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Jack cleared his throat, uncomfortable with this intimate new knowledge. He’d never understood how any man could cheat on his wife and face himself in the mirror, but to cheat on this woman? That ex of hers must give new meaning to the word idiot. On the other hand, what did he really know about it? He pushed a hand over his face, realizing that he wasn’t being very logical. He swept a gaze over her and gulped. He was definitely letting appearance—that was to say, attraction—sway his judgment. Realizing that he had to say something in response, he grasped the first harmless thing that entered his head.
“D-divorce is difficult for everyone involved.” Oh, brilliant. Tell her something she doesn’t know. “S-sometimes it’s simply the lesser of two evils.”
She nodded. “That’s true.”
He felt a surge of confidence and plunged on. “Cody can’t be expected to understand that, though.”
She sighed. “I know. It’s just…” She agonized for a moment, biting her lip, then blurted, “I couldn’t stand being married to someone who used and abused me.” She leaned across the table, imploring him to understand. “Carmody took my money and spent it on other women! It didn’t matter to him that the children and I did without. To him, life is all about having fun, and I know that attitude too well to believe I could defeat it. I grew up with that attitude. My father worked only so he could afford to party, with no thought for his children and our needs, and that suited my mother just fine so long as she could party with him.
“But I’m not like that, and I don’t want my children to be like that. I thought the divorce would be best for all of us, but maybe I just rationalized that to ease my conscience. I wanted the divorce and I got it. And now my children are suffering for it.” Her gaze dropped forlornly to the crayon drawing.
Jack impulsively covered her hand with his. She looked up suddenly, tossing her hair back. Her pale blue eyes were wide with shock. He quickly pulled his hand away, his gaze skittering around the booth as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. “Uh, you…you did what you thought best. N-no doubt you were right. In a situation like that, what other choice was there?”
She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “If only Carmody would pay more attention to the children. If he’d just help out now and again financially…” One slender brow arched in irony. “He didn’t do that when we were married. Why would I expect it of him now? Yet my children need their father. I just don’t know what the answer is.”
“Maybe you just keep doing the best you can,” he said.
Her mouth quirked up on one end. “You think I’m doing the best I can, then?”
He blinked, realizing how much he’d revealed by that one less-than-helpful statement, and looked down at his cold cup. “You were thinking of working three jobs maybe?”
She shook her head, smiling at that. “No. Working two jobs and being a mom is definitely all I can handle. Problem is, I have to try to be a dad, too.”
He said it before he thought. “Maybe Cody had the right idea, after all.” His own words knocked Jack back against his seat. “I—I mean, that’s one thing Cody obviously does understand, th-that you can’t do it by yourself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be trying to find you a husband, and we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”
She cocked her head at that, studied him pointedly for a few moments and said, “I know why I’m here, but I’m not quite certain why you are.”
He was careful to think before he replied this time, and he quickly came up with a number of possibilities. He could say, for instance, that his being here was just part and parcel of his job, that he felt a genuine responsibility for the children who attended his school, that he couldn’t ignore the wordless plea of a troubled little boy. He could even say it was simple courtesy or curiosity or pure happenstance. Instead, he heard himself saying, “Maybe I mean to apply for the position.”
For the longest moment she stared as if frozen. Jack felt the very same way, as if he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think. Then slowly the implications of what he’d said crept over him. He didn’t know this woman! Was he so lonely, so empty, that he’d let a misspelled ad drawn in crayon decide his destiny? Did he need his own family so desperately that he’d settle for merely being needed himself? A deep, bitter sense of shame engulfed him. He felt his face burn hot and closed his eyes. He would’ve bitten his tongue off if it had meant being able to unsay those careless words.
Then suddenly she burst out laughing. Jack stared at her, his mouth open, while the sound of her laughter, so bright and cheerful and healing, built and built. It was rather funny—absurd, in fact. His mouth wobbled; he brushed his mustache with his fingertips to still it, but the smile broke free, and a chuckle followed it. That chuckle felt so good that he gave himself up to it. When the merriment played out, she wiped her eyes and braced her elbows on the tabletop.
“I needed that.”
He nodded, feeling sheepish, as an uneasy new awareness tightened the lines of her face. He glanced at his watch without paying the time any real attention and slid out of the booth. “I’d better pay the check and get you home.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He made short work of it. Within the minute they were in the car again. She laid her head back and closed her eyes. After a bit he noticed that a smile hovered about her lips. He allowed himself to feel a little gush of pleasure at that. He’d embarrassed himself, but if he’d saved her some embarrassment in the process…well, somehow that was enough.
