Stone Cold Charade (A Stone Family Novel) (7 page)

Ty, spying a movement out of the corner
of his eye, glanced up from the mare he was brushing. A small girl with a look
of pure fear on her young face stood terror stricken and trembling in the
center of the barn. Her lost and panicked expression pulled at his heart. He
walked over to her and knelt down beside her in an effort to gain her
attention.

“What are you doing in here Tidbit?” he
asked softly, noticing how huge her green eyes looked in her frightened, elfin
face.

“I’m looking for my grandfather,” she
stammered, her young voice cracking on the last word. She never took her
frightened eyes off of the yearling in the stall directly in front of her. The
child seemed to believe it would bolt toward her at any second. She was small
for her age, and scrawny. He knew instantly who the child was. He knew all
about the Stone Girls.

“The horse won’t hurt you,” he whispered
softly near her ear, his breath stirring the small curls lying against her
cheek.

So shocked by the tingling on her face,
she completely forgot for a moment about the yearling and turned her head
toward the boy who was kneeling in front of her. When she gazed into his dark
blue eyes, she felt as if she had come home. Smiling impishly at Ty, she
reached out hesitantly with her small hand. She touched his youthful face in wonder.
She started to trace his features with her fingertips as if trying to memorize
the feel and shape of his face. Smiling down at her, he picked her up in his
arms, and took her back to the main house, warning her to stay out of the barn.

From that point on, Ty became her
champion. He took away her terror. Over the next couple of years he would
always stop by the house on his way to work, or on his way home, to see how she
was getting on. He would bring his sister Jenny, who was close to her age, as
often as possible. He became a regular fixture in her life, as did Jenny.
During the summers, the three were inseparable, always running off to the creek
to swim or fish, sometimes even taking her sisters along.

They became so ingrained in her life
that she never knew a time when Ty and Jenny weren’t present. Her best friends,
she could confide anything to them. They never judged or criticized her.
Spending time with them taught her and her sisters what a normal family was
like. It made them be who they were at the time, just a bunch of kids having
fun. It was a blessing, not having the constant constraint and stigma of being
a Stone Girl on them.

Ty became the big brother she always
wanted. He taught the girls everything from how to swim to algebra. So much about
herself she learned because he built up her confidence, after somehow sensing
the lack of it. He seemed to know it was rooted in her parents’ death and the
sheltered life she was forced to lead. Ty brought back her love of life,
renewed her belief in happiness and brought stability and happier times.

Her grandparents, very protective of all
the girls, feared the cruelty and ambition of others knowing some would feign
friendship just to get close to the girls, and hurt them, ultimately motivated
by their own personal gain. However, Ty and Jenny were clearly different; so
Emma, her grandmother, promoted their friendship.

Alex soon relied on Ty. He answered her
questions, always telling her the truth, no matter how private. He always
treated her with respect. Like when she had turned thirteen and thought she was
dying. She was sitting on the porch, crying her heart out, when Ty passed by
the house on his way home and saw her.

“Why the tears little one?” he asked
softly, picked her up and placed her on his lap.

“I’m dying!” Alex wailed, crying even
harder than she had before he arrived.

“Care to explain what you’re dying
from?” he asked, amused and trying not to laugh at her distress.

“I’m bleeding and it won’t stop!” she
confessed, looking at Ty with such sorrow in her eyes that he became
increasingly concerned. He was beginning to wonder if she had actually injured
herself somewhere he couldn’t see.

He asked shortly, “Where are you
bleeding?”

He began to look her over checking her
legs and arms for an open wound.

“I can’t tell you where. It’s private,”
she stammered, looking embarrassed. She tried to pull out of his arms,
struggling in vain to get him to release her.

He knew instantly what was wrong with
her. He let out a long breath, thankful she was not really hurt, just
frightened.

“Have you asked your sisters or your
grandmother about this?” he asked patiently.

She refused to answer, shaking her head
and staring down at her hands evasively. He placed a hand over hers to get her
to look at him. “You’re not dying, just growing up.” He explained to her what
happens to a woman’s body as she gets older, answering all of her questions. He
made her promise to talk to her grandmother about what was going on with her
body.

It was probably inevitable that Alex
would fall in love with him. It started the summer she had turned seventeen,
when he was seeing Amanda, a girl in his own age group. Seeing him and Amanda
together set her teeth on an edge even though he’d had girlfriends before.
She’d hid how she felt about him from him and everyone else, choosing not even
to tell Jenny how she truly felt.

Ty began acting like being around her
was an inconvenience, and he said as much when she bravely asked him why he was
behaving so strangely around her. He dismissed her, stating, “You’re just a
child. I have better things to do than spend time with a pesky kid.”

Not coming around the house as much to
visit her, he seemed to spend all of his spare time with Amanda. It had been
hard losing one of her best friends. She had missed the closeness they had
shared for most of her life.

Every time Ty went on a date, she would
spend the night crying her heart out. Soon the two couldn’t be in the same room
with each other without World War III ensuing. The fighting quickly put a
strain on her friendship with Jenny. It just became easier to distance herself
from her too, that way Jenny didn’t have to choose between her best friend and
her brother.

Alex threw herself into her music that
summer. Always good with melodies and able to hold her voice in perfect tune to
the song, a true gift she inherited from her mother along with composing. With
time on her hands, she spent the summer glued to the piano writing songs.

By the time fall rolled around, along
with the holiday break, her grandparents finally had to step in. Informing her
grandfather that the two had barely said three words to each other in months,
her grandmother ordered him to speak with Ty. How that went, Alex never knew.
She would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation! She
did know that her grandfather didn’t fire Ty, but nothing changed in his
attitude. He just distanced himself even more from that point on. Her senior
year she barely saw him, until the night of a friend's party.

