Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Lara spent the next few days at the museum processing a new donation of artifacts from a formerly local family.
Mary Lou kept Ty busy with to-do lists. Lara hadn’t discussed it with her grandmother, but she knew they both thought if they could keep Ty busy enough with the museum to-dos, by winter he’d start seeing the sense in taking the baseball coaching job that would no doubt be offered to him if he just met with Mr. Stolt.
She wouldn’t be surprised if Ty saw right through their plans, but he hadn’t said anything. So they’d all go along, just like always…
Except Ty wasn’t planning on leaving this time. Lara was surprised at how much that seemed to…change everything. She was so happy he was home for good, but she had never been a fan of change.
And it required a certain level of adaption for Ty to always be here. To not think, well, when he leaves again… Because he wasn’t leaving. He was just…always going to be here. Unless he decided to move.
Would he?
She was considering that possibility and wading through all the complicated emotions that brought up, when Grandma came in from the back room.
“I’m headed out,” she said, pulling on her winter coat. Somewhere deeper in the museum they heard the sound of a door slamming. “Oh, I’ll be back, Floyd, you old flirt.”
Lara smiled in spite of the uncomfortable feelings around Ty that she was trying to work through. “Let me make dinner tonight, Grandma. You don’t always have to be waiting on Ty. I can help.”
“Oh, I’ll do it while I can. I don’t see Ty wanting to sleep on a couch for too many more weeks no matter how much he’d like to stay with us.
You don’t worry about it.” Grandma studied her in a way Lara didn’t quite know what to do with.
“Even if he’s back, he won’t be underfoot forever. He’ll start planting some roots.”
Lara supposed Grandma was right, but the way she was intently staring at Lara like she’d asked some kind of question was a little baffling.
“I suppose so,” Lara agreed.
A slow, ticking minute of silence passed with Grandma just staring at her. Lara just kept staring back because she didn’t understand what Grandma was looking for. At all.
“Roots are good,” Lara offered when the silence went on another minute. “And now we don’t have to wait around for the Taylor boy to remember to clean out the gutters like he promised he would.”
Grandma only grunted, then turned and left, like Lara had said something wrong. But she didn’t know what.
Lara shook the whole weird interaction away and went back to the new exhibit she was working on with their new artifacts.
It wasn’t too long after Grandma had left that she heard the bell on the door tinkle.
She moved for the front desk to greet their visitor but then stopped abruptly when she recognized him.
“Mr. Wagner.” Unease was immediate. Followed be a little trickle of fear. It had taken becoming an adult to fully understand what Ty had grown up with. The adults in her life had taken pains to keep it…vague, and she’d eventually realized Ty had done the same.
But over the course of the past ten years or so, she’d really begun to understand just how abusive Bruce Wagner had been to his son. It made her sick. And in this moment, the anger began to overtake the fear that he was a volatile man who liked to hurt people weaker than him.
Ty deserved some kind of retribution for what had been done to him by the man who was supposed to protect and care for him, and the impotent anger of that propelled her to be icier than she probably should have been if she wanted to avoid a scene.
“Can I help you with something?”
He eyed her. He had the same shade of blue eyes as Ty, but she’d never seen anything nearing warmth in them. Even when Ty had done well on the field. A mercenary glint, maybe, but not warmth or pride or love.
“Looking for my son.”
“He isn’t here.” Which wasn’t a lie. He was downstairs. That wasn’t technically here.
“Now, you don’t want to go lying to me,” Bruce said, eyes cold, mouth flat. He moved closer to where she stood, wagging his finger. “I don’t tolerate liars. It’s all over town he’s working for you.” He said it with a sneer, like there was something shameful and tawdry about him working here.
Lara stayed exactly where she was, even as Mr. Wagner approached. She clasped her hands together so they wouldn’t visibly shake, but she held Mr. Wagner’s gaze with a cool one of her own.
“He isn’t here,” she repeated. “And I’d like you to leave.”
“Public place.”
“No, it isn’t,” Laura replied, maybe a little primly. “It’s a museum open to the public if they follow certain rules.”
“What laws am I breaking?” He smirked. The smell of liquor pervasive the closer he got.
