Scrimmage Gone South (Crimson Romance) (24 page)

“Where are we going?” he asked because he was pretty sure they weren’t getting coffee.

“Somewhere we don’t matter,” she said.

Might as well get a head start on the groveling. “Townshend, I can’t tell you — ”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t talk until I get where I’m going.”

Oh, Christ. She was crying. She drove to the edge of town and got on the interstate, headed north.

“Are we going to Nashville?” he asked.

“Yes. I have decided to pursue a career in the country music industry.”

That was a good sign. A joke, even if she didn’t sound very jokey. She didn’t drive far. She took the exit for a rest stop. It was one of those nice, well lit ones with vending machines and picnic tables. There were a few cars parked, a couple walking a dog — people on the way to somewhere, who wouldn’t notice them or care if they were having a throw down. Even in the face of this, he was proud of her for picking an appropriate place for a fight. Only, there wasn’t going to be fight if he could help it. There was only going to be groveling — by him — and forgiving — by her. Then some makeup necking — by both of them.

“Are we where we don’t matter?” he asked. Couldn’t be too careful. “Can I speak?”

“So long as you understand that the only reason I am talking to you at all is because Kirby was there. Though, I do think it might be best to just tie up unfinished business in one fell swoop. So it’s probably good that Kirby was home.”

He turned to her. “It kills me that I have made you cry. I want nothing more than to hold you right now, but I am guessing that would not be welcome.”

She wiped her eyes with a little white lacy handkerchief. “You are an excellent guesser.”

He sighed. “I’m not. I’m an idiot. I cannot explain what happened today. I don’t understand it myself. When I walked in there and saw you touching Luke, I lost all reason. But I don’t want to lose you, Townshend.” He took a chance and put his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shake it off, but she bowed her head and cried harder.

“Aw, Townshend. Sweetheart … ” He tried to pull her against him but she would have no part of it.

“Don’t, Nathan. Please.” She straightened up and seemed to will herself to gain control.

“I get that you are mad, and you should be. But tell me this. You do believe me when I say I know I was wrong, don’t you? And that I’m sorry?”

“I do believe you.” At least they were on the right track.

“I promise you I will never behave that way again. Please, can we just pretend it didn’t happen?”

“No.” Okay, he hadn’t expected this to be easy.

“You cannot mean that we’re going to throw away what we have because I behaved irrationally for five minutes of our lives.”

“Tell me something, Nathan.”

“Anything.”

“
Why
did you come to the realization that you were wrong?”

What? That didn’t make sense, but he knew better than to say that. The only thing worse would be to ask her if she had PMS.

“I don’t know what you mean, exactly,” he said slowly, searching for some clue in her face that would let him know if he was saying what she wanted to hear. “I realized I was wrong, because I
was
wrong. I was stupid. And I knew it as soon as I left your office. I just wasn’t sure if I should come apologize right then or wait a bit.”

“But did you realize that I would never do what you accused me of? Or was it that you knew Luke wouldn’t do it?”

He tried to puzzle through that without much luck. “I don’t get it. What difference does it make? This is just about me having an irrational reaction. You notice I haven’t even asked you why you and Luke were hugging. Or who started it. I don’t care. I know it was just a friendly sort of hug.”

“The difference is that you don’t trust me. You don’t trust me to tell you the truth. You don’t trust me not to cheat on you. You don’t trust that I have any kind of judgment. You probably don’t trust me to brush my teeth after breakfast. I don’t blame you so much for not trusting me. I have sins to pay for. The bigger problem is you won’t give me a chance earn your trust.”

He started to deny it, but he let it all filter through his brain. She might have a point, a small one.

But he had an ace.

He took a deep breath. “I love you, Townshend.” He spread his hands and stretched them out like he was giving her everything he had to give. Let her argue with
that
. He might be a little unclear on some of this other stuff, but he loved her. He could defend that like a ball on the one yard line that was going to decide the championship. She wouldn’t believe him, but it was true, and he could defend it until she did.

“I know you do,” she said softly. “And I love you with every cell in my being. But love doesn’t solve everything.”

