Butternut Summer (24 page)

Caroline had been tentatively sipping her cup of what by now must have been cold coffee, but when Jack said this, she slammed the cup down on the table, hard enough to make him jump back a little bit in the booth.

“
Stop it, Jack
,” she said, her face flushing. “Stop doing that thing again. Stop pretending to be so noble. First you say you left because you thought we'd be better off without you. Now you say you didn't come back because you thought we'd be better off with someone besides you. I'm sorry, but it's too easy. And it lets you off the hook completely. Your leaving was selfish—and a lot of other things, too. None of them good.”

“I agree,” he said, simply. “Because over the last couple of years, I've learned a lot about the lies we tell ourselves, the lies that get us through the night when nothing else can. Not even eighty-proof bourbon.” He was quiet for a moment, knowing what he needed to do and gathering his courage to do it.

“Caroline,” he said finally. “I've said a lot of things to you tonight, but I haven't said the most important thing yet, which is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the things I ever did to hurt you and Daisy.”

“That's it? You're sorry? And I'm supposed to forgive you?”

“Again, Caroline, that's up to you.”

She said nothing for a long moment, but then her face softened a little, and some of the anger, he saw, ebbed out of her. It gave him the courage to ask her a question he'd wanted to ask her since he'd come back to town. “Caroline, why didn't you get remarried?” he asked. “If not to that guy, then to someone else?”

“You think eligible bachelors grow on trees in Butternut, Jack?” she said, with a hint of amusement.

“No. But I don't think the guy I saw you with that day was the only person who pursued you either.”

She considered that, then shrugged. “No. He wasn't. There were one or two others over the years, but by then Daisy and I were getting the hang of it. Being on our own, I mean. It turns out, we were a good team; we
are
a good team. And when it came to the men . . .” She stopped.

“Yes?” he persisted.

“I wasn't in love with any of them,” she said. “Not really. Not enough to rearrange my whole life for them.”

“What about Buster?” he said, knowing he was pressing his luck.

“Buster?”

“Were you in love with him?”

“Buster was . . . different,” she said thoughtfully. “I don't know about love. But there was respect there. Tremendous respect on both sides, understanding, too. When I met him, I was old enough to know that what you feel for someone when you're younger—that attraction, or infatuation, or whatever you call it—isn't always as important as just liking someone, being comfortable with someone. I actually think I might have married Buster, if he'd wanted to get married.” She fiddled with her coffee cup.

“Buster didn't . . . didn't want to get married?” he asked, surprised.

“No,” she said, looking at him, her blue eyes still soft. “He didn't. I understood, though. He's widowed. His wife died many, many years ago, when their daughters were still young. His daughters are grown up now, of course, and have families of their own, families that Buster absolutely adores. But I think, like me, he got used to not being married. He liked his independence. The same way I liked mine,” she added, quickly. Jack nodded and said a silent thank you to Buster Caine for valuing his independence so much.

“All right, Jack, now I have a question,” Caroline said. “You agree your leaving was cowardly. But after you left, why didn't you call, or even visit? After that first time, I mean.”

“That was another lie I told myself. That it would be easier for the two of you if our break was a clean break.”

“Well, that really was a lie,” Caroline said, her bitterness surfacing again. “Because you try telling a three-year-old child that the father she misses thought a clean break would be easier for her.”

He closed his eyes, just for a second. This part hurt, more than the rest—the part about Daisy, Daisy in that little dress with the cherries on it, missing him.

But when he opened his eyes again, he saw that Caroline was rubbing her own pretty blue eyes.

“It's late,” he said, reaching for her dishes. “And you're tired. Why don't you let me clean up?”

But she held out a hand to stop him. “No, leave those for a minute,” she said. “I want to know how this works, Jack. The whole recovery thing.”

“Well, basically,” he said, shrugging, “I try not to drink.”

“No, seriously. Do you still go to meetings?”

