by Rachel Hauck
“Ma’am, it’s good to see you. I saw Emily enter the diner and thought I’d offer my congratulations on becoming engaged.” Daniel slid out of the booth, tipping his hat. “You and Miss Canton are two of the loveliest women in Birmingham.”
“Thank you. You are most kind.” Mrs. Canton set her hat on the table and tucked her gloves under the wide brim with a sigh. “Did you order my cold milk? It’s so warm out today.”
“I was waiting for you, Mother.” Emily peeked at Daniel. “I didn’t want your milk to get warm.”
“Well, there’s a good girl. Excuse me—waiter.”
“Have a good day, ladies.” Daniel backed toward the door. “Emily, best of everything.” Their staccato conversation left him uneasy.
“Excuse me, Mother.” Emily slid out of the booth, stepped around the waiter, and followed Daniel to the front of the diner. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Does he?”
“Have a mistress?”
She gazed into his eyes. He couldn’t . . . it would crush her. Her fingernails dug into his arm.
“Daniel.”
“Yes. So goes the word around town. But you should find out the truth yourself, Emily. You know how gossip gets all twisted and maligned.”
“No, no.” She jutted backward, shaking her head, her dark eyes narrowing. “You’re a liar, Daniel Ludlow. I don’t believe you.” Her accusation stung and Daniel regretted yielding to her desire for the truth. But he couldn’t change his path now. She snarled at him. “You’re just jealous, spiteful, and petty.”
“If only it were true. I’d be a liar ten times over if it meant Saltonstall didn’t cheat on you. I warned you not to ask if you didn’t want to know, Emily.” Daniel eyed her, hard, then jerked open Newman’s door so the bells rang out.
Emily stepped after him. “What did you hope to gain by lying to me?”
“What did you hope to gain by asking me if your fiancé had a mistress? You’ve made me hurt you, and I don’t like it.”
He stepped outside without looking back and stormed toward Loveman’s, heat rising in his chest. So this was it. His last encounter with Emily.
But then Daniel turned on his heel. He refused to let her last memory of him be when he cast shadows on the man she planned to marry. At Newman’s, he reached for the door but let his fingers slip from the handle.
Standing in front of the pane glass window, right beside the “Apple Pie 25¢” sign, he watched her speaking with her mother, no doubt telling her what a cad Daniel Ludlow was.
Look up, Emily. His heart quickened when she reached for her lemonade. She caught him staring, so he raised his hand in greeting, mustering his best sympathetic expression. Are you okay?
Emily’s weak and slight head tip relieved his heart. She sipped her lemonade, peering at him over the rim of her glass. Should he go inside? Speak with her? Demand a private audience and explain how he knew such a thing about her fiancé?
No, best to leave well enough alone. He’d done enough damage. Two women approached Emily and Mrs. Canton from another table. Daniel watched their exclamations, hands to their cheeks, bending to gaze at Emily’s ring.
Saltonstall was a louse. He’d bought that ring for another woman. Daniel knew it. He just couldn’t prove it. But whatever the price, it wasn’t enough to win a woman like Emily Canton.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte
Charlotte crossed her living room, phone pressed to her ear, when a knock on the door beckoned.
“Thank you, Tawny. I’ll see you then.” Charlotte motioned Dixie into the loft, crossing back across the living room to her dining room table desk. “Lunch on Thursday, one thirty, at Bellini’s.” She hung up and tapped on her iPad, entering lunch on her calendar.
“Tawny?” Dix said.
“She’s invited me to a luncheon with her bridesmaids. She wants them to meet ‘the great Charlotte Malone,’ her words not mine.” Charlotte grinned. “Only one of them is already married and three others are in serious relationships . . . Bless Tawny for helping my business. Marketing is really all about word of—Dix, why do you have a hammer and screwdriver?”
Dixie clapped the tools together. “Never know when they might come in handy. I might see a protruding nail in your loft.” Dix mimed hammering a wall. “Or a find a loose screw somewhere.”
