Between the Sheets (34 page)

“I think that’s a good idea,” Melody said, her features carefully revealing nothing.

“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?” Shelby surprised herself by asking, by seeking this woman’s opinion.

Melody smiled and shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

“I’m not sure I have,” she laughed.

It was as if visors had been lifted and the old cupboards, the placemats that had sat on that table nearly every day for most of her life—it all seemed so ridiculous. She’d been caught in the amber of the past by her mother’s illness.

“Alzheimer’s can swallow a lot,” Melody said. “It’s hard not to let it swallow you, too.”

Oh, God, wasn’t that the truth. She felt swallowed. Disturbingly missing from this house. Nothing ruled in this house except the past and Mom’s illness.

The barn was where she lived, where she put her heart and her soul. She thought of Ty and the way he’d made her feel in that barn and how she’d liked it. Not just the sex, but the freedom of doing what she wanted, of saying what she wanted.

Being who she was.

She was still keeping the secret of herself from her father, from a man who’d been dead for years, and the thought was terrible. But the habit was painfully, deeply ingrained.

Ty’s texts and messages still sat on her phone, small reminders not just of the pleasure she’d felt, but of the pain. The pain she’d somehow convinced herself was
her due. She didn’t know how to deal with that, its intricacies far beyond her.

But the state of the house she could fix.

She put down her coffee cup and went upstairs to grab the boxes, bringing them down one by one to sit by the back door.

Mom stood in the doorway, tearing a Kleenex into shreds, asking two, three times in a row where Shelby was putting them, but then Melody stepped in with Mom’s coat and an invitation for a walk.

“Show me where the old church was,” Melody said, and Mom brightened up, switched directions, and Shelby could have wept with gratitude.

Outside the day was cold but clear. The sky the kind of blue that seared her eyes, and she had to squint against the sun. She took two boxes of yarn out to the barn, setting them in the back with the rest of the stuff she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with. When she stepped back outside she found Ty and Casey standing at her back door.

After the initial heat blast the sight of Ty wearing his jeans and boots and those cuffs around his wrists caused under her skin, she realized both Ty and Casey stood there like men who had bad news.

“Hi,” she said, brushing her long bangs out of her eyes. She needed a haircut about a month ago but had not found the time, and had just managed to stop herself from cutting her own hair.

A woman could live like a hoarder and not realize it, but she had to have some standards.

“Shelby,” Ty said, his lips curving for just a moment into a smile that sent her heart racing.

And because she could, because things had changed just enough inside her head and her life, she smiled back at him. And because she had this beautiful, painful insight into him she saw what her smile did, the way it
rocked him back, the way it pleased him somehow, deep inside.

He cleared his throat, turned his face away, controlled his reaction into something far less personal. Far less interested.

Unfairly, she felt robbed by his reaction, but then she had not talked to him in two weeks. He’d changed the rules between them and she’d rejected him.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked.

Ty gave Casey a little nudge and he stepped forward with a small box. “I’m returning this stuff to you.”

Confused, she took the box, held it with one arm, and looked through the strange bits of things in it. She lifted her hand, the crystal from the chandelier she thought she’d lost hanging from her finger. That was weird.

“How did you get all this?” she asked and as the question left her mouth, she somehow knew what he was going to say.

“I stole it from you,” he whispered. “I’m really sorry.”

“Why?”

Casey glanced back at Ty, who after a moment answered, “It’s complicated. But we’re dealing with it.” Ty gave Casey another bump with his elbow.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Casey asked, his eyes on his shoes. “To make it up to you. I can mow lawns or … I don’t know? Work. I’m already doing dishes at Cora’s all day on Sunday, so I can’t work for you then.”

She could see that Ty was expecting her to say no. To say that she was fine. He already had his face schooled into understanding and slightly indifferent lines and the words were actually on her tongue, because for so long, since she was seven years old, she’d been turning aside help. Turning aside interest.

And it had gotten her nowhere.

