by Josie Kerr
More tingling. “Yes, I would love that.”
“Next weekend, Becca’s parents are taking Lily to the lake for the long weekend . . .” Rob’s voice trailed off. “So Chloe wouldn’t feel obligated to babysit. I know she’s got a social life.”
“Well, she doesn’t, really, which is both a blessing and a curse. We’re working on some things.” Tally picked at the oatmeal mask on her face. “All she talked about on Sunday was how if she had a little sister, she’d want her to be exactly like Lily.”
“Well, it seems they have a mutual admiration society, then, because Lily’s totally got a little-sis crush on your girl.”
“I think they’re good for each other.”
“I do, too.” Another body-tingling chuckle. “So, um, would that be a yes for a date next weekend?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
Rob made a noise in his throat. “Good Lord, you can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Call me sir. Damn. Quick. Change the subject so I’m not tempted to lose my manners,” he growled at her.
He growled at her. Good grief. Rob wasn’t the only one in danger of losing his manners, so Tally asked the most unsexy question she could think of.
“I didn’t realize Lily’s grandparents were in the picture. I mean, I don’t know why they wouldn’t be, but I just assumed things. Of course, you know what they say when you assume.” Tally snapped her mouth shut to quell her babbling.
“Okay, that was an excellent subject change. Wow. Total boner-killer.”
“Oh my God, Rob!” Tally cackled.
“Well, that’s the damn truth. Inchworm city over here now.” He was chuckling, though, which reassured Tally.
“I’m sorry, Rob. It’s really none of my business how you interact with her family.” Tally squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and plunged ahead. “I never know what to call her. I hate saying just ‘her’ because it sounds so cold, but I don’t feel like I can call her by her name since I didn’t know her . . .”
“And you don’t like calling her ‘wife’ because you’re seeing me, or something that approximates seeing, and also she’s dead.”
“Wow. Um, pretty much exactly that.” Tally swallowed hard. How in the world did they get from “inchworm city” to “serious town” in about three sentences?
“Why don’t you call her Rebecca?” Rob offered. “That’s her name, though no one used it except for her acquaintances and business associates.”
“Do you feel comfortable with that?”
“Sure. I think it’s appropriate.”
“Okay. Then that’s what I’ll do.”
The two fell silent, and Tally could kick herself for making him feel whatever he was feeling.
“Becca’s family didn’t care much for the fact that she hooked up with a hillbilly who was eleven years older. It took a while for them to get with the program. It’s kind of a shock to hear, ‘Oh, his family’s been here since Georgia was a colony,’ and rectify that with a toothless guy with a sixth-grade education who creates illegal liquor in a copper pot.” Rob snorted. “That toothless guy would be my old man. He passed about two years after Becca and I got married, my mama six weeks after. I took over the orchard and vineyard then. We had our first profitable year right before she passed. That changed her parents’ tune a bit, but we’re still not buddy-buddy.”
“You don’t have siblings?”
“No, I don’t. Mama always wanted more, but it wasn’t meant to be, at least according to her. I know she was sad that there weren’t going to be any more babies from me and Becca. I think she had visions of a houseful of grandbabies.” He chuckled. “She used to drive all the way to downtown Atlanta three days a week to hold the babies in the NICU.”
“You loved her very much.”
“I did. I do. I miss her. I miss my daddy, too. Actually, I miss seeing them together. They were . . . my ideal. Whatever shortcomings my old man had, he always treated my mother right. Always. He loved her deeply, and she him.”
“That’s nice to hear.” Tally stared at the ceiling fan as it slowly rotated. “Too many people just go through the motions. I sometimes think that is worse than these couples who have these volatile relationships.”
“Which ones were your parents?”
Tally thought a moment. “I never figured out why my father cheated. I mean, the women he got with were always nothing physically like Mom, which might be the whole thing, but I like to think he wasn’t that shitty of a person. But at the same time, Mom just . . . took it. Maybe it’s because she thought she was damaged goods and didn’t deserve anything better, or maybe because she, quote, unquote, trapped him by getting pregnant.”
