Surrender To Sultry Page 10

  “Well, slap my grandma!” his voice boomed.

  Tommy Robbins—quarterback, homecoming king, and the biggest asswipe in Sultry County, pardon her language.

  “Or you could slap someone your own size,” Leah suggested, and then remembered that Tommy’s grandma was his size. Even grannies were bigger in Texas.

  “Hey there, Tink.” Tommy cocked his head and smiled so widely it crinkled the skin around his bloodshot eyes. Not a hint of sarcasm colored his tone when he said, “I heard you were back in town.”

  “Yeah,” she said cautiously. “Just for a few more weeks.”

  “Well, good to see ya.” He removed his Rangers ball cap and ran a hand through his shaggy blond hair before tugging it on again. “You’re as pretty as ever.”

  She waited for the punch line. Tommy never doled out compliments unless there was a zinger attached. He’d tack on the disclaimer, pretty damn ugly! or pretty pathetic! and then bray like a donkey. But after a long, awkward pause punctuated by the crinkle of paper bags and a series of beeps from the cash register, she had no choice but to offer her tentative thanks.

  Instead of razzing her, he hooked a thumb toward the toiletry aisle. “Hold my place in line, will ya? I forgot something.”

  “Sure,” she said, still bracing for the impact that never came.

  He held up a finger, promising, “Be right back,” then jogged off and disappeared behind a tower of Coca-Cola twelve-packs stacked into a pyramid.

  Leah stared after him, wondering why he was being so nice. From the stories Rachel told, he was still mean as a junkyard dog, especially after a few Lone Stars.

  Maybe he’d mellowed with age. She shrugged it off and approached the cashier, who’d just sent the previous customer off with a smile and a wave. Once the old woman in front of her left, Leah reached back and retrieved her pack of Bubblicious.

  “Before you ring me up,” Leah told the girl while fishing the receipt from her purse, “I need to take care of this.” She handed over the slip of paper.

  “What’s wrong?” The girl pursed her frosted-pink lips while studying the receipt.

  “You forgot to charge me for a box of Cheerios.”

  “And…?” the girl said, clearly not understanding the problem with getting something for nothing.

  “And I want to pay for it.” Leah pointed at the gum. “And this.”

  An achingly familiar, deep chuckle sounded from nearby. She’d know that laugh anywhere. It had the unholy power to make all her naughty places go tingly.

  “Only you,” Colt muttered, setting his shopping basket on the conveyor belt without bothering to unload it. A peek inside revealed a rib-eye steak, a bundle of asparagus, two baking potatoes, a carton of coffee creamer, and a Gillette refill cartridge. Surprisingly tame contents, considering its owner.

  Leah refused to engage him. “It was a big box,” she told the checkout girl. “The biggest on the shelf.”

  “It’s okay if you just wanna keep—”

  “I need to pay for it,” Leah insisted. “Or it’s the same as stealing.” She shouldn’t have to explain things like this to people.

  The girl sighed. “That’s probably the eighteen-ouncer. I’ll have to go grab one.” She lingered as if giving Leah one last chance to change her mind.

  “Want me to do it?” Leah asked.

  “No, I got it.” With an eye roll, she turned and trudged toward the breakfast cereals, two aisles over.

  From the corner of Leah’s eye, she saw Colt shake his head. He leaned one hip against the counter. “You really are an angel, aren’t you?”

  Not at all. If he only knew the things she’d done.

  “You gonna keep givin’ me the silent treatment?” he asked.

  She stared straight ahead.

  “’Cause I haven’t seen those girls in years.” He propped one elbow on the side of his shopping basket. “You can’t hold things like that against me. You know I’ve got a past, and it’s gonna pop up now and then. I told you I’m not proud of—”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “And I told you, I’m no angel.”

  “Who else would go through all this trouble over a box of cornflakes?”

  “Cheerios.”

  “Same difference.” He crossed one boot over the other and drawled, “Face it, honey, you make the rest of us look bad.”

  “Stop saying stuff like that.” She had no place atop the pedestal he’d built for her. “You don’t know me.”