“Absolutely. I'll always go to them. Right now I go to a meeting here in Butternut, at the Redeemer Lutheran Church. I meet with a sponsor, too, Walt Dickerson. I think you know him.”

Caroline made a face. “Of course I know him. He's so cranky, though. Whenever he comes in here, he complains about the coffee. Really, Jack, I don't see how he could be helpful to anyone, let alone a recovering alcoholic.”

“Well, he's not long on charm,” Jack agreed. “But he's been clean and sober for twenty-five years, so that's something.”

“I suppose,” she said distractedly. “But, Jack, can I . . . can I ask you something else about it? About your drinking?”

“All right.”

“Does your drinking . . . does it have anything to do with the scars on your back?”

“What?” he said, totally unprepared for that question. He felt it, then, the cold, prickly sensation he felt on his scars whenever he thought about how he'd gotten them. It was as if the hair on them were standing straight up. Of course, it wasn't—hair doesn't grow on scar tissue.

“Why are you bringing this up now?” he asked.

“Because it occurred to me that if you were . . .” She struggled a little here. “If you were abused, as a child, it might have something to do with why you became an alcoholic.”

“No,” he said, bluntly, wanting to put this subject to rest. “No, it's not like that, Caroline. With alcoholism, you can't connect the dots from one thing to another. I mean, a lot of people who have lousy childhoods don't become alcoholics.”

“So you did have a lousy childhood?” she prompted gently.

“I don't want to talk about it,” he said, trying to project a calm he didn't feel. He was starting to get that clammy feeling all over his body that he got sometimes when he thought about it.

“Okay, but just tell me one thing. Did you drink to forget something, Jack? Something from your childhood?”

“I didn't drink to forget.” Jack wiped his now-sweaty palms on his blue jeans. “I drank to not remember.”

“Isn't that the same thing?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because some things . . . some things you can't forget.”

Caroline was silent for a long moment. “I'm sorry, Jack,” she said finally. “I'm just trying to understand this. Trying to understand
you
.”

He nodded a little and felt some of the tension start to leave his body. The subject of his childhood, it seemed, was closed for now.

Something else, though, seemed to occur to Caroline. “What about Daisy?” she asked. “Does she know about your drinking, and your . . . not drinking?”

“She knows.”

“You told her before you told me?”

“Yes.”

“She never said anything about it,” Caroline said, with surprise.

“No. She thought I should be the one to tell you.”

Her shoulders sagged a little. “Daisy never used to keep secrets from me.”

“It's not a secret, Caroline. And I would have told you before now, too, but the last two times I spoke to you, you didn't seem to want to listen to anything I had to say.”

Her face softened again. “That's true enough. But, Jack? All the things you've told me tonight . . . what, exactly, am I supposed to do with them?” And she looked so tired when she said that—so tired in her own, lovely way, her blue eyes shadowed with faint circles, her skin softly flushed, whether from alcohol or emotion, he didn't know—that his heart went out to her.

“Do whatever you like with them, Caroline,” he said gently. “The rest is up to you.” What else could he say? He figured he'd argued his case. Maybe not argued it well, because, selfish bastard that he'd been, it was impossible to argue well. But he'd argued it honestly. It was out of his hands now.

She yawned then, a sweet, almost childish yawn, and Jack smiled and glanced at his watch. “It's getting late,” he said. “I'll clean up down here. You should be getting to bed.”

“I'll help you,” Caroline said. And together they cleared the dishes off the table and took them over to the sink behind the counter.

Jack checked to see that he'd turned off the grill, and then he wiped it down carefully while Caroline washed the dishes.

He heard her giggle then, and he glanced over at her.

“What is it?” he asked.

She paused in what she was doing. “I was remembering another night here, Jack. A night when we were dating, and we came back here, late, and tried to make something to eat, but we were laughing so hard, we woke up my dad. He was not pleased, as I recall,” she added, with another giggle.

