by Marina Adair
Hattie was in the office, counting her latest eBay earnings and estimating how much money they had left to raise for the new pediatric ward. Which left Brett with the choice of dealing with his nosy grandma or his know-it-all older brother.
“Payton said you caught her talking to some kid and flipped,” Brett said, repeating what his niece had told him when he’d called to wish her a happy birthday.
“She was flirting. In that two-piece. And he was fucking eighteen,” Cal growled. “Nearly killed him. Then Payton. Burned the bikini.”
Satisfied that Cal was in an equally shitty mood, Brett grabbed a bowl and a spoon and joined him at the table. Except for Cal slurping up his milk, they finished their bowls in silence. Both poured another.
“Heard Grandma and Etta Jayne issued a feud on the neighbor girl,” Cal said around a mouthful of Cheerios.
“Yup.” Joie was the last person he wanted to talk about. He could still taste her sweet lips and the bitter rejection.
“Also heard you were keeping that low profile you promised.”
Since Cal already seemed to know every goddamned thing that happened while he was gone and Brett was tired of his brother’s shit, he didn’t bother to answer, instead doing some slurping of his own.
“Look at you, acting all pissy like a woman. Would it have anything to do with ‘lying low’ tonight with our lace-wearing neighbor at the Saddle Rack?”
“She wasn’t wearing lace tonight.” At least not when she left. “And how the hell do you know if she was there?”
“This is Sugar. And there was a post about it on Hattie’s blog.”
Brett swallowed. “Grandma has a blog?”
“Facebook and Twitter accounts, too. She says it’s to increase traffic so she can sell more of her quilts. She’s got over a million followers. Want to know how she gets them?”
No. He did not.
“She writes about her favorite superstar grandson, posts baby pictures, even gives up-to-the-minute information about your life. Kind of like a reality show in journal form.” Cal dropped his spoon and the smug grin. “Jesus, Brett. You took a girl out in a robe and teddy?”
“I took her to the emergency room for stitches. And fuck you.”
Cal was silent, assessing Brett in a way that told him he’d given away too much.
“Holy crap. You didn’t get any.”
“What makes you think I went looking?” Brett took another spoonful.
“You’re always looking.” Cal raised a brow. “Plus, you’re wearing a shirt with buttons.” His expression went slack a second before he started laughing. “I was right, you didn’t get any!”
At his brother’s remark, Brett surged to his feet, slamming his bowl into the sink and rinsing it out. When Cal fell silent, Brett turned to face him, giving his best screw-you glare.
Cal studied him for a few moments, going serious. “Odd thing is, usually you’d just give up, move on to someone who was interested. You didn’t do that tonight. Why?”
Good question. One with a pathetic answer, which Brett didn’t care to share with anyone, let alone his pain-in-the-ass older brother.
The truth was Brett liked one-night stands—almost as much as he liked a challenge. And although Joie was a challenge, what she wasn’t was a one-night stand. He’d had enough of them to recognize that no matter what Joie was telling him, or herself, girls who believed in fairies and remodeling money-pits were looking for more of a happily ever after. And part of him, a part that he had ignored for most of his life, wanted to be that guy—for her.
For a minute there tonight, a short minute, he thought he could. Then she reminded him of who he was: Brett McGraw, easygoing playboy who spent ten months out of the year on the road, where every new city brought a new bed and a new girl—or so the papers said.
The press got part of it correct. He did tend to take the easy path in life and love, which usually led to just a few nights. Not a future. The part that they missed, though, that Joie missed, was that deep down Brett wanted to commit himself completely to someone else; he just didn’t know if he had the balls to try. He’d lost his ability to stick the night his parents died.
Growing up surrounded by the kind of love his parents had shared, only to have it ripped away in a single night, had taught him how powerful love could be—and how easily it can all be taken away. He craved the connection that he’d witnessed from them, that he had shared with them, but the idea of putting himself out there only to lose—he didn’t know if he could handle that kind of pain again. So he’d always kept things casual—until tonight.
“Just following your orders to lie low,” he lied. “Keep myself out of trouble. Plus, she’s really wrapped up in that inn.”
