The Way Home oj-2 Read online

  His blue eyes flashed with amusement as he glanced from her hair to her mouth, then back to her eyes. “A fishing pole? I’ve heard it’s mandatory.”

  Right. OK. A fishing pole was absolutely mandatory. If he’d actually come here to fish. Which, clearly, he hadn’t.

  Or maybe he had, and she’d read everything wrong. People traveled to Lake Kabetogama from all over the country. The scenery was stunning. The national park bordering the lake was pure and pristine. You wanted to get away from it all? You came to the North Country, where you could fish and camp and, yes, maybe even see a bear.

  So… what if he had come here with fishing in mind, and all this absurd schoolgirl hormonal activity was a result of a sad case of wishful thinking? Which was another surprise, because she’d had no idea she’d been wishing for anything. Her life was good. Maybe a little lonely. Especially today.

  And maybe she needed to get a grip, because she really didn’t want to travel that road.

  “Let’s get you set up with a pole, then,” she said, working hard to dismiss the notion that she suddenly felt more disappointment over the possibility that he’d actually come here to fish than apprehension over the notion that he hadn’t.

  All purpose and pretense and business, she headed for the back wall, paneled in age-yellowed knotty pine and lined with dozens of fishing rods and reels.

  “So, how’ve you been, Jess?” he asked softly from behind her.

  She stopped mid-reach, then slowly pulled a rod off the rack, turned around, and handed it to him. “Good. I’ve been good. You?”

  He studied the rod, tested its flex, then met her eyes on a long, slow blink. “Good. Yeah. I’ve been OK.”

  It was only a blink. But it did things to her. Things that created a silence that became a little too lengthy and compelled her to take a stab at filling it. “You and your brother and your friends… you’re quite the legend around the lake, you know.”

  He looked a little disappointed that she’d decided to keep up the dodge-and-weave game, but one corner of his mouth finally lifted in an ironic smile. “I thought you had to be dead to become a legend.”

  “Since the biggest news this far north generally involves fishing and the weather, stories don’t need as much time to marinate.”

  He got very quiet then. Thoughtful quiet. Troubled quiet. The kind of quiet that seemed personal and made her want to fill it. Again.

  “So what are you fishing for?”

  His grin came back slowly. “Um… isn’t that a redundant question?”

  How could she not smile at that? He made it very easy. “What kind of fish? Walleye? Northern pike? Bass?”

  “Ah. How ’bout we shoot for the walleye? Do they all come with saddles?”

  An involuntary laugh burst out before she could stop it.

  Across the road from her gas pumps stood a gigantic fiberglass walleye, complete with a dozen steps for the kiddies to climb up and sit in the saddle strapped to its back so Mom and Dad could snap their pictures. As a tourist gimmick, it was pretty corny, but since the lion’s share of the businesses around the lake depended on fishing for revenue, it was also highly effective in drawing travelers off the main highway.

  “Last I knew,” she said, “only the big guy has one.”

  “Good to know.”

  Darn, that smile did things to her. Things she felt woefully unprepared to deal with. Just like it was hard to deal with his presence. He’d been dressed in winter gear when she’d seen him before, but even the bulky quilted outerwear hadn’t been able to hide the fact that he was fit and fine. Today he wore a pristine white T-shirt and worn jeans that proved she’d been right about his build. He was tan and tall and strong in the shoulders, and she didn’t have to guess if his snug T-shirt concealed a set of six-pack abs to go with the biceps that bulged beneath his sleeves.

  He had such an easy way about him. A man comfortable in his own skin. A man unimpressed by himself and by the reaction he most likely got from women. But as this drew out, he also looked uncertain—and that got to her more than how physically striking he was. A man who looked like him shouldn’t feel insecure around a woman like her.

  She was no fashion plate. She didn’t have the time or, since J.R. died, the inclination to be. Makeup generally equaled tinted lip balm. The last time her plain brown hair had seen a pair of scissors, they’d been in her own hands. She kept it short out of necessity and softly curled because of heredity. She was tan from working outside in the sun, because shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops were her uniform this time of year.

