“He does that.” She tried to figure out how to haul her butt off the ground with some degree of dignity. Nope, it just wasn’t possible. She’d flash her underwear – which was all she was wearing beneath this robe – any way she tried.
“In other people’s bathrooms?”
“You got me there. That’s a first.”
He stretched his arm to the side, jerking a towel off the rack. “So is this going to be a daily thing?” he asked, wrapping the dark blue cotton around his waist. “You violating my privacy? Because if I have a heads up, I can at least make it interesting.” He laughed then, completely without amusement, and glanced at the shower curtain before turning back around. “Although you did get quite an eyeful tonight, didn’t you?”
Yes, she most certainly had. “Look, I live right there.” She gestured to the porch less than ten yards behind her. “And you have no blinds. It wasn’t like I was trying to –”
“That’s an outhouse,” he said, squinting hard into the shadows.
“It’s not an outhouse,” she said, incensed. “It’s –”
“Okay, outbuilding. Whatever.”
“I assure you, there is a very large difference between an outbuilding and an outhouse. I’ll be happy to point you to an encyclopedia so that you can compare the pictures.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you seemed to have trouble with the concept of a bookstore. I’m assuming reading is not your forte.”
“You think I can’t read.” She couldn’t see his expression, backlit as he was in the window, but there was a trace of something – disbelief? Amusement? – in his voice that she couldn’t quite pin down.
“I’m sure you can read.”
“As long as the book has pictures?”
A piece of pine straw poked her in the butt. This was ridiculous; Sarah pushed herself to her knees. “Look, it’s just that based on your churlish reaction earlier –”
“Wait.” This time he laughed out loud. “You spy on me all morning. You send your” he glanced behind him “cat over here to do God knows what and then watch me singing in the shower and you’re implying that I’m the one who’s rude?”
Sarah had to admit that he had a point. Except for the fact that she couldn’t send Useless to his litter box, even if she tried. “If you’d stop talking over me and let me –”
“Oh, now I’m talking over you.”
“– apologize. I’m trying to be neighborly here, damn it!”
“Neighborly, huh?” He leaned on the sill, suddenly casual, and though she still couldn’t see his eyes she could hear the leer in his voice. “In that case I’ll be down in a minute. You just stay there, right like that, on your knees.”
The force of Sarah’s indrawn breath nearly knocked her over.
“You… jerk.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The window came down, only to open again a few seconds later. “Here’s your familiar.”
Useless was unceremoniously dumped onto the nearby branch.
Her familiar, Sarah thought hotly, as she coaxed her defective animal out of the tree.
So. Tucker Pettigrew might be an asshole. But apparently he wasn’t dumb.
CHAPTER FOUR
“WE need more cookies.”
Allie glanced up from the baking sheet she was loading. “I just gave you the last of the batch Josie made.”
Sarah’s sharp green gaze landed on the cooling rack. “So we’ll use those.”
“But…” the flutter in Allie’s stomach was akin to panic. “I just made them. I haven’t tasted them yet.” Why had Josie picked today to visit her sister in Savannah? “We’re not even supposed to be open!”
“Hasn’t stopped the looky-loos from poking their heads in. Most of Will’s police force has been in here, although that could have been a swarm of locusts, given the way they ate whatever wasn’t nailed down.” Sarah picked up a snicker doodle and bit in. “Damn, that’s really good, Al. Make sure Josie knows that recipe’s a keeper.”
“You don’t seem taken aback by all the sudden attention.”
Sarah gave her a pitying look. “Honey, you’ve been under your rock too long. Two new men, one of them pretty enough to be your sister, the other a Pettigrew. Half the unmarried women in town have stopped by, and I’m expecting the other half before the week’s out. I even saw Carolann Frye venture next door with some kind of casserole, which I guess means her third divorce is final. I kept waiting for her to be clubbed and dragged inside by her hair extensions, but since I saw her passing back by with her covered dish about fifteen minutes ago, I guess Pettigrew wasn’t accepting callers.”