“I remember that night,” Jack said, smiling. “We'd been to a party at Joey's cabin and . . .” His voice trailed off as he remembered the details of that night. During the party, he'd taken Caroline into one of the bedrooms and locked the door. He'd wanted to make love to her on the bed, where all the guests' winter coats were piled up, but Caroline had objected. She'd said it wasn't polite of them to lie down on the host's bed. So instead he'd taken both of their coats off the bed and spread them out on the rug, and then he'd lowered her down onto them and made love to her, right then and there. She hadn't objected to that. In fact, she'd returned his lovemaking with a fervor and an excitement that afterward had left him staring down at her in wonder.

He felt that wonder again now. But the wonder wasn't over her lovemaking; it was over the fact that her lovemaking hadn't been enough for him after they'd gotten married. Why, when he'd had her, he asked himself now, had he ever wanted, or needed, anyone else?

“You'd better be getting upstairs,” he said abruptly, turning away from the grill. Because the desire he felt for her now was the same desire he'd felt for her then, only stronger, if that was even possible. He skirted around her to the back door of the coffee shop, to the door that led to the stairwell to her apartment, and started to open it for her. But all of a sudden, she was beside him, leaning back against the door, and looking at him like she . . . well, like she wanted him. He felt his throat tighten.

“I'm not tired, Jack,” she said, her pretty face turned up to his. Her creamy skin was tinged with pink, and her blue eyes were shining brightly. She swayed a little toward him and smiled in a way that made him think she was still a little drunk.

“You might not be tired now. But you'll be tired in the morning,” he said, taking a step back.

But she ignored him. Instead, she reached out her hand and ran her fingers along his jawline in a way that made Jack inhale sharply. “Jack, I don't know what your liver looks like,” she said. “But the rest of you, the rest of you looks
so good
. Daisy's not home. Come upstairs with me, Jack. Just for tonight.”

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sensation of her cool fingers skating over his razor-stubbled jaw. “It's not a good idea,” he said, a little hoarsely, stealing a look at her.

“Oh, come on, Jack. How many women have there been over the years? Before me, during me, after me?”

He swallowed. “A lot.”

“Well, I'll just be one more then.” And she reached up and kissed him on the lips.

And Jack, idiot that he was, kissed her back. Tentatively, at first, because the sensation of kissing her was so strange—so familiar, and so exotic at the same time—but then harder, pressing her up against the closed door, tilting her mouth up to his and leaning into her. As his tongue tasted and touched and explored her mouth, and her tongue, too, pushed hungrily against his, he pulled her into him and felt every inch of her firm and supple body against every inch of his aching, needing body.

“Jack, come upstairs,” she murmured into their kiss. “Just for one night. I don't want to think now; I don't want to think about anything. You can help me do that, can't you?”

God yes
, he thought, because that was one thing he knew he could do for her. He could make love to her in a way that would obliterate every single rational thought from her brain, and his brain, too.

“Come upstairs,” she said again, pulling away from their kiss and looking up at him expectantly. Later, he was grateful that she'd ended that kiss when she had, ended it when he still had a modicum of self-control.

“Caroline, no,” he said, getting a grip on himself and taking a step away from her. “You've been drinking, and I don't want what feels like a good idea tonight to feel like a mistake tomorrow. And, as it happens, I know a little something about that.”
Besides
, he almost added,
I don't want a one-night stand with you. I want more. Hell, I want it all
.

She blinked, then nodded, then leaned back again against the wall. This time, though, it wasn't to invite him to kiss her; it was to support her weight. It occurred to him again how tired she was.

“Caroline, it's late. You need to get to bed.”

She looked at her watch and groaned. “I have to be back down here by six
A.M.
,” she said.

“No, you don't,” Jack said, making a snap decision. “I'll spend the night. On the couch,” he added, quickly. “You sleep in. I'll open tomorrow. I still remember how to do that, by the way.”