Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (16 page)

He peered through the Judas hole and then groaned silently, resting his head against the polished wood.

It
was
Nadine.

And she was still out there, busily writing on a little notebook.

He opened the door, because in the back of his mind, he could hear Ressa’s voice. The longer he waited . . .

She jumped as the door swung inward but he forced
himself not to apologize, not to invite her in. He just smiled. “Hi, Nadine.”

“Oh . . .” Her hand fluttered up to her throat, toying with the necklace there. “Trey, you . . . you startled me. I didn’t think you were home. You took so long to answer.”

“I was working,” he said, shrugging. “I get caught up and don’t hear the door.”

A nervous laugh escaped her. “Of course.” She stood there, her hands clasped at her waist, an expectant look on her face.

Guilt gnawed at him. That vague sensation of something closing around him rose inside him. Refusing to give in to the guilt, he pushed his hands into his pockets. “Can I help you with something?”

“What? . . . Oh.” Her shoulders slumped, so very slightly, and then she brushed her hair back. “I wanted to know if you needed anything. I thought I could pick up Clayton and take care of dinner for you.” She gave him a slow smile. “You could get more work done . . . maybe tell me what you’ve been working on lately. We don’t talk much anymore, do we?”

She’s in love with you
—

The sound of Ressa’s words danced in the back of his mind and Trey fought the urge to shut the door and just disappear. Instead, he squared his shoulders. “Afraid that won’t work out, Nadine,” he said, shaking his head.

“Silly me.” With a tentative smile, she eased closer. “I forgot you said you had plans. Maybe tomorrow?”

She reached out to touch his arm.

He caught her hand in his, squeezed gently. “No.” Carefully, he nudged her hand back down. Then, forcing himself to hold her eyes, he shook her head. “Nadine, I don’t know what you think you see here, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the intent, but . . . Clayton and I aren’t ever going to be anything more than neighbors to you.”

Her dark green eyes widened and judging by the flash of hurt there, he realized Ressa had been right. “Trey . . .” She reached out again.

This time, he stepped back. “Nadine, you’ve helped out a lot the past few years . . .”

“You just need more time,” Nadine said, her voice tremulous and soft. She took a step closer, then another.

He held firm where he was now. She was five feet nothing and if he gave her a chance, she’d back him right inside the house and it would take forever to get her to leave.

“No. I don’t need more time to understand what’s going on here.” Once more, he felt like he was kicking a puppy dog, but he flattened, hardened his tone because if he kept using that soft, gentle one, she’d hear what she wanted, not what he had to say. “Nadine, you’re a nice lady. You’re my neighbor and you’ve been helpful in the past . . . but that’s . . . that’s it. There’s nothing else between us. There’s not going to be.”

“But . . . but . . . we kissed!” She half shouted it as she stood there, and suddenly, that sweet expression fell away. Her hands balled into fists. “We kissed and we’ve seen each other every day and you made me think it could be more. You can’t tell me there’s nothing there.”

“Yes, I can.” It was easier even, to look at her, now that she wasn’t twisting her hands and looking all around like some shy, nervous girl hiding along the wall at a dance. “My head was a mess for a long while after Aliesha died. I was lonely. We went out one time, and yeah, we did kiss. Once. Yes, we see each other . . . We live next door to each other. But . . .”

He stopped, staring at her for a long moment. Then softly, he said, “You’re a friend, Nadine. But that’s all you’re ever going to be.”

“Why?” Nadine asked and her voice broke a little. Her eyes were wild and she still had her little hands closed into fists, banging the right one on her thigh. “If . . . I mean . . . haven’t I been good to Clayton? Don’t I try to take care of you? I can do better.”

This sucks,
Trey thought miserably.

She moved closer and rested a hand on his chest. “I can be
whatever
you want.”

Her hand slid lower.

He caught it, blood rushing up the back of his neck.

“The only thing I want you to be is a friend, Nadine. I’m sorry.”

“No . . . no . . . no . . . you don’t mean that. You don’t. You . . .” She jerked her hand away and pressed it to her lips, tears welling in her eyes.

Aw, hell . . .

