Then He Kissed Me: A Cottonbloom Novel (28 page)

Tally bit at her thumbnail. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She let the evening’s events roll through her head. “Probably,” she said on a sigh.

“So … grow up.”

Tally waited, but Ms. Effie hummed an indefinable tune while dabbing on polish.

“That’s it?”

The woman sat back in the chair and screwed the top on the polish. “Yes, that’s it. If you want an adult relationship, you have to be an adult. Quit running away and making excuses. I heard the little exchange the other night with Heath. I was getting ready to call the police when Nash showed up. He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“He treats you well?”

Tally nodded.

“The sex is good?”

“Ms. Effie!” Heat rushed into Tally’s face. She reached for an AARP magazine and fanned herself.

Ms. Effie’s lips quirked. “I’ll take that for a yes. Do you care about him?”

Tally continued to fan herself and swallowed. “I love him.”

“Then, darlin’, grab him with both hands before he gets away.”

The laugh that snuck out morphed into a teary-eyed smile. She lay her head against the soft back of the couch and closed her eyes. A tear trailed into her temple, but she didn’t bother wiping it away. “What if he breaks my heart?”

“Walking away never knowing will hurt even worse down the road.”

Ms. Effie’s words resonated as clearly as Nash’s had earlier. Her uncle’s situation amplified the truth. She did need to grow up. Her focus had been on the success of her gym as if that could somehow compensate for her other perceived deficiencies.

But that’s not how things worked. She had ignored the festering stump of her emotional life while her gym flourished under the attention. Now that she was trying to have a normal, sane relationship with a normal, sane man, she was like a kindergartner learning the ropes of a new environment. She’d best learn quick before she lost him.

“You’re right.” She stood but rocked on her feet. Should she go now or wait? Maybe given a night, the hardness she’d sensed in him would soften, and he would be more forgiving. “I’ll find him in the morning and apologize and lay it out for him.”

Ms. Effie propped her other foot on the table. “Let me know how it goes.”

After saying their good-nights, Tally walked into her empty apartment and flipped the light on. She saw the room through Nash’s eyes. A brown water stain crept down one corner, and the edge of the shabby carpet was frayed. Most of her furniture was thrift-store finds from when she’d first moved in.

It no longer felt like a home, it felt like the vines pulling at the old trailer. She could afford a nicer place, but she’d always questioned whether she deserved one. Like she questioned if she deserved a man like Nash.

While she wasn’t one hundred percent convinced deep down she did, she was like a molting caterpillar, another layer shed and that much closer to getting wings. She collapsed on the bed still clothed, and fell asleep. Memories, some welcome, some not, battered her dreams.

Chapter Fifteen

She awoke feeling as though she hadn’t slept, her eyes grainy and her head stuck in the past. After sweet-talking Reed into handling the gym and cancelling her kickboxing class, she dropped to the floor and pulled a box from underneath her dresser. Her fingers left lines in the dust that had gathered on the lid. She wiped her hand across the top, turning the grayed-out flower print vibrant once again.

She wiped the grime onto the back of her shorts. How many years had passed since she opened the box? At least five, although she was always aware of its existence like a splinter dug too deep to remove. Was it the same sort of box Ms. Leora kept her keepsakes in?

She fumbled with the simple brass latch before flipping open the lid. An assortment of memories were stored inside. Pictures, poems, cards. Her family smiled up at her. She was maybe eight, her grin huge and open, her two front teeth gone, reminding her of Birdie. At eleven, Sawyer’s hair flopped over his eyes, his stance relaxed, his smile already charming and too cool for the rest of them. Cade had hit puberty, his face taking on shades of the man he would become. As if he could sense the approaching tragedy, he stood strong and solemn.

Finally, she allowed her gaze to fall on her mother and father, taking them in as if they were one entity or maybe a matched set, not to be separated. Light and dark. Her father’s ready smile had lightened her mother’s more serious nature. Instinctively, she understood that they brought out the best in each other. Her mother had curbed her father’s impulsiveness. Maybe without her, he would have ended up more like his brother Delmar. And, in turn, he’d made her laugh and dance.

