Everybody's Hero

скачать книгу бесплатно


“No. Of course not. After all, why shouldn’t a woman—”

“—be just as sexually up-front as a man? I agree.” Then she leaned forward. “My divorce was nearly four years ago. I’ve been celibate since. You do the math.”

His stare was hard and long and impossible to misread. “You’re not making this any easier.”

“Just letting you know I’m probably not the safest bet to fool around with if you’re not looking for entanglements.”

“Real dry kindling, I take it.”

“Oh, buddy, you have no idea.”

Praise the Lord, Seth chose that moment to wander into the kitchen, because if they continued this conversation any longer, she was going to pull a Meg Ryan-in-the-deli right there and then. And she wouldn’t be faking it.

“C’n Oakley come outside with me?” he asked.

Taylor smiled. “If he wants to, sure.”

Apparently the dog did, since he actually roused himself with something resembling enthusiasm and followed the boy outside. Joe got up from the table to watch them through the kitchen window. “I know this was all unplanned,” he said quietly, and the atmosphere calmed down enough for them to function like rational adults instead of bonkers bunnies, “but I think being here is doing him some good. Having something else to focus on besides his pain.”

Taylor came up beside him—but not too close—just in time to see Oakley bring the boy a stick to throw. Seth took hold of it willingly enough, but when the dog wouldn’t let go, he gave up, plopping himself back onto the ground to mess with the car.

“How can you tell?” she asked.

“He’s actually playing with the car. He wanted the dog to come out with him. Believe me, that’s an improvement. And I have to think part of it’s because he’s in a real home, even if only for a little while.” He glanced at her and then back out the window. “We can’t let that happen again.”

Confused, she looked up at the side of his face. “What?”

A muscle flinched in his jaw. “Flirt like that. Because right now, I can’t let myself get sidetracked from getting that little kid healed up.” He rubbed his chin and then slipped his hand back in his pocket, still not looking at her. “Because it’s been a long time for me, too.”

The longing in his voice wrapped itself right around her heart, a longing she suspected went way beyond sex. “Ah. Got it. Um, should I step away?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

So she did. Then she said, “You don’t have a real home?”

“Oh, I’ve got a place in Tulsa.” Joe walked away from the window and sank back down at the table, his legs stretched out in front of him. “An apartment I’m rarely in. So I’ve never really bothered to fix it up much. Besides, since it took me the better part of two weeks to sort out the mess my father left behind, we came straight from Oklahoma City—where I picked Seth up—to here. Kid’s been living in a motel of one kind or another for nearly a month. That can’t be helping him any.”

Taylor unhooked her gaze from Joe’s and again looked out the window, at the sad little boy now sitting under a tree, absently watching one of the robins. And once again, she felt herself being sucked in by the vulnerability edging Joe’s words, by her own inability to resist wanting to help. But she didn’t want to get sucked in, dammit, by either the kid or his big brother, didn’t want to give in to impulses she knew would bring nothing but aggravation and heartache. Because there’d been a time when she had wanted entanglements, the kind of entanglements that led to waking up beside the same man for the rest of her life and potty training and training wheels and soccer games and crazed, noisy Christmas mornings. All the things she’d thought she’d have with her ex but realized weren’t going to happen. All the things that had never really happened with her own family.

All the things she could tell would never happen with the man sitting at her kitchen table.

The microwave dinged, shaking her awake enough to edge back from that emotional vortex. She got out the bowl and set it in front of Joe, handed him the box of crackers, poured him a glass of tea, sat down at the table and said, “So what were you doing in Tulsa earlier today?”

Huh. So she’d decided to go on the attack. Interesting, if a mite disconcerting, since he’d apparently hit a nerve he hadn’t meant to hit. Not this time. Yeah, when he’d told her she was pretty, he’d definitely been trying to get a rise out of her. He’d had a long day, he was stressed to the gills and for a single, stupid moment, he thought it would be amusing to rattle her chain. But this…this was different. This reaction, he couldn’t quite figure out. Except that something must be threatening her sense of control—an illusion, if ever there was one, but it wasn’t as if Joe couldn’t relate—so she became the aggressor.

What she didn’t know, however, was that if she wanted the upper hand, she’d have to fight him for it. So he scarfed down several spoonsful of chili before answering. “My boss asked me to take on another project at the last minute. I couldn’t turn it down.”

“Why?”

What she also didn’t know was that Joe’d always had a thing for women who didn’t make a man turn cartwheels trying to figure out what was going on in their heads. For some weird reason, the more direct the woman, the more turned on he got. Which, in this case, was one of those good-news, bad-news things.

