Don't Let Go (9 page)

I licked my lips as my fingers twitched, itchy to pull things out and explore. But to what end? Something else to fill up time I didn’t have? I closed the door. I had a business to run now.

Chapter 6

A whole day with no drama.

No Becca tantrums—she got up and fixed herself some Pop-Tarts and headed off to school. No Johnny Mack canings. And no Noah sightings. It felt almost normal. And had me feeling just skippy enough to hit Ruthie up on her night out offer. Why not, I thought. It had been forever since I’d been out to eat with anyone except Becca—well, unless you counted the pizza and beer with Patrick. I didn’t count that, since it was really all just foreplay.

I even left work an hour and a half early so I could run some errands before I went home. And smiled at Georgette Pruitt when she flashed her new delivery of white carnations for her carnival parade float.

I got in my car without a second look at the diner, this made easier by the fact that I started parking on the other side of my building. Deciding to top off my gas tank, I slow-rolled into the station, turned down the song I’d just cranked up, and got out.

And enjoyed my peaceful feeling for about fifteen seconds into my fill-up.

The midnight blue Ford truck that pulled up behind me at the next pump had a chrome grille so shiny I could have fixed my makeup in it. I actually chuckled at that thought until the driver’s door opened and Noah Ryan stepped out.

It was everything I could do not to groan out loud. I was so damn close.

He closed his door and glanced back inside to Shayna sitting in the passenger seat. “Hey, Jules.”

I smiled politely, remembering the sort-of precedent we’d set at the bank the day before. “Hey.”

Shayna opened her door then and stepped out, still looking adorable even without her chic red dress. She looked girl-next-door sweet in faded jeans and a hoodie pullover. I turned my focus back on the pump handle in my hand and thought of happy thoughts. I thought of Ruthie’s cupcakes. Of Harley and her sweet face. And how—

“Babe, I’m gonna grab a drink, want something?” Shayna asked.

“Yeah, a Coke, thanks,” Noah said offhandedly as he pulled a card from his wallet and fed the pump its magical numbers.

His words triggered a memory. Coca-Cola used to be the only soft drink he’d touch.
“Coke’s the real deal, Miss Ju-li-an-na,”
his young smart aleck-voice reverberated in my head as I flashed on a second-grade elementary school moment. I’d bought a Dr. Pepper from the “Coke machine,” as they are all called in the South. And a young, cocky Noah, sweaty and dirty from playing touch football at recess, stood there with his seven-year-old swagger and dissed my choice.

“So,” I said. “I like Dr. Pepper.”

“That’s because you’re a stupid girl,” he said. “With a stupid name.”

“Well, who asked you?” I said, scrunching up my nose. “You stink.”

“Why’s your name so long, Ju-li-an-na?” he said, his voice mocking.

I made a face and walked around him. “Why do you have dog poop on your jeans?”

He whirled around like a dog chasing his tail. “I do not.”

I laughed, sitting cross-legged on the grass. “Made you look.”

The glare I got was short-lived. He dropped to the ground in a lunge, as if he were practicing reaching first base. “You need a nickname.”

I shrugged. “I have one. My dad calls me Jules.”

Noah nodded and sat up, as if he had to give that some deep thought. “That’s better. At least for someone who drinks Dr. Pepper.”

Wow, I thought with a start, there was something I hadn’t pulled up in decades. I studied his profile as he leaned against his truck. Worn jeans that fit him like heaven. A blue sweatshirt with the sleeves shoved up on his forearms.

“Here you go, honey,” Shayna said, walking between our vehicles to hand him the icy can. She glanced my way and did a double-take, smiling curiously.

I saw Noah take the cue and his manners kick into gear. “Shit,” I whispered, staring down at the pump handle.
Don’t do it, Noah. Don’t do it, Noah.

“Jules,” he began, and I raised my head with a smile as if I knew nothing. “I don’t think I’ve gotten to introduce you to—Shayna.”

I met his eyes and caught the pause, no matter how slight. He was going to say
my fiancée
, but his tongue flipped it just in time. In any case, I was glad. I’m not sure I could have masked my reaction that well.

Shayna turned to me with an outstretched hand and a soft smile. “Hi. Shayna Baird.”

