Baby Experts 02 (13 page)

“Ice on that knee might help,” he suggested.

“You telling me what’s good for
me?
” McGuire asked, going on the offensive.

“I was just making a suggestion,” Vince countered calmly.

“You always did know how to be diplomatic…except with Tessa.”

Vince could leap into this conversation or drag his feet. One way or the other he was sure it was going to go downhill. He leapt anyway. “I always tried to be honest with Tessa.”

“Sometimes honesty is just an excuse to do what you want to do.”

Vince knew exactly what McGuire meant. “At the hospital, you told me Tessa blamed me for everything that happened and you were right. She deserved a better life than I could give her. She made the choice to come home with you because she did blame me and she had everything she needed here.”

McGuire frowned at that as if it wasn’t quite the answer he’d expected. “That’s what
I
thought. But she was miserable after you left and damn near fell apart.
You
on the other hand, as we heard, went skipping right along, got real chummy with someone on the base, discovered a career in a place you wanted to stay. I suppose you thought it was best for Tessa not to contact her, too?”

“If I had written her a letter, would you have given it to her?”

McGuire mulled that over. “I don’t rightly know. What I do know is that no matter what she says, she’s never gotten over what happened.”

“You mean losing the baby and the hysterectomy?”

“I mean all of it. She was a strong girl and she’s turned into a strong woman. She’s a survivor. But I believe deep down, she’s never forgiven
me
for interfering or
you
for breaking her heart.”

There it was, the reason he and Walter McGuire would always be at odds. “I probably could never have understood what you felt before I had Sean. He’s almost nine months old now. Has Tessa told you about him?”

“She told me a little.”

“One day I was a bachelor, the next day I was a father. My best friend was gone and I had responsibility for his child. And it’s more than a responsibility. That little guy owns my heart and if
anybody, anybody
at all ever tried to hurt him, I’d want to make sure they didn’t. So maybe now I can understand how you feel about me and everything that happened.”

McGuire looked away for a few moments as if to consider or absorb what Vince had said. When his gaze swung back to Vince’s, it was piercing but not condemning. “So how does it feel to be chief of police in Sagebrush when your dad once inhabited its jail?”

Vince could have taken the comment as a slur, but he didn’t. It was a fact. His dad had slept off more than one bender in the Sagebrush jail. “I could say one has nothing to do with the other, but that wouldn’t be the truth. I went into law enforcement because my mother was murdered. I had the misguided idea I could right some kind of wrong.”

McGuire arched a brow. “You can’t?”

“I can try but the wrongs mount up awfully fast, and righting them seems to get harder and harder. In Sagebrush, it’s easier than it was in Albuquerque, no doubt about that.”

“You want easier?”

“No, sir, I don’t. That’s why this job is just temporary.”

McGuire mulled that over, too, then rubbed his chin. “You want to go back to being a homicide detective?”

“I can’t. Not now. Maybe when Sean’s older. But I do want to work at a job that makes a difference.”

“You can make a difference as chief of police.”

“Farmer is coming back. This isn’t my job to keep, even if I did want it.”

“You’re almost out,” Tessa interrupted them cheerily from the doorway, holding up the bottle of bourbon. She clutched an ice pack in her other hand.

“You think I don’t have a spare tucked away?” her father asked her with a twinkle in his eye that was obviously only for his daughter.

“I should have known. So what did I miss?” She brought over the bottle of bourbon with an old-fashioned glass turned upside down on top and set it on the table next to him, then she applied the ice pack to his knee.

“We were just catching up,” McGuire explained with a glance at Vince. “Just catching up.”

Vince wasn’t sure if they’d accomplished anything in their conversation or not, but at least they hadn’t gone at each other like two gunfighters at noon. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t in the future. He and Walter McGuire had a history, and that history wouldn’t be forgotten anytime soon.

Tessa poured two fingers of bourbon into the glass and handed it to her dad. “I think I should stay here tonight. If the knee’s not better in the morning, I’ll take you to the emergency room.”

“I don’t need anyone here,” McGuire grumbled, casting a sideways glance at Vince.

Now Vince realized he had been hoping for an afternoon with Tessa, maybe even more than that. Yet today, instead of seeing a controlling father and a submissive daughter, he was seeing a relationship that was give and take. It had ups and downs. But most of all, he’d witnessed affection and caring.

Had the years made so much difference? Had Walter McGuire mellowed? Or had Vince seen what he’d wanted to see twenty years ago? Had he wanted his freedom and blamed Tessa for knowing that he did? Had he mistakenly believed that Tessa’s choice to go home with her father hadn’t been a real choice at all? Had she gone home with Walter McGuire to relieve Vince of duty and responsibility?

There were so many questions, questions with answers that could only cause them more pain.

Seeing this situation clearly for what it was, Vince put in his two cents. He said to McGuire, “You might not think you need anyone now, but if that knee swells up and you can’t walk tonight, you could have a problem just getting to the bathroom.”

“Great,” McGuire grunted. “Two against one.” But there wasn’t a whole lot of protest behind it.

“Are there any chores you need to have done that are going to be a problem with that knee?” Vince asked.

“You have an hourly fee?” McGuire joked.

“No, sir. But if Tessa’s watching over you, she really can’t take care of the animals, too.”

“Are you trying to start an argument?” Tessa’s dad grumbled.

“I’m trying to help out. If you don’t want the help, I’ll leave.”

McGuire swished his bourbon around in his glass, glanced at Tessa, Vince, then back at the bourbon.

He addressed Vince. “Do you still know your way around a horse?”

