Читать книгу Her Lost And Found Baby - Tara Quinn Taylor - Страница 12

Chapter Four

Tabitha stared at Johnny’s bare feet. He had nice feet. Toes aligned. Tanned. Nothing knobby about them. Good enough to be a foot model, if he’d been so inclined. She’d told him so once.

He’d quirked his eyebrow at her and continued whatever conversation they’d been having at the time.

“Did you go barefoot a lot growing up?” she asked now, still thinking about him saying they’d say that “Chrissy” was with his mother as they sat together on the couch in their suite sipping wine. She understood why she hadn’t met his family, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wonder about them.

Other than this year away, his entire life revolved around them. He worked for the family. Had married his parents’ best friends’ daughter. Lived close enough to them that he’d made it to his own bed with his own two feet after getting blistering drunk in his father’s den, with his father, on the night of his wife’s funeral. He had more aunts, uncles and cousins than she had acquaintances. And he was an only child.

She didn’t know that man. But as their time together grew shorter, she wanted to know him. Felt she needed to know him.

She was ready to recover her son. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to lose the friend she’d found in Johnny. Wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for that.

And yet she realized she had to be. She was a loner. Other than her small circle, anonymity was her comfort.

He hadn’t answered her question. He was watching her, though. Probably wondering why she was talking about feet when they’d been discussing their plan to get Jackson back.

“I like it that you go barefoot,” she told him, needing to have a moment of non-Jackson conversation. To breathe. “You’re so...smart. And together. It’s not surprising that everything you touch turns to gold. You have life so figured out, it actually works the way it’s supposed to—well other than Angel, of course...” She paused, and then added, “But your whole life has been a plan...and yet your feet...they’re free. You’ve got things together enough to leave room for freedom.”

If there’d ever been babbling, that was it. Award-winning wine was potent.

“I’d never gone barefoot in my life, other than at the beach, the pool or in the shower, until I moved next door to you.”

Wait. Was he saying he was barefoot because of something she’d done? That she’d released something inside him?

Impossible! But...maybe?

The way he was looking at her...he seemed to need her to understand something important. And she wanted to. For months she’d been wanting to. Their time together was going to be gone soon and she didn’t know him well enough.

Didn’t know what he felt when he got all quiet on her.

Didn’t know how he really felt about her. Other than as the other participant in their time out of real life to reach their goals.

“It started with your sabbatical?” she asked. “Going barefoot, I mean.”

“The carpet in the house is white,” he reminded her.

Cream-colored, but...yes. And the soles of his shoes would mark it in a day. So practical. So...Johnny. Maybe she knew him better than she thought.

“So our plan is to put in an application at The Bouncing Ball to gain access to more information in the hope of finding something that will link Jason and his father to Mark and Jackson?” she asked, her mind back on track. “We can enroll over the internet, so we don’t have to go back where Mark might see us, and maybe get a parent list? At the very least we need Jason’s last name.”

They needed to stay on track. It was just so hard, being alone in the world except for her coworkers, who’d once been closer friends than they were now. She’d shut them out to focus fully on her search for Jackson. Losing her son made her feel so powerless. So helpless.

“That’s the plan,” Johnny said, willing, as always, to let go of any moment that might verge on discomfort.

With her, anyway. In his real life he was a high-powered corporate attorney.

A man she didn’t know.

Setting down her glass of wine, Tabitha thanked him for being the best friend she’d ever had and said good-night.

She wanted to stay. To ask him tough questions. Real questions. To touch his heart, let him know how much he’d touched hers.

To ask if there was any way he’d be willing to consider a longer-term agreement.

His easy smile followed her across the room as he lifted the bottle they’d been sharing and poured himself a little more wine.

With the half wave that was her usual “see ya,” Tabitha closed her bedroom door, buried her face in her pillow and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

In fresh jeans and a clean purple Angel shirt, Tabitha brought along a fresh state of mind as she worked beside Johnny the next morning in the prep kitchen he’d rented for the next month.

He grilled the pork and steak while she seasoned and cooked all the beans. Everything would be refrigerated, then reheated as needed throughout the day.