  “If you say so, hon.” He grabbed a pack of watermelon Bubble Yum from the display and dropped it beside his coffee creamer. “But it’s kinda hard to ignore your actions when they speak so loud.”

  Tommy and the checkout girl returned at the same time, one with a bright-yellow box of cereal in hand, the other using his T-shirt like a kangaroo pouch, revealing a slightly hairy beer gut as he hauled his items to the lane. Tommy turned sideways and sucked in his belly, slipping past Colt to resume his place in line.

  “She’ll take these too,” Tommy said with a wide grin and dumped his haul beside her pack of gum.

  Dozens of condom boxes spilled across the conveyor belt—Trojans, LifeStyles, Crowns, Kimonos, Naturalambs, Bravos, even Magnums. A box of Durex Her Sensation, “ribbed and studded for her pleasure,” tumbled onto the glass laser-panel and automatically scanned with a beep!

  It took a few heartbeats for Leah to absorb what had just happened, but once the humiliation set in, her face grew hot and her head started to buzz.

  Then she wasn’t at the Sack-n-Pay grocery anymore. She was in the senior hallway at Sultry High School, staring blankly at her locker, which had been “decorated” with a hundred multicolored condom wrappers. Laughter and hushed voices filled the air. Broken whispers of I heard and she did it and Tommy said and with that new kid, Colt. It was then that she’d learned Colt had used her. That their lovemaking hadn’t meant anything to him beyond bolstering his reputation as the county stud.

  More than embarrassment, she’d felt shame. She’d broken her purity vow—tossed away all those promises to God and herself, for Colt—and he’d made a joke of it. She’d tried so hard not to cry that morning, but the condoms had blurred into a rainbow as hot tears burned behind her lids.

  “Miss?” the cashier asked, bringing Leah back to the present. “You really want all this?”

  Leah shook her head and used a sweater sleeve to blot the moisture welling in her eyes. She turned to Colt, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was glaring at Tommy with a fury that tightened Leah’s stomach.

  Colt’s nostrils flared. He pointed to the condoms and told the cashier, “Darlin’, get rid of that, will you?” Despite the cordial words, his voice was low and terrifying, like a distant rumble of thunder.

  The girl didn’t hesitate to grab a plastic grocery bag and scoop the boxes inside. Within seconds, they’d vanished from sight.

  Tommy’s smile fell as he rubbed the back of his neck. Judging by the way his shoulders crept toward his ears, he knew he’d made a huge mistake.

  “Apologize,” Colt told him.

  Tommy nodded enthusiastically, eager to comply. “Sorry, Tink. I thought it’d be funny, that’s all. But it probably wasn’t funny for you.”

  “Not good enough.” Colt rested a hand on the butt of his pistol in what Leah hoped was an empty threat. “I’m gonna give you one more chance.”

  Leah didn’t like this. Confrontation made her uneasy, and she didn’t want anyone to get hurt. “It’s okay, really.”

  “No, it’s not,” Colt said to Tommy. “Dig deep, asshole.”

  “I’m sorry.” Beads of sweat had broken out on Tommy’s upper lip. “Real sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was stupid. You know me—I’ll do anything for a laugh.”

  “Okay,” Leah said, trying
to catch Colt’s gaze, which lingered like grease fire on the back of Tommy’s head. “I forgive you. Let’s forget it ever happened, all right?” She needed Colt to back off. The air was so thick with tension, she could’ve packed it between her palms like a snowball.

  Colt glanced at the cashier. “Close your eyes. You don’t need to see this.”

  Instantly, the girl clenched her lids shut and rested her balled fists on the counter.

  “See what?” Tommy asked in a shaky voice.

  Colt warned, “I’m gonna hit you.”

  And he did, with a powerful right hook to the kidney that knocked Tommy forward and tore a sharp cry from his lips. Then Colt grabbed the counter for leverage, drew back, and pummeled him again in the exact same spot.

  “Do we have an understanding?” Colt asked, panting with rage. He flexed his fingers, resisting the obvious urge to keep going.

