Cindy Gerard - The Way Home

“Ah. How ’bout we shoot for the walleye? Do they all come with saddles?”

An involuntary laugh burst out before she could stop it.

Across the road from her gas pumps stood a gigantic fiberglass walleye, complete with a dozen steps for the kiddies to climb up and sit in the saddle strapped to its back so Mom and Dad could snap their pictures. As a tourist gimmick, it was pretty corny, but since the lion’s share of the businesses around the lake depended on fishing for revenue, it was also highly effective in drawing travelers off the main highway.

“Last I knew,” she said, “only the big guy has one.”

“Good to know.”

Darn, that smile did things to her. Things she felt woefully unprepared to deal with. Just like it was hard to deal with his presence. He’d been dressed in winter gear when she’d seen him before, but even the bulky quilted outerwear hadn’t been able to hide the fact that he was fit and fine. Today he wore a pristine white T-shirt and worn jeans that proved she’d been right about his build. He was tan and tall and strong in the shoulders, and she didn’t have to guess if his snug T-shirt concealed a set of six-pack abs to go with the biceps that bulged beneath his sleeves.

He had such an easy way about him. A man comfortable in his own skin. A man unimpressed by himself and by the reaction he most likely got from women. But as this drew out, he also looked uncertain—and that got to her more than how physically striking he was. A man who looked like him shouldn’t feel insecure around a woman like her.

She was no fashion plate. She didn’t have the time or, since J.R. died, the inclination to be. Makeup generally equaled tinted lip balm. The last time her plain brown hair had seen a pair of scissors, they’d been in her own hands. She kept it short out of necessity and softly curled because of heredity. She was tan from working outside in the sun, because shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops were her uniform this time of year.

By no stretch of anyone’s imagination would she be considered voluptuous, but she was proud of her toned limbs, which he’d been eyeing. And whoa, the silence had stretched out too long again as she’d wished that she’d put on a little mascara and done more than finger-comb her hair after her shower.

“Are you staying on the lake?” she asked, half afraid of his answer.

“Hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Seeing you was as far as I got with the plan.”

Hokay. There it was. The part that made her heart pound. No more pretending that he’d come here to fish.

And he had a plan.

She should tell him, very sensibly, that this was not a good idea. That he should go back to Florida and leave her peace of mind and her equilibrium and her fragile sense of stability intact.

Except the truth was, none of those things had been stable or whole since she’d lost J.R. All of those things were raw and frayed and so far from healed that she had no convincing argument that his departure would make it better.

She really looked at him then. At this man who had blown in on that snowstorm and whom she’d never thought she would see again but had foolishly thought of so often since then.

Too aware of his gaze on her and feeling a sudden need for distance, she moved around him to return to the front of the store. “You should be all set, then. All you need is a fishing license.”

His footsteps made the floorboards creak as he followed. Not crowding her. Trailing her slow and easy, giving her space and time to think as she slipped behind the counter, so distracted that she nearly tripped over the sprawled pup again.

“Jess. Let’s get this out in the open. You don’t seriously think I came all this way to fish, right?”

She faced him from behind the safety of the high counter-top. Scratched Plexiglas covered a sales-tax chart, a map of the lake, a copy of the fishing regulations, and a dozen old cartoons her dad had cut out of newspapers dating as far back as the ’60s—all of which she couldn’t tear her gaze away from.

Well. If she hadn’t figured out that he’d come here to see her before, the sudden rasp in his voice and the nuclear explosion taking place in her chest were major tip-offs.

OK. So this was really happening. But it shouldn’t be. And she needed to make that clear.

“Ty. This is… well… I’m not… I don’t…” She stopped, suddenly incapable of finishing a thought, let alone a sentence, because anything that came out would sound presumptive or cowardly. She looked toward the door, willing someone to step inside. Someone who needed fuel. Or was lost. Or wanted a lottery ticket or a fishing license. Anyone who could save her from having to face the inevitable.

For God’s sake, grow a pair, Jess.

“Jess.”

The softness of his voice finally brought her gaze back to his.

“Relax, OK? No pressure here. I know my showing up like this is way out of the blue. I know I caught you off guard. But I wanted to see you. I hoped maybe… I don’t know. I thought we had a connection that night.”

She swallowed hard, and suddenly, her heart pounded with an anger she hadn’t known she’d been harboring.

“You mean that night more than a year ago, when I gave you guns and you went out and made a pretty good stab at getting yourself killed?”