“Because I need the extra cash, for one thing,” he said. “And because I need to prove to Wes—my boss—that I’m the right person to take over for him when he takes semiretirement next year.”

Taylor turned her glower on his empty tea glass, like she was trying to figure out how to be a good hostess without giving him any ideas about women serving men. Then she got up, apparently deciding the solution was to plop the pitcher in front of him so he could refill his glass any time he wanted.

“But how on earth are you going to handle two projects in two different places?”

“I have no idea. But I’ll manage.” He picked up a cracker and dunked it in his chili. “I have to.”

“You don’t sound all that happy about it.”

Happy? When had he last thought of his life in those terms? The muscles in his upper back mildly protested when he shrugged. “Just being realistic, is all.”

She snorted. “Honestly—what is it with men and their need to prove themselves? No matter what the cost?”

His gaze fixed on his food, Joe stilled and then lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m not sure how being responsible is the same as proving myself. Besides, seems to me men don’t exactly have the market cornered on ambition.”

A second passed before she pushed out a breath. “You’re right,” she said, and he thought, point to him. “It’s just that…I don’t know. Men get this whole protective thing going and…”

“And what?”

“And they can’t see that they’re accomplishing exactly the opposite of what they think they are.”

Joe leaned back in his chair, brows drawn, arms folded across his chest. “You think there’s something wrong with a man wanting to provide for his family?”

“No, of course not. Except…” He was startled to see her eyes soften with tears. “Except when he neglects his family in the process.”

He thought of all the things he could ask, wanted to ask. Wouldn’t ask. Not now, at any rate. Probably not ever, if he were smart. Because asking questions might get him answers, but it could also get him involved. And getting involved, now, with her—with anyone—wasn’t in the cards.

So he did what any sane man who didn’t want involvement would do—he turned the tables on her. Not rudely, or meanly, but with the conviction of somebody who didn’t need some female making him question his own motives, for crying out loud.

“You know,” he said quietly, “you’re cute and all, but you’ve got a real problem with judging folks when you don’t know them worth squat.”

She flinched a little, then recouped. “I’m not judging you. I’m just familiar with the signs.”

“Of what?”

Another breath. “My father was a workaholic, Joe. So was my ex-husband. And it sucks.”

The words were brittle, as if years of acid had eaten away at them. And they arrowed straight from her heart to his.

“Your father…”

“…Literally worked himself to death. When I was eleven.”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said softly. “But I’m not a workaholic, Taylor.”

For several seconds, their gazes tangled like a pair of kids scrapping over a toy, until Taylor got up from the table and walked over to the kitchen window, her hands stuffed in her back pockets. “How many hours a week do you work? And that includes work you bring home.”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s the sex thing, isn’t it?”

She whirled around. “What?”

“You don’t know what to do about this attraction between us, so you’re picking a fight with me.”

“I’m not picking a fight with you. And this has nothing to do with…that. I just asked you a simple question. How many hours a week do you work?”

“And how is this any of your business—?”

“Sixty? Seventy?”

Joe’s jaw tightened. “Somewhere in there, yeah.”

She turned, brows arched. “And you don’t think you’re a workaholic?”

“No, I think I’m somebody who can’t stand the thought of letting people down who depend on me.”

“And what the hell do you think you did when you didn’t pick Seth up on time tonight?”

Though spoken barely above a whisper, her words exploded around him like buckshot. And Joe wasn’t real partial to picking buckshot out of his butt. Man, if this was what she was like when she wasn’t picking a fight, he’d sure hate to be around her when she was.

“I didn’t have a choice, Taylor. You know that.”

“There’s always a choice! And right now, that kid needs you! Not what your paycheck can buy him!”

And what he didn’t need was this woman in his face about this, a fact the chili was only too vigorously corroborating. Direct was one thing; deranged was something else entirely. Except Joe was as ornery as she was. He’d never in his life walked away from a challenge, and he wasn’t about to start now. Even if he didn’t have a clue in hell what this one was even about. His manhood, maybe. His honor, definitely. But there was more going on here than a simple disagreement about lifestyle choice.

“Maybe I do have a choice. In theory. Doesn’t always pan out that way in practice, though.”

“You’re saying it’s not about the money?”

“Hell, yes, it’s about the money. You think I’d put Seth through this if it wasn’t about the money?”

That seemed to take the wind out of her sails for a moment. But only for a moment.

“Then what?”