He brought the car to a stop in front of her house, wondering if he would have to wake her, but she immediately lifted her head and gave him a clear-eyed look.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
He glanced away, not wanting her to see how that pleased him. “Unnecessary. I’d have done the same for any of my students.”
“I can see that,” she said, smiling warmly. She lifted her hand, Cody’s folded portrait clutched in it. “I’ll try to make him understand that this isn’t a solution.”
He nodded. “Just remember to thank him for trying to help.”
“I will.”
She opened the car door and started to get out, but Jack found that he wasn’t quite prepared to let it end like this. He caught her hand in his, and when she stopped to look back at him, he gently pried the folded paper from her fist.
“I’d like to keep this, if you don’t mind.” He grinned. “I have a kind of collection. Kids have such a funny way of viewing this wacky world of ours, you know, and I find it comforting to remind myself of that from time to time.”
“You keep it then,” she said, and got out of the car.
He resisted the impulse to kill the engine and walk her to her door. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, but not the wisest, perhaps. He wouldn’t want to plant false hope, not after all he’d said, first intimating that she might truly need a husband and then blurting that perhaps he would apply for the position! No, far better to just keep his seat.
She closed the door and backed away, bending a little to look at him through the window and fold her hand in a kind of wave. “Bye.”
“Goodbye.”
He watched her turn and walk across the dusty yard to the stoop. She climbed the steps, opened the door and paused to wave once more before going inside. He slipped the folded crayon drawing into his shirt pocket, then started the car down the street, telling himself it was over. He’d done his duty. It was all anyone could expect of him, all he ought to expect of himself.
But he couldn’t help remembering the way Cody’s face had lighted up when he’d believed that Mr. Tyler was there to court his mother, or the exhaustion and regret in Heller Moore’s eyes when she’d admitted that she couldn’t do it all alone. He couldn’t help thinking, either, that Cody’s conclusion was right, despite his method of trying to solve the problem. She did need someone, someone who would appreciate her strength and determination, her honesty and spunk. Someone who loved and enjoyed kids. Someone who wouldn’t cheat.
He shook his head, surprised at himself. Was he honestly contemplating involvement with Heller Moore? What if he did see her again? Would he find that she wasn’t the woman he thought her to be? Would disappointment lead to regret? He’d been disappointed before, bitterly so. Perhaps he ought to consider that a lesson learned and let well enough alone. Perhaps he ought to find someone with whom he had more in common. Another educator? Yes, that was the kind of woman in whom he should be interested. A safe, sensible, middle-class lady with her life together and time to consider him and his needs. He’d give the matter some serious thought, he promised himself. Someday.
Heller caught the baby by the ankle and pulled him back into the middle of the bed.
“Sit still, Davy,” Cody scolded, shaking a finger at his little brother.
Davy plopped onto his bottom, stuck his tongue out and waggled his head side to side. “Sit, you’se’f!” He fell back, laughing in two-and-a-half-year-old glee.
Cody scowled. “Why don’t you go in the other room, Davy? I’m trying to talk to Mama.”
At the very suggestion of being parted from his mother, Davy lunged up and threw his arms around her neck from the back, crying out, “No-o-o!”
Heller patted his chubby arms, swaying beneath his weight against her back. “It’s all right, honey. Just settle down now so I can talk to your big brother.” She stifled a tired sign and smiled down at Cody’s pouty face. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say, son? Marriage isn’t like a garage sale, Cody. You can’t just post notice and take your best offer.”
Confusion dulled his hazel eyes. “But, Mama, Mr. Tyler’s a real nice man. He don’t drink or nothing, ‘cause he’s always telling us how dangerous it is, and he likes kids. I know he does! Even when you’re bad he still rubs you on the head and stuff. He don’t even cuss when he’s mad!”
Heller didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She shook her head, hoping to shake some new idea into it, but all she could do was repeat what she’d already said. “Mr. Tyler is a very nice man, Cody, but he would no more marry some woman he met through an advertisement than he would…cuss in front of you children.”
Cody’s thin brows drew together. “I don’t see why not, if he likes you.”
Heller rolled her eyes, then clamped down on the impulse to tear at her hair, closing her eyes and pulling in a deep breath instead. Calm again, she smiled. Davy drummed his knees against her spine, turning the smile to a grimace. She pulled him around into her lap and tucked his head beneath her chin. “There’s one thing you haven’t taken into consideration, Cody,” she told him smoothly, “and that is that I don’t want to get married again.”
He cocked his head to one side. “How come? Don’t you like Mr. Tyler?”
