Heartbreaker (6 page)

It was as if he knew how badly he’d hurt her with the information about J.B.’s past, and wanted to make amends.

“Listen,” she said one day when he gave her a worried look, “I’m not stupid. I knew there was something in J.B.’s past that, well, that caused him to be the way he is. He never cared about me, except as a sort of adopted relative.” She smiled. “I’ve got three years of college to go, you know. No place for a love life.”

He studied her quietly. “Don’t end up like him,” he said suddenly. “Or like me. I don’t think I’ve got it in me to trust another human being.”

Her eyes were sympathetic. He was blaming himself for his sister’s death. She knew it. “You’ll grow old and bitter, all alone,” she said.

“I’m already old and bitter,” he said, and he didn’t smile.

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“No gray hairs,” she observed.

“They’re all on the inside,” he shot back.

She grinned. Her whole face lit up.

He gave her an odd look and something in his expression softened, just a little.

“If you really want to look old, you should dye your hair,” she pointed out.

He chuckled. “My father still had black hair when he died. He was sixty.”

“Good genes,” she said.

He shrugged. “Beats me. He never knew who his father was.”

“Your mother?”

His face hardened. “I don’t talk about her.”

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t mean to growl,” he said hesitantly. “I’m not used to women.”

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“Imagine a man ever admitting that!” she exclaimed with mock surprise.

He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re sassy.”

“Yes, I am. Nice of you to notice. Now would you mind leaving? Justin’s going to come back any minute. He won’t like having you flirt with me on his time.”

“I don’t flirt,” he shot back.

“Well, excuse me!”

He shifted. “Maybe I flirt a little. It isn’t intentional.”

“God forbid! Who’d want to marry you?” she asked curiously.

He scowled. “Look here, I’m not a bad person.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to marry you,” she persisted.

“Who asked you?” he asked curtly.

“Not you, for sure,” she returned. “And don’t bother,” she added when he started to speak. “I’m such a rare catch that I have men salivating in the yard, wherever I go.”

His dark eyes started to twinkle. “Why?”

“Because I can make French pastry,” she told him. “With real whipped cream and custard fillings.”

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He pursed his lips. “Well!”

“See? I’m quite a catch. Too bad you’re not in the running.”

He frowned. “Even if I were interested, what would I do with a wife?”

“You don’t know?” She gave him such an expression of shock and horror that he burst out laughing.

She grinned at him. “See there? You’re improving all the time. I’m a good influence, I am!”

“You’re a pain in the neck,” he returned. “But not bad company.” He shrugged. “Like movies?”

“What sort?”

“Science fiction?”

She chuckled. “You bet.”

“I’ll check and see what’s playing at the theater Saturday, if you’re game.”

Saturday was the barbecue at J.B.’s that she was determined not to attend. Here was her excuse to miss it. She liked Grange. Besides, no way was she going to sit home and eat her heart out over J.B., especially when she’d already told him that she had other plans. “I’m game.”

“Your adopted family won’t like it,” he said slowly.

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“Marge won’t mind,” she said, certain that it was true. “And I don’t care what J.B. thinks.”

He nodded. “Okay. It’s a date. We’ll work out the details Friday.”

“Fine. Now please go away,” she added, glancing at the door, where Justin was just coming inside the building. “Or we may both be out looking for work on Monday!”

He grinned and left her before Justin got the door closed.

Marge was less enthusiastic than Tellie had expected. In fact, she seemed disturbed.

“Does the phrase, rubbing salt on an open wound, ring any chimes?” Marge asked her somberly.

“But Grange didn’t do anything,” she protested. “He was as much a victim as J.B. was.”

Marge hesitated, uneasy. “I understand that. But he’s connected with it. J.B. will see it as a personal attack on him, by both of you.”

“That’s absurd!”

“It isn’t, if you remember the way my brother is.”