She was well aware that no one outside of Cathy and
Deena and now Melody, people who understood Mom’s illness, had been inside the house in years. And that to the average eye the state of the house was shocking.

But she was done pretending everything was fine.

That she was happy.

That she could do all of this without help.

“I’d love some help,” she said. Casey frowned, Ty blinked, and she found herself smiling. Smiling for no good reason, and that felt like the best reason of all.

The house was clean but in shambles; there was no pretending otherwise. Walking into the kitchen and through the hall, Ty saw about twenty different things that needed to be done. Some for aesthetics, some for safety, some just to make Shelby’s life easier.

And he wanted to offer his help, but he’d been shot down before. And no matter how … different she seemed right now, he found himself unable to trust that the change was toward him and not just the relief of having someone caring for her mother and some help cleaning out the boxes that lined the living room and the stairs leading up to the second floor.

“Wow, Ms. Monroe,” Casey said. “You got a lot of stuff.”

“Too much, Casey.” She pointed to some boxes already stacked by the door. “You can take those to the barn.”

Casey grabbed them and headed out the back door, leaving Ty alone with Shelby for the first time in two weeks.

“Ty, you don’t have to help me with this stuff—”

“You need help, don’t you?”

“But—”
We broke up. Or whatever
.

“Just show me what needs doing, Shelby.”

Oh, God, wasn’t that just the sterling silver truth of
this man. He would help her even after she’d rejected him. His friend Jimmy had it all wrong: it was Ty who was so much better than she, not the other way around.

“You can follow me,” Shelby said, taking the creaking carpeted steps up to the second floor. A week ago, two, Ty wouldn’t have even pretended not to stare at her ass. Now he watched the progress of his boots over the faded flowers of the rug.

“Where’s your mom?” he asked into the prickly silence between them.

“Melody has her out for a walk. Watching me get rid of the boxes was making her anxious.” Ty came up behind her and she glanced at him over her shoulder, her eyes bright. Her cheeks flushed.

Ty curled his hands into fists and looked everywhere but at her.

It was floor-to-ceiling boxes along one side of the hallway. Through one bedroom door he could see a bed stacked high with clothes. Shoes lined up along the side of the bed.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” she asked, and he looked down to find her watching him, that lip tucked up under her tooth. “I can’t believe I let it get this bad.”

“Then let’s get this stuff out of here,” he said.

She began to sort through the boxes, making two piles.

“Why was Casey stealing?” she asked.

“I’m not totally sure.” He showed her a box of yarn and she pointed toward the bigger pile. “But I think it’s because he didn’t know how to be happy. He felt like he had to ruin it a little so he could trust it.”

Shelby’s implacable, rock-solid gaze made his heart stop, but he felt every inch between them as if it were a mile. He wished she would touch him. Hug him. He could really use a hug. It had been kind of a big few days. “That’s kind of amazing.”

“Yeah. He says he hasn’t taken anything for a while now because he’s gotten used to being happy. We have an appointment in a month with that therapist you recommended.”

“That’s great!”

He nodded, trying not to smile too hard or too much at her, trying desperately to seem casual, but he sucked at it. Because he wanted to talk to her, tell her that Casey had let himself be hugged. That Ty had told the boy he loved him and Casey hadn’t sneered or run. That the two of them were slowly figuring it out, one giant mistake at a time.

“It is. I think he has a lot to talk about and maybe he’s finally in a place where he can actually talk.”

“How about you?” she asked.

“I set up an appointment for myself. I figure I can use all the help I can get.” She was smiling at him like she was proud, like he was dear to her, and he couldn’t stand it.

This woman didn’t answer your calls, your texts for two weeks. She made it very clear she wanted nothing more from you than sex
.

The self-inflected reminder was bitter, and suddenly he had to get out of there. “You want me to take these out to the barn?” he asked, pointing to one of the piles she’d sorted.

She stacked three superlight boxes filled with yarn and handed them to him. He made sure his hands were nowhere near hers as he took them, but for a moment she didn’t let go.

Her head was bowed as if she were reading the label, but she still didn’t let him have the boxes.