Her long dark hair was shiny and perfect, even pulled back into a carefree ponytail with shorter pieces falling around her face. She didn’t look thirty. Fresh-faced and dressed like she was, she looked like she could model for an outdoor magazine or a college catalog. When I pulled my hair up like that, I looked like I was scrubbing my toilet.

“Julianna White,” I said, noting her firm handshake in lieu of the limp girly one I expected. Noah had said she was a military brat, so she’d probably been taught right.

“Nice to meet you, Julianna,” she said, her eyes showing the slightest hint of wariness. She knew who I was. It was there.

“You too. Oh and—call me Jules,” I said, darting a look to Noah. “My full name usually means I’m in trouble—or my grandmother is hunting me down.”

Shayna laughed. I laughed. Noah just looked as if he were stuck in a bad dream. My pump mercifully clicked off and I had something else to do besides stand there. She started making her way back around the truck and the words came out of my mouth before I even knew they were there.

“Congratulations, by the way,” I said, feeling all the awkward atoms of the universe descend upon our little fifteen-foot area. “On the baby—and the engagement.” Noah’s eyes fixed on me with a clear
What the hell are you doing?
look, and if I’d had one for
I have no fucking clue
, I would have used it.

Shayna’s steps faltered, and I watched as she looked at him with questions before turning slowly back to face me. “Um—thank you,” she said with a more pallid complexion than was just there seconds before. She covered with a smile as she looked at Noah again. “I didn’t know it was public knowledge yet. I thought just family—”

Oh, son of a bitch, I wasn’t supposed to know. I wanted to jump in my gas tank. Noah wanted to run over me with that truck—I could see it in his twitching jaw muscles.

“I told Jules yesterday,” he said, meeting her eyes with that dead-on look I was learning to recognize. I didn’t apologize, knowing instinctively that would sound coy and even more like Noah and I were in cahoots.

After a few beats of silent stare-down between them, Shayna looked away, fidgeted with her hoodie, and brought her gaze back to me.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile carved from practice. Possibly from years of growing up as an officer’s daughter and knowing when to be politically correct. “We appreciate it.”

Oh,
we
. That was good. Very smart of her, staking her claim and making them a unit. I nodded and smiled at both of them as I closed my gas tank and “see you later’d” them. I got in my car and released a long breath with my eyes closed.

“Why, you idiot?” I breathed. “Why can’t you just say hello like everyone else? Holy shit.”

I started the car and pulled out, not wanting to look back, but I did. I couldn’t help myself. And there they were, still standing in front of the truck, facing each other in what looked like an intense conversation. I’ll bet it was.

• • •

Becca was out the door within thirty minutes of walking in it, including a full wardrobe change, makeup refresher, and half a care what I thought about it.

“What do you think?” she’d asked when she came downstairs, spinning so that the mock chain-link belt she wore loosely around her hips spun at the ends.

“I think I got whiplash,” Nana Mae said. “If I got ready that fast, I’d need to skip the going out and take a nap.”

Nana Mae had walked over to surprise me with my favorite all-time dessert. The one thing I could not say no to. Mississippi Mud. So of course showering and getting ready for the evening had been temporarily delayed. Mud requires sitting and savoring, and Nana Mae and I were doing just that.

I laughed. “You look beautiful. Just try not to spin like that too much or you might take someone down.”

She gave me a mischievous grin with narrowed sexy eyes. “Maybe that’s my evil plan.”

“Well, then stay under the radar.”

She laughed, and I had the urge to snapshot the moment. For one precious second we were clicking.

Nana Mae gestured to the big red plate with the yum on it. “Get you some Mud, Becca.”

Becca eyed the plate as she plopped down next to me, and then snatched the remnants of my piece instead.

“Hey!” I said. “Get your own!”

“Just wanted a bite,” she said around the mouthful. “Oh, dear God. Talk about evil plans.”

“No kidding,” I said, plucking another smallish piece of the gooey chocolaty marshmallowy nutty goodness from the plate. “There’s nothing even remotely right about this.”

“Yeah, well, I say live a little,” Nana Mae said, holding her piece on a napkin away from Harley, who was eye level with it all and was nearly trembling with hope.

“Are you driving?” I asked.

“Nah, Lizzy is,” she said, reaching over me to attack Harley’s head with love scratches. To her credit, Harley tried to enjoy it, but the smell of melted chocolate trumped love. “It’s four or five of us going to the mall and a movie and whatever.”

