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  “Racist?” Tracey questioned with a quirk of her eyebrow. It was the first time she had heard or seen the slightest hint of vulnerability in this man. She decided to take advantage of it. “It’s good that you’re worried about that. You should worry. You should feel guilty, too. But it’s still no reason for you to come here at this time of night to make reparations. You can leave my forty acres and my mule at the door. I’ll get them in the morning.” She didn’t know if it meant she was somehow getting comfortable with him or not, but Tracey was getting good with the zingers.

  She went on. “And may I ask you a question? Do you normally track people down like some sort of stalker just to apologize? I mean, that’s just not normal. And you could be in some serious danger coming into this neighborhood at night.” Tracey looked beyond him out into the darkness and could see that he had pulled his shiny black SUV all the way up into her drive behind the trees. No one would see it from the street.

  “I don’t do this all the time.” There was the arrogance again. Still, he stood there. At that point, she noticed the books tucked under his arm. He untucked them so she could see them better. “The second part of this mission.” His gaze darted around her into her living room. “You mind if I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” He leaned his head against the doorframe and pawed at his eyes with broad hands. Then he pulled his head away from the frame and put his elbow where it had been. He laid his head in the palm of his hand. His elbows slipped on the wood and he teetered. She grabbed for her books before they plummeted to the floor.

  Realizing why his accent was so much thicker than usual, Tracey asked, “Are you drunk?”

  “Not half as much as I wanna be.”

  “You’re looking pretty drunk to me right now. You’re smelling pretty drunk, too.” She stood there staring at him for a long while, wondering what to do.

  “Listen, I’ll get outta here. I probably shouldna come anyway.”

  There was that sensitivity again. Tracey honestly didn’t know what to make of it.

  “No, no.” She didn’t know him that well, but in his condition, he didn’t evoke much fear. Besides, he shouldn’t be out driving. All very rational. Uh-huh. “No, you shouldn’t drive like that. Come in.” She moved back into the house and turned the music off. It didn’t feel right with it on and him there.

  “How’d you find me?”

  He didn’t sit, just stared at his surroundings.

  Walking over to the sofa to look at the prints hanging above it, he replied, “Your address is in your books.”

  Tracey accepted that answer for about three seconds. “It is not.”

  “Damn, I should have checked before I said that, huh?” He chuckled. “And not even a thank you for bringing them back.”

  “Thank you. Now tell me how you found me.”

  “Easy. I knew your name already. I just had Marsha in the front office look you up for me this morning. I told her we’d gotten our notebooks mixed up and I had to find you ’cause there was a big test coming up. I’ve been ridin’ around for about an hour trying to find your house. Even with the GPS, I passed it like three different times. You really ought to get someone to chop those trees down out there.”

  “Listen, Detective CSI, I happen to like those trees. Why didn’t you just get her to call me or call me yourself so we could arrange for me to pick them up?”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s your answer?”

  He shrugged again with another lopsided grin.

  “It’s late.” Her voice didn’t hold half the resilience it had earlier. “It would be irresponsible for me to let you drive like that.” Tracey closed the door behind him and offered him something to drink. Reflex, pure reflex. That’s what one did when one had a guest. Did she really have a guest?

  He wanted something alcoholic. After explaining to him that that defeated the purpose of letting him in, she agreed. She gave in because he kept walking around her living room, picking up everything, looking at everything, touching everything. He picked up the heavy wooden fetish her father had brought back for her from the Ivory Coast. He ran his hands over the hips and lips of the roughly fashioned fertility talisman. He turned it in his palm, then set it down on its little pedestal once more, so softly that she never heard it touch. Tracey gave in to Garrett because whenever he spoke to her or she to him, he would watch her face and pay more attention than she was accustomed to. He studied her as he had that talisman. She gave in to him because she barely had a choice.

  Out of milk for white Russians, Tracey started a pot of decaf for an Irish coffee. “Be happy I’m not a cheapskate; otherwise you’d be drinking water.”

  He smiled. Another tickle. Dammit, she hated it when he did that. She got up and moved into the kitchen. When she came back, he was sitting where she had been sitting, in her favorite spot, her favorite chair, and didn’t look as if he was going to move. She didn’t say anything, needing a little more time to size up the situation. Plus, she didn’t want to be rude.

  Tracey handed him the glass, and he tasted cautiously. “This is good. Thanks.”

  “So happy you like it.” They were quiet for a moment. “Okay, I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but why did you ask Marsha for my address and not my phone number?”

  He responded—or didn’t—by telling her he liked her furniture because it was weird. He seemed amazed when she told him she’d helped her mother make most of it. She pointed out the dark tan leather armchair he had usurped from her, one of her mother’s signature designs.

  “This is amazing.”

  “My mother is trained in interior design, but for about the past ten, fifteen years, she’s been involved with industrial design as well.”

  “Awesome,” he said. Tracey hated that word. “How’d you get into law?”

  “Well, I’m not ‘into law’ exactly. I’m in the MBA program. I’m hoping to specialize in the legal aspects of operations management. You know, like labor unions, HR policy, etc. It’s kind of dry, but I like it. Besides, my father is a corporate law consultant. I guess I took after him.”

