Barefoot by the Sea (25 page)

For a long time, John stayed quiet and still. She waited for a reaction, a question, some sympathy. But he didn’t say a word.

“Anyway, she’s fine,” Tessa said, as if he’d asked. “Still runs the law firm, still works long hours.”

“Only now she’s alone.”

So very much alone. “We talk, but not often. Mostly by e-mail. She came to see me when Billy left me, and it only made things worse.” She snorted softly. “Like she was a good role model for marriage.”

“And the fact that she didn’t tell you about your father is why you hate secrets,” he stated, as if he’d snapped the last piece of a puzzle into place.

True enough. But was that the reason she’d shared this one? So he knew that about her? Because something about this man, this night, this…
possibility
…had taken down a wall she’d always kept up.

If he was going to push this to the next step, then so was she.

“That’s why…” Her voice trailed off as she struggled with the admission. “I want a child so much. I think the worst way you can end up in the world is alone. And, honestly, I’m headed right there.”

“Your mother had a child and she’s still alone.”

“I’ll do better,” she said without hesitation. “I learned from her mistakes.”

He nodded, considering that.

“Aren’t you afraid of being alone, John?” she whispered, fighting the urge to touch his face to punctuate the question.

“No. I’ve been alone for a while—no.”

So he hadn’t
always
been alone. “You know what I think?” She lost the battle and grazed his whiskered cheek with her fingertips.

He didn’t answer, but slowly closed his eyes.

“I think”—she turned onto her side, facing him—“that there is much more to you than brawn and good looks.”

Still, silence.

“I saw it in your eyes the very first night we met. Something deep, something real, something…pained.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as if he couldn’t take the words. Or didn’t want her to see that pain.

“Will you share?”

His only response was to angle his head down, as if he couldn’t face her, even with his eyes closed.

She’d shared her deepest and darkest. Wouldn’t he?

He finally looked into her eyes. “No.”

There was more, and he didn’t deny it. But he wouldn’t share. And, really, that told her all she needed to know about how “real” this was.

He let out a soft sigh. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Can’t or won’t? Either way, it hurt.

This time, nothing would stop her. Tessa waited until late afternoon the next day, when it cooled down a bit, kneeling in the soil behind her tractor, threading the three-point hitch. The vines would be cut come hell or high water. Plus, a good long ride could clear the confusion of—

“Hey, Aunt Tessa! Whatchya doin’?”

Or not. With a nearly silent grunt of frustration, she turned, smiling at Ashley as the girl loped over a row of English peas, her long stride surprisingly easy and fast considering that her jeans had been sprayed on.

Tessa wouldn’t demand to know what was going on, but any opportunity to talk could only help Ashley. She hoped.

Standing straight, Tessa took a moment to watch the younger woman approach, a deep-seated love swelling inside her. Ashley hadn’t been the easiest child to raise—and still wasn’t—but Lacey, a single mother for every minute of the first fifteen years of her daughter’s life, had done a remarkable job.

“I’m harvesting sweet potatoes,” Tessa called back. “Want to help?”

Ashley made a face, then brightened. “I’ll drive the tractor!”

“Not a chance.” The soil was soft and, despite the fact that she used a fairly small gardening tractor, it was top-heavy and required a deft touch and experienced driver.

Ashley’s expression fell again. “Can we talk before you start?” she asked as she got closer.

“Of course,” Tessa answered without a second’s hesitation. She stood, yanking off her oversized gardening gloves. “I always have time for you.”

Ashley gave a dry smile. “Good thing, since Mom is MIA.”

“Ash, come on. She’s running a business.”

“She’s at the pediatrician.”

Tessa drew back. “Is Elijah sick?”

“No, he needs some shot thing. I don’t know. Clay’s with her and they left me a note on the kitchen counter. Not a soul in sight.” She sounded defeated, and Tessa immediately wanted to defend her friend, in spite of the age-old resentment that rose.

“Well, you’re seventeen, Ash. It’s not like you’re coming home from kindergarten to an empty house.” Though Tessa knew that feeling, too.