“Because he’s down at the hardware store, buying paint.”
“Well. That explains the lull.” Sarah turned toward the gorgeous brunette who’d popped up in their doorway. “Rainey Stratton. I haven’t seen you since before you had breasts. My, how things change.”
Sarah brushed cookie crumbs from her own significant cleavage before meeting Rainey in the kind of hug that came from long-standing and deep affection. “Look at you.” She held the younger woman at arm’s length. “Pretty as a picture. And making me feel like I should just go ahead and get out the wheelchair now.”
Rainey chuckled. “Come on. You’re what? Thirty?”
“Ouch. Twenty-nine and holding. I saw your mama at Culpepper’s the other day, and she said you were getting ready to start the fall semester. I guess all those nights I made you read instead of watching TV eventually paid off.”
“You were the meanest babysitter I ever had. Hi, Miz Hawbaker.”
“Call me Allie.” She returned Rainey’s smile as Sarah handed their visitor a cookie.
“Don’t tell me you came by here hoping to get a look at Tucker Pettigrew,” Sarah said sternly, hooking her thumbs into the pockets of her well-worn jeans. “He is definitely too old for you.”
“Being as I just told you he’s at the hardware store, wouldn’t I be there if I wanted a look at him? And anyway, I saw him yesterday. He came by Daddy’s office to see about renting a dumpster and some extension ladders.” She leaned against the counter, all long bare legs and youthful indiscretion. “Had that friend of his with him.” Rainey wiggled her eyebrows, nibbled the cookie. “Now him, I wouldn’t mind getting another look at. Wow, these cookies are good. Did you make them Miz… Allie.”
“What? Oh, um, yes.” Allie realized her attention had drifted. She herself hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of Mason for the past couple days. Not that she’d been looking… “Just followed Josie’s recipe, really.”
“Josie’s a culinary genius. Y’all are going to sell these like hotcakes. I bumped into Darryl Tolliver – looking pretty dang cute in his police uniform – and he told me you were passing out free samples. Nice way to get people in to have a look around, as if they weren’t all dying for an excuse to poke their nose in anyway. A bookstore.” She polished off the snicker doodle and winked at Sarah. “I should have known. God knows you forced enough of them on me as a kid. ‘Course, I’m planning on being a teacher, so it’ll come full circle soon enough. Y’all need any part time help?”
Feeling like she’d just been steamrolled, very gently, Allie blinked at Sarah, who started to laugh. Her long curls coiled like copper springs as she threw back her head. “I think we’ve just conducted our first job interview,” she said to Allie.
“Since I transferred to the local university branch, I’ll be living at home.” Rainey rolled her dark eyes. “But I’ll be free most evenings and weekends. And come on, books? Coffee? Cookies?” She snagged another one. “Who wouldn’t want to work here. Is something burning?”
“Oh, shoot!” Allie scrambled to grab an oven mitt. She must have forgotten to set the timer. The blackened chunks of sugared rock she pulled out weren’t even good enough to feed Sarah’s cat. “I’ll just…” she waved off the fumes, made a vague gesture toward the back door. “Maybe the birds will eat them.”
She carried out
the baking sheet while Sarah and Rainey discussed the younger woman’s potential employment. Allie marveled at how casually Rainey had come in, chatted, and asked for a job. Allie’d never been that… easy with people.
She tossed the burnt cookies off of the porch.
“Ouch!”
Allie glanced up to see Mason ducking under a hail of projectile pastries.
“Oh no.” She felt like an idiot. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
“No, no.” He reached up to brush blackened crumbs out of his thick blond hair. “My fault entirely. I should have… are these biscuits?”
“What? No. I mean yes. At least, they were supposed to be,” she said as a charcoal corpse dropped onto his dusty sneaker.
“Ah… if you’re still in the way of looking for opinions, I think these might be a touch overdone.”
