Love is Lovelier

by Donna Simonetta

  “Oh joy. Gloria Peterson and her latest victim, who is unbelievably hot, by the way. Wonder who he is, and if there’s any chance he actually bats for my team.”

  “He’s Mick Evans”—Heather ground out through clenched teeth—“and I hate to disappoint you, but he plays for my team.”

  Ty widened his eyes. “Your team—interesting.”

  She blushed and picked up her water goblet with a shaky hand. The condensation from it dripped on the crisp tablecloth; Heather swiped at it before taking a sip. “Not my team, my team…I mean, not me personally…I just mean…”

  “He’s straight. I get it. I wasn’t trying to suggest you and he played one-on-one for your team.” He leaned back and took a sip of his beer. “At least not until your lame, stammering response. After that, I’ve got some questions.”

  Heather traded her water goblet for her wine glass, because she knew Ty rarely pulled his punches, and she knew she would need the alcohol for this conversation. “Okay, let me have it. What do you want to know?”

  Ty glanced at Mick and then back at Heather. “I recognize him now from the christening party. I was distracted that day, otherwise I would’ve noticed his incredible hotness, and your barely disguised attraction to him, and been on your case about it sooner. If you and the hunka-hunka burnin’ CEO are an item, then why is he here with Gloria Peterson? And why are you here with me? And why did you go out with Chase last night? Do you have some sort of diabolical plan to keep all the smokin’ hot guys in the South to yourself?”

  Heather grinned and shook her head. She played up her southern accent. “Ya got me. I’m fixin’ to be a redneck femme fatale. Watch out, Daisy Duke! Gay, straight—no man is safe!”

  Ty leaned forward to clasp her hand, where it rested on top of the table. “Seriously, Heath, it’s a lot more drama than you usually have in your life. Bradens are the most loyal people in the universe, and you are the most loyal of the Bradens. You’ve always been there for me, so if you need me now, I’m here for you.”

  Before she could swallow the lump in her throat to answer, Gloria’s royal procession through the dining room stopped at their table.

  “Ty, Heather, I never expected to see you two at the club,” Gloria enthused with false cheer.

  “I don’t know why not. I’ve been a member here since I finished law school and moved back to the Bend.” Ty kept his voice light and the grip on Heather’s hand tight.

  She glanced up at Mick, and realized her mother was right. If glowering were an Olympic event, Mick Evans would take home the Gold medal.

  Gloria followed his stormy gaze to Ty and Heather’s joined hands. And the brief narrowing of her gaze expressed her displeasure their handholding seemed to bother Mick. Gloria slid her arm through Mick’s, and pressed her breasts to his side. She flashed a bright, triumphant smile at Heather, and it became clear why Ghastly Gloria had stopped at their table. The country club dining room might be fancier than the cafeteria at Rivers Bend High, but it certainly felt like high school all over again. And the prom queen was here to show off her handsome, football player date to the nerdy girl. Except now Heather wasn’t sixteen anymore and she didn’t feel intimidated by Gloria. Furious at Mick, yes. Intimidated by Gloria, no. She sat a little higher in her chair, and held on to Ty’s hand, mainly because it seemed to bug Mick, and his being bugged really seemed to bug Ghastly Glo. It was a win-win.

  “I think it was more a dig at me, Ty, rather than you. Isn’t that right, Gloria?”

  ****

  Mick admired the way Heather called Gloria out on her bitchiness. And speaking of Gloria, when had she attached herself to him like a limpet? Mick had been so focused on the lawyer’s heartfelt words to Heather when Gloria and he had come up to the table, their easy camaraderie, and their still-clasped hands he hadn’t noticed Gloria going to full-body contact mode with him. He tried to disengage, but she just held on tighter. Her grip was like one of those toy Chinese finger traps; the harder you try to escape, the tighter they get.

  “Since Heather is your employee, I don’t need to introduce you two, but I don’t think you’ve met her escort. Michael Evans—Ty Harris.”

