Lies of the Heart (6 page)

When they’d exhausted their tirade, Tessa felt the quick withdrawal of both ladies. She bounced back down to reality. “That’s it, we’re calling your granny,” Jewel said, exasperation coloring her voice.

“Go right ahead,” Chance offered magnanimously. “She’s all for it…now.” Catching Tessa’s stare, he winked at her. “Isn’t that right, sunshine? Oh, she won’t be welcoming me with open arms any time soon, but she’s agreed to my terms.”

At that, a chill went down Tessa’s spine, recalling the barbed exchange from last night with her as the bone. He’d cleverly manipulated the situation to his advantage. Would he try the same sly maneuvers on her some day?

Bravely, she cleared her throat, straightened her spine, put her hands on her hips, and then faced him. “She may have, but I haven’t agreed to one darn thing, Chance Deveraux.”

Chance stared at her as shock reverberated through his entire body. With her pretty peach-colored lips pressed together in a mutinous line, his heart sank. He threw his hands wide. “Tessa, you can’t be serious. I told you I’d give you a baby. What more do you want?”

“Is that what this is all about, Tessa, a baby?” Bree asked, clutching the black phone to her ear. With the other hand, she fingered the wisps of her short blonde hair.

The dark-haired one moved forward and confronted Tessa. Touching her arm lightly to gain her attention, Jewel asked, “Is it just because Bree and I told you we’re pregnant?”

It all made sense to Chance now, at least the part about the child. Envious of her friends, Tessa had gotten it into her head to follow their lead.

“For heaven’s sake, can’t I want my own baby without anyone giving me the idea to have one?” Turning back to him, she grabbed his hand and tugged him to follow her. “Come on, we need to talk. Alone,” she said the last in a loud, clear voice.

“I’m still calling your granny,” Bree warned as she began to punch in the numbers.

He went willingly out the door and into the frosty noontime air; he had to get this settled once and for all. The gray day matched his earlier mood at the funeral perfectly. His whole body seemed to be made up of one big ache.
Granddad’s dead, Granddad’s dead.

He tried to banish the pain as he halted beside Tessa on the sidewalk. The wind blew just then, plastering her long flowing skirt to her legs. He caught his breath at the clearly defined shapely outline. Another ache, one of a different kind, swept through him.

Looking around, she asked, “Where’s your ride?”

Absently, he jerked his chin to the far right where his old baby blue pickup truck sat, he said, “Belle’s over there.”

She whipped around in that direction and chuckled. Turning back to him, she smiled sweetly. “After all this time, you kept her.”

With her soft hand in his and her face beaming, he nearly lost all thought. Something kicked him in the gut. Never had he wanted to sweep her up in his arms and take possession of her lips more so than he did now.

How could she make him forget all he’d lost by just one beautiful look? But, she did. And it haunted him that this woman could force all clear thought from his brain. No other woman had ever been able to erase any of his painful musings. Only the bottle had.

“That’s as good of place as any to talk.” She pulled him out of his reverie and to the truck. “Well, come on, I don’t have all day. Mrs. Cohen will be out from under the dryer in twenty minutes, so hop on it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He couldn’t quite suppress the chuckle from his voice.

Only an hour ago, he would’ve bet anything that today of all days he couldn’t be coaxed to smile never mind laugh. But with Tessa everything seemed to disappear, his heartache, his feeling sorry for himself.

Once inside the cramped, chilly truck cab, he turned on the engine and flicked the heater to high. Laying his arm along the back of the dark blue leather seat, he swiveled so he faced her, his bent right knee lying on the seat. “Okay, shoot.”

She seemed to burrow into the opposite corner, keeping as much distance as possible now. Glancing at him quickly, she looked away, nibbling on a thumbnail. Silence throbbed in the tiny space. His nerves stretched to unbearable lengths.

He took the time to study her and try to absorb the fact that for the second time in as many days they were utterly alone. Wonder rushed through him. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined this possible.

A little over thirty-six hours ago, he’d gotten that horrible phone call from Father Tom. Without thought, he’d tossed all his clothes in a bag, gathered his mechanics tools together, and then set out from Virginia. The ten-hour drive had given him too much time on his hands to think.

