Chapter Forty-Seven

When we got back to the Picketts’ house, Velma and Ruthie tried to encourage me, saying things weren’t as bad as they seemed, but before I went to bed that night, the news reached the house. Tyler had been arrested. And if that weren’t enough, the Panthers had barely won the game. With a score of 3–0, Trapp’s state ranking fell into question thirty minutes after the final whistle blew.

Velma wrung her hands and fluttered around the kitchen, grumbling to herself and working off her frustrations exactly like her son would have done. Ansel lifted the remote control like a saber, silencing the evening news with a punch of his thumb, but he continued to sit in his new recliner, staring at the blank screen.

I cried myself to sleep.

The town would blame JohnScott. Not only for the scandalously low score but also for the scandal in front of the concession stand. And by association, I would be blamed too. And really … honestly … we were both at fault. But I was tired of being put down by people who expected something of me without ever giving in return. And I was finally realizing I didn’t have to believe them.

So the next morning, I showered, ran a comb through my hair, and put on jeans and a T-shirt. The baby whimpered in the living room, but he couldn’t be hungry, because I’d fed him right before I got in the shower. From the sound of it, Velma rocked him back to sleep.

I flicked off the bathroom light, then stepped down the hallway, expecting to see Velma.

Instead, I saw JohnScott.

My heart quivered, and I put my fingers over my mouth. He had his back to me, and he leaned over Velma’s old cradle, rocking it gently.

“He asleep again?” My words came out wobbly.

JohnScott didn’t turn around, didn’t even flinch. “Yep.”

“I was surprised to hear him cry. He ought to sleep for a while. He’s got a full tummy.”

“He needed to burp. It woke him up.”

“Did your mom burp him?”

“Naw, I did it.” He looked away from the baby, out the sliding-glass door.

“I’m surprised you knew that’s what he needed.” I laughed lightly.

“Twelve nieces and nephews.” His easy answers couldn’t hide the pain in his voice.

I stepped to his side, entering an invisible cloud of tension. He smelled of soap and cologne, which blended with Nathan’s baby lotion until I couldn’t separate the two and didn’t want to.

The baby blanket had come unswaddled, but JohnScott tucked it around the edges. Nathan’s lips moved in and out in a blissful nursing dream, and JohnScott moved the pacifier to the corner of the crib.

“He’s been like this since birth,” I said. “Eats and sleeps.”

“Let’s hope it lasts.”

He still hadn’t looked at me, and his disinterest pulled a string of frantic blubberings from my mouth. “You’re probably thirsty. I could get you a Dr Pepper. Or some iced coffee. Did your mother already offer you something?”

“She’s not here.”

“Sure she is.”

He ran a hand over his chin. “She left.”

I glanced toward the kitchen. It seemed odd Velma would leave without telling me. “She’ll be back soon?”

“Not for a while.” He stepped to the bookshelf in the corner of the room, favoring his bad leg, then stared blindly at the titles. “I didn’t want to bother you, but she told me if I didn’t come over here, she’d strip the starter out of my truck.” He crossed his arms. “She’s done it before.”

My fingers tightened around the wooden trim of the cradle. “Very resourceful.”

He turned suddenly. “Fawn, everyone and their dog has been telling me you’re finished with Tyler, but I don’t know what to think. You tell me one thing, and then I see the two of you making out—”

“We were not making out.” I deliberately glared at him, partly to convey my disgust and partly to encourage myself I wasn’t as tainted as I felt.

He leaned against the wall and peered at me silently. Blankly.

“Come sit down.” I motioned to the couch, but when he didn’t budge, I sat next to the crib and looked at the baby, gathering strength from his innocence. “When you showed up at the hospital, it felt right and made me happy.”

“I was out of line.”

“You were the only person I wanted to see,” I added hurriedly. “Of course, I needed your mother there. She’s a tremendous help with the baby, but you’re the only one I wanted, just because.”

He sighed, and his muscles thawed with the release of air. “I don’t blame you if you want to be with him. He’s the father of your baby.”

“Please stop calling him that. It makes me sound like I should be on a talk show where families yell at each other on national television.” Driven by nervous energy, I stood up abruptly, but then found I had no where to go. And I had no way to escape the tension that hung in the room like a cloud of smoke. “I know you saw him kissing me, but it’s not what it looked like.”

“How so?” He monotoned the two words, bored, indifferent.

“It’s not like I wanted him to kiss me.” My words tumbled. “He still insists he’s going to take care of me, but I told him again that it isn’t going to happen. I don’t want to be with him.”

JohnScott’s shoulders withered.

I walked around the couch and stood on tiptoe, forcing him to look at me. “I don’t want to be taken care of the way Tyler would take care of me.”

