The Liar

17

Shelby’s first coherent thought when the haze cleared from her mind was: So this is what it’s like.

She felt heavy and light and limp, hulled out and filled up again all at once. She thought she could run a marathon, or sleep for a week.

Most of all she felt utterly and completely alive.

Griff lay flat-out on top of her, and that was just fine. She liked the weight of him even now, the sensation of his skin against hers, everything still hot and damp like after a strong summer storm.

In pretty contrast, the breeze fluttering through the open doors cooled her cheeks, made her smile. Everything made her smile. If she wasn’t careful, she’d burst into song.

“Gonna move in a minute,” he mumbled.

“You’re fine. It’s fine. Everything’s just really, really fine.”

He turned his head enough to brush his lips over the side of her throat. “I was a little rougher than I meant to be.”

“To my way of thinking you were just rough enough. I can’t figure if I’ve ever felt this used up or if I’ve just forgotten the feeling. You’re sure thorough, Griffin. You sure do good work.”

“Well, anything worth doing.” He levered up to look down at her in the flickering of the fire. “You weren’t rusty, by the way.”

Pleased, languid with it, she touched his cheek. “I forgot to worry about it.”

“I wondered what you’d look like, lying here like this. It’s better, even better, than I imagined.”

“Right this minute, everything’s better than I imagined. That might be due to that long dry spell, but I’m giving you credit for it.”

“I’ll take it. It’s cooling down. You’re going to get cold.”

“I don’t feel cold.”

“Yet. And I haven’t fed you.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “I need to finish off dinner. But first . . .”

He rolled, and as he did, scooped her up. Her heart did a stuttering roll as he just lifted her right up as he stood.

Muscles like iron, she remembered. He was stronger than he looked.

“We should take a shower.”

“We should?”

“Definitely.” He grinned as he carried her. “You’re going to love the bathroom.”

She did. She loved the generous space, the oversized claw-foot tub, the earthy tones of the tile work. Most of all she loved the enormous shower with its multiple jets—and what could be done in all that heat and steam by two inventive and agile people.

By the time they were in the kitchen again she felt fresh and new and so happy she wished she’d learned to tap-dance.

“I need to let my parents know I’m going to be a little later than I said.”

“Go ahead. Though since your mother gave you a condom on your way out the door, I don’t think they’ll be surprised.”

She sent a quick text, asked if Callie had gone to bed without any trouble. Then as Griff had the heat going under the sauce again, and water on for the pasta, she channeled some of the giddiness into a quick additional text to Emma Kate.

Been at Griff’s for two hours. We haven’t eaten yet. Bet you can guess why. I’m just going to say WOW until I talk to you in person. Make that WOW twice. Shelby.

“What can I do?” she asked Griff.

“You can have that glass of wine we never really got to.”

“All right.” She picked up her phone at the signal. “It’s just Mama saying Callie’s sleeping like an angel and to have a good time. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Callie was a little put out she wasn’t going on a date with you. I said we’d ask you on a date.”

“Oh yeah?” He glanced back as he pulled the salad out of the refrigerator.

“Why don’t I take care of that? Do you have a salad set so I can toss it?”

“Huh?”

“A couple of forks, then.”

“I got those. What kind of date am I going to be asked to go on?”

“A picnic.” She took the forks, the bottled Italian dressing, smiled back at him.

“Is that a cold fried chicken and potato salad picnic or an imaginary tea party picnic? That would determine the dress code.”

“The first. I know a place. It’s not a far drive, and a short hike after that. I was thinking Sunday afternoon, if that’s all right.”

“Two pretty redheads and food? I’m already there.”

“She’s awful fond of you, Griffin.”

“It’s mutual.”

“I know that, it shows. I just want to say, she’s had a lot of adjustments to make in a short time, and—”

“Looking for trouble, Red?”

“It kind of goes with the territory. You’ve got a kindness in you, Griff. That shows, too. I just want to say whatever happens with us, I hope you’ll . . . well, I hope you’ll still take her on a date now and again.”