Joe silently uttered a word he didn’t think Taylor would appreciate. What the hell had he gotten himself into? Baby-sitting and chili, that’s all this was supposed to be about, not a hot-and-heavy game of sexual dodgeball followed by his having to defend himself about stuff that had nothing to do with her. The last thing he wanted was to talk about his personal life, but God only knew what conclusions she’d come to on her own if he didn’t. Why he should care one way or the other what she thought about him, he had no idea. That he did was no small source of worry, but it was a worry he’d have to deal with later. Because right now, his choice was to bare his own soul, at least to a certain extent, or pry hers open. That, however, was an even less palatable option than door number one, since the tiny glimpse he’d already gotten into that soul had nearly undone him. A longer, deeper look could be disastrous. And Joe had all the disasters he could handle right now, thank you very much.

“Seth’s not my only responsibility,” he said with as little expression as he could manage. “Because, when my father walked out of my life and my mother’s, fifteen years ago, he also left behind a three-week-old baby girl with Down syndrome. My sister Kristen.”

Chapter 5

Instantly, Taylor’s high horse not only threw her, but took off for parts unknown. “Oh, Joe—”

He put up a hand to stop her. “Kristen’s only moderately retarded, but my mother realized she couldn’t go back to work and still give my sister the kind of attention she needed, so she had to take an unpaid leave of absence from her teaching job. My going to work was the only way we’d’ve made it.”

Taylor frowned. “But you couldn’t have been more than, what, eighteen?”

“Seventeen. My last year of high school.”

“Don’t tell me you quit?”

The horror in her voice coaxed a smile from his lips. “Mom would’ve had five fits if I’d tried. But I had to work. We got some help from the state for Kristen’s care, but it wasn’t enough. So, since construction paid a helluva lot better than fast food, I worked as a framer during the day and finished up high school at night. Oh, for God’s sake…don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t want your sympathy, Taylor. I did what I had to do, that’s all.”

Lord, how many times had she heard those words, or variations on that theme? “And you still are, I take it?”

“Yeah. I am. Kristen’s had the best care and training available, Mom made sure of that, but she’s never going to be able to live completely on her own or earn a living wage. And she’s got a heart condition that needs constant monitoring. Even though Mom was able to go back to teaching once Kristen started school, you know what teachers’ salaries are like. And anyway, she’s not going to be able to work forever. A good chunk of my earnings goes into a trust fund for Kristen. For later.”

When their gazes locked this time, it wasn’t about sex. Taylor carted his empty bowl to the sink, wondering how admiration and aggravation could be so closely linked. But the question was, what was she aggravated about? Joe’s dadblasted insistence on shouldering so much responsibility, or her own dadblasted weakness for men with such broad shoulders?

“What are you thinking?” he asked as she smacked up the faucet to wash the bowl.

“Why does it matter what I think?” she said over the running water.

“I don’t know. It just does. So humor me.”

The water groaned off, then she twisted around, her arms linked over her middle. “I think…” She blew out a sigh. “I think I owe you an apology, for one thing. For giving you grief when I didn’t have all the facts.” She hesitated, then said, “But when I taught in Houston, I’d see kids who’d have every gadget on the market, the best clothes, every privilege imaginable, but there’d be something in their eyes, this…enormous, gaping void, that just ripped me to pieces. Nine times out of ten, I’d eventually find out their parents weren’t in the picture as much as the kids needed them to be. It kills me to see a kid being neglected. Especially when the parent has no idea that’s what he’s doing.”

“Like…your father?” he said softly.

She smiled. “I guess I’m a little hypersensitive about the issue.”

Was it her imagination, or did his eyes narrow? “S’ okay,” he said. “I understand.”

“I imagine you do,” she said, and their gazes brushed up against each other, just for a moment. Just long enough, apparently, for him to decide it was high time he got out of there.

“Well,” he said, rising, “we’ve all got to get up pretty early, so we’d better get going.”

She walked him through the living room her older sister Erika had pronounced spartan the one time she’d come to visit and out onto the porch, the screen door slamming behind them. Seth lay on his stomach in the grass underneath the mulberry tree, talking to Oakley, who frankly didn’t appear all that captivated with the conversation.

“Time to go,” Joe shouted across the yard.

The kid scrambled to his feet. “C’n I use the bathroom first?”

“We’ll be back at the Double Arrow in two minutes, can’t you hold it?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Go on, then.” After the kid trooped back inside, Joe turned to Taylor. “Well. Thanks again. I really appreciate it.”

“Any time. No, I mean that,” she said when he snorted. Oakley had dragged himself up onto the porch and flopped down at her feet with a groan. One echoed silently inside her as her heart shoved her right smack in the line of fire, all the while her head was yelling, Have you lost your mind? But apparently there were certain aspects of a person’s makeup that could not be altered, no matter how desperately you might want to. No matter how fervently Taylor might have wanted to be a practical person, in the end her heart always made her decisions for her. “I’m happy to take Seth after day camp, if you need an emergency baby-sitter.”