“So ask.”
He watched her smooth throat move as she swallowed. “That day Tess caught us in the barn together, those horrible things you said to me out in the yard…”
“Yeah?”
“Did you mean them?”
Beau lay still, one hand on his stomach, the other cradling his head. She shifted, turning toward him on her side, propping her head on her hand. All that black hair spilled over her palm and fell along her arm to kiss the green, green grass.
“Well…” Her mouth trembled a little. “Did you?”
“No,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean those things I said. Those things were lies, pure and simple.” He felt the pained smile as it twisted his mouth. “And I put a lot of effort into being a convincing enough rat-bastard that you would think they were true.”
She let out a long sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath and just remembered to let it out. “I knew it. But I did want to hear you say it—just like I want to hear you tell me why you said those things…”
“Hell,” he replied, as if that was any kind of answer. All these years he’d nursed a hopeless yearning that someday they’d talk about this. Someday when she was a grown woman and he’d come through the bad things he’d done, come through to make himself another, better kind of life. And today, here they were, and it was happening just the way he’d always dreamed it might….
One hell of a day, this one. The day Daniel said he considered Beau as his son. The day Starr showed up with offerings of food from her family—and now seemed reluctant to leave.
He said, “I only knew then that I was headed for a bad place and I had to make sure you didn’t try to follow me there.”
“Oh,” she said so softly, the way a woman might exclaim upon unwrapping some beautiful and priceless gift. And then she called it exactly that—a gift. “Life is so strange, isn’t it?” she whispered, a certain reverence in her low voice. “I mean, what you did was so brave, really. It turned out to be like a…gift. It hurt so damn much when you did it, but my life turned out different—so much better than the direction I was headed in then, because you said those awful things to me, because they made me think, and think hard, about my life. Made me reach out to my family. Made me see I had to make some changes, or I could end up…” She didn’t seem to know how to finish.
So he did it for her. “…following the wrong guy down the road to nowhere and never finding your way back?”
Tears welled in her eyes, making them shine all the brighter. She didn’t let him see them fall, but sat up, quickly, turning away. Touched in the deepest part of himself, he left her alone until she could get it together.
Finally, she turned to him again, her eyes still suspiciously shiny-looking, but her soft cheeks dry. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s it. But look.” She raised her hands, palms up, as if to include everything—the rushing water, the summer sky, the trees whispering in the warm wind—even the faint cooing of that lone mourning dove. “I didn’t go down that road. And you…well, Beau. You have done it. You’ve found your way back.”
Chapter Three
For a while, they just sat there, side by side, staring off toward the stream and the open pasture that rolled away from them beyond the trees on the other side. Eventually, she picked up her tea, drained the last of it and tossed the remaining melted slivers of ice out into the water.
He put on his hat and got up, holding down a hand. She took it, tugging on it lightly as she rose. He felt a much stronger tug, down inside him—an ache for what might have been, if only he were someone that he would never be. Once she was on her feet, he made himself let go.
They hesitated, facing each other there on the bank, both knowing they should turn for the house, but neither making a move.
“Back then, all those years ago,” she said softly, “I’d never felt…oh, I don’t know. Accepted, I guess. I’d never felt accepted, or at home, with anyone. Not until I met you. For that short time we had, I felt I could tell you anything and you would understand. That you wouldn’t judge me, that you knew who I really was, deep down. And that you liked that person.”
“I did like that person.” The words came out before he even realized he would say them. “I liked that person a whole hell of a lot. I still do.”
Her smile was so shy. It trembled at the edges. “I’m glad to hear that. And you know, today, after so much time has gone by…I feel just the same. That I could sit right back down in the grass again with you and we could talk forever. That I could tell you everything that’s in my most secret heart and know I was telling it all to someone I can trust. I don’t think I want to give that up right now, Beau. Not when I’ve just found it again.” She bit her still-quivering lip to make it be still. “I guess what I’m getting at is…do you think that we might…?” Her words trailed off, but he knew where she was headed.
And it was impossible. “Starr—”
“Oh, wait,” she cried. “Can’t I finish?”
He stuck his hands in his pockets to keep them from doing something they shouldn’t. “Go ahead.”
“Well, it’s just…” She looked down into her empty glass, then up at him again. “I do know we’re going in different directions now. And I haven’t forgotten the things you said once. That all you wanted in life was a real home and a chance to work hard every day building something that was your own. Against all the odds, you’ve got what you wanted. And I’m off to New York in the fall, to start a new job. In a few months, I’m gone. Off to live the life I’ve been studying and planning for. I’m not saying either of us should change, or start thinking about giving up the lives we’ve worked hard to make. I’m not really talking about anything permanent. I’m just saying that, well, there’s a whole summer stretching out ahead of us. Why couldn’t we spend a little time together, now and then, before I go?”
“Be…friends, you mean?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Friends. That’s what I mean.”
How could she ask for that? She had to know it would never work. He couldn’t even stand next to her on Daniel’s porch without wondering if she still had that navel ring, without wanting to grab her and kiss her—and to maybe get his chance to see that secret tattoo.
But she was so sweetly, adorably hopeful, so damned impossibly beautiful as she stood there in front of him, asking him why they couldn’t just be summertime friends. He didn’t have the heart—let alone the will—to say no.
And why the hell should he say no, a darker voice down inside him was whispering? Why shouldn’t he see her if she wanted to see him? He was a straight-ahead guy now, an upstanding citizen who put in an honest day’s work for his pay.
He might not be the right guy for her in the long run, but she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was all grown up, old enough to make a woman’s decisions. Who said he had to deny himself her company, if she wanted to share it with him?
Because it’ll break your damn heart to see her go, fool, whispered another voice, a wiser one, in the back of his mind. It’ll break your damn heart—and just possibly hers, as well.
He found he was having a hell of a time trying to listen to that wiser voice. How could he do it? How could he say no when she stood right there, close enough to touch, gleaming black hair stirring in the wind, asking him so sweetly and sincerely to be allowed to see him now and then?
“Tell you what.”
She laughed. “You look so serious.”
This is serious, damn it, he thought. What’ll we get but heartbreak, if we start this thing between us all over again? He said, “Think it over.”
Those silky brows drew together. “But it’s not a big deal. It’s