“I’m lucky to know four generations of Donahue/Pomeroy women. I’m crazy about every one of them, and not looking for that to change. Sass and strength, it runs right through all of you.”

“I’m still hunting up pieces of mine.”

“That’s bullshit.”

He said it so casually it took her a minute to look up, blink.

“Most people I know, and I might be one of them, would’ve been crushed flat finding themselves millions of dollars in debt, and through none of their own doing.”

He’d have heard the details, she thought. That’s how things worked. “I went along with—”

“I’m going to repeat myself. Bullshit. What you did was be young and impulsive and fall for the wrong man. As wrong as it gets, from where I’m standing.”

“I can’t say you’re standing in the wrong place on that.”

“Then instead of staying crushed when you find out fully how wrong, find yourself on your own with a kid and buried under a mountain of debt, you pushed up the weight and started hacking away at it. And that little girl? She’s happy and confident because you made sure of it. I admire the hell out of you.”

Staggered, she stared at him. “Well. Well, I don’t know what to say to that.”

“Plus you’re really hot”—he dumped pasta in the boiling water—“which is no small appeal.”

That made her laugh, go back to tossing the salad.

“You could answer a question for me, though, one that’s bugged me awhile.”

“I can try.”

“Why’d you stick? You weren’t happy, and it doesn’t take much to deduce he wasn’t much of a hands-on father with Callie. Why’d you stick?”

A fair question, she decided, under the circumstances. “I thought about divorce, more than once. And if I’d known all I know now . . . but I didn’t. And I didn’t want to fail. You know my granny was just sixteen when she married my granddaddy?”

“No.” It shocked the sensibilities. “I had to figure young, but that’s a baby.”

“They’ll be married fifty years before much longer. Half a century, and you have to figure they had some rough times in there. Her mama was but fifteen, and she and my great-granddaddy were together for thirty-eight years before he was killed when a semi crashed into his truck and three others one night, the winter of 1971. My own mama was still shy of eighteen when she married Daddy.”

“Women in your family stick.”

“The men, too. Oh, there’s been some divorces, and some of them bitter, cousins and aunts and so on scattered through. But I can trace a direct line back, seven generations of women I know of, and not one of them raised a child in a broken home. I didn’t want to be the first.”

She shrugged, picked up her wine again, determined to lighten the mood. “Now, it’s true enough my great-great-granny on my mama’s side had three husbands. The first died fighting a blood feud with the Nash clan. He was only about eighteen when—so it’s said—Harlan Nash bushwhacked him and shot him in the back, leaving my great-great-granny with three children and another on the way. She married her first husband’s third cousin, and had time to make two children with him before he died of a fever. Then she up and married a big Irishman named Finias O’Riley. She was about twenty-two, and bore him six more children.”

“Wait, I’m doing the math. Twelve kids? She had twelve kids?”

“She did, and unlike a lot of women of her time and place, lived to the age of ninety-one. She outlived five of her children, which must have been a burden, and lost her Finias, who was sheriff around here, so Forrest comes by his tendency natural, when she was eighty-two and he eighty-eight. My great-granny, who lives in Tampa, Florida, with her oldest daughter, would say she— Her name was Loretta, but they called her Bunny always.”

“Prophetic, considering.”

With a snicker, Shelby lifted her glass again. “They say she might’ve married again, as she had a gentleman caller, a widower who’d bring her flowers every week, but he died before she’d made up her mind. I’d like to think I could draw a gentleman caller at that age.”

“I’ll bring you flowers.”

“Then if I don’t see you on my doorstep in sixty years, I’m going to be disappointed.”

• • •

IT RELIEVED HIM that dinner was not only edible, but actually tasty. She entertained him with the story of Melody’s eviction from the salon. He’d already heard a couple of versions, but hearing it from her, could visualize it perfectly.

“What’s her problem anyway?”

“She’s been a bully since I’ve known her. Spoiled, superior, with that mean streak you mentioned yourself. Her mama doted on her, and does still. Pushed her into all the beauty pageants, even as a little thing. And she won most of them, then sashayed all around being important.”

