so gentle she felt stabbed.
“I do, honestly. I do. I’ve had a good time here, though, and I assure you, you’ll do fine with the children. They’re good kids.”
The way he looked at her told her that he wanted to ask but he wasn’t sure he should. That was the problem. No one was ever sure.
“So, um, is there a hotel?”
He nodded. “In town. The Blue Point Inn. It’s a nice place and it has a great restaurant. It’s on Main by the movie theater, impossible to miss.”
“Thank you.” She smiled. “I appreciate you letting me barge in. It was foolish of me to come all this way when the odds were so slim.”
“I wish I could have helped.”
“I know. But there’s still one more name on the list. With any luck, we’ll hit pay dirt.” Shelby turned and headed for the kitchen to get her purse. She hated walking in front of him. She knew that, now it was safe, he was staring at her back. Feeling sorry for her.
She grabbed her purse from the counter and made a beeline for the front door. She paused, however, when she got to the kids. What a dreamer she was. To have entertained the idea that she could have this. It would never happen. Not in a million years. “Bye, Scout. Bye, Jem. You two be good, okay?”
Jem nodded absently, but Scout came over, hugged Shelby’s legs, then looked up with her wide blue eyes. “Bye, Shelby. I liked your eggs.”
“Thank you, honey. It was a real pleasure.”
The little one’s arms still hugged her legs. Shelby moved them, which she hated, but tears threatened. Big, hot, sobbing tears. No way was she going to do that here.
The second she was free, she hurried to the door. After it was open, she called another goodbye over her shoulder. But she didn’t look back.
GRAY STOOD at the window and watched Shelby pull out of the driveway. He’d handled things poorly. He should have— What? Talked about it? Joked with her?
It was the kind of situation his sister knew how to deal with. Kate was always the one who made everyone feel at ease. How she did it was a mystery. Why hadn’t he paid attention? Learned something from her?
He knew exactly why. He was too busy thinking about himself. About his women, his workout schedule, his car, his jobs, then more about his women. That’s what his mother had meant, of course. Why she worried about him. Because he was a selfish ass. He couldn’t even take care of two little kids by himself.
As he headed to the couch, the little wooden boy on the screen sang too loudly even in this big room. Weren’t the kids sleepy yet?
See. Right there. He’d done it again. Not two seconds after identifying the problem, he’d gone right back into selfish mode. He wasn’t thinking that the kids needed sleep. It was all about him wanting peace and quiet.
He sank onto the sofa and tuned out the noise around him. Damn it, he’d liked her. He’d liked talking to her. What had happened to her? He was pretty sure it was scar tissue from a bad burn. Was it all over her back? All over her body?
He winced, thinking about the pain. About what she’d gone through. It must have been hell. She wasn’t bitter, though. Not at all. Instead, she was funny, warm and compassionate. Strange how tragedy affected people so differently. Some turned against the world, and some made the world a better place.
He’d be one of the bitter ones. Especially if he was disfigured. His self-condemnation was interrupted by a small girl climbing on his lap. She smelled like soap and childhood, and for a moment he let himself think only good things.
“Uncle Gray?”
“Scout?”
“Why was Shelby’s skin all ugly?”
The good thoughts vanished. “It’s different, Scout. Not ugly.”
“Why was Shelby’s skin all different?”
“I think she was burned, kiddo. It must have hurt a lot.”
Scout’s brows went down. “Did she play with matches?”
“I don’t know.”
Scout touched his cheek. Her little hand felt cool and soft, and it was such a spontaneous gesture he had to close his eyes. “She was a nice lady,” Scout said.
“She was.”
Her hand moved to his lips in a totally guileless gesture, and he kissed her fingers. Scout’s smile made him swallow hard.
THE ROOM wasn’t large, but it was pretty. From the second floor of the Blue Point Inn, Shelby could see most of Main Street from the window. It was a peaceful little town, like several she knew in this part of Texas. Folks had lived here for generations and would continue to live here for years to come. It was a place to raise children. A place to make a home.
Shelby turned from the window, and her eyes lit upon the phone. She should call the diner. She should call Garrett, Michael, Lana. But she didn’t trust her voice. Everyone would survive without hearing from her. Instead, she went to the bed and her suitcase. She’d packed for a couple of days, just in case, and she was glad of it. She wanted nothing more than to climb into something comfy and curl up on the big chair in the corner and read her book. No, that wasn’t true. There was one thing she wanted more. She wanted to stop thinking about Gray Jackson.
Her hand went to her stomach before she gripped the zipper of the small suitcase. Once she had it opened, she worked quickly, hanging up what needed to be hung and putting her toiletries in the bathroom. Then she took out a pair of red shorts and a white, oversize T-shirt. She got out of her jeans first, folded them and put them in the case, then she lifted her blouse over her head. She reached for her T-shirt, but her gaze caught on the mirror to her right.
Stopping mid-gesture, she turned to face her image. The scar tissue wasn’t too bad around her waist, thighs and chest. Nothing she couldn’t live with. Then she turned and looked over her shoulder. The sight made her cringe.
Most of her back was hairless, poreless fake skin. The redness was nothing like before, nothing like when it was new. But there was no way anyone would mistake it for the real thing—it wasn’t. It was mostly collagen fibers, not skin cells.
And it was ugly. The kind of ugly that scars the inside, too. The teasing never went away. The way a person’s face changed after seeing it was indelible. The fire had taken so much from her.
She closed her eyes as she pulled on her T-shirt. It was enough. She couldn’t afford to feel sorry for herself for too long. That led straight into a cycle of depression that scared the hell out of her. If only Scout hadn’t—
Her eyelids popped open. The most dangerous words in the English language were “if only.” Nothing could be done about the past. All that she had were choices in the now. She could choose to dwell on this or she could opt for healthy, nurturing thoughts.
She pulled on shorts, splashed some cold water on her face and got her book out of her purse. It was a long, juicy novel, one she’d been meaning to read for ages. The author was one of her favorites, which was a good thing. She needed to get lost. To stop being in this world and enter the fictional dream. Damn it, she needed a happy ending.
CHAPTER THREE
SHELBY TURNED THE PAGE and put the edge of her dinner plate on the bottom of the book to hold it open. She hardly looked at her grilled salmon or the baby red potatoes, even though they were quite good. She’d been captured by a quiet cowboy on a mountain in Wyoming. Her eyes skimmed the pages hungrily, looking for the moment when he realized he was in love.
She was the heroine. Just like always.
Someone came into her peripheral vision, and she fought the urge to shoo them away with her hand. It was the waitress. Bella, her name tag read. A nice older woman, and Shelby smiled at her.