  Garrett was quiet.

  Tracey tried to fill the silence. “You know, I hear that people struggling under the white man’s burden sometimes feel the need to give confession.”

  He looked rather perplexed, and Tracey started to laugh.

  “That was a joke,” she said. He relaxed again and stared down into his mug. “What is it?” she implored. “You want to talk about it? And while you talk about it, would you also please explain why you stalked me. You still haven’t.”

  “Nah, I don’t guess so.”

  But he didn’t say anything more. She sat on the couch contemplating how long he would be there and if he was ever going to talk about what was bothering him or tell her why he’d gotten her address. His appearance on her doorstep was probably the oddest thing that had happened to her in her entire college career.

  Something occurred to her, and she looked him full in the face. As was becoming usual, his yellow and brown and green eyes met hers dead on. Tracey could feel hers widen, then narrow. “Where’d you find my books, Garrett?”

  “Huh?” His surprise and guilt were as evident as Santa Claus’s appetite for frequent dining.

  “You stole my books, Garrett?” It was barely a question.

  “I gave ’em back, didn’t I?” he returned with a wolfish grin.

  “And that makes it okay?”

  He shrugged.

  “And you’re number three—”

  “Soon to be number one,” he interrupted.

  “Good lord! Why did you do this?”

  “You remember that day about two weeks ago in the student lounge? You know, when my ingenious friends and I decided to vandalize the Quiki Snack Machine?” His gaze moved from hers briefly, a glance at his mug and back. She nodded. “Well, you may not believe this, but I heard you laugh—”

  “Of course I believe it. Everyone
heard me laugh. And here’s a shocker: I wasn’t the only one laughing, either.”

  “Aw-right, aw-right. But that’s not what you won’t believe. You won’t believe that I never heard a laugh like that before.”

  “There is not a single thing peculiar about my laugh,” Tracey said, not at all pleased.

  “Oh, but there is,” he insisted cryptically. Then he winked at her.

  “Anyway,” she demurred, “I still don’t understand what you’re doing here, what you’re doing with me.” That was a funny choice of words, and they both knew it. Tracey rushed ahead. “Isn’t it homecoming weekend or something? Shouldn’t you be doing something to show your school spirit?”

  “Shouldn’t you?”

  “It’s not my style,” Tracey answered, shrugging her shoulders.

  “But you figure it’s mine?”

  She didn’t answer that.

  “Well, yesss,” he drawled. “I was out with some friends on the strip tonight. I was doin’ the same old thing I always do on the weekend—homecomin’s not for two more weeks, by the way. Anyhow, sometime tonight, I got bored and left.”

  Tracey pinned him with a stare. “And came here.”

  He licked his lips. “And came here.”

  “Why?”

  “It bothers me, the way you look at me. It bothers the hell outta me. And I don’t know why, but I like you.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  He dipped his head in the most awkward and entrancing way, almost like a bird running its wing over its head. “You’re right. So let me fix that. Where you from?”

  “Huh?”

  “Where are you from?” He cocked his head to the side.

  “Here, why?”

  “The accent or the no-accent. You don’t talk like you’re from down here.”

  “If you mean I don’t talk like you, that’s true. I’ve never had that strong of a Southern accent, and neither do my parents.” No need to tell him about Mama’s family and how status-conscious they’d been for more than a century. Speech lessons had come so early Tracey didn’t remember a time before she had them.

  He hesitated. “I like the way you talk.”

  “Thank you. I like the way you talk.”

  He studied the wall. Tracey thought maybe she’d embarrassed him. “I been drivin’ around since I left the bar, bored out of my mind.”

  “You shouldn’t drink and drive.”

  “I know, but… I know.”

  What she felt looking at him, all good looks and charm, and also conflict and sadness, was an instant, deep, and undeniable connection to him. Tracey needed a diversion. “I should tell you I’ve had extensive contact with alcoholics, and I know that sometimes when one has had too much to drink, it leads to a kind of philosophical degeneration. What I mean is, being drunk leads one to believe he or she is being deeply philosophical sometimes, whereas one is really only being drunk.”

  “Thank you for understandin’,” he quipped. “Extensive contact with alcoholics?”

  Tracey started laughing and he did, too. “By the way, I was not being hostile. I was being offended.”

  “I never meant to offend you,” he told her with a quick sobriety that bore believing.

  “I understand that.”

  “Good,” he chirped. “But I’m pretty sure you’ve been tryin’ to offend me. Man, I can’t say anything to you.”

  “I don’t think I’ve been particularly nasty to you, but if I have, I’m sorry.” They were silent for a moment, then—Tracey didn’t know what got into her—she asked, “Why didn’t you go find your girlfriend?” His lion eyes flared for a moment. “I mean, you said you couldn’t talk to your family or friends, but I’m sure you have a girlfriend, if not a wife.” Smooth, Tracey, very smooth.

  All he said was “Yeah.” Then he shook his head and looked down into his lapis-colored coffee mug. Finally, he slid down further into her chair and offered, “I need some perspective.”

  “That’s what shrinks are for,” she muttered before she could stop herself.