Alex’s friend Kim and her older brother
were throwing a party at their house to celebrate Kim’s graduation from high
school. Alex was in the same graduating class, and Ty was close to Kim’s
brother so he was invited too.

Walking into the house, she saw Ty with
a group of friends from his high school days. He was clad in a cowboy dress
shirt complete with denim jeans and looking every bit the cowboy even without
his hat. Alex lifted her chin defiantly, returning his stare as he looked
daggers at her on her arrival. He was the first to break eye contact as he
turned back to one of his companions.

She noticed the bulky brown furniture
that usually sat in the living room had been pushed back along the walls to
accommodate a dance floor filled with couples. She glanced around the room
trying to locate Amanda, wondering why she wasn’t glued to Ty. She noticed a
classmate, Dane, striding toward her over the polished hard wood floors and
gave up the search. Returning his greeting and accepting his invitation to
dance because she had always thought Dane was sweet.

The house was lively with classmates
celebrating, blowing off steam from the long year. Alex gave herself over to
the beat of the music blasting from the state of the art sound system. Refusing
to think about Ty, she laughed up at Dane enjoying herself for the first time
in months as he twirled her around the room.

Ty observed Alex’s every move with cold,
hungry eyes. He had suspected she would be attending the party. He had seen to
it that he would also be there to make sure she stayed out of mischief. He had
always watched over her, and he would see to it that he kept protecting her,
even if he had no right to.

Even though she was playing down her
looks again tonight, it didn’t stop him from watching her. Her hair hanging
around her face, unruly as always, and not a trace of makeup made Alex look as
she always did, plain. Dressed in a knee-high skirt and matching blouse in a
depressing shade of tan, she finished off her drab attire with a pair of
sandals. Even dressing so dully didn’t alter his desire for her. It burned in
his gut stronger than ever.

Even though he had intentionally acted
as if he didn’t care for her in any way this past year, he knew differently. He
was forced to face the reality that she was growing up. His desire for her had
felt as if a ton of bricks had landed on his head, but it was her innocence
that stopped him from pursuing her. Alex’s feelings for him also played a role
in reinforcing that she was off limits. Being called on the carpet once about
the time he spent alone with her was enough. Her grandfather brought the point
home to him quite painfully by docking his pay, claiming he was worried about
his granddaughter's reputation. He didn’t give a damn what the old man thought
about the time he spent with her, or for that matter, what he thought about
him. He never had. However, Alex’s reputation was something he refused to
chance.

He was old enough to know what was
happening between them and the ramifications, even if Alex didn’t. He had to
keep a wall between them; it became increasingly difficult to be with her
without letting her see the desire he fought for her. They needed space, or at
least he did. Max kept threatening marriage, and if he found out Ty had seduced
her, he would find himself in front of the preacher before he could yell
trapped! The old goat would take great pleasure in firing him! Max knew how
much he needed this job.

He was twenty-four with nothing to show
for his life so far. His dreams and ambitions were all he had. He just required
a way to shape them into a reality. Even if he were the marrying type, he
couldn’t let that hangman's noose slide around his neck. Considering whom she
was, people would always presume he had married her for her wealth. He had more
respect than that, for her, and himself. They had no future.

He would make his own way. A cousin of
his, high ranked in the military, kept pestering him about the money he could
earn for college if he enlisted. He never planned on leaving Wilkinson. With
Jenny's graduation from high school, he was seriously considering his options.
He just wanted to be sure that Jenny could survive on her own before he made
any decisive plans about his future. After his mother, Ruth’s, death from
pneumonia when he was seventeen, he had little choice but to grovel for a full
time job from Max as soon as he graduated, willingly choosing the
responsibility of raising his kid sister.

Gazing at Alex with her new boyfriend,
he knew without a doubt that he was incapable of remaining in Wilkinson. One
day Alex would fall in love, marry, and have kids of her own. He would never
fit into her world. She needed someone in her social class, not a cowhand. Ty
glided toward the couple who, after exiting the dance floor, were making for
the refreshment table crammed with sodas and snacks.

“Does your grandfather know where you
are?” he asked curtly. He intentionally stepped in front of Alex and her
partner, blocking their path. His dark eyes slid with quiet distain over her.
Jamming his lean hands into the pockets of his jeans, he rocked on the balls of
his feet while waiting for her answer.

“Of course he does. I don’t keep secrets
about where I go. Max would start having Frank tail me if I did,” she fired
back, annoyed with his big brother act.

Alex’s whole attitude was one of indifference.
Moving past him toward the punch bowl, she could feel him dogging her steps.
What did he want now? Alex knew he couldn’t tolerate being in the same room
with her. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her so why was he suddenly making
the time to chat? As she poured a drink, he stood there looking like he had all
the time the world. Why was he following her around? Had her grandparents asked
him to spy on her? Was that it?

“Was there something you wanted?” she
challenged.

Noticing the hostile looks he kept
sending Dane when he thought she wasn’t looking added to her annoyance. Nothing
was making any sense! Except maybe that he thought she and Dane were here
together. Was Ty playing the big brother to protect her from Dane? She had only
danced with him to keep him company until his girlfriend arrived.

Ty ignored her question, turned
abruptly, and went to Amanda’s side as she strolled eloquently into the room.
Clasping the striking blonde by the waist, he led her out onto the dance floor.
Purposely shunning Alex, he left her standing there like an unwanted
interruption without even bothering to say a cordial goodbye.