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Once their plates were empty, he paid the bill while Norma Rose slipped on her gloves. Taking her arm to assist her off the stool, he asked, “Shall we go see when the next movie starts at the Capital?”
She frowned slightly, but at his silent urging agreed with what the others might have taken as real enthusiasm, though he knew it was false. “Why not?”
He nodded toward Charlie. “The shakes were as good as she said they would be. Thanks.”
“Stop in anytime,” Charlie said. “A friend of Roger’s is a friend of mine.”
Feeling Janet’s glare, Ty asked, “How about a friend of Norma Rose’s?”
Charlie laughed. “Hers, too.”
Ty chuckled as if that delighted him. It did, actually. Especially the way she squirmed inwardly. He could read her as well as he could read himself. Perhaps even better.
With one hand clasped around her elbow, he led her all the way to the passenger door of her car, which he opened for her. Before she had a chance to protest, he helped her into the car and shut the door.
He walked around to the driver’s side and once settled behind the wheel, started the engine. In her haste to exit the car before him, she’d left the keys dangling in the ignition. He turned, prepared to point out the dangers of that, but didn’t. Janet’s nose was glued to the drugstore window, and as Norma Rose was already looking at him, he simply leaned over and pressed his lips against hers.
She stiffened and Ty waited for her to pull back. When she didn’t, he moved away and smiled as she leaned forward, following him for a split second.
Sitting back against the seat, she huffed out a breath. “Why did you do that?”
He expected more. A full protest. But was glad she didn’t give one. “Because I wanted to,” he said, making no mention of Janet watching from the window.
The half smile on her lips caused a grin he couldn’t hide.
She tugged her skirt over her knees. “Don’t you mean because Janet’s still watching through the window.”
He shifted the car and pulled away from the curb. “Didn’t see her.”
“Right.”
Ty laughed.
“Enough foolishness,” she said then. “When are we going to start looking for who poisoned Dave?”
* * *
He claimed they were searching, doing research he called it, but besides eating lunch at the drugstore, where he’d asked no questions about Dave whatsoever, they hadn’t done anything besides drive around St. Paul.
They traced the route from Charlie’s store to the Blind Bull and back again, the few blocks from the police station to the drugstore, and then the distance from the store to the Capital Theater. Where she had hoped he wouldn’t stop. She had no desire to see a picture show with him. None. She repeated that several times in order to convince herself.
When he finally parked the car, she glanced around at the trolley cars and visitors. “What are we doing here?” she asked. “I know Dave didn’t visit Como Park.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, pulling the keys from the ignition. “But we are.”
Considering all the people about, Norma Rose waited for him to open her door and then accepted his arm to walk across the parking lot. Situated in the northern part of St. Paul, over three hundred acres of land along the shores of Lake Como had been dedicated as a city park. She hadn’t been here in years, but had heard of the vast improvements made lately. Walking paths, flower gardens, ponds, fountains and pergolas, even a fenced-off area with wildlife for city dwellers to observe.
All her years of dreaming about things she wanted to do were manifesting in a mere two days. The amusement park, dancing, a lunch date, walking in the park. All silly things she could have done by herself any day, but hadn’t because she hadn’t wanted to do them alone, or even with one of her sisters. She’d wanted to do them like this. With someone.
Norma Rose attempted to tell herself that someone should not be Ty, but she’d never been gullible, not even when it came to lying to herself. He was now holding her hand as they walked along a gravel pathway, and she couldn’t find anything she’d like to change. Especially not him, and she wasn’t overly sure why.
“I can’t tell you who I am.”
Her footsteps faltered and she stopped. “What?”
“I can’t tell you who I am, who I really am.”
She could swear there was regret in Ty’s tone, as she questioned all the while if she was hearing things. “Why?”
“I can’t tell you that, either.”
“Because I didn’t tell you everything about Forrest?” Although she’d had no intention of telling him earlier, now it seemed silly. Galen Reynolds was the one who’d turned the whole thing into a fiasco, and Forrest had never tried to stop him. That had eaten at her harder than Galen’s lies. Back then. Now it really didn’t matter.
Ty squeezed her hand and started walking again, tugging her along. “No.”
“Then why?”
Ty kept walking and Norma Rose kept alongside him, around a pond with a pair of white swans swimming gracefully and past flower gardens full of yellow marigolds and purple and white pansies. There was a wooden park bench on the far side of the flowers, and Ty didn’t stop until they happened upon it.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Norma Rose, and a smart one. You could go anywhere in the world, start up a legitimate business and—”
“The resort is a legitimate business,” she interrupted.
He shook his head, but she couldn’t leave it at that. He had to understand.
“Yes, it is,” she insisted, “and it will continue to be after Prohibition is repealed, which it will be, mark my word. There is no black-and-white in the world right now. No defined line between right and wrong. It’s not that every American citizen wants to break the law, it’s just...” She couldn’t completely explain how things appeared in her eyes, but she had to. “It’s just that people know if they follow every law on the books right now, they’ll starve. It may not be that way everywhere. In Washington or other places, but it is here.”
“You’ve been listening to your father too long,” Ty said. “People won’t starve.”
“Do you know what it’s like to eat soup three times a day?” She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t really even soup. It was nothing more than water a few potatoes had been boiled in. Well, I do. And I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of judgments and lies.” Fury wasn’t filling her stomach this time, neither was regret or shame. “This is America, Ty. The land of the free and the brave, and if we give in, what then? We give up all our forefathers fought for. Give up the promises and hopes of millions of people who crossed rough seas and desolate lands to build homes and communities. Why? Because a few lawmakers think they know best? It’s not the people who are trying to make a living that are the bad ones. Making and drinking spirits has been a part of society since the beginning of time, all the laws in the world won’t change that. People can’t change that quickly.”
“So the lawmakers are the bad ones,” he said with a shake of his head.
She’d wrestled with these things for years, and had formed a few of her own opinions. “The laws they made, the ones they are attempting to enforce, won’t work. Surely you see that. How Prohibition has increased crime more than it’s decreased it. It’s failed, and no one knows what to do about that. How to make it right. But,” she added with a wave of her hand, “look around. The economy is booming. Schools are being built, as well as churches and parks. Not by the government, but by private people. Those who know this will end and are investing in the future. In businesses that will survive. In their communities. In the stock market. In their families.”
Ty cursed. She was good. Damn good. “You should be a lawyer,” he said, meaning it. “What are you going to do when your father goes down? When the resort is seized?”
She shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Yes,” he said, his stomach in his throat, “it is.”
Chapter Fifteen
He’d discovered a lot today, getting close to putting a bead on Bodine. Ty should have been elated. He usually was at this point, but in the past, he’d never worried about people getting hurt. “Let’s go,” he said.
Norma Rose shook her head. “Why’d you bring me here, Ty? To the park?”
Because for a few minutes he wanted to forget who he was, what he was here to do. He just wanted to be a man on an outing with a woman. A beautiful woman who’d gotten under his skin and kicked his heart back into motion as if he had a hand crank sticking out of his chest like an old car. He couldn’t tell her any of that. But he did take a moment to appreciate her beauty.
Stepping closer, watching him as closely as he watched her, she repeated, “Why did you bring me here?”
Ty grasped her shoulders and this time he didn’t give her the option of pulling back. He went in with guns loaded, kissing her until there wasn’t an ounce of breath left in his lungs, or a section of her lips he hadn’t tasted. Then he stopped, took in a gulp of air and went in for seconds, parting her lips with his tongue to explore the sweet, intoxicating caverns of her mouth.
