Never Let You Down: The Connaghers, Book 4 (6 page)

Chapter Eight

Standing outside the front door, Jeb straightened his tie one last time and slipped his right hand into his coat, checking the inner pocket. The box was still there, tucked away and out of sight. Just feeling it there gave him hope that someday she might say yes, even if it was months or years away yet.
Assuming, of course, that I ever find the courage to broach the question.

He raised his hand to knock on the door, but when he saw his fingers shaking, he lowered his hand. His stomach was even worse. There wasn’t any way he was going to be able to eat a single bite of food at dinner.

In fact, he even started to turn away and head for his car, but the door swung open so hard it almost knocked him flat on his ass.

“Goodbye, Mother.” Virginia’s voice was even and calm, but he knew her too well. Even if she hadn’t practically knocked him out with the door, she only called Miss Belle that when she was so furious she wanted to curse. “Jeb.” She strode toward his waiting car without even sparing a glance at him. “Nice Caddy.”

Through the still open door, he called, “Good evening, Miss Belle. I’ll have her home early.”

“Don’t you dare, son,” Miss Belle said with a wink as she closed the door.

Son. Now that was a first. Shaking his head, he started to follow Virginia, but then he took a good look at what she was wearing.

Good God Almighty. That designer daughter of hers ought to have her own shop on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The silk flowed and hugged Virginia’s body perfectly, managing to be provocative and sexy without the skirt cut too high or the bodice too low. She’d even managed to disguise the cast Virginia had been so worried about with a cascade of thin, gauzy material down to her wrists. Deep, rich red against the evening sunset, glowing brighter than the fireball slipping into slumber for the evening. “Wow.”

She paused at the passenger door and looked back at him. She’d pulled her hair back with a simple clip at the base of her neck with a few waves free about her face to soften the angular lines of her cheekbones. Her eyes were hard, her mouth tight with whatever argument she’d had with her mother, but in his head, he might as well have been taking her to her senior prom. Just a few decades later than he’d expected.

“Are you coming or not?”

“First you didn’t want to go to dinner with me, and now I’m taking too long.” Deliberately, he kept his pace to a leisurely amble instead of flying to her side and flinging the door open like the anxious, overeager teenager inside him thought he should do. He opened the door for her, trying not to show how much it affected him to see her sliding into his car. To know that she was his for the evening. Finally. After too many years to count. “Thank you.”

Eyes narrowed suspiciously, she searched his face. “For what?”

More emotion echoed in his words than he’d planned, so he gave her a big smile.
For giving me a chance, no matter how slim.
“You said you liked the car.”

She relaxed back into the seat and the barest of grins cracked her stony demeanor. “I always did like a Cadillac, even though they’re pretentious enough that’s all Miss Belle ever drives.”

He shut the door and walked around to his side.
That’s exactly why I bought this beast as soon as I set my mind on coming back to find you.

He buckled his seat belt and then noticed she was having a hard time buckling hers with one hand. Not that Virginia Connagher would ever deign to ask for help. He leaned over and pulled the belt for her. “Do you remember the first time you drove a Caddy?”

As he hoped, the question distracted her long enough that he was able to get her buckled in safely without her biting his head off. “Not really. Miss Belle’s was off limits and she was too damned psychic. If I even thought about touching the door handle, she’d march up and wallop me with that deadly parasol she used to carry around to protect her precious porcelain skin from the Texas sun.”

He drove down the driveway to the main blacktop into town. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she didn’t remember. He’d treasured so many precious little moments, while she’d apparently blocked everything from her memory. “You were going crazy that you couldn’t drive Miss Belle’s car when you liked it so much. So one day I borrowed Dad’s car while he was seeing patients and took you for a ride.”

“Borrowed? Weren’t we pulled over and practically arrested?”

“
I
was practically arrested. Until the new deputy called Dad to the scene and he realized I’d taken the car.”

