Spirited Ride (10 page)

She was content to let him play the chords while she strummed the strings but within a few minutes they were playing the song as well.

A minute later, Gretchen upon hearing what her sisters were doing, stopped randomly hitting each drum and looked skyward as though counting in her head. He watched as she started to dance in her seat to the tune and then began tapping lightly on the drums rather than as hard as possible and soon enough found a beat that worked for the song.

“Oh my God, TJ. They are actually playing the song,” Sherri said in quiet fascination.

They were indeed playing a song… it wasn’t perfect by any means… but for a first try it was pretty incredible and showed their natural talent for music. If he worked with them, especially starting so young, they might be really good someday.

Glancing at Sherri, the surprise on her face told him that her amazement matched his. Then her expression changed to a look he hadn’t seen for more than a decade and thought he might never see again. Adoration…
for him.

Having told Gretchen that she could practice in the garage on Tuesdays and Thursdays since those were her days off from the bar, ensured that Sherri would have to deal with TJ as well during those times.

However, most days all three of the girls would show up rather than just Gretchen. As distracting as TJ was normally, it was really hard to ignore him when the girls constantly wanted her to watch their practice sessions.

It had been two weeks since he’d kissed her…
and she’d kissed him back.
One would think it had just happened yesterday because her whole body
still
remembered it.

It had to be some form of mental illness or madness to not be able to stand someone because of the hurt they’ve caused you. Yet in the same breath want them so badly it developed into a physical ache.

She was getting to the point where she was trying to rationalize why it would be acceptable for her to sleep with him.

A few nights the only thing that had stopped her from caving in and calling him was knowing that the minute she did give in, that possessive streak in him that made her want him so bad, would rise up to punish her for her weakness.

Once would not be enough for him… he wouldn’t let her alone until he once again owned her heart, body and soul. Being branded by him for a second time would be far worse than being sexually frustrated because this time when he found someone else or left… or both, it would absolutely kill her.

What Sherri couldn’t understand was why it was so important to him to conquer her again and make her his ‘puppet’ as he used to call her. His sexuality back then, and probably now as well, had been more than she could handle.

For as young as he was when they’d met, she’d been surprised at how open, uninhibited and
hungry
he’d been. He had made her feel as though he couldn’t get enough of her and convinced her to do things she’d never done before or since.

The more she experimented with him, the more he wanted her, until she began to wonder if she could ever completely satisfy him.

That may have been part of why he’d been sleeping around before he ever left and why he took someone other than her with him to Nashville when he skipped town.

Sherri could remember clearly the gut wrenching confessions that Gina had told her the day she’d returned from tracking him down in Nashville. Then hearing from Gina how he’d been catting around well before then and how half the town had known had nearly destroyed her.

She’d forgiven Gina for not saying something to her sooner a long time ago. That didn’t make the knowledge that, not only had she’d not been enough for him, he’d chosen someone else in the end, any easier to take.

Several years of nursing her broken heart had led her to the conclusion that she would never have been happy being one of many anyway. She would have eventually figured out his indiscretions on her own.

Now that whomever he’d chosen back then was no longer in the picture and his dreams had fallen through, he’d come back thinking that she would do. Well news flash for TJ Simons… but she didn’t play second fiddle in anyone’s band.

So he could take all his hot kisses, incredible looks, satisfying mouth, and sexiness and find his pleasure with someone else. In fact, she should be encouraging him to do just that.

The feelings that seeing Gina in his apartment that day had drudged up was all the evidence Sherri needed to realize that when he did finally give up on the notion of getting back in her bed and moved on, it would hurt all over again.

Sleeping with him again would only increase that pain tenfold. Human nature was to try and avoid pain in any form. Which was what kept her from ushering in that inevitable discomfort by trying to get him to date someone else.

So instead she continued to wait it out by attempting to draw blood with her words whenever he came sniffing around.

Today would be no different. Having used the template document for a divorce from the email that Lilly forwarded to her to draw up what she felt was a reasonable settlement, she intended to give him a copy of it to look over.

