Dirt: A Sexy Small Town Romance (Copperwood Book 1) (9 page)

“I need to run a few errands. I’ll be back…” I let my words hang in the air, giving him the chance to kick me out.

“The door will be open.”

16

Mya

I
took my time getting out of bed. I probably shouldn’t have. If I had gotten up earlier, I could have raced over to Mike’s and borrowed his shower. Instead, I managed with a very cold sponge bath and after the frigid washcloth hit my skin, I wondered why I didn’t just spray perfume in the necessary spots and call it a day.

It wasn’t like I needed to be clean for Shane. He made it clear enough last night when he dropped me off. Besides, he was leaving today and I doubted sleeping with me was on his agenda.

Metal clanging against metal in the kitchen brought me out of my moping. I couldn’t imagine what else could have possible decided to stop working, but with our luck it was both the stove and the refrigerator.

I pulled on some clothes and headed downstairs, expecting to find either my father or Mike in the kitchen. Instead, I ran right into the very broad and muscular back belonging to Shane.

Why hadn’t I noticed just how fit he was before this? I used the opportunity to study the rest of him. The way his jeans fit perfectly, not so tight as to be offensive, but not loose enough to hide the strength of his legs or the way his ass looked really good.

“Sit down.” He didn’t bother turning around or even looking over his shoulder.

I plopped down in one of the old wooden chairs at the table. I attributed my quick acceptance of his command to my lack of any real sleep the night before.

“Omelets okay?”

“I thought we were going out to breakfast.” I tried to hide the disappointment from my voice.

Shane finally turned around and looked at me. I must not have hid it well enough. “We were. But we need to talk, and it’s easier to talk here.”

I bit down on the inside of my lip. I wasn’t going to cry. I knew what the talk was going to be, but I figured we wouldn’t have to have it since he had been clear about leaving town today. And then, to add even more to my disappointment — like it could possibly get any worse — my father walked in and sat down next to me.

I turned my attention to my father. His presence meant he must have talked with Shane. Mike running interference was bad enough, but now I had my father actively stepping in and protecting my honor.

He slid a cup of coffee across the table at me.

I took the coffee, but only because I desperately needed the caffeine and not because I was accepting it as a peace offering.

Shane continued cooking breakfast and I continued watching him cook breakfast. Thankfully, we did it in silence and dad didn’t see a need to fill the void with conversation.

I couldn’t take the lack of noise any longer. “What time are you leaving today?”

Shane set the plates down on the table and sat down with us. “That’s what we need to talk about.”

I glanced over at my father. I hadn’t expected him to be part of this conversation. I wasn’t even sure
I
wanted to be part of the conversation.

“I decided to stay for a bit longer.”

If I hadn’t of been sitting down, I would have fallen right over. The
last
thing I expected Shane to say was that he was staying in town. Instead, I grabbed my fork and bit into the omelet. It was a pre–emptive measure to stop me from asking ‘why’. I hoped
I
might fall into the equation somewhere, but hoping didn’t make it so.

Dad set a file folder on the table and rested his hand on top it. “Mya, there are things you don’t know and there are things you probably shouldn’t know. You need to promise whatever you learn here, stays in this kitchen.”

I felt like they were pulling me into some kind of secret society and I was about ready to find myself in the middle of a conspiracy where psychotic monks chased after me.

“You need to know why I never came back. Not even to visit.”

I looked between the two men, convinced I slipped through time and was somehow taking part in two very different conversations. I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around what was happening, much less come up with a coherent questions. I didn’t consider myself an unintelligent woman, but sitting next to Shane and my father knowing they knew more than did, made me feel dumb.

“Well just tell me already.” I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms over my chest.

Dad looked at Shane and Shane looked at dad. They shared some secret silent communication and I felt an ache deep in my stomach I didn’t want to admit to. Shane comes back to Copperwood and suddenly dad is back to normal. It wasn’t fair. I spent years — literally years — trying to pull him from his self–imposed prison and a man he hadn’t seen in a decade managed to succeed where I failed.