“But wasn’t I driving?” She frowned, as if she was only just letting the scene play through her mind after all these years. “I didn’t even have my license yet. Good God, Jeb, why the hell would you do such a fool thing? What if I’d wrecked that car? Daddy would have—”

“Paid to have Dad’s car fixed,” Jeb broke in gently. “Miss Belle would have grounded you for a century, or so she would have claimed, but deep down, they would have really just been relieved that you were okay.”

“Didn’t you get in trouble?”

“Sure did. I was grounded for two months and had to clean Dad’s clinic every night after dinner. Plus I lost my driving privileges.”

“You rode your bike to school,” she said softly. “Why on earth did you do such a thing?”

He glanced over at her, catching her gaze for just a moment.
She honestly doesn’t know.
He sighed and turned his attention to the road. For not the first time in his life, he wished Tyrell hadn’t bought land so far out in the middle of nowhere. “I did it for you.”

“But why? I mean, honestly, I never asked you to steal a car and risk so much trouble for both of us. Though I guess you sure didn’t have to twist my arm to get me behind the wheel.”

“Nope,” he replied, smiling at the memory of how her eyes had lit up with excitement. She’d even thrown her arms around his neck in a quick hug before hopping behind the wheel. “Just like I didn’t have to twist your arm when we got caught sneaking into Mr. Tolson’s orchard and stealing peaches. Or when a bunch of us skipped school to go to the beach.”

“Oh, man, I remember that. None of us had suits but that sure didn’t stop us from stripping down to our skivvies and jumping in. We were crazy fools, weren’t we?”

“Indeed.” He didn’t dare look at her again because he’d be remembering what she’d looked like in her simple bra and panties. Or how he’d worried that his interest would be too visible in his boxers. Thank God it’d been chilly that day and they’d barely been able to last an hour in the water. “I don’t think Miss Belle ever figured that one out, did she?”

“Not that I know of. It was senior skip day anyway.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, but you weren’t a senior, Ginny. Not that one year slowed you down any. You hopped in my car with everyone else and away we went.”

“Jebadiah Garrett, why on earth did you let me do such a thing?”

He snorted and shook his head. “Like anything could have stopped you? Besides, you asked me to go. I never could tell you no.”

She shifted her cast restlessly. “If my arm wasn’t busted, I’d reach over and punch you.”

He had to swallow to try and get some moisture back in his mouth. “A fate worse than death, surely.”

“If I’d told you to jump off a cliff I guess you would have just broken your fool neck.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “Yes ma’am.”

“With a smile on your face,” she muttered, shaking her head. “What am I going to do with you? Are you still that gullible?”

Oh I have only a million or so suggestions.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wondering if he could reach down and adjust himself without her noticing. “Probably. You ought to tell me do something stupid and see if I’ll actually do it.”

“You’d do it all right.” She sighed but her lips were soft, the hard, guarded lines of her face erased by the walk down memory lane. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.” He said it too quickly, ardently, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted her questions as much as he wanted her orders, her deliberate commands, her touch.

“Was I ever…?” She sighed again, her right hand opening and clenching in her lap. It made him want to reach over and take her hand, but he didn’t want to risk hurting her injured arm. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry if I ever took advantage of our friendship. I got you in a lot of trouble and I know people talked. About us.” She laughed, but it sounded forced and uncomfortable. “Like we were a couple.”

It was almost a question. Could she really not know how he’d felt about her all those years? He wasn’t sure how to respond. The Westwood Inn appeared ahead and though he’d regretted the long drive before, now he wished he had another half hour or so in the car with her. It felt like they were on the verge of a breakthrough where she might finally understand what she’d meant to him. What she still meant to him.

He parked the car and turned off the ignition, but didn’t immediately open the door. “I would have asked you to my senior prom. In fact, I’d already worked out how I was going to make it a joke, a dare, to make sure you’d go with me, because I sure knew Virginia Healy wouldn’t ever back down from a challenge. But then you made it into the jumping finals in Dallas the same weekend.”