Tally ran a finger over their smiling faces. Maybe it was a blessing they were taken together. Could one of them have managed without the other?

She put the photo aside and filtered through the rest of the contents, unfolding a newspaper article. The local paper had run a story on Nash when he left for college at sixteen—the town genius.

The picture they ran with the story was grainy, but she could make out constellations of acne on his face. His thick-rimmed glasses emphasized his too-big nose and made his eyes look small. His hair was shorn close like a brown cap. He hadn’t been handsome, but now that she knew the grown-up Nash, she could see the promise in his strong jawline and high forehead. She could also see the remnants of the boy he’d been in the warmth and openness of his smile.

The picture she was in search of lay at the bottom, facedown. Her mother’s loopy handwriting filled the white space—
TALLULAH AND NASH,
10
YEARS OLD
.

She turned the picture over, her fingers shaky. She and Nash sat criss-cross under the willow tree, huge grins on their faces, arms across each other’s shoulders, each holding a Popsicle. She’d been as big as he was back then. Her hair was a tangled mess. Her mother forced a braid or ponytail when possible, but Tally had liked her hair free back then.

Nash’s left knee was skinned, the scab dark on his tanned, spindly legs. She’d forgotten about his crooked bottom teeth. Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten braces because his smile was perfect now.

A sadness lurked around his eyes. She flipped the picture over. His mother had died when they were ten. This must have been taken the summer before, but she’d been sick for years.

She stared at the picture awhile longer. Would she step back through time if she could? Recapture the innocence staring back at her? Ask her parents to skip their date night? Or was she exactly when and where she was supposed to be?

Nash was
her
match. Her lost glove. The sugar to her salt. A sudden urgency had her changing clothes and tossing everything back in the box. Everything but the picture of her and Nash. She slipped it into her back pocket.

Her destination was his cottage, but instead of breaking up with him and hightailing it far, far away, she planned to hole up until she convinced him she was ready for more. Ready for everything.

Crossing the steel-girded bridge, she stopped short and turned down River Street. His Defender was backed up to the gazebo. She parked in the grass behind him and ran up. He wasn’t there. She looked up and down the street, not seeing him.

She settled onto the bottom step to wait for as long as it took.

*   *   *

“I don’t know, ladies.” Nash pulled at his bottom lip and ran a hand over the quilt in his lap. Five of the Quilting Bee’s regulars sat in a circle, their thimbles flashing. Every single one of them, his aunt included, had a pair of magnified glasses perched on the end of their noses.

Mrs. Carson looked over the top of her glasses. “We weren’t always old, Master Nash.” The tease in her voice and the use of the childish moniker made him smile in spite of his desperation.

He had screwed things up. Even though he’d told himself time and again he had to take things slow and not spook her, he’d let his frustration get the better of him.

Her accusations that he was using her for sex rankled. After a poor night’s sleep, he’d concluded his anger was a reflection of his fears. Maybe she was using him for a good time and nothing else. That didn’t explain her freeze out after the hottest sex of his life though. Why did the woman have to be so confusing?

His mood headed further south when his dad had called out of the blue to invite him to lunch. He’d been too punch-tired and thrown off guard to come up with an excuse. He should be happy to see his dad, but after his mom had died, Nash had felt like an afterthought at best, a burden at worst.

“You can sleep with your pride, or you can work things out.” Mrs. Carson’s voice turned more serious. “Don’t get to be our age still carrying around regrets.”

Was his imagination or had Mrs. Carson’s gaze flitted over his aunt?

“What do you think, Aunt Leora?” The can of worms he was opening should probably be kept nailed closed, but curiosity got the better of him. She hadn’t said a single word about Delmar Fournette.

His aunt stopped her work, pulled her glasses off, and looked toward the front window. “Vera’s right. If you love that girl, then don’t let her go. I loved a man once.”

The other women, Mrs. Carson included, kept at their tasks, their gazes downcast, lending a strange sense of privacy between him and his aunt.

“The man in the picture?”

“Yes.” His aunt’s voice had taken on a dreamlike quality as if she were somewhere else. “He was a good man once. Maybe he still is.”