“No offense, but your dad sounds like a dick.”
“Yeah, he kind of was. He wanted me to give up Chloe. He actually probably wanted me to have an abortion, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. That’s the only time I ever heard them actually fight and the only time I ever heard my mother stand up to him. She told him we would leave if he pushed it, and I believed her. He did, too, because there was nothing more said. Of course, once Chloe was born, he was a goner. There was absolutely no way anything could come between him and that baby.”
“That’s nice.”
“It is, though I wish he’d shown my mother the same amount of devotion he showed us. And then he got sick, and she took care of him without one complaint until he died.” Tally sighed. “But now she has Tobias.”
“And now he has her. They’re a matched set. They’ve always been a matched set. Right before Mama died, she said, ‘That Hopewell girl needs to get her behind back here and save that boy.’ She’d be glad they found their happy.” Rob yawned.
“You’re tired.”
“A little bit.”
Tally hummed and stretched. “I need to wash this mask off and get to bed. I have a seven o’clock transcription.”
“Lord, that’s early.”
“It is,” Tally agreed. “But she’s a single mom whose job starts at nine, so Billie and I are going to make it work for her.”
“Oh, damn. Speaking of lawyers—”
Tally preempted the threat she knew was coming. “I haven’t seen Chad since Saturday night. I told Billie the short version today on the phone. I’m expecting there will be some sort of fallout tomorrow.”
“You need me to come up there? Because I will.” The steely menace in Rob’s voice made her shudder, but there was a tiny bit of her that tingled at the protectiveness.
“Absolutely do not even think about coming up and meddling, Robert McFerrin. If you do, I’ll . . .”
“You’ll what?” The teasing tone was back.
That caught her off guard. “Um. I’ll think of something.”
A chuckle rumbled out of his throat. “Whoo, all right. I might have to show up just to see what you’ve got planned.”
“Oh, good grief.” She huffed, exasperated. “Night, Robbie Mac.”
“Good night, sweet Tallulah. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, babe.”
“Yay! Night, Robbie Mac.” She heard him chuckling as the line went dead.
Tally tossed the phone onto her bed and took a deep breath. She was falling for him, hard and fast, and heaven help her, she didn’t really want to stop.
Rob was busy drying his copper still after his latest moonshine run when he heard a car door slam. He looked up and saw Mary-Leland walking determinedly toward him.
“Oh, jeez,” he muttered to himself but called out, “Hey, Mary-Leland!” in greeting and went to go meet her.
She smiled brightly at him, and truthfully, the woman looked about a hundred percent happier than she ever had previously.
“Hey, Robbie Mac. I’ll not keep you very long. I’m on my way out of town, but I wanted to drop this off. Don’t open it until I leave, and I’m telling you right now, we’re good. Okay?” She thrust an envelope into his hand and nodded her head sharply.
“You okay, Mary-Leland? Friday ni
ght was—”
“The best thing that has ever happened to me. I mean it.” Mary-Leland gave him a thumbs-up and a wide grin before throwing her arms around him and giving him a big hug. “Tell your girlfriend I’ll call her as soon as I get back into town. Now, I gotta plane to catch.”
“Girlfriend? You mean Tally?” Rob called after Mary-Leland’s rapidly retreating figure. “Tally’s not my girlfriend.”
Mary-Leland turned around and, while walking backward, said, “Well, she should be!” She waved again and took off running to her car.
Rob huffed a laugh and tucked the envelope into his back pocket to examine after he finished drying the still.
Half an hour later, he moved the still back into the storage shed and went to the kitchen to work on some muscadine sorbet. He’d just pulled the frozen pulp from the freezer when he remembered the envelope in his back pocket. Needing to let the pulp thaw a bit, he leaned against the battered wood of the counter in the original mash house and opened the envelope.
