13
Ally handed Rob a glass of lemonade and led him
through to the dining room. He studied her appreciatively. Her hair
was tied back, and she was wearing frayed denim shorts that barely
covered her ass and a tank top with no bra underneath that made him
want to slide his hands under the thin cotton and—
“See?”
Rob paused to survey the opened pile of
boxes. “See what?”
Ally took out a pile of old magazines
and handed them to him. “There are twenty-five boxes on this table,
and they are all filled with these.”
“Magazines?”
Ally flipped the pages of the top copy
and pointed at the picture. “They are all photos of
me.”
Rob glanced at her and then flipped
through the remaining magazines. “Hell.”
Ally leaned against the table. “Why do
you think she kept these?”
She looked so tired and miserable he
wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her tight. “Because she
wanted to?”
“But why? When I lived here, she always
made me feel like I was a nuisance and that she couldn’t wait to
get rid of me. She even . . .”
Rob tensed as Ally tightened her lips
and simply shook her head.
“She even what?”
Ally turned her face away from him and
pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “She never liked me, Rob,
so why did she keep all this stuff?”
“Maybe she changed. Maybe she regretted
what happened between you. Did she ever try and contact
you?”
“In the first year, she contacted me
and asked for money. When I was making some, I sent her a check
once a year for about six years.” Ally walked across to the desk
and stood looking down at it. “The funny thing is, Ruth never used
the money. She just kept it in a separate savings
account.”
Rob considered what to say to her.
“Sounds like she felt bad about taking your cash after all. And she
did clean up her act, Ally. She stopped selling and using, and
there were no guys hanging out at the house after you
left.”
“She blamed me for that, too, you know?
She said I was flirting with her guys and that’s why they never
stuck around.” Ally shivered. “Like I really wanted to be fondled
by disgusting old men.”
A sick feeling tightened Rob’s gut.
“Did any of them try to get it on with you?”
Ally looked at him for a long moment, a
wealth of unpleasant experiences locked in her eyes. “Of course
they did. I had to lock my door to keep them out from when I was
about ten.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What could you have done?” She
shrugged her thin shoulders. “And I didn’t want you to know how I
lived. You were the one good thing in my life. The one person not
tainted by my mother.”
“She hit on me once. Did I ever tell
you that?”
“My mother did?”
“Yeah, I was waiting for you to come
down and go to the football game. She was kind of drunk and came on
to me.”
“While we were still at
school?”
“Yeah. When I was a junior and you were
a freshman. I was too scared to come into your kitchen after that.
I used to whistle for you from the yard, remember?”
Ally covered her face with her hands.
“Oh God, why didn’t you tell me?”
“The same reasons you didn’t tell me
anything. I didn’t want to spoil what was between us, and I knew
you’d be mortified.” He hesitated. “I knew what your mom was like,
Ally. Everyone knew.”
“That she was a drunk, a slut, and a
drug user? Yeah, everyone knew that. But you, Jackson, and Lauren
were the only people who made me feel like it didn’t
matter.”
Rob tensed as Ally swung around and
shoved at one of the boxes on the table. It fell to the floor, and
a pile of magazines slid out like a waterfall. “It’s okay,
Ally.”
“No, it’s not. I want to hate her, but
how can I when I’m in her house, touching her things, seeing . . .
this.” She gestured at all the boxes. “She’s a mystery to me, and I
just can’t stand it.”
Rob walked across and drew her into his
arms. She felt so right there, her head on his shoulder, her narrow
frame pressed against him. “Maybe when you clean out her stuff,
you’ll get more of a sense of what she was really
like.”
She raised her head to look at him. “I
found her diaries, Rob. I’m not sure if I even want to read
them.”
Rob felt a leap of excitement. “Your
mom kept a journal?”
“She did.” Ally jerked her head in the
direction of the desk. “I found all the books in
there.”
“Are you going to read them?” Rob
released Ally, his stance all business. “Because I’d really like to
know—”
“What?” Ally interrupted him, her faint
smile disappearing. “You sound like a cop now. What are you hoping
will turn up? Her drug stash?”
