by Jen Doyle
“Not my shining moment,” Nate said.
Not any of theirs.
The whispers had already begun before the school day was over. Overnight, Fitz went from “Who’s the cute new girl?” to “Nate and Jules’s father left them for her?”
Being all of sixteen years old, figuring out what to say to the best friend who’d just found out his dad had gone and started a new family wasn’t exactly in Deke’s wheelhouse. Especially because he actually had a bit of a crush on Fitz after seeing her at the Jensens’ farmhouse over the course of that summer. Deke liked to think that if he’d been older and wiser, her being Nate’s sister wouldn’t have rattled him quite as much. But back then, he’d let himself get caught up in other things. Let the rest of his life crowd her out of his mind because her considerable baggage was more than his teenage self could handle. He hadn’t just taken the easy route, he’d made a beeline for it and never looked back.
But the guilt Nate still carried was clearly much worse. Nate had never been outright mean during those months—he’d never even gone as far as Jules had, outwardly making his feelings known. But he hadn’t done anything to stop the teasing and taunting. Had never so much as told Jules to have Jeremiah tone it down.
“Maybe if I’d done something earlier,” Nate said, “they would’ve let it all go and just left her alone.”
They being Peggy and Jeremiah and Lyle Butler and Co., Deke assumed.
Goddammit.
Deke loved Inspiration; it was his own personal Mayberry. Sure there’d been times when folks hadn’t exactly been on their best behavior, the treatment of Fitz being an obvious low point. But it wasn’t like Fitz had been moping around for all this time. Deke had put those days behind him, and he’d always figured her smile meant she had, too. It was almost too painful to think about that not being the truth she lived every day.
“Tell me the rest,” Deke said.
“It was maybe a few weeks after the nickname,” Nate answered. “I was in the locker room after practice and I heard one of the guys say something about the equipment shed.”
Right. Where Lyle and his friends hung out, usually drinking and smoking whatever they’d been able to score. Not fully Deke’s crowd, but close enough, as Jules had ever-so-helpfully pointed out. He leaned forward and squeezed his eyes shut even though he already had a sense of what was coming.
“There were three of them. Butler and his boys,” Nate said. “They were pushing her around, telling her no one wanted her there. Pretty much saying it would have been best if she died the day her parents did.” A pause, and then... “Trying to get their hands on her and hold her down.”
Deke sucked in a deep breath. His eyes stung. “She said they didn’t...”
“No,” Nate answered, knowing exactly where Deke was going. “She was fighting them off. By the time I got to them, they were, well... Pissed.” Except then a smile came into his voice, and there was flat-out pride as he added, “She did some damage. Enough for me to see, even though they were all mostly covered in mud.”
Nate paused and took a breath so ragged Deke could hear it over the phone. “They did it because of me, Deke. In my name. My own freaking girlfriend told them I wanted Fitz to know her place. I mean, Fitz handled it. She totally took them on. But it made me realize what my uncle had been trying to tell me all along. I could hate my dad all I wanted, but ignoring Fitz only made it worse. It wasn’t her fault. And...” His voice trailed off again for a minute. “She was utterly alone.”
Which, ironically, was what Jules had also said. Even more ironic since, yes, Nate’s family hadn’t just taken Fitz in, they’d claimed her officially, with Mama Gin adopting Fitz by the start of the next school year and making sure she shared their last name. But it had still taken a while for Jules and Ella to come around.
It begged the question, “Jeremiah...?”
“No,” Nate answered. “He wasn’t part of the shed thing. I don’t think he even had a clue until after it happened. I mean, I have to believe we would have known if he was that bad.”
Yeah, Deke had to agree. He’d spent many a holiday sharing a table with both of them and it had never been anything but polite. Even earlier tonight, Fitz hadn’t seemed particularly upset by anything Jeremiah had done. Not the way she’d reacted when Jules said...
Oh shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
With a sinking heart, Deke asked, “What exactly did Peggy do?” Because, yes, that’s who Nate had been dating back then. Deke had often wondered why he’d broken it off with her so suddenly and without any explanation to any of them.
There was a long pause before Nate answered, “She’s the one who sent Fitz out to the shed.”
The air went out of Deke’s lungs.
What?
Suddenly unable to sit still, Deke jumped to his feet and ran his hand through his hair. He started pacing. “How did I not know this?”
Nate didn’t even sound defensive. “Fitz made me seal that promise in blood.”
Finding himself at the windows overlooking the river, Deke let his head fall against the glass. “I can’t unknow it.”
“I know,” Nate said, his voice full of true regret. “I’m so damned sorry. I think that’s why Fitz wanted to keep it quiet.”
Which, yes, was her right. Absolutely. If she needed the insulation around herself, then more power to her. But...
Wait. That wasn’t what Nate had said. With extreme wariness, Deke asked, “What’s why?”
Nate hesitated for a few seconds before answering, “Look, she knows how much Inspiration means to you.”
“Me?”
Yes, he loved his town. But it wasn’t like he didn’t know there was a dark side.
And, said the little angel on his shoulder, he really did think she’d put it behind her.
