My Heart for Yours (11 page)

He didn’t.

Dad was gone enough that we still managed to find time. But I sometimes wonder what my dad’s words did to him. Or if they ever talked when I wasn’t around. Tobin never mentioned it, and neither did I.

***

I actually have to wipe away tears from the memory. Tobin deserved better than that from Dad, and I should have said something. Done something. Fought harder for Tobin.

The trail he and I used is still here, but overgrown, which makes me sad. Not that I could have expected anything different. There isn’t another head-over-heels-in-love girl staying in my room in need of this trail right now. The night is so much quieter here than in D.C. Dad wanted to be downtown—where the action is. Our place is huge and has an incredible view of the National Monument. I love and hate that home. Love it because everyone loves it, and probably I hate it for the same reason.

When I hit the railroad tracks, my stomach tightens. Eamon died along here somewhere. Maybe I don’t want to be here. Once I get to the bridge over the creek I follow it toward the lake. I can lose myself there for a while instead. I just have to make sure I’m back before everyone’s awake.

I know I might just be torturing myself, but all I can think about is getting to our favorite spots. Seeing them again – the things I miss most about Crawford. Maybe I need a quick trip to the bar first. It’s been ages since I had a beer.

“
If it isn’t the great Delia Gentry, come back to slum it up.” Carl, the bar owner, laughs as I walk in. “Are you old enough to be in here?” he teases.

“
You didn’t have a problem with it a year ago.” I raise a brow and take a seat at the bar. I love this old place. It’s run down, and always smells like cigarette smoke, but I used to pass through here a lot.

“
That was more than a year.” Carl turns away, dries a glass, and sets it back on the shelf. The tone of his voice tells me he might be a bit irritated. Or maybe it’s that his loyalties to Tobin run deep. Everyone had to know that we weren’t together anymore. In this small of a town, there were no secrets. Except maybe one. One that my dad, the staunch Pro-Life Republican would do anything to keep from coming to light.

I start to wonder if underneath the surface everyone here suddenly hates me.

“
Did you drive here, Delia?” Carl asks as he fills a glass of beer and hands it to one of the three other people at the bar.

“
No.” I almost laugh. “Not with my jail-keeper.” And then my hand flies to my mouth because I’ve gotten so good at never saying anything bad about Dad.

He chuckles. “Did you or did you not graduate, Miss Delia?” He rests his elbows on the bar, smiling with stained teeth, his blondish-grey hair so short I see more scalp than hair.

“
I did.” But it doesn’t matter. Not to Dad. “But with his job—”

Carl shakes his head. He sees how much of a wimp I am. Not hard if you’re looking.

“
Any chance of getting a beer from you?” I do my best smile and lean over the counter, wondering if a little bit of cleavage will help. I feel completely, scandalously, naughty, and so much of me wishes I was still this girl. Could still
be
this girl.

If Weston saw me now… He doesn’t even know this Delia exists.

Carl gives me a smile and walks away.

So much for my beer.

“
Delia!”

I spin and squint to see Nelson, a good friend of both Tobin and Eamon, waving.

“
I want to feel like a man. Come over here and let me kick your ass at bowling, would ya?” He slaps the side of a table against the wall.

I stand up and move toward him. “Bowling?”

He rolls his eyes, and lets his head follow. “Shuffleboard bowling? Damn. How long you been gone?”

“
Too long.” I laugh.

“
Delia?” Carl holds up an ice-cold Corona.

“
Thanks!” I grin and jog up to the bar, immediately popping the top. Carl always said if he didn’t open it, he could always say we just stole it.

“
So, you game?” Nelson asks.

I glance back toward the door. Back to Carl standing behind the dark, wooden bar.

“
Got somewhere to be?” he asks.

I want to laugh and giggle and jump. “No.
Nowhere
to be.”

“
Well, let’s get started then.” Everywhere Tobin’s southern accent is soft, Nelson’s twangs, but it’s such a part of him that I love it.

“
Yeah. Let’s play.” I step up to the table, take a long drink of my cold beer, and can’t believe how long I’ve stayed away.

Eleven

Tobin

The bar scene in Crawford is limited, but that’s okay. I’m not looking to have a good time anyway. I pull a napkin from the stack on the end of the bar and spread it out.

“
Tobin! Surprised to see you here. I was real sorry to hear about your brother, man,” Carl, the owner and lone employee of the one and only bar in town says. He’s frowning at me, his eyes full of pity.

