T's Trial: A Bone Cold--Alive Novel (22 page)

“Very funny. I think I’ll go see Lyla about these changes.”

“You’re tired, remember? Barely able to stumble up the steps. Much too tired to do the wash. On your deathbed.”

“On yours. I think I’ll get cleaned up first.”

“That’s a good idea. But why bother? Why not just call her?”

“Why don’t you be obtuse?”

“I’m trying.”

“If I leave, you can dig out the bourbon you’ve got hidden around here someplace.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Bertie said you’d been to Oklahoma. Go for your health?”

“You might say that.”

“Are the keys on your dresser, Dad?” He stacked his empty plate on top of Fletch’s. “I’ll even take the dirties in for you, put the clothes in the dryer.”

“Tell me something, T.” Fletch let his voice soften and watched the younger man slow before the French doors.

“What?”

“When are you going to tell her the truth?”

“Tell who what truth?”

“Lyla. The truth about yourself. When are you going to tell her you’re the most sought after man in the United States—the most reformed druggie there is. When are you going to tell her you leave a trail of dashed hopes and broken hearts and forgotten dreams wherever you’ve been? Or even tell her about your hopes and heart and dreams?” He looked over his shoulder at T who just stood there, Fletch’s frontal assault having caught him off-guard. “You going to tell her before or after you take her for a tumble? Tell her first, okay, so she can decide if she wants to be dashed and broken and forgotten like everyone else?”

The spoon clattered in the ice cream carton balanced on the plates, and Fletch watched T fight for control, win it. “Fletch, I could kill you for that. Have you heard nothing I’ve said about Lyla? I love her. I will not hurt her.” His teeth were clenched.

The door closed behind him before Fletch could reply. Eleven days down, ten to go. Somehow, he didn’t think they’d make it.

*  *  *

The Quik-Lee was closing. The neon lights on the store sign went off just as T pulled into the lot. He made a quick decision and parked by the front door, rushing to get out and knock before Lyla had a chance to get upstairs. He thought he’d missed her when he caught sight of her shadow by the counter. “It’s me!” he shouted through the glass door. She smiled as she recognized his voice and motioned for him to go around to the rear. He jumped back in the car and did so. She was waiting for him, leaning against the opened back door.

He pulled the Mercedes up close, no parking in the bright guard light tonight. Grabbing the sheaf of music, he got out. “You barely caught me,” she said. “After I close up, I never come back downstairs.”

“Not even if I’d played Romeo?” He dropped abruptly to one knee in front of her. “Lyla, Lyla, wherefore have you closed before midnight, Lyla?”

She smiled broadly at his whimsy. “No business. Anyway, it’s just past nine. Decent people need to be off the streets by now.”

“Well, I guess I know which lot that puts me in.” He rose and grinned at her,  didn’t wait for a formal invitation as he moved before her into the storeroom. He still smarted from Fletch’s attack, the truth in it working its way through his system. If its purpose had been to cool his hormones, one look at Lyla in a pair of old shorts and a Fourth of July T-shirt tied at the waist had demolished that. She was as sexy and desirable now leading him up the stairs to the apartment as she had been at The Manorborne. The whiff of Joy he detected as he’d come in the door only added to his ardor.

She opened the door, kicked off her sandals, and called out. “Harrison, guess who’s here?”

Harrison? Well, of course, the boy would be with his mother. T adjusted his features from hopeful lover to just friendly and reached down to pet the dog that bounded toward him. “Hi, Sam!” The boy was on his knees looking over the back of the sofa, the television behind him playing an adventure movie.

“Hi, sport!” Where did that phrase come from? He must be regressing to the television of his childhood.

“I saw our bass boat at the marina this afternoon! Did you go out with Bertie? It was in her slip.”

“Yes.”

“She won’t take me on her houseboat. Says it’s too much responsibility for an old woman. Will you take me?”

“What appeal could an old houseboat have for you?” T stood behind him with his hands on his hips and the music curled in his fingers.

“He’s never been, therefore, he wants to go. I’d say it was pretty typical eight-year-old behavior.”

“Is it neat?”

“I’d say it was clean now.”

