Tara Quinn - Just Around The Corner

“Just wanted to make sure there were no problems.”

She frowned. “I told you I’d call if there were.”

“I know.”

“So?”

“I’m just making sure.”

“Matt, the whole idea is that I’m on my own here. That means you don’t check up on me.”

He nodded. Glad to hear she still seemed confident in her decision. And then he remembered the good Dr. Ellington.

“Have dinner with me this weekend,” he said before he could weigh the consequences of his words.

“No.”

“We can go to Phoenix, someplace no one we know will see us together.” Her refusal made him more determined. He was doing this for her. And for him, too, he guessed. Somehow he had to find a way to live with himself. He couldn’t allow the pregnancy to throw her whole social life, her career plans, off course.

“No.”

“I have something to discuss with you,” he said, thinking of ways she could have his child and still date and attend conferences and do all the things she’d done before. He hadn’t thought of one, but maybe together they could come up with something….

“What?”

There was no way she could be pregnant with his child and continue with her life as it had been. He just had to accept that fact—and accept his share of the blame.

“My family medical history,” he said, coming up with the idea at the last minute. “You should know my medical background. Your doctor should have it.”

“She did ask…” Phyllis said, and then stopped. Stopped speaking. Stopped walking. She looked up at Matt, her eyes serious, her lips firm.

“All right, one dinner, but that’s all,” she said. “And then I’m on my own.”

“Agreed.”

Matt meant what he said. But he didn’t feel good about it.

THINKING IT WOULD BE easier to talk if they weren’t facing each other across a table the entire time, Matt suggested he and Phyllis drive up to Tortilla Flat on Saturday, have a late lunch there, and then return to Shelter Valley. That gave them about five hours to reach some kind of accord.

And then get out of each other’s lives.

Phyllis surprised him by agreeing immediately to the date that wasn’t a date.

Things were awkward at first as she climbed into his Blazer late Saturday morning and they headed out. She was wearing a pair of designer-looking jeans and a thick black velour sweater that only accentuated the slimness of her small-boned frame.

It had been so long since he’d been out with anyone for any kind of social occasion that he’d more or less forgotten how to do it.

“It’s a little disturbing to think that we made a baby and know so little about each other, huh?” She broke the awkward silence, apparently reading his mind.

It was disconcerting how she always seemed to know just what to say to get him started. She’d done that in his office the day she’d come to tell him about the pregnancy. And then again on the phone. Hell, she’d probably done it that day they’d worked together in the Performing Arts Center; he’d just been too busy listening to his libido to hear.

He was going to be damn glad when this day was over and he could go back to being the only one privy to the thoughts of Matt Sheffield.

“So how long have you been a professor?” he asked, taking her comment as a cue.

“Eight years, though I didn’t start out with a full professorship.”

“You like it?” Matt turned the utility vehicle onto the highway that led to Phoenix and beyond.

“I love it,” she said, staring out at the road. He caught a glimpse of the smile on her face as he glanced over.

“Me, too,” he said. They had something in common. He didn’t know if that made the job ahead of them easier—or not.

She turned her head to look at him. “How long have you been teaching?”

This was why he avoided social occasions. And relationships. The questions inevitably led to places that were off-limits.

“Twelve years, on and off.”

“Always at a college level?”

He shook his head, reluctant to remember. “I started out teaching theater technology to junior-high and high-school students.”

“You said you’ve been teaching on and off. What did you do in the off parts?”

“Went to school, for one.” Matt ran his hand underneath the collar of his open black leather jacket. He wished he could shove a towel down his back to soak up the sweat collecting there. “Got my masters in theater technology with an emphasis on lighting design. I also graduated from a certificate program in videography.”

Relieved when there were no further questions, Matt concentrated on getting them through Phoenix and onto the two-lane, winding road that would take them up to Tortilla Flat. Apache Trail, as it had been dubbed more than a hundred years before, was at one time the only wagon trail going up to this part of northern Arizona. Tortilla Flat, though only ten miles up the mountain, was about a forty-five-minute drive. It had been the first stagecoach stopping place on the three-day journey from Phoenix to Roosevelt Dam.

The town, now more a tourist spot than anything, was reminiscent of those days, with most of the six or so buildings preserved in their original state. With its population of six, the town boasted a small store and ice-cream shop, a post office and well-known restaurant-cum-gift shop. The businesses were all run by the six-member family that resided there.

“I’ve never been up here.” Phyllis broke the silence that had fallen around them, a silence that seemed so persistent Matt had begun to wonder if they’d actually get around to discussing anything that day.

He’d almost convinced himself that he hoped not.

“This scenery is beautiful,” she continued.

