Sweet Southern Nights (Home In Magnolia Bend Book 3)

by Liz Talley

  The older black lady closed the door behind Eva and jerked her head toward the dark sedan parked behind Eva’s car. “Door’s unlocked. Have you given him anything for the fever?”

  Eva trotted down the stairs, sweet relief flooding her. She wasn’t alone. People who wanted to help were all around her. She could do this thing. She could be the guardian Charlie needed. “No. My friend just brought over some medicine, but then I felt Charlie and knew I needed to take him to a doctor.”

  “Was it that man who just left? I wondered about him,” Melba said, sliding into her car, which had smooth leather seats and smelled like cherry air freshener. The car shone like a new penny.

  “He’s engaged to my friend,” Eva said, making sure Melba understood she wasn’t playing footsies while Charlie was in the house. Nope, she did that beside lakes—and had an ant bite to prove it. Eva settled Charlie in the backseat. “I need to get his booster. Be right back.”

  She jogged over to her car, ripped out the booster and resettled Charlie in the proper restraint. She looked at Melba to see if it netted her a brownie point.

  Melba gave nothing away, so Eva slid into the passenger seat and clicked her seat belt into place in the nick of time. Melba shifted into Reverse and shot backward as if they were in a cop movie, chasing a bad guy. Eva grabbed the handle above her head as Melba shifted again, earning a squeal of tires as she headed out of the subdivision. “So where to?”

  “Head into town. I’ll call Fancy and see what she thinks is best. Fancy is the woman—”

  “I know who she is. We’ve talked before. Let’s get Mr. Charlie taken care of, and sweetheart, I’m a by-the-book hardass when it comes to these kids. I don’t play. Know what I mean?”

  Eva swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But, sugar, what I just saw back there tells me all I need to know.”

  Eva closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? For…?”

  “For forgetting the appointment. For my house being a wreck and me looking like death warmed over. And then Charlie… I was supposed to help him get over all that happened to him. I was supposed to keep him healthy and well. And he’s so sick.” Eva sniffed to keep from crying. She didn’t want to be weak in front of this capable woman, but she was so tired. Instead of reveling in what had happened between her and Jake yesterday, she’d been deluged by laundry, going over homework and a horrid night of tears, high fever and, yes, wet bedsheets.

  “You do know that kids run high fevers often. He has a virus, at worst, the flu. Kids are remarkably resilient. Charlie will be fine, Eva. And I do believe you mistook my meaning. This was not criticism for failing at having your house vacuumed or not wearing lipstick. It was a compliment. You’ve made Charlie a priority, and a woman who looks like you do—no offense—is worried about the right things in life.” Melba reached over and patted her leg. “You’re doing fine.”

  Eva pressed her fingers to her eyes and tried like hell not to cry. Melba’s words were exactly what she needed. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure I could do this, but I’m hanging in there.”

  “You’re doing good, Eva,” a small voice in the backseat said. “You singed me my favorite song.”

  Melba cocked an eyebrow as she whipped into a turn. “See?”

  Eva nodded. “Yeah, but you didn’t hear how bad my singing was.”

  “Sugar, I don’t have to.”

  *

  JAKE HAD TEXTED Eva four times that morning and received diddlely-poop from her.

  After yesterday at the lake, his step was lighter, his heart fuller and his back a little sore from a rock he’d rolled onto while making love to Eva. He’d been looking forward to being a bit more front and center in Eva’s life, but her failure to respond indicated the opposite.

  He wasn’t a needy sort of fellow, but her lack of response had dinged his pride. Which was silly. But still.

  “Where’s Eva?” he asked, tromping into the firehouse, juggling a tin of muffins his mother had made.

  Dutch looked up from his position on the couch. Jake’s fellow firefighter was deep into another sudoku puzzle. “She ain’t comin’ in. Moon’s switching shifts with her this week.”

  Irritation filled Jake. “Why?”

  “Something to do with the kid.”

  “Charlie?” Jake asked.

  “I guess.”

  Jake pulled out his cell phone. Still no response to his earlier queries. “I better call.”

