few seconds pass, then went after her, ignoring the looks, imagining the comments. Can you believe he’s still chasing that heartbreaker? Does he have no dignity? Not when it came to Tara. She was going through hell. He couldn’t abandon her now.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“TARA, WAIT!”
Dylan’s voice stopped Tara just as she realized she’d blindly marched two blocks in the wrong direction for her car. She turned and headed back, meeting Dylan outside Ruby’s entrance.
“What?” she demanded, crossing her arms, her emotions snarled up, her mind racing. She was angry, frustrated and out of control. She’d been wrong in some of what she’d said. She’d overdone it again like she’d done in Bill Fallon’s office. She wasn’t sure she wanted Dylan to point that out right now.
“I’m on your side, Tara,” he said, low, holding her gaze, his eyes hot with conviction. “Disagreeing with you doesn’t make me corrupt or a sellout or whatever you think I am.”
She fought to control her breathing, tried to calm down, to hear the sense in his words. “I know that, Dylan. You’re a good person.” She’d fallen back on the knee-jerk negativity and defensiveness that used to rule her.
“I’m not against you and neither is the town.”
“It feels that way,” she said. “Everywhere I turn I get stalled.”
“You’re frustrated and impatient. I get that, but you can’t accuse every person who fidgets, won’t answer a question or gets defensive of trying to kill your father, sister or both.”
“And you can’t blindly defend them all.”
“You’re right. But I won’t assume the worst about them, either. People keep secrets. Sure. They lie. They cover up their mistakes. But not every person and not all the time. I know these people. I know how they think, what they’re after, what they’re capable of. Give me some credit, Tara.”
What he said made sense. Her mind had been buzzing with doubts and suspicions and worries, like a fly blocked by a window. “It crowds in on me sometimes and I respond the way I used to.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure.”
“Yeah.” Something else dawned on her. “I’m also afraid I’ll find out terrible things about my parents, Dylan. Things I don’t want to know. I have to push on before I lose my nerve. I have to know the truth, even if it hurts.”
“We’ll find out the truth, Tara. I promise.”
“Okay.” She inhaled a breath, holding it in, letting it out slowly, releasing her anger at the same time. Dylan stood quietly, waiting for her to sort her thoughts. He was so good at that. When she felt normal, she said, “Don’t you get sick of being right?”
“Never. You?”
“No way.” She liked this easy teasing between them. It was better than it had been when they were younger. They were both old enough to be able to laugh at themselves and each other.
Dylan smiled abruptly. He was looking over her shoulder.
“What’s so funny?” She turned to see what had amused him in the middle of their argument. It was a bench and a desert willow in a sidewalk planter. She still didn’t get the joke.
“Don’t you remember that time with Duster?”
Then it hit her. “This is the planter I fell into. The tree’s so much bigger.”
“I warned you he wouldn’t hold his stay when the ice-cream truck came.”
“It was worth a try,” she said. In his rush to get to the truck, Duster had knocked her into the peat moss around the freshly planted sapling.
Every inch of this town held memories for her and Dylan—silly, romantic, sweet and sad. She had to resist them. The stakes were too high. If she let memories, or Dylan’s praise of the town, sink in, seduce her, she might be tempted to stay, to forget how hard she’d fought to make her way into the bigger world.
“Now what?” she said, totally uncertain of the next step. That never happened to her in her real life.
“We go back for the flan,” Dylan said, nodding toward the café window.
“Are you nuts? Half the town saw me stomp out. If I go back in they’ll think you won the fight.”
“If we go back, we both win.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. This is not a Lifetime movie.”
“Couldn’t resist.” He grinned.
“How do you stand this? Everybody watching your every move?”
“I don’t give them that much power over me.”
“Okay, Dr. Phil. Guess I’m not as mature as you.” She sighed. “I do have to tell the waitress to tell Ruthie her empanadas are the best ever. She should take that