Fifteen curse-filled minutes later, Carly sank against the sofa, squeezing her eyes shut over hot, angry tears. A truckload of rotten vegetables would’ve been a red-carpet gala compared to this.
No way. Just no way.
“Good God, Carly. You look like death warmed over. Moldy veggies aren’t that tragic, are they?” Sloane asked, making her way inside with concern.
“That wasn’t Gavin. It was my divorce attorney. Travis refused to sign the final papers outlining the distribution of joint property.” The words were hollow and awkward as they spilled from her mouth. Surely this was a nightmare and any minute now she’d wake up, heaving with relief.
“What? Can he even do that? You guys already split everything when you left,” Sloane said, sitting next to Carly on the couch.
“Apparently, he’s claiming things weren’t distributed equally and fairly, and some items of ‘sentimental value’ haven’t been accounted for.” She paused to rake a hand through her hair. Travis had been so much talk and so little action over the course of their marriage that she hadn’t actually expected he’d go through with his threat to drag out their divorce.
“Travis has a shriveled up raisin instead of a heart. What sentimental items could he possibly be talking about?”
“My attorney has a list. She said it’s mostly stupid stuff, like the Best Hits of Steely Dan CD I gave him for Christmas in 2010 and a quilt we got as a wedding present. Like the damned thing is an heirloom or something. It came from Target, for God’s sake.”
“Bastard.” Sloane swore, putting a much-needed arm around Carly. “He’s not getting away with this. We’ll go through all your stuff, right now. It shouldn’t be too hard to find what he’s looking for and get him off your back. Whatever we can’t find, we’ll just replace. Hell, I’ll buy him a hundred Steely Dan CDs if it’ll make him crawl back under his nasty old bridge.”
Despite Sloane’s attempt at humor, the tears Carly had kept at bay finally breached her lids and streaked down her face.
“It’s not that easy. Travis picked things he’s alleging can’t be replaced, knowing full well I don’t have a clue where half of them are. I can argue that I don’t have whatever I can’t find, but the paperwork to sort it out is going to take forever. And that’s not even the worst part.”
“There’s more?” Sloane’s hand froze, midrub on Carly’s back.
She nodded, blowing out a shaky breath as she wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Apparently, he’s petitioning to contest the divorce itself, saying he wants to try counseling in an effort to reconcile.”
Sloane coughed out a bitter laugh. “Like that’s going to happen!”
“It’s all a ruse. I can still proceed with the divorce because I filed on grounds of infidelity, and it’ll be granted. Travis can’t make me go to counseling. My lawyer will file a motion for something called . . .” Carly broke off to read what she’d written down on the pad by the phone. “A default judgment, and that’ll be that. But the hearing will take a while to schedule, and then I’ll have to go to New York once it is.”
“That’s not so bad. At least you know you’ll win,” Sloane said with optimism.
Carly shook her head. She had to hand it to Travis. He must’ve earned an advanced degree in underhanded scheming to have come up with this part.
“Yes, but you’re missing the bigger picture. What Travis wants is to wear me down, not win me back. The grapevine in our neighborhood is thick, Sloane. All he has to do is whisper this to the right people, and my mama is going to catch wind of it.” Carly shuddered, all the feelings of bliss she’d woken up with shredded down to dust.
A sympathetic smile washed over Sloane’s face. “Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re thirty-one. And it’s not like your mother doesn’t know you’re getting divorced.”
“No, but she’s the only woman on the planet more stubborn than I am, and she wants me to reconcile with Travis. And even though you and I know it’s just on paper, he’s going to do all he can to convince her that he wants me back.” Carly blew out a defeated breath and threw her head back against the couch cushions.
“Which means that between the two of them, my life is about to become a living hell.”
Jackson palmed the handles of the double-bagged Chinese takeout and reached across his passenger seat to grab a familiar, timeworn box. His plans for the evening were a bit of a gamble, but after tossing around the usual hangouts, keeping it simple seemed like the best way to go. Carly had been agreeable to staying in when he’d called her earlier that day to firm things up, so he relied on the two things he knew would appeal to her.