  “See what I’m sayin’.” He raised a wry eyebrow.

  Tracey opened her mouth to naysay him, only to shut it again. She was only digging a deeper hole, which seemed to delight him. She didn’t want him delighted. “Then why pick me to be your sympathetic ear? Okay! Okay! I’m sorry. I’m listening! One hundred percent focused on you.” He clasped his hands over his heart and fluttered his eyelashes. She laughed and he beamed a smile back. She said to him, “You know, you’ve really got a beautiful smile.” His cheeks were flushed as he thanked her. “Don’t thank me, it’s true. So, what exactly do you need perspective on?”

  “Do I just spill it? Just tell you what’s been on my mind here lately?”

  “I’m not a professional, but I think that’s how it’s done. Yeah.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  Tracey nodded.

  He took a sip of his coffee. “It’s my girlfriend,” he started. “Okay, if you were a girl in college—” She raised her brow and began to stir her coffee. “I mean, would you quit school right now to start havin’ babies?” Her answer was no.

  They spent that night getting drunk and getting sober and getting drunk again. He told her everything from the huge amount of student loans he was amassing to pay for law school to how his girlfriend wanted to drop out, get married, and start breeding as soon as possible. Babies. The word made her shudder. Tracey wanted to ask how he’d gotten mixed up with her. But she already knew. The marriage virus had hit many, many girls from her old dorm. Instead of saying as much, she made some crude, drunken reference to “poppin’ out puppies.” She liked him, and she didn’t want to spoil the tenuous comfort between them, but she didn’t want to get involved with his life, either.

  It was about an entire pot of coffee and half a bottle of single malt past four a.m. when Tracey recalled that she had to get up early in the morning. She said as much to Garrett. He yawned and stood up, stretching his arms way up above his head. He wore short sleeves and she could see the shape of his biceps, the rounding of his forearms beneath his elbows, that little muscle that miraculously appears on the sides of a man’s upper arms. His shoulders were broad, his waist and hips narrow. There was definitely something wrong with the way she was looking at him, but she just couldn’t stop. He told her he would see her later. Tracey didn’t know if he meant around school or back at her house. She didn’t ask.

  A couple of hours later her head was pounding and dark circles ringed her eyes, but her body still felt better than it should. She drank a huge glass of orange juice and then got into the shower after bringing three of her bushy, macho ferns into the bathroom with her. Tracey lined them up on the floor beside the shower and turned on the water. Wild green arms folded over and over each other, swelling and rising. Babyish plants, they loved the heat and humidity and the care she lavished on them. They flourished in her little house. When she got out of the shower, Tracey checked the time, got dressed, then headed out to the Carlisle Center. She was meeting her new friend, Monica, a counselor at the facility, for lunch when she finished her teen pregnancy counseling session.

  Chapter 6

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I feel like Thai.” Walking out of the building, Moni took a cursory look around the parking lot. All clear. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I’ll drive ‘cuz I don’t want to get smoke in your car.”

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “That’s because no one sees me smoke around here.” Monica pulled her short self up into the seat of the burgundy SUV. She always felt as if she were climbing a tree when she got in the thing. “You like Thai?”

  “Yeah,” Tracey answered. “Love it, but nobody ever wants to eat it with me.”

  “Well, you’re in luck.” Monica smiled and drove them to the only Thai restaurant in town, the Siam House. When they got there, the parking lot was packed. Moni ended up parking on the grass next to the building. Inside,
the small restaurant was so full that no booths or tables were left.

  Then Tracey made an offer that was completely unexpected. Even as she said the words, they seemed to surprise her as well. “I don’t live far from here. We can order and eat at my house. The only thing is, I have to get my car. We can pick it up and go back to my house.”

  “I like that plan.”

  It actually didn’t take long to get their food. They were at Tracey’s in twenty minutes. Monica had a tough time processing the invitation. Tracey seemed like a very private person. Though she obviously had friends, she didn’t seem exceptionally close to any of them, and Moni seriously doubted she had invited any of them into her home. This woman seemed to be at war with outside perceptions all the time, even those of her family.

  Monica chewed her lower lip. She didn’t know that much about Tracey but she had learned to trust her instincts. Tracey’s home was probably the only place where Tracey felt she could be herself. And, people didn’t bring judges into their one sanctuary. Monica shook her head. She didn’t want to psychoanalyze her new friend, but that’s exactly what she was doing. Still…

  Monica tried to be a friend without judgment or expectation. She tried to be as open as possible to show Tracey that she could do the same.

  Tracey walked into the kitchen to gather plates, silverware, and glasses. Moni took it upon herself to tour the house. “This is a nice place, Tracey.”

  “Thank you. It belonged to my grandma up until she died and left it to me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. How long ago did she pass?”

  “Thank you. It’s been years now. We were very close. This house has helped me deal with it.”

  Moni nodded as she came back into the living room. “Interesting. You know, looking from the outside, you wouldn’t expect for it to be so plush in here.”

  “Don’t tell the burglars.”

  “Is this an authentic boomerang?”

  “Yeah. My dad got that a long, long time ago when he was in the service. He gave it to me when I moved over here.”

  “Did he give you all this stuff?”