Ashley leaned against the tractor, looking over Tessa’s shoulder. “You know, I’m a little sick of it. It’s annoying to always come in second. Or third.”

“Did you come all the way out here to complain about your mom?” Tessa asked gently. “’Cause if you did, I
will
make you dig in the dirt.”

“No, I just want to talk to somebody.” Kicking the soil with a bright-green Converse sneaker, she kept her eyes cast down. “Did you decide what to do about, you know, telling my mom about Marc?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” she said, remembering John’s sage advice to keep the lines of communication open.

“What are you thinking about?” Ashley asked.

Nothing but myself and my own crush.
“Well, are you still seeing him?”

“Uh, yeah.” She choked softly on the word. “Was with him all last night.”

“
All
last night?”

“No, but until one in the morning. We were out on the beach.”

So she hadn’t been the only one kissing under the stars last night. Except—had Ashley stopped things the same way Tessa had? How could she find out without prying too far into Ashley’s privacy?

“You were out until one on a school night?”

Ashley let out a sharp laugh. “Aunt Tessa, I’m almost in college.”

“You’re a junior in high school,” Tessa said quickly. “What did your mom say when you got home that late?”

She shrugged. “She was crashed. I guess Elijah had a feeding at midnight and Mom grabs every minute of sleep she can.”

“Clay didn’t hear you come in?”

Another shrug, then a guilty look. “I told him I was at my friend Kaylee’s house.”

Tessa closed her eyes. “Ashley, you can’t lie and sneak around. I won’t help you do that and you know it.”

“I know. I…” She let out a little moan and shivered. “Oh, God.”

Oh, God,
what
? “What does that mean?”

She hugged herself and gave up a rapturous look. “I really, really,
really
like him and it has me all crazy inside, you know?”

“Oh, yeah,” Tessa said with a dry laugh. “I know.”

“See?” Ashley nudged her. “Hard to say no to a little of the good thing.”

“The good thing?”

“That’s what Marcus calls it.”

Which said a lot about his feelings regarding sex. Tessa leaned on the hitch, trying to decide what to say. “Look, you’re not a child, and I know kids at seventeen have sex.”

“A lot of them do,” Ashley said. “Like, half my friends lost their virginity last year.”

Tessa cringed. “But is that the right thing to do? I mean, it feels like fun in the moment, but what about when he never calls again and you’ve given him that part of yourself? What about disease and pregnancy and self-respect?”

She expected an argument, but Ashley just looked at her. “I know, Aunt Tess. I’m careful.”

“I’m carefuling,” Tessa said with a smile.

“What?”

The memory teased. “When you were little, we were at the beach with you and your mom kept saying ‘Be careful, Ash’ when you went in too deep, and you turned around and said, ‘I’m carefuling.’ You know, you’re still that baby to me and your mom, Ash.”

“But I’m not,” she replied. “I’m grown up.”

“Enough to have sex?”

“Enough to make my own decisions.”

“Ashley, don’t…” Tessa rooted around for the right words. “Please be smart about this boy. This man,” she amended quickly. “You can get in way too deep, way too fast.”

“I promise I won’t do anything stupid, Aunt Tess. God knows I don’t want to mess up my life like my mom did.”

And Tessa’s mom. “Ashley, your mother doesn’t feel like she messed up her life by getting pregnant with you,” she said. “I know that, because I was there. I was with her the day she took the pregnancy test. I’ve known you since before you were born.”

“Which is why I’m asking you not to turn me in.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. “Just using the words ‘turn me in’ makes me feel like you know you’re doing something wrong, Ashley.”

She shook her head. “Is it wrong if you’re in love?”

“You’re too young to know what love is.”

She got a shaky smile in response. A smile that said Ashley thought she knew exactly what love was.

“You hardly know him, Ashley.”

“I know him as well as you know John Brown. Aren’t you doing it with him?”

“No.” But it was only a matter of time, right? “And even if I were, I’m in my thirties. Listen to me.”

She reached out for Ashley’s hands, wanting so desperately to talk sense into someone who was way past sensible.“You have to promise me you won’t lie or sneak around anymore.”