Good food and healthy competition.
Sauntering up to the bungalow, Jackson took in the low-slanted shadows of early evening, enjoying the fact that the heat from the week before had broken into cooler, typical mountain weather for July.
“Hey.” Carly stood in the doorframe, her chestnut-colored hair tumbling down the back of her pale yellow tank top in loose waves, and Jackson promptly forgot his name.
“You didn’t let me ring the bell,” he blurted, and she gave a soft, throaty laugh he felt down to the soles of his shoes.
“Sorry. I’m hungry, and your Chinese food precedes you.” She gestured him inside, and he followed her into the bungalow.
“Okay, your sixth sense for food is starting to freak me out a little bit.” He slipped the box to an out of the way side table before proceeding to the kitchen. Carly was good and all, but come on. Not even she could smell Kung Pao chicken through a frigging door made of solid oak.
A flash of mischief flitted over her face. “The name of the restaurant is on the bag.” Carly smiled as she took it from him and hoisted it onto the smooth granite countertop.
“Oh, right.” Of course he hadn’t noticed that. “Well, I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I got a couple of things. There’s no tripe, though, so you don’t have to worry.”
“I’d say I’m grateful, but I bet that’s for you just as much as me.” She unloaded the cardboard cartons on the counter, lifting a brow after unearthing the first three. “Either you like a lot of leftovers or you’re planning on feeding a family of ten.”
“What can I say? I’m a hungry guy.” He moved beside her at the counter, popping the cartons open to see what was what, looking at her with an impressed yet wary expression when she dug a pair of chopsticks out of the bag and pulled the paper wrapping off.
“You know how to use those things?” He eyeballed them with doubt. Shouldn’t they come with directions?
Carly nodded, peering into a carton of Lo Mein. “I take it you’re a fork and knife kind of guy.”
Jackson looked down at his hands. While they were large enough to carry bundles of roofing tile with practiced ease, maneuvering two skinny little sticks through his food without making an unholy mess seemed highly unlikely. “Yeah.”
She padded over to a drawer by the coffeepot to get him a fork, and Jackson realized with a pleasurable start that she was barefoot. Same cute feet, same bare toes. Damn it, more than just his stomach was bound to perk to life if he didn’t knock it off.
“Here you go. Do you want a plate, too?” Carly scooped up the carton of Lo Mein and paused, chopsticks hovering over the glossy noodles.
“I take it you’re an eat-from-the-carton kind of girl.” He gestured to the container in her hand.
The look on her face said it all. “Guilty as charged.”
“Doesn’t that mess with the food experience?” Jackson asked, poking through the carton of beef broccoli with the fork she’d given him.
“For takeout, it kind of is the experience. There’s something fun about it, you know? A little indulgent, a little forbidden.” Her eyes went wide before zeroing in on the food in her hands. “But you’re welcome to a plate if you’d like.”
Forget takeout. The innuendo was sweet enough to eat all by itself, even though he suspected she hadn’t heard it until after it had left
her lips. “No thanks. Eating from the carton’s fine by me.”
“I didn’t even know Pine Mountain had a Chinese restaurant,” Carly said, shifting the subject and lifting a perfectly rolled bite of noodles from her chopsticks to her mouth. Jackson forced himself to focus on the carton in his hand, spearing a stalk of broccoli with so much enthusiasm that he nearly punched through the cardboard behind it.
“Are you kidding? Aside from the resort, there’s The Sweet Life Bakery, the diner on Main Street and the Double Shot. That’s pretty much it for Pine Mountain, proper. If you want Chinese food, you have to go to Bealetown, although the place in Riverside’s better.”
Carly laughed. “Wow. You drove to Bealetown for this? I’m honored.”
“I drove to Riverside for this,” Jackson corrected, tipping his head at her. “I told you, the food’s better.”
