The True Love Quilting Club (16 page)

“I don’t know about that,” she hedged. “My focus on success is the one thing that’s kept me slugging it out when more talented actors than I have given up the game. I don’t give myself the option of failure.”

“Would you give up acting if you knew there was no chance you’d ever make it big?” He took a long swallow of water, studied her with an intensity she found unnerving. What was he getting at?

She laughed, but didn’t find anything humorous. “You know, that crossroad is staring me in the face right now. After what happened in New York, Twilight could very well be my last stop on the trail to oblivion.”

An intense, faraway look came into Beau’s eyes, as if he was staring into the future and found his prospects bleak. Or maybe he was peering into the past, regretting some road not taken. It was a look that sent an unexpected shiver slipping down Emma’s spine.

“Don’t make the same mistake I did,” he muttered darkly, his voice heavy as a thundercloud. “Don’t let the thing you love most slip through your fingers.”

A lump of emotion hardened in her throat, and she wondered if he was talking about the woman he’d lost or his career as sheriff. She wanted to ask, but the twisted expression on his face halted her.

In the pursuit of her career, she’d stretched the limits of her abilities, wandered beyond the scope of her talent any number of times. She’d stumbled into desolation, lost her true identity in the hubbub of Manhattan, until she wasn’t sure who she really was anymore.

But the journey had been among the deepest pleasures of her life. The stage, the lights, the audiences, the utter magic of performance. She had seen herself as brave and determined. A tough young woman with a never-give-up attitude, ready to fight to the death for her dream. Fight on in spite of all the heartache and rejection and disappointment. Putting one foot in front of the other. Every single morning, standing in front of the mirror mouthing affirmations. Never doubting that one day, one day…

But the fire wasn’t the same now. It had transmuted from the ego of achievement to the humbleness of offering. She wanted to share her gifts with others. That was her main desire. Not riches and fame beyond her wildest imagination. This realization was new territory, and it made her doubt that she had ever really been certain of anything.

“Don’t.” Beau softened his voice, and in that softness she felt the jagged shards of violent sorrow. “Don’t lose the soul of who you are, because the abyss is black as hell.”

For the rest of the day, Sam could think of nothing except Emma. Animals came and went through the clinic, and his mind barely registered what his body was doing. He did exams and gave injections and wrote out prescriptions, and he didn’t remember any of it. The only thing that felt real to him was the lingering imprint of Emma’s mouth against his.

Even afterward, following dinner and bedtime stories with Charlie, he couldn’t stop smelling her watermelon and Ivory soap scent; couldn’t stop feeling her soft skin beneath his calloused fingertips.

In bed, under the covers, the picture of her sweet freckled face flashed vividly against the screen of his eyelids until, finally, he threw back the covers and got out of bed to pace the length of his bedroom floor in his underwear. Minutes later, he threw open the closet door to reveal his clothes occupying one half of the space; Valerie’s dresses, pants, and blouses hung in the other.

He thought about Charlie. About Aunt Belinda’s opinion that he wasn’t going to be able to move for
ward until he let go of the past. And most of all, about what had happened between him and Emma at the sheepdog herding trials.

He clasped his hands behind him. Back and forth in front of the closet he paced. Back and forth. Several big cardboard boxes that had once held veterinary supplies lay open and empty on his king-sized bed.

And he paced some more.

Occasionally, he’d glance over and see an article of Valerie’s clothing, and a memory would flash through his head. The peach-colored silk top and black slacks she’d had on for their first official date. The purple dress he’d bought her, but she’d worn only once because she said it was too colorful for her tastes. The navy blue skirt and blouse set she’d purchased for his baby sister’s graduation from Texas Tech. The modest beige dress she’d worn for their no-frills wedding at city hall. And then there were her Army uniforms. Pressed and wrapped in plastic, hanging in the corner as if they were just waiting for her to come put them on.

Everything about Valerie had been simple, understated, sensible. Their relationship had been like that too—mild, pleasant, uneventful. Until she’d been sent to Iraq. Odd that their life together was more defined by her absence than by her presence. He’d become a widower at twenty-nine. A single father. His roles carved out by Valerie’s death.

He accepted those roles without complaint. He’d known what he was letting himself in for when he’d married her, and he didn’t regret it, but sometimes he couldn’t help wondering how different his life would have been if he hadn’t chosen this path. This past year had been the hardest of his life, and yet he’d survived.

But Trixie Lynn had breezed back into town, making him wonder if mere survival was enough.