His ambivalence on coming home to Connecticut had strummed to life. There hadn’t been any question in honoring his granddad. But there had been in seeing Tessa again. In his heart he longed for the meeting, yet knew how risky the prospect would be; he suspected he’d give away his buried feelings. He hadn’t counted on them rushing to the surface and nearly choking him though.

Just thinking about it now had him shifting uncomfortably in his seat and drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “Come on, Tessa, don’t keep me in suspense here.”

Dropping her hand, she blew out a gusty sigh. Turning to him fully now, she aimed her piercing green eyes straight at him. He swallowed hard. “I can’t see what good this will do any of us, Chance. First of all, you don’t play by the rules.”

Confused, he asked, “What rules are you talking about?”

She threw up her delicate hands. “Oh, brother. You mentioned the baby in front of my granny when I motioned to you not to.” Pain throbbed in her voice, piercing his heart.

Last night rushed back to him now and he winced. “How was I supposed to know she’d react like that?” He still shook at the old woman’s sobbing, as if her heart had been breaking. He’d never have thought it of her, thought that old lady Warfield had any emotion in her. He was wrong. And that fact bothered him.

“If you’d just went along with me, none of that would have happened at all. I can’t trust you.”

It felt as if she punched him in the gut. How many times had he heard that from the people he’d let down? Composing himself, he hung on by his fingertips. “This has nothing to do with trust, Tessa.” He waved a hand back and forth between them. “We have nothing to do with trust.”

“Hah!” she snorted. “We have everything to do with it or this marriage you’re pushing for can’t work.”

“How do you figure that?”
It’s just a business arrangement.
He wished she’d stop talking in circles and just tell him what the problem was.

“First this, then who knows what else?” Panic entered her large, luminous eyes, catching him by surprise. She was dead serious about this. “The next time I turn my back what will you tell granny, huh? About the times we used to sneak into the old Greenville house with the neighborhood kids? Or all the times we met when we shouldn’t have? Are you going to tell her about playing spin the bottle with me and the others, too?”

All the memories came rushing back to him now. Forbidden to see each other, he had pushed the limits and sought her out on more than one occasion. But it was the experimental kisses that haunted him. Hers were so soft and innocent. “We once had our own private game of spin the bottle away from the others. Do you remember that?” His voice grew huskier with each word. A coil of heat churned inside him, low and deep.

He watched the transformation in her. The fear leaked out of her expression. Her lips parted and a pink flush colored her flesh. Dropping his gaze, he spotted the rapid pulse at the base of her throat. Lower, the black vest she wore over her white shirt strained as she sucked in each quick breath.

Chance slid closer to her. With his hand gliding along the back of the seat, he tentatively reached out, snaring a spiral curl in his fingers. “So soft. I always imagined it would feel like this.”

Lavender tickled his nostrils, drawing him in. “You were thirteen I think the first time…” He stared at those lips, so full and alluring.

She nodded. “It was over too soon. I wanted more.” Heat licked through him when she looked at his mouth, and then slowly back into his gaze.

In the depths of her eyes, he saw her need crying out, just like he had last night. His middle clutched. With everything he had in him he resisted leaning in and taking what he desperately wanted. Tenderly, he reached out with his left hand and cupped her satiny cheek. He brushed his thumb over the softest flesh he’d ever felt beneath his hands. “Tessa.” It came out on a groan. “Sunshine, I can’t give you more than I have inside me.”
Nothing.

Moisture gathered and clung to her lashes. “I know,” she whispered hoarsely. “You can’t love me. No one can.”

An invisible hand squeezed his chest. “Shhh, now! Just because I don’t have any left, doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out there for you.”

She tried to laugh. Only a puff of air escaped. “My daddy murdered a man, Chance. My mother’s lover. Then he turned the gun on himself. Who in their right mind would want to get mixed up with me, the product of his craziness and her wildness?”

Put like that he couldn’t disagree. He had first-hand experience at having to live with his own parents’ past. “Sunshine, I wish I could tell you it doesn’t matter, but we both know it does. Look at me, my old man got so drunk one night he froze to death on the railroad tracks. And hell, my mother killed herself by accidentally drowning herself in booze and pills.” He tried to stop the pain from entering his voice. He failed.

