“Oh.” She’d looked up, out to sea. The sight of a large white ship, slowly sailing past, caught her attention.
Adam and Jake both looked to see what had snagged her interest.
“It’s a cruise ship,” Jake said.
“I know. Isn’t it pretty?” She sighed in appreciation of the sight. “When I was younger, I’d see commercials on television, advertising a cruise vacation.” She grinned. “To me, all the people they showed having such a wonderful time, eating, dancing, going to shows—they all looked like royalty. I used to tell myself that I might be just a foster kid, but someday, I’d go on a cruise and be somebody.” Ginny laughed. “It’s funny, isn’t it, the things you think about when you’re a kid? Boy howdy, I don’t even know if I’d like sailing or not.”
“But that’s the joy of childhood, isn’t it?” Jake asked. “You can be whatever and whoever you want, and reality be damned.”
“Yeah.” Ginny sat and watched the big white vessel move along the horizon. “I haven’t thought of that in years.”
The silence stretched out, a nice silence on a nice sunny day.
“Will you tell us about Benny’s father?” Adam asked.
She thought back, first over the last few months when her life had become so much more than it had ever been. She’d known the brothers Kendall for more than six months, and while she’d been aware of the chemistry between them—and knew they had, too—they’d given her space. They hadn’t asked anything of her, not even the most basic information.
In the beginning, she hadn’t wanted to give anything away.
Because I was healing
. Now, she wanted to share everything.
“His name is Troy Cochrane. He was some years older than me. I met him at the library, of all places.” She inhaled deeply. “I left my last foster home when I was sixteen, and lied about my age to get a job cleaning. The work was mostly at nights—I was with a company that did office buildings. So early mornings were my time. My apartment was too tiny and boring to stay in, but the library, now there was a place of possibilities.”
“I’ve noticed you have a lot of books at home,” Jake said.
“I’d planned to put myself through college, as soon as I figured out what I wanted to be. In the meantime, I read. Anything and everything, but mostly what’s known as classic literature. Do you know that life is pretty much the same in some ways now as it was one hundred, two hundred years ago?”
“I guess people, at their core, don’t change much,” Adam said.
“Exactly.” Though she didn’t often waste her time thinking about what was, or what might have been, for Adam and Jake she let herself go back to that warm spring day.
“I met Troy at the library. I’d seen him there, off and on. He was handsome, well dressed, and he seemed studious. We chatted, a little here, a little there. He’d bring me coffee and we’d go for walks. We’d meet at parks or the mall, and just talk. I’ve always been more than a little shy. I was placed into foster care after I was taken from my mother when I was ten. Growing up as I did, with so many different homes, didn’t make me very self-confident.” She shrugged. Jake had begun rubbing her arms, and Adam had taken her hand in his. She’d been so alone
then
, but wasn’t alone now.
“I was eighteen and lonely, and naïve, and I never questioned why we didn’t go on regular dates, or why we never went to
his
place. He paid attention to me, and I fell for that. I fell for him.”
“Sounds to me as if the bastard set out to make you fall for him,” Adam said. “Don’t blame the teenager you were for that, baby.” Adam brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it.
Just that simple gesture eased her tension and helped her to set everything into perspective. She’d always blamed herself for somehow not knowing that Troy was a louse. But how could she have known, really?
“I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant. Troy wasn’t excited, he was mad as hell—especially when I refused to get an abortion. It turned out he was already married, with two kids, and had no intention of leaving his wife, or even acknowledging the child I carried inside me as his.” Ginny inhaled deeply. “After Benny was born, I contacted him, to tell him he had a son—well, maybe that was another naïve mistake on my part. But I felt it was only right to give him one final chance. He never wanted anything to do with Benny, and threatened to have me arrested if I ever called him again.”
“You and Benny are both better off without him,” Jake said.
“You certainly are. You gave Benny your name—and all of your focus. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, baby. You’re one hell of a good mother.”
“Thank you.” Ginny looked over at Benny. Oh, she likely would have to start calling him “Ben” in another year or so. She knew the days of open hugs and pet names would be over long before she was ready for them to be.
She loved the compliments on the job she was doing as a mother under any circumstance. But knowing these men valued that in her made her feel particularly good about herself.
“Is your mom the reason you don’t drink?” Adam asked.
It shouldn’t shock her that both Adam and Jake could see beyond the walls she’d erected. They really
did
pay attention to her. Jake had said she was the most important person in their lives. A part of her, that cynical part, whispered “for now.” She didn’t think, after the life she’d led, that there would be any hope left inside of her. Yet as she sat on this blanket on a beach far from home, she knew the truth. Because of these two men, hope was exactly what was blooming inside her.
She still didn’t know if she could satisfy them at all, either sexually or for the long haul. She didn’t know how much of her heart she really had left to give. But there were things she could give to them, and one of those things was honesty.
“I’ve only ever had close personal contact with two people who drank heavily, and neither one of them was worth a good damn.”
“You don’t buy that ‘hate the sin, love the sinner’ philosophy?” Adam asked.
“Maybe for some. But for others, no. My mother had a choice when my daddy left her, and in a lot of ways it was the same choice I had when Troy told me to go to hell.
