The Best Medicine (12 page)

Tyler sat back, his expression grim. “Scotty is already on probation. Two guys jumped him in a bar last year, but he knocked one of them out and got charged with assault. If he can stay out of trouble until he turns twenty-one, that previous offense is gone, like it never happened. But if he gets arrested for anything, even a traffic violation, it all goes on his permanent record.”

“But now you’ve got it on your record.”

“These charges aren’t going to stick. I’ll plead it down and pay restitution, and it’ll all go away. But Scotty couldn’t take that chance. If he gets stuck with that old assault charge, he can’t enlist. And being a soldier, like our dad, is the only thing he’s ever wanted to do.”

The pieces had finally formed a picture, but not at all the picture I’d expected. “You pled guilty to something you didn’t do just so your brother could enlist?”

He pressed an index finger against his mouth. “Shh. That’s the secret.”

My senses stirred. This was either the most selfless thing I’d ever heard, or the stupidest. Or, quite possibly, both.

“That’s a huge risk you took on his behalf.”

“Well, like I said, he’s my little brother. If I don’t take care of him, who will? Our dad’s gone, Carl is a stooge, and my mother? Well, she’s not so good in a crisis. She doesn’t know anything about this. That’s the other reason I’m trying to keep it a secret. Plus if Scotty’s probation officer catches wind of it, he’s screwed.”

I had thought there’d be some funny anecdote about drunken antics on a boat or a comedy of errors and misunderstandings that led to the Jet Ski incident. Not a tale of brother sacrificing for brother. It made me see Tyler in a whole new light, which was not necessarily a good thing, because he was still too young for me.

“Tyler?”

I heard a man’s voice from over my shoulder and looked up to see Jasper walk up to our table. “Hey, I thought that was you. Good to see you, Ty.”

Tyler stood up and they did the he-man, A-frame hug with requisite back thumping while I wondered if Jasper had overheard any of our conversation.

“How are you, Jas? This is your place, isn’t it?” Tyler asked. His smile was relaxed, and I felt that momentary tension leave. If he wasn’t worried, I guess I shouldn’t worry.

“Yep, all mine.” Jasper nodded and turned toward me. Surprise quirked his features. “Well, hello. Evelyn, isn’t it?”

“Hello, Jasper.” I waved like a pageant queen.

“You two know each other?” Tyler asked.

Jasper nodded. “Evelyn works with Gabby Linton. Remember her? Blonde hair. Tie-dye. Drama club.”

“Kind of. She was a year older, right?”

I winced. Everyone around here had attended Bell Harbor High School, but that comment was a harsh reminder that while I was graduating from Northwestern University, Tyler was here, struggling with tenth-grade geometry.

Jasper nodded. “Yeah, that’s Gabby. She looks exactly the same except now the hair is kind of pink. So what are you up to these days, Ty? Got your boat in the water yet?”

Tyler hesitated. “No, not yet.”

“It’ll happen. I never thought I’d have this place either, but somehow it all worked out. How’s your family doing?” Jasper gripped the back of a nearby chair and leaned.

“Oh, you know.” Tyler shrugged. “Same old, same old. Everybody’s misbehaving.”

“That sounds about right.” Jasper laughed and bobbed his head. “Hey, if either of your sisters are looking for a job, though, tell them to come see me. Like, tomorrow. I’m desperate for a couple more waitresses, especially since we’ve started doing deliveries too.”

Tyler hesitated again. “All right. Yeah, I will.”

“Great. Hey, did you guys have dinner?”

Tyler cast a glance my way.

“Just drinks,” I said. “It turns out Tyler wasn’t ready for din
ner.”

“What?” Jasper’s frown was exaggerated. “How could you come here and not eat? I’m insulted. At least let me get you some dessert. On the house.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary—” But Jasper was already holding out his hand to shut me up.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, turning toward the kitchen.

Tyler slid back into the seat. “Dessert, huh? Where does that fall into the scheme of drinks but no dinner?”

Hmm. Dessert. The sweet, forbidden ending.

I wasn’t normally a self-indulgent woman, but maybe tonight I could make an exception.

