understand is how you keep letting him run your damn life! You’re a fucking adult, Helene, but you let him treat you like a fucking two-year-old princess who’s locked in a damn tower!”
“Tauren,” Kaler intervenes, coming into his living room with Willow in his arms. “I’m pretty sure you’ve said enough. It’s Willow’s bedtime, and Helene didn’t come here so you can teach my daughter how to drop f-bombs.”
“I’ll see you next week, Kaler,” I tell him and give Willow a kiss on the cheek before hurrying from his house.
I know Tauren is hot on my trail, but I manage to make it to my car. Unfortunately, I don’t get the door open before he reaches me.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, placing his hands on either side of me and effectively caging me in against my car. “I’m fucking sorry, okay?”
“Okay,” I reply quietly.
“I will do this with you for as long as it takes, Helene,” he assures me, lowering his arms. “As long as it takes.”
“As long as it takes?” I turn and ask him, cupping his face with my hands.
“As long as it takes, Helene.”
He brushes his lips over mine, and in this moment, we don’t care who sees us. Kaler’s neighbors. The car passing by. They don’t matter. Only we do.
Chapter Four
Tauren
I walk back into Kaler’s house, fully knowing that I’m going get a damn lecture from him. Jenna is sitting on his couch, wearing some ugly as shit striped nightgown. Her hair is in one of those messy buns a lot of girls like to wear.
Although the two of them don’t officially live together yet, they may as well. She’s over here more often than she is at her own house. They haven’t even set a date for their wedding yet. I think they’re trying to work it out for her parents to get here from Japan.
“How pissed is he?” I ask her.
“I don’t think Willow is saying the f-word yet, so you’re probably only in for a short lecture.”
I shrug. “If he hasn’t given you a lecture on that butt-ugly nightgown then he doesn’t need to say anything to me.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “He hates this nightgown, which is why I like to wear it,” she smarts.
“Makes me pull it off faster,” Kaler informs me as he comes into the living room.
I roll my eyes as Jenna giggles and tell them, “TMI.”
“Don’t get me started on TMI, little brother,” he remarks, and I know he’s referring to me having Helene spread eagle on the hood of a car in daddy’s shop. He’ll never let that one go. “And I’ll get straight to the point on my short lecture. If you don’t love Helene, leave her alone.”
“Who says I don’t love her?” I scoff, crossing my arms.
Kaler mimics my stance. “Do you?”
I clear my throat. “I don’t know. How the hell am I supposed to know that?”
I hear Jenna mumble, “Wow.”
“You two have been screwing around with each other for what, a year or so? Tauren, you should know by now, and maybe if you left the waitresses and track bunnies alone, you would.”
“I didn’t realize there was a time stamp on love,” I remark.
“Fine, you probably enjoy the whole sneaking around bit,” Kaler says, glancing over at Jenna. “It can be fun. Thinking of all the good times you plan to have with her, yeah, that’s real nice. Knowing if you love her or not is when you think of the bad times.”
I laugh. “That makes zero sense, bro.”
“What happens if you get injured on the track? Is she someone you would want by your side if you could never walk again?”
> “That is not going to happen, and you don’t need to say shit like that,” I scold him.
I have had my share of fender-benders on the track but nothing serious. That doesn’t mean I haven’t seen serious accidents though. Just because it’s a dirt track in small-town Alabama doesn’t mean shit doesn’t happen.
“We never want to think about shit like that,” he replies. “Say the two of you get married and have kids. What happens if one of them is born like Willow?”
My face pales. I know it does because I can feel all the blood drain from it. I love my niece, so much, but do I want to raise a child with Down Syndrome? No. I know the answer to that question. I am not equipped to raise a daughter like Willow. Kaler and Jenna are. Hell, Brynn is getting there and has worked her ass off since she came back to Chapelwood to prove that she deserves to be in Willow’s life, but I am definitely not the same man that Kaler is and I know that I can’t be the daddy that he is. I am not ready to be a daddy at all.
