Getting Lucky (18 page)

Delaney looked at her, both eyebrows up. “Tucker said that?”

“Just now.”

Delaney sighed as if she wished Tucker hadn’t done that. “Okay. Well, there is a woman in TJ’s past who was…difficult. And who has been in and out of his life for years.”

Hope leaned back against the sink, bracing her hands behind her. “His ex?”

Delaney turned to fully face her. “You know about Michelle?”

Michelle. So that was her name. “Yes. Is that a good thing?”

Delaney grabbed a towel to dry her hands. “It’s a surprising thing. He doesn’t like to talk about her.”

“Here’s what I know,” Hope said. “They were married, she caused him a lot of trouble, cheated on him, they broke up, but she still calls him sometimes.”

Delaney’s eyes widened. “That took me almost a month to get out of him, and Tucker still had to tell me most of the details.”

They moved to the table. Hope took a seat and folded a leg up underneath her. “And now he goes for women who are…what?”

Delaney took the chair next to her. “Women he doesn’t know well. He never dates women from Sapphire Falls. He only sees them for a short time. Never introduces them to family or friends.”

Hope thought about that. Either he was protecting himself from finding another Michelle…or he was leaving himself open in case Michelle changed her mind.

Neither was good.

“So tell me some of these details about Michelle that you’ve learned,” Hope said.

“I don’t know if I should. Shouldn’t TJ tell you?”

“He will,” Hope said with confidence. TJ already trusted her, and she loved that he did even as his head was telling him he shouldn’t. “But I want your interpretation of it. As someone who knows him and loves him.” She wouldn’t ask just anyone she ran into in town about TJ. This was personal stuff. But this was someone he was close to, and Hope was working on a short timeline here. She wanted to know TJ and knew Delaney could tell her something that would take months to get out of TJ.

Delaney took a breath and seemed to be considering that. Then she nodded. “Okay, well, I know that she doesn’t deserve the attention he gives her.”

“Why does he give it to her then?”

“I think he feels obligated. I think
he
thinks that he loves her, but I don’t think he really does.”

Hope hated that TJ thought he was in love with this woman. And it didn’t surprise her that she cared. She had a compassion for people in pain of all kinds, and adding that to her physical and emotional attraction to TJ seemed like the perfect recipe for caring—a lot.

“Tell me about her.”

“They’ve known each other all their lives. They had a relationship in high school.”

“After he protected her from her stepfather,” Hope filled in.

Delaney shook her head. “Wow, he told you that too? Tucker had to tell me that part.”

Hope shrugged. “People always tell me stuff.” Sometimes even things she didn’t want to know. “I’m easy to talk to.”

“I guess so,” Delaney agreed. “But I think it’s great. TJ doesn’t lean on people—ever. He doesn’t open up. He doesn’t let people close easily at all.”

And all of that made him even more attractive to her. Hope loved a challenge. As the temporary help on her nursing assignments, she’d often been given the tough cases—the kid scared to death of needles, the woman who heard four different voices in her head, the old man who thought any woman under the age of fifty couldn’t be trusted. And she’d won them all over.

TJ Bennett didn’t scare her.

He fascinated her.

“I’ll help him with that,” Hope said. “Tell me more about Michelle.”

Delaney looked surprised and impressed by Hope’s confident declaration. “She lives about an hour away with her husband—the guy she cheated on TJ with. But she’s from here, so she comes home a lot to visit. She’s here at least once a month. She’ll go out partying, get drunk or in a fight or a sticky situation, or all of the above, and she calls TJ.”

“And he shows up every time,” Hope said.

“Every time,” Delaney said with a nod. “He’ll go pick her up, bail her out, smooth things over and let her sleep on his couch—or I’m sure he gives her the bed and he takes the couch.”

“They don’t…do they…” Hope wasn’t sure how to ask the question that was nagging her. Or if she
should
ask. It wasn’t her business. But it felt like it was.

“They don’t sleep together,” Delaney said. “Not since she left him.”

“That’s what he told Tucker?” Hope asked.

“That’s what Michelle told her girlfriends,” Delaney said. She grimaced slightly. “This is a very small town. It’s hard to keep a secret long.”

For which Hope was grateful in that moment.

“Do her parents still live here?” Hope asked.

“Yes. And her sister.”

“So if she and TJ aren’t sleeping together, why doesn’t she sleep on her parents’ couch?”

Delaney sighed. “Because it’s TJ. It’s not his style to dump her off on someone else when she’s called
him
.
It’s their very complicated, dysfunctional…thing. She loves knowing that he’ll always be there for her, and she has to test it on a regular basis.”

Fascinating.

“Her husband doesn’t come visit with her?”

“He stays home with their son.”

A son. Okay.

“So he stays home with their kid while she goes out partying and calling up her ex,” Hope said. “I’m guessing that gets her husband’s attention too.”

“You nailed it.”

“So TJ thinks he’s still in love with her?” It didn’t exactly bother her to think that. Mostly because she was fairly certain it wasn’t actually true. But Hope really wanted to help him get
over
that.

Delaney shrugged. “Maybe. TJ will do anything for the people he loves. I can’t figure out why else he puts up with her crap. But I think he’s also afraid of what she’ll do to get his attention if he tries to ignore her or tell her no. If she calls when she’s just a little drunk and needs a ride and he goes to get her, it keeps her from doing something stupid or reckless or dangerous.”

“This also gives TJ something he needs,” Hope said thoughtfully.

Delaney leaned her elbows in on the table and looked at Hope closely. “I think you’re right.”

“Where do you think this need to help her over and over comes from?” Hope asked. Delaney seemed to really care about TJ, and if he’d opened up to her at all that meant he trusted her, at least as much as he trusted anyone.

