You're Still the One (9 page)

I went to my favorite teacher, Mr. McRose, so scared I could hardly talk. He was about sixty, his wife was an attorney, and they helped me become an emancipated minor. I had often been an angry student. I had gotten into fights, sometimes even with my fists, with other kids. I had a short fuse. I was taking it on the chin at home, so I wasn’t going to take it at school, too.

In some twisted way, it made me popular because it made me intimidating, cold, and tough. A real rebel who had her own cool clothing style and who had affected a swagger. But Mr. McRose reached out a hand to the desperate kid who was faking that swagger.

I lived in the apartment above their home. They insisted I live there for free; I insisted on paying two hundred dollars a month. They only acquiesced when I started to walk away. “I won’t take charity. I’ll pay you or I’m leaving.”

Mr. McRose cried, and his wife led me up the steps. My apartment was bright, yellow, cozy, clean, with lots of windows and a lock to keep my dad out. I loved it. It was the first time since living with my mother that I lived without fear.

My dad threw impressive fits. He even came to school, steaming, blowing smoke, threatening. Twice. The police were called. He went to the McRoses’ house, hammered up on alcohol, screaming for me. The police were called again. I had to take out a restraining order on him after he clocked me in the face and broke a window in my apartment with his fist.

The McRoses, who I’m still close to, helped me. I stayed in school. I worked full-time. I saved everything I could. The teachers adopted me for the next three years at Christmas. I was given boxes full of food and used, but really nice, household furniture. New coats, new boots, new sweaters. I’d never had new clothes. A new red purse, I remember that, from Mrs. McRose. And, most helpful, a new bike. That bike helped hugely because I could bike to work instead of taking the bus or walking, and I could bike away my pain down charming roads in the country. It was my freedom and my survival.

It was the first time I felt cared for. The McRoses liked me. The teachers liked me. I hadn’t felt liked in forever. That helped me even more than the gifts. I have never forgotten their kindness.

I nailed the SAT because I was hell bent on going to college and I studied for months. An education was my way out of poverty. I had a 4.0 grade point average. I had excellent recommendations from teachers who were honest about my circumstances and told college counselors that I had persevered against heavy odds.

I got a full-ride scholarship.

I moved on. I moved forward.

I didn’t know what else to do.

“Let’s talk over dinner, Allie.”

I sank onto my dad’s couch with my mother’s red-and-white flowered quilt on it, my head in one hand, my phone in the other. I had returned late last night from my trip and I knew Jace was not happy. He was a kind man, but he was a proud man, and he was frustrated with me, with us. He did not like getting the runaround. I got it.

“Jace . . .”

“I have calzone and salad and I’m bringing it down to your place.”

“Jace—”

“Jace what?” he snapped.

“I’m—”

What to say?
I thought of you my entire trip and I’m wiped out and I have no resistance against you at all . . . I can’t wait to see you . . . I can’t believe I’m thinking very seriously of moving, because then I would never see you; but it would be another form of hell to stay here and be near you as your life goes on . . . I have missed you since Yellowstone . . . I love you and I want to jump into bed with you more than I’ve wanted anything.

“You’re what, Allie? No, hold that thought. I’m coming down and you’re going to eat Italian with me.”

He hung up.

I stared at the phone, then looked up at his architecturally stunning, warm, safe house on the hill. He would do what he wanted to do. He would be here in five minutes.

I ran for my closet and my lipstick.

It is amazing what a woman can do for her looks in five minutes, if pushed.

 

 

“How were the interviews?”

“They were fine.”
I missed you.
I put down my fork. I love calzone, but I could hardly focus on it with Jace sitting across the kitchen table from me looking all manly, the sun plopping down over the horizon. I had lit my scented candles. He looked even lustier by candlelight, and that beat down my resistance to him even more.

“And? Are you moving?”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you offered jobs?”

“Yes, two offered me jobs and I received a call this morning from the third.” The salaries were impressive. The workload would be incessant, draining, and no Jace.

He nodded, those brown eyes guarded, not happy.

I had a quick vision of me underneath him on his couch the other night . . . how far we’d gone, how yummy and toe-tingling it had felt.

“I would be selling expensive clothes to expensive women again. Traveling, too.” How frivolous. How lonely. I was wearing a burgundy sweater with a deep V, jeans, and crystal earrings, my hair up in a loose ponytail. I will not admit that I wore a black push-up bra so my cleavage would be up and out for Jace. I was so much more comfortable without the tottery four-inch heels I wore during the interviews.

