Her Sweet Talkin' Man (10 page)

“He'll get used to things like this and then when you've gone it'll be a punishment for him to return to his old life.”

“No, he won't. I'll explain that this is a one-shot thing.”

“Ace, please.”

“I brought popcorn and a VCR and kid movies. Animated stuff. We can hook the machine up outside and sit out under the stars and pretend that we're at the drive-in.”

She lowered her lashes, then looked up again. “That sounds dangerous.” A slight blush warmed her cheeks and she reached up to cover them. She couldn't help thinking about what it would be like to go to a real drive-in with Ace, to be closed up in a dark car together.

She looked up at Ace and found him watching her. His eyes were narrowed and dark, like a man on the verge of taking a woman into his arms and kissing his way down her naked body.

Heat swirled through her. “Ace?” she asked, and she hated the way her voice quavered.

He stared at her fiercely for several long seconds. Then he cleared his throat.

“Under the right circumstances, it could be dangerous, but not tonight. We'll have Timmy with us. Right between us. All the time,” he said. “Come on, Crystal. Say yes.”

She couldn't help laughing then. “Ace, why are you doing this?”

He got a stubborn look in those gorgeous blue eyes of his. “You don't have enough fun in your lives. You mostly have men like me pawing at you or at least wishing they could. You need more fun, and so does Timmy. It was supposed to be fun. Apple-pie fun,” he said simply.

Fun. He wanted her and Timmy to have a little fun in their lives. Crystal's throat nearly closed up.

“All right, thank you,” she managed to say. “Thank you, yes.”

So Ace set up the TV and the tape player and the couch on the lawn. Timmy hovered near, giggling and hopping up and down on one foot and generally getting in Ace's way, though the man never would say so, Crystal thought as she made dinner.

He wanted her to have fun while he was here. Before he left, he wanted to give her and her son something he thought was missing from their lives.

She knew where he was coming from, because she wanted him to have something that was missing from his life, too.

But the one thing that she kept thinking of, she knew he wouldn't like. The one thing Ace was missing was family.

What was she going to do about that?

 

Two days later Ace pulled onto Crystal's street after work and just sat there. For the past two days he'd been vigilant about keeping watch on her house. He'd grilled the director down at the day-care center to see if she knew anything more about the man who had delivered the teddy bear for Timmy. He'd once or twice had a feeling that he wasn't the only one watching the house, but then he was beginning to be suspicious about everyone where Crystal and Timmy were concerned. A woman alone with a little boy was vulnerable in so many ways. He wanted to wrap her up in the blanket on his couch and protect her. He wanted to warn every man on the street that she was not to be tampered with or bothered or to be taken lightly, but of course all of that was meaningless. Once he was gone, he couldn't protect her.

Ace blew out a breath, shook his head and moved his car down the street, intending to turn into the drive.

There was a car already there. Several in front of the house, too. Nice cars. Cars with the Lone Star Auto emblem on the back.

Swearing under his breath, Ace advanced on the house. “Crystal,” he called.

She appeared in the door almost instantaneously. Was that an anxious look on her face? No, he must have been mistaken. She was smiling sweetly.

“Ace, I've almost got dinner ready. Come in and sit down. I…I've got a few guests over tonight. You remember Fiona and her husband, Clay, of course.”

Ace turned and stared at Fiona. She smiled and waggled her fingers at him. “Hi, Ace.”

He blinked. Clay coughed and rubbed one hand over his jaw. “She has no shame,” he said as Fiona swatted at him. But Clay was already rising and extending his hand.

Ace took it automatically.

“And here are Cara and Omar, Matt and Rose, Josie and Flynt, too.”

It was almost a complete Carson party. “Where's Ford and Grace?” he couldn't help asking.

Crystal blinked. “Well, I just thought… You're right. Of course I should have asked them. Do you think it's too late, Fiona?”