Lyla snickered behind him. “A little slave labor, was it?” T turned slightly toward her. “She’s been looking for someone to clean that sucker for ages.”

“I’d say sucker was an apt word.”

“Want some iced tea?”

“Be nice.”

“You mean, she invited you and then made you clean it?” Harrison was incredulous. “Aren’t you any smarter than that?”

“Harrison.” It was more of a groan from Lyla than an objection.

“Obviously not.” T accepted the tea from her. “It was an experience, though, I’ll say that.”

“Grandpa said she was there at five this morning getting everything ready for something. He missed y’all’s coming though. He got so busy I had to go look for him to see what was tied there. Norm said there was one born every minute, just like Bertie to have twins. What’d he mean by that, Mom?”

Lyla started to answer then shut her mouth. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“I’ll forget by then.”

“I doubt that,” T answered, then chose to plunge into the next question without thinking, “Didn’t Tib have anything to say about this? Seems like everyone else has.” He heard Lyla tap her foot, chose to ignore it.

“Nah, Tib just came in to complain about the patrol boat not being fixed right. He was kinda mad since he had to use it tonight. Then he said something to Grandpa like, ‘Okay, you win, old man, hands off from me, too.’ Will you at least tell me what that means, Mom?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“But you’ve got a good guess, right?” T asked as he joined Lyla at the kitchen table where she had arranged iced teaspoons, sliced lime, and artificial sweetener. She chose to ignore him.

“Don’t you want to watch the movie? It’s about—”

“Harrison.”

“Okay.” He collared the dog and pulled him down on the sofa. Their heads disappeared.

“So are we the local laughing stocks?”

“Probably are in some circles. Others would say it was good enough for you. Still others might speculate that Bertie still has that old touch of hers to get someone else to do what she doesn’t want to.” She sipped the tea.

“And what do you say?” He squeezed the lime in, twirled it with his finger like she had done at dinner Thursday. Their eyes held and he nudged her knee with his. She didn’t move, only smiled slightly as she answered him.

“I’d say it was pretty sweet of you to stay with what you obviously figured out was a set-up. You two are good sports.”

“And sweet?”

“Noble?”

“Maybe we just didn’t have anything else to do.”

“So who cleaned the kitchen?”

“We both did.”

“The head?”

He smiled limply. “She really got me on that one. How did it get so bad?”

“She hasn’t used the boat in a long time. Lake water is not a fit guardian.” She laid her hand on the table near his. He brushed his fingers over hers, felt electricity far from where his hand touched hers. “So,” Lyla stumbled over her words, “so how did she talk you into this?”

“Promised to teach me how to sail it.”

“Sail it?”

“We swear she said sail. We expected a sloop.”

“Poor innocent lambs.” She curled her fingers over his, squeezed. His thumb rode over her knuckles. “So did you learn how to sail?”

“Frontwards, backwards, and even sideways.” He disengaged their hands, stroked her cheek. “I have nighttime sailing privileges now.” His thumb tarried on her lips, quickly backed off as they heard Harrison thump a pillow.

“I’d say it was a good thing we were chaperoned right now.”

“Depends on your point of view.” He gulped some tea. “So would you like to go for a cruise sometime?”

“Some night time?” She raised her eyebrows, a touch of disapproval.

T backpedaled. “Day is fine. Bring Harrison. Bring the dog. I don’t know that I want you to bring Tib.”

She laughed. “You could bring Fletch. Maybe we could go out tomorrow afternoon.” Her bare foot slid over his sandaled one. “Make sure you really know what you’re doing before you have to guide on instruments alone.”

His heart was racing. “It’s a deal. But if you don’t stop that, I’m going to explode.”

“Can’t have that. All that pent-up music would be all over the place. What a mess!” She rose and touched the iced end of her tea glass to his neck. “Need some more to cool down?”

He winced. “Saucy woman.” She refilled his glass.

“What are the papers?” she asked, changing the subject as he spread the sheets out.

“As if you didn’t know.” Their voices had risen back to a normal level. “You changed my music.”

“I improved your music.”

They surveyed the sheets now spread side by side on the table, covering the better part of it. “If you were going to mess with it, why not start at the beginning?”

“I liked the beginning.”

“Now it doesn’t go with the end.”