  By no stretch of anyone’s imagination would she be considered voluptuous, but she was proud of her toned limbs, which he’d been eyeing. And whoa, the silence had stretched out too long again as she’d wished that she’d put on a little mascara and done more than finger-comb her hair after her shower.

  “Are you staying on the lake?” she asked, half afraid of his answer.

  “Hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. Seeing you was as far as I got with the plan.”

  Hokay. There it was. The part that made her heart pound. No more pretending that he’d come here to fish.

  And he had a plan.

  She should tell him, very sensibly, that this was not a good idea. That he should go back to Florida and leave her peace of mind and her equilibrium and her fragile sense of stability intact.

  Except the truth was, none of those things had been stable or whole since she’d lost J.R. All of those things were raw and frayed and so far from healed that she had no convincing argument that his departure would make it better.

  She really looked at him then. At this man who had blown in on that snowstorm and whom she’d never thought she would see again but had foolishly thought of so often since then.

  Too aware of his gaze on her and feeling a sudden need for distance, she moved around him to return to the front of the store. “You should be all set, then. All you need is a fishing license.”

  His footsteps made the floorboards creak as he followed. Not crowding her. Trailing her slow and easy, giving her space and time to think as she slipped behind the counter, so distracted that she nearly tripped over the sprawled pup again.

  “Jess. Let’s get this out in the open. You don’t seriously think I came all this way to fish, right?”

  She faced him from behind the safety of the high counter-top. Scratched Plexiglas covered a sales-tax chart, a map of the lake, a copy of the fishing regulations, and a dozen old cartoons her dad had cut out of newspapers dating as far back as the ’60s—all of which she couldn’t tear her gaze away from.

  Well. If she hadn’t figured out that he’d come here to see her before, the sudden rasp in his voice and the nuclear explosion taking place in her chest were major tip-offs.

  OK. So this was really happening. But it shouldn’t be. And she needed to make that clear.

  “Ty. This is… well… I’m not… I don’t…” She stopped, suddenly incapable of finishing a thought, let alone a sentence, because anything that came out would sound presumptive or cowardly. She looked toward the door, willing someone to step inside. Someone who needed fuel. Or was lost. Or wanted a lottery ticket or a fishing license. Anyone who could save her from having to face the inevitable.

  For God’s sake, grow a pair, Jess.

  “Jess.”

  The softness of his voice finally brought her gaze back to his.

  “Relax, OK? No pressure here. I know my showing up like this is way out of the blue. I know I caught you off guard. But I wanted to see you. I hoped maybe… I don’t know. I thought we had a connection that night.”

  She swallowed hard, and suddenly, her heart pounded with an anger she hadn’t known she’d been harboring.

  “You mean that night more than a year ago, when I gave you guns and you went out and made a pretty good stab at getting yourself killed?”

  The legend surrounding “that night” was more fact than fiction and had been fodder for stories around the lake ever si
nce. In certain “good ole boy” circles, where regulars like Boots and his cronies gathered in a restaurant booth or around a potbellied stove with their mugs of strong coffee or bottles of Scotch, the tale of the “shoot-out at the Nelson cabin,” where Tyler Brown and two other former spec-ops soldiers and the daughter of the secretary of State had ended up in a life-and-death face-off with a team of hired assassins, had been told, retold, embellished, and revered. When all the facts had come out, it had been pretty clear that he had almost gotten killed. And that he’d been a hero.

  Well, she’d been married to a hero. Look how that worked out.

  Why, today of all days, did this hero have to show up?

  He wasn’t smiling when she met his eyes this time—probably because her voice had risen before she’d been able to check it. He slowly nodded. “Yeah. That night. I’m sorry. I know what happened was upsetting.”

  Apt word, upsetting.

  He let it settle for a moment. “You saved our lives. Letting us have those guns… it was a brave thing you did. Trusting us. Trusting strangers.”

