Justified (17 page)

“Not without a court order. And with Susan's daddy dead and gone, you don't have that kind of power.”

“You might be surprised what kind of power I have.”

“No, I don't think so.” The pity in Clyde's voice rang louder than my father's threats, and I realized Clyde had compassion—for whatever reason—for my father.

But that didn't answer my question, and suspicion set off a chain reaction of dread. “Will one of you explain what you're talking about?”

JohnScott walked toward us, but Clyde lifted his hand and waved him away. “It's about time you knew the truth, Fawn, but I'll let your folks explain all that.”

“I could have you arrested,” my father taunted Clyde, but the ex-convict just walked away.

My father stomped to his truck, leaving a trail of fury like the angry spray of a rabid skunk, but he halted with his hand on the door handle and stared through the window at my mother.

She looked at me, and regret filled her eyes.

I lifted my shoulders questioningly, but she only dropped her gaze to her lap.

Another pain nicked my cervix, this one milder than the last, but my skin jittered from the sensation, a mirror of my heart. I couldn't fathom what happened between my parents and Clyde, but I sensed my life would soon rip from front to back. One more time.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

JohnScott asked me out on an official date the next night, but he didn't pick me up until after dark, and he wouldn't tell me what he had planned. I had never been one for surprises, and I couldn't help but wonder how well JohnScott really knew me. And me him.

We had literally known each other our entire lives, but we had been friends less than a year, and serious friends less than a month. We were moving fast. Maybe I wasn't the person he thought I was.

As we pulled from my drive onto the highway, he turned toward Trapp instead of Lubbock, and my curiosity about the evening increased. “Aren't we getting a late start for a Thursday night? You have the big Slaton game tomorrow. You need to be rested so you can thoroughly stomp our rivals.”

“Naw, I'm good.”

I cut my eyes toward him. “We both know Trapp shut down two hours ago.”

He smiled knowingly but only shrugged.

“Well, everything except the Dairy Queen, and if that's what you have in mind, who am I to criticize? I'm happy to spend time with you in any of our local establishments. I only wish you hadn't told me to wear sneakers, because the DQ definitely calls for heels.”

He chuckled. “We're not going to the Dairy Queen.”

“Hmm.” I rubbed my chin. “The Video Barn? You might want to reconsider that, because they have yet to convert all their movies to DVD.”

“We're not going to the Video Barn either.”

“The United?”

“Actually, I've already been to the United and got everything we need. And Ruthie, by the way, is sworn to secrecy. Not that anyone in town would believe her even if she told them what I bought.”

He eased to a stop at the flashing red light, the town's only traffic signal, then made a left turn and pulled into the car wash.

“Oh, I see.” I nodded. “We're going to deep-clean your truck. That's classy.”

“Not quite.” He drove through the parking lot and into the dark alley between the washing stall and the drugstore.

“We came all the way into town to go parking? Couldn't we have done that at my house?”

“Interesting idea. Maybe next time you can choose what we do.” He opened his door, illuminating the inside of the cab. “Here's our loot.” On the seat between us rested a United shopping bag filled with no less than ten bottles of blue and white shoe polish and window paint.

I lowered my voice reverently. “Are we going to paint the town?”

“In honor of Trapp's game against the Slaton Tigers, we're going to paint every shop window on Main Street.” He pulled a pocketknife from his jeans and cut the plastic from each bottle.

I giggled as I slid across the seat, getting out on his side of the truck. “This is my best date ever.”

“We haven't even done it yet. If we get arrested, it won't rank that high.”

“Like either of our cops would arrest a Blaylock or a Pickett, especially for something like this.”

“Someone's coming.” He pulled me away from the truck and shut the door quickly, leaving us once again disguised in darkness. We snuck around the corner and jogged past the streetlamp to another dark spot, where we went to work on the drugstore windows. In bubble letters, I painted
Trapp the Tigers
while he drew a lopsided football.

We eyed each other's artwork skeptically.

I shrugged. “Not bad. I suppose.”

He scoffed. “That's girly cheerleader stuff. I'm representing the men in town.”

We quickly filled in the drugstore's front door with dots and stripes, then moved to the gas station across the street, where each window of the garage received a different starter's jersey number. As we went the long way to the bank to avoid the streetlamp, I asked, “How often do you do this?”

“I've never done this in my entire life.” He paused to draw a Panther paw print on the back door of the bank. “And the only reason I'm doing it tonight is so I can spend time with a beautiful woman in the dark.”

“Well, you're going to have to try harder to impress me, JohnScott, because that Panther paw print looks an awful lot like a Tiger paw print, and we can't leave the citizens of Trapp confused.”

“Ha! It's a cat fight.” He jogged three steps and called over his shoulder, “Can you draw a cat?”

I giggled as I caught up to him and drew a simple cat figure, to which he added Tiger stripes and what looked like drops of blood.

A pickup stopped at the red light, and we ducked into the alley, then stopped, both of us breathing deeply. “You know what, Fawn? A few weeks ago, I worried about being too old for you. But now I don't feel that way.”

“Well, you are older than me, and don't you forget it.” I punched him in the chest. “And you draw like a preschooler.”