  Gloria made a point of stressing Heather was his employee, but right now, seeing her look so fresh and natural in her silky blue top, with her hair tousled—all Mick could think of was Heather, and not at all in an employer-employee kind of way. He remembered her on top of him in her messy bedroom just a week before. And now…his eyes flickered to her hand in another man’s and wondered how everything had gone so wrong so fast. Maybe Danny was right about him, and he was a colossal fuck-up who didn’t deserve a woman like Heather.

  This lawyer seemed like a nice guy. He could see Heather settling down with someone like him. He started as he realized the guy had finally let go of Heather’s hand to stand and extend it to Mick in greeting.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Mick. My brother-in-law has talked about you a lot.”

  “Your brother-in-law?”

  “Cisco.”

  “You’re Bethanne’s brother?”

  He’d never heard Bethanne’s brother dated Heather, but there was clearly a deep connection between them. With Rivers Bend gossip being what it was, it was a miracle this morsel had escaped him. And what about Chase? How did the musician fit into this scenario? A feeling gnawed at his gut he was missing a key piece of the puzzle.

  A furrow had formed on Gloria’s brow, and Mick sensed this meeting had not gone according to her plan, whatever her twisted plan had been.

  She tugged on his arm. “Our table is ready, Michael.”

  Heather leaned back in her chair and crossed her long legs. “Don’t let us hold you up, Gloria.”

  Gloria frowned in response to Heather’s easy smile, and Mick realized Gloria had intended to intimidate Heather, but fallen short of her goal. Way short, in fact, she couldn’t even see the goal line from where she stood.

  “Nice to meet you, Ty. Heather, I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Actually, no you won’t, boss. I’m on vacation this week. Don’t you look at the schedules I painstakingly prepare for you?”

  Gloria beamed. “So, Ty and you are kicking off your vacation with dinner out together. How sweet, we won’t intrude any longer.” She tugged Mick away from the table.

  ****

  Ty ran his hands through his reddish-brown hair and scratched his head. “If I’m not wrong, and I so rarely am”—he grinned—“that man has no clue I’m gay, and he was jealous of us.”

  Heather frowned and glanced over her shoulder to see Mick pulling out Gloria’s chair for her, while G.G. seated herself like a queen on her throne. She looked back at Ty. “You think?”

  “I do. Didn’t you notice the way he glared at us holding hands? He did not like it, and this is not a boss reaction. It’s a boyfriend reaction; what the hell is going on with you two?”

  “Nothing”—she flushed under his unblinking stare and fiddled with the cloth napkin on her lap—“now.”

  “But something did happen?”

  “Yes, but seriously, Ty, could we please talk about something else? Anything else, even mind-numbingly dull legal talk would be fine with me.”

  He screwed up his mouth as he searched her eyes. “Sure. Fine. But if you ever need to talk…”

  “You’re there for me. I know, and I appreciate it.”

  He paused a beat and then said, “So, graduation coming up, that’s big stuff. How many tickets do you get?”

  “They limit it to four, since there are so many of us graduating, but I don’t know if I’m going to walk.”

  Ty’s jaw dropped. “What? After all the years and hard work you’ve put in to get this degree? You’ve got to go to graduation.”

  She held her glass of Pinot Grigio up to the glow from the candle in the center of their table, and stared at the light reflected in the pale liquid. She shrugged.

  “What? Is this topic off limits too?” Ty slapped the table in exasper
ation and the heavy silverware rattled. The voices around them hushed at the clatter. Ty leaned in to whisper, “That was a little harder than I intended, but I’ve got to tell you the other off-limit topic is staring at us, and he is not happy.”

  Heather fought the urge to look for herself, and decided to stick with the safer topic at hand. “I guess I’ll go to graduation. It’s just I’m not a kid; sometimes I feel like a senior citizen around the other people in my classes. And Saturdays are busy days at the farm and the Retreat. I hate to ask anyone to take the time off to go.”

  “Trust me, you won’t have to ask; we’ll all be fighting each other to get one of the four tickets to be there to cheer our girl on.”

  “It would make for some fine entertainment at Mom’s Derby party this Saturday.”