“Would you be happy doing that?” he asked.

“No.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Do you not like me?”

I like you and I love you.
“No. I like you.”

“Good. I like you a lot. You’re my favorite person. Let’s play a game.”

“A game?”

He pulled his chair over until our knees were touching. “If you don’t kiss me, we don’t go to the barn dance together. If you do kiss me, you’re my date.”

“I’m not going to kiss you.”

He grinned.

“For heaven’s sakes, Jace.”

I stood up, he stood up close to me. I moved to the left, he moved to the right. I moved to the right, he moved to the left.

He knew I was starting to feel waves of luscious desire rolling on through. I could feel my own blush. He knew what he did to me. He bent that dark head, his mouth an inch from mine. He pulled me close, hip to chest.

“That’s not fair. You can’t touch me.” My voice was all whispery, breathless.

“That’s not part of the rules.”

I took a few steps back. He backed me into the wall. I put my hands on his shoulders and laughed; couldn’t help it. Sexual tension did it, I was sure. We were pressed up close to each other. “One kiss, Allie,” he murmured. “One.”

He pressed up even closer, tight and warm, and I wanted to wrap my legs around his hips. I could smell him. Mint, pine trees, yum. His mouth was inches from mine.

“I missed you,” he said. “Missed your smile, your laugh.”

My eyes fluttered closed and I breathed in deep. The man was overwhelming.

“I looked down the hill and your lights weren’t on. You weren’t there.”

I was revved up about as high as I could go. I could feel his heart under my hand.

“I thought of you not being there, and I think I’d have to sell my house, honey, if you moved.”

Desire zigged and zagged through my body, and I felt weak.

“Maybe we should discuss this kiss in bed, babe?”

“Ahhh . . . not in bed.”

“Kiss me, Allie. One kiss. For the barn dance.”

I couldn’t help it, I was shivering for the man. I put a hand behind his head and brought his lips down to mine.

“Please don’t leave, Allie,” he said, between marvelous kisses that traveled all over.

 

 

My dad kept holding open the door with his urn.

I didn’t know what to do with his ashes.

People often spread their loved ones’ ashes.

But where would I spread my dad’s? He was not a “loved one.” He was a scary, manipulative, drunken loser.

Did I even owe it to him to spread them?

 

 

Jace came by at seven o’clock the night of the barn dance.

“I told you I’m not going to the barn dance.” Heck no. “I don’t dance anymore, and you tricked me with those smokin’ hot kisses.”

He laughed, walked into my house, and shut the door.

I had showered with apple-scented body wash and apple-scented shampoo, not because of the barn dance and Jace, but because I like apples, and for no other reason. Same with the apple-scented lotion I spread all over afterward, too. I also put on a low-cut, lined, white lace shirt; a pretty yellow bra; my tighter blue jeans; cowgirl boots; and lipstick, because I was tired of being frumpy, and surely Margaret and Bob—he who hates squirrels—would appreciate my efforts.

“I don’t dance, Jace. I don’t need to meet people, I don’t know how to play the fiddle, and Marvin, Bob, and Margaret need my company. They’re lonely. And I need to find Margaret’s pink stuffed bear. She can’t sleep without it.” By the time I stepped back from Jace’s smokin’-hot kisses that night, all my clothes were on the floor and he was shirtless. Oh, how I loved that sweet man naked . . .

“I’m lonely for you, too, Allie. You kissed me last time, and that makes you my date for the barn dance, per our agreement, and you look . . . you look . . . absolutely gorgeous.” Jace’s chest heaved up for a second, and his jaw was held pretty tight. “As for the dancing, I know you dance, I’ve seen you dance, you have perfect rhythm, you don’t need to know how to play the fiddle, and the animals have had you all day. Marvin wants me to tell you to go to the barn dance.”

I looked at Marvin. He meowed. I refrained from meowing back in front of Jace. Marvin meowed again, irritated with my lack of conversation.

“I’m staying home to embroider.”

Jace studied me and I studied him back. He had on jeans, a blue shirt, a cowboy hat, and well-worn cowboy boots. Man, if he was any sexier, I would pass out, I would. I so loved that weathered look he had, too—that tough, rough, I can round up cattle, ride a horse, and sew your leg up if you need stitches look. My heart beat like a fool.

Jace smiled, free and easy, the tough-guy face softened by indulgence and humor. “You’re going to stay home to embroider? Well, okay. We’ll stay here together. I’ll hand you the thread.”

“I can’t embroider when people are watching.”