“Maybe you have two songs here.”

He thought on that. “No. Just one.”

“Open your mind, if not your ears.” She pointed to a score halfway down the second page. “It changes here. Another song.”

He studied it. “No.” Trust me, he wanted to say. Come home with me and I’ll show you the awards to prove my ability.

“Well, it’s your song, you do with it as you will.” She placed her hand on the back of his neck, gently massaged. His inner artiste calmed down.

He closed his eyes and gave himself over to her ministrations. “I don’t take criticism well.” Therapy notwithstanding, he doubted he ever would.

“I’m not a happy camper when someone changes my music either.”

He squinted his eyes. “I’m sorry about that.” Had it only been a week ago that he had sent her running from her own house, had chased her out of it with her own music? He wouldn’t do it now. Couldn’t do it now.

She sat back down beside him. “So maybe you deserved to have your music changed.”

He cupped his chin in his left hand and studied her impassive face. She didn’t blink, just stared back at him. He wanted to take her in his arms and apologize physically, but realized that wasn’t what was called for. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Lyla. I was—was still in a delicate mental state.”

“Why don’t you just come clean with me about which one of you has been recovering?”

He placed his hands together as if in prayer, blew into the space between them, eyed her. “Fletch has been stressed out and I have had an—” truth or dare? “—alcohol and drug problem.” There! It was done, part of Fletch’s ‘tell the truth’ game was out in the open. Let her reject him now before he became even more emotionally and physically tied to her.

She lowered her eyes. “So you came here to finish recovering. Life in the slow lane, no entanglements, off by yourselves. See no one, talk to no one, cause no controversy.” She raised her eyes to his.

“That was the idea.”

“And it has backfired.”

“In a nutshell.” He needed to know how she felt. “Are you upset about this? You want us to leave?” Rejection, always his worst fear.

She laughed. “I’ve taken more bull in the last week off this community and my relatives because of you two than in my whole life. Leave? No way. We see this thing through to the end.”

Relief. But on a personal level? “I’m glad, but what do my former problems do to—” what to say? He wanted to know what those years of abuse did to her opinion of him, of them as a couple if he could ever pursue it.

She finished the sentence for him. “To us?” He nodded weakly. “Is there an us?”

There will be, he thought, if you let me. “I thought there might be.”

“Recovery is a hard row to hoe, so to speak.”

“Tell me about it. I used to be a nice guy.” Long, long time ago. Before he got very far in school.

“Something in you still is a nice guy.” She reached to touch his cheek. He turned his lips to kiss the palm of her hand.

The loud thump from the other side of the sofa broke the mood. Lyla immediately arose, T following. She leaned over the back of the sofa and laughed gently. Harrison had fallen asleep and rolled off the cushions. He still slept.

“Must have been a big day.”

“When you’re eight they pretty much all are around here. I’ll get him to bed.” She started around. T beat her to it, picking up the boy, cradling him in his arms. As he followed Lyla to Harrison’s bedroom, he sadly realized he had never carried a sleeping child. Shep jumped up on the bed as Lyla pulled the sheet over the small form. She leaned over and gently kissed him and then stroked the side of Shep’s neck. She left the door cracked as they went back through it into the kitchen. “I’ll see you down.”

Just as well, he thought. A romantic tussle on the sofa that had held her son hardly seemed appropriate in light of their conversation. Not that it wasn’t inviting, or that he would have declined an invitation. He rolled the music and followed her down.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned. “What time tomorrow?” Please, don’t have changed your mind.

“Going to church?”

“That might be a bit of a stretch. If we sat by Bertie, they’d think she’d adopted us.”

Lyla smiled. “You know your neighbors right well, Mr. Thomas. I’ll have to round up some extra help for the store. Undoubtedly, Murph has someone in mind. Nothing like a little extra money. Normally, you realize, I wouldn’t do this. I’d plan two weeks in advance and rearrange the work schedule and not have to pay time and a half.”

“Then I’m doubly honored you’d consider.”

“Let’s say two at the slip, unless I call you otherwise.”

“It’s a date.” He didn’t move. His hand still rested on the railing post. “Lyla—”

“There’s nothing to explain, Sam.” Her voice was soft, gentle.