“I didn’t know,” she said softly, her voice quivering, but she didn’t lift her head. “I didn’t—”

“I bought a ring,” he said in a rush, determined to get it all out in the open. He started to touch the box again, but he made himself squeeze the wheel instead.
It’s too early. You ask her now and you’ll blow everything.
“I know it was stupid. How was I going to ask you to marry me when I couldn’t seem to even ask you on a real date? But I had it all planned in my head. Every weekend I came home, I was going to ask you, but somehow always managed to go back to College Station banging my fist on the steering wheel all the way to the dorm. I finally decided I’d come back for your senior prom and ask you, but then Sissy told me you were dating Tyrell. I’d missed my chance.”

She finally turned and faced him but he didn’t have the courage to meet her gaze. “Why? Why didn’t you ever ask me? Tell me? Give me any kind of hint that…”

“That I loved you,” he whispered harshly, gripping the wheel hard to keep from reaching out to her. “Because you were my best friend, Ginny. I didn’t want to mess that up. I didn’t want to risk losing you. I thought that maybe someday if I was always there for you that you’d look at me and see not just a friend, but a man. A man that you might care for. Even love. Then you met Ty and it was all over. All I had to do was look into your eyes and I knew you loved him. You never looked at me with that kind of longing. You never wanted me like that.”

His voice broke but he couldn’t stop. Now that the dam had opened, he couldn’t stop spilling out the words he’d been dying to tell her his entire life. “Until that night you came to Texas A&M. That’s the only time you ever looked at me as a man and not your friend. Don’t you remember, Ginny? How it was between us? But it wasn’t enough, because you went right back to Ty and told him everything.”

“I had to. I loved him. I wouldn’t… I couldn’t…”

“I know,” he replied hoarsely, finally turning his head so she could see the agony that must have been grooved into his face. “But you loved him more than me. Even after all those years we’d spent growing up together. You couldn’t even bear to look at me after that. You refused to talk to me. So in the end, I lost you, just as I feared, but it was worse than I ever imagined after you showed me what it could have been like for us. I lost you and I wanted to die.”

Virginia’s throat ached worse than her broken arm. All she could do was stare at Jeb and try to find something to say that could undo the hurt she’d done to him. God, she’d been so stupid. So blind and selfish and foolish. “I’m so sorry. Jeb, I had no idea.”

“I hunted Sissy down, dragged her to my car, and drove like a demon to catch you, following you back to Crystal Springs that night. I had to make sure you got there safely. Then I went to see Tyrell.”

Her eyes flared with surprise. “You did? You…”

“I talked to him before you did. I told him everything. I told him it was my fault, that I’d tricked you into coming to College Station so I could make one last attempt to steal you away from him.”

She shook her head. “Even then, you were still trying to protect me.”

“He wasn’t even mad. He sure wasn’t surprised.”

She opened her mouth, but couldn’t seem to find anything to say. Ty wasn’t surprised that she’d kissed another man? “But I saw the bruises on you both. You were in a fight.”

“Later. After you talked to him. That night, though, he told me it was up to you.”

She couldn’t wrap her mind around what Jeb was telling her. All those years, Ty hadn’t said a word. He’d never told her he had this talk with Jeb before she’d ever found him to tell him the truth. “What was up to me?”

“He said, and I quote, ‘I promised her she’d get exactly what she wants. If she wants you, she’ll tell me. And if she don’t, then I’m going to beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of you.’”

Her mouth fell open again. Closed. Opened. But she could only stare at Jeb.

“So when Ty showed up alone at the house the next evening and asked me outside, I knew the truth. You didn’t want me.”

“He… And you…” She closed her eyes, trying to seal out the truth, but it was too late.

Ty had known the truth before she’d ever even admitted it to herself. And he’d never said a word. She’d looked him in the eye and told him she didn’t have any feelings whatsoever for Jeb. A sound escaped her lips, a half-strangled hiccupping laugh of shame.

“Ginny?”

“I lied.” She looked up into his dark, concerned gaze and fought not to burst into tears. “I never thought I could do it, but I did. He knew it too, but he never called me on it. He let me lie to his face. I can’t believe the bastard let me go on and on like a half-brained twit and never said a word. Damn it all to hell, if he wasn’t dead already I’d be tempted to beat him within an inch of his life. But then he’d only enjoy it.”

“Ginny,” Jeb repeated, louder.