“I can’t tell my mom I’m dating Marcus, Aunt Tess. She’d fire him, I know she would. He needs this job so bad.”

“Will you promise me you’ll think long and hard before you do anything you might regret later?”

“I’ll try, Aunt Tess.”

Should she tell Lacey? The question pressed hard, making her shake her head. “Your mom needs to know this, Ashley.”

“No!” She squeezed Tessa’s hands. “Please, I promise, promise,
promise
we won’t go any further than we have. I won’t do anything that could get me a disease, a baby, or…”

“Or a broken heart.”

“Oh, he won’t break my heart,” she said confidently. “He loves me. He told me last night.”

“He could be lying to get into your pants.”

She just smiled.

Damn. He probably said it when he was already
in
her pants. “Oh, Ash—”

“Hey! You better not be planning to get on that thing.”

They both turned at the sound of Zoe’s voice, the sight of her plucking her way across the garden in a flowing yellow sundress ending the conversation.

“Don’t tell her, either,” Ashley whispered, a soft desperation in her voice.

Tessa closed her eyes. “Why are you trusting the person who hates secrets?”

Ashley didn’t answer as Zoe came closer, pointing to the vehicle that apparently wasn’t going to get used at all in the near future. “So, does he think your tractor’s sexy?”

“Very funny, Zoe. I’m harvesting sweet potatoes and I need to get back to it.”

“Not today, you’re not.”

“I have to,” Tessa said, pointing to the tangled vines that were fast becoming her nemesis. “Under that lies hundreds of sweets, and they aren’t going to unearth themselves.” She frowned at Zoe. “I don’t suppose you’d go change and follow the tractor with a basket, would you?”

“The only one of us who’s going to change is you. Take a shower and put on some pretty undies.” She curled her lip and gave Tessa’s overall shorts a disgusted look. “Do you have pretty undies?”

Ashley giggled. “For sweet potato harvesting?”

Zoe reached out a hand to both of them. “Come on. The gang is waiting.”

“My mom’s at the pediatrician’s,” Ashley said.

“Not anymore she’s not. She’s looking all over for you.”

Tessa shot an I-told-you-so look at the young girl.

“Does she need me?” Ashley asked.

“She wants to make sure you come with us, of course.”

Ashley’s eyes brightened. “Where are we going?”

Zoe grinned and yanked Tessa closer. “Wedding-dress shopping!”

Tessa froze. “I thought Lacey was still checking out other possible couples. This isn’t a definite thing yet.”

“We’re dress shopping for me,” Zoe said, tugging her. “I need you to be my thinner version. And if we find something you might want to wear for the faux wedding, all the better.”

With one last look at the vines, Tessa let Zoe lead her away.

The minute he could escape the restaurant, Ian grabbed his safe phone and jumped on his bike, not bothering to say good-bye to anyone. Let them look if they needed him, but he would not be found. Not until he made a call to Henry.

He revved the bike engine and peeled out of the resort lot, heading through the gated exit to the winding road that connected Barefoot Bay with the rest of Mimosa Key. A cloud drifted and let some late afternoon sunlight filter through overhanging palm fronds to warm him through his T-shirt and jeans.

But deep inside, he was as ice cold as he’d been since he’d left Tessa the night before.

Glancing to his right, he studied the cobalt expanse of the Gulf of Mexico, wondering for a moment if he should get across that body of water and start over somewhere else. He’d never been to Texas. But hey, he’d never even been to Nevada, but Tessa thought he’d lived and worked there. Bloody hell, why was this lie so hard?

He’d been living a lie for three years, since the day he’d said good-bye to his kids, taken his new identification, and Ian Browning became Sean Bern. Not a word that had come out of his mouth for the better part of those three years had been honest. He lied about his name, his life, his opinions, his language, his feelings. Until he got into it with some idiot and fucked up his cover by landing in jail; he could still be in Singapore, working, drinking, hiding from anything that resembled
caring
about someone other than himself.

But too much more time with Tessa Galloway and he wasn’t going to be able to keep up with the lies. He liked her. He liked her a hell of a lot. He liked everything about her, and he hated what he was doing.