Long Way Home (19 page)

         “I
am home.  I have a job.  My life is here.  Not in Indian
Springs.”

         “You
have an existence here, not a life, and you only have that because Glen has let
rentals pass.  This was meant to be temporary, Tessa.  It’s time to
come home.”

         “I’ll
pay rent to Gib. I won’t go back to Indian Springs.”

         “Do
you think you are the only one suffering?  All those horrors were done to
you but it affected someone else, too, Tessa.  And he is just as lost
without you as you are without him.”

         “I
don’t want to hear about him, Mama.”

         “Too
bad because it’s time you should.  Shane is just as much a walking corpse
right now as you.  He has lost a lot of weight.  He rarely
smiles.  He’s all about his job now...Sinclair County Sheriff now that
Luke has retired.  You did that to him, Tessa.  He loved you so much
and you just threw it in his face.”

         “Mary,”
Gib cautioned but she ignored him.

         “He
begged you not to take that assignment.  You just had to prove you had
bigger balls than the boys, didn’t you?”

         “Stop
it, Mama,” Tessa snapped.

         “No,
I won’t stop!  You made that boy’s life miserable from the day you met him
and then when you finally got him, you used him up and broke him.  His
father almost died!  Luke...well, it was bad for a while.  How could
he leave?  Everything was running slow on your end.  He isn’t
psychic.  He couldn’t know things would go the way they did for you. 
No one could.  How could you blame him?  When that doctor came out of
the operating room and told us what had been done to you, what had happened to
you, Shane was devastated.  I know.  I held him in my arms when his
legs gave out and he cried on the floor of the waiting room.  He loves you
so much and you just threw it away.”

         “I
had to let him go, Mama, don’t you see?  They broke me.  I’m so
messed up; he doesn’t deserve to be stuck picking up my pieces, his chance for
a family of his own down the drain.  He deserves to see his eyes reflected
in a child of his own.  I can’t give him that.”

         Mary
cupped Tessa’s face in her hands, shaking her head.  “Oh, honey...what a
messed up mind you have.  You think by giving him up you’ve done either
one of you any favors?  You’re both miserable.  You need to come
home.  You need to face him.”

         “I
can’t, Mama,” Tessa whispered.  “I can’t.  I can’t see what he’s
become because of me.  I can’t.”

         Mary
let it drop then, but not all together.  She knew that Tessa and Shane
belonged together and she knew she had to figure out a way to make that happen. 
It wasn’t until the spring hit that something drastic enough happened that
spurred her into action.  Three something’s, really.  First, Gib
asked her to marry him.  Second, the trial of Nathaniel and Paul Helton
was approaching.  Third, and most important, Shane McCanton began dating
again.

         Shane
knew he shouldn’t have been surprised at how fast he was sucked back into the
routine of his hometown.  He came home lost.  Reeling.  He fell
into the work of his dad’s job, tying up loose ends for him.  His dad’s
recovery hadn’t gone as well as they hoped and Luke McCanton made the difficult
decision to retire.  Once his retirement was accepted, it took the town
council all of two seconds to ask Shane to step in to his father’s position,
and, seeing as how he had no reason to return to Austin, it took Shane all of
two seconds more to say yes.  It also didn’t take him long to realize that
as much as he loved his folks, he was not going to be staying with them longer
than he had to.  He quickly found an apartment to rent and began
construction on his new home...by the waterfall on his family land, just as he
always planned. 

         He
tried not to think too much of the fact that many of the features he was adding
to his home were from the Dream List he and Tessa made that night on the
blanket.  He tried not to think much about Tessa at all, though that was
pretty much a moot point; he thought about her all the time.

         The
first few days after she threw him out of her room, he kept going to the
hospital, hoping she would relent.  When she didn’t, he went home, picked
up a bottle of Jack Daniels and for the first time in his life, drank himself
into oblivion.  He wasn’t proud of it, and really hated that Crownover had
come and picked his sorry butt off the floor where he’d collapsed.  He
swore that was the last time he’d ever turn to the bottle to ease his
pain.  It had helped, but only temporarily, and then he’d felt worse.

