Chapter Six #2
I frowned, trying to remember which of my classmates had been a cheerleader and unreasonable. Bet my ass it was Allison Barnett.
“She was yelling at me, called me a slut and a whore.” Another shrug. “I shut her up.”
The economy of that admission told me all I needed to know. “I see.”
“Mrs. Hatcher and another teacher tried to break it up.” Her voice was the smallest I’d ever heard it. “I hit her, flailing about.”
Which her she meant sunk in, and the memory clicked into place. I remembered that – Grandma breaking up a fight, getting clocked in the face, the bruise on her cheekbone she sported for a few days.
Eyes wide, I turned my head to stare at her before I remembered I was driving. “That was you?”
She cringed into the seat. “It was an accident. I would never have hurt her on purpose.”
Unwilling humor pushed up from my chest. Grandma had laughed it off at the time, but Grandaddy had been furious. “You popped my grandma.”
“Jase, no.” A note of real distress colored my name on her lips, and I sobered. She crossed her arms over her midriff. “I got suspended and then I couldn’t stay in the home any longer because I’d violated their rules–”
Oh, hell.
“--but that part turned out okay because that’s how I ended up in Thomasville with Mama Nancy.” She made a face. “Apparently, when the social worker told her I was troubled and a handful, she said I was perfect.”
“I might agree with her.”
Her sidelong glance from underneath her lashes called me out as a bullshitter. But damn, she was the closest thing to perfect I’d ever seen.
And believe me, I’d had the farthest thing from perfect in my life, so I knew what I was talking about.
“I never got to tell her I was sorry.” The torn whisper, not much more than a breath, hovered in the air. She blinked hard a couple of times and turned her face away.
“She knew.” I laid a hand on her thigh, just above her knee. She flinched at the contact, then relaxed beneath my palm. “I remember her talking to Mama and Daddy at the time, and she was adamant it was an accident. She was worried you’d feel bad about it.”
She buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my God, your parents know about this? They’ll think I’m–”
“Just as great as I said you were.” I flexed my fingers, going for comforting and supportive.
“They know about me?” She lifted her head, skin pale around the taut line of her lips.
“Well, yeah.” I raised my hand and flipped it palm up. “I don’t really keep things from them, and they noticed I wasn’t at church that Sunday morning after–”
“Oh, my God. This just keeps getting worse.” Her voice rose. “You didn’t tell them we slept together the first night we met?”
“No. No.” I squeezed her leg again. “They don’t need to know that. I just said I’d spent the day with you, and Mama wanted to know what you were like.”
Actually, Mama had grilled me, wanting to know she wasn’t like Elizabeth, well, what I called the new Elizabeth.
The first few years I’d dated her, Mama had been okay with her.
The last year? I’d lost count of the number of times Mama had reminded me it was easier to break an engagement than get a divorce.
“Grandma likes you. My parents are going to like you.” I swallowed a stop worrying. Nobody needed to hear that.
“I don’t know why I’m so freaked out.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap. Her chest rose and fell with a couple of deep breaths that felt deliberate. “But I wasn’t expecting to see her, and all I could think about was how angry I was back then, the person I used to be.”
“You were a kid dealt a shitty set of circumstances you had no control over.” I slowed for the left hand turn onto 37. “I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“That doesn’t make my behavior okay.” She chewed the very tip of her index finger, worrying the skin rather than scraping her teeth over her fancy polish.
“I could have really hurt her. Did I think about that? No. That little heifer insulted me, and all I wanted was to shut her the fuck up . . . what are you doing?”
I’d swung into my driveway instead of continuing toward her subdivision. “Giving us a quiet place to talk a few minutes.”
She collapsed into the seat, a shaky exhale bleeding between her lips. “I’m not that girl anymore.”
“Well, no.” Under the carport, I put the truck in park and killed the engine. “But you still carry her around with you, the same way I carry the things I might not want to think about.”
“You’re not running into those in the Country Crossings parking lot with your new boyfriend.”
“I’m your boyfriend?” I quirked a brow and grinned, then landed a soft pinch on her thigh. “I like the sound of that, sugar dumpling.”
Uncertainty flickered over her face. “I guess we haven’t said what we are yet, and it’s pretty soon–”
“Oh, no. No backsies.” Releasing my seatbelt, I shifted to face her. I tucked her dark hair behind her ear. “You claimed me and now you’re stuck with me.”
“It might be the other way around.” That dejected pout made me want to kiss her until she smiled. All her expressions fascinated me – she fascinated me – but I didn’t like that defeated set to her mouth.
I hooked a hand around her nape. “Really don’t know what to do with you in this mood.”
“Ugh. Are you saying I’m moody?”
“Nope.” I caressed the soft skin under her hair at the base of her skull.
“Listen, I get you’re stressed, but I know my grandma.
