LITMIR.BIZ

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Except...would you mind if I used your bathroom?”

      “Not at all! Come on in...”

      Tyler frowned. It’d barely been ten minutes, if that, since they’d left Laurel’s house. And the plan—his plan—had been to show her the wall, let her shove on it, then get out again. Before anybody started asking questions. Questions he’d rather not answer, if he didn’t have to.

      His forehead still pinched, he followed the women—and his dog—inside, where Starla steered Laurel down the hall and Boomer moseyed on over to the sofa to mess with Mrs. Slocombe, Starla’s megasized gray tabby. Who’d been peacefully napping until this dumb dog stuck his nose in her face—

      “I take it she doesn’t know?” Starla said behind him.

      Tyler turned, leaving the hissing cat and barking dog to work it out between them. “Why should she? She’s only my neighbor.”

      Starla crossed her arms over her rib cage, her gaze razor-sharp. A helluva lot more than it used to be, that was for sure. But there was a sadness behind the sharpness he couldn’t deny. Especially because he’d put it there. At least partly.

      “You’ve done so much for me, Ty,” she said softly. “A lot more than I ever would have expected. So why can’t you get past this? I mean, seriously—what difference does it make? It’s not like it would change anything, right?”

      As often as the subject came up, you’d think by now he’d be inured to the pain. The guilt that he couldn’t let it go. And yes, the anger, since he’d told her why, every time she’d asked. And every time, they’d come to the same impasse, where she’d ask for forgiveness and he’d restate the conditions for her exoneration, and she’d give him the same, unsatisfactory answer—sometimes tearfully, sometimes wearily, often angrily—to the same nagging question:

      “Who’s my father?”

      And he was hardly going to get into it again with Laurel right down the hall. In fact, he heard the door open, sensed her stop to glance at one of the few photos Starla had from before. Nothing that would mean anything to Laurel, he wouldn’t imagine. Then she was there, in her skinny black pants and another floppy top in some blah color, no makeup, no jewelry, smiling at him—a friendly little grin, no biggee—and some crazy feeling that was almost unpleasant plowed right into his gut.

      “All better?” Starla said.

      “Much.” Then, to Tyler: “So lead me to this wall.”

      “Sure,” he said, taking her through Starla’s orange-and-aqua kitchen, the window over the sink so choked with plants the light could barely get through, and out the sliding glass door. Like his, the yard wasn’t much to speak of, the small, grassy plot balding in places. But Ty took a lot better care of Starla’s yard than he did his own—since he didn’t have time for both—and the blooming rosebushes crowded against the wall certainly seemed happy enough.

      Wordlessly, Laurel tramped across the damp grass and, yes, pressed both palms against the wall. Then she sidled close between his mother’s Mr. Lincoln and Chicago Peace and looked toward the far end—to check that it was straight, he assumed.

      Then she gave him a thumb’s-up, and he chuckled.

      He heard the patio door slide open, saw Starla come out onto the tiny patio with a tray holding a pitcher, some glasses, a plate of something. She’d changed out of her work clothes into something flowy and long, her hair hanging loose. What she called her “hippy dippy” look. An homage of sorts to her long-dead parents, he supposed.

      “I know, I know,” she said, setting the tray on a small glass-topped table. “But if somebody doesn’t help me eat these cookies, I’ll end up sucking them all down myself. And that would be very bad.”

      “Cookies?” Laurel said, hustling across the yard.

      “Butterscotch chocolate chip,” Starla said, and Laurel looked like she might cry.

      “You made these?”

      “I sure did, honey.”

      Almost reverently, Laurel lifted one from the plate and took her first bite. “Oh. My. God. These are incredible!”

      “Thank you!” Starla beamed. “It’s my own recipe! Please—take as many as you want!”

      Laurel laughed, that deep, genuine sound Ty was already coming to like way, way too much. “You might regret saying that,” she said, and picked up two more. Without even a single, “I really shouldn’t...”

      “Here, let me put some in a bag for you...”

      Starla scooted back inside, her dress billowing behind her, and Ty said, “You must be really hungry.”

      Laurel grinned...and chomped off another bite. “These are really good. I mean, insanely good. Here—” She held one out. “Taste it—”

      “Not a huge fan of butterscotch, but thanks. You, however, have made Starla’s day.”

      Her forehead crimped. “The cookies are wonderful. So I told her so. No big deal.”

      For her, maybe not.

      Tyler thought about the girls he usually went with, with their done-up hair and made-up faces and pushed-up boobs, and how he’d always liked that, how they’d make all this effort to look good for him. How they’d have a little fun, for a little while, only then somebody would get bored, and it’d be all “No hard feelings, ’kay?” and that would be that. Because life was just easier with built-in expiration dates.

      Except here comes this chick who clearly doesn’t give a crap how she looks, she’s not trying to impress anybody, especially not him, and suddenly it’s all wham-a-bam-ding-dong inside his chest? What the hell?

      Starla returned with a plastic zipper bag, filling it with most of the cookies as her instant fan kept on with the gushing. And Tyler had to admit, it wasn’t exactly breaking him up, to see how happy that made the older woman. Who he knew hadn’t had a whole lot of happy, for a very long time.

      Not wanting to think about that, however, he returned his attention to Laurel. “So. Does my work meet your exacting standards?”

      A breeze came up, sending a strand of hair into her mouth as she chewed. She yanked it out, making a face. “Not that I know from walls, really, but...sure. Let’s do this. You said the block yard’s not far?”

      “Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. Our houses are on the way, might as well drop off the dog. We can go ahead and order everything now, if you want.”

      “Sounds good.” She hesitated. “Soon as I take another potty break.” Another faint blush swept across her cheeks. “That’s what I get for drinking way too much tea earlier, sorry.”

      He watched her walk back into the house, thinking, this was somebody who was cool with who she was. What she was. Who could talk about peeing without getting all coy about it...who Tyler guessed never faked anything. Which, even more than all the surface stuff, was why this wham-a-bam business was for the birds.

      Because Tyler didn’t know who he was. Not entirely. His whole life...it was like one big lie, wasn’t it? Okay, maybe not a lie, exactly. A mystery, then.

      He looked at Starla, snapping the top back on the cookie container, the only person in the world, as far as he knew, who held the key that would unlock that mystery. And until that happened—if it ever did—the Laurels of the world were strictly off-limits.

      No matter how warm inside their laughs made him feel.

      Chapter Two

      “Mind if I put on some music?” Tyler asked when they got back in his truck. Because right now, his brain—among other things—needed to chill. And if he couldn’t make Laurel stop smelling so good, or her eyes less blue, or her laugh less arousing, maybe music would distract him from noticing. At least, not as much.

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