“TJ believes that being in someone’s life means you’re always in their life, no matter what happens, for better or worse.”

That sounded nice, on the surface. Until it led to an unhealthy dedication to a woman who used him repeatedly. Hope frowned.

“It’s almost as if…” Delaney paused as if thinking through what she wanted to say. “It’s almost as if the harder it is to love someone, the more it means to him.”

Hope thought about that. Something else that sounded nice but could mean a lot of heartache. “Where’s that come from?”

“Partly his mom and dad, I think,” Delaney said. “Evidently some stuff went down in the past—I know TJ ended up in jail for beating some guy up. Because of Michelle, of course. I know he got kind of dependent on the whiskey bottle after she left. But through it all, his family was there, especially his parents.”

“I happened to meet his dad earlier,” Hope said. “He seems great.”

“He’s the best,” Delaney said with true affection in her expression and tone. “He’s the textbook father figure.”

Hope inwardly grimaced at that. It would have bothered most people to find out their father might have cheated on their mother and had a child with another woman, but by all accounts, Thomas Bennett was revered. No wonder TJ had reacted so strongly to Hope’s initial claim that Thomas was her father too.

“So TJ wants to be like his mom and dad.”

“And Dan.”

Hope froze. Dan. Was there another Dan in these peoples’ lives? “Dan?”

“Dan Wells is Thomas’s best friend. He’s like an uncle to the boys.”

Nope. Same Dan. Okay. Hope worked on not revealing anything with her expression. “You think TJ wants to be like Dan?” She was happy that she didn’t stumble over the use of her father’s name.

“Kind of,” Delaney said with a nod. “Dan only has a daughter—who also gets into a lot of trouble.”

Two daughters, actually
, but Hope kept her expression carefully stoic.

“The Bennett boys are like sons to him. Especially TJ.”

TJ was like a son to Hope’s father. That was also…interesting.

She was once again grateful to the heavens that none of this was actually biologically true.

“So Dan also stuck by him through those tough times?” Hope asked. She didn’t want to push too hard to get this information, but she suddenly felt hungry to know everything Delaney did about everything related to TJ.

“Definitely,” Delaney said. “And he’s seen both his dad and Dan really prove that love means toughing things out even when the other person doesn’t seem to deserve it.”

Hope coughed lightly and cleared her throat. For some reason, that choked her up. Probably because it reminded her of her mom. Hope had rebelled against almost everything Melody believed in. They’d had a number of heated arguments about medicine and healing, and Hope had accused her mother of being out of touch and worried that
real
medicine would cut into her livelihood. But Melody had never said a harsh word back. “How so?” she finally asked.

“Dan’s wife suffers from some pretty serious issues. A lot of depression. I know she’s attempted suicide twice.”

Hope felt her mouth fall open. Suicide?
That
might have been worth TJ and Thomas mentioning more specifically. No wonder they were freaked out about how Dan’s wife might react to her.

“Wow,” she finally managed.

“Yeah. And their daughter, Peyton, is a challenge. She’s a lot like Michelle—loves to party and get into trouble. She has terrible taste in men. She picks losers who move in with her so they don’t have to pay rent and run up her credit cards and push her around.”

Hope felt her heart clench at that. Her sister had some issues. She had a depressed, suicidal mother and boyfriends who treated her like garbage.

The feeling of protectiveness shocked her. Hope had never felt protective of anyone in her life. Not her mother—Melody had been completely self-reliant and had never needed protection. Not her patients—she was there to care for their illnesses and injuries, but she didn’t take that on herself. Not her friends—she didn’t have many who were all that close and she tended to migrate toward people who were strong and confident.

So the idea that she wanted to take care of a little sister she hadn’t even known she had before today and that she’d never met was entirely foreign.

“And Dan’s always been there,” Delaney said. “For them both. He’s never left Jo, even though I’m sure that would have been easier. He’s toughed it out. He’s shown everyone what real love is.”

Hope was torn at that.

Part of her loved the idea that her father knew how to love deeply and had been there for Hope’s sister. Sticking by someone’s side through it all was admirable, for sure. Not that she would know firsthand exactly. She’d been pulling herself through things on her own forever.

But it didn’t feel quite right either, that love had to be hard to be real. She loved that Thomas and TJ’s mom had been there no matter how much he screwed up. She loved the idea that a man could love a woman so much that there was nothing she could do to make him walk away. But part of her resisted it at the same time. First, that loving someone had to be a chore to be strong and real. And second, that people would put their loved ones through that. Everyone was ultimately responsible for themselves—their actions, their reactions, how they handled things. Everyone had bad things happen to them. Dragging the people they loved down with them didn’t seem very…loving.

Again, Hope worked to keep her expression mild. “So TJ thinks that it’s really love with Michelle because it’s hard.”

Delaney looked at her with a little frown. “What?”

“That’s been TJ’s model of love—the hard times, toughing it out, being there no matter what.”

“Isn’t that really love?” Delaney asked. “When the person is there for you no matter how bad things get?”

“Maybe,” Hope said. Honestly, she didn’t really know. If she had decided to drink herself into a stupor over something gone wrong, her mom would have left her alone to figure out that hangovers were no fun and weren’t productive. Of course, Hope had always met things head-on. She would never have thought that whiskey was the answer. “That’s part of it, I guess. But what about the good times? What about the things to celebrate?”

“Well…they’re there for that too,” Delaney said. “This family gathers for happy occasions too. All the time. They have dinners, barbecues, birthday parties, you name it.”

“But do they say the words or do they leave quiet, grumpy TJ alone because they think that’s what he wants?” Hope asked, her thoughts spinning.