Chapter 15 #2
Fiona blinked back tears. “That’s what he said.” She sniffed, then grinned up at him. “But I think he and Andy are dating. So it’s not all bad. However, I want to wait before you meet my family.”
“Your call.” Tomas stood, taking her hand and guiding her out of the swing. Her parents didn’t sound like people he wanted to meet, anyway. “Let’s say goodbye and I’ll take you home.” He leaned down and spoke softly into her ear. “Is it okay if I stay awhile?”
A blush stole over Fiona’s face, and she nodded.
“ W hat is it with you and your stepfather?” Fiona asked as they left his parents’ house and walked toward his truck.
She wasn’t sure that he would answer. But ignoring the barely veiled tension between the two men wouldn’t work. Not if Tomas and his family were to be part of her life. She had enough issues with her own family.
He lifted her into the truck before she could do so herself, then climbed behind the wheel and checked that her seat belt was secure before doing his own.
“You don’t need to do that.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve been doing up my own seat belt for a couple of decades now.”
A muscle ticking in his jaw, Tomas stuck the key in the ignition, checked for traffic, and pulled away from the curb. They drove in silence for a few minutes, Fiona wondering what she could possibly have said to upset him. “Look?—”
“Did you see the scar on Cara’s eyebrow?”
“Umm…yeah. It’s not really noticeable, but I saw it.”
“I bought my first car when I was seventeen. Carlos wouldn’t let Mom give me any money toward it, not even a loan.
He probably thought I wouldn’t pay it back.
So I busted my ass washing dishes in the restaurant three nights a week, plus weekends, to save up enough money.
It was a piece of shit Plymouth Valiant.
But it was mine. Mom wanted me to help her out by driving the girls to soccer practice and stuff, so Carlos paid to have the car inspected for safety issues.
The front passenger seat belt needed to be replaced because the buckle wouldn’t latch properly. ”
Fiona looked down at the buckle pressed against her hip, her heart rate picking up.
“He bought the replacement kit and told me to take care of it.” Tomas focused on the road, his voice a monotone.
“You didn’t replace it.”
He shook his head, then shot her a look filled with guilt, remorse, and self-loathing.
“The words swam on the pages when I tried to read the instructions. The latch worked sometimes, so I didn’t figure it was a big deal, and I stuffed the kit under the seat and forgot about it.
I made the girls ride in the back seat anyways.
One day, I was running late. When I picked Cara up, her arms were full and she couldn’t open the door to the back seat, so I leaned over, shoved open the door to the front seat, and told her to get in and buckle up. ”
Heart pounding, Fiona clutched her hands together, eyes focused on his white knuckles clenching the steering wheel.
Tomas flicked a glance at her. “Yeah. I stopped suddenly, the seat belt gave way, and she slammed into the dashboard.” He shook his head, muttering so softly she almost missed it, “There was so much blood.”
“And he hasn’t forgiven you?” she whispered.
“Would you?”
She processed that for a few minutes. “You couldn’t read? How did you get your driver’s license?”
For the first time in what seemed forever, Tomas smiled. “Cara and Sylvie read the manual out loud to me. I memorized it. I had to take the test three times before I passed.”
Fiona returned his smile, happy to see his hands loosen on the steering wheel.
“Carlos wouldn’t let the girls ride with me again after the accident. Mom was pissed, but he put his foot down.”
“Can’t really blame him.”
“ I did . Back then I thought he was a real prick.”
“Did you…?”
“Yeah. It took me a week to figure out the instructions, but I fixed the seat belt. Showed it to Mom. But he didn’t change his mind.”
She shifted in her seat to face him fully. “Things must have been tense for a while.”
He shrugged. “We didn’t speak to each other. He’d say to Mom, ‘Tell your son to cut the grass.’ Or I’d say to Cara, ‘Tell your dad I went to buy gas for the lawn mower.’ Stuff like that. I moved out as soon as I could. We didn’t speak again until five years ago.”
“What happened then?”
Tomas pulled the truck into the driveway and parked behind Fiona’s car. “That’s when he called the cops on me.”
