My Heart Can't Tell You No (43 page)

Sarah looked up at him, then reached for her cup of coffee as she leaned back in her chair. “No, not exactly.”

“She owns the store in town.”

“Yes. She’s hoping to open another sometime next year. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. She told me Rodney owned it.”

“Rodney? Rodney doesn’t even own his own home. Granted his parents are wealthy, but his father threw him out of the house long ago.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a tone that suggested she knew perfectly well. “They loved him well enough when he was a baby and a little boy. Something like that should make no difference as far as they’re concerned. He’s still the same person he was then.”

“What are you talking about?” Joe was totally lost in the conversation.

Sarah looked at him and smiled softly, realizing he didn’t know. “Well, lets just say Rodney will never give his parents grandchildren.”

“Why? Is he sterile? They’re mad because he’s sterile?” Joe asked with raised brow.

Sarah’s eyes rolled in disbelief. “No, Joey. He’s not sterile. My goodness, Joey, can’t you tell when a man is a little different?”

“He’s gay?!” Joe blurted out in embarrassment before he could stop himself.

“What’s gay?” Robby asked as he entered the kitchen with his tank.

“Ask your mother when she gets home,” Joe told him. “Why don’t you go back in the room and watch television?”

“I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re throwing a big black ball on the floor at a bunch of white things.”

“They’re bowling,” Joe explained absently.

“Gram, can I go out with Tom and Jackie?”

“You go straight down to them and don’t wander off.”

Robby was out the door in an instant. Joe got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. “She told me she was having a relationship with him.”

Sarah laughed as she put a piece of puzzle in its place. “Sounds to me like she was pulling your leg.”

“About both? You don’t think it’s more than that? I mean, she had plenty of opportunity to tell me, didn’t she?”

“Well, she didn’t tell any of us
not
to tell you. So, it wasn’t as if she was hiding anything, not when any one of us could have told you at any moment. She probably just didn’t think it was important enough to bring up. We never told you because it never came into conversation. Unless she thought you’d be intimidated by it. Are you?”

“Why should I be? I have no reason to be comparing wages with the girl.”

This time when Sarah looked up at him, he felt as if he were ten years old again and she were about to scold him.

“I was up this morning when you walked by, and since you’re not in the habit of an early morning walk, I knew where you were coming from.”

He looked down at his cup. “I had to go home and change for work.”

“What are you going to do if she gets pregnant?”

“I didn’t stop to think about it.”

“No, I don’t suppose you did.” She looked back to her puzzle in frustration. “You never did before.”

“You know about the other times,” he said flatly. He knew if anyone in the family would know, it would be her.

“Do you love her, Joey? I don’t mean the childish, obsessive kind of love Bob had for her where it ruins you. But the kind of love that can grow with you and not remain stagnant.”

“You think it was Bob’s love for Maddie that destroyed him?”

“I don’t know what destroyed Bob. But I do know I should have never let them get married. I watched him all of Maddie’s life, seen him standing forever in the background just to pick up the pieces you left behind. I often wonder if his obsession for her wasn’t really an obsession for something he could steal away from you.”

“What the hell did you do to John?!” Maddie burst through the door. “And why didn’t you stay with him? I thought he was your friend!”

“Maddie.” Sarah tried to quiet her.

“Ya know, I always wondered why you only showed at the hospital after I was well on the way to recovery, and then only stayed long enough to show me you were still angry. Is this some kind of reverse psychological drawback to working where you do? You can’t be responsible enough to stick around when you’re needed in your personal life?”

“Maddie!! Shut up and sit down!” Sarah’s sternness turned Maddie’s shocked gaze to her.

“What do you mean I only showed up when you were recovering?” Joe looked at her. “And
why
does
everyone
immediately
presume
I
did
something
to
John?!”

“What do you think I mean?” She turned to leave, but her mother’s voice stopped her.

“Get back here!” When Maddie looked at her, she continued. “For your information Joe was in the hospital with you from the very beginning. He didn’t leave the hospital for days, not until we finally put our foot down and sent him home for some sleep and a bath. And there were only two times that he showed any anger in front of any of us—when he heard Bob was drunk and drove into that wall, and when you woke up long enough to make funeral arrangements before you went off half-cocked and told him you never wanted to see him again.”