She
chose alcohol, drugs, and other men. When children’s services took me away from her, they offered her help. They offered to put her into rehab, so she could get clean and sober and be a mother to me. They laid it all out for her. Rehab, a place to live, training, and a job. My God, what more could anyone ask?” Ginny had to take a deep breath. All these years later, the wound of her mother’s betrayal still hurt. “Earline Rose chose to say ‘no thanks’ and abandon me so that she could continue on in her selfish ways. Maybe there’ll come a day when I can forgive her for that—for choosing herself over her responsibilities as a mother. But I’m not holding my breath any.”
“Honey, you’re not afraid of becoming like her, are you?” Jake’s question, sounding quiet and incredulous, was final proof that these men saw deeper into her than anyone ever had.
In response, she shrugged. “There’s always been that fear, right from the moment Troy Cochrane walked away from me, because I was scared, and alone, and had no idea what I would do next.”
“My God.” Adam ran a hand down her head, and then turned her face toward him. “Leaving Benny with Kelsey must have torn you up inside.”
“When I awoke the next morning, the pain of the rape and the welts he’d given me the night before was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. Because in that moment I knew that whether I’d been motivated by selflessness or selfishness, my son was with strangers, without
me
. I’d ended up doing the same thing she had done, and that knowledge was enough to make me come to my senses and do what I needed to do.”
“You’re wrong, baby. What you did was not the same thing. Yes, you left your son with strangers. But you’d planned to leave that bastard, and knew the only chance you and Benny had was if you left him the way you did, with Benny protected and cared for first.” Adam reached over and wiped the tears she couldn’t control. “You were in an untenable position, alone, with no one to turn to. But Ginny? I believe with all my heart that things work out the way they’re meant to be, in the end.”
“Damn straight. All that happened so that you would wind up in Lusty just when you did. And there’s one more thing, honey, and it’s the biggest thing of all.”
“What’s that?” How could she ever have imagined there would be men who would build her up instead of tearing her down? How could she have gotten so lucky to have found them?
“You’re not alone anymore.” Adam leaned over and kissed her very lightly, almost, she thought, reverently. “No matter what happens between the three of us, you’ve become a part of Lusty. You’ll
never
be alone again.”
She thought of the place she’d come to and the people she’d met. She thought of all the relationships she’d formed, and the way an entire town had not only taken her son into their hearts, but her, too. No one had ever made her feel anything but welcome, even knowing, as they did, her situation when she’d arrived.
Lusty had become home to her, the first real home she’d ever had. Deep inside where she’d been broken for so long, she felt an almost giddy lightness, and a warmth that she instinctively recognized as the mending of her soul. Maggie was right. Lusty was
her
place.
“Do you know what I want more than anything right now?” She heard the wistfulness in her tone, and didn’t care.
Why, Virginia Earline Rose, you’re homesick
.
“What, baby? Name it, and it’s yours.”
“I want us to all go home.”
Chapter 9
The problem with Deke is that he’s too short-sighted.
Jerry Stone was not short-sighted, and he’d done his research over the last couple of days. It was all well and good that his buddy wanted to get his bitch back, and punish her soundly for the grief she’d caused him. He was all for that, because women needed to learn their place.
But there was a larger picture to see here. Jerry had been online—mostly while Deke slept—and had snooped around, and looked where he knew to look, and he’d discovered something kind of significant about the small town of Lusty, Texas.
The people there were all stinking rich. And while getting Deke’s woman back for him was his
stated
purpose, Jerry Stone hadn’t survived as long as he had without an arrest record by always doing exactly what he’d said he’d do.
Jerry believed in helping his friends, but the way he saw it, this particular friend was walking on very thin ice. Deke’s ranting the night before when they’d discovered that Ginny had indeed moved her ass to Lusty had told him that his buddy was a little too obsessed with the woman.
After all, a piece of ass was only a piece of ass.
When a man became obsessed, he tended to make mistakes. In Deke’s case, those mistakes would likely find him either ending up back in jail for a very long time, or dead.
Jerry certainly didn’t mind lending Deke a hand, but he didn’t intend to get dragged down into the sewer with him.
Jerry’s attention was caught by the pretty waitress who approached his table.
“Hello, my name is Michelle, and I’ll be your server today. Our lunch special is meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy and a side of mixed vegetables. With the special you get a choice of a garden salad or soup—chicken noodle today—and your choice of pie.”
“That’s real tempting, Michelle. Could you give me a couple of minutes to look at the menu before I decide?”
“Certainly. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Coffee, if you have it, please.”
“We do, and it’s fresh.” Michelle paused and tilted her head to the side. “You’re new in town.”
And there it was, right on schedule
. Jerry had been expecting it.
He shook his head. “I’m not, really. I was just passing through on my way to visit my uncle down in Georgetown. Tell you the truth, I wasn’t even going to stop. But then I saw your sign out front, and my stomach rumbled.”
The waitress smiled, and Jerry detected the slight bit of relief on her face. “That sign does tend to pull them in.”
“It’s kind of hard to ignore a place that calls itself
Lusty Appetites
,” Jerry agreed.
“I’ll go get your coffee.” Michelle moved off, nodding to other customers as she went toward the area where they had a coffee station set up. Some folks called out greetings, and she stopped and chatted with them, showing an easy familiarity that he’d expected in a small-town restaurant. Jerry would bet that he was the only stranger in the place right now. That made two times where his presence drew attention—first when he and Deke had driven through, and now. No doubt about it. The good citizens of the town of Lusty made a note of strangers, which meant they took care of their own.