Pausing in mid-pace, he hauled in a deep breath and stepped into the closet. Then slowly, carefully, piece by piece, he took down Valerie’s clothes and packed them away in the boxes.

It was nearing dawn by the time he finished and he’d been through a myriad of emotions—sadness, nostalgia, regret, guilt, reproach, loneliness, melancholia. Now he knew why he’d avoided this task. He hadn’t wanted to muck around in the memories. But it had to be done. Aunt Belinda was right. Valerie wasn’t coming back. Someone might as well get some use from her things.

And in the end, when it was all over, a surprising lightness washed over him. Like whenever you’ve been through a long illness and then one day your fever breaks and you know you’re going to pull through. That’s how he felt now. A sense of weary relief.

“Good-bye, Val,” he murmured as he taped up the boxes. “I’ll never forget you and the sacrifices you made. You know I’ll take care of Charlie like he was my own flesh and blood.”

Then with that, he carried the boxes out into the hallway, went to bed, and slept until Maddie called him down for breakfast.

Sam was napping on the couch when the doorbell rang a few minutes before two that next afternoon, jerking him to an upright position. He’d fallen asleep watching the Dallas Cowboys get their tails beaten by the Washington Redskins. Charlie was halfway across the floor to the front door, leaving behind the LEGOs he’d been playing with, scattered across the living room rug.

He blinked, shook his head to clear it. Charlie already had the door open.

“Hello, Charlie.” Emma’s voice entered the room, soft as a summertime hug.

Yawning, Sam lumbered to his feet.

Charlie opened the screen door and Emma stepped inside. His son stood looking up at her as if she was the most mesmerizing thing he had ever seen. Sam understood the feeling.

She leaned down, hands placed on her knees, and smiled at him. “Is your daddy here?”

Charlie turned to point at Sam as he ambled over.

Straightening, Emma smiled. She looked vibrant in a red and white striped blouse and flouncy red skirt that hit her mid-thigh, showing off those spectacular legs. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Their eyes met, and the moment seemed to spin away into forever. If Charlie hadn’t taken Emma by the hand and pulled her across the threshold, Sam had no idea how long they would have stood there staring at each other.

“Boy have you got a strong grip,” Emma said to Charlie. “Can I see those muscles?”

Grinning, his son flexed his biceps for her. She reached out and squeezed his skinny little arm. “My gosh, what strong muscles you have.”

Charlie looked inordinately pleased.

“Ready for my driving lessons, Teach?” Emma asked.

Charlie cocked his head and looked from Emma to Sam.

“I’m teaching Emma how to drive,” Sam explained. “I know you’d like to come but Emma needs to concentrate on driving.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to be in the car if I crashed it, would you?”

Charlie shook his head vehemently.

Emma slapped her palm over her mouth and her eyes widened. “Omigosh, I didn’t mean…I didn’t think…”

Sam shook his head and frowned, silently warning her to not make things worse by continuing to babble.
“Emma was just kidding, she’s not going to crash the car.”

Charlie didn’t seem convinced. Luckily, Emma kept quiet.

“I tell you what, you go take out the garbage for Maddie and when we get back we’ll all go for ice cream. How does that sound?”

Dubiously, Charlie nodded.

“Good boy.” Sam lightly swatted his behind. “Now go on in the kitchen.”

Once Charlie was out of earshot, Emma sank back against the door. “Sam, I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I totally forgot about how his real father died. Me and my big mouth.”

“Just drop it, okay. Let’s not make a thing of it.”

She looked grateful and embarrassed. She reached up to push a strand of hair from her forehead, and the numerous silver bracelets at her wrist jangled jauntily. Even her jewelry was too jovial for Sam’s life.

“Mm, are you going to be driving in those shoes?” He looked down at the sassy red slippers with tiny heels that she had on. Mules, he thought they were called, but he had no idea why.

“Sure, why not?”

“They don’t seem all that sturdy.”

“They’re fine.” She waved a hand and the bracelets jangled again.

They looked dangerous to him, but everything about her looked dangerous. Those daring green eyes. That gorgeous mop of red hair. Those rosebud lips just begging to be kissed.

“Keys?” She held out her hand.