“As far as I know, she stopped using a
couple of years after you left.”
Ally stalked out of the room back
toward the kitchen, from where a delicious smell of chicken pie
floated out.
Rob sniffed appreciatively. “Have you
been cooking?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Ally
snapped. “You say she’d stopped. I have no
idea if that is true. I hadn’t spoken to the woman in almost ten
years.”
Anxious to keep her mind off the
diaries, Rob was quite willing to take the heat and go down that
path. “Do you want me to bring one of the K-9 dogs
in?”
“Are you serious?” Ally faced him, her
hands on her hips.
“I’m just offering.”
“Then stop it.” She went across to the
cupboards and took out some plates. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m always hungry, and that pie smells
good.”
“It should. Your girlfriend made
it.”
“You did?”
“I’m not your girlfriend. I’m just your
. . .”
“Fuck buddy.” Even as he said it, he
hated the sound of it and curled his lips in distaste.
She flicked the dish towel at him.
“Jane made the pie.”
“Jane Evans?”
“Yes, your girlfriend, and let me tell
you I felt awful having her standing in my kitchen bringing me food
while I’m seeing you behind her back.”
“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a
friend I go out with occasionally.”
Ally turned her back on him and got the
pie out of the oven. “So you’re not sleeping with her,
then?”
“With Jane? No. I reckon she’d want an
engagement ring on her finger before she’d let me have my wicked
way with her.”
“I suppose that makes it marginally
better, although I still feel bad, and so should you.”
He drew a cross over his heart. “I
promise I won’t go out with her while you’re here, okay?” Rob
offered.
“Hmm.” Ally plonked the pie onto the
table between them, and Rob’s mouth watered. He waited while she
dug him out a big portion and then sat opposite him.
He took his first taste and almost
moaned. “Damn, but she does make a good pie.”
“She sure does,” Ally said. “And they
do say that the way to a man’s heart is through his
stomach.”
“And they are so wrong.”
“What’s the way to your heart, then,
Rob?”
He looked down at his lap and then
winked at her. “You know what it is, honey.”
“To your heart? I thought that way led
to your bed or any other place you want to have sex with
me.”
“Maybe I don’t have a
heart.”
“Sure you do, and a woman like Jane
would be perfect for you.”
“Are you trying to hook me
up?”
“I’m just saying that there are many
women around here who could live up to even your high
standards.”
He put down his fork and took a long,
slow drink of his lemonade. “I don’t intend to get married,
Ally.”
“Aw . . . did I ruin it for
you?”
He glanced at her. “Yeah.”
“I doubt it. You’re not the sort of man
who’d let a woman dictate his life.”
“Lauren likes to try and dictate to
me.”
He wished she’d stop talking. She had
an annoying habit of getting through his defenses and making him
want to say. . . what? That she had destroyed him and that he’d
never found the courage to love someone like he’d loved
her?
Ally’s gaze sharpened. “I’ve been
meaning to ask you about something Lauren said yesterday outside
the diner. She said that it was all your fault.”
“And she was right. I forgot to set the
alarm.”
“No, Lauren mentioned it before you
even got there. Just after she’d lost it with me about giving me a
job in the first place.” Ally pointed her fork in his face. “What
did you do?”
“What the hell are you talking
about?”
“You made her give me the job, didn’t
you?”
Rob sat back and contemplated Ally’s
furious face. “I asked her if she had any jobs open,
sure.”
“And told her to employ
me?”
“As I said, I can’t tell Lauren to do
anything.”
“Rob, why would you do
that?”
“Because you needed the money
and—”
Ally stood up. “You felt sorry for
me?”
Rob shrugged. “Something like
that.”
“Because you wanted to give Lauren a
sitting target and wanted me to stick around for the
sex?”
“Ally . . .”
“What?”
“Sit down.”
She glared at him for a long moment and
then sat back in her chair with a decided thump.