What a fucking idiot you are, the little devil on the other shoulder chimed in.
Maybe he was in denial. Maybe she woke up dreading every day. It was clearly something he needed to be more attuned to. For now, though, he wouldn’t dwell on the fact that Fitz had never clued him in, couldn’t let himself even contemplate that his being with Peggy may have hurt her in some way. He just had to make sure he wasn’t near anyone who had been a part of hurting someone he loved.
“Are you okay?” Nate asked, reminding Deke they were still on the phone.
The phone that Deke now looked at as if Nate could see the disbelief on his face. “You’re asking me if I’m okay?”
Not one to beat around the bush, Nate said, “Well, you have been sleeping with her on and off for the last fifteen years.”
Just because he was thinking about sleeping with Fitz didn’t mean he’d actually done it.
Then he realized Nate meant Peggy. Of course.
And then he realized Nate thought there was actually a chance Deke would put Peggy before Fitz. “Are you shitting me?”
Yet it was definitely relief in Nate’s voice when he said, “Good. Because I need you to make sure Fitz is okay.”
“You want me to check on Fitz. Now?”
It was the middle of the night. They were nowhere close to nocturnal visits.
And, Christ, they were never going to be. Hell, given the way she’d run from his car, he’d be lucky if she didn’t straight out slap him the next time they saw each other.
“Fuck, no—it’s, what, two in the morning?” Nate was clearly wondering what had gotten into Deke’s head. If he knew the truth, however, there was no way he’d be saying, “You are now aware of a situation Fitz has kept under wraps for sixteen years, a situation Jules chose to bring to the surface at a time when there’s not a thing I can do about it. When there’s not a fucking thing I can do for either of them. Whether you like it or not, you’re close to some of the people who made Fitz’s life
a living hell and who she still has to deal with on a regular basis. So, yes, I would like some goddamn reassurance from one of my freaking best friends in the world that my sisters are not about to implode while I’m playing a fucking ball game in Tampa Bay!”
Since Deke felt guilty as hell for all of the above, not to mention fully understanding the reason for Nate’s tirade, he made his second mistake of the night, muttering, “Maybe you need to start thinking about coming home for good. Look after your sisters all on your own.”
Idiot. The last thing he wanted was Nate swooping in to take care of Fitz. Deke had been her best friend for years. That job was his.
Chapter Eight
Fitz spent the night tossing and turning, alternating between telling herself that the kiss was the biggest mistake she’d ever made, cringing in embarrassment that she’d flat out run away from him, and wondering, Oh, God, when can we do that again?
Once she fell asleep, there was no question how her subconscious felt. Her dreams were so X-rated she was an overheated mess when she woke up. She looked around for a minute, disoriented.
She was in her room, one hundred percent alone.
Thank God.
The rest of the morning passed...strangely. On a normal day, Fitz wouldn’t think twice about dropping in to see Deke. Today, though, she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to pretend the kiss hadn’t happened and go about business as usual, or if she should man up, seek him out and have the conversation so they could acknowledge it and move on.
Of course there was also the option of tracking him down at his bar, hauling him into the back room and acting out at least one of those dreams.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. She was a grown woman and he was one of her best friends. They could weather one kiss. Even a spectacular one.
The morning’s emails and phone calls weren’t nearly interesting enough to get her mind off it, so she left her office thinking she’d go get some coffee at Jules’s café. She was almost there when she heard Peggy call her name. Plastering a smile on her face, she turned around. “Hi, Peggy.”
“Did you order the extra tables I asked for?” the other woman said, launching into her demands without even a pretense of Iowa nice.
Fighting the urge to grit her teeth, Fitz answered, “Of course I did. The extra chairs, too. I even got them to throw in extra tablecloths at no additional charge.” Because that’s what she did; she made things happen. It just sucked big-time that as a co-sponsor of Inspiration’s Fifty-ninth Annual Father’s Day Little League Tournament with the local Jaycees, of which Peggy was chair, Fitz had to make them happen with Peggy Miller. God help her if she was still in Inspiration for the sixtieth.
Trying not to show her irritation as Peggy went through a to-do list of things Fitz had taken care of days ago, Fitz almost didn’t notice Peggy’s smile had suddenly grown wider, brighter, and sultry in a way Fitz could never pull off. In fact, Fitz was doing everything possible not to be blatant about readjusting her bra strap when...
“Ladies.”
The strap snapped into place as she spun around. Peggy smirked and took a step closer to Deke as though it were a requirement to have one golden person standing next to another so they could look down their noses at the little people. To Fitz’s deep satisfaction, Deke gave Peggy a bit of a frown and took a step away. A step closer to Fitz, in fact. Although Fitz couldn’t work the sultry thing, she had no problem whatsoever with the smug Take That smile instead.
Of course, realizing Deke was observing all this with amusement wiped the smirk off her face. She was thirty-two years old. Peggy might stoop that low but Fitz refused to.
Or, rather, she was at least embarrassed about it.
She turned to Deke. “Hi.” And that was it. She’d eaten lunch with the man practically every day for sixteen years and she was suddenly incapable of uttering a word.