What? He’d just played the card that every woman wanted to see — the one that righted all wrongs. And he hadn’t lied about it either. This should be a joyful moment but she was still telling him no.

“Townshend.” He gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I know I have put you through a lot lately, and I think it’s because I have been coming to realize that I
do
love you. You are all I want. I’ll do anything to make this right.”

“No. That’s not true. You’d do anything not to love me.”

Was that true? Of course it wasn’t. “No. You are wrong about that. Wrong.” It might be easier not to love her, but he had never aspired to easy. Besides, he couldn’t
not
love her; he’d tried.

“So you’ll do anything?” Her tone had an edge of challenge to it. Well, he knew about challenge. Bring it on!

“Anything. Name it.”

She looked a little hopeful. “I want to talk about what happened thirteen years ago. I have the need to explain; I know I cost you everything. I know much of what you said to me that day in your hospital room was true, but not all of it was. I need to be heard and I need you to believe me.”

Time stopped. His knee began to throb. His heart raced. He said nothing because he couldn’t. She was asking the one thing he could not do. Living that time had been bad — way beyond bad. He could not revisit it. Talking about it would only bring back the anger and if he became that angry again, he might never get past it.

“You can’t do it, can you?” she said sadly. “You can’t do the one thing that might save us.”

“Don’t you see? We don’t need to do that. I don’t need to understand what you did or think it was okay. Doesn’t it mean more that I can say it doesn’t matter?” He raised his hands in frustration. “My, God, Townshend! I love you, no matter what, in spite of everything. How can there be a better love?”

She cupped his cheek and looked at him all soft. Yes! He had won.

“Thank you, Mr. Darcy,” she said with tears in her voice.

“I don’t understand.” She might as well be speaking French. But in any language, he hadn’t won anything.

“I know,” she said as if she was sympathizing with a child who had dropped an ice cream cone and there wasn’t another to be had. “And I know you love me. I feel it. But you would always be hanging back, looking for a way to take your love back. So I’ve got to walk away before you do that.”

There was something so calm, so final about her voice, but something vulnerable and wistful too.

He had the feeling if he put his hand on her cheek she would let him. He was right. She closed her eyes and moved her cheek against his hand. Something about that sent his whole insides into lockdown.

“Well,” he said. “You were always out of my league, anyway. So classy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she whispered. “You were always out of
my
league. So beautiful.” She brushed his cheek with her fingertips.

“Ridiculous,” he said and placed his hand over hers.

“Yeah.” She pulled away and started the car. “Ridiculous. Aren’t we just?”

• • •

Tolly did not want to go to work the next day. She hadn’t eaten; she’d barely slept. But, boy, had she showered. She was very, very clean. However, the only thing she wanted less than going to work was to stay home.

So here she was. At least she didn’t have court this morning, or any appointments. She could pretend to look at files and brood. She’d earned a good brooding and she was going to have it.

Or not. Her office door opened softly and Harris stepped in. She opened her mouth to speak — until she saw is face.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Something was wrong. People thought she and Harris had an almost twin connection, but it wasn’t true. She’d watched that spookiness between her mother and her aunt all her life, and what she and Harris had was nowhere close. She could just read him and his facial expression told her everything she needed to know — except the details. Her mother and aunt would have likely known the details.

“Mama?” she asked as he walked toward her desk. “Daddy? Grandmamma or Papa?” Had it been Missy or Harris’s parents, his expression would have been different.

He bent over and rested his fists on her desk.

“I just got a call. Nathan has been arrested for sexual misconduct.”

“Of course,” Tolly said without emotion. She had no emotion — not yet. She’d used all her emotion where this was concerned trying to warn him. And it had done no good, whatsoever. “Jamie Fisher.” She looked at Harris for the confirmation that she knew would come.

His face shifted to shock and he let himself down in the chair across from her. “And you knew this how?”

“I’ve been watching it for weeks. I knew.”

Harris’s face grew even more puzzled. “Tolly, are you saying Nathan did this thing?”

