“You can’t possibly know that about me on such a short acquaintance.”
“Yes, I can.”
“How?” she demanded, folding her arms over her chest, some defense against what he was seeing. No, what he thought he was seeing.
She was not the naive girl she had once been, so reliant on the approval of others, begging for love, so desperate for a place to call home that it had made her overlook things she should have seen. Amy Mitchell was on a new path now.
She was going to be fully independent. She was not going to rely on anyone else to make a home for her and her baby.
Looking after the McFinley house, venturing so far from the familiar, expanding her website, Baby Bytes, into a viable business from there, were all part of her new vision for her life.
She hated it that a complete stranger thought he could see through it.
She hated it even more that her first day of her new life was turning into something of a fiasco.
Thankfully, no one but Ty Halliday ever needed to know.
She had called her in-laws as soon as she stepped in the door to let them know she had arrived safely.
She had heard her mother-in-law’s disapproval, so like her son’s had been.
“For heaven’s sake, Amy, give up this harebrained scheme. John and I are delighted to look after you and Jamey. Delighted.”
Delighted to control and criticize her, just like their son had done. Delighted to keep her dependent on them. She shivered. Wouldn’t they love to see the predicament she was in now?
But they never had to know. In a little while she would be where she was supposed to be, none the worse for the wear, no one to question her competence.
“By the way,” she said, “before I forget, I owe you money for a phone call. My cell phone wouldn’t work here. Now, how can you know so much about me?”
“No one with a truly jaded soul would offer me money for a phone call I wouldn’t even know you made for a month. And no one truly fed up with life arrives at a new home and makes it their first priority to put up a Christmas tree,” he said.
“Oh.”
“I don’t even know where you found this stuff. The tree is obviously too big to have arrived in your shrimpy little car.”
That shrimpy little car was the first major purchase she had ever made on her own. Her mother-in-law, not aware that Baby Nap had just signed up to be a sponsor on the website, had not thought it was a sensible use of funds.
“I prefer to think of it as sporty,” Amy said proudly. The car was part of the new independent her!
“Sporty. Shrimpy. There is no way a Christmas tree arrived in the trunk of it.”
“The tree was in your basement.”
He turned and scanned her face, looking for a lie. “This tree was in my basement?”
“Along with all the decorations and lights and such.”
“No kidding.” He whistled, long and low. “Who would buy an artificial tree when there are a million real ones two steps out the back door?”
“So you usually have a real tree?” she asked.
He snorted. “We’ve never had a tree up in this house.”
“But why?” she whispered, horrified by his revelation.
He looked at her and shook his head. “You want me to believe you’re cynical when you cannot imagine a world with no Christmas tree, a world without fluffy white kittens, a world without fresh baked chocolate chip cookies?”
“Is it for religious reasons?” she asked solemnly.
He threw back his head and laughed then, but it was not a nice laugh.
“Religion is as foreign to this house as Christmas trees. And now, Miss Cynical, you look like you took a wrong turn and ended up in the devil’s den.”
At least he had dropped the Mrs.
Amy was aware she should let it go. And couldn’t. “I just can’t believe you never had a Christmas tree. Why?”
“It wasn’t a big deal. My mom left when I was about the same age as your little guy. It was just me and my dad. Christmas was just another day, filled with hard work and the demands of the ranch.”
She felt appalled, and it must have shown on her face.
“Don’t get me wrong. The neighbors always had us for dinner.”
That did not make her feel any less appalled. “Your mom left you?” She knew she shouldn’t have asked, but she couldn’t help it. She thought of what it would take to make her leave Jamey.
And the only answer she could come up with was death.
He was irritated by her question, and it was clear he had no intention of answering her. He rolled his shoulders, and she could tell he hated that he had said anything about himself that might be construed as inviting sympathy. She offered it nonetheless.
“I guess I’m not the only one life has been unfair to,” she said softly into his silence.
He wouldn’t look at her. He shook free of Jamey, again and moved over, looked in one of the boxes. He shuffled through some old ornaments and a Christmas tree star.
And then he took his hand out and stared at it.
He was holding a packet of letters, yellow with age, tied with a blue ribbon. He swore, his voice a low, animal growl of pain.
Amy froze, stared at him wide-eyed.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and rubbed his brow with a tired hand. “Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, and she knew instantly, from the way his expression closed, that he couldn’t bear it that she could see something was wrong.
He shoved the letters into a deep pocket on his jacket.
“I’ve just come home from a real devil of a day to find my house invaded by a lamp-wielding stranger with a baby who wants to call me Papa. What’s wrong? Why, nothing!”
“I’m sorry,” Amy said. “I really am. I’m leaving as fast as I can.”
And she meant it.
There was something about him that was so alone it made her ache. It made her want to lay her hand on the thickness of that powerful wrist and say to him, Tell me.
But if he did, if he ever confided in her, she knew instinctively it would change something irrevocably and forever.
Like her plan for a new life.
Still, looking into his closed face, she knew she was in no danger from his confidences.
He kept things to himself.
He did not lean.
He did not rely.
He was the last of a dying breed, a ruggedly independent man who was entirely self-sufficient, confident in his own strength to be enough to get him by in an unforgiving environment.
He was totally alone in the world, and he liked it that way.
She was leaving. She did not need to know one more single thing about him.
He moved to the window, away from Jamey’s relentless pursuit. He looked out and sighed.
“I don’t think life is quite done being unfair to either one of us,” he said, his voice deep, edged with gravel and gruffness.
“What do you mean?”
“Come and see for yourself.”