Jasper was back minutes later with one plate and two forks. Fantastic. Because that wasn’t at all provocative, sharing a moist, gooey dessert. He set the plate between us. It was some kind of chocolate mousse surrounded by an artful arrangement of berries and a deep red sauce.

“There you go. Enjoy! Hope to see you here again soon.”

He walked away, and we stared at the plate as if waiting for it to hatch. Tyler ruffled the back of his hair.

“That looks good,” he said, nodding at the dessert.

“Yes, it does.” I picked up a fork. “I feel guilty already.”

Chapter 11

THE DESSERT WAS DELICIOUS, AND
so was the conversation. We moved on from his adventures in crime and talked about other things—like how ridiculous he’d felt trying to navigate all those teensy little dogs through the park, and how embarrassed he’d been to see me there. Then I confessed I’d once known how to twirl a baton.

“You could probably still do it, don’t you think?” he asked.

I sensed a dare coming on, but I wasn’t going to fall for it. “Probably, but I’ll never show you.”

His smile brightened, and I wondered if he fully comprehended how marvelously attractive he was.

“Did you have a sparkly costume with red, white, and blue stripes? I bet you did.” His teasing was dangerously addictive. I could get used to it. But then I’d just want more and more, until there wasn’t any left. Still, he persisted.

“You did have a costume! I can tell. Did it say
Dr. Rhoades
right here?” He pointed to a spot right over his heart.

I laughed along with him. “No, it did not say
Dr. Rhoades
. It said Evie.”

“Evie.” He said my name as if it were a revelation. I wanted him to say it again.

And he did.

“Evie. I like that. Evelyn seemed a little formal.”

I straightened my spine and tried to stare him down, but I’d polished off that martini and felt more tipsy than threatening. Nonetheless, I was determined to make my point.

“I’m a formal kind of person.” My declaration was ruined by a hiccup.

“I can see that,” he answered.

On a scale of tepid to scorching, his gaze registered at slightly hotter than platonic, and his charm was a tangible web surrounding me. But the hour was getting late. Late by my standards, at least. I sighed and leaned back against the seat cushion. “I should go home. I have surgery in the morning.”

His smile faded, his gaze cooled to companionable resignation. “Yeah, and I have to walk the dogs. Will you be in the park?”

I wanted to be. I wanted to walk alongside him and those silly little dogs. Too bad for me. “No, surgery days start too early for walking.”

He looked down, then reached back to pull his wallet from his pocket.

I was faster and tugged my wallet from my purse. “No, these drinks are on me. My thanks to you for rescuing me from the toilet seat salesman.”

He pulled out his own wallet out anyway. “I don’t think so. I got them.”

“At least let me pay for my own.”

A matching pair of lines formed between his furrowed brows. “No.” He pulled out some bills and tucked them into the leather folio left earlier by the waitress.

“I’m the one who followed you in here,” I said.

“Exactly. That’s why I’ll pay for the drinks.”

His logic made no sense, but then again, he was a man, so I shouldn’t expect it to. I could see I wasn’t going to win this one.

“Well. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I didn’t know what to say after that. I didn’t particularly want this night to end, but it had to. And Tyler had an unnerving habit of maintaining eye contact without blinking, as if we were having some sort of contest and I just didn’t realize it. I always seemed to be the one to look away first. I resisted the urge to tap my fingers on the tabletop.

“Well,” I said again, “I guess I’ll . . . see you around.”

“I’ll walk you to your car.” His tone was as certain as it had been when he’d said “no” about the drinks.

“I don’t have a car. I walked.”

“From home?”

“From my apartment, yes. It’s only about six blocks from here.” My intention was to prove I could get home quite safely on my own, but he didn’t seem to pick up on that.

“Then I’ll walk you,” he said.

“It’s really quite close.”

His smile was honey sweet. “Then it shouldn’t take us very long.”

We paid the bill, waved to Jasper, who was behind the bar, and walked out into the Bell Harbor evening. It was still warm, and the crickets were loud. Off in the distance I could hear the lake. The moon was a sliver, but the streetlamps lit our way.

“I really will be fine, you know,” I said one last time.