“No!” Now she had emotion — it flew through her like a match on a stream of gasoline. “No, never. Nathan wouldn’t do that. She has an unhealthy attraction to him. I tried to tell him, tried to warn him. He marked it up to an adolescent crush and told me to mind my own business. He had the idea that if you don’t do anything wrong and are careful, you can’t get in trouble. Insisted that since he was never alone with female students, nothing could happen to him.”

Harris shook his head. “Naive.”

“Hardheaded,” she said.

“That too. But what would you have had him do?”

“Any number to things. Tell the principal. Have her removed from his class. Tell her parents.” She took a gulp of the stone cold coffee at her elbow. “Let me have a come to Jesus meeting with her.” She covered her eyes with her hand. Maybe if she couldn’t see, it wouldn’t be true. But it was. “Tell me the particulars.”

“I don’t know much. The girl went to the guidance counselor this morning. She called the police. They came and talked to the girl. Then they took Nathan in for questioning and ended up arresting him.”

An arrest this quick was unusual. “He acted like an asshole to the detectives, didn’t he?”

Harris hesitated. “Yeah. Can’t blame him, but it wasn’t prudent. They don’t like that.”

“No. I imagine not.” Only she didn’t have to imagine, having been on the wrong side of his bad mood more than once.

“Well.” He rose. “I’m going to want to talk to you some more about this. A lot, actually. But I’m going to get him out of jail.”

She jumped to her feet. “
Jail
? They’ve got him in a
cell
?”

“Get your girlfriend hat off and put on your attorney hat. Of course they’ve got him in a cell.”

Oh, right. Harris didn’t know she didn’t have a girlfriend hat anymore. No one did.

She pulled her purse out of her bottom desk drawer. “I’m going with you.” Regardless of her hat or lack thereof, she wanted him out of that cell yesterday. “Let’s go.”

“You aren’t going.” Harris said it like he meant it. Not that it mattered.

“I have to.”

“No. Nathan called
me
. He was very specific. He does not want you to come there.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Does he think I’ve never been to the jail?”

“Tolly, he’s in bad shape. You know he was placed on immediate paid administrative leave.”

She did know it. That’s what always happened in these cases and it had always seemed like such a civilized way to handle it — protect the children but don’t punish the untried. But he
was
being punished.

Harris took her hand. “Don’t fight me on this, brat,” he said softly, with compassion. “He’s upset and confused and embarrassed.”

“Angry,” she said.

“Yes, that too. And it will just make it worse for him if you see him there. You can help him more here. We’ve got to put a case together and fast. You can do more good here for right now. Stay here and get started on some research. You know what to do. Later, when he’s home, I’ll call and you can come over and we’ll talk to him.”

“All right,” she said. But she had a different plan, because she didn’t have to stay out of his business anymore. If she could fix this, maybe it would even the score between them and she could walk away with a little less guilt.

• • •

Once at the high school, Tolly went straight to Principal Sydney Malone’s office. She knew him from church, even before becoming a high school mom — not well, but well enough. Not surprisingly, there was a heaviness in the air of the outer office. What
was
a surprise, but probably shouldn’t have been, was that Daryl Grayson was there talking to Becky Jennings, Principal Malone’s administrative assistant.

“Yep. It’s fixing to get ugly around here. The press will get hold of it any second now. And I gotta say, it goes to judgment. You saw him pull my boy out of that game and put in that tenth grader. Guess he likes ’em young.” Daryl laughed but Becky did not join in. That did not stop Daryl from forging on. “I gotta say, if it was my little girl — ”

Tolly chose that moment to reveal herself. Daryl only paused for a second. He tipped an imaginary hat.

“Miss Tolly.”

She ignored him. She didn’t want to, but she did it for Nathan because he’d never been able to.

“Becky, I’d like to see Mr. Malone.”

“You’re in line behind me,” Daryl said with a self-satisfied grin.

Becky picked up the phone and spoke quietly. Then she said, “Tolly, you can go right in.” She didn’t look at Daryl to enjoy his response. She didn’t have time for it.