  Dutch ignored him and Moon came in, cracking a fart joke and breaking into the muffin tin. Jake slipped to the back and called Eva.

  On the fourth ring she answered, sounding harried. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I’ve been worried.”

  “Sorry. I meant to call but things have been crazy this morning. Hold on a sec.” In the background Jake could hear Eva talking to someone. “I’m going to have to call you back, Jake.”

  “Wait. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll call you.” And then she hung up.

  Jake didn’t want to feel miffed, because he knew Eva had a good reason. He’d just expected things to be different once he admitted that he thought he was falling in love with her.

  Last night when they’d talked over the phone before bed, they’d whispered sweet things to each other. He’d talked about her luscious satin skin, and she’d complimented some of his best moves. They each lay in separate beds several miles apart, but the intimacy and tenderness had been so real. And tonight he’d fantasized about sneaking into her room. Dutch wouldn’t hear an explosion in a nitroglycerin plant once his head hit the pillow, so sneaking around and having naughty times would have been a breeze. But that was off the table.

  The phone rang.

  Eva.

  “Hey.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t talk. I was at the pharmacy counter. Charlie has the flu, and I had to get a prescription for some obnoxiously priced medicine. I’m pretty sure I’ll be living on bologna this month.”

  “I won’t let you starve,” he joked, flopping onto the old recliner Hank had brought from his house. “Fancy won’t let you starve.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. Good thing, because taking care of a kid is expensive…and I’ve already used four sick days. Thank goodness I’m not on again until Thursday night. Then I’m going back-to-back, taking Moon’s Friday shift. I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

  “I can come over tomorrow afternoon when I get off.”

  “And get the flu?”

  “Already had my flu shot.” He wanted to tell her he had to see her but Jake was a pro at pretending indifference.

  “I miss you, too. I’ve been thinking about yesterday, about the way your body felt next to mine.”

  Jake felt his body stir. “Don’t go there, babe. I’m stuck here with Farts A Lot and Snores Insanely. I can’t get—” he lowered his voice “—horny.”

  Eva laughed. “Well, the way I look now, you could call me the erection killer. I’m walking ED.”

  “Never.”

  “Still, I think you better wait until this medicine is in his system. No need for you to get sick.”

  Jake said his goodbye and hung up, disappointed he wouldn’t see Eva for a few days. But the rightness between them felt so different than anything he’d ever had with another woman.

  It shocked him.

  For the past few months he’d been restless, hungrier than normal to blow this town and make a new life for himself. Perhaps his discontent hadn’t been about Magnolia Bend or his career…maybe it had been about loneliness.

  Okay, so picking up a little company for a night or two had never been an issue. Willing women were a dime a dozen around any honky-tonk within a fifty-mile radius. Lonely looked for lonely. But this wasn’t about a physical thing. No, what he’d needed was something his brother John had found, something Abigail had found—a purpose for living.

  Jake hadn’t really had one.

  But seeing Eva in a new light, seein
g how well she fit him on all levels, made him understand. It was as if he’d been near-sighted and then pulled on a pair of glasses for the first time. All the fuzzy edges dissolved into sharp contrast. So he knew what he had with Eva was right and good. And he damn sure didn’t want to wreck it by being demanding or unsupportive.

  He’d see if Fancy would whip up her infamous chicken soup for him to drop off, and he’d give Eva whatever she needed, because for the first time maybe ever, someone else was more important than himself.

  “Who are you?” he said to his reflection in the mirror hanging over the beat-up dresser beside the twin bed.

  Then he laughed. Because at that moment he was something more than Jake the Magnolia Bend man whore.

  He belonged to someone, and that made him feel almost normal.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHEN JAKE PUSHED through the door at Ray-Ray’s, everything looked the same. Should have been comforting to Jake, but instead it felt tired. Same place, different man.