“You run like a duck.”

I giggled loudly, and he clapped his palm over my mouth.

An hour later, we had painted every shop window and several of the players' houses.

“I'm glad you asked me out, JohnScott.” I smiled at him in the darkness. “I wanted to see you.”

He covered the distance between us in two large strides. “What did you say?”

“I wanted to see you.”

We were approaching a streetlamp, and he pulled on his earlobe. “I didn't quite hear you. One more time.”

“I wanted to see you, but I'm beginning to regret it.”

He grinned, his hat perched on the back of his head. “Probably you wanted to kiss me.”

“What makes you think I'd want to kiss you?”

“Because I've wanted to kiss you again ever since your kitchen.” He laughed out loud as he covered my lips with his, and his humor entered my soul, spreading warmth down to my toes. His arms slid around my waist, and he held me tight while his lips brushed across my cheek. He could switch so quickly from homespun farmer to sultry football coach, and I couldn't figure out which personality I found the most attractive, but I knew I liked all of him.

“Let's go to the top of the elevator,” I whispered.

“You're nine months pregnant. You can't climb the grain elevator.”

“It's no big deal,” I teased. “I hear it's a good place to make out.”

A pickup crept by on a side street, and we slipped between two parked cars. “Was that Tyler?” JohnScott's body stiffened.

I gazed after the vehicle as it disappeared behind a house. “It sure looked like his truck, but he wouldn't be in Trapp in the middle of the night. Probably a teenager wishing he had thought of shoe polish first.”

JohnScott still peered uneasily at the corner of the house. “Well, whoever he is, the kid should watch out,” he declared. “He's likely to get blamed for our mischief.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

It took a lot of talking to convince JohnScott I could climb up the grain elevator, but in the end he agreed because I told him I had done it before.

“So, you've been up here lots of times?” he asked as we climbed the curving steps around the tower, barely illuminated in the moonlight.

“Oh sure,” I said, gripping the handrails tightly.

JohnScott had insisted I go first so if I happened to stumble, he could break my fall, but I could feel one of his hands on my belt loop nonetheless. “And you mentioned this is a great place to make out.”

“I never said I kissed anyone up here.”

He paused a few seconds before he blurted his next question. “
Have
you ever kissed anyone up here?”

I ignored him. “You said you've climbed up here plenty of times too.”

“I've only ever been up here with one other girl, and I never kissed her.”

We were walking up the catwalk now, almost to the lifts, and JohnScott resumed his sarcastic banter. I found myself wondering if it had been the girl he dated in college. “You brought her up here more than once, and you want me to believe you didn't kiss her?”

“I didn't bring her up here, she brought me.”

“That's just pitiful, JohnScott.” I eased down to sit on the metal platform, swinging my legs a hundred feet above the ground.

JohnScott sat next to me, resting his arms on the railing. “I can't believe I let you climb up here.”

“I can't either. Some protector you turned out to be.”

He peered at the ground far below. “I'm serious. I shouldn't have let you do this. It's not safe.”

“I'm not sure you
let
me.” I bumped his shoulder. “But you seemed to lose all train of thought when I used the phrase
make out
.”

The worry lines around his eyes lessened, and his smile lines returned, and I found myself very glad the moon had come out so I could appreciate them.

“Tell me who you came up here with,” he said again.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I'm not sure.” He laughed. “But I … I think I'm jealous.”

“You shouldn't be.”

“Why do you say that?”

I lifted my chin. “If I tell, will you tell?”

“Sure.”

I giggled. “The only person I've ever been here with is Ruthie.”

He stared at me in disbelief, and then he chuckled deep in his lungs.

“Now you have to tell me, JohnScott.” But I knew before he even said.

“Ruthie,” we said in unison.

We laughed softly, enjoying the commonality and looking into each other's eyes. I felt so comfortable with him, so at ease. I wondered if that's what a normal family felt like.

“I really, really like you, Fawn. Especially when your shield is down.” With his index finger, he traced a path across one of my eyebrows and around my cheek, ending at my lips.

“Is it down now?”

“Oh yes,” he whispered.

“How can you tell?”

“Because when it's down … you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life.”

His words intertwined through my rib cage and wrapped like a cord around my heart, pulling me toward him.

“Fawn—”

I kissed him then. I didn't care what he was going to say next. He liked me. A lot. And he thought I was beautiful. Not only that, but he took me out on a
playdate
and laughed with me and helped me forget my troubles. I wanted to give to him and make him as happy as he made me.

I put my palms on either side of his face, feeling the movement of his jaw, and then I wrapped my arms around his neck, binding him close to me. When I touched the tip of my tongue to his lips, he sighed into my mouth and gently laid me back, flat on the platform, with one of his arms supporting my head.

I didn't let go of his neck. Not when his kisses became frenzied. Not when his free hand began to roam across my body. Not when his thigh found its way across my knees. I had never felt anything so strong in my life, and even while my brain screamed for me to stop, my body wouldn't obey.

But suddenly he moved his arm from under my neck, and my head bumped against the metal. His hands gripped my wrists as he pulled my arms from around his neck, and he stood to pace across the landing, breathing deeply and looking into the distance. Finally he sat five feet away with his back to me, pressing a clenched fist against his forehead.

