popped into her head? No filter. No caution. Just plowing straight ahead and grabbing at life with open arms. Trouble was, he was a cactus and she was a shiny red balloon.
“It wasn’t money,” he growled.
“So she was bad in bed.” Tara wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Could you hand me the syrup?”
He passed the syrup. “No, she was very good in bed. Everyone’s bed. That was the problem. Her extreme proficiency in bed.”
Tara’s eyes went all goopy soft as she drizzled maple syrup over her pancakes. “Oh, Boone, I’m so sorry.”
“Why? Did you sleep with her?”
Her hearty laugh captured him. Embraced him like a hug. How could someone hug you with a laugh?
A man put money in the jukebox and at eight o’clock in the morning, with the smell of bacon wafting in the air, it was downright incongruous hearing Ingrid Michaelson singing “Be OK.”
“That’s really why you want to stop Jackie from getting married, isn’t it?” Tara surprised him with her chirpy insight. “To keep her from making the same mistake you did. It’s really your mistakes you want to erase, not hers.”
Boone shook his head, polished off his oatmeal. “She barely knows the guy. They’ve only been going out a few weeks.”
“You and your sister weren’t raised together, right?”
“Yes. Where’d you hear that?”
“When I said goodbye to Mrs. Levison at the party, she said your sister is the daughter of Jack Birchard, the famous oceanographer.”
“That’s right. She’s my half sister.”
“Why the deep investment? It takes a lot of time, money and energy to drive across the country to ruin someone’s wedding.”
“I wasn’t there for her when she was growing up.”
“Why do you feel that it was your responsibility to be there for her?”
“When our mom dumped her, I could have made things easier for her.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. A big brother can’t make up for an AWOL mother.”
“I could have told her it wasn’t her fault that she left.”
“I doubt you telling her that would have made a difference.”
“Yeah, well.”
“You still feel guilty even when it had nothing to do with you. C’mon, Boone, you’re not responsible for what your mother did. I’m sure Jackie doesn’t hold you accountable in any way.”
This was making him uncomfortable. This is what he got for opening up to her. She was kicking off her shoes, climbing into his brain, making herself right at home, running barefoot through his psyche. He folded his arms over his chest. “You sure take your time over a meal.”
“You’re supposed to eat slowly. It aids digestion.”
“It does not aid expediency.”
“You went to college,” she said.
“I did.”
“You use a lot of big words.”
“In some circles, a large vocabulary is considered an asset.”
“I didn’t go,” she said, wistfully licking syrup from her fork. “To college, that is. My parents couldn’t afford it. Not on a plumber and secretary’s salary. Too many kids. I put myself through beauty school.”
“Doing what?”
“Swear you won’t laugh.”
“What? Did you work in a strip club?”
“Boone!” She looked half amused, half insulted. “What in the world do you think of me?”
He raked a gaze over her. “With a body like that you could make a fortune dancing.”
Her cheeks pinked and she looked both pleased and embarrassed. “Thank you. I think. No, I worked at an amusement park.”
“Doing what?”
“I was a character.”
“You are that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Specifically, a chipmunk.”
“You got the spunk of a chipmunk. I’ll give you that.”
“Why, thank you. That’s exactly what they told me at Florida Land.”
“You finished?” He tapped the face of his watch. “It’s almost nine. We’ve got to hit the road.”
“You know, if you keep doing that I’m gonna have to smash that watch.”
He narrowed his eyes, pretended to be affronted when he wasn’t. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“It’s for your own good.” She bit into a crisp slice of bacon, her gaze hooked on his. “You don’t know how to slow down, relax and take it easy.”
“I’ve had plenty of time to sit around. It drives me batty. Relaxing is severely overrated.”
“Because your mindset is rush, rush, rush, go, go, go. It’s killing you to be incapacitated. That’s why you had to go back for a third surgery. Because you couldn’t sit still and just be. Now you’re having to learn the hard way that life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned.”
“How much do I owe you for the analysis, Dr. Freud?”
Tara grinned. “It’s on the house.”
“And the advice is well worth every penny.”
“Oh-ho, here come the barbs.”
“I wanted to be on the road hours ago.”
“And here we were getting along so well there for a split second.”
“You’d think you’d be in a hurry, too,” Boone said. “To see your mother.”
A shadow flickered over her face. “I’m not very good when those I love are sick.”
“But you’re going home anyway.”
“Of course. I love my mother.”
“Yet here you are, over a thousand miles away.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “It was my mom who told me to follow my bliss. She encouraged me to leave Florida.”
“Why’s that?”
“She got married young and started having kids, and even though she never said it, I think she regretted not getting to have adventures.”
“What did your dad say?”
“He’s my dad. He was dead set against it, but Mom convinced him.”
“Could you get a to-go bag for the rest of that?” He nodded at her half-eaten breakfast.
The waitress led a cowboy past their table. Boone pointed at Tara’s plate, silently mouthed “to-go box” to the waitress and pantomimed signing the check.
The waitress nodded.
“I90 East is a mess,” the cowboy told the waitress. “Eighteen-wheeler jackknifed and turned over, blocked that entire side of the freeway. Bread truck. Loaves of bread and buns strewn everywhere. You should have seen the birds flocking. I thought I was in a Hitchcock movie.”
Tara tucked her legs underneath her, sat up higher in her seat, looked over Boone’s head to the cowboy in the booth behind him. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the cowboy said.
“Did you say