And he almost passed out. Inside the envelope was a check for the full rental price he’d quoted to host the now-canceled Sampson/Bryson wedding, plus a generous cancellation fee. The amount was enough to pay his taxes, as well as to sock a little away in Lily’s college fund. Hell, there was enough to maybe take his girl on a small vacation, something they’d not done since Becca had passed.
Then he noticed the check wasn’t drawn from a personal account but was a cashier’s check. Damn. Mary-Leland was sharp. She knew that nasty mother of hers would most likely stop payment on a check now that the wedding was canceled, regardless of there being a signed contract. This would save everyone a headache.
“Miss Sampson, you just got yourself at least a year’s supply of Owl Creek Orchards and Vineyards’s finest everything. Hot damn.”
Whistling a jaunty tune, he turned back to the now-thawed pulp and got to work.
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Sorbet made, check in the bank, and cash in his wallet, Rob headed over to Hopewell Architectural Salvage to pick up the arbor, which he no longer really needed but still wanted, and to hopefully be able to entice Tally to bring Chloe over to join him and Lily for dinner.
He pulled into the shared gravel parking lot of The Backward Glance and Hopewell Architectural Salvage and caught a glimpse of Bunny’s broad back as he walked through the door of the vintage shop. Well, damn. He’d hoped he’d have some time to speak with Tally alone, but, hell, he might as well face this head-on. It’s not like he was a fifteen-year-old horndog who only wanted to get into Tally’s pants and therefore had something to fear from her two very overprotective uncles. No, he was a forty-five-year-old horndog who wanted, among other things, to get to know Tally better and maybe get into her pants. Truthfully, Bunny and Ace scared the crap out of him, even though Bunny was just a few years older. Rob drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and then got out of his truck and headed into the small shop.
“Tally? Is that you?” Ace’s muffled voice asked from the back of the shop.
Rob squared his shoulders and headed in the direction of Ace’s voice. He spied Bunny and Ace in a side room. Bunny was leaning on the counter, grinning, and Ace was behind the counter, his brow furrowed but a small smile playing on his lips.
“Hey, guys,” Rob greeted them, slightly embarrassed to have interrupted an intimate moment.
“Hell, you aren’t Tally.” Ace frowned at him.
Bunny snorted. “I told you it wasn’t her. She’s doing her volunteer thing at the legal aid office, and she’s fil—er, taking care of some personal business. I bet she’s a little later than she usually is.” He turned to Rob. “You here to pick up the arch, Robbie Mac?”
“Um, yeah. Yeah, I am. And . . . to see Tally, too.”
“Uh-huh.” The ghost of a grin had disappeared from Ace’s face. “You just saw her a few days ago.”
Rob didn’t miss the way the older man’s jaw jutted out when he finished speaking, almost as if he were daring Rob to take a poke at him. Rob unconsciously balled his hand into a fist, thinking he might just be ready to take the old goat up on his unsaid challenge, when Bunny got in his face.
“I will tell you the same thing I told Tobias Harper when he first came sniffing around Liddie: you best be sure about what you’re doing, because if I get even a whiff of impropriety, McFerrin, I will end you.”
Rob snorted, insulted. “Come on, man, you’ve known me for years.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, Mac. These women who come in here seem to think that we are just two of the girls and want to hear all the down and dirty details of their sex lives, and believe you me, you have been the subject of more than one lurid description.”
Now this little tidbit of information caused Rob to pause. “Tawney McMichaels? I can’t see her here. No offense, guys, but real vintage is not her style at all.”
“No, Tawney hasn’t been in here, but her friends Shaylene and Crystal come in here and get their fingerprints all over my glass and run their mouths about what all Tawney’s told them. And you know their mamas are friends with Una Sampson, who’s friends with Miss Penny down at the Scuppernong Café.” Ace lasered Rob with a pointed look.