He got out of the truck, leaving a stunned Fiona staring out the windshield.
She flung the door open. “What did you do? And don’t give me that wide-eyed, innocent look.
You must have done something.” Tomas’s big hands spanned her waist as he lifted her out of the truck.
She placed her own hands on his chest, pushing him back as he leaned in to nuzzle her neck.
“Uh-uh. You have a story to finish, my friend.”
Grinning, he set her down, closed the truck door, and followed her up the stairs to her apartment. She unlocked the door, tossed her purse on the counter, and pointed at a chair. “Sit and talk. I’ll make tea.”
“God, you’re bossy.” Tomas settled into a chair and plucked an apple out of the bowl on the table. He rolled it between his hands while she moved about the kitchen. “Carlos likes to fix up cars, and he’s good at it.”
She nodded, thinking about the beautifully maintained car Louisa drove. She smiled at the irony of both their mothers driving BMWs, although her mother traded in her car every three years; the woman wouldn’t be caught dead in one as old as Louisa’s.
“He’d finished work on this cherry red Chevy Nova SS.
The engine had this low throaty rumble, the interior was gorgeous.
I’m getting a boner just thinking about it.
” He laughed at Fiona’s glare. “I was pissed at him one night. I’d taken beer from the restaurant.
Not the first time, either. This time, he chewed my ass out in front of a bunch of my friends.
They laughed. I was humiliated. So I went home, found the keys to the Nova, and took off to Wenatchee for the weekend.
On the way back, the cops pulled me over and arrested me for auto theft. ” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
Standing beside the stove, Fiona watched the anger and frustration play across his face. She could only imagine his fear at the time.
“ I didn’t know Carlos had sold the car and he didn’t know I’d taken it. The buyer came to get it, Carlos opened the garage, and it was gone. They reported it to the cops.”
“And your stepfather got you sent to jail?” She moved over to the table and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He shook his head. “Mom said he tried to talk the buyer down from pressing charges. But the buyer was seriously pissed. I was an angry punk then, which didn’t help matters. So, yeah, that’s how I wound up doing time.”
Fiona pressed into his side, running a hand down his arm to stroke the scarred knuckles of his big hands. Hands that built beautiful homes, designed delicate jewelry, and touched her like she was precious. “Was it…awful?”
Twisting one hand, he interlaced his fingers with hers. “Yeah. It was a minimum-security prison over in Forks. But I still got beat up a couple of times. There was a nurse who used to live in Keeney. His mom knew my mom, and was able to help me out by getting me a job cleaning up in the infirmary.
“The doc there figured out I had trouble reading. At first, he was a real jerk. Got pissed that I wouldn’t follow the instructions he’d written down.
Thought I was lazy and trying to piss him off.
I think he saw me staring at the paper, trying to figure things out, and he started asking questions about school and stuff.
I had to tell him about my learning disorder.
The prison had a rehabilitative program with a psychologist on staff.
That doctor got me tested, and they figured out how to help me. ”
He turned wary eyes her way. She didn’t know what he was expecting to see in hers, but he seemed to relax and continued speaking.
“I got pulled from the infirmary, which sucked because that nurse, Jaime, made the best cookies.” He grinned up at her.
“They put me in school. I wasn’t thrilled, because school sucks when you can’t read.
But it was time. If I was gonna have any kind of future, I had to put in the work.
There were a dozen guys in the class. Like me, they had learning disorders, although we weren’t all the same.
It was hard work, but it wasn’t like I had anything better to do. ”
“And you learned to read,” she spoke softly, one hand intertwined with his, the other sifting through his hair, gently massaging his scalp.
“Yeah.” Now there was pride in his eyes. “I’m still slow. And I do better when I hear instructions instead of reading them. But I read something every day, to work at it, get better.”
She cocked her head to the side. “What do you read? The newspaper? Sports stuff?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I like romance novels.”
“Really!”
“Yep.” Releasing her hand, he shifted so she stood between his legs, his arms caging her in between his hard body and the edge of the table. “They’re kind of like…instruction manuals.”