“I’ve handled animals over the years.”

“Saddle-Up needs salve on his right eye. Daisy Mae will be foaling in about a week. Just make sure all’s well with her and bring in the others. The weatherman’s calling for storms tonight and I don’t want them spooked. Tessa can show you where the feed is. In the morning, we’ll feed them and let them out. Tim’s boy is coming over after church and can do whatever else needs to be done.”

“I’ll go down to the barn with you and show you where everything is,” Tessa offered. “Do you need anything else, Dad?”

Her father hiked himself up out of his chair, held on to the arm and hopped over to the sofa. “Just give me the remote control and I’ll be fine.”

Tessa did that and by the time she met Vince at the door, her dad was engrossed in the History Channel.

“Are you sure you have time for all of this?” she asked Vince as they left the house and started for the barn.

“I have time. I’ll check in with Janet before I start with the horses, but I have a feeling she’d rather I come home later than sooner.”

“She
is
good with Sean.”

“Almost as good as you are.”

When Tessa went silent, he knew she had to have mixed feelings about getting close to Sean, about a child she wished had been theirs. Whenever she was with Sean, he sensed she kept part of herself removed…just as she did from him.

Once inside the barn, Vince was surprised that good memories came rushing back. He’d met Tessa at the barn several nights after her dad had turned in. Those clandestine visits had been filled with excitement, longing and the fulfillment they found in each other’s arms.

Not only that, but he liked barns. He’d always relished being around horses, taking care of them, riding them. There was freedom in riding a horse that he hadn’t found anywhere else. The scents of hay, sun-ripened wood and a musty dampness belonging to all barns filled him with the desire to purchase horses of his own someday. Wouldn’t Sean love that? And he could so easily envision Tessa by his side…

Tessa showed Vince to the tack room. There were white metal cabinets located beside the desk. She opened one of the doors and took out a tube of medication, handing it to him. “For Saddle-Up’s eye.”

He slipped the tiny tube into his shirt pocket then moved closer to her. “This afternoon turned out differently than I’d planned.”

“What had you planned?” she asked softly.

“A shopping trip. Maybe some necking in my SUV. Dinner, then maybe more necking, possibly at your house.”

“Necking,” she repeated and turned her eyes up to his. “We might have gone beyond that.”

He slipped his hand under her hair. “We might have.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing my dad called.”

He studied her for a long moment. “Why won’t you just let yourself feel and enjoy?”

“Because feeling and enjoying are fine, but what comes after…”

The truth was, he didn’t care about what came after. All he cared about was the need and hunger in Tessa’s eyes that matched his. All he cared about was getting closer to her again. All he cared about was stepping away from the past and seeing what the present brought.

He bent to her and kissed her. Nothing could have stopped the surge of need that rushed through him.

Tessa didn’t hesitate to reciprocate. Her tongue stroked his. As she pressed into him, her soft moan of pleasure told him she wanted more. But then she braced her hands on his chest and leaned away. When she looked up at him, her eyes were wide and vulnerable.

After taking a few moments to catch her breath, she said, “I have to know where we go from here. Are we just going to kiss and neck like teenagers, and at the end of August when your stint as chief is up, we’ll go back to our lives the way they were before you came?”

Her question frustrated him. “Why can’t you just accept
now?
”

“Because we had
now
once before and look what happened.”

He raked his hand through his hair because he knew she was right. How could he make plans when Sean and his condition were his main concern, when finding a job wasn’t as easy as choosing a career, when Sagebrush could be the last place on earth he wanted to stay?

“You won’t move from Sagebrush, will you?” he demanded, remembering how the security her father had offered had torn them apart before.

“Not now. I can’t. Dad could need me and I won’t turn my back on him.”

Those words meant something different to Vince today than they might have meant yesterday. Yesterday, he would have gotten angry, fallen back on the idea that Walter McGuire had always controlled Tessa and she would do what he said. But today, he knew there was real affection between the two of them as there should be between parent and child. He’d never known that kind of affection. Yet he felt it now for Sean and he understood how Tessa could feel it for her father.

How could Vince promise her more than “now”? How could he consider being the husband she needed when he’d failed at it once before? When he’d never had a role model to see how it should be done? Maybe that’s what had kept him from staying twenty years ago. Maybe that’s what kept him from moving them forward now. Tessa deserved someone who would put her first, romance her, court her, be steadfast and committed for the next fifty years. He didn’t know if he was capable of that. For now he was committed to Sean and that’s all he knew.

Tessa moved her hands from his chest and turned to the cabinet and closed it. Her hair slid along her face and covered her expression. “The feed bins are still around the corner and the horses’ stalls have nameplates. Saddle-Up is third from the end.”

As she headed for the tack room door, Vince wanted to catch her hand. But he didn’t. Maybe it was best he let her go.

“If I’m not in the living room with Dad, I’ll be in the pantry seeing what I can make for dinner. You’re welcome to stay.”

“I’ll see how late it gets. I don’t want Janet to become too at home with Sean.”

Tessa nodded her understanding and left the barn.

Unbidden thoughts turned back twenty years. He remembered when Tessa had been six months pregnant, lugging groceries up the steps to their apartment. For a change he’d gotten home at a decent time and he’d run halfway down to help her. He’d taken the grocery sacks from her arms, directed her to stay right there and run them up to their dingy apartment. Then he’d hurried back down and swung her up into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she’d gasped.

They hadn’t made love for a week. With his two jobs, he’d hardly seen her. “I’m saving you a few steps and welcoming you home. Tonight I’m going to make dinner.”