  Ty deepened his voice to sound like the ring announcer at a pro wrestling event. “Be there or be square for the Graduation Ticket Death Match, this Saturday, live at the Braden Farm!”

  ****

  Gloria’s eyes glittered in the flickering candlelight and Mick didn’t think it was from passion. In spite of her syrupy tones, he knew a pissed off woman when he saw one, and he was looking at one across the table right now.

  “I am not a woman who is happily disposed to playing second fiddle, Michael, just so you know.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Then you should have known better than to put on your little caveman display over Heather Braden when you are with me this evening.”

  “I never behave like a caveman.”

  Her words stung. Caveman was one step below redneck.

  “Oh good gracious, Michael! If you’d had a club hidden in your lovely suit of clothes you would have conked her over the head and dragged her off to your cave. Such a display.” She tsked her tongue.

  “I don’t think it was that bad, and I…”

  The end of his sentence was cut off by Gloria’s sharp interruption. “At my club; in front of my friends…oh yes, Michael, it was that bad.”

  Mick picked up where he’d been cut off, as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “…never intended any disrespect to you.”

  The waiter provided a much needed cooling off period for them both when he came to the table to take their order.

  From Mick’s point of view, the whole purpose of this dinner was to help him pull away from Heather, and yet here he was with his stomach in knots, because Heather was here with yet another man. And right now, Gloria was a whole lot less appealing to him than Heather.

  Gloria gave new meaning to the phrase ‘high maintenance,’ but she was only interested in superficial, and a woman with a shell as hard as Gloria’s would never break under his darker moods. He needed to remember why he was here with Gloria, and forget about Heather and her date. Heather deserved a nice guy like Ty, and not someone who was a clone of his mean-spirited father.

  He forced a smile to his lips. “Since we’re at a country club, I’ll use a golf analogy: may I have a mulligan, and we’ll start this evening over?”

  Her feline smile made Mick wonder why she just hadn’t ordered a bowl of cream for dinner and been done with it. “If you can focus on me while we’re in front of my friends, and pretend Heather Braden is back in the barn where she belongs, I think a mulligan can be arranged.”

  Mick bit back the harsh defense of Heather her snarky words inspired in him. Heather was not his to defend. That was Ty’s job, or Chase’s, he wasn’t precisely sure whose job it was, he only knew it wasn’t his. Remembering the way Heather held her own against his father and Danny, Mick realized she didn’t need any man to defend her. He felt such pride burn in his heart as he thought about her spunkiness, he wondered anew what he was doing on a date with Gloria.

  He rolled his neck, and smiled at some long story Gloria told him about people he didn’t know, and frankly could give two shits about, and wondered when his social life had gotten this complicated. He just knew he had to hang tough for Heather’s sake. She was better off without him.

  Chapter 17

  Bedlam reigned in the normally serene lobby of the Retreat. Voices were raised as one group tried to check in, and Mick hung up the phone after a frantic call from the leader of the second group due to arrive this morning, who was stuck at the airport with his entire staff, because the minibus hired to transport them had yet to arrive.

  He needed to get on the horn to hunt down the van, but first he had to listen to this woman’s interminable discussion about the importance of her special diet, in which she apparently wouldn’t eat anything that had been cooked. Who the hell had come up with this one?

  “I’ll personally notify our chef about your dietary considerations, ma’am.”

  Pacified, the woman thanked him and moved away, and he heard Jeff’s amused drawl at his ear. “Our chef? Mrs. Wilson is going to be thrilled with her promotion.”

  One side of Mick’s mouth quirked up. “Mrs. W. will be less thrilled when she hears this woman doesn’t want to eat anything that’s been cooked above a certain temperature. What’s that about anyway? And do you have any idea who I can contact about the M.I.A. minibus?”

  “And now you know why I consider my sister indispensible. It’s not about nepotism. She keeps this place running like a top. Did you ever see a clusterfuck like this check-in when she’s here?”

  “No. I’ve been blissfully unaware of what the check-in process required.”

  “That’s because Heather has it as organized and coordinated as the D-Day invasion. Only with freshly-baked cookies.”