“I’m not marrying Helene, Kaler. There’s a big difference in dating and getting married,” I let him know. “And as far as I’m concerned, we aren’t even dating.”
Walking down the aisle and tying the knot is not in my future. I don’t want that, and I’ve made no secret about it. It’s not that I don’t believe in the constitution of marriage, my parents have a beautiful marriage, but I don’t see why I need a piece of paper to signify that I’m committed to a woman.
“Have you told her that, Tauren?” Jenna pipes in. “Because she has the look of a woman who is very much in love and with her upbringing, marriage is in her future. She won’t settle for less and she shouldn’t when it’s what she wants.”
“And you can’t go around saying what you said about her daddy,” Kaler adds, clearly not wanting to repeat my words although Willow has been put to bed. “He’s the Chief of Police and the pastor at our church.”
“You think I give a damn about that?”
“And he’s her daddy, Tauren,” Jenna tells me. “Neither of you may like what he’s doing, but she will stand up for him regardless. Same as you would for Neil.”
I know that she’s right. If anyone were to say something like that toward my daddy, I would be ready to break one of my steel-toe boots off in their ass. It’s that simple.
“She’s already going against him in so many ways,” Jenna reminds me. “He doesn’t like you, and she’s sneaking around to see you as much as she can. Lying to him and doing things with you that she probably believes she should wait to do until she has a ring on her finger.”
“I thought this was going to be a short lecture,” I gripe.
“Point is, if you don’t have any long-term intentions with Helene Jacobs, then you need to break things off with her.”
I nod at my brother, letting him know that I hear what he’s saying. Hell, this isn’t the first time my family has told me to essentially decide if I want to keep seeing Helene. I tell him and Jenna goodnight, not giving either one of them the opportunity to continue bombarding me with advice. Especially when I have no fucking intention of taking it.
Helene
I ignored Tauren’s call, mainly because I was still in class. He left me a voicemail, apologizing again about how he acted last night and the address for where he would be this afternoon if I could make it. He reminded me that it was where we shared our first kiss. He even told me his brothers would be there as well as Jenna, Brynn, and Willow. I’m almost there now.
I knew when I got up and left for class this morning that I would skip my last class and meet him. I knew this because I packed a change of clothes and tossed them in my trunk. There’s no way I would pass up an opportunity for an afternoon with Tauren when I have a 4.0 GPA.
I spot a couple of vehicles when there’s an opening in the trees at the end of the dirt road I’m on. I pull to a stop and turn my car off, sitting there for a moment to get up my nerve to get out. Yes, I still get a little nervous around Tauren and his family. I cannot help myself. He’s sexy and gorgeous and slightly intimidating.
I grab a rubber band from my console and with shaking hands, manage to get my hair into a ponytail. I check my reflection in the mirror, my oversized sunglasses staring back at me, then close my eyes and take a deep breath, nearly jumping out of my skin when someone taps on my window. It’s Jenna. I open my door and step out.
“Hey!” she says, cheerfully. “Wasn’t sure you were going to make it. Did you bring a bathing suit?”
I eye her tiny, red bikini and fight down the jealousy that threatens to rise. Jenna is beautiful, with long brown hair and doe-like eyes. She’s tanned, lean and fit without really trying to be. I doubt she ever exercises a day in her life, although I hear she and Kaler like to take Willow for walks around the neighborhood.
As for me, I’m a ginger with dull, red hair and skin that bakes in the sun, no matter how much sunblock I use. I’m somewhat slender, but I don’t have a flat tummy or toned legs. I’m very simple, and I often wonder why someone like Tauren is interested in my simplicity.
“Um, yeah, I brought one. Is there somewhere I can change?”
Jenna glances around. “You can change in your car. I’ll make sure no one comes up.”
I look back to my car and then over to where I can see Tauren and his brothers swimming in the lake. I pop my trunk and grab my bag out, a little reluctant now that I’m here but also not wanting to leave because I came this far.