Flabbergasted, Heller just stared at him for a moment. Davy slid down her lap, flopped over and eased himself onto the floor, where he promptly began running circles around Cody. She caught him and pointed him toward the door. He ran screaming down the hallway, then turned around and headed back. Heller pulled Cody to her side, an arm draped around his shoulders. “Cody, honey, it doesn’t have anything to do with Mr. Tyler.”
“But don’t you like him?”
“Yes, of course I do, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry him.”
“How come?”
She searched for the right words. “You have to have a special feeling for the person you want to marry.”
“What kind of special feeling?”
“Well, it’s kind of like…” She thought suddenly of that moment back at the café when Jack Tyler had covered her hand with his and electricity had shot up her arm, practically knocking her out of her seat. She shook herself, alarmed. Man, she really had to get some sleep! She hugged Cody and said, “I can’t explain it, Cody, and I know you were trying to help me when you put up that advertisement, but please, please don’t do anything like that again. All right?”
He set his mouth glumly, but then nodded.
She kissed the top of his head. “Thank you, sweetheart. I love you so much.” She tilted his face up with one fingertip. “You’re all I need, son, you and your brother and sister.”
He put his arms around her neck and mumbled against her shoulder, “I love you, too, Mom.”
“I know you do, and I’m so glad.” She ruffled his hair. Davy burst through the door, squealing like a stuck hog, and threw himself against the bed. Heller caught him by the arms before he fell to the floor and bent down low to hug him. “Okay, who wants to take a nap with Mommy?”
Cody snorted with disgust. “Huh! Not me. Davy, you want to take a nap?”
Davy squirmed free of his mother’s hold, shaking his head so hard his eyes wobbled.
“Go on then,” Heller said, getting up and throwing back the bed covers. “Betty will give you a snack, then I’ll make us lunch before I go to work.” She crawled into the bed, settled back onto her pillow and tossed the covers over her lower body. “Kiss-kiss.”
Cody smacked her, then held up Davy so he could smear his mouth against her cheek. Heller smiled and closed her eyes. Cody tiptoed out, herding Davy ahead of him, and quietly shut the door. Davy yelled fit to raise the dead and ran down the hall.
Heller turned over, already drifting into a badly needed sleep. She tuned out Davy’s grab for attention and Cody’s troubling questions and the knowledge that she would have to rise again in less than two hours. A picture formed before her closed eyes. Jack Tyler. She saw that silly little grin he’d worn as he’d sat there across the table from her, heard the flip—yet almost serious—way he’d said, “Maybe I mean to apply for the position.”
She felt again the lurch of her heart, the spurt of euphoria and then the immediate, crushing, bitter return to reality. For the briefest of moments she had actually believed him, and then the absurdity of it had hit her, and she had laughed at that silly little woman inside of her, that undying romantic, that foolish, hopeful, needy woman who could believe, even for a moment, that a man like Jack Tyler would seriously want to build a life with a woman like her. She had laughed at herself.
She wasn’t laughing now. And in her heart of hearts, she knew she never had.
Chapter Three
She was right in the middle of it with Carmody when Jack Tyler opened the door and walked in. Her heart did an immediate swoon, which only served to ratchet up her temper another notch. She jerked her glare back to Carmody and got right in his face, leaning over the counter so far that her toes barely touched the floor.
“You have some nerve, Carmody, waltzing in six months behind on your child support and asking to borrow my car! Are you out of your mind?”
The object of her wrath bobbed on the balls of his feet and slung thick, pale blond hair out of eyes that one moment looked green and the next blue. “You’re never gonna give me a break, are you? I’m behind on the child support because I don’t have a job!”
“That’s funny,” she retorted, dropping back onto her heels and folding her arms. “You play almost every night!”
“For drinks, Heller! For drinks! I haven’t had a real paying gig in a year—because I don’t have transportation!”
“And you expect me to provide you with transportation?”
“Who else am I gonna ask? Besides, it’s to your benefit.”
She bulged her eyes. “My benefit? How do you figure that?”
He dug his hands into his pockets, causing his jeans to sag on his lean frame, and ducked his head. It was his whywon’t-you-believe-me look. “I’ll give you half my pay,” he promised solemnly.
Anger momentarily gave way to sheer need. God knew an extra buck would come in more than handy around her house. But Carmody’s promises were like water under the bridge, gone and forgotten—especially by him—in less time than it took to recite the alphabet. She shook her head. “Half of nothing is nothing, Carmody. Besides, how do you expect me to get around without my car?”
“I’d be glad to give you a ride anywhere you want to go,” said a deep, familiar voice.
A thrill shot through Heller. She suppressed it ruthlessly, sticking up her chin and glaring at Jack.