  Mick slapped his forehead. “Cookies! I forgot to get the goddamned cookies from the Nosh Pit! Is it really only Monday? Because it feels like later in the week—Wednesday at least, if not Thursday. Friday would just be wishful thinking.”

  “It’s not just Monday. It’s Monday morning, my friend. The whole Heather-less week stretches before us. And this is precisely why I wanted my sister and you to work out your differences. We can’t afford to lose her.”

  “You won’t.” Mick would leave before he let Heather lose her job on account of him.

  As the last guest left the lobby, peace was restored.

  “I think the number for the airport transportation service is in Heather’s office, c’mon,” Jeff said as he walked toward the door from the lobby to their office area.

  If Mick hoped the change of venue would get him off the hook conversationally, he was about to be doomed to disappointment.

  Jeff flicked the light switch by the door, and the fluorescent light came on with a low hum. He lifted a Rolodex off of her desk and flicked through the cards.

  “Old school,” Mick observed.

  Jeff snorted. “I know, right? Heather keeps all this info on her phone too, but she calls the Rolodex our insurance, in case she’s ever hit by a bus. She knows Cisco and I could never find anything on her computer.”

  “Hit by a bus, huh? Do we even have buses in Rivers Bend?”

  “Nah, but she likes to be prepared for anything and everything. Here it is!” He yanked a card out, but held it between his thumb and forefinger like a magician getting ready to do a card trick. “I’d like to talk to you about something before I let you take this card.”

  Mick’s stomach clenched. He didn’t like where he suspected this talk was going.

  “You took my sister home to meet your family weekend before last.”

  “I thought that was old news.”

  “I’ve been busy with my daughter and Maggie, and getting ready for the benefit so I’m a little behind the times. I just heard about you and Heather on Saturday night.”

  “There is no ‘me and Heather.’ ”

  Jeff raised his eyebrows, and waited in silence for Mick to continue.

  “Okay, maybe for a very brief time I thought there might be a Heather and me.”

  Jeff continued to stare. “When was that ‘brief while’?”

  “I want to be completely straight with you. So, in an
effort for full disclosure, the first time was eleven years ago in Portland.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jeff’s voice was not its usual lazy drawl. He’d never seen his old friend angry before, and it was not a pleasant thing. Jeff’s face was red as a summer tomato as he shouted, “She was just a baby then!”

  “I thought she was older than she was. As soon as I found out she was under eighteen I ended it.”

  “Aren’t you just a fucking saint? If that was the first time, when was the second?”

  “Since I’ve been in Rivers Bend. We got close again, but it didn’t work out.”

  Jeff dropped his head back and screwed his eye shut. “Man, I really don’t want to do this.”

  “Do what?” Mick asked warily.

  “This.” Jeff drew back his right arm and punched Mick in the face.

  ****

  Heather sat on her little back porch, a textbook open on her lap. She could hear the bustle of the breakfast rush below her at the Nosh Pit, and wondered how things were going at work with two groups due to arrive at the Retreat today. She shrugged before trying to focus on her studies again. She had her first exam tonight, and with all the Mick drama lately, she’d fallen a little behind with her schoolwork.

  She needed to stop thinking about him, or about work, and just concentrate on getting through her exams and her graduation. Between her brother, Cisco, and Mick, she was sure they had things under control at the Retreat.

  Her cell phone rang, and she picked it up off the small wrought iron table next to her chair. She peered at the screen to see who was calling, and smiled when she saw the name.

  “Billy! I’m so glad to hear from you. I guess you got my message.”

  “I did! I’m totally psyched, Heather. You’re the best! Do you think this guy is serious about needing a mechanic?”

  “He is. Are you interested?”

  “Am I ever!” Billy’s voice enthused through the phone.

  “Ed asked me to give you his number, and if you’re interested, he wants you to call him. After we get off, I’ll text his number to you.” She paused and frowned before continuing, “Have you thought this through? Working with Ed Miller, eventually maybe taking over his garage, would mean you’d move here to Rivers Bend. It won’t be a popular choice in the Evans homestead.”