“Then he didn’t die in Vietnam?”

“No, but he came back different, and I was too stubborn to accept that things had changed. I wanted him to be the same carefree boy that left instead of the troubled man who returned.”

“Was it Delmar Fournette?”

Dropping his name in the room shattered the sense of solitude. All the ladies turned toward his aunt to pat her hands or offer comforting words. Mrs. Carson slipped a plaid-quilting square into her hands to use as a handkerchief, but his aunt only chuffed a small laugh.

“I should have known it wouldn’t take you long to guess after finding that picture. He hasn’t changed so much, has he? Still a handsome devil.”

Nash wasn’t sure how to answer.

“I’ve been unfair to the Fournettes. Tallulah in particular, I suppose. She reminded me too much of Del and what I lost—or what I threw away. The older I get the bigger my regrets loom.”

He nodded, a hollow ache for his aunt spreading through his stomach. So many years wasted when the man she loved was just on the other side of the river.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I was twenty-two when he came back. I didn’t understand what unconditional love was then. Too young and immature. Taking care of your mother was my penance, I suppose. I loved her right until the end.”

Nash’s throat tightened.

His aunt sniffed, put away the square, and picked up her needle. A secretive smile came to her face. “He came to see me last night.”

The women gasped in unison and broke out in magpie chatters until Mrs. Carson shushed them. “What did he want?”

“Brought me a huge bouquet of wild flowers. We sat on the swing and talked.”

“About what?” Nash asked.

His aunt’s cheeks flushed, her laugh girlish. “That’s none of your business. And if I’m not mistaken, you have your own problems to deal with. Don’t repeat my foolishness.”

He stood up, the quilt falling from his lap. Even as his heart beat an urgent rhythm, he stopped to give his aunt a hug around the shoulders. The scent of hairspray and lotion cast him backward. “Thank you for understanding, Aunt Leora.”

She patted his shoulder. “Go on, son.”

Son
. He held on a moment longer. He was out the door and jogging down the street when he spotted her car tucked in behind the Defender. Slowing to an amble, he jammed his hands into his pockets while his insides worked themselves into knots a boy scout would be proud of.

She was sitting on the gazebo steps, her legs bent and her chin tucked on her knees, playing with the laces of her shoes. She wasn’t in her work uniform of spandex, but black cotton shorts and a purple T-shirt.

He blew out a long, slow breath, his hand wrapping around his inhaler, and said, “Hey.” A sense of inadequacy turned him mute.

“Oh, Nash.” She was up before he could unstick his brain. Her body crashed into his, driving him back a step on his heels. Her arms were tight around his neck, and he ran his hands up her back, feeling like he was in a dream. The worry and anxiety and self-flagellation of the night before melted under the heat of their bodies together.

Her lips moved against his neck, her voice muffled. “I’m so sorry. You were right. About everything. I do need to grow up and I do sabotage everything because I’m afraid of becoming too comfortable or, heaven help me, happy. I know it can all disappear in an instant. But the alternative is even worse.”

It took a few seconds for her words to weave their way into his heart. “What’s the alternative?”

“Not being with you when you’re right here in front of me. Not being able to … love you.” She ended with a questioning lilt.

“Hold up. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

She pulled back. “What do you think I’m saying?”

He expected to see her usual defensiveness, but instead her vulnerability was written on her face like a stone carving. “You tell me.” He was willing to give her anything and everything, but he needed her to give him this.

Her throat worked as if choking on the words. “I love you. You must know that. I always have, but it’s different now.”

“How is it different?”

“Because we’re both grown-ups, and obviously, we’re attracted to each other, but it’s the same too.”

“How so?” He knew he was pushing her past her comfort zone and rubbed his hands up and down her back to impart support.

“You make me laugh and protect me and make me feel … normal. I want to be with you. If you’ll still have me.” She bit her bottom lip as if waiting for him to pass judgment.

He cupped her face. “I’ll have you, if you’ll have me. I’m sorry if I made you feel used or cheap last night, and I’m especially sorry for what I said in the truck. I shouldn’t have—”