He felt himself lifting a hand, helpless against that misery. Even though that sensation of being trapped started to settle in—

But before he was even close to touching her, she spun around and stumbled away, half tottering on the heels she always seemed to wear. He swore as she bumped into the railing of the porch and he went to catch her arm.

“Don’t touch me!”

She jerked away with a venom that chilled him.

Slowly, he let her go, his fingers uncurling.

“Go ahead,” she said, her voice warbling. “Throw me away. But nobody else will ever love you like I do. I would have done anything for you.”

She gave him one last, accusing look and then headed over to the house next door.

Trey closed his eyes and when he heard the door slam, he dropped down to sit on the top step, resting his head on his fisted hands.

Trey was ready for two things. A burger and some quiet.

He would have thought he had all the silence he could handle during the day. Kindergarten wasn’t anything like the two-day preschool deal Clayton had done at a local church for the past two years. That had been for two hours and that was it.

But today, Clayton had been gone from morning until midway through the afternoon and those hours in between had been abnormally quiet. Oh, he’d gotten plenty of writing done, but he just wasn’t used to that sort of . . . quiet.

Now there was anything
but
quiet.

Clayton hadn’t stopped chattering since he’d buckled himself into his booster seat in Trey’s truck.

Now, as he listened to Clayton talk about how he and Neeci
both
hated eggs, how they
both
hated lima beans and how they
both
loved peanuts but couldn’t stand those little skin things, he thought that maybe burgers were just the ticket. Burgers. On the grill. Where Clayton could swim while Trey grilled and at least got some remnant of quiet.

“Dad! Isn’t it funny how we both hate eggs
and
lima beans?”

“Nah.” He forced a smile. “It just means you’re smart people. I mean,
I
hate eggs and lima beans.”

Clayton laughed and went to launch into yet another discussion about how Neeci lived with her cousin and how she never got to see her mama, and how she sometimes spent the night with her grandma and how funny it was that her cousin was Miss Ressa.

The words were tripping out of him so fast, Clayton barely had time to catch his breath before yet another five-minute ramble.

“Okay, man. How about you go put up your backpack?” he asked, interrupting Clayton during those few seconds he paused to breathe.

“But . . .” Clayton looked down and stared at it.

He’d been unpacking it for about the past twenty minutes.

Trey might be new at the school thing, but he was positive it shouldn’t take that long.

“But?”

“I wanted to show you my schoolwork.”

Realizing this was going to take as long as Clayton could let it take, he tapped his watch. “Five minutes, then the backpack goes up.”

Clayton gave him a wide grin and then shoved his hands back into the backpack, coming out with more stuff than Trey thought he could have accumulated in one day at school. “Some of this is yours,” Clayton announced, displaying a stack of paper with pride. “You gotta sign it and stuff.”

Figures. You think the schoolwork is done when you leave school
. He moved to the kitchen table and took the packet, absently pulling a pair of glasses from his pocket. Once he had them on, he skimmed through it.
Classroom rules, room parent . . .

Man.

“Look!”

A piece of paper with Clayton’s characteristic scrawl was shoved in front of him. “I write my name already. Some of the kids can’t.”

“It’s not a competition, Clay,” he said, but he smiled at the
lopsided name and address written on the ruled paper. Below it was what Trey assumed was their house, with flowers in front of it. There were two stick figures, one taller than the other.

“That’s us.” Clayton hugged Trey’s waist and pointed at the stick family. “Me and you.” Then he sighed. “A bunch of other people had a mom and dad and brothers and sisters. Some had dogs or cats. But it’s just us.”

Trey smoothed a hand down Clayton’s sunny hair. “It’s not just us, kid.” Putting the drawing down, he boosted Clayton up. “You’ve got a huge family, one that loves you just as much as I do. You got Grandma and Grandpa, all your uncles. Uncle Travis is here so much, he might as well move in.”

“Yeah.” He sighed softly and tucked his head against Trey’s shoulder. “But it’s not really the same. I want a mom.”

Trey closed his eyes.

“Neeci has a mom. But she never sees her.”

Rubbing his knuckles up and down Clayton’s back, Trey started to rock him, like he had years back. “Sometimes it happens that way, kid.”