“He’s the father of your baby.” He winced at his use of the phrase. “That sort of gives him a natural right to a relationship.”

“With the baby. Not with me.”

He blew air through his teeth. “Tyler Cruz has it all, Fawn. Looks, money, confidence. Girls want guys like him.”

“He doesn’t have integrity or compassion. And he doesn’t love me. Not really.”

“But he’s the father.”

A jab pierced my temple. “Every time you say that, it reminds me I had sex out of wedlock, and I feel like a harlot.”

He stepped away from the bookshelf. “You’re not … that.”

“I feel like it though, so what’s the difference?”

He ran a hand through his curls, then sighed, and his next words sounded like a begrudged confession. “The difference is your heart.”

“Not everyone sees it that way.”

“Of course not.” He shrugged. “There’s always somebody who will tear you down, but you’re a good person. You’ll land on your feet.”

“Well, I’m not going to land on my feet next to Tyler Cruz.” A tear of frustration welled in the corner of my eye. “And if I have to shake you by the shoulders to get you to listen, I’ll do it.”

The corners of his mouth pulled down, and his eyes locked with mine. He frowned, but in the shadow of his gaze, I saw a dilemma, a debate, as if I were an opposing team that had to be analyzed.

My body felt crippled. I had just threatened to shake him by the shoulders, but his scowl withered my confidence, and I realized there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t make him hear me, believe me, love me. He either did or he didn’t, and I would have to pick up the pieces and get on with my life either way. The wetness in the corner of my eye grew into a puddle and slid down my cheek.

JohnScott took a step toward me and touched the tear with his fingertip, as though checking to see if it was real. His brows eased. “You don’t have to shake me.” His finger trailed across my lips. “I hear you.”

I melted into him, slipped my arms around his waist, and nestled beneath his chin. We hadn’t hugged since the baby’s birth, and without Nathan between us, I felt incredibly close, almost as though I stood inside him. “I’ve missed you.”

He ran a hand through my wet hair and pressed his lips against my forehead.

“JohnScott, I’ve had so much on my mind. Motherhood isn’t what I expected. It’s so much different and so much better. And your mom and Ruthie have been great, but I wanted to share it with you.” I kissed his chest, then rested my ear against the spot, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. “Ruthie said you were sad.”

His hand trailed up and down my back. “I have a confession to make.”

I lifted my head to meet his gaze.

“I’m a pouter.”

“I’ll say you are.”

“I like to work through my problems, but I’m not sure that’s what I’ve been doing the past week.”

I fingered his sleeve. “I won’t complain about your juvenile behavior if you won’t complain about mine.”

“Deal.” He pulled me against his chest and rested his chin on the top of my head, and we swayed in the corner of the living room. My mind emptied and my heart settled, and I clung to him, feeling like a rescued child.

“Ruthie said you have bruises.”

“It’s nothing.”

He bent over me, running his fingertips across my jaw with feather-soft tenderness. Then he kissed each yellow spot. “He’s not going to get close enough to hurt you again.”

As I stood in the shelter of his arms, my paranoia about Tyler seemed trivial. “I’m worried about you.”

“Me?” He laid his palms firmly on my shoulders. “Oh, you mean my leg? It’s okay now.” He chuckled. “But when it happened, it felt like a branding iron.”

“Not your leg. Football. It’s eating you alive.”

“Yep.” He brushed a strand of hair away from my face, and his bewildered gaze traveled to my ear as he gently nudged the wayward curl behind it. “The school board, more or less, told me to get my act together or else.”

“Or else what?”

“I didn’t ask.” A corner of his mouth wrinkled. “I think I’d better take these boys to the play-offs or look for another job.”

“If that’s all they want, you have nothing to worry about. I thought you were going to say they told you to break it off with me.”

“At this point”—he chuckled—“I think they’ve decided I’d be more productive if I kept you.”

“You’d be more productive if you would talk to me.”

He rested his forehead gently against mine. “I didn’t want to look weak.”

I shook my head, rubbing my nose against his. “Not weak, just real.”

“Real.” His mouth grazed my temple, then circled my cheekbone before settling familiarly against my lips. His kiss felt soft and warm and cautious, but as seven days’ worth of fear and doubt fell from my shoulders, my response gradually escalated, and I silently conveyed the desperation of all the words we had left unsaid.

Settling back against the bookshelf, he drew me closer, answering my unspoken plea as his lips begged for confirmation. And I wordlessly answered him, willing him to believe my regrets, my intentions, my love.

When the baby cried, we pulled away from each other and looked toward the crib. We couldn’t see Nathan, but the cradle shook slightly from his kicking, and we both smiled.