Matt glanced around at the cacti and rocks, the dark greens and myriad shades of brown, the mountains rising above him on one side, the mile-long canyon on the other.

“I come up here fairly regularly,” he admitted. Especially when he was feeling his worst. The vast miles of deserted landscape always seemed to put things in perspective for him. Reminded him just how small he was—or just how big the picture.

She turned to look at him, making him uncomfortable. Somehow he’d let too much show again.

“So tell me about your family,” she said as he maneuvered slowly around the curves with their huge drop-offs only a foot away. There was no guardrail between them and those canyons.

Usually Matt liked the sense of danger he felt whenever he drove here. Today he was too aware of the woman beside him—and the baby growing inside her.

“Not much to tell,” he said eventually, shrugging, rubbing a sweaty hand along the leg of his jeans before returning it to the wheel.

“You said you had family history to give me,” she reminded him. “It’s why I’m here.”

He nodded. Took another curve. “Basically we were all healthy,” he said, trying to remember without thinking back.

“We?” she asked. She’d turned again, had drawn up one knee as she faced him. “How many of you were there?”

“Just my brother and sister and me. And my mother and father, of course.” You couldn’t forget them.

“No predisposition to any diseases that you know of? Nothing genetic we need to worry about?”

Matt froze. Nothing. At least not the kind of thing she was referring to. What she wasn’t asking and needed to know about was a different predisposition altogether—the tendency to get oneself thrown in jail that seemed to beset the male Sheffields. There were some basic values missing in the men of his family.

There was a time Matt had believed he’d been spared that particular curse. A time he’d convinced himself that if he did have it, he’d gotten the better of it, risen above it.

He’d been full of shit back then.

“My mother was anemic after she had me and my sister, but that was all.”

“Any cancer you’re aware of?”

“None.”

“Are they all still alive?”

How the hell did he answer that? Glancing over at her, Matt saw the warm interest in her intent green eyes—interest that, regardless of the magnificent scenery, was reserved for him.

It was inevitable that she’d find out. He owed her the chance to raise her kid right in spite of the strikes against him.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly.

He glanced over once more—in time to see the look of surprise that she quickly masked—and then he kept his eyes firmly on the hairpin turns in front of him. There was little traffic on the road, except for the occasional car approaching from the opposite direction.

And some motorcycles he could see in the distance behind him.

He waited for her to say something. For the questions to start. Nothing happened.

The turns kept coming. He continued, somehow, to stay on the road as he tackled them.

“My father died when I was in high school.” Murdered in prison because he’d accosted one too many of the new arrivals. He’d found one who’d managed to smuggle in a weapon.

“I’m sorry.”

She sounded so sincere he almost looked over at her again. But he knew better. Matt Sheffield needed sympathy—caring—from no one. That was his golden rule.

One that had served him well.

“Don’t be,” he said. There was no need for her to waste her sympathy. “We weren’t close.”

“You didn’t live together?”

“Off and on.”

“Your parents were divorced, then?”

“No.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

“No.”

“Do I need to know?”

Probably.

Another turn. And a car passing on the left. Matt slowed down from twenty miles an hour to a crawl.

“The first thing I remember about my father happened when I was about two. The cops came to our door and put handcuffs on him and hauled him away. He wasn’t back the next morning.”

He paused. Waited for her reaction—disgust, contempt, horror. Or maybe pity. The reactions, though varied in strength, were basically all the same.

Phyllis held hers in.

“That was only the first arrest. There were many more.” He paused. “I don’t know how old I was when I realized what my mom did while he was gone—the different men friends she ran around with, the bars. Trying to find forgetfulness, I guess.”

At least that was the justification he’d created for her. The one he could stomach.

“And love,” Phyllis said quietly.

“If that’s what she wanted, she wasn’t looking in the right places.”

“Not everyone is as smart as you.”

He replayed the words a couple of times, searching for the sarcasm. He found only open understanding. From a woman who didn’t know him at all.

A woman who’d spent only one day with him. A day that had resulted in irrevocable consequences. The baby. He couldn’t forget, even for a moment, about his most recent fall from grace.

“Every time my father went to jail, he was gone for a longer period. The last time, he never made it back home.”

“He died in prison.”

“Not from a disease. You don’t have to worry about that,” he assured her, coming up to a one-way bridge. He waited for the approaching car to go first. “He was murdered.”

Stepping lightly on the gas, Matt guided the Blazer over the bridge.

“And your mother?”

“She ran off with her boyfriend.”

“And abandoned you and your brother and sister?”

“Just me. My brother was…gone by then. And she took my sister. Lori was older than me, out of high school, and she and my mom were pals.”

“They just…left you?”