“You take your Chinese food pretty seriously.” A smile teased at the corners of her mouth, which sent Jackson’s appetite due south.
“I take all food pretty seriously. Along with a few other things.”
Carly’s head snapped up, dark locks tumbling over her shoulders. “A few other things?”
Jackson was going to be in for one hell of a long night if she kept biting her lower lip like that. He nodded, willing himself to stick with the plan for the evening.
“What do you say to a little friendly competition?” Jackson asked, reaching for the box he’d tucked away on the side table while Carly had been unloading the Chinese food.
Carly’s face creased in confusion for a second, but the ear to ear smile that followed it told Jackson that he’d been right on the money in appealing to her headstrong side.
“I’d say you’d better gear up. I’m about to kick your ass.”
Chapter Fourteen
After five stress-filled days of back and forth with her attorney and six shifts at a restaurant where the dining room was filled to the gills, Carly thought nothing could ease her tapped-out mood. But as she eyeballed the faded box Jackson had opened up over her coffee table, she realized she was wrong.
“I’ll have you know I never lose at Monopoly,” she said, stopping to snag a bite of the beef broccoli before she put the carton on a tray next to her Lo Mein. The spicy tang of ginger sauce danced across her palate as she chewed. Jackson hadn’t been kidding about the food being good. It was easily on a par with what she’d grab from her favorite place in Chinatown.
“Prepare to go down in flames, sweetheart,” Jackson retorted, but his words were more teasing than threatening. “What do you want to be?”
Carly made her way to the living room with the tray and slid it to the carpet next to the table. “Oh, nice. You have an original set.” She plucked the tiny silver thimble from the box and put it on GO. Of course Jackson chose the race car. Typical guy move.
Macho or not, he was still goin’ down.
“Yeah, I’m old school. That Mega Edition junk just tarnishes a good game.” He started sorting through the stack of brightly colored bills in the bottom of the box. “This is the set my brother and sisters and I played with when we were kids. I figured it would be more fun than watching a plain old movie.”
She nodded over her shoulder as she returned to the kitchen for a couple bottles of water. “We played Monopoly a lot, too. My brothers used to cheat and give me twenty dollars instead of two hundred for passing GO. They were ruthless.” Carly grinned. God, she hadn’t thought of that in ages.
“I thought you said you always won.” Jackson put a neat stack of bills on her side of the board before starting to count out his own.
“My father caught my brothers short-changing me every time I passed GO. But instead of punishing them once, he taught me how to strategize and work the board instead. After that, none of my brothers could beat me no matter how hard they tried.”
“It sounds like your dad is a smart man.”
A tiny pinch of sadness stuck in Carly’s throat, but she swallowed it with a bittersweet smile. “He was. He died five years ago.”
Jackson’s eyes flickered darkly. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” The silence stretched out between them in a thick beat before Carly blinked away the memory and took two water bottles from the fridge.
“Well, believe me when I tell you there’s nothing quite as humbling as having a sister gloat over you. I bet your brothers didn’t mess with you after that, huh?” His sober expression had been replaced with a more comfortable, curious look.
“Not at Monopoly, anyway,” she said, her gaze catching on the six-bottle wine fridge perched in a corner on the countertop. “You want a glass of wine?”
“To be honest, I’m not usually a wine guy. But if you’ve got something that pairs well with total domination in the Monopoly arena, I might consider a change of heart.” He tried—unsuccessfully—to hide his smirk in the carton of beef broccoli.
“You’re going to eat those words, mister.” Carly slid a bottle of Riesling from the fridge and uncorked it with a practiced hand, pouring two glasses before sauntering back to the living room with a confident swagger.
“Nice food reference. Do you ever leave work at work?” Jackson took the glass she offered him, the pale golden liquid shimmering against his hand. Finally, he’d asked an easy question.
“No.” She sat down cross-legged beside the coffee table and scooped up the dice, rattling them around with a muted click in her palm. “I look at food the way I look at life. It’s pretty much impossible to separate the two, so I don’t bother trying.” Carly tipped her glass at him and took a sip. The semi-sweet bite of the wine slid down her throat with ease.