“Sashayed. Not a word you hear every day.”

“It suits. She almost always got what she wanted whenever she wanted it. Can’t say she’s shown any gratitude for it. She’s hated me for as long as I can remember.”

“Probably because she knew if you’d entered those pageants, you’d have beaten her little beauty-queen ass.”

“I don’t know about that, but I beat her out of some of what she wanted. Simple as that.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, silly things—or they are now. A boy she wanted when we were about fourteen, and he liked me. She got Arlo Kattery to beat him up—I know she did, but Arlo wouldn’t say. I made captain of our cheerleading squad—all through high school—and she wanted that. Grandpa fixed up this old clunker of a Chevy so I didn’t have to walk home after practice. She spray-painted ‘slut’ and worse all over it. I know it was her, because when I called her on it, Jolene looked so damn guilty. Same as she looked guilty the night of the Homecoming dance when I got voted queen and the windshield of that old Chevy was busted up, and the tires slashed.”

“She’s sounding more pathological than annoying now.”

“She’s just mean. I guess some people are, and if they never pay a real price for it, they just get meaner. She doesn’t worry me, especially since she’s banned from the salon and day spa.

“You made a wonderful meal, Griffin. Maybe you are a good catch.”

“I’m telling you.”

“I’m going to help you put this kitchen back to rights, then I need to get on.”

He traced a finger down her arm. “No way you could stay?”

He had those wonderful green eyes, those rough, skilled, thorough hands, and a way of kissing her that just put sparkles into her blood.

“It’s tempting, because that porch is still out there. It’s a lot more tempting than I thought it would be. But I wouldn’t feel right, not going home tonight to Callie.”

“Maybe I could have a pizza date with Callie between now and the picnic.”

“Oh, that’d be nice, but I’ve got such a busy week. I need to rehearse, and—”

“I wasn’t asking you.” Still he leaned over, kissed her. “Any problem with me taking Little Red for pizza?”

“I . . . I guess not. She’d really like it.” She rose, carried the plates to the sink. “Are you sure you want to take this on, Griffin?”

“Callie, or you?”

“We’re a set.”

“Nice set.”

He distracted her with talk of plans for the house while they loaded the dishwasher. He liked running his ideas and plans by someone who understood them, saw the potential.

“The one thing you need, and before much longer, is a porch swing. You can’t have a beautiful front porch like that and not have a front porch swing.”

“Front porch swing, check. Back porch?”

“An old bench, maybe a rocking chair. You could sit and rock and look out at the gardens you worked so hard planting.”

“I’m planting gardens?”

“With a wisteria arbor in my imagination, those pretty weepers.” She dried her hands after wiping up his cooktop. “I had a wonderful time. I don’t just mean . . . well, I wouldn’t want to leave out the tour of the second floor.”

He slid his arms around her waist. “I’ve still got a lot to show you.”

She let herself melt in, just sink into the kiss. And pulled back with real regret. “I really have to go.”

“Okay, but you’re going to come back for the rest of that tour.”

“I don’t think I could resist it.”

She picked up her purse; he plucked keys out of a dish on the counter.

“Oh, are you going out?” she asked as they walked to the front door.

“Sure. I’m following you home.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m not being silly. I’m following you home. Argue if you want, I’m still doing it. The woman who threatened you was shot less than a week ago right outside where you were working. You’re not driving home alone after dark.”

“I can’t stop you from trailing me all the way home, then doubling back, but it’s silly.”

“Either way.” He tugged her back for a kiss, then walked to his truck while she walked to her van.

Silly, she thought again, but sweet, too. He was just racking up all sorts of points.

Lord, she hadn’t thought of the point system in years. She and Emma Kate had devised it in high school. Amusing herself, she began counting up Griff’s.

Good-looking, scale of one to ten. She’d definitely give him a ten, she decided, and didn’t think she was pushing the mark.

