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Tyler was baffled, but he wasn’t about to let her dash headlong down the highway in her condition. “Wait, I’ll drive you back,” he said, already on his feet and dumping cash onto the table.
“No, please, you stay. I’ll walk home along the beach. It isn’t far. Anyway, I need to think, and I think best when I’m alone.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it, bedeviled by a frustrating sense of powerlessness. He wanted to reach inside her world of hurt and yank her out of it. At least comfort her. But neither of those options was included in his job description.
The waitress came over and indicated the uneaten pizza. “Something wrong?”
He sighed. “Nope. Everything is just hunky-dory.”
5
The ocean breeze dried the tear tracks on her cheeks as Stormy plodded through the damp sand toward home.
Damn it!How could I have allowed Tyler Mangus to sucker me?Friend, my foot! she thought. She was behaving like a charter member of Stupid Women Anonymous. Confiding in Tyler could only lead to exposing Liane.
She had survived eleven months among women toughened by life and circumstances. She’d had to dig deep to find the strength to withstand serving her time. By now, she ought to know one thing at the very least—she ought to know better than to trust anyone. Especially a man.
That she now had to include her family among those less than trustworthy made her heart ache. She suspected Tyler’s observations were correct. Nina and Tully were focusing on her rather than delving into their own relationship to find out why their marriage wasn’t working. Perhaps once she and Liane were out from underfoot, Nina and Tully would resolve their differences.
However, acknowledging Tyler’s perceptiveness made it difficult to discount his sensitivity to her, especially in the face of her own family’s callousness. And the sad tale about his daughter’s death and his failed marriage was certainly not a deception. His pain had been palpable.
His sensuality was palpable, too. But that might be a calculated feint to distract her, to keep her off balance.
As Stormy continued to walk along the beach, the waves lapping at her feet, loneliness surfaced and cast its mantle over her.
She longed for someone to share her fears, her hopes and, yes, she admitted, her body. It had been two years since she had even been kissed. She needed someone to touch, to snuggle up with each night. Someone to share with. Wasn’t that what life was all about?
So that’s what it was. She felt herself responding to Tyler out of some primitive, biological quirk. Simple as that. It wasn’t that he touched her emotionally where no man ever had before—thank goodness.
Still, during those long horrible months before her trial and then prison, with so much time for soul-searching, she had realized something. She had never really committed herself to the men she had known—perhaps not even to Liane’s father. Truman Witney had been a delightful, comfortable habit; they had dated all through high school and college. She had loved him, yes, and she had given him her body, but she had never trusted him with her soul. Would he have known what to do with it if she had? They had both been so young. Immature, really.
Nor had she committed any significant part of herself to Hadley Wilson. He had been fun, exciting, and he had not minded that Liane tagged along on their very first real date. That had appealed to the mother in Stormy. Of course, in retrospect, he’d probably had an ulterior motive in cultivating Liane’s company. Hanging around her sandwich shop, even offering to help during busy times by pulling sodas or draft beer when families came off the beach and filed to the counter.
A wave rushed ashore and swamped her to the knees. Cold, it jolted her from her reverie. What was she even thinking about? A man was certainly not on her list of priorities right now. Creating a new life for herself and regaining her independence were infinitely more important.
At home, she found her jewelry box on the kitchen counter. The only thing missing was a pair of amethyst earrings.
Nina was in the downstairs master bedroom, making the bed. Stormy knocked on the door frame.
Nina looked up, revealing tear-swollen eyes. “What do you want now?”
Reluctantly, Stormy squelched the rush of love she felt, the urge to hurry across the room and take her baby sister into her arms and tell her everything would work out.
“For a start, my amethyst earrings,” she said, noticing her flat screen television on a butler’s table across from the bed.
Nina avoided her eyes. “I wore them on New Year’s Eve. I lost one.”
“I’ve got to raise some cash, Nina.”
“Well, don’t look at me. We don’t have any.”
“I hate to have to do it, but I’m going to take the TV and jewelry to a pawnshop. Next, I’m going up to the attic to see if there’s anything there worth selling at the flea market.”
Nina’s mouth almost disappeared into her face with disapproval. “That’s Mom and Dad’s stuff! You don’t have the right. Anyway, half of it is mine.”
“I have the right to live decently,” Stormy said. “Is Tully going to repay the part of my trust income you gave him?”
Nina moved around the bed, jerking on the sheet. “I just told you. We don’t have it.”