  Agony distorted Tommy’s features while he gripped the ledge and gasped for air. He wiped a trail of spittle from his chin and whispered, “Please, Leah. I’m sorry.”

  The suffering in his voice ripped through her in a stab of sympathy pain that reached all the way to her toes. With shaky fingers, she found her wallet and pulled out a five-dollar bill. She slapped it on the belt and ran out the front door.

  She kept running until she reached the far end of the dark parking lot, then turned in a clumsy circle to look for her car. With only a handful of vehicles on the lot, you’d think she could identify the one that belonged to her, but she couldn’t. She felt disoriented, like she’d just woken from a dream and wasn’t sure if her surroundings were real. She pressed both palms over her eyes and took a deep breath to calm down.

  Bruiser, she said to herself. Her car had earned that nickname because it was ugly and purple. All she had to do was find the only purple hatchback on the lot. She could do that.

  “You okay?”

  She gasped at the sound of Colt’s voice. “No, I’m not okay!”

  From two parking spaces away, he held up both hands to placate her. “He’s not gonna mess with you again.”

  “Is that what you think?” she demanded, her pitch rising on the last note. “That I’m upset because of Tommy’s idiot prank?”

  Colt didn’t answer, but his expression said exactly that.

  “It’s you!”

  “Me?” he asked in disbelief, touching his own chest. “What’d I do?”

  “Wha—” she began and cut off. Did he really not understand what he’d done wrong? That beating people was an unacceptable way of dealing with life’s problems? She’d always hated violence, and he knew that! “You just kicked the shit out of someone!” Quietly, she added, “Pardon my language.”

  Colt shrugged. “He had it comin’. Maybe if I’d done that ten years ago, he wouldn’t—”

  “No.” Leah marched toward her car. “That’s not how I live, Colt. That’s not how civilized people deal with conflict.”

  In a few long strides, he met her at the driver’s side door. “You don’t get it. Guys like Tommy don’t respond to that turn the other cheek bullshit. They’ve gotta be taught the old-fashioned way. The foot-up-the-ass way.”

  She glared right into his aquamarine eyes. “That bullshit is the basis for everything I believe. So ex-cuse me for holding myself to a higher standard.”

  His gaze iced over, jaw clenching as he backed up a pace and snapped, “My apologies. We can’t all be saints like you.” Then he turned and stalked back into the Sack-n-Pay without another glance in her direction.

  Leah stood there, keys in hand, lips parted in disbelief. How dare he turn this around and make her the villain? She was no saint, and she kept telling him so. Besides, it didn’t take a martyr to realize that pounding on people was wrong. Colt was wrong. End of story.

  But as she climbed inside Bruiser and fastened her seatbelt, she couldn’t deny the heavy ache that radiated along her breastbone. Darn if it didn’t feel a lot like guilt. Leave it to Colt to break all the rules and somehow foist the emotional fallout on her.

  ***

  “Is your daddy’s heart still broken?”

  Leah smiled at the empathy written all over Noah’s face. This was her son, not the cranky prima donna who’d hung up on her the last time they’d chatted. If anything could improve a lousy day, it was her sweet boy. She brought the iPad to the sofa, where Daddy sat working on Sunday’s sermon—his first since the surgery.

  “No,” she said. “The doctors fixed it. He’s right here. Say ‘hey.’” She turned the screen toward Daddy and heard Noah chirp, “Hey, Mr. McMahon.”

  Daddy waved. “Nice to meet you, Noah. You can call me Grandpop, if you want.”

  There was a pause on Noah’s end. Leah checked to make sure the connection hadn’t frozen, and found Noah’s black brows knitted together. “I already got a Grandpop. He’s my mama’s daddy. He lives in Duh-looth.”

  “Duluth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s all right, Bud.” Leah stuffed down the all-too-familiar surge of envy she’d never managed to tame over the years. She knew Diane was her son’s mother, but the reminders stung. Maybe it was time to accept that they always would. “You can call him Pastor Mac, just like everyone here does.”

