“But,” Irene went on, “it’s a sign that it’s time for y’all to put down roots and come home, where you belong. Shamrock is a sweet little town, and despite the few bad apples—”
“Which every town has,” Ruby said.
Irene agreed with a nod. “It’s still a good place to raise kids.”
“And watermelons and cotton,” Anna Rose added.
“What’s most important is that we get to be a part of your lives,” Irene told them.
“You always have been and always will be,” Taryn assured her.
Chapter Twenty
The quietness in the trailer was overwhelming that Sunday evening. Anna Rose and Jorja had packed up and moved after work the day before. Since the new beds had not arrived for Amos’s house, they’d made the decision to move in together to Ora Mae’s place. She’d found a set of young men who were super-fast at packing her moving truck. Taryn wondered if they’d all still be single by the time they hit Amarillo. Ora Mae was a force of nature.
“Evidently, the new house does not have magical powers, but I do think that the shamrock on the front of the shop has done a good job,” she whispered as she watched the sunset and kept the rocking chair in motion on the front porch.
“Hey,” Clinton called out from the top of the stairs.
She raised her voice. “Hey, yourself. Come on down and keep me company. This place is as quiet as a tomb.”
“Can you come up here?” Clinton asked. “Zoe just went to sleep.”
Taryn stood up, crossed the lot, and climbed the stairs. “Have you heard anything from Rebecca? It’s been more than a week now, and I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall.”
Clinton opened the door for her and then followed her inside. “Nope, and I really don’t think we ever will.” He motioned for her to sit on the sofa and took two beers from the refrigerator in the small galley kitchen.
Zoe was curled up in a portable crib across the room. She had a thumb in her mouth and her forefinger crooked around her nose. Taryn wanted so badly to pick her up, reassure her again that she would be loved and that she had a family.
Clinton handed Taryn a beer and then sat down close to her on the sofa. “We need to talk now that things have settled down this past week.”
Taryn’s concern meter jacked up several notches. The last time a man had said that they needed to talk was the night she found out her boyfriend was a married man. Her heart seemed to lie in her chest like a heavy stone that couldn’t beat. She took a long gulp of her beer and waited—that other shoe she’d been worried about was hanging in the air, ready to hit the floor with a thud at any minute.
“I’ll go first,” Clinton said. “For a while now, I’ve wondered if these feelings I have for you are because you are so good with Zoe.”
Taryn had wondered the same thing, and Nana Irene had weighed in heavily about it, too. But living alone and spending more time with Clinton this past week, she had decided that what she felt for him was very different from the maternal love she had for the baby.
“But”—Clinton paused to take a drink of his beer—“I’ve got my emotions sorted out. Looking back, I realized that the chemistry between us was still there when Zoe was gone those several days. I’m not real good with romantic words, but I know that I want you in my life as more than a babysitter or a surrogate mother for Zoe. Now, your turn. How do you feel aboutus?”
“How do you feel right now?” she asked.
“Like my future is in your hands,” he answered.
“That’s how I felt when you said we needed to talk,” she told him, and then went on to tell him about the betrayal she’d experienced with her ex. “I didn’t think I’d ever trust a man again, but I was wrong. I trust you, Clinton, and I feel the same way you do, but I really don’t want to rush this amazing thing between us. I like the idea of us moving into one of the houses out on the farm together, but I’m in no hurry ...”
He set his beer down, cupped her cheeks in his hands, and before she even had time to moisten her lips, he kissed her with so much passion that the world stopped spinning. She wrapped her arms round his neck and tangled her fingers in his thick hair.
They were both panting when he leaned back slightly and stared into her eyes. “Just how slow do you want to go?”
She brought his lips to hers for another scorching-hot kiss. He scooped her up in his arms and took a couple of steps toward the open door into his bedroom. “You can say that this is too fast, and we’ll go back to the sofa.”
“I could, but I’m not going to,” she whispered.
Sunrays slipped through the window and warmed Taryn’s face the next morning. Her eyes popped wide open, and her mind went into overdrive. Something wasn’t right. The window was in the wrong place, and the alarm clock was putting out cooing sounds. Strong arms held her in an embrace. Then she realized that she’d spent the entire night in Clinton’s apartment, and slowly, her heart stopped pounding.
“Sounds like our baby girl is awake,” Clinton muttered. “Want to go fix breakfast and get her ready for the day?”
“Yes, I do,” Taryn answered. “We’ve got about an hour until Nana Irene and Ruby get to the shop.”