If by some stroke of luck he actually agreed to it, then all he would need to do is sign it and she could then take it to Becca to file. It would be over.

They would be divorced and she would be single and free of him. Angrily she shook the bad feeling away that the thought of being free of him invoked.

She had no idea what, if any, assets he had anymore but in an attempt to bribe him to sign the damn papers, she’d offered him a financial settlement in exchange for allowing her to keep the house and bar.

The idea of selling either one was a painful one, even though both places held memories of her and TJ in happier times. Back before the business, their home, their friends, and mostly
her
… stopped being enough for him.

Watching him pull up out front and let Melody and Ginny out of the backseat of his car made her contemplate again if it was possible that he now had a child of his own.

He seemed to be a natural with kids however adamant he’d been about not wanting children. Perhaps the woman he’d left with had wanted children and he’d caved on the issue. Better him than her.

She loved her nephew and Tommy’s girls and was sure she’d love Chuck’s new baby as well but she was born to be an Aunt… not a mother. That much hadn’t changed. If he did, it might make the idea of cash even more appealing to him.

“Aunt Sherri, we’re here now!” Ginny yelled as she made a beeline for the front door.

Smiling at how the little girl seemed to think that once she and her sisters arrived, the party could begin, she headed outside to intercept the child and, of course, listen to their
concert
.

After scooping up Ginny and walking toward the car, she was surprised to see how dejected TJ looked. As she drew nearer his mouth changed from a frown to his sexy grin and his eyes raked over her.

Bad day or not, apparently nothing could keep him from goading her with nothing more than his smile and gaze. A small part of her felt bad that she’d chosen today to give him the papers. She would at least be kind and wait until after the girls’ practice session with him to ruin his day. No sense in ruining theirs too.

Once the girls had enough fun making music with TJ’s equipment and the drum set, they sat on the porch with cups of water to drink and waited for Dana to pick them up.

Sherri watched TJ loading up his things in the trunk of his car and nearly offered to allow him to leave them in the garage. Then she thought better of it. The drums could stay because she didn’t mind for Gretchen to stop by any time she wanted to.

TJ stopping by on a whim though was another matter. However, she didn’t want him to leave without taking her divorce agreement with him.

“You want a glass of tea?” she offered when he closed the trunk of his car.

Walking back toward the porch, he eyed her thoughtfully as if trying to judge if he was walking into a trap and then said, “Sure… but that’s not all I want.”

She looked meaningfully at the three girls that sat on her porch and then back to TJ who simply smiled the smile of the devil back at her.
The nerve of him to pull this shit with the girls here!

“What else do you want… Mister TJ?” Ginny asked innocently. Again, Sherri looked at him as if to make her point.

Without missing a beat he said, “I’d like lemon with it, Miss Ginny.”

By the time Sherri returned with his drink containing more lemon than tea, Dana had arrived to pick up the girls. She watched as Sherri handed TJ the tea but didn’t say whatever she was thinking and instead just loaded up the kids and left.

As Sherri expected from having extended an olive branch to him, TJ sat down on the porch as though he intended to make himself at home.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said. Then she went inside and returned with the divorce agreement she’d typed up and handed it to him.

The reaction she’d anticipated from him wasn’t what she received. She’d even braced herself for it.

If she’d casually handed him something like that when they were living as man and wife he would have done one of two things. He would have hit the roof, storming and yelling or he would have used his seduction skills to bring her back inline until she was apologizing for ever having thought such a thing.

The fighting usually lasted a day or two before one of them would crack and then they’d spend days making up. The techniques he used to bring her inline is what she was afraid of…
not the yelling.

Instead of either of those things, he looked dejected the more of the document he read.

Several minutes later when he’d finished reading, he sighed heavily and a look of real hurt passed his face before he said, “I need to look this over in detail so I can’t give you an answer right now.”

“I just want the house and the bar, TJ. I’ve worked my ass off for both while you were gone… I deserve what I’ve worked so hard for… just like you do. I don’t expect any of the profits or future royalties from any of your work. Just the house and the bar… that’s all. I’ll give you equity money or whatever else you want but I want those two things,” she half pleaded.