  “Pastor Mac,” Noah said, trying it on. He flashed that adorable gap-toothed grin and declared, “It sounds cool, like mac-n-cheese.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Leah said. “Now tell me what’s new since the last time we talked.”

  His eyes brightened, lifting the corners of his mouth and warming the deepest recesses of Leah’s soul. Nothing compared to the joy of seeing him happy. If scientists could trap that feeling in a pill, they’d rule the world.

  “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

  “You bet I can.” She extended her little finger. “Pinky swear.”

  He hooked his pinky toward hers and gave a solemn nod. “Me and Daddy are givin’ Mama an extra-special surprise for Christmas.”

  “Ooooh,” Leah crooned. “I love surprises. Is it homemade?”

  He shook his head. “Even better!”

  “Better than a homemade present? That’s every mama’s favorite kind.”

  “She’s gonna love it. Daddy promised.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me what it is.”

  “Okay.” He leaned closer, practically vibrating with anticipation. “We’re takin’ her to Paris for Christmas!”

  “Paris?” Leah asked.

  “Yep. That’s in France. And we’re stayin’ for two whole weeks!”

  Leah’s heart dropped into her lap. She couldn’t quite manage to catch her breath. The whole family would be gone for the holidays, which meant she’d miss her cherished Christmas Eve visit with Noah. She looked forward to that outing all year—it was their only tradition, just the two of them. They’d spend the morning ice skating, then sip hot chocolate aboard a real train modeled after the Polar Express. That day was a gift, and now it’d been snatched away.

  “That’s great,” she lied, fighting to keep the sadness from showing on her face. “I’ll miss you, but I hope you have fun.”

  “Yeah,” was all he said before Diane called him away for dinner. He offered a hasty good-bye and disconnected. Then he was gone, just like that.

  Leah stared at her iPad screen, seeing nothing.

  She had no recourse. The adoption, while considered open, didn’t specify any visitation rights. Legally speaking, Jim and Diane didn’t have to let her see Noah at all. They could cut her off whenever they wanted, without so much as a photograph or a letter to document his growth. She’d carried and delivered Noah, loved him like no one else, but her time spent with him hinged on the whims of others.

  It wasn’t fair.

  She swallowed hard and tri
ed not to cry. From beside her on the sofa, Daddy set his Bible and notepad aside and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. There was extra love in his embrace, a tight squeeze he reserved for her darkest moments. He probably knew how she felt. She’d called him every Christmas Eve to relay the details of her “date” with Noah. Sometimes she’d sent pictures too. She rested her cheek against him, taking comfort in his warmth and the familiar scents of spearmint mingled with Aqua Velva.

  She expected Daddy to offer some uplifting words of encouragement, to remark that this wasn’t the end of the world or remind her there’d be a dozen more holidays to celebrate with Noah. Instead, he told her, “There’s an old saying that a man becomes a father when he meets his baby for the first time, but a woman becomes a mother when she finds out she’s pregnant.”

  Leah nodded against his shoulder. She’d heard that one.

  “But that wasn’t true for me,” he continued. “I loved you from the instant your mama told me we were expecting.”

  She wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but she said, “Thanks, Daddy. Love you too.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “You did a brave thing, giving Noah to the Ackermans—the most loving, selfless thing a person can do. I don’t think I could’ve done the same. I’m not strong enough. But, Pumpkin, part of giving up is letting go.”

  She sat upright and turned on the sofa to face him. “Let go? He’s my son.”

  Daddy took her hand and gave it a gentle pat, the way people did when trying to soften bad news. “But, he’s not, hon. And…” He never will be. She knew how that sentence ended. Daddy didn’t have to say it aloud.

  “He’s part of me. No piece of paper can change that.”

  “I know.” His eyes found Mama’s portrait, and Leah couldn’t help thinking his advice was a little hypocritical. He’d never let go of Mama, and she’d been gone for ages. “You gave Noah a great life,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to make one for yourself.” He released her hand, but held her gaze. “Here, at home, with the people who love you.”