Love & Rockets

by Maggie Wells

  “But I keep a flogger in my back pocket,” Christian said as he appeared out of nowhere, his tablet affixed to his hand as always. He held the pad out so Harley could see the screen. “Ordered the windows the twenty-fifth. The vinyl was backordered but came in last week. Still no delivery. Now the guy’s not returning my calls.”

  “Probably afraid of the tongue lashing,” another member of the crew cracked as he reloaded his nail gun.

  Christian ignored the comment, but Jake saw the muscle in his jaw jump. Their new project manager had been taking more than fifty shades of razzing his first day on the job, and it didn’t appear the ribbing was going to let up any time soon. Not when battered paperbacks of the bestselling books were circulated and recirculated at nearly every Home Again worksite. Jake couldn’t help but chuckle each time he spotted one. Most of these guys refused to read anything more than the ticker scrolling the latest sports scores, but he’d bet every one of them had mined the racier parts of those books for ammunition they could use to harass their newly-anointed leader. And Christian could hardly fight back when the man who’d hired him for the job had highlighted a passel of phrases and terminology for his own arsenal.

  Harley scanned the data on the screen, then nodded. “Text me the details. I’ll make a call.”

  “Thanks.”

  Christian turned and managed about a half step before Harley whiz-banged him. “Shouldn’t that be, ‘Thank you, sir’?” To his credit, the younger man kept walking. Chuckling at his own joke, Harley turned back to Jake. “Never gets old.”

  “At least not for us.”

  “Aw, you know he’s not about to complain. I’m pretty sure he gets a good amount of action based on the name alone, no matter what he says about his charm.”

  Ready to move past all speculation concerning Christian Lacour’s love life and get on with the day, Jake gestured to the stack of planks his minions had laid out. “So yeah, laminate today.”

  “And dinner at Darla’s tonight,” Harley said without missing a beat.

  Jake stiffened. The impulse to tell the man his dinner plans were none of his damn business leaped to the tip of his tongue. He tamped down the quick flare of temper the statement sparked in his chest and fixed Harley with a cool stare. Tipping his chin up to look the guy in the eye galled him, but it wasn’t nearly as annoying as Harley thinking he had a right to question his plans. Harley and Darla were not a couple. Neither were he and Darla. She hadn’t invited him to dinner because she was interested in him. She’d invited him over because she was a mother who wanted the best for her kid. A noble purpose. His reasons for accepting the invitation were honorable.

  Mostly.

  Irritated by feeling compelled to explain, Jake turned back to his volunteers before answering. “I’m going over to talk to Grace about her science project.”

  Harley’s lips tightened as he surveyed the hive of activity around them. “Mm-hm.”

  Drawing his shoulders back, he turned to face the man head-on. “I didn’t invite myself over there.”

  “Oh, I know,” Harley replied with a humorless laugh. “Darla knows sixty ways to bring a guy down without even touching him. If she didn’t want you to come over for dinner, you wouldn’t be going for dinner.”

  Jake blinked, confused about whether he was being warned. “Listen, the thought never crossed my mind—”

  “Never crossed your mind?” This time Harley turned and the two of them squared off. “Are you dead or gay?”

  “Neither. I mean, I don’t think Darla is interested.” He trailed off the second he realized he was validating the other man’s speculation. “She asked for my help.”

  “With Gracie’s project,” Harley prodded.

  “Yes.”

  “Over dinner.”

  “Listen, I don’t know why I have to explain any of this to you. I don’t even know if I can. She insulted me, then apologized, then asked me to mentor her kid.” Jake shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure if the offer of dinner was supposed to sweeten the deal or scare me off, but I liked her. Grace, I mean.” He gave his head a swift shake then planted his hands on his hips, exhausted by the whole conversation. “I met Grace and I liked her. She’s a funny kid. She likes space stuff, and so do I.”

  Harley smiled, but this time affection lit his eyes. “She’s great, isn’t she?”