  “Some have different words for what I did.” Her brother-in-law, Brad, in particular had a lot of words… words like stupid, insane, reckless.

  “You trusted me then. I hoped you might trust me again, this time with nothing nearly as scary.”

  Oh, but this was scary.

  “I’ve thought about you, Jess. I’ve thought about coming back to see you for a long time now.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out, Then why didn’t you? Why have eighteen months gone by without so much as an e-mail? He’d asked for her phone number and her e-mail address. She’d thought he would call. Who was she kidding? She’d been certain he’d call. The way he’d looked at her. The way his eyes had spoken to her.

  Even knowing he was the last kind of man she ever wanted in her life again, it had hurt when he hadn’t contacted her. And she’d felt foolish for thinking about him too much. The way she felt foolish now.

  “I hoped maybe you might want to see me, too,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “Can we start with something that simple?”

  As if there was anything simple about this.

  Tell him to leave. Just say it and end this.

  But he’d come so far. Made such an effort.

  “Yeah,” she heard herself saying, despite the warnings banging around in her head. God help me. “I guess we could start with that.”

  He looked so relieved that some of her own tension eased out on a tight smile. “So we’re clear, though, you’re still paying for those minnows and the tackle.”

  He laughed and dug into the hip pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “Fair enough.”

  Before she could think it through or second-guess herself, she picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Shelley. Hi. Yeah. It’s Jess. Hey, I’ve got a fisherman here in need of a place to stay.” She glanced up at him, at his watchful eyes, then quickly looked away when she felt her cheeks redden. “Got any vacant cabins?”

  Shelley and Darrin Lutz were her friends and the owners of Whispering Pines Resort—and yes, they had an available cabin.

  “Thanks. I’ll send him your way, then. Name is Brown. Tyler Brown.”

  She couldn’t quite meet his eyes after she hung up. And she already hoped she wouldn’t live to regret making that phone call, because here was the deal. Ty Brown showing up out of the blue this way might represent a life-changing moment for her. A moment she didn’t want, a moment she actually feared but hadn’t realized she needed until she’d heard his voice in her store and the sound of it had made her knees go weak.

  He handed over his credit card as the door burst open to the ring of the bell. A gaggle of sunburned and giddy teenage girls tumbled inside, smelling of suntan lotion, laughing and joking, and headed straight for her wireless Internet station.

  “What time do you get off?” he asked, low enough not to be overheard.

  Here, at least, was a small reprieve. “You forget. I own the place. I live here.” Her apartment was above the store. “I’m here until lights out.”

  Since taking over the store, she had never regretted that she worked long hours, day in, day out, during the summer. It kept her busy. And she needed to be busy. She needed to be dog-tired exhausted each night when she went to bed to have any chance of outdistancing the thoughts that kept her awake most nights since J.R. died.

  J.R., who would have celebrated a birthday today.

  She had a moment of deep, aching regret that until this instant had never been coupled with guilt. But suddenly, she did feel guilty. For being alive. For feeling alive in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. And she felt guilty because for the first time in three and a half years, she realized she wanted to look forward to something instead of always looking back.

  “Figure something out,” he said, tempting her toward that future. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

  Chapter 3

  YOU’RE SURE YOU CAN HANDLE things until I get back?” Jess walked back into the store after watching Ty’s taillights disappear down the road. She already had second thoughts about letting him talk her into dinner and leaving Kayla in charge of the store.

  “You have to eat,” Ty had pointed out when Jess had insisted she couldn’t leave until closing time at nine P.M. “Besides, you’re the boss. Don’t you have someone who can cover for you for a couple of hours?”

  She might have been able to stage a stronger argument if Kayla hadn’t bopped through the door about that time—all five feet and one inch of her, a college freshman who looked about thirteen instead of nineteen, with her bouncing brown ponytail, short-shorts, and halter top, and telling Jess, “Go. I can handle the dinner hour and close up for you. And if it gets too busy, I’ll call Blake or Lane. Those two always want extra hours. Hailey, too. She’s saving for an iPad. Cripes, boss. We’ve got you covered. Now, take a break. It’s been forever since you took any time off.”