“I don’t think we should cut back on the beans,” she told him. “We almost ran out yesterday.” Their weekly plan—a spreadsheet he always provided that was taped to a cupboard between them—indicated one gallon can less of each. He’d based that on foot traffic research he’d done on the beach area, which he’d averaged for Tuesdays.

What she wanted to tell him was that she had an idea for a new plan. She’d thought she’d do it on the drive over that morning, but he’d been hell-bent on a particular cup of coffee from a particular place—his favorite—and she’d figured he deserved a morning when coffee was the most important thing on his mind.

Lord knew, between the two of them and their individual needs, those kinds of mornings were few. At least, when they were together. What he did when they weren’t working she couldn’t say.

Because she didn’t ask.

“We should still cut back,” he said. He stopped what he was doing to send her a warm smile, as if to soften the blow of his refusal to accept her opinion on the needed quantity of beans. Johnny almost never paused when he was chopping. Especially beef. Seeming to remember that, he glanced at the knife in his hand and returned his attention to the board on the counter in front of him. “It’s Tuesday,” he said, by way of explanation.

In the six months they’d been actually out food trucking, as opposed to getting things set up, he’d run out of food exactly twice. So she went along with one fewer can of beans.

“I think instead of applying for Chrissy, we should tell Mallory Harris the truth.” That wasn’t quite how she’d planned to present her idea, but there it was.

She didn’t look at Johnny as she added the bag of his premixed spices to the pan of black beans, adjusting the heat underneath them as she stirred. She listened to him chop, thankful for the even, rhythmic beat of blade against board.

“You’re the one who always wants to do things on the up-and-up, to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s. And finally having found Jackson, I don’t want to do anything that might make me seem less than...”

She barely registered his lack of chopping before she felt his hands on her arms. “It’s okay, Tabitha.” His easy tone settled the tension building inside her while his hands distracted her from the reason for that tension.

Johnny’s touch...it always did that to her. Distracted her. And reassured her.

“You don’t have to sound so defensive or feel like you need to convince me. Finding Jackson—how we do it, that’s your call.”

It was part of their agreement. He called the food truck shots. She called her own.

And suddenly she didn’t want to. Not without his input. Not now that they’d found Jackson. Her son was so close, yet not really within her reach.

“I want to tell her,” she said again. “She seems to truly care. The way she talked about her hours, working late at night after everyone leaves, and if she’s there during the day, which by what she said she is... I get the feeling that The Bouncing Ball is way more than a business to her.”

“Again, I’m not arguing.” He’d moved back to his board but wasn’t chopping. They had a prep time limit, one he was going to miss if he didn’t get going. Which could mean they’d lose their prime parking spot.

“I think she’ll help us,” Tabitha said, a spoon in each hand as she stirred both pans of beans. It had only taken her a week to get her prep responsibilities down to a science. When she glanced at him, he quickly looked from her to his board.

He’d been watching her.

“What?” she asked, watching him now. Stirring beans didn’t require constant vigilance like wielding the knife did.

He shrugged and she suddenly wondered what those shoulders looked like in a suit coat. Probably not as good as they did in the tight-fitting polo shirt. They’d be as strong, though. As supportive.

“Tell me what you’re thinking. Please. I’m asking because I need to know.” About Jackson. And the next move in her quest.

“Mallory’s first loyalty will likely be to Jason’s father. She clearly had sympathy for him and appears to hold him in high regard.”

“You’re basing that on what?” she asked. The side of his clean-shaven face told her very little, except that he wasn’t smiling.

“The warmth in her voice as she mentioned him, for one.”

“You think she has a thing for him?” She hadn’t gotten that impression at all.

“No. She just seemed...fond of them as clients and might try to protect them.”

“You think she’ll tell him?”

“I think it’s a possibility you should consider.”

“And by the time I convince her I’m right, Mark will be gone...with Jackson.”

She knew what his shrug meant that time.

“I see the risk, I just wish we could tell her.” She turned back to the beans.

“Then let’s find something convincing enough to allow us to do that.”