I hate pity.

“
Thanks, Carl,” I say, and shake his hand.

“
Well, what can I get you? It’s on the house tonight. Your brother was a good man,” he says.

Was he? I wonder. I mean, he was my brother, of course I loved him, but do good men leave their mom’s mourning them because they were too stubborn to step away from an oncoming train?

“
Just a beer. Whatever you have in a bottle is fine. Oh, and an ink pen,” I say.

He pulls a pen from his shirt pocket and pops the cap off of a beer bottle and slides them across the bar to me.

I take a long pull from the bottle. It’s not entirely cold, but it doesn’t matter.

I stare down at the blank napkin. What can I write about Eamon that can be said in front of a church full of people?

Eamon was always there for people when they needed him.

I write across the flimsy napkin. I stare at what I’ve written. Lies. I draw a thick line through the words. If Eamon cared about being there for people he would be here now. Sitting next to me. Telling me about his latest conquest. Or arguing about who was going to win the game on Monday. No, those weren’t important things in the grand scheme of things, but
I
was. Brothers were supposed to be important. I wad the napkin up and shove it into my jeans pocket.

“
Hey bro!” I flinch at the word
bro
like I’ve just been punched. Nelson Gautreaux has pulled up the stool next to me.

“
Hey man, I didn’t see you come in,” I say. To be fair, I wasn’t looking. I was too busy trying to write a eulogy for my real
bro
.

“
I’ve been here all night,” he says.

Of course he has. This town doesn’t have much else to offer. I should’ve just gone out to the lake. It was my first thought. It’d be a quiet place to get my thoughts together and write something for the funeral. But I knew she’d be there. Not literally. I’m sure Delia is back at her house–her parents thinking she’s tucked safely into her bed, though she probably snuck in to be with her boyfriend. At least that’s something the Delia I knew would do. With me. I shudder. But the
feeling
of her haunts our spot out at the lake.

Most days I’m okay with the lingering sensation that she could walk up any second and I could coax her into going for a swim—for starters. That first night that I met her out on the dock was only the first of many, but it’s a night that every detail is burned into my memory.

I’d bet her she wouldn’t go in the water, but she surprised me by beating me to it. I always think of the way she looked in the near blackness of the night as she climbed out of the water in nothing more than her flesh colored bra and panties. Her long, dark hair was wet and stuck to her chest; beads of water ran down her stomach. She was incredibly sexy. I knew she was out of her element that night. Acting brave. But doing it for me. Because if Delia Gentry were the kind of girl to strip down in front of people, I definitely would have heard.

Being with Delia was like always walking a thin line between innocence and sin. Things that I’d done with a dozen girls before her were suddenly new and sacred. Every touch meant something. Even on that first night.

***

I purposely got out of the water before she did so that I could sit on the dock and watch her climb up the ladder. She was unbelievably hot. I can’t believe I hadn’t hung out with her before. Well, I guess I could believe it. From what Eamon told me, her dad kept a short leash on her and controlled who she spent time with. That should have deterred me right off the bat, and it might have–if I hadn’t already seen her strip down and run into the water. If I hadn’t watched the way she threw her head back when she laughed. If I didn’t see her blush when I told her that she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And if I hadn’t meant it.

After all of that, I knew I was in it, no matter who her father was.

“
Brrr!” she squeaked. “It’s freezing!” She clutched her arms across her stomach and jumped up in down in place, beads of water falling from her skin and hair. I wanted to pull her in close to me. Well, if I’m honest, I wanted to do more than that.

She looked around the dock, “Where’s my shirt?”

I raised my eyebrow and grinned.

“
Your shirt for a kiss,” I said.

She laughed, that perfect, genuine laugh. “I’m not sure that’s a fair trade.”

“
Why is that?” I asked. I dangled her shirt up above our heads, much too high for her to reach even if she were to jump.

“
Because I was going to give you one anyway,” she said through chattering teeth. She smiled that same daring smile she had earlier.

I reached for her, and she shivered, so I wrapped my dry shirt around her. I leaned down and my mouth barely brushed hers before she pulled back. It was the quickest kiss I’d ever had, but it changed me. And her standing right there, staring up at me was pure torture.

Her eyes were smiling and I thought for sure she was screwing with me. Had the whole night had been a joke to her?

“
Holy shit,” she said.

And I had to agree.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her in close. My thumbs grazed along her hip bones, and this time, she stood up on her tip-toes to meet my lips with hers.