“I did not!” Maddie looked at her through huge eyes. “I didn’t even have a chance to speak to him!”

“Oh, you spoke all right, little girl. You weren’t in your right head—that dope they were pumping into your veins saw to that. But you spoke to him. He just didn’t stick around long enough to find out that you could have been talking to the man on the moon as far as you were concerned. You were sliding in and out of it all that day and well into the next. You saw your brother Jackie and accused him of killing Bob too. And a few times you told us that you were eating french fries, so I knew your sense of reality had you somewhere between Lewis Carroll and Mary Shelley. And about work today, he was where he was supposed to be.”

Maddie was staring at her mother. Joe watched as her jaws clenched in tensed anger. She glanced at Joe, then back to Sarah before she moved to the window and gazed outside. “He was there—and you never told me?”

“I never had any reason to. I never thought you believed otherwise.” Sarah tried another piece to her puzzle. “Is he moving in with you, down there?”

“NO!” Maddie turned and ran out the door, bringing Joe’s and Sarah’s shocked gazes to one another. “Why did you do that?! Get in the house!”

Joe moved to the porch to see what the commotion was.

“I was bowling,” Robby told her.

“Get in there!”

Maddie started down the footpath to the area where Tom had been changing a tire, but was now picking Jackie off the ground and brushing dirt from his clothes as a tire bounced precariously close by before falling onto its side. Jackie’s face showed his pain as he looked down at his hands and knees. Joe could see the knees, covered with the gray of the dirt he had been knocked into and pink from the blood that was slowly oozing from brush-burned skin. Maddie picked him up and carried him back up to the house, the child’s feet dangling almost to the ground, showing how tall the boy was growing.

“What happened?” Joe held the door open for her.

“I told you to get in there!” she said, turning to the boy who had just noticed the blood on his brother’s knees. “The little . . . he rolled a tire down the hill and knocked Jackie over.”

“Does it hurt?” Robby whispered, his own little face showing as much pain as Jackie’s.

“Shut up!” Jackie yelled at him, then let the tears fall that he had been trying to hide.

The sight broke Robby’s heart, bringing a wail from him as he began his crying jag and ran into the kitchen. “
Gram
! Fix Jackie! I hurt him!”

Maddie sat the older boy on the table and stepped into the bathroom long enough to get a wet washcloth and a large wooden box that Jack had made into a first-aid kit.

“Come here,” Sarah soothed as Robby climbed onto her lap.

“How’s that?” Maddie put the cloth on Jackie’s hand to remove some of the dirt.

“It burns,” Jackie sobbed.

“It burns, Grammy,” Robby wailed as Sarah tried to hide her amusement.

“Shut up!” Jackie looked at him with red eyes, then inhaled sharply with a new flow of tears as Maddie tried to dab the dirt from his other hand. “It hurts! There’s something there!”

“There’s somethin’ there, Gram!” Robby repeated.

Maddie removed the cloth and looked closely at the wound. With a huge gulp, she dropped into the chair next to her and looked up at her mother.

“Now we all know why I never went into the medical profession.” Maddie’s face was pale. “There’s a stone lodged under the skin.”

“Well, you could let me try to get it out, but the way my eyes have been I’d probably end up hurting him more,” her mother explained.

Robby sobbed harder. “There’s a big rock stuck in him, Gram. Ya gotta get it out!”

Maddie looked up at Joe. “Can you . . . ?”

He moved over to the boy, taking Jackie’s small hand in his and looking at the wound. He looked up at Jackie. “This is gonna hurt.”

“It’ll hurt, Gram!” Robby cried but Jackie merely nodded his head.

Maddie prepared a bandage as Joe went about his work, slowly prying the stone from where it had been lodged between a thick layer of skin and flesh. When it was finally removed a steady flow of blood washed it clean. He glanced up at the boy as he pressed some gauze against the wound, seeing he was pale and starting to sway.

“Maddie.” Joe alerted her before Jackie could fall from his perch on the table. She grabbed her son and slowly lowered him back as Joe grabbed his feet and moved him until his full length was stretched across the table. “Are you all right? Do you think you’re going to be sick?” he asked the boy.

“I feel . . . funny.”