For the first time since Grange had asked her out, Tellie wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. She didn’t want to hurt J.B., even if he’d given her reason. On the other hand, it was a test of control, his over hers. If she gave in now, she’d be giving in forever. Marge was her friend, but J.B. was Marge’s
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brother. It was a tangled situation.

Marge put an arm around her. “Don’t worry yourself to death, honey,” she said gently. “If you really want to go out with him, go ahead. I’m just saying that J.B. is going to take it personally. But you can’t let him run your life.”

Tellie hugged her back. “Thanks, Marge.”

“Why don’t you want to go to the barbecue?” the older woman asked.

Tellie grimaced. “Miss runner-up beauty queen will be there, won’t she?”

Marge pursed her lips. “So that’s it.”

“Don’t you dare tell him,” came the terse reply.

“Never.” Marge sighed. “I didn’t even think about that. No wonder you’re so anxious to stay away.”

“She’s really gorgeous, isn’t she?”

Marge looked old and wise. “She’s just like all the other ones before her, Tellie, tall and blond and stacked. Not much in the way of intelligence. You know,” she added thoughtfully, “I don’t think J.B.

really likes intelligent women much.”

“Maybe he feels threatened by us.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Marge scoffed. “He’s got a business degree from Yale, you know.”

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“I’d forgotten.”

“No, I think it has to do with our mother,” she continued. “She was always running down our father, making him feel like an idiot. She was forever going to conventions with one of her research partners.

Later, they had a serious affair. That was just before she died.”

“J.B. didn’t have a great respect for women, I guess.”

“Not in his younger days. Then he got engaged, and tragedy followed.” She seemed far away. “I lost my first love to another woman, and then my husband died of an embolism after surgery.” She shook her head. “J.B. and I have poor track records with happily ever after.”

Tellie felt sad for both of them. “I suppose it would make you gun-shy, when it came to love.”

“Love?” Marge laughed. “J.B. doesn’t believe in it anymore.” She gave Tellie a sad, gentle appraisal.

“But you should. Maybe Grange will be the best thing that ever happened to you. It wouldn’t hurt to show J.B. that you’re not dying of a broken heart, either.”

“He won’t notice,” Tellie said with conviction. “He used to complain that I was always underfoot.”

“Not recently.”

“I’ve been away at college for four years more or less,” she reminded the older woman. That reminded her of graduation, which he hadn’t attended. It still stung.

“And going away for three more.” Marge smiled. “Live your life, Tellie. You don’t have to answer to anybody. Be happy.”

“That’s easier said than done,” Tellie pointed out. She smiled at Marge. “Okay. If you don’t mind me dating Grange, J.B. can think what he likes. I don’t care.”

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Which wasn’t the truth, exactly.

Grange was good company when he relaxed and forgot that Tellie was a friend of J.B.’s.

The movie was unforgettable, a film about a misfit crew aboard a space-going freighter who were protecting a girl from some nasty authorities. It was funny and sweet, and full of action.

They came out of the theater smiling.

“It’s been a good year for science-fiction movies,” he remarked.

“It has,” Tellie agreed, “but that was the best I’ve seen so far. I missed the series when it was on television. I guess I’ll have to buy the DVD set.”

He gave her an amused look. “You’re nice to take around,” he said on the way to his big gray truck. “If I weren’t a confirmed bachelor, you’d be at the top of my list of prospects.”

“Why, what a nice thing to say!” she exclaimed. “Do you mind if I quote you frequently?”

He gave her a quick look and relaxed a little when she laughed. “Quote me?” he asked quizzically.

Her shoulders rose and fell. “It’s just that nobody ever said I was marriageable before, you see,” she told him. “I figure with an endorsement like that, the sky’s the limit. I mean, I won’t be in college forever.

A woman has to think about the future.”

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Grange stared at her in the light from the parking lot. “I don’t think I’ve ever been around anyone like you. Most women these days are too aggressive for my taste.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Like doormats, do we?” she teased.