“It doesn’t matter. This is my museum. I have the right to refuse anyone. I am refusing you, Mr. Wagner. Now, I’d like you to leave.”
The smirk turned into a sneer. She didn’t miss the way his body tensed, the way his hand curled into a fist at his sides—something that was no doubt meant to intimidate even if he didn’t raise it.
But she wouldn’t be intimidated, and if he wanted to hit her? “I’m not a little boy. You hit me, I call the police, and I press charges. We can work up a trespassing charge too, if you don’t leave now.”
Even though her hands shook, everything shook, she wasn’t about to back down. Maybe she even kind of hoped he would hit her, so she’d have the chance to do just that. Call the cops. Press changes. Give him some taste of retribution.
“Dad.”
Lara closed her eyes against the wave of pain—oh how she wished she could have gotten rid of Bruce before Ty had come upstairs.
For a moment, Ty was frozen. Not in fear, but in a wild, blinding fury that no doubt came from the man standing in front of Lara.
“There you are,” Bruce said, sending Lara a disgusted look. It was enough to get Ty’s feet moving. He stepped in front of Lara, moved for his dad. “Here I am.” He didn’t look at Lara. Couldn’t. “Let’s have a talk outside.”
“What about all those apron strings tying you to this one?”
Ty ignored the barb. He knew how to ignore everything his father shot at him these days. It didn’t even really hurt any more. He’d become numb to it.
But he knew it hurt Lara, and it worried her. So he ushered his dad out the front door, and since Bruce was clearly drunk, it didn’t take much force to propel him outside.
Maybe this wasn’t better since people were walking down to the beach or up to the main drag, but it was still better than the look of anguish on Lara’s face.
He led his dad down the side of the building toward the beach. Maybe if he kept walking…he could just walk into the sea. Swim out to that guy standing on a rock out in the water.
Instead, he stopped in the back area of the museum, where the trailhead to the lighthouse started with a big plaque. It wasn’t private, but it gave the illusion of space from the general public.
When he finally came to a stop, he turned and looked down at his father.
Age and drink had done a number on his face.
Puffy and red-eyed. He was a little stooped these days, and Ty thought there should be some satisfaction in seeing Dad’s choices catch up with his body, but Ty just felt…
tainted. Contaminated by his father’s presence.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, not even sounding angry. Just exhausted.
“Well, since you’re too good to come out to the trailer, I had to track you down, didn’t I? I want to know the plan. Winter is the time to plant the seeds for spring. You can’t just bum around the Townsends. You have to—”
“I’m not trying out for anything else. I’m nearly thirty years old, Dad. It’s over. I’ve let it go. Now it’s your turn to let it go. I’m not a baseball player. The end.”
“You’re just accepting failure?” Dad demanded. His cheeks were already red, probably from the drinking, but they got redder. “You want that to be the hallmark of your life? Quitting?”
A few years ago, that question would have crushed him. Because being a quitter was so incongruous to how he felt. He was a hard worker who saw things through. Quitting was for men like his father.
But somewhere in the last few years he’d begun to see that letting go wasn’t the same as quitting. Quitting was giving up on something because it was too hard. Letting go was moving on from something that didn’t serve you anymore.
So Ty figured honesty was the best policy. Or maybe he just wanted to finally say it and mean it and not be afraid of the consequences. “The failure was in listening to you as long as I did.”
Ty saw it clear as day in his father’s eyes. That bone-deep desire to cause hurt and harm. But Ty was bigger than him these days, and the last time Dad had tried to hurt him—when he’d been twenty-one and doing okay in the independent league, but not good enough for dear old dad—Ty had fought back.
Bruce hadn’t tried since then. Not really. Even when he was drunk. He didn’t want the embarrassment of losing. Because at the end of the day, the only failure and quitter here was Bruce Wagner.
“Well, when you change your mind, and you will, don’t expect my help. I’m washing my hands of you until you come to your senses.” Dad stalked away.
Ty watched him go. “I won’t change my mind. I’ve never expected your help,” he muttered, to himself since Dad was long gone.
It wasn’t the worst interaction they’d ever had. In fact, it was one of the more uneventful ones. He wanted to feel some relief, but he’d have to believe Dad was serious and would remember washing his hands of anything.