  That had pretty much ended the discussion, except for the part where Ty had said he’d be back to pick her up around six.

  “So who’s the hot guy?” Kayla asked.

  It would get out sooner or later, so she might as well tell it straight. While tourists came and went from the store in droves, men who asked her to dinner didn’t. At least, they never asked her more than once, because she always gently told them no. Still, in the small lake community, word would spread like wildfire. This would be her only chance to temper that fire before it took on a life of its own.

  So she told her.

  “OMG. He’s one of those commandos who shot up the bad guys at the Nelson cabin.” Kayla started digging into her hip pocket for her iPhone to spread the word.

  Jess rolled her eyes. “Hold off on the smoke signals, Pocahontas. In the first place, he’s not a commando. In the second, I really don’t see the need to broadcast that he’s here. Let’s respect his privacy, OK?”

  “So why is he here?”

  Jess snatched Kayla’s phone out of her hand, then tucked it back into the girl’s hip pocket. “You know, I honestly don’t know,” she lied, hoping to sidetrack Kayla’s curiosity. “Maybe business brought him.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “Maybe you’re his business,” Kayla said with a suggestive grin.

  That may have been true, but there was no way she’d let Kayla know it. “Don’t even go there. All I know is that he said he was in the area and he’d like to thank me for helping them out—”

  “With the commando stuff,” Kayla interrupted with a leading look.

  “Whatever,” Jess said. “So he’s taking me out for a bite to eat.”

  “To say thank you.” Kayla reiterated Jess’s statement, making it clear she thought there was a whole lot more than a thank-you involved.

  “Yes,” Jess said firmly. “To say thank you. Now, you said you wanted to work, so quit drilling me and work. There are two boxes o
f freight in the back room I haven’t had a chance to get to yet today.”

  “Because Commando Cutie kept you otherwise occupied?”

  Jess lifted a finger and pointed to the stockroom. “Go.”

  Kayla giggled and headed out but not without one last parting shot. “’Bout time you had a date.”

  “It’s not a date,” Jess said mildly, determined to deny, deny, deny. Only she couldn’t deny to herself. Just as she couldn’t stop wishing she had something upstairs in her closet that hadn’t been washed and worn a hundred times. “I’m going up to take a shower.”

  Kayla poked her head out of the stockroom door, grinning like a goon. “Make sure you use some of that sexy-smelling lotion I got you for Christmas last year.”

  “It’s not a date,” Jess ground out one more time, and headed up the stairs, trying to remember where she’d stashed the bottle of lotion.

  THE CROSSROADS GENERAL Store sat between nowhere and the end of the earth at the junction of Highway 53 and a cratered blacktop road that led to a Minnesota lake with a name Ty hadn’t yet figured out how to pronounce. And as he pulled out onto the road, he wondered if maybe he should have played it differently with Jess Albert. Maybe he should have fudged and told her he was in the area on business and decided to stop by and say hi. See how she was doing. Thank her again for the help that long-ago winter night. Maybe she wouldn’t have been as jumpy. But that plan had felt as dishonest as it was, and in the end, he’d decided to play it by ear.

  She was wary of him. Maybe even a little angry at him. Last time she’d seen him, he’d let her believe he would call, but he hadn’t, so she had good reason to be both. Still, she hadn’t run him off. She’d given him directions to the Whispering Pines Resort, where she’d arranged for someone named Shelley to hold a cabin for him.

  Which meant he was staying. Which hadn’t necessarily been part of his plan when he’d arrived, because, as he’d told her, he didn’t really have a plan—except to take his cues from her.

  And those cues so far were pretty mixed. It wasn’t only wariness. There was that underlying anger he’d sensed, maybe even a little fear, in her. Definitely resistance. Yet her eyes had told a different story from her body language. Enough to give him hope. She was glad he’d come back. She just didn’t want to admit it.