My feet had been dangling over the side of the platform, but I slowly lifted them, feeling sprawled and exposed, and I rolled onto my side away from him, drawing my knees up to my stomach and curling my arms around my head.

I had done this.

The metal grate of the platform dug into my shoulder and hip, but it seemed like a subtle punishment for my poor behavior. I wondered if JohnScott would ever look at me the same way again. I had no self-control. Or decency or morals or simple common sense. He had already talked to me about it, more or less, on his front porch that night. He didn't want this.

But I had done it anyway.

“Fawn, I'm sorry.” He exhaled, long and hard, and I heard him turn toward me.

Maybe he would simply leave me here. I could climb down by myself later so I wouldn't have to look at him, meet his gaze, see his disappointment.

But then he scrambled across the platform. “Fawn? Fawn, no.” He cradled my head. “It's not your fault. I didn't mean that at all. It's not you, Fawn. It's me. I shouldn't have brought you up here.” He lifted my arm off my head and nestled it by my chest, then he brushed my hair away from my face. Curls were stuck in moist tears, and he gently fingered them away from my cheeks, wiping my eyes, and kissing my hair.

“You didn't do anything wrong.” He lay down behind me and pulled me against his chest, and I thought I felt him sob. “Fawn, please forgive me.” His voice broke. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my cheek against his bicep, which acted as my pillow. I couldn't speak, but I didn't want him to think I was mad. I patted his other arm and kissed his knuckle, and he buried his face in my hair.

We lay like that until our breathing calmed.

He ran his fingers across the back of my hand, and I rubbed my thumb in circles on his elbow, and neither of us spoke. I could think of no words to explain my feelings. Other than
shame
. And
regret
. And
fear
. But I had used those words so much lately that I felt sure he would be sick of hearing them.

But I had to say something. I swallowed and said the first thing that came to mind.

“When I was little, my father never played with me much. I guess he stayed real busy on the ranch, but I always thought he didn't like me for some reason, like I had done something wrong. And my mother always suffocated me, like she was afraid to let me make my own decisions.”

His fingers stilled.

“But it's weird,” I continued. “Even though I craved a better relationship with my mom, I never, ever wanted to be closer to my dad.”

He cleared his throat softly. “Maybe you looked to boyfriends instead?”

I nodded, then chuckled. “You must have taken freshman psychology.”

“Okay, smarty-pants.” He ran his fingers through my hair. “I don't know about me. I've got lots of older sisters, so I understand women. But some of my sisters are half siblings because my dad was widowed. I spent more time with Ruthie, even though she was younger. I sort of assigned myself as her guardian and protector.”

“I'm sure you're suffering from some sort of psychosis like me.”

He hummed. “You take any other psych courses?”

I shook my head.

“Yeah, me, neither.”

I scooted onto my back, bending my knees. “You're insecure because of the girl in college?”

“I guess so.” He intertwined his fingers with mine. “I just know I don't want to do that again. I want to make a relationship the right way.”

“God's way.”

He nodded.

“Yeah, me, too.”

We looked down at our locked fingers, fought the weakest thumb war ever, then rested our hands on my abdomen.

“It's going to be hard for us to wait,” he said.

“Clearly.”

The baby nudged me, and JohnScott lifted his head. “No way.” He raised up on one elbow and spread his palm across my side. Then he smiled as he got kicked two more times.

With the heel of my hand, I pressed against a knee or a foot or an elbow. “I think he could be a kicker for Texas Tech. He'll probably break all your records.”

“But first he'll be a kicker for Trapp High School, home of the Fighting Panthers.”

“Well, yes. I hear they have a good coach over there.”

“I don't know about that. They say he's real distracted now and can't concentrate on his job.”

I shook my head, sighing. “Thank you for caring.”

“I care an awful lot, Fawn.” He leaned over me, and his eyes were sad. “I want to build up that low self-image of yours, but it seems like I'm making it worse.”

I frowned. “Low self-image?”

His eyebrows lifted. “I guess so, yes.”

I sat up slowly. “I never considered myself to have a low self-image. Everyone's always telling me I'm a vain and arrogant Blaylock.”

He eyed me skeptically, as though weighing my good and bad characteristics. “I've always considered low self-esteem and vanity to go hand in hand. One often masquerades as the other.”

“How so?”

He squinted. “They both cause people to think of themselves more than they should.”

I stared across the rooftops of Trapp. A cat sneaked from bush to bush. The red traffic light flashed endlessly. A pickup turned onto Highway 84, headed out of town. Resting my forehead on the rail, I considered my self-esteem, my self-image, and my self-confidence.

Thinking back over the past few years—my years with Tyler—it suddenly seemed clear. Of course I had low self-esteem, and Tyler had thrived on it. All those years I viewed myself as a snotty rich girl, I was hiding behind the image.

I laughed at the irony of my concerns earlier in the evening. I had worried that JohnScott and I were moving too fast. I thought he might not know me as well as he thought he did. But my doubts had been upside down.

If anyone needed to get to know me better, it wasn't JohnScott. He knew me better than I knew myself.