“You can’t embroider at all, Allie.” He winked.

“That’s true. I think I’m going to dust.”

“Looks clean enough in here to me”—he glanced around—“plus housework bores you out of your mind.”

“And I’m going to take a toothbrush to the wood floors and clean them.”

“I’d like to see that. Maybe you could do it naked.”

“I have told you not to make comments like that.”
Stop, foolish heart!

“Okay. Well, you could be naked and so could I. We could clean about a foot of floor and then do something else.”

Full-blown, 3-D images of what he and I could do after we cleaned a foot of floor, nude, filled my mind. My gaze went to his chest. Wide, strong
,
safe
.
Then his hips. Ah, how they moved
.
“I’m trying to stay out of trouble with you, Jace.”

His face became serious, but I saw the kindness there. “We’re not going to get in any trouble together, Allie. We never did, we never would. We’d be together. That’s it.”

Jace wrapped his arms around me. On instinct, I hugged him back, our temples together. That big bazooka then started to dance me around my family room, past the magical apple tree painting, singing a country song. I got that giddy, breathless, smiley feeling and gave in, my feet following his. What else could I do?

I rode the first wave of desire, starting from my brain and heading toward the nether regions. I sucked in my breath and pulled away before I stripped and handed him a toothbrush.

“Okay, Jace.” I laughed. “Yes to the barn dance.”

He shook his head mockingly. “Shoot. I was thinking it would be better if we stayed home and worked on that embroidery pattern.”

“No, oh, whew. No.” My whole body was now throbbing, all drummed up. “Can’t do that.” I turned and grabbed my keys. “Let’s go, cowboy.”

He chuckled, deep and sweet, but I didn’t stop to catch that inviting gaze again. I couldn’t.

I might turn around and head for the bedroom.

The red barn was decked out in white twinkly lights, hay bales, and a few chickens who wandered in and out. An amazingly good honky-tonk band belted out one country song after another on a stage. The barn was jammed with people in jeans, cowboy hats, and boots, and rows of tables holding traditional American barn-dance types of food—fried chicken, baked beans, chili, cornbread, corn, and salads. In typical American fashion, there was also Asian, Mexican, and Italian thrown in.

Jace brought ribs in huge tin pans. “I’m the rib man,” he joked.

“I’m the pie woman.” I’d baked three apple pies. Not because I’d been planning on going to the barn dance with Jace, oh no.

Later I took tiny slices of different pies: apple, pecan, lemon meringue; then bites of pies called Coconut Devil, Explode Your Taste Buds Chocolate Pie, Bite Me (raspberry-rhubarb), and Sexy As Hell.

Sexy as Hell was my favorite—it was a butterscotch pie.

The pie competition was fierce here, I thought, then laughed.

I met a lot of people. A number of them knew my dad. I was shocked to find that they liked him.

I asked Pearl about this as we shared a slice of pie called Wake Up Your Romantic Life, a three-layer slice of chocolate heaven topped with chocolate chips and whipped cream.

“ ‘Pearl,’ he told me once, ‘I hate myself for what I did to Allie and MaeLynn. I hate myself. Hate myself.
Hate myself
.’ He said it three times. I told him to stop making life gruesome for everyone else and get out there and be friendly and helpful to atone a little bit for his past.”

“Did he do it?”

“He sure did, sugar. That’s why these people liked him.”

I watched a chicken strut by. Did I still hate my dad? If so, how long was I going to hate him for? How long was I going to let myself be angry at him and the past? The hate was hurting me, not him. How much more of my life was I going to allow him to negatively affect?

“He said he bought the house and apple orchard to make amends to you, Allie.”

“I think he bought it to make fun of me and how many apples I used to eat.” I heard the bitterness in my voice. “He called me apple-core face. One time he broke my mother’s purple-flowered china plates, which I used to cut apples on. I still have the pieces.”

“I’m sorry, sweets, about the plates, but he did buy the apple orchard for you as a gift and as an apology.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not at all. He wanted you to have all the apples you could ever want. He told me that.”

All the apples I could ever want. I could hardly wrap my mind around that one. My father had wanted to give me a gift.

“He did love you, Allie, and your mom. He was simply too demented with alcohol to show it.”

I sniffled and Pearl squeezed my hand. I saw Jace laughing with some other cowboys. One of the cowboys was the police chief, the other was a lieutenant with the fire department, the third owned property in Hawaii.

Man, he was better-looking now than he was when we were younger.

He was a whole heck of a lot of man.
Real man.