The smile that moved her lips quivered like a muscle long out of use. But when he looked up, an answering grin spreading across his face, she slipped into what she realized must be her default mode when it came to him: stunned stupid.
“I’ve been watching people come and go all day, and I have to confess that I was coming over here to shamelessly beg.” He looked at the detritus around his feet. “Although this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.”
It took her a full minute to realize it was her turn to speak. “I’m sorry.” Crap, she’d already said that. And when he merely continued to smile at her like a patient adult with a slow witted child, added “I burned them.”
“You don’t say.”
Because she was making an even bigger fool of herself than she had the first time she’d met him, Allie told herself to get a grip. So he was good-looking – okay, he was flat-out gorgeous – but it wasn’t like she was in the market for a gorgeous man. Or any kind of man, really. And even if she were, men who looked like Mason didn’t bother with women like her.
“There are more cookies in the kitchen,” she told him, because at least she still knew how to be gracious. “I’d be happy to make up a plate for you. And maybe a cool glass of lemonade to wash them down? It’s awfully hot today.”
“Ah, Tucker has had me scraping paint all afternoon.” Mason grimaced at his filthy jeans and sweat-stained T-shirt. “Perhaps I shouldn’t come inside…”
“Don’t be silly. I’d love to have you.” Too late, Allie realized how that sounded. “Inside, I mean.” Her cheeks flushed as his lips twitched.
“And I’d love to be had,” he said blandly. “Inside.”
The heat traveled from her face to a region farther south.
“Allie.”
Everything that had begun to warm inside her chilled at the sound of the familiar voice. Turning away from Mason, she looked toward the other end of the porch.
“Hello, Wesley.”
He looked… good, was all she could think. His light brown hair freshly cut, his lightweight suit crisp and neat as always.
But it was the distance in his brown eyes that made her yearn to hide. Just fold herself away into smaller and smaller compartments until there was nothing left for him to see.
Because she couldn’t, Allie firmed the lip that wanted to tremble. And calling on every bit of the dignity that had been drummed into her since birth, forced a congenial smile to her face. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
“I heard voices back here.”
And given the way his gaze flicked over Mason’s disheveled, sweaty clothes, it was clear he wasn’t impressed by what he was seeing.
Well, screw him.
“I need to speak with you. Alone.”
She flashed back to the last time he’d said those words. The Beaufort County Bar Association Christmas party. Then, she’d been wearing a Chanel suit and Wesley’s engagement ring. “I’m afraid you caught me at a bad time, Wesley.”
“I understand you’re busy.” He frowned at the baking sheet, the apron she wore over paint-stained shorts. “But it’s important.”
Allie had thought, at one time, that if she could just get Wesley alone again, just talk to him, that they’d be able to resolve their differences. But that had been heartbreak and desperation speaking. And while her heart might not be whole, she was no longer desperate. She didn’t want to be alone with Wesley.
But nor, she thought, as she slid a sideways glance at Mason, did she want to have this conversation in front of a virtual stranger. Particularly this one.
“Alright.” She mustered another smile. Maybe if she faked enough of them her face would simply freeze in that position. “Sarah is in the kitchen, Mason. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to get you those, er, biscuits.”
His answering smile was pure appreciation, though it dimmed considerably as he looked past her shoulder. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Giving Wesley one last glance, Mason climbed the steps and faded into the kitchen.
“That was rude.” She turned on Wesley, and had the pleasure of seeing shock replace the look of superiority on his face.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Mason is a friend.” Sort of.
“Well then, I see your taste in friends continues to decline.”
“My friends are lovely. It’s my taste in lovers that seems to be lacking.”
Fury leapt into those mild brown eyes, but he put his hands up as if to calm himself down.
“Look. I didn’t come here to get into all this again.” Taking a deep breath, he bent to pick up his briefcase. When he stood back up, his face was a mask. The same mask he’d worn the day he’d broken their engagement – and her heart – just weeks before their wedding. “I heard down at the courthouse that your brother’s divorce papers finally came through today. And someone said they saw him at McGruder’s.”