Conversation skills. Another ten there. He knew how to talk, how to listen.

Humor. Another winner. She made the turn onto the road, watched his headlights follow.

Considerate. Maybe even a little too much, such as wasting his time following her home on roads she’d traveled all her life.

Good kisser. Right off the scale. She rolled her window down, let the air cool the heat just thinking of it brought on. She could honestly say she’d never been kissed better.

What were the rest of the requirements for the perfect boyfriend? She must have them written down somewhere. They’d made them up before either one of them had had sex, so that hadn’t been on the list.

The adult Shelby list would include it, and he’d top that scale, too.

She took the back roads, automatically skirting the town, taking the winding path, with Griff’s headlights not far behind.

And all right, they made her smile. It wasn’t such a bad thing to let someone look after her, just a little. As long as she remembered she needed to be in charge of her own life, and Callie’s.

She pulled into the drive, noted her parents’ bedroom lights were still on. When she got out, she thought she’d wave Griff off, but he was already getting out of his truck.

“You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

“Sure I do. That’s how it’s done. And if I don’t walk you to the door, how am I going to kiss you good night?”

“I like the second part. The first time I was kissed at this front door, I was fifteen, and Silas Nash—a descendant of the infamous Nash clan—gave me one that had me floating through the door and dreaming of him half the night.”

“I can beat that,” Griff said after a moment. “I can beat some teenager named Silas.”

“He’s getting his law degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law.”

“I can definitely beat a lawyer,” Griff claimed, and to Shelby’s mind, proved it.

“I guess I’m going to float upstairs and dream about you.”

“All night.” He gathered her hair into his fist, kissed her again until the world spun around her. “I’m not settling for half.”

“Good night, Griffin.”

“’Night.”

He waited until the door shut, walked back to the truck. He’d do some dreaming of his own tonight, he thought. The woman had him wrapped. Everything about her struck home for him.

He glanced up, imagined her going in to check on Callie. And thinking of him, she’d better be thinking of him, when she undressed for bed.

He’d sure as hell be thinking of her.

He pulled out, and as she had, took the back roads.

No hurry, a lot to think about. Plans to make.

He had a pizza date with a pretty little girl to think about, and a picnic with her and her mother to look forward to.

Maybe he’d pick up a bottle of champagne, give the picnic a classy, unexpected edge.

He glanced in the rearview at the headlights behind him, and since he’d been dawdling, picked up the speed a little.

Apparently not enough, he thought, as the headlights beamed closer. He waited for the truck—he could see it was a truck now—to pass since it was in such a damn hurry.

Instead it rammed him from behind hard enough to slap him against the steering wheel and back.

Instinctively he hit the gas. He thought of the phone he’d put, as always, in the cup holder, but didn’t want to risk taking a hand off the wheel.

And the truck rammed him again faster, harder, sending him into a skid that had his tires smoking over the rough shoulder. Griff fought his truck back, but the next hit, right at the curve, sent him careening off the road, skidding over the shoulder and into the oak tree green with spring.

He heard the crunch, had a moment to think, Shit! Shit! before the airbag deployed. Still the impact slammed his head against the side window. He saw stars, and the red eyes of the truck’s taillights as it stopped, idled, then punched it to round the curve.

“Not hurt,” he mumbled, but the stars, and they had jagged, pointy edges, circled his vision. “Not too bad, nothing broken.”

Except his truck.

He groped for the phone, watched his vision waver like he’d stuck his head underwater.

Don’t pass out, he ordered himself.

In the dash light he managed to find the name he wanted, and pressed Dial.

“Where’s my sister?” Forrest asked.

“Home. I’m not. I’ve got trouble. In case I pass out, I’m on Black Bear Road, about two miles from my place. You know that turn where the big oak stands?”

“Yeah.”

“My truck’s in that tree. Somebody ran me off the road. I could use a cop.”

“Sounds like you could use a tow truck. You hurt?”

“I don’t know.” Jagged, pointy stars circling. “Hit my head. Bleeding some.”