“Why? If I had a mom, I’d see her all the time.”

“I know.” He pressed a kiss to Clayton’s temple. Then he lifted his head, waited until Clayton’s eyes swung up to meet his. “I have to tell you something, though. Now I don’t know what’s going on with Neeci, and I’m going to ask—man to man—that you respect her privacy. You know how important privacy is, we talk about it a lot. If she wants to tell you, that’s fine. Respect it, though, and don’t go telling friends at school.” He thought of the grim, sad look he’d seen in Ressa’s eyes the few times she’d mentioned her cousin. There was a story there, all right, and it wasn’t a happy one. He lifted a hand and stroked it across Clayton’s head. “Some people don’t make good parents. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on with Neeci. You don’t say that to her, or anybody else, you hear me?”

Eyes solemn, Clayton nodded. “Aunt Abby had a bad mom.”

Instinctively, Trey locked his jaw. Forcing himself to relax, he studied his son’s face. “Where did you hear about that?”

“I heard her talking to Grandma once. She was upset. Her mom had called—yelled at her because she was marrying Uncle Zach and not that sumbitch who’d dumped her.”

Trey closed his eyes.
Sumbitch
.

Well, that described Abby’s former fiancé well enough. “Two things, Clay. That word you just used, don’t use it again—”

“What word? Sumbitch?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That one. It’s a bad word and we don’t use it. Abby only used it because . . . well. You’re mostly right. Her mom wasn’t a very good mom and the guy who dumped her wasn’t a good guy, either. You’re too young to know about this, but you’re not wrong. We are
not
going to talk about this, you hear? I just . . .”

With too-old eyes, Clayton said, “If Neeci might have a bad mom, you want me to know why she might talk about her, and maybe that’s why she has this sad-mad look in her eyes.”

“Exactly. If she wants to talk, then be a friend.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Clayton’s brow. “I told you not to come home smarter than me.”

“I get sad-mad, too, Daddy,” Clayton whispered. “Because I don’t have my mom.”

“I know. I get the same way sometimes, Clay.” As much as he hated it, Trey wasn’t surprised Clayton had noticed that look in the girl’s eyes. He had, too, and his son had always been sensitive to that sort of thing.

“Now . . . you gave me your schoolwork—and mine—so go put up your backpack, and then take a look and see if you can figure out what you’re going to wear tomorrow.”

With a quick pat on the kid’s rump, he sent Clayton off. At the arched doorway, Clayton paused and looked back. “Dad . . . do you think Miss Ressa’s pretty?”

Trey ran his tongue across the inside of his lip. “Why are you asking? You think you’re going to ask her on a date?”

“No.” Clayton giggled. “She smelled really good though. I thought she was really pretty, too. And you smiled at her. A lot. It wasn’t like that look you get with Miss Nadine.”

Then Clayton took off. Trey didn’t wait another second. He snagged some sweet tea out of the fridge.

With the echo of Clayton’s voice ringing in his ears, he took a slow drink and tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling.

After another minute, he took one more drink, then another.

Leaning back against the counter, he decided it had been one hell of a day already.

He thought of Ressa’s number, saved into his phone—and the not particularly great picture he’d found on Facebook of the panel they’d done. He hadn’t been snooping. Somebody had posted pictures of the panel to his Facebook page and she’d just happened to be in one of them—it wasn’t a great picture, her face averted, hair half obscuring her face, but it was the only one he had.

He had that picture in his phone, with her phone number.

He was going to wait until tonight.

Then he’d call her.

He didn’t know just what was going to come of it . . . but he’d call her.

For now, though, he studied the stack of papers waiting for him on the table and scowled. Brooded. Debated.

Then he flipped them facedown.

He’d go over all that mess later . . . after he took a few more minutes of the relative quiet.

*   *   *

“Spill.”

Legs crossed, skirt hiked up to her thighs, Farrah chowed down on chow mein and waited.

“You’re so subtle,” Ressa said, shaking her head. “I just love how you work up to these things.

“Screw subtle. Spill.” This was spoken around a mouth full of noodles and punctuated with a pair of chopsticks jabbed her way.

