“It was Christmas,” Lara said. “You had every right to stay. It’s my grandmother’s house and?—”
“You don’t have to go defending it tome. Why didn’t you tell me he broke up with you?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed in that way she had that always made him want to fight her battles for her. “I guess it didn’t come up. And…”
“Listen, this is silly. I get where he’s coming from. I’ll go explain to him. Man to man. Hell, I’ll go right now. Is he still working at the insurance company?”
“Tyrus Wagner, don’t be ridiculous.” She got to her feet and glared at him.
He frowned at her pulling out his full name on him—cruel and unusual, to his way of thinking. “Why is that ridiculous? I’ll fix it for you. It’s notsexistto say man to man. It’s just…”
“It’s not about if it’s sexist. I don’t want you to talk to him. Period.”
“But—”
“I don’t want Adam back. I don’t want anyone.” She got that stubborn look about her, narrowed eyes and upward tilted chin. A look that had come straight from her grandmother. “I have come to the conclusion that I think I’d rather be like Grandma. Alone and happily doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Forever.”
Alone forever? Lara? It just…didn’t make sense to him. Besides, Mary Lou hadn’t been aloneforever. “She had your grandpa. She always tells stories about how much she loved him.”
“Yes. And he died before he should have. And her son died before he should have. And her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren. It just doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
She didn’t often bring up her family. Not that she avoided it exactly. She just didn’t like coming out and saying they were dead—even if they were. So he wasn’t quite following what she was getting at. “Does what?”
“Loving people and making a family.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, encompassing the entirety of the museum. “Everything dies.”
“Well, sure, but…” He didn’t know how to argue with that since it was a simple fact of life. But his sweet best friend saying it made the simple truth sound… depressing and dire.
“What about coaching?” she asked him, changing the topic completely. “If the high school doesn’t need anybody, I bet youcould find something in one of those programs you grew up in. Someone would be ecstatic to have a professional.”
He thought of the hours of being yelled at in a batting cage, on a poorly lit backfield somewhere chasing down increasingly erratic fly balls.
He’d had some good coaches, some really good role models who had cared about their players more than they’d cared about winning.
But when he thought ofcoaching,he thought of his father telling him he couldn’t eat dinner that night because he’d gone hitless in a tournament they couldn’t afford.
Like it was a ten-year-old’s fault Bruce Wagner spent what little money he made on baseball.
Ty shook his head. No, he couldn’t stomach those memories. Wouldn’t. “I don’t know that I’d have much to offer.”
“You haveeverythingto offer. You didn’t spend so much of your life playing not to have some wisdom to impart.”
“Those who can’t do, teach?” he returned, then winced at the bitterness in his own tone. He didn’t want to be bitter. He wouldn’t take that Wagner mantle and wear it. He was going to befine, damn it.
“Youdiddo,” Lara insisted. “Don’t undercut it just becausehedoes.”
Since Ty didn’t want to talk about his father, or baseball, he turned the subject right back on her. “Lara, if you loved him…”
“I didn’t.” And she met his gaze when she said it so he had to take it as the truth. “Not really. Not enough. I don’t think I have that in me, Ty. Not anymore.”
Which he didn’t like, atall.
Chapter Three
Lara didn’t like talking about Adam with Ty. Well, with anyone, really, but Tyhadbeen the final nail in the coffin of her and Adam. Lara just didn’t see that as a problem. Adam had been a decent boyfriend, a decent guy.
But when he’d started hinting around about marriage, she had felt nothing but dread. She hadn’t been able to picture the future he seemed to want. And when he’d started to blame Ty’s existence in her life for that, she’d known that whatever she thought she was doing wasn’t working.
Everything she’d told Ty earlier this afternoon had been one hundred percent true. She didn’t see thepointin all that hurt. She had the people in her life that she’d developed a relationship with before her family had died, and she didn’t need or want to add anyone else to the mix.
