Tabitha stared at Johnny’s bare feet. He had nice feet. Toes aligned. Tanned. Nothing knobby about them. Good enough to be a foot model, if he’d been so inclined. She’d told him so once.
He’d quirked his eyebrow at her and continued whatever conversation they’d been having at the time.
“Did you go barefoot a lot growing up?” she asked now, still thinking about him saying they’d say that “Chrissy” was with his mother as they sat together on the couch in their suite sipping wine. She understood why she hadn’t met his family, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wonder about them.
Other than this year away, his entire life revolved around them. He worked for the family. Had married his parents’ best friends’ daughter. Lived close enough to them that he’d made it to his own bed with his own two feet after getting blistering drunk in his father’s den, with his father, on the night of his wife’s funeral. He had more aunts, uncles and cousins than she had acquaintances. And he was an only child.
She didn’t know that man. But as their time together grew shorter, she wanted to know him. Felt she needed to know him.
She was ready to recover her son. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to lose the friend she’d found in Johnny. Wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for that.
And yet she realized she had to be. She was a loner. Other than her small circle, anonymity was her comfort.
He hadn’t answered her question. He was watching her, though. Probably wondering why she was talking about feet when they’d been discussing their plan to get Jackson back.
“I like it that you go barefoot,” she told him, needing to have a moment of non-Jackson conversation. To breathe. “You’re so...smart. And together. It’s not surprising that everything you touch turns to gold. You have life so figured out, it actually works the way it’s supposed to—well other than Angel, of course...” She paused, and then added, “But your whole life has been a plan...and yet your feet...they’re free. You’ve got things together enough to leave room for freedom.”
If there’d ever been babbling, that was it. Award-winning wine was potent.
“I’d never gone barefoot in my life, other than at the beach, the pool or in the shower, until I moved next door to you.”
Wait. Was he saying he was barefoot because of something she’d done? That she’d released something inside him?
Impossible! But...maybe?
The way he was looking at her...he seemed to need her to understand something important. And she wanted to. For months she’d been wanting to. Their time together was going to be gone soon and she didn’t know him well enough.
Didn’t know what he felt when he got all quiet on her.
Didn’t know how he really felt about her. Other than as the other participant in their time out of real life to reach their goals.
“It started with your sabbatical?” she asked. “Going barefoot, I mean.”
“The carpet in the house is white,” he reminded her.
Cream-colored, but...yes. And the soles of his shoes would mark it in a day. So practical. So...Johnny. Maybe she knew him better than she thought.
“So our plan is to put in an application at The Bouncing Ball to gain access to more information in the hope of finding something that will link Jason and his father to Mark and Jackson?” she asked, her mind back on track. “We can enroll over the internet, so we don’t have to go back where Mark might see us, and maybe get a parent list? At the very least we need Jason’s last name.”
They needed to stay on track. It was just so hard, being alone in the world except for her coworkers, who’d once been closer friends than they were now. She’d shut them out to focus fully on her search for Jackson. Losing her son made her feel so powerless. So helpless.
“That’s the plan,” Johnny said, willing, as always, to let go of any moment that might verge on discomfort.
With her, anyway. In his real life he was a high-powered corporate attorney.
A man she didn’t know.
Setting down her glass of wine, Tabitha thanked him for being the best friend she’d ever had and said good-night.
She wanted to stay. To ask him tough questions. Real questions. To touch his heart, let him know how much he’d touched hers.
To ask if there was any way he’d be willing to consider a longer-term agreement.
His easy smile followed her across the room as he lifted the bottle they’d been sharing and poured himself a little more wine.
With the half wave that was her usual “see ya,” Tabitha closed her bedroom door, buried her face in her pillow and cried herself to sleep.
* * *
In fresh jeans and a clean purple Angel shirt, Tabitha brought along a fresh state of mind as she worked beside Johnny the next morning in the prep kitchen he’d rented for the next month.
He grilled the pork and steak while she seasoned and cooked all the beans. Everything would be refrigerated, then reheated as needed throughout the day.
“I don’t think we should cut back on the beans,” she told him. “We almost ran out yesterday.” Their weekly plan—a spreadsheet he always provided that was taped to a cupboard between them—indicated one gallon can less of each. He’d based that on foot traffic research he’d done on the beach area, which he’d averaged for Tuesdays.
What she wanted to tell him was that she had an idea for a new plan. She’d thought she’d do it on the drive over that morning, but he’d been hell-bent on a particular cup of coffee from a particular place—his favorite—and she’d figured he deserved a morning when coffee was the most important thing on his mind.
Lord knew, between the two of them and their individual needs, those kinds of mornings were few. At least, when they were together. What he did when they weren’t working she couldn’t say.
Because she didn’t ask.
“We should still cut back,” he said. He stopped what he was doing to send her a warm smile, as if to soften the blow of his refusal to accept her opinion on the needed quantity of beans. Johnny almost never paused when he was chopping. Especially beef. Seeming to remember that, he glanced at the knife in his hand and returned his attention to the board on the counter in front of him. “It’s Tuesday,” he said, by way of explanation.
In the six months they’d been actually out food trucking, as opposed to getting things set up, he’d run out of food exactly twice. So she went along with one fewer can of beans.
“I think instead of applying for Chrissy, we should tell Mallory Harris the truth.” That wasn’t quite how she’d planned to present her idea, but there it was.
She didn’t look at Johnny as she added