“Son of a bitch,” Cal mused, leaning forward in his seat as if straining for a closer look. “It finally happened, didn’t it? You found the one girl in all of Sugar that doesn’t want to sleep with you and you’re sweet for her.”
Brett gave a harsh laugh with absolutely no humor in it. Because she wanted him all right, just not the way he wanted her. Man, karma was a bitch.
“I’m not sweet for her.”
“Really? Because the last time I saw you this wound up was when…” Cal shook his head and unfolded himself from the table. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.”
Brett gave him the finger.
Cal laughed, a stupid-ass grin following him across the kitchen. “You know what? I take back everything I said. Watching you make a fool of yourself over some woman is worth the risk. So, chase away, little brother. Chase the girl next door.”
At the reminder that Joie was next door, for the foreseeable future, Brett felt his stomach hollow out. The idea of seeing her around town, across the lake, sitting on her front porch swing, made him want to pack up and hit some balls. Say, in Hawaii.
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t want to be chased.”
“Even better.” Cal elbowed his way to the sink, slapping Brett on the shoulder. “Perfect way to stay out of trouble and the media, if you ask me.”
Brett wasn’t asking, because he feared he was already head deep in a sand trap. And this time he had no idea how the hell to swing his way out.
* * *
Josephina stood on the forth rung of the ladder with a sheet of wallpaper over her head, a cutter in her left hand, and a scraper in her right. No matter how long she stood there or how many times she chanted balls-to-the-wall, she couldn’t gather the courage needed to crawl up one more rung.
Hands clammy, she sliced the wallpaper horizontally and watched it slip the whole five feet to the floor. She crawled down, then flopped into an overstuffed armchair, hating how her heart felt as if it was going to explode right out of her chest.
Her phone rang. Pulling it from her back pocket, she answered. “Hello?”
There was a tense silence, some heavy breaths, and teeth clicking as though someone was biting through fingernails, then, “Um, hey there, Miss Harrington?”
Josephina sat up. “Rooster? Are you all right? When you didn’t show up yesterday I got worried, then when you didn’t return my calls—”
“Yeah, about that.” The knot that had settled in the pit of her stomach yesterday tightened. “Seems I’ve got me some back problems and I don’t think I’ll be able to get out to your place for some time.”
Josephina rolled her eyes at how he emphasized the last two words, implying that Hattie would be crowned Miss Peach before he’d ever come back to her house.
“So by back problems, do you mean the weight of five overbearing and nagging grannies obliterated your spine completely?”
Rooster stuttered and gasped for so long, Josephina almost felt sorry for the guy.
“Look, don’t worry, Rooster. I get it. I’ll send you a check for the work you already completed.”
He mumbled some apology and they hung up. With a weary sigh she leaned back and took in what she’d spent three and a half hours accomplishing. The wall looked li
ke the rest of the room, bare plaster up to her head and dusty roses spanning the remaining fifteen feet of the wall.
Josephina sighed. This was what happened when one’s contractor went MIA, then up and quit, forcing one to make do with limited demolition skills.
She closed her eyes and laid her head back. After four years of interior design school and three more spent in the field, Josephina Harrington couldn’t manage to take down wallpaper.
Accepting defeat—for now—she walked over to Kenny, pulled back his head, and took a handful of candy corn. Last week, she’d wisely replaced the poker chips with corn syrup, carnauba wax, and yellow dye number 5. She shoved them into her mouth and savored the sanity the sweetness brought.
Licking her fingers, she scrolled through her contacts. She had already expanded her knowledge of construction, but unless she found a book on how to install window flashing with a chapter on overcoming vertigo, Josephina needed to find another handyman. She had told the bank she’d be up and running by summer’s end—meaning she had a lot of work to do.
* * *
Brett stood under a MEMAW & PA-PAW’S GROOM, FEED, AND RESCUE banner with a goat humping his leg, a pug clutched in his arms, and Mrs. Wilkes’s hand cupping his ass.
“Smile.” She squeezed. “And don’t you worry about nothing. This is going up above the register. Right next to the one from last year. You’re still our hometown hero.”