He shook his head. “It’s not that. I like a woman with spirit. But I don’t like being seen as a party favor.”

“Now you know how women feel,” she pointed out.

“I never treated a woman that way,” he returned.

“A lot of men have.”

“I suppose so,” he conceded. He gave her a smile. “I enjoyed tonight.”

“Me, too.”

“We’ll do it again sometime.”

She smiled back. “Suits me.”

Grange dropped her off at Marge’s house, but he didn’t try to kiss her good-night. He was a gentleman in the best sense of the word. Tellie liked him. But her heart still ached for J.B.

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Tellie assumed that Marge and the girls were in bed, because the lights were all off inside. She locked the door behind her and started toward the staircase when a light snapped on in the living room.

She whirled, surprised, and looked right into J. B. Hammock’s seething green eyes.

Four

“W hat…are you doing here?” she blurted out, flushing at the way he was looking at her. “Has something happened to Marge or the girls?” she added at once, uneasy.

“No. They’re fine.”

She moved into the room, putting her purse and coat on a chair, her slender body in jeans with pink embroidered roses and a pink tank top that matched. Her pale eyes searched his dark green ones curiously. She ran a nervous hand through her wavy dark hair and grimaced. He looked like an approaching storm.

“Then why are you here?” she asked when the silence became oppressive.

His eyes slid over her body in the tight jeans and tank top and narrowed with reluctant appreciation. He was also in jeans, but his were without decoration. A chambray shirt covered his broad, muscular chest and long arms. It was unfastened at the throat. He usually dressed casually for barbecues, and this one didn’t seem to be an exception.

“You went to a movie with Grange,” he said.

“Yes.”

His face tautened. “I don’t like you going out with him.”

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Her thin dark eyebrows arched. “I’m almost twenty-two, J.B.”

“Jacobsville is full of eligible bachelors.”

“Yes, I know. Grange is one of them.”

“Damn it, Tellie!”

She drew in a steadying breath. It was hard not to give in to J.B. She’d spent most of her adolescence doing exactly that. But this was a test of her newfound independence. She couldn’t let him walk all over her. Despite his reasons for not wanting her around Grange, she couldn’t let him dictate her future.

Particularly since he wasn’t going to be part of it.

“I’m not marrying him, J.B.,” she said quietly. “He’s just someone to go out with.”

His lean jaw tautened. “He’s part of a painful episode in my past,” he said flatly. “It’s disloyal of you to take his side against me. I’m not pushing the point, but I gave you a home when you needed one.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You gave me a home? No, J.B., you didn’t give me a home. You decided that Marge would give me a home,” she said emphatically.

“Same thing,” he bit off.

“It isn’t,” she replied. “You don’t put yourself out for anybody. You make gestures, but somebody else has to do the dirty work.”

“That’s not how it was, and you know it,” he said curtly. “You were fourteen years old. How would it have looked, to have you living with me? Especially with my lifestyle.”

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She wanted to argue that, but she couldn’t. “I suppose you have a point.”

He didn’t reply. He just watched her.

She moved to the sofa and perched on one of its broad, floral-patterned arms. “I’m very grateful for what your family has done for me,” she said gently. “But nobody can say that I haven’t pulled my weight.

I’ve cleaned and cooked for Marge and the girls, been a live-in baby-sitter, helped keep her books—I haven’t just parked myself here and taken advantage of the situation.”

“I never said you did,” he replied.

“You’re implying it,” she shot back. “I can’t remember when I’ve ever dated anybody around here…!”

“Of course not, you were too busy mooning over me!”

Her face went white. Then it slowly blossomed into red rage. She stood up, eyes blazing. “Yes,” she said. “I was, wasn’t I? Mooning over you while you indulged yourself with starlet after debutante after Miss Beauty Contest winner! Oh, excuse me, Miss Runner-up Beauty Contest winner,” she drawled insolently.