Reluctantly, Sam tugged his keys from the pocket of his jeans and dropped them into her upturned palm.
How had he gotten himself into this? It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to teach her how to drive. Because, come on, it was a crying shame that a thirty-year-old woman had never mastered the skill. It wasn’t that he was afraid she’d wreck the Jeep. It was a Jeep after all—rough, tough, and built to take a licking, and he wasn’t about to let her drive over thirty-five miles an hour. Rather, it was the fact that he was going to have to be in close confines with her, smelling the sweet scent of her cologne, watching her shapely legs pump the clutch, hearing her soft little gasps of surprise when something didn’t go the way she expected.

“Come on.” She jangled the keys. “Last one to the Jeep has to buy the ice cream.” She turned and vaulted for the door.

The kid in him who’d grown up with three brothers and two sisters couldn’t resist the thrown gauntlet. He took off after her, his stride eating up the ground he’d lost until they were sprinting neck and neck across the thick St. Augustine lawn to his bright yellow Jeep parked at the curb.

They reached the Jeep at precisely the same moment.

“Guess it’s gonna have to be Dutch treat,” he said.

“You cheated.”

“How’s that?”

“You’ve got longer legs.”

“Take it up with God.” He grinned.

She trotted around to the driver’s side door. “Okay, now how do I get in this thing?”

He came to stand beside her. He’d forgotten how petite she was. Next to the Jeep, which had come equipped with a lift kit, she looked delicate and fragile. “Step on the running board.” He patted the metal bar running along the side of the Jeep.

She swung open the door, climbed on the running board, bounced up into the seat. “Wow, I love the vantage point from up here. This is gonna be fun. Hurry up and get in, I can’t wait to get started.”

Sam got in on the passenger side and buckled his seat belt. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this.

“Okay, what do I do first?” She turned toward him, the hem of her skirt riding seductively up her thigh. He tried not to look, but he couldn’t help himself.

“You don’t know?”

“If I knew what to do, why would I ask?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“What part of ‘I don’t know how to drive’ is confusing you?”

“You didn’t take driver’s ed in high school?”

She shook her head. “Rex wouldn’t shell out the cash.”

“Do you ever see him?”

She squirmed, and he could tell she really wanted to change the topic. He knew how devastated she’d been when she’d learned Rex Parks wasn’t her father. “Not in several years. He remarried, and I’m happy that he found someone finally. We exchange Christmas cards, talk on the phone once a year.”

“You sound like you’ve made peace with the situation.”

“What are you gonna do?” She shrugged. “So about this driving thing…”

“Key in the ignition.”

“Oh, right.” She fumbled with the keys.

“It’s the one with the thick round head.”

She found the key he was referring to and slipped
it in the ignition and grasped the steering wheel with both hands. “Now what?”

“Put your left foot on the clutch.”

“Which one is the clutch?” She looked down at the floorboard, and a sheaf of shimmery copper hair fell across the side of her face. Sam’s fingers itched to reach out and push it back behind her ear.

“The one in the middle. Put it all the way to the floor.”

She complied. “It’s harder to mash than I thought it would be. What’s next?”

“Make sure it’s in neutral.”

“How do I do that?”

“It’s the N on the gearshift.”

“What’s the gearshift?”

“This.” Sam touched the gearshift at the same time Emma said, “Oh,” and reached for it.

Their fingers touched on the knob, and instantly, they both drew back. Pinpricks of awareness shot up his arm.

“Oh,” she said again.

“Go ahead, put it in neutral.” He nodded, trying to sound cool and unaffected while he rounded up his scattered thoughts, which were running along the lines of:
Wonder what it would feel like if her hands were on
my
gearshift?
Sam shook his head, shook off the thoughts. Or tried to. They clung to his mind with the tenacity of a grass burr.

She slid it into neutral. “Next?”

“Turn the key and start the engine.”

“Gotcha,” she crowed triumphantly. “Now what?”

“Slowly ease off the clutch at the same time you give it some gas.”

She peeked down at the floorboard again. “The accelerator is on the right?”

“Yes, and the brake is the one on the left. Remember that.”

Audibly, she sucked in air. “Here goes nothing.” Slowly she eased off the clutch and pressed down on the accelerator. To Sam’s amazement, the car didn’t immediately die. Instead it idled to life.

“Good job.”

She beamed as if he’d told her she’d just been nominated for an Academy Award. “What’s next?”

“Press down on the clutch again and then ease it into first gear as you give it more gas and—”

She popped the clutch, jammed it into first gear, and hit the accelerator all at the same time. The Jeep shot forward. “Look at me! I’m driving.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Oh crap, I’m driving, I’m driving! What do I do now?”