Ah, that
whatever
is what made my heart pitter patter with joy. On the upside, Lizzy was a better driver than Becca was and a straight A student. I always wished she’d sprinkle some of her glitter on Becca.

“Home by midnight,” I said as she rose, which got me more of the face I was used to.

“Oh, come on, Mom,” she said, one hand on her hip. “I’m almost an adult.”

“
Almost
being the key word.”

“Everyone else gets to stay out till one,” she said, a frown scrunching the top of her nose.

“Well, if Lizzy is driving all those
everyones
home at one, then how does
she
get home on time? Think of how considerate you’re being,” I said, reaching over to pick up that morning’s newspaper from the end table.

Nana Mae snorted, and Becca just looked at me like I’d gone off the deep end. “Thanks.”

“Bec, it’s four o’clock,” I said on a chuckle. “You’ve got eight hours. What on earth are you complaining about?”

She shrugged as she appeared to contemplate that, and then snatched up her bag at the sound of a car horn outside. “Bye, y’all,” she said, giving us both quick head hugs.

“Check in, Becca,” I reminded. “Is your phone charged?”

“Yes,” she called over her shoulder as Harley bounded after her, thinking it was time to go play. “I know, I know, text you so you know I’m not dead—got it. Bye, Mom. Bye, Nana Mae.”

And she was gone.

“It was better in my day,” Nana Mae said, settling back into the couch pillows a little. Her brand-new sneakers glowed as white as her hair against her dark green sweats. “When we’d leave the house, we left the grid. No cell phones to track you down.”

“Same here,” I said. “Although I had neighbors that were more efficient than any electronic device. Still do,” I added, pointing. “Mrs. Mercer next door nearly called the cops the first time Patrick came over on his bike.”

“That’s because Kathleen Mercer sits in her living room bay window with binoculars every day,” Nana Mae said. “I’m always tempted to turn around and moon her when I leave here, just to hear the scream.”

I snickered. “Well, she used to wear out the phone, too. Mom knew every place I stepped a foot in before I ever got home.”

“And you still managed to get yourself in a pickle,” she said. Meeting her look, I felt the pull at my gut. “Knowing my daughter, I’m surprised she ever allowed you to have that boy in your room.”

“Oh, he wasn’t,” I said as Harley came back to stare at the Mud, her big head resting on my knee. I chuckled—maybe a little too bitterly than intended. “Nothing ever happened in this house, I promise you.”

Nana Mae patted my hand. “As I suspect you’ll make sure is the case for Becca as well.”

I paused, caught somewhere between then and now. “Well, yeah. Obviously I hope she isn’t doing anything.”

“And your mother hoped the same thing,” she said. “Just as I did for her.”

I scoffed. “I sincerely doubt my mother ever did anything that scandalous.”

Nana Mae wiped her fingers clean of the sticky chocolate. “Well, no, she didn’t get herself pregnant, if that’s what you mean, but she certainly pushed her boundaries at times.”

Curious. My mother pushing boundaries. “Like?”

“Like sneaking out at night, stealing her daddy’s cigarettes, reading books she wasn’t supposed to read and stashing them under her mattress.” Nana Mae chuckled. “Or carving out old books to hide things like letters from boys—and her daddy’s cigarettes.”

I stared at her in amazement. Those things did not mesh with the woman I knew as my mother. “How have I never heard this before?”

She shrugged. “Never came up before, I guess.”

“And
she
wasn’t about to tell me,” I said, brushing crumbs into my napkin. I got up to find a ziplock to store the rest of the Mud.

Nana Mae laughed softly as she worked to her feet as well. She scooped up the plate and followed me to the kitchen. “Of course not,” she said. “Would you?
Have
you?”

I turned from my open cabinet and gave her a look. “No.”

“Okay then, Julianna. Then don’t be so hard on your mother.” She laid her hands flat on the cold granite of the island and clicked her ring against it. “We don’t tell our kids about our questionables, past or present.”

“But you want me to,” I said, setting the ziplock bag down.

Nana Mae picked it up and began moving the pieces of Mud cake inside it. “Only because your past has joined the present, my girl. And Becca deserves not to hear it on the gossip mill.”