“When I went away to school, I thought it was on a scholarship.”

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and tried not to smile. No one expected Shane to get a scholarship — not even Shane — and the rumors ran rampant about what he might have done to
get
that scholarship. He swore to Mike and to me he had done nothing, and we believed him. We always believed him.

At least until he left us for good. He told us he was coming back, but after he graduated college, we never heard from him again. Apparently dad heard
about
Shane, but dad never shared that with us.

Wait. Thought? He
thought
he got a scholarship? I needed to work on hiding my emotions, because Shane cracked a smile and nodded his head.

“Yes, thought.”

“So you didn’t get one?” My confusion was growing. Nothing made sense, especially considering what dad had said about keeping things secret.

“No. It was orchestrated to look like one, but I didn’t find out until much later — after I graduated — that my father paid for school.”

How? They both stared at me expectantly and I realized I hadn’t actually asked my question aloud. “Okay…”

“Mya, Tom, took money from the guys bringing in Mega–Mart. He pushed them through the different committees at the council and saw to it that the plans weren’t defeated.” Dad ran his finger over the edge of the file and I watched its slow and deliberate progress around the cardboard edge.

I didn’t want to hear anymore. We suspected something shady went on, we even gossiped about it in town, but no one really believed it. Or maybe we just didn’t want to believe it.

“And then when the next opportunity came along, it was easy for him to say yes. Mom was already gone, he got away with it once, what was one more time?” Shane folded his hands on the table and looked down at them.

His head was bent so low that his chin nearly met his chest. I watched his throat rise and fall with each deep swallow. Even his shoulders rolled forward.

I reached out and covered his hands with one of mine and gave him a gentle squeeze. I didn’t know if he was embarrassed, ashamed, or angry, but whatever he was feeling I wanted to be there for him. He tried to pull his hand away, but I refused to release it and eventually he turned his hand over. Our palms met and our fingers wove together. Whatever was said next, it wasn’t going to matter. He needed to know that.

“He pushed through the sale of the mine to Fontaine Industries, even though he knew they planned on laying everyone off.” Dad confirmed my suspicions.

My fingers tightened around Shane’s as I processed what dad told me. If Tom knew what Fontaine was going to do, then he also knew dad was going to be let go. He had to also know the chances of dad getting another job were slim to none.

“He was your friend.”

Dad nodded his head and Shane squeezed my hand.

I looked away from Dad. The hint of his vacant stare remained and his downturned mouth became too vivid of a reminder of what he was like before the water heater broke.

“When I started my job, everyone warned me to stay away from researching family. No good would come of it.” Shane swallowed hard. “Of course, I ignored them, and I learned how dad sold the town out and that it helped fund my education.”

“So your dad was an ass.” I couldn’t understand how any of this had anything to do with why I hadn’t seen Shane for ten years. You didn’t have to stay away.”

“Mya, I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes knowing what I did. And I couldn’t tell them…” He looked away as his words fell off.

You know when a character in a book has an epiphany that explains everything and it all works out in the end?

It didn’t happen to me. I wanted it all to make sense and be tied up with a nice bow, but I sat at the table as confused as I was when we started this little exercise in true confessions.

Dad cleared his throat and turned away from watching Shane avoid me to look at my father.

“The sins of the father, Mya.” My father’s shoulder drooped and his voice sounded almost flat. “And that’s my fault. I knew and I should have reached out to Shane.”

He knew? My hand flew to my mouth and I grabbed hard onto Shane’s hand. He knew and he never told me. My head shook slowly from side to side whole I stared at my father. My lungs tightened and I struggled to find my breath. I never understood the phrase of having a pit in someone’s stomach until that moment.

“Mya?” Shane’s soft voice cut through the room.

I couldn’t look away from my father.

“Mya.” Shane’s voice sharpened and the tone jerked me out of my thoughts and back into the room.