Brett silently swore. He was exhausted, smelled like livestock, and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Today was his day off, but he was feeling guilty, and helping Mrs. Wilkes with her grand opening groom and vaccine drive had become a tradition. So he smiled, took the photo, and went back to hosing off a donkey.
The tradition had started six years ago when Brett’s season was sponsored by one of those chain pet stores that, according to Memaw Wilkes, spent its big bucks putting hardworking folks like herself out of business. To help balance the scales, and his guilt, Brett had agreed to be her spokesman and help out every time he was in town.
Today was no different. Only this time the money went toward the new wing at the Medical Center, and his guilt came from how he’d spent the past forty-eight hours. Instead of listening to the part of him that wanted to make Cal proud and protect Jace, Brett had ignored his brother’s advice and gone to Illinois for the tournament. His fans were expecting him, his sponsors counting on him, and his name was on the ad.
Oh, and it was a thousand miles from a certain blonde socialite he couldn’t get out of his mind.
Unfortunately, he’d missed his flight—and a scheduled interview with ESPN—lost by a stroke, and ended up in an elevator with Dirk Stone and his daughter Bethany. The press went apeshit. Cal threatened to beat his ass. Jace had to go underground for a while, moving to Daytona to work for an old army buddy. The only bonus was that Hattie had doubled her money on eBay.
The last thing Brett wanted to do was come out here, with everyone smiling at him as if he hung the moon, and groom Ms. Mann’s armadillo, who sat patiently in the wheelchair with his owner.
Not only was Jelly-Lou Glory’s grandma, she was also Brett’s childhood Sunday school teacher. Wondering if the woman who taught him the Ten Commandments on a felt board had watched him making the beast with two backs on national television had his chest constricting and his hands sweating.
“Afternoon, Ms. Mann,” Brett said, forcing his legs to move and his arms to scoop up the armadillo. Before she could tell him how sorry she was for his predicament, or make some crass comment about Bethany and her family, he rushed out, “Is Road Kill here for his oatmeal-cucumber bath?”
“Yes, he is. It works miracles on his dry skin. And I just love when they put those cute little bow ties on him.” She patted Brett’s hand. “But don’t you worry yourself, I can have one of the others wash him.”
“That’s all right. If I can handle Ms. Longwood’s geese, Road Kill will be easy.”
“I’ll do it, Uncle Brett,” Payton said, resting her hands on the wheelchair handles.
Brett looked around for Cal. Didn’t see him, but noticed that a group of senior boys had their eyes fixed on his niece. Brett glared until the kids ducked their heads.
“Does your dad know you’re here?”
Payton held out her arms in response. Dressed in a pair of head-to-toe blue coveralls and a ball cap, the kid looked miserable. Especially when it was pushing a hundred and her teammates were flittering about in shorts and tank tops, making plans for a BBQ at Sugar Lake.
A BBQ Payton wouldn’t be going to. Wanting to make some summer cash, his niece had taken up tutoring at the library. Too bad for Payton that her first customer had been eighteen, on the varsity football team, and more interested in anatomy than algebra. Too bad for the kid, Cal showed up early and nearly tore his head off. Payton’s tutoring career came to a premature end, and she was sentenced to three weeks’ community service—with the elderly.
“Grandma asked me to bring you this.” She held up a paper bag. Brett’s mouth watered at the grease-stained bag. “It’s fried chicken. She wanted to make sure you ate.”
“It’s also a ruse.” Jelly-Lou looked around and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “To give you time away from all the shameful gossip about you and that girl. Vultures.”
Brett looked at his niece and shifted on his feet. “The press can be—”
“Not the press, dear. The nosy people in this town. Sinners, every last one of them. They’ve got a pool going to see if she’s carrying a McGraw in the oven.”
Brett choked. “That video was taken two years ago.”
“Not Miss Stone,” Payton clarified. “Miss Joie.”
“Joie? But I haven’t…We aren’t even seeing each other.”