“Stay there. I’m on my way.”

“Truck’s in the tree. Where am I going?”

But Forrest had already hung up.

He sat for a moment, trying to get a fix in his mind on the truck that had run him off the road.

Chevy, yeah a Chevy, he thought. Half-ton pickup. Older model. Maybe four, five years. Something fixed on the front grille, like a . . . plow?

It hurt his head to think, so he stopped, fumbled off his seat belt, and discovered when he fought open the door and shifted, everything hurt a little.

The best he could do right now was sit on the side of the seat, breathe in the cool night air. He swiped at the wet on his face, saw blood smeared on his hand.

Fuck.

He’d have a bandanna in the glove box, but he wasn’t going to try to get to it, not right at the moment.

Nothing broken, he reminded himself. He’d broken his arm once when he was eight and the tree branch he’d been swinging on snapped. And his wrist at seventeen jumping out of Annie’s window.

So he knew what a broken bone felt like.

Just banged up, shook up and rattled around some.

But his truck—and goddamn he loved his truck—was a different matter.

He made himself stand to make sure he could. A little bit dizzy, but not bad. Bracing himself, he walked around to check out the damage.

“Shit! Fuck. Fucking shit!” Furious it was as bad as he feared, he shoved a hand through his hair. And saw stars again as he smacked against the wound.

The grille was toast, and the way the hood had accordioned, he thought the same there. And Christ knew what that meant for essentials under the damn hood.

He was no mechanic, but he was pretty sure he had a bent axle to top it off.

He’d hit hard, hard enough to spiderweb the windshield.

His feet crunched on broken glass as he circled around to get both the bandanna and a flashlight out of the cab. Flares, he thought. He should’ve pulled out the emergency flares straight off.

Before he could get anything, headlights cut through the dark.

Forrest pulled a police cruiser behind the wrecked truck. He got out, sized up Griff with one long look, then looked over to study the truck.

“Your head’s bleeding, son.”

“I know it. Son of a bitch.” He kicked the rear tire, which he regretted as the quick violence pinged something in the back of his neck.

He did not have whiplash. He would not have whiplash.

“You been drinking, Griff?”

“I had two glasses of wine all night, and the second one a good hour before this. I got run off the damn road, Forrest. Fucker came up behind me, rammed me, kept doing it until he caught me on this curve and sent me into the tree.”

“What fucker?”

“I don’t know what the hell fucker.” He pressed the heel of his hand—ouch!—to the throbbing wound because he was tired of blood running into his eye. “Half-ton Chevy, four, maybe five years old. Some sort of plow or farm tool—something hooked to the grille. Red, I think it was red. The truck. Plow was yellow, mostly. I think.”

“Okay, why don’t we sit you down a minute? I’ve got a first aid kit in the cruiser. Be best to stop that bleeding.”

“I’ll just lean here.” And he leaned back against the tipped back of his truck. “Ah, something else . . .” He dug for it as Forrest went back to the cruiser. “He slowed down after I crashed. Just for a couple seconds, like he wanted to make sure I hit good and proper. Saw his taillights, and . . . bumper sticker! Some kind of bumper sticker on the— What hand is this?”

He lifted his left, studied it for a moment before he could remember right from left.

“Left, the left side of the tailgate.”

Griff closed his eyes, found that eased a degree or two of the throbbing. “He wasn’t drunk. It was purposeful. I’m not sure when he pulled up behind me, but it wasn’t long after I left Shelby at your parents’ front door.”

“You followed her home?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t going to have her driving around after dark with what happened.”

“Um-hm.” Forrest set up flares; Griff closed his eyes again.

“I think the truck’s totaled, or nearly. I’ve only had it three years. I’ve put a lot of miles on it, sure, but it had plenty more in it.”

“We’ll have my granddaddy take a look once it’s towed in. You’re lucid,” Forrest added as he walked over with the first aid kit. “You haven’t puked yet.”

“I’m not going to puke.”

“If that changes, aim away from me. How’s the vision?”