“What?”

“The only one who is at fault is my father. Not yours. Okay?”

“You aren’t at fault either.” I needed to remind him that he didn’t cause any of this. He didn’t cause my dad’s depression, he didn’t even cause my mom’s death. Although, I couldn’t help but imagine that she might still be alive if my father still had his job at the mine and actually had decent insurance.

“We’re not sure that the other people living here will feel the same way.”

“That’s why you want me to keep it a secret? Won’t they find out eventually? Dad can’t be the only one who knows.”

“That’s a risk we’re willing to take. And if anyone does know, they’ll assume Shane doesn’t know.”

I nodded my head dumbly. We all thought he stayed away because his mom left. We never thought for a moment it had anything to do with his father except that he must have done something pretty horrible to his mom.

Turned out, he did do something horrible. Just not to his ex–wife. Tom Crawford did something horrible to the whole town. He turned his back on his friends and family for money.

17

Mya

I
pushed at the omelet on my plate. Shane made me breakfast. Not the way I imagined, but he made me breakfast and I wanted to eat it. But after the earlier revelations, I didn’t have an appetite.

Dad took his plate and left us alone in the kitchen. I assumed he had a date with the water heater.

“Mya?”

I looked up from playing with my food. I still couldn’t believe Shane Crawford was sitting in my kitchen. With me. It all felt so surreal, as if I was going to wake up at any moment.

“We still have to talk about me leaving today.”

Of course we did. Why did I even think the disappointment would end?

“I can live anywhere and do the work I do. I have to travel sometimes, but I don’t have to live in any one city over another.”

My fork fell from my fingers and clanged against the plate. I had forgotten it was even in my hand.

Shane was telling me he could live here and work. He could stay in Copperwood. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to, and hoped I played into it, I bit down on my tongue. Anything I said would jinx it and dash whatever hopes I had.

“You weren’t the reason I never came back.”

I stared at him. How did he know what was in my mind? I hadn’t said those thoughts to anyone — not even Mike when he struggled through my chick flick marathon.

“The longer I stayed away, the more I wanted to come back, but I couldn’t. Not with my dad here.”

I swallowed back any of the words threatening to escape and picked up my fork. I still didn’t have much of an appetite, but I wanted to do something instead of sitting there fidgeting like an idiot.

I finally found the right combination of words. Ones that wouldn’t reveal all of my feelings and spook Shane away again. “And now that he’s gone?”

“I should probably look around for a place to live. I don’t think I want to live at my dad’s house.”

I knew I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my lips and didn’t try. Shane hadn’t said he wanted to move back to Copperwood for me, but he said the next best thing. He was coming home.

“Maybe, if you don’t have plans this afternoon, we could drive to the realtors and see what’s available?”

I nodded my head so hard, I was sure it would fall off. “Sure.” The smile never left my face and my cheeks started to hurt, but I didn’t care. Shane Crawford was staying in Copperwood and wanted me to help him find a house. “Steve took over the business from his dad.”

18

Shane

G
rowing up in Cottonwood, there was one house my mom would drive out of her way just to see. It sat on one of the lakes and the owners painted it white with green trim. She said it looked exactly like a lake house should look. Two stories with porches on both floors, three chimneys, and flower boxes filled with red petunias during the summer epitomized the cottage look. The owners arrived at the end of spring and left at the start of fall. They weren’t locals.

But then, neither was I anymore.

I remembered the last time I saw it. I had to run an errand for my dad and Mya and Mike were with me. When I drove by it, I happened to glance in the rear–view mirror. Mya had turned to look out the window and she had the same expression my mother wore. Her lips parted slightly and she held her breath while watching the house pass by. She loved the house as much as my mom had. Maybe even more.

When we walked into the Steve’s office, I never thought the house would be on the market. Besides Mya’s feelings for it, the house was perfect for my needs. I could work from home without feeling as if I was working at home, far enough away from town, and only slightly over my budget.