“And how do you look at life?”
She was all too aware of his eyes on her as she rolled the dice and moved her game piece to Vermont Avenue. Carly found a time-creased fifty-dollar bill in the neat stack Jackson had left for her and handed it over before answering.
“I think life should be simple, a reflection of what really matters, so I like to use ingredients that keep things uncomplicated. Then I can rely on honest flavors, evocative smells, and warm presentation to create an experience people will remember.”
Jackson snagged the property card from the bank and passed it over, tipping his head at her. “So it’s not just about the food.”
“No, it’s the bigger picture. I want people not just to remember the dish, but the feelings that go with it, if that makes sense.”
“Ah. And that makes it personal. So food and life really do go hand in hand.”
“Exactly.” She took another sip of wine, admiring the lingering sweetness it left in its path. “How about you? How do you look at life?”
He let out a chuckle sexy enough to create an unfair advantage. “I’m pretty easy to please. Life’s too short for anything else.”
Right. Because just what her libido needed was more encouragement.
“So you’re a go with the flow kind of guy,” Carly replied, watching Jackson roll the dice.
He moved his token around the board, the corded muscles in his forearm pulling taut over the bones beneath as he reached across the table to put the money for Pennsylvania Railroad in the bank. “Sure. Most of the time.”
“I might be jealous,” she said, reaching for her carton of Lo Mein. “In my line of work, going with the flow only gets you trampled.”
“Oh, come on. You probably have to adapt to a lot on any given night, right? I’d say that counts as going with the flow.” Jackson took a sip of wine, regarding the glass with a surprised glance that translated to not bad.
Carly smiled, spooling more noodles over her chopsticks and taking a bite before scooping up the dice. “I’m adaptable, sure. But I can’t afford to be mellow about it, and I definitely can’t be easy to please. It’s part of what makes it so hard to be a woman in my line of work.”
“How do you mean?”
“In the kitchen, when a man is demanding, he’s considered ambitious. When a woman expects perfection and
won’t settle for anything less, she’s just a bitch.” Carly shrugged, snapping up Kentucky Avenue and tucking the card next to her neatly divided stash of play money.
“Sounds like you have high standards.” Jackson rolled the dice and landed next to her on Kentucky Avenue, both groaning and laughing as he counted out the rent to settle his debt.
Carly held out an expectant hand, trying to press her gleeful grin into a gracious smile. “If I didn’t have high standards, I’d still be chopping onions for stock at the end of somebody’s line.”
“Is that how you got this?” Jackson trailed a roughened fingertip along the scar on her index finger before dropping the Monopoly money into her palm, and the unexpected contact sent a shiver down her spine.
“Oh.” The breathy little gasp that pushed its way up from her chest was downright embarrassing, and Carly dropped her hand to the coffee table in an effort to cover it up. “Uh, yeah. Well, not onions, but you’ve got the right idea. I was cubing a butternut squash one day and slipped. I ended up with seven stitches.”
A flicker darted over his blue eyes, darkening them for a split second before it disappeared. “Sounds like it hurt.”
“To be honest, I was kind of more pissed that I’d wrecked the dish I was working on.” That squash had been one of the most gorgeous items at Greenmarket that week. Bleeding all over it had been a travesty.
“You’re pretty tenacious. And before you apologize, I mean it as a compliment.”
Carly rolled the dice, trying to ignore the heat in her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said, the apology auto-piloting its way out of her mouth anyway.
“Too bad your tenacity won’t keep you out of trouble.”
Jackson’s drawl combined with an unmistakable glint in his eye, and Carly couldn’t tell if she was more confused or turned on. “What do you mean?”
She followed his gaze down to the game board, where she mentally tallied the number of squares to her next landing spot with a groan. He leaned toward her, forearms propped over his muscular thighs, and grinned.
Gimme Some Sugar Page 16