“Get out of the middle of the street. Stay on the right side of the road, this isn’t England.”

“Man, you just touch it and it goes all over the place.”

Up the street a car was backing out into the road, the driver clearly not looking behind him.

Not trusting Emma to steer out of the way in time, Sam leaned over to grab the wheel. His upper arm grazed her breast.

“Ohh,” she exclaimed. Her warm breath burned the side of his cheek.

His heart galloped, and Sam guided the Jeep to the far side of the street, narrowly missing the car that had kept on backing out.

“Yipes,” she whispered, “that was a close one.”

He pulled away, settling into his seat, getting as far from her as the close confines would allow. “Both hands on the wheel at all times. And always be on guard for the other guy.”

“Thank you,” she chirped, and rolled her fingers tightly around the steering wheel. “But I probably could have handled that myself.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t have much confidence in me.”

“Eyes on the road.”

She sped up and the engine revved.

His shoulder muscles bunched. “Put it in second gear, but remember to press in the clutch first. If you don’t, the car will—”

The Jeep sputtered, died.

“Oops, sorry. Let’s try this again.” She got it started and they were going again, cruising slowly through the neighborhood. “Remember the time I stole Rex’s car?”

“I do. You drove it into a ditch. That’s what worries me.”

“I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car since then.”

“Now I’m really worried. Take a left at this next street.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re the one who’s driving.”

“Yeah, but you told me to turn left, why am I turning left?”

“To avoid the tourist traffic heading from Ruby Street to 377.”

“Oh, good idea.”

“Put on your blinker!”

“Where is it?”

“Here.” He showed her.

She peeked into the rearview mirror. “Good thing there was nobody behind us, huh?”

“Good thing,” he echoed as his blood slipped swiftly through his veins.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Emma was getting the feel of it. As long as she went slow and straight, she wasn’t doing too badly.

“I know where I’d like to go.”

“Where’s that?”

“To see the old Twilight Bridge.”

“Beau blew it up.”

“I know. I want to see what the river looks like without the bridge there.”

It was a good choice, get out of town, away from the traffic and pedestrians and stop signs. “Okay, then make another left and you’ll hit Highway 51 to the river.”

“Can we turn off the AC and roll the windows down? I want to feel the wind in my hair.”

“Sure,” he said, but cringed the whole time she was rolling her window down. That left her with only one hand on the wheel.

“Woo-hoo! That feels great. Jeeps are cool. So high and bouncy.” She bounced in the seat for effect.

“Both hands—”

“I know, I know, on the wheel. Yes, master.”

“Safety first.”

“And look there’s fun, a distant second. Bye, fun.”

He laughed. How could he not?

“Now that’s a sound I like to hear.”

“What else do you like?” he asked, charmed, his eyes transfixed on her windblown hair whipping against her long, slender neck.

“You mean besides piña coladas and getting caught in the rain?”

Delighted, he laughed again. Back in high school the local skating rink had played that song endlessly, and he and Emma had both agreed they hated the tune with a passion.

“You remembered,” she said.

“Hey, the skating rink is still there and they’re
still
playing that song. I took Charlie there for a birthday party recently. When I heard it, I thought of you.”

“Our
anti-song
,” she said in a faux romancy voice, and grinned.

Then in unison they started singing the lyrics they’d invented for the song, starting with, “We hate piña coladas…” They remembered every word of their made-up song as if they’d been singing the cockeyed duet for years.

When they were finished, they laughed together, and vulnerability cut through him like a knife. Quickly, Sam squelched the mood. “Okay, slow down here and take the next right. You’re going to have to downshift.”

She took the exit, and a few minutes later they were at the river where the bridge used to be. It looked odd now, the bare water without the familiar span reaching across to the boat ramp on the other side.

“Whoa, slow down,” he cautioned, and almost had a heart attack when she drove right to the river’s edge, braking just in time before the front tires hit the water.

“Woman,” he croaked. “I don’t know if you’re gutsy as hell or just damn crazy.”

“Thought you could use some serious shaking up.” She grinned and hopped out of the Jeep.

“My hair’s gonna turn white overnight,” he muttered, put on the parking brake, and got out to follow her.

A hint of autumn was in the air, although it would be a couple more weeks before the leaves started to turn, unless they had an early freeze. But already the shadows were growing longer as the days shortened. Emma spread her arms wide, threw her head back, and inhaled a deep breath. “Ah.” She sighed. “Don’t you just love the smell of the river?”