Continuing, he said, “Why in God’s name you want a baby from me, I’ll never know. But, I give you my word, I’ll do it.”
And I’ll support it, too. All the more reason for me to go after my dreams and make something of myself.

She shifted so now her head rested on his shoulder. He pulled her closer, tucking her into his chest and wrapping his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair. He swore the soft springy curls smelled of warmth and sunshine. “You feel so good,” he said his thoughts aloud.

Sniffing, she said, “Granny doesn’t want me to have a baby by you. She even wants me to go see this doctor who will give me birth control pills.”

“But you don’t want to, do you?”

The shake of her head against him gave Chance his answer. Pulling back, she looked up into his eyes. Hers, clouded with tears, revealed the inner battle she fought. His heart lurched. “Oh, sunshine.”

Grabbing the lapels of his suit jacket, she said, “She wants me to go along with you so you’ll get out of town. While you want me to marry you in order to be able to sell the pub and start your project for kids. But, what about me, Chance? Don’t I count here?”

He groaned, and then swore.

“And you two are trying to best each other with me in the middle.” It hit him then, she’d overheard the verbal tug of war. Something shriveled up inside him.

“Tessa, about last night—”

“Don’t bother explaining. I’m no prize either, I know that.”

“That’s not true.” It came out fiercer than he’d intended. How could he convince her he’d exaggerated, even lied?

She swiped a hand across her eyes, trying to stem the flow of fast-falling tears. The opportunity to right the wrong impression was lost when she spoke again. “I can’t trust you not to hurt granny. You may hate her, but I love her.”

When he’d gotten the phone call about his granddad, he never thought it would be the beginning of all this. He didn’t want to get involved with Tessa or care about what the hell happened to her. But he did. And he didn’t want to be one more person in a long line that hurt her.

He blew out another breath. “All right, she’ll never hear it from me about our secret meetings when we were growing up, all right? I wouldn’t want her to take it out on you.” And he meant it, with everything inside him, he meant it.

Disbelief chased across her delicate features. Next came confusion. She seemed to be holding her breath when she asked, “Why?”

With the utmost care, he used the pad of his thumb to gently wipe away her tears. Nearly choking on the words, he said, “Call me crazy, but I really don’t want her to know about us. Somehow—” his voice cracked. He cleared his throat, and then continued, “Somehow it would be like betraying
us
. Betraying those few precious times when we didn’t give a damn about the stupid feud and only cared about what we wanted.”
Each other.

For long, silent moments she stared at him. He hoped she could see the sincerity. A tear glistened on her lashes, hanging there. She blinked and it dropped onto his thumb. “I hated the secrets and lies, still do, but I wouldn’t have given those times up for anything. It was like we could finally be ourselves.”

Growing uncomfortable with exposing so much of himself, Chance pulled back slightly. His heart ached at the loss of contact, but he pressed onward, knowing the more he said the more buried emotions came to the surface. And right now he couldn’t deal with them.

He waved a hand in front of her and asked, “So which finger?” When she wrinkled her brow, he explained, “So I can prick it and sign my oath in blood.”

That got a giggle and a jab in his ribs. “Cut it out, will ya? This is serious stuff.”

Rubbing his side, he said, “You’ve still got quite a right hook there, sunshine. Remind me to wear a bullet proof vest or something next time.”

When she briefly stuck out her tongue at him he chuckled, and then centered his attention back on her mouth. Suddenly the laughter died and a charge ignited in the tiny space of the truck cab. His breathing became shallow and labored as if he’d run a race.

“Do you feel it?” she asked softly, her gaze locking with his now. Her eyes turned to liquid emerald green and he groaned out loud.

“Yes,” he choked out. Slowly, he leaned in toward her, inch by inch, measuring her reaction. The pulse at the base of her throat throbbed wildly and a flush crept into her cheeks. Her quick, hot breaths fanned his face, stirring his growing passion. And she parted her full peach-colored lips. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to kiss you again?” he asked, his voice rough and husky.