  Jake eyed him speculatively, a cold, hard nugget of jealousy dropping into the pit of his stomach. Harley looked as proud as a papa, and for once, Jake considered throwing caution to the wind and winding up at least one good punch. But that would be foolish, and he was anything but a fool. Any history there might have been between Darla and Harley was obviously ancient. And no matter what the gossips in town said, Jake knew down in his gut that if Grace actually were Harley Cade’s daughter, he would have claimed her long ago.

  So he swallowed his doubts and took a scientist’s step back from the toxic cocktail of envy and jealousy stirring in his gut. The problem was, he wasn’t sure if he was more worked up about Harley’s relationship with Darla or her daughter. Either scenario was ridiculous. Harley was all but engaged to Delaney Tarrington, down-and-out heiress and St. Pat’s most notorious mean girl. Laney was beautiful but spoiled. The epitome of knife-edged Southern womanhood. Strong-willed, sweet tongued, and ready, willing, and able to slice any foe to shreds without batting a perfectly made-up eyelash. But then Laney’s daddy lost all their money. And Laney lost the safety net along with her silver spoon.

  Then things really went south for Princess Delaney.

  First, her mother was taken with breathtaking speed by an aggressive and unrelenting form of cancer. Then her father ran away with his best pals, Jack Daniel and Jim Beam. According to Brooke, Laney was busy trying to start an online clothing company, but if one listened to Harley Cade ramble after he’d had one too many glasses of scotch, she was expending all her energy on avoiding what Harley termed their inevitable nuptials.

  Drawing a steadying breath, he focused his attention on his interaction with Grace. Talking about Grace seemed a hell of a lot safer than even thinking about Darla.

  “I only got to talk to Grace for a few minutes, but yeah, she seemed very bright. Darla asked if I would give her some help with her project for the rocket science scholarship.”

  “She wants to go to Space Camp awful bad,” Harley acknowledged. “I’ve offered to pay her way a dozen times, but her mama is a stubborn one.”

  “Understatement,” Jake murmured.

  Harley grinned again. “I work around her by adding a little extra to the little extra my mom slips into Gracie’s birthday cards and stuff. Darla has a hard time gettin’ around my mama.”

  Jake chuckled. As lunch lady to a couple hundred spoiled rich kids, Harley’s mother had once ruled the St. Patrick’s cafeteria with an iron fist. Like any alum, Jake knew the man spoke the truth. “No doubt.”

  “I wanted to wish you luck with the dinner thing. Darla is a lot of things, but a good cook isn’t one of them.”

  Taken aback by the subtle shift in tone, Jake rocked back on his heels. “Oh?”

  “I think my mom sent some spaghetti sauce and stuff home with her, so you should be pretty safe, but I wanted to warn you. In case you want to have a sandwich first, or something.”

  He snorted, both amused and grateful for the data. “Is that what you do when Laney cooks?”

  “Delaney is actually a surprisingly good cook,” Harley informed him. “Of course, her favorite thing to make is reservations, but when she gets the urge to visit the kitchen, she does more than all right.”

  “Shocking,” Jake deadpanned.

  “I know.” Unfolding his arms, Harley twisted to take in the work around them. “Anyhow, I came by to tell you about the sandwich thing.”

  “And here I thought you were trying to scare me off.”

  Harley’s brows shot up. “Scare you off? Hell no. If I wanted to put the fear in you
, I would have sent my mama in.”

  Jake laughed and readjusted the hammer hanging off his belt. “That would have done the trick.”

  Stepping away, Harley shoved his hands into his back pockets and craned his neck to inspect the freshly sheet-rocked and mudded ceiling. He didn’t even glance in Jake’s direction as he issued the statement he obviously came to make. “Hurt either of them, and I’ll bury you in your brother’s swamp thingy.”

  A startled laugh burst out of him. An automatic response to the conversation’s rapid change in tenor, but also a shot of pure amusement at hearing Brian’s much-touted and highly-funded wetlands conservancy program called a ‘swamp thingy’. “I have no intention of doing anyone any harm, but your input on the subject is duly noted.”

  “Good. Now get those kids down on their knees and show ol’ Christian how a ’Bama man gets what he needs out of his underlings.”

  Chapter 4

  “Seriously, Mom? You think he’s going to look inside the toaster?”