“Why?” she whispered.

“Why what?”

“Why do you want more? What have I shown you that you want more of?” Her gaze flickered to his and then
away. But in the moment he saw the beginning. The start of her knocking down the walls to let him in.

“Everything,” he said simply. “I want more of everything.”

“The sex—”

“Of course. But you mean more to me than the sex we’ve had, Shelby. I want more of your fierce heart and your secret smiles. Your loyalty and decency. I want to make you laugh until you hoot. I want to help you shoulder some of the load you’ve got because you’ve helped shoulder some of mine. I want to find out what you think and how you feel. I want to put you on the back of my bike and go for a ride. Lie down in a bed with you. I want to argue about what to watch on TV and … I want everything. Everything you have to give to a person, I want to be the man who gets it.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Me neither.”

She shot him a skeptical look and he smiled, happy just to have her eyes on him. Happy just to have her attention. “Everything with you is brand new,” he said.

“I’m probably going to be terrible at it. I will be. I know it. I can be … I can be so cold. So awful.”

“I don’t think you’re awful.”

“You will. You will, trust me. And you’ll regret ever wanting more because I have no idea how to give anyone more.”

She thought her father had made her angry, and he had, but under it all she was scared. Scared that he was right. And that she would be alone.

“We’ll go slow,” he told her. “For both of us.”

“Slow? We haven’t done anything slow.”

“We’ll start with dinner. Sunday night, my house. I’ll cook.”

“You can cook?”

“See all the things we don’t know about each other?”

She smiled at his joke and he felt the engine of his heart kick over. This was happening. It was really happening.

“What about Casey?”

“My son and I have kept enough secrets from each other, Shelby. If you and I are a thing, he’s got to know about it. If we’re in, we’re all in.”

She let go of the box only to cup his face in her hands. She pressed her lips to his, softly. Sweetly. She tasted of coffee and toothpaste, and if faith had a flavor, it was there, too.

Chapter 23

It was difficult making dinner while getting heckled by the peanut gallery. But it was fun. And kept his mind off the butterflies in his stomach. Never in his life had he had butterflies. He was a man, for crying out loud. Men didn’t get butterflies.

But the butterflies were relentless. So were the sweaty palms.

“Who eats salad?” Casey asked, tearing lettuce leaves and putting them in a bowl.

“Girls do.” Ty seasoned the last of the steaks and set the plate aside before opening up the bag of shrimp he had in the sink.

“Why do you make all this food for Ms. Monroe, but not for us?”

Ty didn’t have time to get into the things men do for women, making Caesar salad being about the least of them. “You’re eating it tonight, aren’t you?”

“I’m not eating the salad, that’s for sure.”

“Sure you are. You need some vegetables in your life.” The fact that salad was such a rare thing in their house and Casey was making such a stink about it would indicate he should have more than just a passing glance at a carrot.

“Don’t be lame.”

“Even if I tried, I couldn’t be lame.”

Casey began to list all the ways Ty was lame when the doorbell gonged through the house.

“Ohhhhh,” Casey said, grinning at Ty. “It’s your girlfriend.”

Ty snapped the dishtowel over his shoulder at his son and quickly washed his hands before racing down the hallway to beat him to the door. He gave Casey a shove and he detoured off into the living room and the TV. So much for his help with dinner.

But when he opened the door, it wasn’t Shelby. It was Officer Jenkins.

Crap
, he thought. The day was going so well, too.

“Hello,” Ty said, not sounding at all nice. “What’s going on?”

“Well, the Cornells around the block were broken into again last night.”

Ty leaned against the door. “Anyone hurt?”

“No. But things have escalated. Their kitchen was torn apart.”

“Stuff was stolen?”

“Their keys. The keys to their house, the car. Her mom’s house across town. Darryl works as a janitor at the high school and the keys to the school are missing.”

“Shit, that’s no good.”

“Right. So, I’m here to see if you know anything. Have you heard anything in the last few days?”

“No. We’ve been keeping our doors locked.”