“Neither were we.” His niece looked over her shoulder at one of the guys and gave a sad smile. Brett almost felt sorry for her…until he looked at the boy in question.
Payton wasn’t showing a speck of skin but the kid smiled back all the same. His eyes, however, said he was still thinking about anatomy. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed in a way that flexed his biceps, showing off a stupid-as-shit boy-band tattoo. All Brett wanted to do was walk over and kick that grin off his face.
“God, you’re as bad as Dad,” Payton cried. “We didn’t do anything wrong and now, because Dad freaked out, everyone’s treating us like we did. I thought you’d understand. Guess I was wrong.”
She tossed him his lunch and scooped up Road Kill. Tears in her eyes, she stormed off before Brett had a chance to set things right.
Shit.
“It’s the hormones, dear.” Jelly-Lou patted his hand. “Now, go on and eat up. Maybe even take a little nap. You look worse for wear. Don’t want to add sleepless nights to the speculation.”
Brett looked around. Every single person in that parking lot was staring at him. The minute he locked eyes, each and every one of them sent a big nod and smile. Too big.
Having a hard time breathing, he thanked Ms. Mann, made a note to apologize to his niece, and headed for his truck.
As he rounded the back of the building, kicking himself for disappointing everyone, he plowed into someone with enough force to send that person tumbling. He heard a startled gasp followed by an angry yap.
Quick on his feet, Brett grabbed hold to keep them from falling into the Dumpster. When his arms met soft curves, silky hair, and needled teeth, his brain registered that this was not just someone. This was the last person he wanted to face right now. And her dog was practicing lockjaw on his arm.
Joie looked up through startled eyes, the sexy scent of whimsy washing over him. They stood there, with her wrapped around him, his hands low on her back, the smell of tossed-out dog food turning in the hot summer heat, and Brett felt all of the tension seep from his body. Which was as ridiculous as the goofy grin he wore.
To his amazement, Joie grinned back. Her hair was swept up in a ponytail but she was back to wearing her trademark uptown wea
r. Boo, who had on a baseball hat and stupid-ass doggie tennis shoes, growled, which meant he’d finally let loose the death grip on Brett’s arm.
Boo barked and sank his teeth back in.
“Boo,” Joie scolded, taking a step back. Brett would have put up with Needle-Teeth if it meant keeping her in his arms. ”I’m sorry. Did he hurt you?”
He looked at his arm briefly. Seven little puncture wounds, when turned sideways, seemed to make a smiley face. He glared at the dog. “Naw, a little thing like that couldn’t even hurt a kitten.”
Boo lunged, trap snapping.
“Bad, Boo,” Joie scolded, setting Fido on the hot cement and turning her attention back to Brett.
Boo pouted.
Brett preened.
Joie took his arm, her cool hands sending a sexual kick right to the gut. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him, he usually loves people. Are you sure it doesn’t hurt? Maybe we should see if they have anything inside to clean it out.”
“I’m fine.” He placed a hand over hers, stilling it.
Her focus shifted between their hands and his eyes several times. Her lips parted on a breath and then, sadly, she stepped back. “I guess you have enough soap on you to ward off germs anyway.”
He dropped his gaze to get his mind off those lips, which did him little good. Because now he was focused on her shirt, which was white. And sudsy. “I got you all wet.”
She looked down at her designer blouse and shrugged. “Who knew a flock of geese could be so dangerous?”
And just like that, any hope of him getting brownie points for helping animals in need was blown. How bad-ass could a guy look when he’d been taken down by an angry mob of geese?
That she knew, though, meant she’d been watching him.
As if reading his mind, she flushed and said, “I was on my way to meet Mr. Ryan about my loan. I have a two o’clock.”
Knowing it couldn’t be that late, Brett looked down at his watch. Tinker Bell was early.
“I know.” She smiled shyly. “I was so afraid I’d be late, I ended up being an hour early. I was going to see if Spenser wanted to grab a bite at the Gravy Train when I saw the sign for Memaw and Pa-Paw’s grand opening,” she paused, confusion lining her brows, “which seems odd since the sign next to it marked their sixtieth anniversary of being in business.”