“I know. But you’re almost done now, Sailor.” Maddie put the bandage on his palm, then pressed a kiss to the injury. She picked up the washcloth again and gently wiped the dirt from his knees then sprayed them with an antiseptic/disinfectant before helping him from the table. “Robby. Go get your things together. I think we’ve given your grandmother enough excitement for one day. Do you think you can make it now, Jackie?”

“Yes.” He looked irritably at his brother who still hadn’t moved from his grandmother’s lap. “Go get your things!”

“Gram, do I have to go? I don’t wanna go down yet,” Robby whined.

“Robert Green! You had better haul it in there right now! You’ve already done enough damage for one day!” Maddie scolded in a tone that made the boy move immediately, moping all the way. “Jackie, you can start down.”

“Well? What did he do?” Sarah asked with concern for the younger child.

Joe watched as Maddie hesitated, then looked over at him, trying to hide her amusement. “Do you know what he did?”

“Yeah. He went bowling,” Joe answered as Tom entered the kitchen, wiping his greasy hands on a paper towel as he entered.

“What?” Sarah asked in confusion, remembering what the child had been watching on television before he went outside, but not making the connection between the two incidents.

“He rolled an extra tire down the hill,” Maddie told her.

“Made a strike too. The kid’s got potential,” Tom added, bringing Maddie’s amusement to the surface as she tried to keep from laughing, then sobered for her mother’s sake.

“I’ll talk to him when we get home and tell him he can’t go around rolling heavy tires at people. Robby, are you ready?”

“Yes,” he answered solemnly as he returned with the pajamas he had worn that morning.

CHAPTER XXII
 

M
addie was silent on the walk to her house, letting Robby take over conversation as he told Joe about what he had done that day. Jackie was also quiet, reaching the front door by the time the rest of them were only halfway there. As she entered the house Maddie felt a thick blanket of humidity that nearly took her breath away, prompting her to turn on the air conditioning.

“You can put him down. He’s going to bed,” she told Joe.

“I don’t want to go to bed!”

“Well, I’m sure Jackie didn’t want that stone stuck in his hand either,” Joe said sternly as he stood the boy on the floor. “Now, go listen to your mom.”

“Why do I always have to go to bed?” Robby moped as he marched after Maddie.

“Because you’re the one who always gets into trouble. That’s why.” She opened the door and watched as he hopped up on his bed. “Do you know what you did that was wrong?”

“I hurt Jackie.”

“How did you hurt Jackie?”

“I hit him with a tire.”

“So?” Maddie asked.

“I shouldn’t roll tires at Jackie.”

“You shouldn’t roll tires at anyone. One hour, then you can come out.”

“Okay,” he moped.

Maddie moved to her bedroom, the heat making her slacks unbearable any longer. She took the pins from her hair and brushed out the dark length until it was a soft fullness flowing over her shoulders. She stripped down to her underwear and was about to put on a white cotton blouse and a pair of cut-off denims but a quick glimpse at her bed made it irresistible. She moved over to the edge, glancing toward the door to make sure she was alone, then lay on its firmness. The air conditioning felt
so
good on her bare skin after the long day trapped in slacks and a blouse. She would only lie there for a moment, rest her eyes, then go out and prepare supper.

The darkness of the room woke her. The glowing numbers of her clock read nine-fifty-five, alerting her that she had slept nearly four and a half hours. She put on the clothes she had laid out earlier and went to the living room, finding Robby asleep on the couch and Jackie just dozing off on the floor. Joe looked up at her from his seat in front of the television, a decided sparkle to his eyes as he watched her. She walked past him and knelt next to Jackie, lifting him onto his feet and helping him back to the bathroom before taking him to bed. As she pulled the sheet over Jackie and kissed his check, she heard Joe’s steps behind her. She turned as he put Robby on the bed and began taking off his sneakers. She watched as he sat on the bed, carefully removing the boy’s socks, then the shorts and shirt. He seemed to be looking especially hard at the boy’s face before he stood up and moved out the door. She walked slowly to the younger boy, feeling a small stab of pain at their situation. She reached down and pushed a thick lock of dark hair off his forehead. He looked so much like his father. Could Joe see it? Was that what he had been looking at before he left the room?

“Maddie,” Joe whispered from the hall.

“Did they eat?” she asked as she pulled the door nearly closed and started toward the living room with him.

