Into the Wild. Beth Ciotta
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a good talking-to. The time had come for her to stop acting like such a wuss and take control of her life. After searching want ads, asking around among the few friends still associating with her and going on endless interviews, she landed a job as an aerobics instructor. It wasn’t much, but the deal was better than anything else she could find—and she was a darned good instructor. They were managing to get back on their feet, when Mary Beth had her accident. With no income and no insurance, the situation was bleak. As her meager bank balance dwindled, panic had set in. She had a child to feed and clothe. She had wept and prayed and cursed Brad Parker and her own stupidity for marrying him.
Now walking down this street in Naconiche, she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t moved away with her parents the summer after she graduated from high school? What would her life have been like if she’d stayed here and married J.J. instead of the scoundrel she’d chosen?
Yet, without Brad Parker there would have been no Katy. And Katy was worth every humiliation she’d endured.
What was done, was done and she was back now, starting over in the place she’d been so eager to leave. The grass hadn’t been greener on the other side of the fence, but it had taken her a long time to discover that. And she’d also learned that she couldn’t trust a man—or anyone else—to provide for her or make her happy. She had to depend on herself, make it on her own. And, by damn, she was giving it her best shot.
Mary Beth took a deep breath and immersed herself in the sights and sounds of her old hometown.
Very little about Naconiche had changed. The familiar clicking of shuffling dominoes came from under the shade tree on the courthouse lawn, where old men met to play every day except Sunday. Roses still bloomed beside the bank, and the smell of sizzling meat and frying onions from the City Grill wafted by her.
As they stepped inside the Double Dip, the cold-sweet scents of chocolate and peppermint and strawberry took her back a dozen and more years. How many times had she sat on one of those red stools at the counter and eaten a banana split with extra pecans or a hot-fudge sundae with her friends? Her throat tightened and tears sprang to her eyes.
She was home.
“Mom,” J.J. said. “Look who I found. Mary Beth Beams. And this is her daughter Katy.”
“Mary Beth Parker, now.” She smiled at the gray-haired woman who had taught her in third grade. “It’s good to see you, Miss Nonie.”
“Mary Beth!” Her arms open wide, Nonie Outlaw hurried to the front of the store and enveloped her former student in a hug. “How wonderful to see you! And Katy, what a beautiful young lady you are. You look just like your mother when she was your age. We were so excited when Dwight Murdock told us you were coming to town. Welcome home.”
Another bit of tension gave way, and Mary Beth smiled. When she was seventeen, she could hardly wait to get away from the hick town where she’d grown up. Now that same town was her refuge.
Yes, she was finally home. Everything was going to be okay.
NONIE OUTLAW PLAYED with Katy, while J.J. and Mary Beth sat at one of the marble tables by the window. He felt himself grinning like an idiot as he watched Mary Beth dig into the banana split she’d ordered. She’d been a pretty girl the last time he saw her. Now she was a beautiful woman. He thought he’d forgotten her—but he hadn’t. All the old feelings came barreling down on him. It was like being blindsided by Shorty Badder’s log truck.
He’d been crazy about Mary Beth for as long as he could remember. He’d finally gotten up the nerve to ask her for a date when he was a senior in high school and she was a sophomore. From that moment on, they’d been a couple, even when he’d gone off to college in Huntsville the next year.
He thought of one of the last times he’d seen her. It was a week or two after she’d graduated from high school, and they had gone to a movie. He remembered her hiding her eyes against his shoulder during some of the scarier parts. Afterward, they had gone out to the overlook and parked.
He’d meant to propose to her that night—he had the ring in his pocket. But before he could ask her to marry him, she’d broken up with him. She told him that she and her family were moving to Dallas the next week—her father had gotten a sudden promotion—and besides, she’d be going off to college in the fall anyhow. She’d been accepted at some fancy school in Florida, one that he didn’t even know that she’d applied to. But then, Mary Beth had always had highfalutin ideas about getting out of Naconiche and seeing the world.
It had damned near broken his heart.
No, not damned near. It had broken his heart. Devastated him.
Instead of telling her he loved her and asking her to marry him the way he’d planned, pride had made him brush her off and turn his attention to Holly Winchell the very next night. Holly was a hot little number who worked as a waitress at the restaurant next to The Twilight Inn, the one that Mary Beth now owned. She’d been a sorry substitute for Mary Beth and the fling hadn’t lasted long. He couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant then—it had gone through several changes through the years—or what happened to Holly. In its heyday the old Twilight Inn had been a thriving business, but it had gone from bad to worse before it finally closed down about four or five years ago.
J.J. was afraid that Mary Beth was in for a disappointment if she was expecting much from that old property, but he didn’t want to be the one who let her down. He’d leave that up to Dwight Murdock.
His own strawberry sundae melted as he watched her eat, watched the dimple at the bottom corner of her mouth appear and disappear as she spooned ice cream between her lips. God, he’d spent many a night thinking about that dimple. She seemed to savor every bite, closing her eyes and sighing every once in a while in a way that was downright sexy.
Even though she looked tired, she was more attractive than any woman within a hundred miles. No, make that a thousand miles—or maybe farther. There was still something about her that made him want to cuddle her close and bury his nose in her thick blond hair—a thought he shouldn’t be thinking if there was a Mr. Parker still around. He’d noticed right away that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but these days lots of women didn’t. He tried to think of subtle ways to ask about her husband and couldn’t think of any. He’d never been much of one to pussyfoot around.
“You still married?”
She shook her head. “Divorced. Almost two years ago.”
He tried not to smile. Oh, hell, what was he thinking? A man would have to be crazy to get involved with Mary Beth again and get his heart broken twice. No, he wasn’t going down that road again.
But, damn, she sure stirred up something potent inside him.
“So how did you break your foot?” he asked.
“It would sound a lot more exciting if I said I hurt myself skiing in Vail, but the truth is, I fell down the steps of my apartment. A silly accident. I was carrying groceries. A bag started slipping, and I tried to save it. I lost the bag anyhow and broke two bones in my foot. That was the end of my career, too.”
“And what career was that?”
“I taught aerobics at the local health club. It wasn’t much of a career, but I was good at it, and I could leave Katy at the nursery there while I taught my classes. Child care is expensive these days. Everything is expensive these days. News of my inheritance couldn’t have come at a better time. Things were getting pretty tight for us.” Mary Beth paused for a moment, taking a deep breath.
So things had been hard lately for Mary Beth…
Her voice broke into his thoughts. “What about you? Do you have a family?”
“Just my folks, my brothers and my sister. I never got married. Guess I’m not the marrying kind.”
“Never even came close?”
“Only once.” He grinned. “Then I sobered up.”
She laughed and