She liked you then, and the way she was happy to see you tonight?
That was genuine. All my parents are going to care about is whether I’m happy with you.
I already think you and Mama will get on like a house on fire. ”
She scoffed, rubbing her thumb over the side seam on her jeans. “People don’t make you happy. That’s not how it works.”
“Well, they can sure make you unhappy. Trust me.” With my free hand, I tipped her chin up, although her lashes kept her eyes veiled. I didn’t quite know what to do with this vulnerable version of her, for real. “How about I feel more secure with you?”
Her lashes flew up, so I caught a glimpse of surprise as well as the gold flecks in her hazel eyes. Her brows knit together, and she dug her teeth into a bottom lip. “I make you feel secure.”
“Well, yeah. It’s early, but I always know where I stand.” I shrugged. “You’re not yelling because I–”
She buried her face in her hands and groaned.
Reaching for her wrist, I lowered her hand. “What?”
On a frustrated sigh, she shoved her hair back, the heavy fall of dark strands ruffled.
“I yelled at Colt. More like, I screamed at him. Right before we broke up, and he didn’t even do anything.
But he was always shutting down and he wouldn’t talk to me, just get all broody, and I thought I was doing something wrong but I can’t fix anything if I don’t know what it is.
I told him that, but he just looked at me.
Then I felt like I’d kicked a puppy or something, which I kinda did, and I have worked so hard not to be her anymore–”
“Hey.” I cupped her jaw, wincing because I knew the tips of my fingers were callused and right now she needed easy and gentle and soft.
With careful pressure, I tilted her face toward mine and found her eyes dry but brimming with pain and self-recrimination.
“One bad moment doesn’t mean your whole character is bad. It means you’re human.”
Her throat moved with a hard swallow. “I’m the one who made him unhappy.”
“Don’t think you get to take the credit for that, sugar. He . . . well, he carries a lot. You carry a lot. I imagine neither of you could carry anything else for one another.”
She sniffled. I shifted closer and kissed her cheek, over that high cheekbone that had fired red with embarrassment earlier.
She went still, a slight stiffening that pushed a sigh up in my throat.
I swallowed it. Now I had a better picture of what her life had been growing up, so that reticence she wore like a worn-in sweater made sense.
I rested my cheek against hers, catching a whiff of the scents I now associated with her – a clean, subtle perfume, the fruitier smell of whatever she used on her hair, the warmth of her skin.
Cataloguing the moment away so I could pull it out and soak it in again later, I rubbed my thumb over her wrist.
“You could stay the night,” I whispered near her ear, grinning when she shivered. “It’s early still. We could watch a movie or something. I’ll make you some hot chocolate–”
Her torn giggle puffed against my neck. “Hot chocolate.”
“Sure. With milk instead of water so you don’t know it’s the powdered stuff.” I trailed my palm along her spine. “I get up wicked early during harvest season anyway, so I can run you home to get dressed.”
“Wicked early.” I could hear her rolling her eyes.
“But you get to sleep in my bed.” I caught the edges of her hair between my fingers and played with the dark silk. She was soft all over. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Do I get to pick the movie?”
“Depends.” I lifted my head, eyeing her with my best approximation of Grandma’s teacher look. “I hate those Hallmark movies.”
“Oh, me, too.” She shrugged, her face no longer pale with nerves, the awful tension about her mouth dissipating. “I like disaster movies. And aliens. Ooh. Independence Day.”
“That movie’s old as shit.” I propped my wrist on her headrest, glad to see a spark of excitement in her eyes. “It’s not terrible, though.”
“Look, young Jeff Goldblum is hot.” She gathered her purse and released her seatbelt.
I scrambled to get out. “Do not open that door until I get around there.”
When I swung it open, she gave me that this is so dumb look. “This is not one of those special dates where you get to do that.”
“Sure it is.” I kissed her and tugged her into me. “You’ll understand once you have my hot chocolate.”
“Do you have marshmallows?”
“Sugar dumpling.” I shook my head, steering her toward the back door, my hands on her hips. “We top it with whipped cream and cinnamon.”
“Whipped cream and Jeff Goldblum.” Mischief dripped from her words. “Now there’s a combination.”
“Whipped cream and me.” I laid a quick pop on the right cheek of her ass. “That’s your combination.”
Laughing, she stood in the circle of my arm while I unlocked the house, and I let that pure shimmer of sound pour through me like sunlight through a stand of pines.
“Hmm, I don’t know. Jeff Goldblum is pretty damned hot–”
The word ended in a shriek, my arm wrapped around the back of her knees as I dipped to toss her over my shoulder.
Sweet laughter vibrated from her body into mine, and she landed a light blow in the middle of my back. “What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.” Anchoring her with one hand on her ass, I carried her off to my bed.