“We managed to get something thrown together.”

“I’m sorry you had to put up with them while I was asleep.” She sat on the couch next to him. “I only wanted to rest my eyes. It didn’t turn out that way.”

“I noticed. I closed your bedroom door for you about half an hour after you fell asleep.”

“Oh.” She looked away from him, recalling her unclothed state.

“I almost sent the boys back up to Mom’s so I could come in and join you—but I don’t think I could have slept.”

“Is there any coffee?” she asked lightly as she went to the kitchen to fill a cup before returning, but moving to a chair this time.

“Are you going to the store tomorrow?” He lit a cigarette and looked over at her.

“Why?”

“It’s the weekend, that’s why. Normal people try to get at least two days off a week.” He looked back to the television. “It has something to do with spending time with their family.”

“I can stay home,” she said quietly, her eyes staying on him.

The house was quiet as she stared at him, the only sound coming from the television that neither were watching, although Joe’s eyes were pointed in that direction. She had known him for twenty-five years and never had any trouble talking to him, but suddenly she was overcome with a surge of shyness; a shyness that stifled any rude comment she might have thrown back at him in anger. It had always been so much easier being angry with him. Anger had a way of hazing things over, but now she couldn’t find the anger she had used as a shield over the years. Instead she watched him clearly, his virile beauty stilling her tongue. Her mind went to the previous night when she had lain in his arms, and the other newer experiences he had introduced her to. The vivid memory loosened her grip on her cup as it slipped from her hand and covered her bare legs with hot coffee. She was on her feet in an instant.

“Are you okay?!” Joe stood next to her.

“
H-hot
!” was all she managed to get out as she stupidly looked up at him.

He picked her up and carried her to the kitchen where he sat her on the sink, depositing her legs in the basin, then turned on the faucet. He started drenching her thighs with the spray nozzle, quickly cooling the burn and taking the sting out of it.

“What happened?”

“I—I guess I wasn’t thinking about my coffee when I should have been.” Her eyes went to the faucet where she turned off the water and reached for a towel.

He took the towel and patted her legs dry, his touch sending tingles through her. “So what had your mind so occupied that you risked maiming yourself?”

She moved back to the floor, avoiding his eyes as she got her cup and took it back to the sink. “Do you work tomorrow?”

“No,” he answered as she turned to the room again, this time taking the seat on the opposite side of the couch. “I was talking to Rodney today.”

“I know. He told me.” She looked at him as he again sat on the couch, then glanced back to the floor. She didn’t like feeling this way, feeling like a teenager in the same room as some idol she was smitten with. God, she was in her mid-twenties. She was a capable business woman. He had no right to intimidate her like this.

“Did he tell you that he told me who owned the store?”

“No. He just said you were there.” She looked back up at him, having an incredible urge to touch him, but she didn’t move. She remembered from her first marriage that it annoyed men to have women draping themselves all over them, but her urge was becoming too strong; knowing she couldn’t do anything to satisfy it, she looked away again. “I take it you found out that I named the store after the boys, not Rodney.”

“No, I didn’t put that together yet.” He lit another cigarette. “But Mom told me you aren’t Rodney’s type.”

“No,” she smiled. “You’re more his type than I am.”

“No thank you,” he said grimly then stood up and moved to the door where he opened it and stared outside. She looked up quickly, her heart sinking at the thought of his leaving.

“Where are you going?” She went to stand behind him.

He didn’t answer as he continued to watch the night. The sight of his leanly muscled silhouette brought back her need to reach out and touch him. Her hand slowly moved to his back, but, when she felt him stiffen, she immediately went back to her seat. When she looked at him, she saw he was watching her.

“Why did you do that?”

“Touch you? I’m sorry.” She dropped her gaze again.

“You’re sorry?” He closed the door again and walked back toward her. “What’s the matter with you? I
meant
why did you move away?”

“
Be-because
. You didn’t want to be touched, I can understand.”

“I didn’t want . . . . Maddie what’s wrong with you? You’re acting like I’m a stranger.”

“I think you are,” she mumbled.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re not the same person I’ve known for the past few years.”

“Then who am I?”

“Until today I didn’t know you cared enough to stay at the hospital with me!”