         After
Tessa was released from the hospital, Gib came to see him and updated him on
her condition, and told him they were flying her to his beach house in Cabo San
Lucas for her recovery...and then with a look of apology, Gib handed him
Tessa’s engagement ring.

         Shane
packed up that night and went home to Indian Springs.  Aside from his
father, his family had no idea he and Tessa had begun dating again, much less
that they’d been engaged.  So, as devastated as he was, there was no one
at home he could share why with, because he wasn’t going to unload on his dad
or do anything to risk his recovery.  Of course, they knew something was
up with him.  He was a shell of his former self.  He had very little
appetite so he was losing weight, but at the same time toning up because he
found a long, vigorous run numbed his mind better than alcohol and a strenuous
workout was even better, so when he wasn’t working or running or working on his
new house, he was in the gym.

         The
only relief he found was when his childhood best friend, Steve Sinclair’s
younger sister, Ivy, moved back to town.  Ivy was four years younger than
him and Steve and madly in love with Steve’s college best friend, who was a
football player for the Dallas Cowboys.  The first Sunday she was back in
town, she followed him out of church, offering him a smile.

         “Hey,
Shane.”
  He stopped and regarded her, smiling as he noted that his
friend’s sister had grown up.

         “Hey,
Baby Girl,” he greeted, embracing her.  “When did you get into town?”

         “Wednesday. 
Home to stay,” she told him, kissing his cheek before she pulled back. 
“What’s wrong, honey? You look so sad.  What’s happened?”

         He
took a deep breath and looked over her head, watching everyone file out and
into the parking lot.

         “It’s...a
really long story.”

         “Well...I’ve
got time.  Wanna tell me about it?”

         For
a moment he hesitated, then decided he needed to talk to someone about it.

         “Wanna
come check out my new place?  Just moved in last weekend.”

         “Love
to,” she smiled.

         Over
beer and pizza, Shane spilled the whole agonizing tale.

         “So
that’s it.  She couldn’t even stand for me to touch her, not that I blame
her.  I stay in touch with her mother.  Tess is in Cabo San Lucas
staying at her former boss’ house and working as a bartender.”

         “She
staying there with him?”

         “No,
he’s dating her mother now.  It kills me to think of her all alone down
there, but what can I do?”

         Ivy
took a sip of her beer.  “Know why I came back?  I had to get away
from Reese,” she said, referring to her brother’s friend.

         “Away? 
But I thought -”

         “Yeah,
me, too.  Reese is too wrapped up in his career for a relationship, and as
much as I want him, I couldn’t keep putting my life on hold.  I was
offered the job as the assistant band director at the high school here, so I
took it.”

         “He’ll
come around,” Shane assured her.

         Ivy
laid her hand on his shoulder.  “I hope so...Tessa will, too.”

         Shane
kissed the side of Ivy’s head when she leaned into him.  “I won’t hold my
breath on that one.  I just hope she can overcome what was done to her.”

         Ivy
sighed.  “Why couldn’t we be attracted to each other?”

         He
chuckled.  “Life would be so much less complicated, huh?”

         “It
really would.  I’ve been in love with Reese my whole life it seems. 
I thought when I was living there close to him that we’d finally get together.”

         “Didn’t
quite work out that way, did it?”

         “No. 
Well, it did, but not like I wanted.  He’s not ready.”

         “So,
what, you’re just going to sit around and wait for him to come to his senses?”

         “I
love him,” she said simply, “like you love Tessa.”

         “Pretty
pathetic, aren’t we?” he snorted, finishing off his beer.

         “Pretty
much.  So, how long do we wait?”