  Darla blew an annoying curl from her forehead and shook another shower of crumbs into the open trash can before slamming the metal catch on the bottom of the appliance shut. “No, but I’ve been needing to empty the catch for a while and I figured since we were cleaning—”

  “Because a boy is coming over,” Grace teased.

  “—for your company,” Darla finished with a pointed look.

  “Our company,” her daughter corrected.

  “I’m not the one who wants to talk Klingon with dreamy Dr. Dalton.”

  “I’m not the one who called him dreamy.” With a triumphant smirk, Grace gave the kitchen counter a final swipe then threw the paper towel in the trash. “Good thing you got CiCi to donate the sauce, otherwise your dream man would discover you have no skills.”

  “I have plenty of skills,” Darla retorted as she lifted the lid on the bubbling pot. The scent of herb-laced tomatoes wafted up on a poof of steam. “Cooking isn’t one of them.”

  “You turn our laundry pink at least once a month.”

  Darla dropped the lid back onto the pot and lowered the heat. In another pot, tiny bubbles broke to the surface in anticipation of hitting a full, rolling boil. “I haven’t done that in years.”

  Grace smiled her angel’s smile as she slipped past her and out of the kitchen. “Maybe not, but you did jam the disposal with a spoon last week.”

  “Could happen to anyone,” she called after her, then tossed a dishtowel at the girl’s retreating back to drive her point home.

  Sadly, her attempt fell well short of the mark, proving that throwing things didn’t rank high in her skill set, either. Unless throwing fits counted. If conniptions counted, she could have competed for a spot on the Olympic hissy team once upon a time. Thank God, Grace showed no signs of inheriting the talent from her.

  And though little miss smarty-pants liked to mock her, Darla knew she could claim a number of very important skills she had in spades. Stubbornness. Determination. An independent spirit. Grace might not consider those skills as important as laundry or cooking at this point in her life, but one day she would understand these things made it possible for them to live the life they did. Their standard of living might not be luxurious, or even comfortable sometimes, but it was theirs and no one could tell them they were wrong.

  Bending to check the loaf of crusty bread warming in the oven, Darla squinted at the clock on the microwave. Ten more minutes. He’d be prompt. She knew he would be. Jake Dalton was one of those men who believed in crossed T’s and dotted I’s. An engineer. A scientist. A man driven by reason and logic. One who would appreciate order. Definitely a creature of habit.

  Straightening, she pulled the hem of her sauce-spattered T-shirt away from her body and made a face. The stretchy cotton read, “The sauciest slab in the South,” on the front, and “Hot and juicy in your mouth!” on the back might give a guy the wrong impression. Convinced she had everything under control, she dashed from the kitchen. Grace sat in her favorite chair, an ancient leather recliner she’d inherited from Harley. The chair was a relic from his first swinging bachelor pad—a clichéd glass and chrome accented man-apartment Darla told him made him look like a Hugh Hefner wannabe.

  The apartment was nothing more than a memory now—or a nouveau riche nightmare, depending on your taste—but the recliner endured. Darla bit her lip as she surveyed the rag-tag collection of hand-me-downs they’d collected. A cream-colored couch left over from Connie’s Martha Stewart phase stood guarded by a set of yard sale end tables. The hideous black leather recliner claimed a place of pride in front of the flat-screen television they’d inherited on one of Harley’s numerous upgrades. There was another in her bedroom, and a state-of-the-art sound system in Grace’s.

  As always, these eclectic reminders of her friends’ unflagging generosity never failed to move her. She was grateful to both Harley and his mother. At the same time, she was glad for her hard-won independence. She’d imposed on their largess for nearly five years, but when Harley’s business started to move faster, Darla and Connie found they were both craving a little permanence in their lives. For years, Connie, Grace, and she moved from one recently renovated property to another so Harley could pour those early profits back into Cade Construction. Another round of devastating storms generated a building boom and they moved three more times before Connie declared the pretty ranch house she’d moved into her own by plastering a big, bold ‘Sold’ sticker over the For Sale By Owner sign Harley’d planted in the front yard.