His face lost some of the gloomy look from earlier and was replaced by anger and he said, “Yeah I forgot… it’s all about you isn’t it, Sherri? Your hopes, your dreams, your goals and your decisions, right? What about what the fuck I want?”

“Okay, fine. What do you want then, TJ? Tell me, what it is that you’ve done to improve this house or the bar in the past decade, that you now deserve either one? Oh, that’s right… nothing!” she spat.

“Like you give a shit what I want anyway! I was raised in this house! I lived here before you ever stepped foot in the state of Florida! My grandmother worked her ass off for this house before she died and she left it to
me,
” he replied angrily.

“So maybe I haven’t contributed to its upkeep for these past ten years, but I did for the ten years before
you
came to town. So I can tell you what I don’t want... I don’t want you taking the house, left to me by my grandmother, moving some drugged out piece of shit in here and then letting him ruin the place or get busted and then have it forfeited to the county. If that fat bastard is what you want… go get him… but I’ll be damned if I give you
permission
to fuck him in
our
house,” he continued through clenched teeth. Then taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly he said, “It’s time for me to go… since this discussion is going absolutely nowhere.”

Then he was off the porch, clutching the papers tightly in his hand, his long hair flying behind him as he stalked to his car, got in and closed the door. Then he backed out and was gone while she sat stunned.

He’d voluntarily stopped fighting… walked away from it even. That was not the TJ Simons she knew. She didn’t know the mellowed man who’d just left… and quite honestly she liked him even less than the TJ she remembered.

The man who’d just drove off down the road, hadn’t even squealed the tires on his car or drove too fast. It was as though the papers she’d given him had only added to the burdens of an already beaten man.

She should be overjoyed to have defeated him, but she wasn’t. In fact typing up that damn document had hurt so much and made her so angry that really what she wanted was to fight with the gorgeous, energetic and bold man she remembered from a decade ago.

They were both explosive back then, full of vigorous spirit, beautiful sensuality and a love so crazy that it had consumed them both at times.

Now he attempted to explain himself rather than just insisting on his way, walked away from an argument rather than going for the win at all costs and rarely reacted to her at all anymore but was content instead to just prod her with his attempts at flirting. It was the mature response and she should appreciate it.

Instead she hated it and it made her sick to her stomach. If given the choice between the beaten down, passive but matured version of TJ, or the sometimes conceited, full of energy, enthusiastic version of the man who matched her blow for blow… spirit for spirit… she hated to admit she missed the man who’d left a decade ago. Not the one who’d returned just recently.

What bothered her most was that a part of her wondered if failing to make his mark in the music industry had done the damage or if the woman he’d left for Nashville with had done the most harm.

It shouldn’t matter and she damned sure shouldn’t care… but God help her, she did.
Still.
The sick part was if it was the woman who’d broken him, the disturbed part of Sherri’s personality wanted to kick the bitch’s ass.

If it was the music industry having turned its nose up at real talent, then she wanted to convince him to try again… and not to just get rid of him, but to get the real him
back
.

She made her way back inside and tried to stay busy in an effort to keep her mind off of TJ. When that didn’t work she decided to go by and see Bobby, Lilly and her nephew.

Pulling into the driveway of their new home, which wasn’t too far from Tommy and Dana’s house, she watched as Little Three stood near his dad eating a Popsicle. Bobby was making some adjustments on his bike while his son looked on.

Getting out of the car and heading up the walk, both father and son acknowledged her with nothing but a look. They looked alike, acted much the same and wore their adoration for Lilly on their sleeve. The only thing that kept Little Three from being an exact replica of Bobby was his eyes. They were blue and sparkled like hers and Lilly’s, rather than dark and scowling like his father’s eyes.

“How’d it go?” Lilly asked when Sherri stepped in the kitchen to find her cleaning up dinner dishes.

Walking over to the counter to lend a hand, she said, “How’d you know?”

“The look on your face… and Dana said she thought something was going on between you two when she picked the girls up earlier,” Lilly replied.