Ace placed a hand on her arm to stop her. He looked down at her, trying not to look angry. She was already looking about as nervous as a woman could look. “It wouldn't be polite to ask someone now,” he said, forcing the words through his teeth. Of course, she knew he didn't want to share a table with his esteemed father, but then he didn't want to share a table with the rest of the Carsons, either, yet here they were. Children of privilege. They were the ones who would have been paying customers at the school where he had grown up. They would have been the ones who steered clear of the kitchen help's son, as if they were afraid some of the dirt of his birth would rub off on them.

“All right, Ace,” she said, looking down at where his hand lay on her arm. Her warmth was like sun-kissed nectar. It drew him. He felt connected to her in some strange, sweet and yet alarmingly compelling way. She was, in fact, the only person in the room he felt any connection to. He almost didn't want to let
her go, he almost
couldn't
let her go, and because he realized that, he backed away.

“I'll just go wash up,” he said.

When he returned, everyone in the room was milling around, some even shuffling their feet.

“Ace, you sit here. You're the oldest son,” Crystal said firmly, directing him to a chair at the head of the table.

The breath nearly slid right out of his body. He waited for someone to make an objection or at least to look away. No one did, although no one exactly looked comfortable, either.

Slowly Crystal got everyone seated. She sat down and asked Ace to say grace. Warmth suffused his face. It wasn't as if he'd never done it. His mother and stepfather had included him at home. But this wasn't home and these people weren't his family.

He raised his gaze to Crystal, who was seated beside him. Her eyes were luminous, pleading, filled with a need for something, like a child who plans a party and is anxious for everything to go right.

She moved her hand over to his and grasped it. On his other side Fiona did the same. He felt as if his chest was being crushed, as if his throat wouldn't operate. Afraid his feelings would show in his eyes, he bowed his head.

“Father, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful. Amen.”

It was all he could get out, that rote bit of prayer, that quick call for help and praise. It was enough, however. Fiona let go of his hand. Crystal squeezed his hand before releasing it.

“So, I hear you and Dad had quite a meeting the other day,” Matt said. His voice was the voice of a man used to commanding.

“I wouldn't exactly call it that,” Ace said. He didn't like his father, but he didn't gossip about any man in public. Not that Matt could be judged for asking. Ford was his father, after all. He had a right to challenge the man who had challenged him.

“Fiona was there, I guess. Daddy told the rest of us something about it,” Cara answered. “Of course, Mama already knew. He didn't know that your mother was pregnant, but I think you were right that day in the dealership. He could have guessed that she could be, and I'm sure he knows that. I think it's weighed on his mind a long time. Of course he knows that doesn't change anything. Not the past. Not how you feel about him.”

“He ask you to say that?”

“Of course not. And he didn't tell me all that much. Just what he thought I had a right to know. That yes, you are his son, and yes, he behaved badly toward your mother and you. That's all.”

Her voice was woeful, and Ace could tell that she wanted to find some way to build a bridge, to mend the old wounds. But the fact remained that Ford had eventually known that he had a child and had done nothing about it. Nothing could bridge that gap. And sitting before him were the offspring Ford had favored, the ones who had grown up having a real place in the world, whose mother had been given respect, not sneers and slurs and poverty.

“We have to start somewhere, Ace,” Fiona said gently.

He looked her in the eye. “I don't see why.”

“Maybe because you came here and we found out the truth,” Flynt said. “If you hadn't, we could have gone on for the rest of our lives ignoring you, but now that you're here, we can't do that. You're blood. You're a Carson.”

“And Carsons take care of their obligations?” he asked, raising a brow.

If another man had asked him that using the same tone of voice, he might have slugged him. Flynt looked as if he wanted to. Crystal was halfway out of her seat. The little peacemaker, Ace thought, warmth spreading through him at the thought. He squeezed her hand gently to stop her from stepping in.

Flynt stared him down. “They do,” he said curtly, drawing a smile from Ace.

“Well, rest easy, then, little brother, I release you from your obligation.”

“We don't want to be released,” Cara said. “We want you out of the Overton Apartments.”