He lifted a cold, unopened soft drink, as if justifying his presence, and muttered, “Couldn’t help overhearing.”
Carmody danced closer, ready to seize the opportunity. “There you go, sugar. Problem solved.”
“Oh, shut up!” she snapped, turning her attention back to Jack. Carmody leaned a slim hip against the counter and prepared to observe. Heller ignored him. “You taking me to raise, Tyler?”
He sat the soft drink on the counter and flicked his gaze over her. “You look full grown to me.”
Heller caught her breath, then let it out again slowly, determined not to overreact. From the corner of her eye, she saw Carmody take an agitated step closer to the bigger man, then fall back again. She pursed her lips against a smile. Jack would make two of Carmody, standing easily four inches taller and outweighing him by sixty, maybe seventy, pounds. Carmody’s continued proprietary air irritated her, so she leaned into her side of the counter and smiled up at. Jack Tyler.
“The thing is, I get off here at nine, and I have to be at the nursing home by nine-thirty, and that gives me just a half hour to change and get there.”
“No problem,” Jack said lightly, cutting a glance at Carmody.
“There. See?” Carmody grinned, holding up both hands. Then he suddenly lunged over the counter, snatched Heller’s purse off the shelf where she kept it and stuck his hand into the side pocket.
“Carmody!” She made a grab for the purse, but Carmody came up with the keys and danced back out of reach. “Damn you, Carmody Moore!”
“You won’t regret this!” he called, pretending she had agreed as he scurried toward the door. He shot a look at Jack, then grinned broadly at Heller and pushed through the door. “I’ll have the car back by morning, I swear!”
Heller beat a fist on the countertop. “Oooh! That…man, that…worm!”
“Want me to go after him? I can stop him.”
She had no doubt that he would do it or that he was capable, but she couldn’t quite believe that he had made the offer. What was it to him if Carmody all but stole her car? He was too good, this man. Too good to be true?
She realized that he was waiting for an answer. “No, I guess not.” She shrugged. “There’s a chance of getting some money out of him, I’d be foolish to pass it up.”
Jack popped the top on the soft drink can and took a swallow. “What does he do?”
“Oh, he thinks he’s some kind of musician, guitar mostly, a little drums. He sings some, too, when he can borrow a hat.”
“A hat?”
“It’s Country music.” She made a face. “Supposed to be, anyway.”
He chuckled. “So the ex is a sometime C & W musician.”
“And a full-time bum.”
“Which is why he’s the ex.”
She wrinkled her nose. “He should’ve been a ‘never was,’ but I was stupid at seventeen.”
He gulped and abruptly set down the can. “You were seventeen when you married him?”
She nodded disgustedly. “Home was hell, and I was in luv.” She grimaced. “Anyway, I thought I was.”
He lifted both brows and seemed to think about it. “Well, at least you have the kids.”
She smiled. “Yeah. I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my kids. They’re it, you know?”
He canted his head, turning the soft drink can in circles with his fingertips. “I can imagine.”
She nodded, and folded her arms across her middle. She didn’t know why she said it, but she did. “I was pregnant with Davy when we split. Came home in the middle of the day sick and caught him in my bed with some slut he’d picked up in a bar.”
He stared, a muscle ticking in his clenched jaw. After a moment he looked away. Then he picked up the soft drink can. “Bum is a mild word for a man who would do that.”
She nodded, then she shrugged, keeping her eyes averted. “Ah, well. Done and gone. That’s how I think of Carmody Moore, done and gone.”
“In your car,” he muttered wryly.
She had to laugh. “It’s your fault, you know. If you hadn’t offered me a ride…”
He slugged back the cola and crushed the can in his fist. “I can still go after him.”
He was angry, angry at Carmody; she could see it behind his eyes. A kind of brightness burned there, bringing out the yellow spokes in mottled gray and green irises. He was angry for her. Had anyone else ever been angry for her? She shook her head, telling herself that this man would be angry over any injustice, however small, however far removed from him personally.
“I—if he doesn’t bring it back by morning, I’ll call the cops,” she said softly.
“Your choice.”
“Yeah. Um, I am going to need that ride.”
He waved a hand dismissively, then dug into his pocket, pulled out a dollar bill and slapped it onto the countertop. “No problem.”
She pushed the dollar bill back at him. “Hey, if I can’t give away a few soft drinks after all these years, well, I may as well quit, huh?”
He tossed the crushed can into the trash container behind the counter and shoved the dollar back into his pocket. “Nine o’clock, right?”
She smiled, trying to ignore the heavy beat of her heart. “Right.”
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