The legend surrounding “that night” was more fact than fiction and had been fodder for stories around the lake ever since. In certain “good ole boy” circles, where regulars like Boots and his cronies gathered in a restaurant booth or around a potbellied stove with their mugs of strong coffee or bottles of Scotch, the tale of the “shoot-out at the Nelson cabin,” where Tyler Brown and two other former spec-ops soldiers and the daughter of the secretary of State had ended up in a life-and-death face-off with a team of hired assassins, had been told, retold, embellished, and revered. When all the facts had come out, it had been pretty clear that he had almost gotten killed. And that he’d been a hero.

Well, she’d been married to a hero. Look how that worked out.

Why, today of all days, did this hero have to show up?

He wasn’t smiling when she met his eyes this time—probably because her voice had risen before she’d been able to check it. He slowly nodded. “Yeah. That night. I’m sorry. I know what happened was upsetting.”

Apt word, upsetting.

He let it settle for a moment. “You saved our lives. Letting us have those guns… it was a brave thing you did. Trusting us. Trusting strangers.”

“Some have different words for what I did.” Her brother-in-law, Brad, in particular had a lot of words… words like stupid, insane, reckless.

“You trusted me then. I hoped you might trust me again, this time with nothing nearly as scary.”

Oh, but this was scary.

“I’ve thought about you, Jess. I’ve thought about coming back to see you for a long time now.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out, Then why didn’t you? Why have eighteen months gone by without so much as an e-mail? He’d asked for her phone number and her e-mail address. She’d thought he would call. Who was she kidding? She’d been certain he’d call. The way he’d looked at her. The way his eyes had spoken to her.

Even knowing he was the last kind of man she ever wanted in her life again, it had hurt when he hadn’t contacted her. And she’d felt foolish for thinking about him too much. The way she felt foolish now.

“I hoped maybe you might want to see me, too,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “Can we start with something that simple?”

As if there was anything simple about this.

Tell him to leave. Just say it and end this.

But he’d come so far. Made such an effort.

“Yeah,” she heard herself saying, despite the warnings banging around in her head. God help me. “I guess we could start with that.”

He looked so relieved that some of her own tension eased out on a tight smile. “So we’re clear, though, you’re still paying for those minnows and the tackle.”

He laughed and dug into the hip pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “Fair enough.”

Before she could think it through or second-guess herself, she picked up the phone and dialed.

“Shelley. Hi. Yeah. It’s Jess. Hey, I’ve got a fisherman here in need of a place to stay.” She glanced up at him, at his watchful eyes, then quickly looked away when she felt her cheeks redden. “Got any vacant cabins?”

Shelley and Darrin Lutz were her friends and the owners of Whispering Pines Resort—and yes, they had an available cabin.

“Thanks. I’ll send him your way, then. Name is Brown. Tyler Brown.”

She couldn’t quite meet his eyes after she hung up. And she already hoped she wouldn’t live to regret making that phone call, because here was the deal. Ty Brown showing up out of the blue this way might represent a life-changing moment for her. A moment she didn’t want, a moment she actually feared but hadn’t realized she needed until she’d heard his voice in her store and the sound of it had made her knees go weak.

He handed over his credit card as the door burst open to the ring of the bell. A gaggle of sunburned and giddy teenage girls tumbled inside, smelling of suntan lotion, laughing and joking, and headed straight for her wireless Internet station.

“What time do you get off?” he asked, low enough not to be overheard.

Here, at least, was a small reprieve. “You forget. I own the place. I live here.” Her apartment was above the store. “I’m here until lights out.”

Since taking over the store, she had never regretted that she worked long hours, day in, day out, during the summer. It kept her busy. And she needed to be busy. She needed to be dog-tired exhausted each night when she went to bed to have any chance of outdistancing the thoughts that kept her awake most nights since J.R. died.

J.R., who would have celebrated a birthday today.

She had a moment of deep, aching regret that until this instant had never been coupled with guilt. But suddenly, she did feel guilty. For being alive. For feeling alive in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. And she felt guilty because for the first time in three and a half years, she realized she wanted to look forward to something instead of always looking back.

“Figure something out,” he said, tempting her toward that future. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

YOU’RE SURE YOU CAN HANDLE things until I get back?” Jess walked back into the store after watching Ty’s taillights disappear down the road. She already had second thoughts about letting him talk her into dinner and leaving Kayla in charge of the store.