Ace couldn't help smiling at that. “It doesn't look good to have a relative living there, does it?”

Fiona shook her head. “You know that's not what she meant, big brother.”

Did he? These were Mission Creek Carsons he was talking about. Proud people who had never had that pride damaged. Being associated with Nola Warburn probably didn't sit quite right.

“Ace, give them a chance,” Crystal said softly.

He turned and looked at her as she watched him
with those luminous, hopeful eyes. How could she be so hopeful of hearing good things from a man like him when she'd gotten only bad things from men before? He wanted to give her what she wanted, but tension was rising in him, cold and hard and suffocating. He knew that feeling. He tried to back away from it.

“He doesn't want to be a part of us,” Matt said, studying his half brother carefully. “Isn't that true?”

“I really don't see the point,” he finally said. “I'm not staying. Why bother getting to know each other?”

He could almost feel the distress radiating off Crystal. He hated himself for hurting her this way, for throwing away the gift she'd tried to give him—he knew that was what she'd been trying to do—but he just couldn't play his part here. He couldn't become the one thing he'd always tried not to be, the thing he'd always loathed.

A silence settled over the room, marred only by the clinking of silverware and the sound of Timmy playing in the next room.

“We'd better get going,” Flynt offered. “Work tomorrow. Thanks for inviting us, Crystal,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek. “Too bad it didn't work.”

“Don't blame yourself,” Matt said, taking her hand and hugging her. He stared over Crystal's fragile shoulders and gave Ace a hard look.

Ace felt like a heel. His little brother was right. He could feel Crystal questioning her motives already.

He stood and turned to her. “I appreciate what you did,” he said, feeling awkward for the first time in front of her. He didn't like humbling himself in front
of the Carsons, but it just wouldn't be right to leave this until they were gone. Then his words would be meaningless for her. “I do. Thank you,” he said. And he nodded to the group that was hovering around Crystal as he turned to leave the room.

“You tried,” Cara said to Crystal.

“The man is a stubborn mule,” Fiona said loudly enough to be heard as he made it into the living room.

Ace grinned to himself, but he didn't turn around. No need to. He
was
a stubborn mule.

The sound of feet shuffling, murmured goodbyes and doors slamming filtered into the living room. He had sat down on the couch and was pretending to read the paper.

Soon he heard the front door close. The Carsons had left. Soft footsteps came closer.

He turned. She was looking so sad, shaking her head.

“They want to get to know you, Ace,” she said. “Why won't you let them?”

He knew she couldn't understand, but she deserved at least some kind of explanation.

“I'm a jerk,” he assured her.

“You're not.”

“Any other man would have taken your gift and responded to it.”

“So why didn't you? And don't tell me it's because you're a jerk.”

He rose to his feet, crossed to her. She had pulled her hair back in a loose ponytail with a silver clip. It would be easy to ignore her question and just focus
on her and on this physical thing that threatened to envelop him whenever she was around.

“I've spent all my life being pegged as a wanna-be,” he said, sighing. “Just like at the academy, and you know about that.”

“Kids are cruel,” she whispered.

“But they were right, in a way. I really didn't belong there. I
was
only there because my mother was willing to demean herself cooking for selfish rich kids to give me an education. And I never deserved all her hard work. I resented my situation. I got into fights, got suspended, even spent a night in jail when I was older. I must have broken her heart a thousand times. They labeled me bright but unmotivated. What I was, however, was angry. I guess I still am.”

“But you told me that your stepfather…” She halted, confused.

“Was a good man? He was. A wonderful man, in fact. But Derek didn't come on the scene until I was already in high school. For some reason he looked past my anger. He shared with me, taught me about cars and told me that I had redeeming qualities, that I had a little blarney in me and would probably be a good salesperson if I could just learn to show my better side. But Derek was only with us four years. He died not long after I graduated. After that I sold cars and other things here and there and stayed around to take care of my mother. I didn't want her taking care of rich people anymore. Three months ago, she died.”