“Besides the one in your own head, you mean?” Charlotte finished adding lunch with Tawny to her schedule.
“Or we could use these to open the trunk.”
“Open the trunk?” Charlotte met her gaze, exhaling a small laugh. “It’s welded shut, Dix. A hammer and screwdriver can’t undo welded metal. If they can, I’m never driving over a bridge again.”
“Well, it’s all I had.” Dixie dropped the tools on the table. “Dr. Hotstuff deals in scalpels and scissors. His toolbox is pathetic. All it has in it is a fork, a hammer, and this rusty screwdriver.”
“A fork?”
“Yeah, left over from the piece of pie he ate while hanging the pictures in our loft. So, where’s this thousand-dollar trunk?” Dixie scanned the loft living area, around to the kitchen.
“In my room.” Charlotte gestured toward the short hallway.
“Char, how can you stand not opening it?”
“It reminds me . . . I can’t help but think that ugly thing was the catalyst that ended Tim and me.” Charlotte took a brief scan of e-mail, glad to have a focus besides Dixie and her tools. Though her friend had a way of barging past emotional welded locks with her tools of boldness.
“You know, you can’t avoid things because they’re difficult or welded shut.”
“I’m not avoiding anything. Just that trunk.”
“Char, really, are you okay?” Dixie dropped onto a chair, hammer and screwdriver in her lap.
“You asked me that a hundred times this afternoon. I’m fine.”
“If Jared had broken off with me two months before our wedding, I’d still be in bed hugging a box of tissues.”
“You hole up in bed with tissues, I work. Move forward. Forget the past.” Charlotte set down her iPad. “When Mama died and I had to move in with Gert, I cried for a while, told Gert I was too sick to go to school. But after a month of crying every night, I stopped. Tears weren’t going to raise Mama from the dead. They weren’t going to bring me a father or grandparents. So I mourned Mama by doing something. I got up, went to school, conquered fractions, grasped grammar, became the first one picked for volleyball in gym class. I was going to make Mama proud.” Charlotte stared toward the dark-paned windows, the lights of Homewood beaming up from the ground. “Tears aren’t going to bring Tim back either. So I work. I make Mama proud.”
The silence between the friends gave Charlotte a moment to exhale and think, digest her own thoughts, put a picture to her feelings. She loved Tim, but something had made her second-guess.
Dixie reached across and squeezed her hand. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“How’s Homewood Gourmet sound?”
“Let’s go.” Charlotte slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about taking a Paris trip in the fall. A visit to Bray-Lindsay and our other designers. You game?”
“Game? I’m the whole party. Absolutely, I want to go to Paris. If you go without me I’ll burn the shop down.” Dixie sliced the air with the hammer and screwdriver.
“We don’t need tools tonight, Dix.” Charlotte started down the hall toward the elevator.
“I don’t know, we might.” Dixie examined the hammer as Charlotte pushed the first-floor button. “One thing we do know, it’ll be winter in hades before Jared notices they’re gone.”
Charlotte ordered pesto chicken with soup and salad, then took a swig of tea, waiting for Dixie to order. She loved the we-welcome-you atmosphere of Homewood Gourmet, the small hum of voices, the clatter of dishes, the anticipation of unique food.
She pulled out her iPad to look at the fall calendar, block off time for Paris. She’d need to co
ntact her designers, determine a good visiting time, hire someone to watch the shop, so she’d best formulate a time frame.
Charlotte gazed up when Dixie finished ordering, ready to ask about her schedule. But as she took in the view of the front door, the words stuck in her throat and her weak heart tumbled to its knees.
Tim. With a beautiful woman.
“Char, what is it?” Dixie whipped around to see over her shoulder. “Oh wow, I don’t believe it.”
“Let’s just go.” Charlotte closed up her iPad and jammed it into her satchel. “Once they’re seated”—she ducked low to the table, hiding behind Dixie—“we can sneak out.”
“Sit up. You’re not going to hide, ashamed. He’s the one that ought to be ashamed.”
“Sure, but he’s with a gorgeous date and I’m sitting here with you.”