“I wanted you to stick around,
period.”
“What the hell is that supposed to
mean?”
He sighed. “When I saw you again, I
realized there was stuff I wanted to clear up with you, stuff from
the past.”
“You can’t always make everything neat
and tidy in life.”
“I know that. I’m a cop for Christ’s
sake.”
“I’ve apologized to you for what I did.
You’re getting all the free sex you want. What else can I
do?”
“Stay here and talk to
me?”
Ally glanced down at her clasped hands.
“So, just because you wanted me to ‘stick around’ to help you sort
out the past, you interfered in my life again and got me a job with
Lauren.”
“I did what I thought was necessary to
keep you here, yeah.”
“For your own benefit.”
Rob tried to cling to the remnants of
his temper. “Ally, what do you want me to say?”
She slowly stood up again. “You can’t
order my life for me, Rob. That’s one of the reasons I left in the
first place. I can’t let you do that anymore.”
He set his jaw. “I
didn’t—”
“You used your influence to get me a
job.”
“Hell, I used my influence to get
Jackson a job, and I don’t notice him complaining about
it.”
“That’s not fair. I’ve fought hard to
learn to stand up for myself, to take responsibility for my actions
and to regain my self-respect.”
Rob stood, too, his hands clenched at
his sides. “I know that! I respect you!”
“Do you? Then why didn’t you ask me
about the job first? Give me the choice as to whether I wanted you
to ask Lauren or not?”
“Because . . .”
“Because it didn’t occur to you, did
it? You just thought good old Ally would be so grateful that she
might hang around longer so that you could have more sex with
her.”
“It wasn’t about the sex.”
She held his gaze. “Are you sure about
that?”
He glared back at her. “Oh, yeah, I’m
sure. Because I gave you a choice about that and you chose to be
just where I wanted you.”
“On my knees.”
“Where you
wanted to be, so don’t blame all this shit on me.” He pushed his
chair in and turned toward the door. “This is crazy, Ally. You’re
trying to turn everything into a battle about dominance, and it
doesn’t have to be like that. You’re not the only one who can
change. Yeah, I want you to submit to me in bed, but I sure as hell
don’t want a doormat. I’ll even admit I got you the job because I
felt sorry for you—where’s the harm in that?”
“But I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”
He kept his back to her. “Trust me, I
don’t anymore. Jackson was right about that at least. You don’t
need my help at all, do you?”
She didn’t answer him, and he made the
mistake of looking behind him. She was furiously wiping tears from
her cheeks, and he wanted to groan. “Ally . . .”
“What?”
He turned fully around. “I don’t want
to fight about this.”
“Too late.”
He struggled to think of something to
say. “I got you the job because I wanted you to stay in Spring
Falls. If that was wrong of me, I apologize.”
Ally turned around and walked down the
hallway toward her bedroom. Rob heard the door slam and winced. He
picked up his keys and went out the back. In his chosen career,
he’d learned that sometimes it was better to retreat than to force
an issue, and he was absolutely certain this was one of those
times.
Jackson looked up as Rob came into the
kitchen and frowned. “I thought you’d be staying over with
Ally.”
“So did I.” Rob went to the
refrigerator and took out a beer. “I pissed her off
big-time.”
“You did? Who’d
have thought it?” Jackson raised his eyebrows and waited to see if
Rob would say more.
“Ally found out that I got her the job
with Lauren.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Rob contemplated his beer for
so long that Jackson thought he wasn’t going to speak again. “She
accused me of trying to manage her life again.”
“Again?”
Rob’s pale eyes met his. “You know that
was one of the reasons she left in the first place.”
Jackson took his coffee through to the
TV room, and Rob followed him and slumped down on the tattered
leather couch. “So you fucked up.”
Rob groaned. “I even tried to
apologize, and she just walked out on me.”
“Women.”
Rob finished his beer and put the empty
bottle on the rug beside the couch. “The thing is, I was trying to
get her off the subject of her mother and walked right into another
fucking trap.”
