Home to Laura

chapter FIVE



TYLER JORDAN HURRIED down Main Street toward Tammy Trudeau’s gift shop. He glanced at his watch. Five-fifty-five. He might catch her.

If not for Lester Hughes stopping him to rail against the boys buzzing his doorbell every night then running away, Ty would have made it here on time.

He told Lester to ignore the boys, that getting a rise out of him was reason enough for them to keep doing it. Lester liked to complain, though. So he did. And Ty listened. And Ty was late.

Honest to God, sometimes his job was more about settling disputes than fighting crime. As sheriff of the county in which Accord sat, he should be grateful that crime was as low as it was.

During the week, Tammy worked as a schoolteacher, but sometimes on weekends helped out her employees in the shop she owned.

Ty stared in through the large front window. Tammy sat behind the counter. It looked as though she was working on her books. Alone. Good.

When he opened the front door she glanced up. He watched her grow quiet, still, and knew that she didn’t want to see him. It hurt. She used to brighten up like a Christmas tree when he entered a room, but that was before Winona had come to town. Then the shit had hit the fan and Tyler didn’t know how to change things back to the way they used to be.

She didn’t say anything, just continued to watch him with that soberness that was breaking his heart. He wanted his happy Tammy back.

“Hey,” he said, standing inside the door with his hands in his jacket pockets. He needed to touch her so bad.

She didn’t answer, leaving him hanging like a kite in the breeze with its string cut, lost and drifting farther and farther away.

She sat, eyeing him, as mute as he was. He’d seen her around town in the past four months, but never up close. Even those brief glimpses had shattered him. He wanted her back.

“Hi,” he said, his voice a rough croak. He cleared his throat and stepped close to the counter.

For the briefest moment her expression softened, but it didn’t last.

He’d screwed up about as badly as a man could. In their four years together, he’d been faithful to Tammy. If his dreams turned sexual, they were always about her. If he went anywhere socially, he took Tammy. He’d done worse than screwing around, though. He’d betrayed her in the most fundamental way, lying through omission.

“Thought you might be closing up.”

She checked her watch. “I guess I lost track of time.”

It wasn’t like Tammy to not be on the ball.

Mauve shadows darkened the delicate skin below her eyes. A stunner with her pretty wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes, she seemed listless. He’d done that to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Nick’s in town.”

She raised one eyebrow with the unspoken question, What does that have to do with me?

“His daughter is here. She’s visiting Gabe and Callie. I’ve never met her, so they’re having me over for dinner.”

“Sounds lovely.” Still, that raised eyebrow seemed to suggest, And this concerns me how?

“I want you to come with me.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”

“Tammy—” He tapped his fist on the counter. “You were a member of the Jordan family for four years. Everyone misses you.”

“Everyone?” Meaning him?

A breath gusted out of him. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

“And Winona?”

“She’s gone back home. She left mid-January. She was only here for a week.” This was a small town. Tammy had to have known to the day and minute when Winona left.

“I know she left town, Ty. Did she also leave your heart?”

“She hasn’t been in my heart in years.”

Thirteen years ago, while away at school in California, he’d had a meteoric affair with a stunning woman, Winona Clark, that had crashed and burned when she threw him over for another man. Ty had gone into a tailspin that only time and his work in law enforcement here in Accord had pulled him out of.

Then Tammy had come along. Six years ago, she’d moved into town to take over the gift shop her great-aunt had left to her and to become a teacher.

Ty had taken one look at her and had wanted her. She was a dead ringer for Winona.

Unfortunately, he’d never told her that. In early January, she’d found out. And that had been that. In her eyes, he’d only loved her as a substitute for Winona.

“Tammy, I don’t know how many more ways I can say I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore that you only dated me because I look like her. What does matter—”

“I only started dating you because of that.” He tried to set the record straight, but she talked right over him.

“—is that you never once told me you loved me. My guess is you never got over that woman. I deserve more than to be second best.”

“Trust me, Tammy, you aren’t.” Lord no, she was the furthest thing from second best. “I don’t love Winona. I don’t care for her at all.”

“But you only just discovered that in January. I think you always held out a crazy hope that she’d come back to you.”

He couldn’t deny the truth of that. He’d harbored hopes and dreams. He just hadn’t realized it until Winona walked through his door after thirteen years.

“In the meantime, you were making do with me.”

“I wasn’t making do. I cared about you. I still care. I love you.”

“Too little too late, Ty.” Her voice sounded husky.

“Do you have a cold?” He stepped forward. At least she hadn’t kicked him out.

“A sore throat.”

“You been working too hard?”

She shook her head. “Haven’t you heard?”