Rob mentally cringed as he admitted to himself that he’d been a bit of a manwhore once he got over the initial shock of actually being a widower, and the first women who had reintroduced him to bachelor life happened to be his coworkers at the little café, four younger, wild girls who definitely had it in their heads to show him a good time. But that was three years ago, and he wasn’t up to those shenanigans any longer. Hell, it’d been several months since he’d tangled with Tawney, though it wasn’t for lack of trying on her part. What Tawney didn’t understand was that the way to get into Rob’s good graces was to be nice to the most important person in his life: Lily, his daughter. No number of blow jobs and quickies would make up for the fact that Tawney completely ignored Lily when Tawney encountered the little girl, and that was unacceptable.
“Look, I get it, guys.” Rob looked at Bunny and then at Ace. “I seemed to revert to my high school days after Becca passed, but that was then and this is now. I know Tally’s personal situation has its own set of complications, and believe me, the last thing I want to do is make life more difficult for her and Chloe. But don’t y’all think, with the amount of bullshit she’s had to deal with these past six months or so, Tally deserves to have a little fun?”
Bunny opened his mouth, but before he could opine, the woman in question appeared in the doorway, cursing, her face streaked with tears. Tally and Rob locked eyes, and she blurted, “Good crap, you are the last person I need to see today, Robert McFerrin—the very last person.”
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Tally glared at the three men, daring them to push their luck.
Ace greeted her with a tentative “Hey, Tallulah” after a few silent seconds.
Tally sniffed, took a deep breath, and straightened her back. “Hey yourself,” she sniped, and then she immediately felt guilty because it wasn’t Ace’s fault that every man she’d encountered today was an asshat. “I’m sorry, Uncle Ace. It’s been a really long, really bad day.”
“Did you get your stuff taken care of?” Ace cut his eyes over to Robbie Mac, whose face was crumpled into a confused glower, as if he was trying to decide if he was going to be offended or angry.
“Yes, and no, but I don’t really want to talk about it right now, okay? I think I just need some quiet time to regroup, and I’ll be absolutely fine.”
“Mom! Uncles! I’m here but I’m gone, okay? And I won’t be home for dinner, but I’ll be home by eight, all right?”
“Wait, what?” Any thoughts of her bad day disappeared from her mind as Tally redirected her attention to her daughter. “Chloe Elizabeth, get your behind in here right this second, or you won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”
Chloe stomped into the hallway but didn’t come close, and
Tally was immediately suspicious. “Just where do you think you’re going on a school night?” Tally asked.
“The library. It’s open late one night a week, so we’re going to study and then go to Jet’s.” Chloe crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her hip out.
“Who is ‘we’?” Tally automatically mirrored her daughter’s stance, and she thought she heard a snort, which sounded suspiciously like Rob’s, from behind her. She would deal with him later.
“Courtney Masters and I and two other people have a study group for APES.” Chloe huffed an exasperated breath. “You know this. We’ve been doing study group all year.”
Tally snapped her jaw shut because she did know that Chloe had study group on Tuesdays. But something was different about this particular meeting, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“Y’all are studying apes? Like baboons?” Ace screwed his face up. “Well, hell. I didn’t think you did that until college.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “A baboon isn’t an ape; it’s a monkey, Uncle Ace. And it’s APES class, not the animals.”
“Advanced Placement Environmental Science,” Rob piped up. When the heads of everyone in the room snapped in his direction, he shrugged. “Hello—crop and soil science degrees, remember? I know what APES is.”
Just then, a very built, very handsome, very male teenager popped his head around the corner. “Hey, Chloe, we need to get going, or we’re going to be late.”
Chloe groaned low in her throat. “Mom, this is Courtney Masters. Courtney, this is my mom, Tally, and my uncles, Bunny and Ace.” She did a double take at Rob, who had his eyes fixed on Courtney. “And that’s Robbie Mac.”
“Oh, I know Courtney.” Rob was still staring at Courtney, who had started to squirm. “Been staying out of trouble, Court?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“Good to hear.”
“O-kayyyyy. So, we’re gonna go, Mother. I’ll be back by eight, all right? Sheesh. Let’s go, Courtney.” After one final glare around the room, Chloe headed toward the door.