“I’ll take that like you intended, not like it sounded, Charlotte.”
“You know what I mean.” Charlotte made a face, sniffing back the sting of tears.
Tim surveyed the restaurant with his head high as a lovely, golden-haired woman—with a darn near perfect profile—linked her arm through his. He bent to whisper something in her ear and she smiled at him with an utterly flawless smile.
Charlotte felt the heat from the woman’s dreamy gaze across the room. She had to get out of here. Calculating how many steps to the front door, she figured ten giant steps would get her out the door fast.
“Dixie, you can stay and be brave if you want, hold your head high and all of that, but I’m leaving.” Charlotte yanked her wallet from her bag and left a twenty on the table. “That should cover my food.”
Dixie clamped down on her arm. “You’re not leaving. We came here to eat, get out, have fun. We came here to forget about him. And talk business.”
“How can I forget about him if I have to look at him. If every laugh makes me look around to see if it’s her? Wondering what he’s saying to her. Or why he’s here with her in the first place.”
“Charlotte, she’s probably a client, a colleague, something to do with architecture.”
“Why are you defending him? She’s a date, I can tell. No client gives him the dreamy-eye. Either way, I’m leaving and I don’t want him to see me.”
The server passed and Charlotte dropped two more twenties on the table. “Excuse me, miss, but we’re going to have to go. This should cover our bill.”
“What bill?” Dixie waved her hand over the empty table. “We didn’t even eat.”
“But we’ve ordered. Uneaten food still costs money.” Charlotte stood, hunching forward, eyes on Tim. He sat with her on the other side of the door. Charlotte could make a clean escape. Stooping down, hiding behind servers and patrons, she worked through a people maze to the door and burst into the cool April night with an exhale.
Dixie trailed behind Charlotte with an I’m mad-I’m sympathetic-I’m mad-I’m sympathetic clip-clop ring to her heels as they pounded the pavement. “This is ridiculous. He broke up with you and you let him drive you out of the restaurant?” Dixie aimed her remote key at the car. The horn beeped. The lights flashed.
Charlotte scrambled into the passenger seat, white-knuckled the door handle, and hugged her satchel to her chest. “I lied, Dix. I’m not so fine. I’m sad and this whole thing hurts.” Tears watered her words. “I can’t believe he has someone else. She must be the reason he has doubts.” Charlotte peered out her window, then turned toward Dixie. “She was pretty, wasn’t she? Yeah, she was gorgeous.”
“If you like skinny girls with too much makeup, sure. Charlotte, this doesn’t seem like Tim.”
“You’re still defending him? Dix, what do we know about him, really?
“We know he’s standing outside your window right now.”
“Charlotte—” Tim stood by her door, hands on his belt, head cocked to one side, peering down at her. “Can I talk to you?”
She angled toward Dixie, hand cupped around her eyes. “Do you think he’s seen me?”
“He’s two feet from you. Yes, he’s seen you.” Dixie laughed, gently pushing Charlotte’s hand from her face. “But say the word and I’ll back out of here. I don’t promise to miss his toes.”
“So I should talk to him?” Charlotte peeked over her shoulder. Tim still stood outside her window, peering in at her.
“Do you want to hear what he has to say? He did leave her and come out here to talk to you.”
Charlotte eased her grip on the handbag she cradled in her lap. She’d always known Tim to be a man of honor and he didn’t like to leave things undone.
She climbed out of the car, closing the door behind her. Leaning against it, she folded her arms. “What’s up?”
“How are you?” Tim stood a few feet from her. The fragrance of spice with a bass note of something floral settled between them.
“Great. Perfect. Enjoying a night out with my girl, Dix. Jared’s working at the hospital.”
“She’s a friend, Charlotte.” He gestured toward the restaurant.
“Who?” Charlotte leaned toward him, then gazed at the restaurant as if she didn’t see her earlier.
“Kim.”
“You were here with Kim? Your ex?”
“Yeah, that’d be Kim.” He made a face. “I know you saw us, Charlotte. I saw you sneaking out.”