Her flat tone sent a chill rippling up his back—one of his witchy feelings he always got before something went wrong. Like when he’d sensed as a kid that Dad wasn’t coming back home. Like when he’d known that Gabe had been injured in Afghanistan. Like when he’d known three months ago that something big and maybe bad was about to happen, right before a young girl came knocking on his door and said, “Hi. I’m Ruby. I’m your daughter.”

He’d never known about her. Winona hadn’t told him he was a father. He’d missed Ruby’s childhood and that hurt.

Winona came back into his life to pick up her daughter, and Ty had lost Tammy when she realized how much she looked like his former lover.

“Haven’t I heard what?” he finally asked, even though he was afraid of the answer.

“I left teaching, Ty.”

She’d stunned him. “But you’re the best teacher for miles around. Why would you quit? You love it.”

“You really don’t know? This is a small town and news travels fast. I thought maybe it had reached you.”

“Tammy, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Get to the point.”

“Okay. This is the point.” She stood up from the stool she was sitting on and stepped around the counter. She put one hand on her stomach, as though to protect it. From what? From him? Why would she need to...protect...her belly?

“Oh, Lord. Are you—?”

“Yes, I am.”

But how? He always used a condom. Always, except that one time.... Enlightenment hit with the force of a sledgehammer. The weekend of the storm. Ruby had arrived on his doorstep, the daughter he’d never known about. The shock had been profound.

Their lovemaking had been frantic that weekend, for Tammy because she sensed that life was going to change in a big way for the two of them, and for Ty because he knew that the girl’s mother would soon follow to track her down. He’d known how hurt Tammy was going to be when she realized that he’d started dating her because she was a dead ringer for Winona, the woman he’d lost all those years ago.

Their sex that weekend, trapped indoors by the storm, had been panic-driven and he’d broken one of his own rules. He’d forgotten to use a condom one night.

Apparently, one night was all it took.

His mind got past the shock and moved on to wonder. Lord. She carried his baby.

He stepped close and she let him. He placed his big hand on her stomach. There was barely a bump.

Carefully, he took her small jaw in his hand, tipped her head up so her neck was long and elegant and he could look into her eyes, and placed his lips on hers. She watched him.

With the second kiss, she closed her eyes and he felt an exhalation of her breath, as if she were giving in to something.

He wrapped his arm across her shoulders and moved his other hand to rest on his babe again.

“For sure?” he asked, his voice threaded with the wonder that was flooding him.

“For sure. In six months, I’m having a baby.”

“You mean we.”

“No, Ty. I mean I.”

His hand convulsed. “Tammy.” His voice took on a warning tone, but she ignored it and stepped out of his embrace. She slipped away from him like water running through his fingers, like all of life seemed to be doing lately.

“What are you talking about? This is my baby, too.”

“All of those times I wanted to talk about getting married, about starting a family, you cut me off. You didn’t want to discuss it.”

“I know, but I’ve changed. Now that I know about Ruby, I can’t get enough of her.”

“How is she?” she asked grudgingly, but he knew she really wanted to know. When they had spent that long snowed-in weekend at his ranch, she’d fallen for Ruby every bit as hard as he had. He knew Tammy had real affection for her.

“She’s great. She’s going to stay with me all summer. We use Skype all the time. She’s writing a school report about bison and I’m helping her with it.” He couldn’t keep the enthusiasm out of his voice. He felt like a kid who had just received the best Christmas present on earth.

Tammy smiled, but it was tinged with sadness.

“I love being a father,” he said. “I want to have more babies. I want to make them with you.”

“And Winona?”

“She’s in my past. There’s nothing there now.”

“Are you sure?”

He thought of the phone call they’d shared last night, and some of the things Winona had said.

“We belong together, Ty.”

“You didn’t think so thirteen years ago.”

“I think so now.”

“I’m not rich, Winona. You can’t live like you used to with Kevin.” She’d thrown him over to marry a man with better prospects. Kevin had been a lawyer with a good law firm.

He took too long thinking about that conversation.

“I’ve got my answer.” Tammy stepped back behind the counter, using it as a barrier between them.

“Tammy, no. Don’t do this.”

“When you figure out who you love—yes, Ty, love—I won’t settle for less, you come back and we’ll talk, but not before then.”

Ty left, slamming the door behind him.

Sometimes he felt so helpless, so out of control with women. Winona had manipulated and used him all of those years ago. She’d been trying to manipulate him all winter since she’d come back into his life. The harder he pushed her away, the harder she came on to him.

He’d learned his lesson with her, though.

He didn’t want her.

He wanted Tammy.

How did he go about getting Tammy back? Who could he ask for advice?

These days he spent too much time alone and it brought back memories of other times in his life when he’d felt that way.

Shortly after Dad’s death, Gabe and Ty had all but ceased to exist for Mom. She slid into a blue funk that lasted months. Ty might be the only one of the brothers who guessed, even at such a young age, the source of Mom’s slide into depression. It had definitely been more than grief.

