Second Chance (8 page)

“You’re not bad at this,” I said.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” he whispered down into my ear. I could feel the heat of his breath against my skin and I could feel my heart starting to race.

Without realizing it, I laid my cheek against his chest. I closed my eyes and our bodies moved to the rhythm of the music. His mouth moved down and rested on the top of my head.

I had not been with a man this way in a long time. The romance in the room was palpable. Just as the song ended, I looked up at Tanner. He started to lean down, and then we heard a loud noise that sounded like a train. The house rumbled and shook, and debris started falling from the ceiling above us.

“Get down!” Tanner yelled as he pushed me onto the blanket and covered my body with his.

For what seemed like hours, the sounds and shaking continued. I screamed and started crying. Within about 30 seconds it was over.

“Shannon, are you okay? I didn’t hurt you did I?” Tanner asked in a worried tone as he rolled off me.

“I’m okay… are you okay? Did you get hit with anything?” I asked sitting up slightly and putting my hand on his forehead to check for cuts.

“No, I’m okay,” he said reaching up to hold my hand.

“I can’t believe you threw yourself over me. No one has ever done something like that for me before,” I whispered, my eyes locked on his.

“Well, they should have…” Tanner whispered back. The attraction was obvious and hanging thick in the room like a fog. The house has stopped shaking, and the storm felt as if it had passed outside but only strengthened inside.

Tanner leaned down and lightly brushed his lips on mine. I swear I felt a bolt of lightning travel from my lips to my hips.

“Tanner…” I whispered not sure if I was asking him to stop or keep going.

Before he could continue, we heard someone upstairs yelling down to us.

“Is anyone in here?” a man yelled from the top of the stairs.

“We’re down here!” Tanner yelled back as he jumped up to his feet. He walked over to the stairs and looked up. “Oh, my God…” he said with shock pulsating through his voice.

“What? What is it, Tanner?” I asked as I made my way up to my feet.

“Look…” he pointed up the stairs. I could see daylight above the police officer’s head. He was standing at the top of the stairs talking into his radio. Debris was all over the stairs, blocking us from going up.

“The house!” I yelled as I tried to brush past Tanner to climb over the debris.

“Ma’,m! Don’t do that! It isn’t safe to climb the stairs,” the officer shouted at me holding his hand up. “A tornado hit this house. We’re going to have to send a rescue crew down to bring you both out. You were very lucky today,” he said.

“Did he say lucky?” I said angrily as I walked away from the stairs. “Lucky that my new house, the only place I have to live, is now destroyed?” I faced away from Tanner, aware that the tears were on their way.

“Yes, lucky, Shannon. We’re alive,” Tanner said putting his hands on both of my shoulders.

“I need to call Courtney… see if she is okay,” I said stepping away from Tanner enough to cause his hands to drop to his sides.

“The storm wasn’t tracking near Atlanta. I’m sure she’s fine. But, she is probably very worried about you,” Tanner said.

“We’ve got a rescue crew on the way. Just hang tight, folks,” the officer yelled down to us.

A little bit later, the crew arrived and used a harness system to bring us both up the stairs. I went first, followed by Tanner. When we got to the top of the stairs, neither of us was prepared for what we saw.

The top floor of the house was severely damaged. Over one hundred years of history was wiped away in moments. There was major water damage on the main floor, and the roof was sheared away in several areas.

“You realize this house is not habitable now, ma’m?” the officer asked me.

“Yes. I understand…” I said, mouth still gaping open in shock. My furniture was ruined. What little I had brought with me was either gone altogether or damaged beyond repair.

I felt like a black cloud had made its home above my head. Had John somehow orchestrated this tornado to steal more of my life away?

“Who is the owner of this home?” the officer asked me as we stepped away to have a conversation.

Tanner continued to walk around the living room and kitchen, looking up and down. While I talked with the officer, I could see the pain in Tanner’s face. He loved that old house, and he was just as devastated as I was.

I finished up with the officer just in time to hear excitement in Tanner’s voice.

“Shannon! Look!” he was pointing out the back window toward the guest house. I looked and saw the most amazing sight. The guest house and barn were still standing as if the tornado had skipped right over them.

“Oh my goodness! I can’t believe it. They don’t look like they were hit at all. Tanner, how wonderful for you. Your home survived,” I said touching his shoulder.

“Our home,” he said turning around and smiling.

“What are you talking about?”

“You need a new place to live, right?” Tanner grinned like a schoolboy.

“Um, no… I will go live with my sister…” I started to say.

“Shannon, stay here. Build your new life here. Let me help you have fun again…” he pleaded with me. “I will be a good boy. I promise. No funny business.” Why didn’t I believe him?