Ressa picked up her wine and took a long swallow, bracing herself. As she lowered it, she said, “Don’t go getting all excited about this. I don’t know just what is going on right now . . . it might not be anything.”

She picked up a piece of crab Rangoon but instead of eating it, she just plucked it apart. “So . . .”

Just how did she say this?

“Son of a bitch.”

She looked up.

“You slept with him.”

Ressa winced.

“You
did
. You went and slept with him,” Farrah said. She put down the box of carryout and leaned forward, speculation on her face. “Didn’t you?”

Ressa caught her lower lip between her teeth for a second, then she shrugged. “There wasn’t really a whole lot of sleeping.”

“Don’t tell me that.” Farrah drained her glass of wine and grabbed the bottle, giving herself a refill. “Considering your answer, I’m going to assume he
does
fuck as beautifully as I’d have hoped.”

“Ah . . .” Ressa felt her mouth going dry as she remembered the way his mouth had felt moving over her, his hands—his body.
All
of him. “Yeah. You can assume that.”

“Details.” Farrah sat back down on the couch and leaned forward, eyes wide, laughing.

“No!” Ressa glared at her. In self-defense, she popped a piece of the mutilated crab Rangoon in her mouth and chewed. As she was chewing, her belly let out a yowl, reminding her just how long it had been since that panini.

With her appetite kicking in, she reached for her dinner of General Tso’s chicken and a set of chopsticks. “You’ll have to do your sexual gossiping with somebody else. But yeah, we slept together in Jersey—the last night. I figured . . .”

She trailed off and popped a bite of chicken into her mouth. Acutely aware of Farrah’s watchful eyes, she shrugged. “I figured that was it. It was great, but . . .” She let the words trail off, unwilling to go into details about everything else.

Farrah was one of the few people who knew most of Ressa’s secrets. And because Farrah loved her, she didn’t care. But she wouldn’t understand.

“But what?” Farrah asked softly.

“Well . . .” Keeping her head tucked, she shrugged. “A lot of things. The . . . his ring.”

Yeah. That was a good cover-up.

“Ohhhh . . .” Farrah nodded. She nipped a bite of noodles from her chopsticks. “If he’s still wearing his ring, honey . . . well, that’s a mess waiting to happen. You might want to check things now. That can’t lead to anything but trouble.”

“He already took it off.” She frowned and poked at her rice.

“What does that matter?” Farrah’s expression was troubled. “I know that look in your eyes . . . you’re already falling. You don’t need to be falling for a guy who’s still carrying a torch for his dead wife.”

“I don’t think he’s still pining for her.” How did she explain this? Yeah, the ring was an issue, but there was something powerful between her and Trey. “I get a feeling that ring was just as much of a security blanket for him as anything else.”

She stopped and shook her head. “No, not even that. It was a shield. I think he uses it to keep people at a distance—women, at a distance.”

“I guess that could make sense.” Farrah’s voice was neutral.

Ressa looked up.

“Honey . . .”

“Stop worrying.” Ressa didn’t know what Farrah was dancing around, but whatever it was, she just wanted her to get it over with. “You don’t have to baby me, okay?”

“I can’t help it.” Farrah wrinkled her nose. She took her time over another bite of noodles and then put the box down. “Listen, she was young. So was he. I think I read once that they’d been together since their first year in college—they just hit it off. And if she died right after the baby was born—”

“During,” Ressa said, her voice soft. “She had to have a C-section and she died during the surgery. Clayton . . .”

She stopped as Farrah’s eyes widened.

Oh, she hadn’t gotten around to explaining that part, had she?

“Clayton . . .
what
?”

Wincing, Ressa said, “I didn’t tell you about that, huh?”

“No, you did
not
!”

“Ah. Yeah.” She put her food down and got up, taking only her wine as she started to pace. “Well. It turns out that he’s actually been coming to your library for a while. Isn’t that funny?”

Seconds ticked away. Finally, Farrah said, “Are you telling me that Mr. Tall and Tattooed, the daddy of that adorable little boy who just about broke your heart is
Trey Barnes
?”

“Well.” Ressa shrugged. “We thought he looked familiar, right?”