“You told Ally you were interested in
what her mother was up to when Susan died?”
“I started to, and she got all
suspicious on me.”
“Now, there’s a surprise.”
“I was going to do what you suggested
and ask her outright, Jackson, and then she brought up all this
shit about Lauren and the job and I got into that with her
instead.”
Jackson studied his best friend until
Rob started to shift in his seat. “Do you want me to tell you what
I think?”
“Sure, why not? I don’t have any
answers. She thinks I’m trying to control her entire
life.”
“Are you?”
“Hell, no! I told her that she needed
to separate the sex from the rest of it.”
“And how did she take
that?”
“She went on about how hard she’d tried
to rebuild her life and . . .” Rob stopped talking and stared at
Jackson. “Shit, she’s right, isn’t she?”
Jackson simply looked at Rob. “I wasn’t
very grateful when you decided to fix me either. Do you remember
that?”
“Yeah.”
“It took me quite a while to get over
myself and accept your help for what it was—the hand of a friend.
For Ally it’s going to be a lot harder than that.”
“So what the hell can I do to fix
this?”
“You can’t. That’s part of the problem.
You’re part of the problem. You’ll have to
wait and see what Ally chooses to do about it.”
“Thanks for nothing, buddy.” Rob rolled
over on the couch and buried his face in the cushions.
Jackson raised his coffee mug in a
salute. “You’re welcome.”
Ally jumped as her cell phone buzzed in
her pocket. It had better not be Rob or Jackson. It was too late,
and she was too tired to start anything with either of them now.
She checked the number and clicked to connect.
“Jill?”
“Hey! How are you?”
“I’m okay, I guess. How are you?” Ally
settled herself back against the pillows of her bed and tried to
picture Jill’s smiling face.
“You don’t sound okay. And your e-mail
worried the shit out of me.”
Ally sighed. “I’ve got to stay here for
a while. I have no choice.”
“With all that negative energy around
you? The plan was that you’d go back, clear up the mess, and leave
as quickly as possible. What happened to change your
mind?”
Ally cringed as Jill, yet again, asked
her the hard questions. But then wasn’t that what AA sponsors were
for? “I thought you said it was a good idea, Jill. It’s a chance
for me to reconcile with my past, or whatever you like to call it.”
Jill was totally into all the New Age stuff that Ally despised, but
they were still friends.
“Don’t make light of this, Ally. The
idea was that you find closure and move forward with your new life,
not to go back and make the same mistakes again. Are any of the
guys you hung out with still there?”
Ally closed her eyes and imagined Jill
in the guise of a fiery guardian angel frowning down at her.
“Actually, both of them are.”
“Bummer. So, have you talked to
them?”
“Seen them, talked to them, and fucked
them both,” Ally said flippantly.
There was a long silence. “Oh, shit,
Ally. That was not a good idea at all.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to come and stay with
you?”
“And use up all your vacation time?
What about Steve and the kids?”
“They’ll manage.”
Despite her soft exterior, Jill ran her
family and her career with a ruthless efficiency that sometimes
scared Ally.
“No, I can’t let you sort everything
out for me.”
“That’s true. You’ve changed a lot over
the past few years and made some tough decisions.” Jill hesitated.
“But by having sex with these guys, aren’t you just repeating your
past mistakes?”
“Well, I didn’t have sex with them
together before, so something’s changed.
Does that count?”
Jill sighed. “This isn’t funny,
Ally.”
“I know that. But I like to have sex
with Rob and Jackson.”
“I’m glad you’re starting to think
about sex in a positive way, Ally, but are you sure you know what
you’re doing? And I’m asking that as your friend, and as your AA
supporter.”
“Honestly, it’s been amazing for me to
come back here and have sex with two men I trust.”
“So, what’s different?” Jill
asked.
“Me. I’m
different,” Ally said, trying to think it through. “I realized that
I could still stay strong in other areas in my life even if I was
sexually submissive.”
“And?”
