screws up, Ted Beaudine sails free.”
“Yes, well, he was trapped in a pretty big screwup last weekend,” she said.
“He’s already over it.”
She prayed that was true.
NEAR THE HOUSE, CADDO LAKE was shallow with a muddy bottom, so she couldn’t swim there, but when they were on the lake, she swam off the small outboard that came with the rental house. He never went in the water with her, and eight days after their arrival-eleven days since she’d fled-she asked him about it as she swam alongside the drifting boat. “Odd that a tough guy like you seems afraid to go in the water.”
“Can’t swim,” he said as he propped his bare feet on the boat’s splintering rail. “I never learned.”
Having observed his love of being on the water, she found that strange. And what about those jeans he always wore? She flipped to her back and took another approach. “You don’t want me to see your skinny legs. You’re afraid I’ll mock.” As if any part of his body could be less than muscular…
“I like jeans,” he said.
She dropped her feet and treaded water. “I don’t get it. It’s a sauna around here, and you’ll take off your shirt at the drop of a hat, so why not wear shorts?”
“I’ve got some scars. Now shut up about it.”
He might be telling the truth, but she doubted it. As he leaned back against the stern, sunlight gilded his swarthy pirate’s skin, and his half-closed eyes seemed more languid than menacing. She felt another of those unwelcoming stirs of… something. She wanted to think it was merely awareness, but it was more than that. An involuntary arousal.
So what? It had been almost four months since she and Ted had made love, and she was only human. Since she had no intention of giving in to her wayward thoughts, what was the harm? Still, she wanted to punish him for making her mind wander where it shouldn’t. “It’s strange that you don’t have any tattoos.” She dog-paddled next to the stern. “No naked women dancing on your biceps, no obscenities etched on your knuckles. Not even a tasteful iron cross. Aren’t you worried you’ll get kicked out of the biker club?”
The flickering light coming off the water softened the hard edges of his cheekbones. “I hate needles.”
“You don’t swim. You hate needles. You’re afraid to show your legs. You really are sort of a mess, aren’t you?”
“You’re not exactly the person to call anybody else a mess.”
“True. Deepest apologies.” She managed something almost approaching one of his sneers.
“When are you going to call your folks?” he said out of nowhere.
She went under and didn’t come up until she had to. “Meg lets them know I’m safe,” she said, even though she knew that wasn’t the same as talking to them herself.
She missed Charlotte and Holly’s spats, Tracy’s dramas, Andre’s rambling accounts of the latest fantasy novel he’d read. She missed Nealy and Mat, but the idea of picking up the phone and calling them paralyzed her. What could she possibly say?
Panda gave her a none-too-gentle assist back into the boat. Her cheap one-piece black swimsuit rode up, but he didn’t seem to notice. He fired up the outboard, and they chugged back to the dock. As he killed the engine, she gathered up her flip-flops, but before she could climb out of the boat, he said, “I have to get back to work. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
She’d known this limbo couldn’t last forever, but she still hadn’t made plans to move ahead. Couldn’t make them. She was paralyzed, caught between the focused, organized person she’d been and the aimless, confused woman she’d become. The panic that was never far away kicked up inside her. “I’m not ready.”
“That’s your problem.” He tethered the boat. “I’m dropping you off at the Shreveport airport on my way.”
She swallowed. “No need. I’m staying here.”
“What are you going to do for money?”
She should have solved that problem by now, but she hadn’t. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she didn’t like the idea of staying at the house without him. For a brooding and increasingly mysterious stranger, he was surprisingly relaxing to be around. So much more relaxing than being with Ted. With Panda, she didn’t have to pretend to be a better person than she was.
He stepped out of the boat. “Tell you what. If you call your family tonight, you can ride with me for a while longer.”
She scrambled onto the dock. “For how long?”
“Until you piss me off,” he said as he tied up the boat.
“That might not get me to the next town.”
“My best offer. Work with it.”
She was almost glad he was forcing her to do what she should have done from the beginning, and she nodded.
That night she did her best to put off the phone call with various unnecessary chores until he lost patience. “Call them.”
“Later,” she said. “I have to pack first.”
He sneered. “Chickenshit.”
“What do you care? This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“Sure it does. Your mother was the president. It’s my patriotic duty.”
She snatched the phone. As she punched in the number, she wished she’d been able to get her hands on his phone just once when he wasn’t watching. Even as she retreated to the deck, he could see her through the window.
Her heart hammered when she heard Mat’s familiar gruff voice. She fought back tears. “Dad…”
“Lucy! Are you all right?”
“Kind of.” Her voice broke. “I’m sorry. You know I wouldn’t hurt you and Mom for anything.”
“We know that. Lucy, we love you. Nothing could change that.”
His words twisted the knife of guilt even deeper. They’d given her everything without expecting anything back, and this was how she repaid them. She struggled against tears. “I love you, too.”
“We need to sit down together and discuss what happened. Figure out why you didn’t feel like you could talk to us about it. I want you to come home.”
“I know. How-how are the kids?”
“Holly’s having a sleepover, and Charlotte’s learning to play the guitar. Andre has a girlfriend, and Tracy’s really pissed with you. As for your grandfather… You can imagine how he’s taken this. I suggest a stiff drink before you call him. But first you have to talk to your mother. You might be thirty-one, but you’re still part of this family.”
He couldn’t have said anything that made her feel worse about herself.
“Lucy?” It was Nealy. He’d passed over the phone.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Really.”
“Never mind about that,” her mother said briskly. “I don’t care if you’re a grown woman. We want you home.”
“I-I can’t.” She bit her lip. “I’m not done running away yet.”
Nealy, of all people, couldn’t argue with that, and she didn’t try. “When do you think you’ll be done?”
“I’m… not sure.”
“Let me talk to her!” Tracy shrieked in the background.
Nealy said, “We had no idea you were so unhappy.”
“I wasn’t. You can’t think that. It’s just-I can’t explain.”
“I wish you’d try.”
“Let me have the phone!” Tracy cried.
“Promise you’ll stay in touch,” her mother said. “And promise you’ll call your grandfather.”
Before Lucy could promise anything, Tracy grabbed the phone. “Why haven’t you called me? This is all Meg’s fault. I hate her. You should never have listened to what she said. She’s jealous because you were getting married and she wasn’t.”
“Trace, I know I disappointed you, but this isn’t Meg’s fault.”
Her baby sister Button had turned into a volcano of eighteen-year-old outrage. “How can you love somebody one minute and then not love them the next?”