  “What’s up, Jake?” Ray called from behind the scarred bar. The owner/bartender wiped a mug clean as the perpetually tired Bonnie shuffled past with a tray full of beers for a few rowdy farmhands sitting in the corner playing cards. Jake’s brother Matt played darts with the same guys who came every Thursday, and Clint sat in the same spot he’d sat every Thursday since he and Jake had started coming to Ray-Ray’s.

  Except that this Thursday Clint had driven himself.

  “What the hell, dude?” Jake asked, sliding onto a stool at the table.

  Clint didn’t look up. Instead, he studied the half-filled glass of whiskey as if it was a specimen under his microscope.

  “I went to pick you up and your dad said you’d driven yourself. You couldn’t text and save me a trip out to the Duck Blind?”

  “Thought you liked driving out to the lake,” Clint said, not looking at Jake.

  An odd feeling awoke in Jake’s gut. Clint sounded accusing, but why? The subject of dating Eva would be a hard one to breach since Clint was friends with both of them, and there was this odd jealousy thing happening between them. But Clint would eventually be happy for them. Jake hoped. “I do. I’m pretty fond of the lake.”

  “I know,” Clint said, his tone expressionless. “And so you know, I can damn well drive myself. I’m not some pathetic loser who has to wait on the grand Jake Beauchamp to pick him up.”

  Jake rocked back at the venom in Clint’s voice. “I don’t do that.”

  “Right,” Clint said, turning a shoulder toward Jake.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Jake asked, waving Bonnie away when she headed toward them. Though he could use a drink, he’d rather be clearheaded for the conversation that had been brewing for years.

  He didn’t need this bullshit with Clint. The last few days had been hard enough not being able to be with Eva, not to mention his job rebuilding a fence for Old Man Turner. And then there was Bobby John, who had approached him about taking some arson investigation classes in order to make a move as the parish investigator.

  Bobby John had applied for a position in Shreveport that would pay more and allow him to be near his family—he’d gotten the call that he was hired on Tuesday. The position for St. James parish would need to be filled by the first of the year. But Jake wasn’t even sure he wanted to stay with the department anymore, much less switch to that sort of job. But it might be perfect for Eva, especially since the hours were more nine to five. So, yeah, dealing with Clint acting like a bitch over whatever burr stuck in his ass wasn’t desirable.

  “What the hell is wrong with me?” Clint drawled sarcastically. “More like what the hell isn’t wrong with me.”

  “Come on, Clint. We’re so past self-pity,” Jake said. “Say what you gotta say.”

  “Self-pity. Now there’s a word,” Clint scoffed with a bitter laugh. “I’ve never gone there. Right? I’ve been Polly Positive this entire time. But even a man such as me needs to sink down in the crap hole of self-pity every once in a while. Don’t take that away from me, friend.” Of course, the way Clint said friend didn’t sound too friendly.

  Jake didn’t have the energy or the patience to play the game Clint had started. “Say what you need to say.”

  Clint turned to him then, anger aflame in his dark eyes. “Fine. I want you to leave Eva the hell alone.”

  “What?”

  “Eva. The woman you took to the lake Sunday and no doubt screwed very well if reputation is to be believed.”

  “What?”

  Clint continued. “Well, I’m making an assumption it was well done. But yes, Eva. That woman. Leave. Her. Alone.”

  His friend had hit him with a metaphorical wrecking ball, and he lay among the rubble, dazed, confused and, as always, guilty. “How did you—”

  “I saw your truck go past my house. Saw Eva next to you. I knew where you were going. You always like to screw at the lake.”

  “You don’t understand. Eva and I are together. She’s different.”

  Clint laughed. Not a ha-ha laugh but a braying laugh of disbelief. “So you’re a couple? Yeah. Okay.”

  “Why can’t you be happy for me?” Jake asked, anger starting to chew on his gut.

  “Because I hate you.”

  “Clint.”

  “Yeah, let’s just be honest. Hatred for you has festered inside me for a long time. I got accustomed to it. It was almost comforting. Do I love you? Yeah. Do I hate you for all you’ve taken from me? Yeah.”