  Darla decided the time had come to make a grab for her own independence and moved to her first apartment a few months later. It took six full months to put an end to Harley and Connie’s well-meaning entreaties and Gracie’s incessant cajoling. They’d moved twice more since then, and each time had been an upgrade, but looking at the place now, she couldn’t help seeing how far she’d fallen by standards of a St. Pat’s alum. The place was clean and the area safe, but also bland, boxy and more than a little worn around the edges.

  “Aren’t you going to change?” Grace asked without looking up from her book.

  Snapped from her thoughts by the realization that the steaming pots in the kitchen had most likely made her hair totally berserk, she bolted for her bedroom.

  “Keep an eye on the stove,” she called over her shoulder, even though she knew Grace wouldn’t budge once she was absorbed in something. When it came to domestic skills, her little apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

  Three minutes later, she was in a cute top she’d picked up for a song at a designer consignment shop and clean jeans. She ran a little anti-fizz serum through her hair, smoothed the cowlick at her crown, then added a couple swipes of mascara. She was peering at the mirror, trying to decide if the rosy blush exertion had put in her cheeks made her look like a candidate for an EKG, when a no-nonsense rap on the apartment door jolted her like she’d been hit with the paddles.

  “I’ll get it,” Grace sang out. The creak of worn leather seemed unnaturally loud in the tiny space.

  When she didn’t hear the sound of the door opening, Darla stuck her head out of the bathroom and found her daughter lingering at the end of the hall.

  “Come on. You don’t want him to catch you primping.”

  The uneasy shift of weight from one foot to another hinted at the nerves Grace tried so hard to conceal. Like mother like daughter. Gracie bit her bottom lip and suddenly Darla was back on solid ground. Being Grace’s mother was her number one skill in life. Stretching her mouth into a wide smile, Darla stepped out of the bathroom and started down the hall, determined to make this night as perfect as possible for her brilliant, beautiful baby.

  Looping an arm over Grace’s narrow shoulders, she steered her toward the door. “Let’s go blow his socks off.”

  Still beaming with all the solar power she had, Darla opened the door to find Jake standing on the welcome mat, his fist raised to knock a second time. “Welcome!” Darla s
aw his eyes widen and the wattage of her grin increased proportionally. “Look, Grace Mary, the esteemed Dr. Jacob Dalton has come to dine at our humble table.” Withdrawing her arm, she swept a courtly bow. “Pray, do come in, your eminence.”

  ****

  Jake blinked, thrown off balance by the eccentric greeting, flashed an uncertain smile. “Uh, hi.” Shifting his gaze to the left, he spotted the deep red blush on Grace’s cheeks and determined she was clearly the saner of the two. “Hey, Grace. Nice to see you again.”

  The girl’s shy smile told him he’d hit exactly the right note. “Hi, Dr. Dalton.”

  “Jake,” he corrected. “And thank you for the, uh, invitation.” He held out the bottle of wine he’d been choking for five minutes and carefully stepped over the threshold. “I wasn’t sure what you liked, but Harley said something about his mom’s spaghetti sauce, so I went with red.”

  Darla’s smile dimmed in wattage but warmed a little as she took his offering. She also blushed, though not as rosily as her daughter. The overall effect was mind-boggling.

  “Thank you.” She read the label then dialed up her grin again. “I know nothing about wine.”

  “Me either, but the guy at the store said it would be good,” he admitted as she closed the door behind him.

  He opened his mouth to say he needed to run back out to the car to get the telescope he’d brought for Grace to use, but a tingling sensation at the base of his spine made him think maybe he hadn’t thought of all possible implications the gift might carry. Glancing at the younger girl, he wrung his hands, not entirely sure how to proceed.

  “I, um, it smells good in here.”

  Darla stared up at him for a beat too long, then started as if she’d forgotten about dinner altogether. “Oh! Yes.” She moved the wine from one hand to the other. “Well, come in and make yourself comfortable. I need to drop the pasta.” She backed toward the brightly lit kitchen, at the last moment skirting a small dining table set for three. “Grace, why don’t you show him some of your, uh, stuff.”