Трейси Вульф – A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father (страница 8)
“You got troubles, son?”
Forcing a smile to his lips, Eli looked back at the old man. Jowly, balding and paunchier than was probably good for him, Gene Garrett may not have been as physically commanding as he’d once been, but that steely-blue gaze still lasered right through a person, even behind his glasses. His boys might not always agree with him, but not for a second would any of them think of disrespecting him.
“Nothing that’s gonna cause the world to stop spinnin’,” Eli said, clapping his father’s shoulder before heading back to his own area of the shop, where a massive, carved headboard awaited staining. His father followed him, his arms crossed high on his chest. Eli glanced over.
“I’m okay, Pop. Really.”
“No, it’s not that.” His father’s gaze veered to the bed. “Guy called this morning and canceled.”
“
“I explained all that, and he said he knows it means forfeiting the deposit and all, but…he said he was real sorry, but this just isn’t a real good time to be spending big bucks on a headboard.”
On a rough sigh, Eli dropped onto a nearby stool. “It hasn’t been a
“Patience has her perfect work, son,” his father said, then smiled. “And God knows your mother and I have had ample opportunity to prove that particular passage over the years.”
Sighing, Eli wagged his head, then got up and snatched a manila folder off the battered desk in the corner of the room. “You see this? It’s my order folder.”
“Looks a mite on the thin side.”
Eli opened it and turned it upside down. A single sheet of paper fluttered to the gouged, sawdust-smeared floor.
“That was the bed, I take it?” his father said.
“Yep.”
“Then there’s somethin’ else better waitin’ in the wings, you’ll see.” Before Eli could groan, Gene added, “But we’re doin’ okay—you know what they say, when folks aren’t buying new homes, they remodel. So we can always use you over on this side of the shop.”
Eli glared at his father’s back as he walked away. Yesterday, he’d been happy as a damn clam. Now the clam had just been shipped off to hell in a handbasket…a trip Eli’d taken a time or two before in his life.
Except now he realized it was up to him, whether it was a one-way trip or not. He could sit here and stew, or he could act like a grown-up and actually do something about it. Or at least try. Not about the canceled order, maybe—at least, not now—but about Tess? Yeah.
“Anybody got a phone book?” he yelled to the world at large. Seconds later one flapped to his feet, sending up a cloud of wood dust. With a nod to Jose, one of their employees, Eli snatched it up, elbowing off the cobwebs. Two years out of date but good enough. He flipped open the thin book, found Tess’s number, then dug his cell phone out of his shirt pocket before he lost his nerve.
Maybe last night was a one-time thing—and maybe that’s all it should ever be—but that didn’t mean he and Tess Montoya didn’t have a few things to clear up between them.
Like, now.
Toweling her hair, Tess stared at the ringing landline as though she’d forgotten it was there, since nobody called her on anything but her cell anymore, prompting her to wonder why she even kept the darn thing—
“You gonna get that or what?” her aunt yelled from down the hall.
“No,” Tess yelled back.
Seconds later, Flo appeared at her door, phone in hand and speculative look on face. “It’s Eli Garrett,” she said, conveying a wealth of questions in three words. Because not only would Flo undoubtedly remember Tess’s Eli phase, she would know Tess’s and Eli’s dealings since then had been virtually nonexistent.
Still, Tess played it as cool as a woman in a towel with recently applied beard burn across much of her person could. “Now what on earth do you suppose he wants? We haven’t even spoken in years.”
“I’m sure I have no idea,” Flo said, handing over the phone. With a pointed look at Tess’s abraded neck.
“Hot shower,” she whispered.
“Whatever,” Flo said, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.
“Are you
“Just making sure you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“And maybe that’s not an opening you want to be giving people, just at the moment. But that’s neither here nor there. We need to get together. To talk.”
“Eli…Last night…Nothing’s—”
“Gonna happen. I know that. But there’s stuff I need to get off my chest.”
She tensed. “Then just say it.”
“Dammit, Tess—where’s it written you get to call all the shots? You don’t have to accept my apology—”
“For what?” she said, thinking,
“Hell, no, not for last night. Got no regrets about that. Never will. No, for what I did a dozen years ago.”
Her chest cramped. “Eli—”
“I’m not offering up any excuses. But I’m truly sorry, Tess, for hurting you. I was then, even if I couldn’t get over myself enough to say it. As for the other stuff…well. I’m not gonna make any excuses for that, either. But I want you to know…I’m not that person anymore.”
“Why would I believe that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding…tired. Sounding much too much like a man looking for comfort…making her much too much aware how willing she’d be to give it. Maybe. Under other circumstances. Like if they were two different people who didn’t have some really bad history between them. “I don’t suppose I’ve exactly given you—or anybody else—cause to believe I’ve changed,” he was saying. “But last night…I guess it shook loose some stuff in my head I didn’t even know was there. Ah, hell, I’m not even sure what I’m saying.”
“Then don’t,” she said, fervently wishing he’d stop. Now. While she still had a grip on her anger. On her control.
“No, I’ve got to get this out.” He paused, then said, “It’s just…being with you again reminded me of what we had, I guess. What I threw away. But it’s not like I was having some kind of let’s-go-back-to-high-school fantasy or anything, okay?” Another pause. “Can I be honest?”
“I thought you were.”
“Okay, more honest.” He blew out a breath, then said, “Look, there’s been a few women in my life—”
“A few?”
“Yeah, well, there were a lot of nonstarters in there. Even so—and I know this isn’t gonna win me any points—most of ’em were…diversions. I’m not proud of that, but I never led any of ’em on, either. Given ’em any reason to think I was offering anything more than I was. I might’ve been a jerk, but I’ve always been an up-front jerk. But here’s the thing, and I know this is gonna sound like a line, and a lame one at that…but it was different with you—”
“Oh, Eli, for God’s sake—”
“I swear, Tess,” he said, forcefully enough to shut her up. She could count on one hand how often that’d happened. “You weren’t a diversion, you were a helluva lot more than that. And I’m not sayin’ that to get you back into my bed, or my life or anything. I know you weren’t looking for anything last night except what happened, and that you’re not likely to be looking for anything in the near future. Least of all from me. And that’s okay, because I’m not, either. But I just couldn’t stand the thought of you goin’ for another second thinking…I don’t know. That I didn’t respect you or something. So. We clear on that?”
Another shudder of something damn close to terror snaked down Tess’s spine. She had absolutely no idea how to respond, not to this…this take-charge person who in no way, shape or form resembled the laid-back, goofy Eli she remembered.
“Yeah, Eli,” she said, startled to realize her voice wasn’t steady. “We’re clear.”
As mud.
“Good. Then I’ll let you get back to it. You have a good one.”
Still wrapped in her towel, Tess sat on the edge of her bed for a long time after Eli hung up, feeling a little like she’d just seen a spaceship land outside her window—a combination of disbelief, apprehension and curiosity, all underpinned with the sneaking suspicion that life as she’d known it would never be the same.
Although there was no earthly reason for her to feel that way. Even if Eli had somehow done a one-eighty, what difference did it make? Like he said, she wasn’t even remotely interested in starting up something. With anybody.
She dressed on autopilot, pulling items out of drawers and closets without thinking. Or, apparently, looking. Not until she returned to the kitchen, and her aunt’s eyebrows shot up, did it hit her she was wearing her fave suede skirt, the designer boots she’d scored on eBay, a dressy sweater.
In other words, she’d dressed for work.
On Saturday.