As soon as she came out of her depression and realized there would be no more babies, five-year-old Nick had become her favored son. She’d pampered him. Ty had been only seven at the time. He remembered that awful feeling of loss. First he’d lost Dad to death and then Mom to depression and then to Nick. Years later he lost Gabe to the army. Gabe had been gone for too many years, escaping a betrayal by his fiancée. It was immature of Ty to remember all of that old stuff from childhood now, but some things stuck with a man over the years.

Gabe was home and married and never leaving Accord again. That was a good thing. He’d told Ty that Nick was in town.

Could he ask either of them for advice?

Gabe? His older brother wasn’t likely to know. He’d almost lost Callie because of stupidity.

Nick? Ty could honestly say he didn’t know his younger brother well enough to go to him with problems in the area of romance. Besides, hadn’t his marriage failed a few years ago?

He could ask one of his buddies, but wasn’t sure they had women figured out any better than he had, even though most of them were married and had children.

Children. Plural. Like him. First Ruby. And now Tammy was pregnant. His breath caught. Tammy was having his baby. He sighed and then shook himself back to reality. She didn’t want him to be part of the baby’s life, or of her life.

Tammy had another think coming if she thought he would stay away. He’d missed his first child’s early years. No way was another woman keeping another child away from him.

He plowed through his reports for the day then headed over to Gabe’s.

Nick’s daughter was a pretty, talkative, sweet young teenager. Nick had done a good job, which surprised Ty. In some ways, their mom had screwed up Nick’s psyche more than she had with Ty and Gabe.

Ty doubted Nick realized it, but when Mom had coddled him, had given him everything he wanted when he wanted it, she had done him no favors. Ty doubted Nick understood the concept of delayed gratification.

Somehow, though, he’d done well with Emily.

Ty opened his arms and she slipped into his embrace.

He sighed. Family felt so good.

Why had he denied himself all of those years after he’d met Tammy? Why hadn’t he committed heart and soul to her? Because Winona had screwed him over so badly. No, it went further back than that. Because Dad and Mom’s relationship had been anything but stellar, had been riddled with fights about money and Dad’s climbing.

There had been that one nuclear argument the night before Dad left to climb Everest.

Ty had hidden under the covers in his bed, way earlier than bedtime, but he’d been trying to hide from the words that caromed around the small house like poisonous arrows.

“If you leave this time, don’t bother coming back,” Mom had yelled. “I mean it.”

Dad hadn’t come back. He’d died on Everest. Mom had gone into her depression.

Ty still hadn’t figured out why that one argument had screwed him up so badly that he hadn’t been able to marry Tammy. He’d better figure it out soon, though.

He wasn’t missing anything this time, as he had with Ruby. Not one thing. He planned to be there through the pregnancy. He planned to be there at the birth. He planned to be there for the rest of the child’s life.

He planned to be there for Tammy.

If she couldn’t accept that, well...she would have to.

It was happening, with or without Tammy’s cooperation.

He was tired of being pushed around by women.

As of this evening, he was his own man making decisions he wanted to make.

* * *

LAURA ENTERED THE B AND B with Nick, unsure why she was here.

He’d caught her in a weak moment. He’d looked every bit as alone as she’d felt.

What did they have in common? What on earth did they have to talk about? How would they fill an entire evening?

There wasn’t a chance in hell they would ever be spending time together, that there was a future for them. So why waste this evening?

Because she was lonely for someone she couldn’t replace, her baby daughter. Because, ideally, Nick would offer loving arms and brief oblivion.

Since he’d only offered dinner, she would take it. It was either that, or her too-quiet apartment.

A consummate professional, the owner and chef, Kristi Mortimer, seated them beside the fireplace in the gorgeous old-fashioned dining room, without the hint of a raised eyebrow to comment on Laura and Nick being in the same room, let alone dining together.

The whole town knew what had happened between them all of those years ago, and of how it had ended her engagement to Gabe.

“I know this isn’t up to your city standards,” Laura said after Kristi had left to get them a bottle of white wine on which Nick and Laura had agreed, “but Kristi performs miracles with both local and imported ingredients.”

She proved it almost immediately when she returned with the wine, but also with a small pot of excellent smoked trout spread with homemade crackers.

“Remember Kristi’s cousin, Jeff Stone?” Laura asked. “He catches the trout every year and smokes it for Kristi.”

Laura loved food. There was a good chance she was going to have trouble with her weight someday, but life was meant to be enjoyed and savored.

“So your daughter is with Gabe this evening?”

“With Gabe and Callie, yeah.”

She didn’t need a crystal ball to know she’d struck a nerve.

“You obviously don’t want her to be with them. Why didn’t you insist she spend the evening with you?”