Ally sighed. “God, Jill, you make this
so hard for me. And, admitting what I want
sexually—rather than trying to pretend that what I felt was
abnormal—has set me free.”
Silence followed her confession, and
Ally struggled to swallow. “It’s just about sex. What’s wrong with
that?”
Jill’s voice got loud. “Ally, listen
up. There’s no such thing as sex without emotional payback. You
could destroy all the gains you’ve made with this impulsive,
regressive behavior.”
Ally tightened her grip on the phone.
“You don’t trust me to get it right this time?”
“It’s not that,” Jill said. “But I want
you to keep questioning your choices. You’re still in a very
vulnerable place in your life, and you can’t rely on Rob or Jackson
to make decisions for you.”
Ally forced a laugh. “Trust me, they
are both very keen on making me choose what I want.”
“Well, that’s good, but I still want
you to call or e-mail me every night and tell me how things are
going, okay?”
“Sure,” Ally said. The thought of
having Jill there to give her advice was comforting.
“You’re strong, Ally, believe it. Now
just clear the house, sell it, and come back to New York before you
start college, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Ally pressed the
phone to her cheek and found she was smiling. “I’m okay. I really
am. I’m glad I came back. It’s giving me a chance to get closure. I
know you like that word.”
Jill laughed. “I do, and so should
you.” She paused. “Have you sorted out your mom’s stuff
yet?”
“I’m dealing with that. It’s harder
than I thought. Apparently, my mom cleaned up her act after I
left.”
“But that’s great! You of all people
know how hard it is.”
Ally stared unseeingly at the faded
wallpaper. “Yeah, I suppose I do.” She didn’t want to share any
more life experiences with her mother, good or bad, but she had a
terrible sense that they were treading the same path. “It’s kind of
weird, though.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I thought she would never
change.”
“You changed, so why shouldn’t
she?”
Ally bit her lip. “It makes it harder
to hate her.”
“But that’s a good thing, isn’t
it?”
“Because I need to let go of my anger
before I can ‘love’ her? You know how I feel about that
shit.”
“Ally, how about you just let yourself
get to know her again? Don’t push it, but talk to the people who
knew her, find out what her life was like since you
left.”
“I’ll try. That’s the best I’ve got for
you at the moment.”
“Okay. You’re trying to get people in
town to accept the new you, so imagine how that must have been for
your mother.”
“Hard, I should think.”
“I’m sure it was.” Jill paused as if
she was listening to something. “I think the boys are fighting
again. I’ll let you go. Take care of yourself, won’t
you?”
“I swear I will.” Ally glanced at her
alarm clock. “I have to get up really early. It was lovely to hear
from you.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come
down?”
“I’m quite sure. I’m handling this on
my own.”
“Ally, you are not. You have me, and
I’m going to find out a couple of local contacts who can be
available for you if necessary, okay?”
“Okay, I get it. I need
help.”
“That’s right, you do. Now go to
sleep.”
Ally shut her phone and stared down at
the patterned yellow bedsheets. She was
handling it—most of the time. She’d been surprised at her own
assertion to Jill that she could be strong and yet sexually
submissive. Why hadn’t she realized that when she was arguing with
Rob?
Even after their argument, she hadn’t
contemplated leaving Spring Falls, heading for the nearest bar, or
quitting her job. Surely that showed she had changed and that she
had staying power? A small pocket of pride blossomed in her
chest.
But was Rob right? Was she overreacting
to his attempt to help her out? She’d just made a declaration of
intent to Jill, and yet she’d already undermined herself in her
argument with Rob. He’d been the one to point out that accepting a
helping hand from him didn’t mean she had to be a doormat—or that
he wanted her to be one.
Ally punched her pillow. She’d wanted a
job and had been prepared to do whatever it took to get one. The
fact that Rob had helped her shouldn’t really rankle, but it did.
She rubbed a hand across her tired eyes. Was it possible she had
overreacted just a little? She groaned and thumped her pillow
again. She’d have to talk to Rob again, and that scared her to
death.