Oh… Harlan. He hadn’t said a word. “Wesley –”
He swiped a hand through the air. “Forget it. I just thought you’d want to know.”
Allie watched him walk away. And considered that she’d spent too much of her life doing just that. Trying to do the right thing. And watching the people she loved leave anyway. But when she turned toward the kitchen to get her keys, she saw Sarah standing at the door.
“I’m sorry.” She shrugged helplessly.
Sarah simply held out her hand, dangling Allie’s keys. “He’s an asshole.”
Allie closed her eyes, because it was too hard to see the absolute understanding in Sarah’s. Her friend was the only one who knew exactly how far she’d fallen after Wesley broke it off.
“I have to go get Harlan home before he does something stupid. I don’t want Will to have to put him in jail.”
“Go.” The keys were pressed into Allie’s hand. “Call me if you need any help.”
TUCKER loaded the last of the five gallon paint buckets into the bed of the pickup. He’d never seen himself as a truck person before – hell, he’d never seen himself as a vehicle person before, considering he’d never owned one – but he had to admit that the shiny black Ford he’d leased after turning in the moving van the other day made something essentially masculine hum through his blood.
Almost like having your first woman, he thought ruefully, running his palm over the tailgate as he locked it into place. It gave you a little thrill of possession whenever you felt her vibrating beneath your hands.
Because he felt ridiculous, at his age, to be getting mooney-eyed over a hunk of metal, Tucker wiped the sweat off of his brow before fishing in his pocket for the key. Damn, it was hot. The big oak trees that spread over everything blocked the worst of the sun, but there was only so much trees could do. Especially when the air was wet enough to swim in.
If he’d given any consideration to the fact that his parents’ – his – house didn’t have central air, he didn’t recall it now. But spending the past several nights tossing and turning on damp sheets while various bloodsucking insects came through his open windows made him realize that he was either going to have to invest in a couple of those window
air conditioners or at the very least, some screens. Otherwise Mason would wake up one day to find him exsanguinated in his bed.
Maybe he should cut both himself and Mason a break tonight and find a nice, cool bar to hang out in for a few hours. As long as he could convince Mason to keep his wandering eye – and other body parts – to himself.
He’d managed to keep his friend too busy to have any leftover energy to vent, because Tucker didn’t feel like dealing with the fallout that would end up his problem when Mason headed home. Because women – even sensible, sophisticated women – tended to want a repeat performance. And Mason was rarely interested in an encore. Tucker had had to run interference with more than his fair share of jilted, angry females over the years. So while he was here, Mason could damn well keep it zipped up. Tucker already had enough crap to wade through in this town.
As he was wondering where the popular hangouts were in a place like this – so that he could hopefully avoid them – Tucker spotted a flickering beer sign in a window down the street. The building was squat, brick and dumpy, an ugly duckling in a town filled with charming swans. There were only two cars in the gravel parking lot, both of them pickups considerably less sparkly than his. One of them had a gun rack. The other a decal of the confederate flag.
As Tucker considered that that particular establishment might not be the best choice for a Yankee transplant and a man who wore stage makeup in his nine-to-five, a dark green Jaguar pulled up next to the dusty pickups in the lot. And he watched, with some surprise, as the little dark-haired woman from the bookstore – Hawbaker’s sister – climbed out.
Christ, she was tiny. A little on the wan side, too, with those huge blue eyes almost swallowing her face. She appeared harassed – so harassed, in fact, that she didn’t shut her car door all the way before heading inside. The thick plank wood of the bar’s front door nearly smacked her in the back of the head after she’d finally wrested the thing open.
Tucker looked at her car, then at those pickups, back toward the dingy windows of the ugly bar. And got a little itch on the back of his neck that he recognized.
Mr. Write (Sweetwater) Page 4