“She was too excited. She hadn’t seen Callie all winter and she’d never met Gabe. I couldn’t say no.”

Laura’s knife clattered to the table. “She never met Gabe? How old is she?”

He sensed the censure in her voice. “Twelve.”

“In twelve years she’s never met her uncle?”

“She didn’t come here for my mother’s funeral. I thought it would be too hard on her.”

“What about all the other years? Why didn’t you come back to visit? I know you loved your mother.”

Except for that, she would have thought Nick was incapable of love.

He shrugged.

“What was it that happened when you were a kid that made you so angry with Gabe?”

“Never mind, Laura.”

“What made you so bitter about this town?”

“Give it a rest.”

“I’m just trying to understand you.”

He threw his napkin onto the table. “If you follow this line of questioning, this meal is over.”

She thought of her dark apartment, of the hours stretching ahead of her, leaving her too much time to grieve for her lost baby and her failed engagement.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s talk about other things.”

Kristi brought entrées, steak for Nick and chicken marsala for Laura.

“Why did you come to town this weekend?”

Nick explained about the problem with the Native Americans.

Good. A neutral topic.

While he spoke, he surprised her with a glimpse into the businessman he was. He enjoyed the challenge of business, even the problems that arose. Another surprise? He didn’t intend to annihilate his opponents’ concerns. He planned to find a solution that would work for both of them.

She had to admire that.

Nick sipped his wine slowly, seemed to savor it. “Where did you get all of that music you were playing in the café today? Is it a local radio station? I don’t remember hearing commercials.”

“You didn’t. It wasn’t the radio. It’s music from my own collection.”

“You have eclectic taste.”

“I seem to.” She smiled. “Vin says—”

“Vin?”

“My fiancé.”

“You’re getting married? Why can’t he give you a baby?”

“We’re no longer engaged.”

“You just called him your fiancé.”

“Force of habit. He broke up with me today.”

His jaw flexed. “I’m sorry to hear it. No wonder you were upset in the kitchen.”

“It was more than that.”

“What else was it?”

“Five months ago, I had a miscarriage. I was broken up about it. Vin was relieved. I thought we could try again. Today, he decided he didn’t want to. He no longer even wants to marry me.”

He set his cutlery carefully onto his empty plate and took one of her hands in his.

Her gaze flew to his.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no idea. No wonder you were so upset when you saw me.”

“Yes. It was worse when you came to town in January, though. The grief of losing the baby was new and raw. It hurt to see you, but even more, it hurt to see Gabe. I hadn’t seen either of you in years.” Her pulse pounded. She wondered if he could feel it where one of his fingers sat on her wrist. His hand was warm, heavy, reassuring. This. This was what she’d needed, what she’d tried to find elsewhere. How odd that she found it with Nick Jordan, of all people.

Kristi approached to clear the table and Nick let go of Laura’s hand, breaking the warmth of the moment. She missed the contact.

“What did Vin say about your music?” he asked.

“He thought it was weird. He wondered why I didn’t listen to the hits on the radio.”

“I’m glad you don’t. I enjoyed what I heard today.”

Kristi brought coffee and homemade chocolate Grand Marnier truffles.

They talked about music, about how much of their taste overlapped.

She bit into a truffle and caught him watching her tongue as it collected chocolate from her lips.

She stared at his refined hands, at his long fingers and the way he held his coffee cup. She was used to Vin’s calloused construction worker hands.

Nick’s would feel so different.

There it was. That same old attraction. So many years later, there was still that pull that was so hard to control. Why? What was it about Nick?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. She’d been studying French. Loved it. Adored it. Wanted to visit Paris someday so she could use it.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

No. It wouldn’t be the same as all those years ago. She was older and wiser. She might feel attraction toward Nick, but she wouldn’t act on it. Absolutely not.

He’d stopped talking and she glanced up to find him watching her. He knew what she’d been thinking.

Nick wouldn’t let her share the tab, went a little Neanderthal, actually. Feeling mellower than she had earlier, and less without hope, she didn’t mind. He’d been a gracious dining companion. He’d grown up well.

Who would have thought she could share a civilized evening with the enemy?

He insisted on walking her home.

“Nick, it’s only across the street. I live in the apartment above the bakery.”

“So I’ll walk you that far.”

The night had turned chilly, but the skies were clear and the stars were out. This end of Main was empty. Farther down, where there were several bars, people were having fun, but here in the retail section all was quiet.

They walked across the street. When a raccoon crossed their path, Nick took her hand and steered her clear.

At the far end of a narrow alley and around the back of Sweet Temptations was the fire escape that led to her apartment.

“Why aren’t there stairs from inside the bakery?”

“I don’t really want them. I like that my home and workspace are separate. I like stepping outside to go home.”

“Well,” he said, looking down at her.

“Well,” she said and stared at him.