“It wavered some at first. Steady now. Ow, fuck!”

“Don’t be a pussy,” Forrest said mildly, and continued to clean the laceration with an alcohol swab.

“You’d be a pussy, too, if I was being sadistic Nurse Sally.”

“I can’t see how bad it is until it’s cleaned up some. Nurse Emma Kate’s on her way.”

“What? No. Why?”

“Because if she says you’re going to the ER in Gatlinburg, that’s where you’re going. And since I have to deal with this mess you’re in, she and Matt can haul you there.”

“You called them.”

“I did. I’ll call for the tow after I have a look at what’s what myself. Anything else you can tell me about the truck?”

“Other than whoever was driving it was—is—a lunatic?”

“You didn’t see the lunatic, at all?”

“An impression—I’d say a guy—but I was pretty busy trying not to end up like I ended up. Or worse.” Griff said nothing for a moment, studied his friend as Forrest fixed a couple butterfly bandages along the gash. “You know who it is, from what I gave you already.”

“I’ve got an impression. That’s for me to deal with, Griff.”

“The hell it is. It’s my truck, my head.”

“My job. I expect that’s Matt and Emma Kate coming now. You piss anybody off lately?”

“You’re the closest I’ve come to pissing anyone off lately, since I’m sleeping with your sister.”

Forrest stopped what he was doing, eyes sharply narrowed. “Is that so?”

“I figure it’s a good time to let you know since you’re being all official and I’m already bleeding. I’m crazy about her. Flat-out.”

“It’s a fast leap from nice to meet you to crazy about.”

“She’s a lightning bolt.” Griff stabbed a thumb at his own heart. “Bam.”

Before Forrest could speak again, Emma Kate was running from the car, a medical bag in her hand. “What happened? Let me look at you.”

She pulled out a penlight, shined it. “Follow the light with your eyes.”

“I’m okay.”

“Shut up. Tell me your full name and today’s date.”

“Franklin Delano Roosevelt. December seven, 1941. A day that’ll live in infamy.”

“Smart-ass. How many fingers?”

“Eleven minus nine. I’m okay, Emma Kate.”

“I’ll tell you if you’re okay after I go over you in an exam room at the clinic.”

“I don’t need—”

“Shut up,” she said again, then hugged him. “Nothing against your triage, Forrest, but I’m going to take those bandages off at the clinic, get a look at that cut myself. It might need stitches.”

“Nuh-uh,” Griff said.

Matt stood, hands on hips, studying the truck. “Fucker trashed your ride, man. Forrest just said somebody ran you off the road. Who was it?”

“Ask Forrest. I think he knows from what I saw of the other truck.”

“I’ll be looking into it. For now, take him on into the clinic, look him over. I’ll have it towed to my granddaddy’s shop. You can come get what you need from it in the morning.”

“My tools—”

“Are still going to be there in the morning. I need to call this in, but I’ve got your statement clear enough, and I’ll call you if I need anything else. Nothing for you to do here, Griff, but be pissed off.”

He argued but, outnumbered, ended up dragged to Matt’s truck.

“He knows who did it and won’t say.” Bitterness coated Griff’s throat.

“Because he knows you might be an easy guy most of the time, in this case you’d go straight for the ass-kicking.” Matt shook his head. “Wouldn’t blame you. But you’re banged up already—disadvantage—and it’ll be almost as satisfying if whoever did this spends time in a cell.”

“He could spend time in a cell after I kick his ass.”

“It was deliberate?” Emma Kate asked. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, hell yeah.”

“What were you doing on that road?”

“Coming back from seeing Shelby got home.” Griff suddenly sat straight up. “Heading back from Shelby’s house, and the other truck pulled up behind me—not long after I started back home. Because he was either sitting on her house or mine. Either sitting on hers or followed us from mine, waited his chance.”

“You’re thinking they came after you because they couldn’t get to her?” Matt said.

“I’m thinking whoever did it isn’t just a lunatic. I’m thinking worse. A lot worse.”