         “Damned
if I know,” he replied, resting his cheek on the top of her head.  For a
while they sat in silence, just enjoying each other’s company.  Like she
said, it really would simplify things if they could feel something more than
just friendly brother/sister affection toward one another.  His mother had
always wanted him to end up with Ivy.  Her mother was his mother’s best
friend. 

         “Are
you really going to be happy being Sheriff here, Shane?  After all the
action and excitement of the big city?”       

         “I
couldn’t stay there.  Too many memories at my place and at the
office...and too much resentment toward my team members who were on watch when
she was...when all that happened to her.”

         “That’s
perfectly understandable.”

         “God,
I love her, Ivy,” he said, his voice cracking.  “I miss her so much. 
I want to help her, but she blames me for what happened.”

         “She
doesn’t blame you, honey.  That was just her self-preservation
talking.  You always hurt the ones you love?  That kind of thing.”

         “I
promised her once that no one would ever hurt her again...but someone did hurt
her, on my watch.”

         Ivy
sat up and faced him.  “Stop that.  What happened to Tessa was not
your fault.  You had to come home to be with your dad. Tessa knew the
risks involved when she took the assignment, right?  You can’t beat
yourself up over this.”

         He
shook his head, eyes brimming.  “I can’t stop.  They broke her,
Ivy.  They...and I wasn’t there to stop it.  I couldn’t-”

         He
broke then.  Months of holding back, of pushing everything down came to
the surface.  Ivy gathered him into her arms and held him tight, stroking
his hair and back to soothe him and just let him ride it all out.

         “It’s
OK, honey, just let it all go.  It’s all right,” she whispered.

         After
several minutes, he took a deep breath and pulled back, scrubbing his hands
over his face.

         “God,
I’m sorry,” he breathed.

         “Oh,
please.  Don’t apologize.  I understand...and you’re human.  I
won’t tell a soul.  Promise.”

         He
reached out to stroke a hand over her brunette hair.

         “Reese
is an idiot,” he said softly.

         “Oh,
yeah, he’s a huge idiot,” she laughed, turning her head to kiss his palm when
he touched her cheek.  “But Tessa’s not.  She’ll come around,
Shane.  She just has to heal.”

         He
and Ivy began to spend a lot of their free time together.  The town
thought they were an item and neither of them did or said anything to set the
record straight.  They enjoyed each other’s company and it helped them
both to not be alone all the time.  He was grateful for the time he got to
spend with Ivy until the day her man retired from the Cowboys, took the job of
Indian Springs’ new high school football coach and moved to town.  While
Shane was happy things were beginning to work out for her, it made him acutely
aware of how much he missed Tessa.  It had been months since he’d last
seen her and lately he’d been fighting the urge to hop on a plane to go to Cabo
and try to talk some sense into her.

         He
still loved Tessa in spite of it all, which was why he’d been surprised when
one night while making the rounds on patrol he came across a woman stranded on
the side of the road and he felt a stirring of interest when he looked into her
clear blue eyes.  She was Wendy Shapland, and she was moving to town to be
the new public librarian.  She’d run out of gas 20 miles outside of
town.  He’d taken her to a gas station to fill a gas can, brought her back
to her car then followed her back to the gas station to make sure she arrived
safely.  They chatted while he filled the car up for her and he learned
she’d rented his old apartment in town, and when she was about to leave, he
surprised them both by asking her to a Welcome to Town dinner at Miss Nettie’s
Restaurant. 

         Wendy
was as different from Tessa as night and day.  Tessa was tall and
athletically built.  Wendy was shorter and a bit curvier, more
Girl-Next-Door than Tessa.  She had a calming effect on him and he found
he liked being around her.  On their third date, he kissed her outside her
door.  She was the first woman he’d kissed since Tessa and while he didn’t
feel the overwhelming, all-consuming passion Tessa’s kisses ignited, there was
a definite spark between them.  For the first time, he considered that
just maybe there was life after Tessa Kelly.