I get into my back seat and quickly pull my panties off, replacing them with my bottoms. I take my dress off and unhook my bra, checking to be sure that Jenna is standing guard before I take it off. I tug my top on, a tankini style top, and tie the top before getting back out. I turn and close my door and then feel hands on me.
“I’m glad you came,” Tauren whispers, kissing my neck. His wet body makes me shiver as water drops from his hair onto my arms.
I face him and see Jenna walking back to the lake. I lean back and take him in, his swimming trunks hanging low at his waist, the tattoo on his left arm, and the beer in his hand. He flashes me a grin and takes my hand.
There are a few blankets spread out with a couple of coolers beside them. Willow is in a bathing suit in the water with Kaler, splashing and laughing.
“You want a beer?” Tauren offers. I shake my head, politely declining. “Coke?”
“Yes, please.”
He gets one out of the cooler and brings it to me, plopping down on the blanket beside me. He slings his head a little, shaking out some water onto me and I giggle. He takes a swig of his beer and then sits it down on the ground.
“I promise, you’re going to get a lot more wet than that, Helene,” he leans over and whispers in my ear before kissing my neck.
My nipples harden against the fabric of my swimsuit and my cheeks redden. Tauren stands up and sprints toward the water, running down the pier and jumping off in a cannonball. He surfaces, a big smile on his face, and then swims toward Willow. I watch him take her in his arms and then throw her up in the air, catching her before she hits the water.
“Uh-oh, Jenna,” Brynn says. “I know that look.”
“Yep, me too.”
It takes me a moment to realize they’re talking about me because Brynn calls my name and motions for me to come sit with them. I tear my gaze from Tauren and go join them.
“What look?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me.
“You are so in love, and you were seriously thinking of how Tauren would treat the many babies you plan on making with him,” Brynn explains.
“Oh, um, no, I wasn’t thinking that at all,” I lie, my face heating. “I was only watching how good he is with Willow.”
“I don’t know how your daddy falls for your lies because you are the worst liar, Helene Jacobs,” Brynn teases.
“Please don’t tell anyone I was here,” I ask them both. “My daddy doesn’t know, and I honestly hate lying to him.”
Jenna speaks up first. “Helene, we would never do
that. I don’t know about your relationship with your daddy, but we both know firsthand how this town can be.”
“Thanks,” I tell them. “It’s just that between school and church and trying to make time to see Tauren, it’s sometimes hard to keep all the lies straight. So, no, I’m not very good at it.”
“Your face says it all,” Brynn grins.
“But, hey, if you ever need anything for school, you can hit me up,” Jenna offers. “And if it turns into a resource for you and Tauren, then that’s fine too. Just make sure that you aren’t putting yourself out there more than he is, you know?”
Her warning is subtle, but it’s definitely a warning. Don’t put more into this relationship than what he’s willing to. Haven’t I been doing that all along though? How do I stop?
Chapter Five
Tauren
I step on the bank and run my hands through my hair, squeezing out some of the water and letting the strands stick out in messy array. Helene is now sitting with Jenna and Brynn, and although I’m curious as to what they’re talking about, I think it’s good that she’s making friends with them. She doesn’t hang out with anyone that she goes to college with that I know of. In fact, I rarely see her talking to anyone our age. That’s the reason I approached her at the church picnic.
I remember that everyone was outside, and she was standing off to the side with her plate in her hand. All the picnic tables had been full, and people were even sitting on the ground. I came and stood beside her, and we ate in silence, both stealing glances at the other. When we were finished, I finally talked to her, and we haven’t stopped talking since. Of course, our talks have turned into kisses.
I go to the blanket we were on and get my beer, also grabbing me another cold one from the cooler. I stand up and look at Helene, holding my hand out to her. She eyes it, almost as if there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to take it. As though she doesn’t want to come to me but would rather I approach her. Not going to happen.