“Tim, what do you want? Why’d you come out here?”
“To explain. I didn’t know Kim was in town until she called today. Wanted to talk.” He cleared his throat, glancing toward the dark pockets of the parking lot. “Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?” Her hard retort didn’t reflect the softening happening in her heart.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Tim said, low and intimate. “Do you have any—”
“What’s done is done, Tim. We can’t be engaged if you don’t want to get married.” She felt like a bit of a coward hiding her own wedding jitters behind his.
He nodded, biting on his bottom lip. “Yeah, I suppose.”
“Hey, it’s good, Tim, all good.” She shifted her stance, uncrossed her arms, and made a smoothing motion with her hands. “It’s for the best, you know? At least we didn’t send the invitations. Can you imagine returning all those gifts? What a nightmare.”
“There’s always a silver lining, I suppose. A thin one, but . . .” Tim gave her the same look that beguiled her heart the first night they met. “Can we talk? Maybe sometime this week?”
“About what, Tim? How it didn’t work? How you didn’t want to marry me? I think we’ve said all we can say, and I’m doing all I can to move on.”
“I miss you.” The wind picked up the ends of his hair, blowing them across his eyes.
Charlotte pressed her fingers into her palms, tucking her arms tighter, resisting the automatic urge to reach up and smooth his hair from his face, gently trailing her fingers over his forehead and down his strong, high cheeks.
“It’s only been a day, Tim.”
He laughed, low. “Longest day of my life. I kept reaching for the phone to call you.”
“Don’t you find that odd? Yesterday, you couldn’t make yourself call me. Went racing and forgot all about our plans.”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out all day. The only thing I can come up with is I miss Charlotte, my friend.”
“But not the fiancée?”
“That arrangement had me feeling boxed in, like a coon up a tree, but my friend Charlotte—I really miss her.”
“What are you afraid of? Marriage in general or marriage to me?”
“Marriage in general. You, I kind of like. A lot. Maybe I didn’t know how much.”
Charlotte shivered in the breeze. “I was kind of a package deal. Friend and fiancée. Can’t have one without the other.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” He gazed toward the restaurant. “Guess I’d better go.”
“Guess so.” Fight for me, Tim. Fight your own fears. Charlotte popped open the car door. “Have a nice dinner.”
“I don’t suppose coffee or lunch sometime would be possible.”
“No, Tim, it’s not. I’m sorry you miss your friend and the convenience of having me there for you without the sensation of being a treed coon, but you proposed to me. I trusted you. I loved you. And Charlotte the fiancée is kind of smarting now that you’re having dinner with another woman twenty-four hours after we called things off.”
“She’s just a friend.”
“Like me? Another member of the Tim Rose ex-fiancée brigade.”
He sighed. “She broke up with me.”
“Well, there you go.” Charlotte hopped in the car. “Now’s your chance to get her back.”
“Charlotte, come on, it’s not like that and you know it.”
Dixie was out of the parking lot and heading down the street before the first sob escaped Charlotte’s clenched jaw and pressed lips. Shoulders rolling forward, she bent her face to her knees and wept the rest of the way home.
Chapter Nine
Emily
Outside Father’s library door, Emily paused a moment before twisting the knob, letting herself in. Since she’d been a girl, Father had encouraged her to come to him anytime she needed, never demanding a knock or voice of permission before she entered. Just come as she willed.
“Emily, come, come.” Father set down his pen and rose to greet her. “I’m just writing your brother. Telling him about your engagement party this evening.”
“Tell him I wish he was here. He owes me a long, newsy letter.” Howard Jr., three years younger, had been one of Emily’s best friends—a confidant and champion—until he left for Harvard. She missed his wisdom and teasing “Aw, sis” at the moment.
“I shall, I shall.” Father tugged his trousers loose from his knees as he returned to his chair. “Are you looking forward to this evening? All of Birmingham society will be there.” Father clapped his hands against his chest, rocking back, looking proud. “My little girl is getting married.”