“Well, what did you think I’d do?” He moved away from her as if agitated. “Christ, Maddie! I love you. You know that. Why
wouldn’t
I be at the hospital with you?!”

“See. It makes you angry to say such a thing! Why do you feel you have to tell me that? I said you cared—nothing about love. And it wasn’t a hint to make you say something you don’t mean. I’ve known you too long to expect it. I don’t appreciate lies.”

When he looked back at her, she saw a mixture of confusion, anger and amusement. “What are you talking about now?! Do you always talk such crap when you wake up from a nap? Does it take you a while to come back down to earth or what?”

“I know what I’m talking about. Believe me—I woke up completely when I spilled my coffee.”

“Then if that isn’t your excuse, you’d better explain yourself a little more clearly, because you’re making no sense to me.”

“To put it simply—don’t tell me that you love me. Want me—maybe, for a little while anyway. But you don’t love me,” she told him.

He looked at her closely from across the room, different emotions running through him too quickly for her to read before he went back to the couch and carelessly sat down.

“I don’t huh? Well, how about that. Then you tell me why I didn’t take you right there on the dike when you were fourteen the way I wanted to—and believe me, I wanted to. Tell me why I didn’t just corner you somewhere and try to chase away all those dreams that kept waking me up sweating and shaking. I could have, ya know, and to hell with the fact that you were only a kid. Instead I went out and took it out on older girls, and that was just what I was doing, taking it out on them because you were so Goddamn young. But they didn’t appreciate my less-than-gentle mating. I was told more than once that the only times I approached any sense of gentleness was when I’d be so lost in my own fantasy that I’d be calling them Maddie.” He looked over at her, the amusement and confusion gone, leaving only the anger. “And what about the next summer? We were all alone by the stream—or at least I thought we were. Why didn’t I try to take you then—even if I did know you weren’t ready? And the next year at the football game? Was it
caring
that sent you away when I wanted you so damned much it took ten minutes before I was composed enough to actually see the road to drive. Never mind the physical pain that didn’t leave until after I got back to Mom’s and picked up the kids. I had to sit in the driveway for another ten minutes before I could get out of the damn car and go up to the house.”

Maddie stared at him, his words rushing around her brain in a mad race. “You got married to Lena because you loved me. Sorry, but I must be sleepier than I thought, because right now that isn’t making a whole hell of a lot of sense to me.”

“No, I married her because she was having my child. And there was no love lost on her side either. She let me know early her plans for me. Only I didn’t
want
to go to college and play football. So according to her I
made
her
life
a
hell,
by keeping my job and getting a pilot’s license instead. Believe me, she was quick to let me know what kind of a bum I was for making her live on that kind of income.”

“So to further prove your love for me, you took to spending your weekends in the arms of other women?” she asked cynically.

“I what?! I did not. Who told you that? There was a lot of cheating in my marriage all right, but it wasn’t me. Lena’s the one who didn’t make any secret of her affairs, not after she found out that we were together that weekend. She had her ammunition then, so it didn’t matter that she’d been screwin’ around for over a year—regularly.”

“So why didn’t you divorce her?!” Her anger was returning, feeling that if he had loved her as he claimed, and didn’t love Lena, their marriage should have ended long before it did.

“She wouldn’t let me,” he said quietly as he looked back at the television.

“She wouldn’t let you,” Maddie said blandly. “She hold a gun to your head or what?”

“She might as well have. When I got back from Dad’s funeral and told her I wanted a divorce, she showed me exactly what caliber she was holding to my head.”

“You asked her for a divorce when you left me?” Her voice was quiet, not wanting to believe what she was hearing.

“She knew who I’d been with.” He went on, not hearing her comment.

“If you weren’t in the habit of wandering—how did she know you were with anybody at all?” She threw back, bringing a tight smile to his lips as he continued to look at the television.

“You want to know how she knew I was with anyone,” he sighed heavily then slowly stood up and turned on the ceiling light before coming back to stand in front of her. His movements to open his shirt made her eye him warily until he had removed it and turned his back to her, revealing six long pink marks that traveled from the center of his back downward and out toward his sides for about eight inches. She doubted she would have noticed them if he hadn’t insinuated they were there. They were almost faded away from the nearly twenty-four hours that had passed since their lovemaking. “Ya see, you get a little involved in what’s happening to you.”