“I know,” he said, with no hint of giving up.

Having him walk me home to keep me safe was the height of irony. Sure, I’d be protected from muggers and vagrants, which I wasn’t sure this town even had, but Tyler was a whole different kind of dangerous. He was the sexy kind, with big, tan hands and a mouth that managed to be both masculine and beautiful at the same time.

A mouth I wanted to kiss.

I wanted to kiss him in the same desperate way I’d wanted to taste that dessert, knowing the sensation would start out on my tongue but spread out deliciously through the rest of me, pushed by the pulse of my heart. This was a problem. A big problem.

While science made sense to me, human nature was imprecise and spontaneous. Emotions were unpredictable. Tonight was the perfect example. Everything I knew to be true about myself provided evidence that Tyler Connelly was a high-risk, low-return gamble, but my body didn’t care. My body wasn’t using logic. My body was falling back on neuron patterns formed during the caveman days when women needed a club-wielding he-man who could wrestle a wooly mammoth to the ground. But Bell Harbor didn’t have an unruly wooly mammoth population, so why did I feel so fluttery and feminine with Tyler by my side? Was it because he moved around to my left when we crossed the street so he was consistently between me and traffic? Was it because he smelled so damn good? Was it because my DNA sensed that his DNA would make a superior baby?

Whatever the reasons, if I wasn’t careful, my hormones would flood me with mood-altering endorphins and trick me into thinking this man was right for me.

He wasn’t. Being with him would be like shooting a flare gun. Once I’d pulled the trigger, there’d be no stopping the fireworks. It would light up the sky for a minute or two, but then it would be over, as if it had never happened at all.

“So,” he said after we’d walked a moment in silence. “Are you pretty set on this marriage thing, or are you just trying to scare me away?”

My voice sounded a little resigned. “Both, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Simplicity. Expediency.”

“Is that why you’re using a dating service? For simplicity and expediency?”

I nodded. “Yes. I don’t have time to waste on the wrong kind of man.”

He scoffed and stopped walking, and I realized how insulting that had sounded. I flushed with remorse and turned to face him. “I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant I don’t have time for, you know . . . a last hurrah. It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy one. But I’m looking for something more. And my guess is, you’re looking for something . . . less.”

Tyler didn’t say anything. He just stood there with his hands in his pockets and a frown on his face. I’d offended him with my very unpoetic explanation. Obviously that hadn’t been my intention, but maybe it was for the best. I
was
looking for more, and he
was
looking for less. Neither of us was
wrong
, we were just in very different places, heading in very different directions. He should understand that.

He shifted on his feet. “That’s kind of presumptuous, isn’t it? To think you know what I’m looking for?” His voice had lost some of its earlier warmth, and the bubble of affection we’d been floating in popped.

“I suppose. I don’t mean to be. I just . . .” I let my voice dwindle away. I’d only make it worse if I tried to explain my point of view. Anything I said would make it sound as if I thought he wasn’t good enough for me. And this wasn’t about that. It was about age and timing and phases of life. “Well, anyway, thanks for walking me home.” I pointed to the two-story Victorian house on the next corner. “My apartment is right there. I can manage from here.”

He rolled his eyes and started walking again, determined to get me right up to my front door, in spite of my insults and assumptions. I reached into my purse to get my keys as we headed up the sidewalk and onto the little front porch. There were lights on either side of my door with moths and all sorts of flighty little bugs buzzing around them. Definitely not a romantic place to stand, which, again, was probably for the best.

I put my key into the lock and twisted, popping open the door. I turned back and he was standing on the top step, a few feet away. Hands still in his pockets, expression neutral.

“Safe and sound,” I said, pointing into my dark apartment.

“Yep. Looks like it. I guess this is good night then.” He hesitated near the railing, and I knew I could still kiss him. I could reach over and grab the front of that nice white shirt and haul him inside my apartment. He’d get over those hurt feelings if I showed him my breasts. I knew enough about men to be certain of that.

But I didn’t. I just said, “Thanks again. Good night.” And walked inside alone.

I regretted it instantly. I was an idiot.

I should have kissed him.