  Jake had no words. He knew Clint had resented the loss of his legs, had mourned the death of the girl he’d been dating and sometimes allowed jealousy of Jake to break through the surface, but hate? “I’m sorry you feel that way, but you have no right to tell me to stay away from Eva.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Clint said, angling his chair so he faced Jake. His longtime friend’s face seemed carved out of unrelenting stone. Something horrible burned inside Clint’s eyes, something he’d nurtured for too long. “Because I care about Eva. Because she doesn’t deserve you. She deserves more than some man who will use her and discard her. So why don’t you, for the first time in your life, take the unselfish route and leave her alone?”

  “How can you say those things?”

  Clint narrowed his eyes. “Because they’re true. Don’t you get it, Jake? I wanted Eva. I wanted to marry her and build a life with her. I took it slow, letting her get to know me, being patient, but what good did that do?”

  “I didn’t know. You never said anything.”

  “I thought I didn’t have to. I mean, you’ve screwed every available woman in this town. I thought you had the decency to leave the good girls alone. But no. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? You just had to take one more thing from me.”

  Jake slapped a hand on the table, rattling the empty beer bottle that had been left there. It fell over, leaving sudsy foam on the lacquered table. “I didn’t take anything from you.”

  Clint shook his head. “You’ve taken everything. Don’t you get it? You get everything you want. And the thing is, everyone knows you don’t really want Eva. You’re bored. She’s there. You’re just messing around and next month, what? She’ll be yesterday’s news and you’ll be on to the next woman. But Eva’s different. She’s tender and not like those girls who know what they’re getting when they follow you out that door.” Clint jabbed his finger at the tinted glass door.

  “I won’t hurt Eva.”

  “Yeah, you will. You always do. So why not spare her and be noble for once in your life? Leave her alone and let her have a chance at happiness.”

  “With you?” Jake asked. He’d never felt so slammed, so hurt over the accusations spilling from his best friend’s mouth. “You think you can give her what she wants?”

  Clint stilled. “I can give her something you can’t—commitment and respect. But I may not be the right guy for Eva. I can handle that disappointment. I’m used to life’s disappointments. But I do know one thing—you are unequivocally th
e wrong guy for Eva.”

  Jake gritted his teeth and tried not to unleash his anger on Clint. They were basically the same words Matt had uttered when they went fishing. But still it was hard to hear them from Clint’s mouth. “Is this about the accident? Is this some transference of anger stemming from repressed—”

  “Don’t use some psychobabble you learned in freshman psychology on me. Yeah, I’m angry about the wreck. I’m pissed you came out that night, that you insisted I was too drunk to drive but yet managed to soberly wrap us around a tree. And I get it was an accident. Just one of those things in life.” He delivered that last line with bitterness.

  “No one could have anticipated the deer crossing our path, could have known the tires were bald on my truck, could have even understood that moving me from where I lay would worsen my condition. I understand all those things. You were trying to do the right thing and it backfired. So, no, though sometimes I feel envy as I watch you strutting around here, dancing with some girl and then no doubt giving her a good time in the back of your truck, and though I itch to punch your lights out every now and then, this is not about the accident. This is about Eva and your track record of being a lowlife with women.”

  Speaking of punching someone, Jake wanted for the first time in his life to punch a crippled man. Clint’s words seared him. No, sliced him like a dull razor. “So I’m what? Destined to be this?” Jake swiped a hand down his too tight T-shirt and well-worn jeans designed to show off his ass. Yeah, months ago he’d designed his wardrobe in order to get laid. He wasn’t proud of it at that moment, but he knew what he had been.

  But Eva had changed him.

  Hadn’t she?

  He certainly had thought so, but with Clint’s hard words bashing him and Matt’s earlier admonition regarding Eva, Jake wondered if the men closest to him could see what he could not.

  Had he been deluding himself? Was being with Eva dishonorable?

  “I don’t know, Jake, but I do know that if you asked anyone to describe Jake Beauchamp they’d say, ‘He’s a good guy but a screwup,’ and I don’t think Eva deserves being a casualty of your messed-up world.” And with that last comment, Clint downed his liquor and rolled away, leaving Jake sitting at the table.