So it just left him feeling wrung out. Tapped out. Empty. Like up to this point, even though he’d promised himself he’d be done with baseball, he hadn’t been sure. There’d been some little seed of doubt he hadn’t been fully cognizant of.
Until Dad told him he’d have doubts, until Dad told him he’d change his mind, and it had squashed whatever was left. No, he’d never go back. Not now. Especially if it really meant his dad had finally washed his hands of him.
Good riddance.
Feeling a weird kind of grief over both things—or maybe the grief he hadn’t allowed himself to feel yet—Ty went back into the museum through the back door. He needed to make sure Lara was okay, but he needed to settle himself first. Put on some kind of…brave, unharmed front.
He stepped inside, moved to close the door but it…slammed. Which was weird because Ty hadn’t put that much force behind closing it. Or any. “Must be the wind,” he muttered.
Then he just stood there, staring at the door, rubbing at the pain in his chest. This was good.
It wasn’t a scene, and Dad made it sound like he wouldn’t bother him again.
He could just…live here in Wild Rose Point and not worry about it.
He could just live his damn life and have no problems with Bruce Wagner.
He closed his eyes. It wasn’t just pain. It was too complicated for that, because there was a huge amount of relief twisted up in the feeling of loss. Acceptance.
He felt a hand move across the back of his neck in a soothing gesture. He wanted to lean into it, but he had to be strong. “Lara.” He turned.
There was no one there.
A chill swept through him as his eyes darted around the storage room. No one. Not a soul. The touch was just…a figment of his imagination. He shook his head, more than a little shaken.
Then he moved for the stairs and took them two at a time. He’d apologize to Lara, and then… Well, never go into the lower level again, maybe.
You’re being crazy. He knew it. He knew it, but he did not look back. He crested the stairs on a full out jog.
He stumbled to a stop at the same time Lara came into view. She’d been pacing, but she stopped abruptly and turned away from him.
So he approached, ready to face this over anything going on downstairs. “I’m sorry. That’s on me. I knew he’d make a scene eventually. I just thought I had a few more days yet to cut it off at the pass.”
“You never have to apologize for him, Ty” Lara said, but he could hear the emotion in her voice. “He is not your fault.”
“Come on, Lara. Don’t cry on me.” It broke his heart. He reached her, turned her around by the shoulders to face him.
She tipped her chin up, defiant. “I’m not.” But her voice was squeaky and even if she’d managed to wipe away any sight of tears, her eyes were too shiny.
It killed him. She always tried to be strong for him, and he’d always felt a kind of guilt over that. Sure, his dad sucked. Okay, more than that. He was straight out abusive, but she’d lost her entire family when they’d been in eighth grade. Everything good taken away from her. Forever.
He didn’t need her to be strong for him. He just needed her to…to…something. “He said he won’t bother me again if I’m really quitting, and I am, so that should be it.”
She nodded wordlessly, but a tear trailed over onto her cheek and tracked down. He’d planned on giving her a reassuring hug, but it felt like someone was tugging his hands up to cup her face.
Which…somehow changed the tenor of things. Charged the air with something aside from sadness and pain. Her skin was soft, and the faint scent of her shampoo seemed to wrap around them. The thud of his heart a strange, echoing beat.
Her mouth was way too close to his. They shouldn’t be this close. He shouldn’t feel her breath against his mouth or watch her hair flutter at his. He shouldn’t brush away that tear with his thumb, because it meant he was still here, leaning a little closer in, so their noses actually brushed.
He shouldn’t be doing any of this, but there was the errant thought in his head that if he just knew what her lips felt like under his, he might know how to take his next breath. How to right all that failure his dad had talked about.
That there wouldn’t be failure, because there would be this.
The scent of perfume filled the space, so incongruent to the moment, he was momentarily worried someone had come in the room because it certainly wasn’t Lara. He looked around but saw no one. Just like the basement.
A cold chill spread through him, taking away all that warmth.
Lara dropped her chin, leaned her forehead against his chest, the moment over. Any sort of…disaster averted.
“Thanks, Josie,” she muttered.
But he didn’t know what the hell she was thanking one of her fake ghosts for.