Chapter 13

Against my better judgment, I told Tanner I would take him up on his offer to move in. The guest house only had one bedroom, but he offered to sleep on the pull-out sofa bed.

It took a couple of hours for the police to finish up their work and instruct us on what to do. I called Parker to let him know what happened. He was none too happy that he would have to deal with the contractors and insurance company if he wanted the repair work done. Honestly, I wasn’t concerned about it. After all, it wasn’t my house anyway.

I called Courtney, who was beside herself with worry. She was moving to her dorm the next day, so I assured her that I was fine. I never mentioned Tanner. Just told her I was moving into the guest house for the time being.

Tanner prepared dinner that night again. It was grilled chicken with barbecue sauce, mashed potatoes and black eyed peas. I loved his Southern cooking. It made me feel at home. Cared about. Wanted.

We piled onto the sofa after dinner and he turned on some music.

“Long day…” Tanner said leaning his head back on the sofa. He was sitting with his back against one end and I was on the other end.

“That’s an understatement,” I said exhausted. It was late in the evening when we ate dinner and now it was bedtime. But my mind was still racing, and I knew I couldn’t sleep yet.

“Can I ask you something?” Tanner asked smiling.

“Sure…”

“Would you have let me kiss you?”

“Maybe,” I whispered looking down at my hands. “But, it would have been wrong.”

“Wrong? Why would it have been wrong?” Tanner reached over across the small sofa and tipped my chin up with his fingers.

“Because my husband just died… and I promised…”

“A husband who was a jerk and an abuser… And you promised what?” Tanner asked.

“I promised myself that I would never let myself fall for another man again. I can’t risk it,” I responded.

“So your plan is to go through life without loving any man again?”

“Yep.” I snipped turning my head toward the front door.

“And how is that working for you?”

“Not very well right now…” I said smiling. “But there is a difference between love and lust.”

“Oh… are you lusting after me, pretty lady?”

“No, I am not… Just the heat of the moment…”

“It’s in the heat of the moment when living begins, Shannon. How can you live when you are closed into a box that some abuser built for you?” Tanner asked.

“Tanner, I just met you. It’s been a whirlwind of a week for me. Don’t push, please…” I pleaded looking into his eyes again.

“I don’t mean to push you, Shannon. Really I don’t. I just see things in you that you don’t see. I don’t want to see you waste your life away by putting yourself into an invisible prison. That’s what John wanted…”

“You sound very sure of that,” I responded with my eyebrows furrowed. “Did you ever meet John?”

The silence was deafening. Tanner looked at me for a moment and stood up. He walked over to a small desk near the front door and pulled out an envelope.

He sat back down and was on the edge of the sofa looking down at the paper.

“I have to tell you something about myself, Shannon,” he said quietly. Suddenly, my stomach knotted up because I knew I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear.

“Okay…”

“When Tina took Emmy, I needed an attorney. I had been trying to find her on my own, but I couldn’t. I called the law office and was paired with John. We only ever spoke on the phone. I told him that I didn’t have a lot of money, but I wanted to find my daughter. We talked a few times about it, and one day John called me. He said he had a job for me to do, and that if I did it well, he would find my daughter for free,”

“A job?”

“John had been diagnosed with his illness by then. He knew his days were numbered. He also knew that I had a lot of experience with horses. He told me about this place and said that I could live here and work with the horses…”

“Yes, I know that part… But, what is in the envelope?” I asked.

Tanner shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He sighed and shook his head to himself.

“I told you that John had a trust fund. That fund pays for a lot of the expenses of living here. What I didn’t tell you is that John actually wanted me to do another job for him after he died. He wanted me to hurt you…” Tanner said as he handed me the envelope. The apologetic look on his face startled me.

I slowly opened the envelope and took a deep breath to steel myself for whatever was inside. The contents shocked me. In it, I found a letter from John to Tanner spelling out the details of how he was to pretend to fall in love with me, lure me in and then dump me at the altar. He was to have a letter waiting for me back in the room at the church where I would hear from John from beyond the grave.

His hatred for me was in every pore of the letter. For this “job”, Tanner would be paid $250,000 by Parker. That money was in a trust separate from the house one and the one set up for Courtney.

“Oh, my God…” I said quietly as I laid the letter on the coffee table in front of me. “I knew he hated me, but I never knew how deep it went…”

“I’m so sorry, Shannon… I wasn’t going to tell you…” Tanner started.

“You weren’t going to tell me? You were just going to break my heart into a thousands pieces, leave me standing at the altar and cash your check?” I bolted up from the sofa with tears streaming down my face. I headed for the front door, but Tanner cut me off and slid his body between me and the door.

“No… Shannon, please listen to me for a minute. Just a minute, okay?” Tanner pleaded.

I stepped back and crossed my arms in front of me.