Really. What was the right thing to say? Did you mean to kiss me like that last night? Might you be interested in trying again?
As much as she knew neither of those would fly, she was one hundred percent certain they were both better than the other question running through her mind: If I ran my tongue around your nipple would you be more likely to groan my name the way you did in erotic dream number one last night, or go the darker route, like in dream number two, and bend me over your knee and spank me a few times because I hadn’t asked properly?
“Fitz,” he said, his voice low and raspy and not helping at all. “You okay?”
Not if you keep looking at me like that.
Now it was Fitz’s turn to take a step back as she attempted to nod her head. She was feeling flushed and slightly dizzy. Not at all up to what was their usual sparring, although clearly Deke wasn’t going there either.
Obviously sensing she was losing the upper hand in the conversation—not that she ever had it but, being Peggy, she just assumed—Peggy shifted so she was partially blocking Fitz’s view and put her hand to Deke’s forehead.
“We should be asking you,” she said. “You’re looking a little pale, sugar. Are you feeling okay?”
First, the woman wasn’t southern. She’d lived in Atlanta for all of two minutes and had no business calling anyone “Sugar.” Second, her voice was so sweetly dripping with honey Fitz was concerned about a sudden swarm of bees.
Although Deke was a fan of Peggy’s, he wasn’t a proponent of PDA. Fitz figured that was due to not wanting to openly play favorites. So his gently but firmly taking Peggy’s wrist and pulling her hand away wasn’t a surprise. It was a surprise, however, that when he said, “I didn’t sleep so well last night,” He glanced at Fitz and smiled. “Maybe something’s going around.”
Fitz grinned.
She couldn’t help it. The last thing in the world she needed was to be flirting with Deke. No, the last thing in the world she needed was to be doing it in front of Peggy. Yet probably due to that very fact, she found herself saying, “Maybe next time you should call me. I know some excellent relaxation techniques.”
With a laugh that held more than a tinge of surprise, he answered, “I’ll be sure to do that.”
Every one of her cells jumped straight to attention.
Wow. They seriously did. It was like pop rocks fizzing under her skin.
She barely even registered Peggy trying to figure out a way to work herself into the conversation. It was time to get things back to normal territory. Fitz said to Deke, “What brings you into town so early today?” Since Deke closed the bar on Friday nights, he usually didn’t appear until the lunch rush was over. He spent most Friday mornings helping Wash out on the farm, although Fitz had a sneaking suspicion they shot hoops with some of the farmhands for as much of that time as was humanly possible.
Wash called it team building.
Deke called it a business meeting.
Fitz called it bunk.
With a shrug, Deke glanced across the street at the bar. “Family meeting,” he said, his hand going up to his baseball cap and moving the brim from forward to back.
Deacon family meetings at the bar were unusual, though not concerning. The ones at home were the ones to watch out for. Those were along the lines of “Lola’s husband just died,” whereas family meetings at the bar covered topics more like, “We’re thinking of changing the size of the napkins.” With the senior Deacons heading out for vacation soon it made perfect sense.
It also meant Deke would be busy. There wouldn’t be time for any other conversations about, say, kissing. Good. Having a little more time to digest this wasn’t the worst of things. Maybe there would even be time for another dream or two before reality sank in and everything went back to normal.
Because the reality was, she couldn’t go around kissing one of her best friends. Not like that, at least. She especially couldn’t kiss a man whose idea of a long-term relations
hip was that he’d slept with the same woman two nights in a row.
Although, come to think of it, maybe he was the best one to be kissing, since she wasn’t exactly a big believer in the whole happily ever after thing herself.
Her phone rang right then, and with a glance down she saw it was Headhunter Doug. With a murmured, “I need to take this,” she turned her back on Deke and Peggy and walked up the street.
* * *
With Peggy in front of him, blocking his view, Deke had to practically crane his head to try and get a sense of who Fitz was talking to. All he heard was, “Hi, Doug,” as she turned and walked away.
Who the fuck was Doug, and why did she have to walk away from Deke to talk to him?
Okay, yes, Deke had specifically come into town early to find her. Just tear the bandage off. He couldn’t kiss her again—not when she kissed like that. Because that would then progress to the next step, sleeping with her, and that would be a huge mistake, even if not for the fact that Nate would probably kill him. Deke was getting entirely ahead of himself, however, since her jumping out of his car last night and hauling ass inside wasn’t exactly the best sign. But it all had him off balance enough that when Peggy had put her hand on him and practically pushed Fitz out of the way in order to assert her place, it had taken every ounce of willpower he’d had not to tell Peggy off. Hell, he’d had almost no willpower in the first place because the second he’d seen Fitz it had been almost physically impossible to keep from pulling her to him and doing exactly what he’d promised himself in the early morning hours that he would never do again.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Peggy asked, looking up at him again and sounding like she was genuinely concerned, rather than just trying to get between him and Fitz.
“I said I was, didn’t I?” he said, not meaning to bite her head off, yet realizing from the way she took a step back that he had.
Deke looked up the street again to see Fitz had now turned her back on them. What the hell? They didn’t keep secrets from each other.