Tabitha’s heart gave a lurch at the supportive tone in his voice. She looked at him, needing him more than ever. Needing him to know that.

And to need her, too.

He was busy chopping meat.

* * *

Like Tabitha, Johnny didn’t feel good about putting in Chrissy’s application. Tabitha had spent her fifteen-minute break going over the forms she’d filled out sometime between leaving him the night before and them leaving that morning because they’d been waiting for her down at the front desk where she’d emailed them for printing. Forms she’d filled out, even though she’d wanted to forego the Chrissy route and tell Mallory Harris the truth.

Hoping to enlist the daycare owner’s help.

Ethically and legally, helping them out could be a disaster for the Harris woman. Unless she had a lawyer watching her every move, protecting her against misadventure.

Tabitha reached above his head for a package of napkins early Tuesday evening, putting her breasts directly in his line of vision. Close enough that if he leaned forward and moved to the side, he could touch one with his lips.

Instantly engorged, Johnny moved, all right, directly forward, tucking the bulging evidence of his inappropriate erection under the prep board.

What the hell! She’d been reaching for napkins for months. In the same purple shirts.

So what was this about? Boredom with the task at hand? He’d never been passionate about the food truck business, but he’d been determined to see Angel’s dream through to fruition. He owed her that.

“I think we should hold off on Chrissy’s application,” he blurted, spraying and wiping the prep board. Tabitha, now back at the closed serving window, filled the napkin dispenser she’d set on the ledge for when they opened the next day.

He’d been reviewing her idea to tell Mallory Harris the truth and actually given it serious consideration. The kind he’d give if he was at work, doing the job he’d been trained to do.

A distraction from getting the hots for his life-quest partner?

For whatever reason, this time, this place, this daycare, seemed different from all the rest. Tabitha felt strongly enough about engaging the Harris woman’s help, being honest with her from the beginning, that she’d asked him for advice. Thoughtful, professional advice.

He really wanted to provide it.

A pile of napkins in hand, she held them above the open dispenser, watching him.

“What?” he asked. The concern creasing her brow, shadowing those golden-green eyes, struck his gut.

“You don’t want to apply with me?”

Had he said that? And why did kissing those lips seem like such a good move at the moment? It was wrong.

All wrong.

Pulling himself back to their current conversation, he said, “I think I’ve come up with a way to tell Mallory Harris the truth.”

Her brow cleared. Good.

“You think we can get her to help us rather than telling Mark we’re here?”

He nodded.

You don’t want to apply with me?

He hadn’t skipped past those words as easily as she had.

Finished with the napkins, she closed the dispenser and turned to him, eyes wide open. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

You don’t want to apply with me?

“Why would you think I don’t want to apply with you?”

A direct, personal question. She should turn away. Or he should. She held his gaze. So he held hers, too. Waiting to see what would happen.

“It’s...a step we’ve never had to take before,” she said, her voice more hesitant than he was used to. Did the fact that he liked hearing more than her surface tone make him some kind of jerk?

“But it’s always been part of the plan,” he started. What had changed? Was he sending out bad vibes? Did she somehow sense that he was lusting after her, all of a sudden?

“Talking and doing are different sometimes,” she said, giving him her full attention. It would be rude of him to spray and wipe.

“We’re putting lies down on paper,” she continued. “And I know how you are about paper trails. If it’s written down, you want it to be accurate enough to stand up in court.”

He couldn’t help the grin that broke out on his face, feeling like he’d dodged a bullet.

“The application itself wouldn’t get us into trouble,” he told her. “Presenting an actual child under false pretenses, or taking part in daycare activities with other children under false pretenses, that could do it. But the information we put down here, on this initial application, isn’t about our imaginary Chrissy. It’s about us, and as far as it goes, it’s accurate. It says we run a food truck. We do. It gives the kitchen as a contact address, for the next month, it is. It doesn’t say you’re not a nurse, or I’m not a lawyer, it just doesn’t say we are. And, for now, this week, we’re a couple. We don’t put on here that we’re married. Your reference, your friend at the hospital, is legitimate, and my reference is, too.”