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She shook her head, her lips falling open to make a comment, but she smiled it off.
Not even knowing why she smiled, he smiled in response.
“What was that for?” Stormy asked.
“Can’t a man smile without your giving him the third degree? You smiled at me first.”
“Maybe. Any man other than you, that is.”
Tyler laughed outright. “I think this whole jigsaw puzzle of an affair is coming together nicely.”
“Affair?” she said archly.
But Tyler wasn’t to be provoked. He merely gave her his best crooked smile, complete with dimples, and changed the subject. “So, where are we taking Liane shopping?”
“Not we, me.”
“Let me tag along,” he proposed. “I’ll behave.”
Oddly loathe to dispense with his company when lunch was over, Stormy directed him to the Ponce de Leon Mall, where Liane stubbornly refused all efforts to interest her in frilly Easter frocks. She wanted something shecouldwear.
“The kid knows what she wants,” Tyler said. “Just like her mother.”
Stormy paid for a simple dress and some shorts and tank tops Liane chose, but her mind was on Tyler’s words. It was true that she knew most of what she wanted. And she knew she’d have to work hard to achieve her goals.
And whatever the outcome of Tyler’s investigation, she believed now vindication was possible. And she certainly wanted that.
Tyler himself was another matter. The emotions racking her concerning him were jumbled and chaotic. It was patently absurd to even consider the notion that she was in love with him.
Isn’t it?
While Liane raced into the house to call Janelle and regale her with descriptions of her new clothes, Tyler said goodbye to Stormy on the front porch.
“We have a conversation to finish,” he said. “I’d like it to be without interruption. Are you open for a walk on the beach?”
Stormy protested only mildly. “I have to finish getting things ready for the flea market tomorrow.”
“Say, nine o’clock tonight at the foot of your walk? I’ll meet you there.” He turned to go.
“Thank you for lunch…and everything,” she called after him.
Later, as she washed and fluffed stuffed animals and packed them into boxes, she realized that she was deep in unfamiliar territory. Whenever she was with Tyler, she felt split in two, part of her on the sidelines waiting to see what would happen and the other part playing out a battle she no longer quite understood.
In her other life, before prison, she had accepted men in her life as a given. Among the inmates, talk of men had been constant and often vulgar. It was odd that now, on the outside, she understood what drove her sister inmates. The desire she had for Tyler was eating away at her. And she couldn’t even tell him!
He had kissed her—once! What was a single kiss in the cosmic scheme of things?
Nothing, that’s what.
She’d hear him out tonight. On Monday, she’d call the attorney who’d defended her at her trial and see where he could take the information Tyler had unearthed.
And that, she guessed, would be that.
Because if the money wasn’t to be found, then Tyler had no reason to stay in St. Augustine. Stormy felt suddenly that something in her chest had broken under a burden of disappointment and loneliness. She sat down on the concrete floor of the garage amid the cardboard boxes, buried her face in her hands, and cried.
11
After making certain Liane was sound asleep, Stormy went quietly downstairs.
