When a tear slipped from her eye he gently brushed it away with his thumb, and tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. He hated doing this but he had to know.
He edged his way up closer to her, keeping his eyes locked with hers. He was an inch from her face and could feel her breath hitch and release. “Liz, if you tell me no, I’ll step away and leave you alone, I swear. But we had something too special to throw away for good just because I was a stupid kid once upon a time.”
He waited but she didn’t respond, so he slowly leaned in and kissed her sweet lips. He couldn’t suppress the groan inside of him, and let it out as he ran his lips over hers again and again.
Lizzie couldn’t figure out what the heck had come over her. It was like she was on some sort of drug and she couldn’t stop herself from kissing Payton. She hated it, but she loved it all at once. It was wrong on so many levels, and yet her body kept saying that it was right. She finally pulled herself together and forced herself to back away from him. His eyes had grown dark like a turbulent sea, but she held her ground and forced herself to stay strong.
“Payton, this is wrong. I loved you once, I honestly did. But I’m getting married and... it’s not to you.” She shrugged. “My fiancé will be here next week and there’s just no time left to try and change things even if you could. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you this would all end happily for both of us, but I just don’t see how.”
She stood and walked away before she could change her mind, before she could run to him and tell him that she couldn’t stand breaking his heart. But she knew it was weak for her to do that, and she had learned a long time ago that being strong was the only way to be.
Chapter Twenty-five
Payton smacked his head against the pillow and tried to fall asleep, but the red light on his alarm clock just kept ticking away the minutes and with every one he was no closer to visiting the sandman. Do you believe in soul mates, Liz? I do. Payton groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. He gave up around three and decided to call it a morning, a very early morning at that.
He stretched as he stumbled from the bed, trying to work out some of the kinks that his fitful few hours of sleep had so generously given to him, and slid into an old pair of jeans, long ago faded and worn down to mold perfectly to his body. Still hot from tossing and turning, he left his shirt off and staggered down the stairs of the old farmhouse in search of some strong coffee.
Payton waited for the coffee maker to noisily grind into action then pushed his way through the screened back door and out onto the porch. Crickets and various other night dwelling creatures went about their business, calling out to each other, and Payton let the sounds sooth him as he watched the night sky. There was only a half moon tonight, but it was bright enough to illuminate the fields of hay behind his house.
His house. Payton could remember looking at this house when he was still in middle school, and thinking it would be neat to live in one day. When his mother had called to say the previous owner had passed away and it was for sale, he’d bought it without even walking through it, and hadn’t regretted the decision for a minute.
Of course, it had taken a considerable amount of time and money to bring the old place back up to sturdy living conditions, but that hadn’t bothered Payton. It was his now, and to him, the time and effort he had put into it would only leave his mark on it better than any other way he could think of.
The only thing missing now was a woman to fill the hole in his heart and the lonely, empty spot in his bed. And maybe down the road a few years a kid or two to swing on that tire swing he could just imagine being slung up from a low branch on the old Pecan tree on the side of the house. The problem with that vision, though, was that the one woman he wanted, the only woman he’d ever really wanted to fill that position didn’t have very much concern for his dreams at the moment.
She was too busy trying to get herself hitched to the wrong man.
What did he have to do to convince her to change her mind? He’d already tried pouring his heart out to her and that hadn’t seemed to even make her blink twice. Payton certainly wasn’t accustomed to begging and pleading, and as far as he was concerned, he’d come as close to that avenue as he dared to wander. Short of kidnapping and brainwashing the girl, he didn’t know what other options he had. He supposed waiting her out was his best choice. But since when did Payton Cartwright wait for anything?
Only, this time he really didn’t see any other alternative.
“Okay, so you like that dress, but do you think I should wear that one to the bridesmaid’s luncheon and wear this one to the rehearsal dinner?” Lizzie held a long, silky dress up over her bra and panties as she faced the mirror. “Or maybe I should wear this one.” She tossed a dress on her bed and grabbed another one to hold in front of her.
Grace sat cross legged on the bed and cocked her head to one side. Both eyebrows met in concentration. “Yeah, I don’t think either one of those. What else do you have?”
Lizzie groaned in disgust and threw her hands up. “Slave driver.” She headed to her closet and was still grumbling as she disappeared inside. She popped out a moment later with a short, yellow dress that was strapless on one shoulder. “Okay, this is my last resort. Otherwise we’ll have to go shopping in Clarkston and I don’t know--” She stopped when she heard a tap on her bedroom door.
Seconds later the door popped open. “Honey, you’ll never guess what the cat drug in.” Her mother dashed into the room and took the dress from her hands. “Oh, well I didn’t realize you weren’t--”
“Hello, sweetheart.” Lizzie looked from her mom to the doorway. She blushed.
“Josh! Wow, I was expecting you for… well, days.” She smiled, but it didn’t feel sincere. She was too shocked. He’d never surprised her like this before. “What are doing here?” She tried to grab the dress back from her mother to cover over her underwear but her mother absentmindedly took it with her as she crossed to the door.
“I’ll just let you two catch up.”
Josh stepped into the room and nodded to her mother as she ducked back out, and turned his attention back on Lizzie as it clicked closed. “Well aren’t you glad to see me?” He smiled.
Lizzie giggled self-consciously and fidgeted with her hair, unsure what to do standing nearly naked in front of her fiancé with her best friend sitting in the room. “Uh, yeah. I just… I mean, I’m,” She giggled again. “I’m practically naked here! Can you give me a minute?”
He seemed to notice for the first time. “Oh! Right. Sure, I’ll be outside catching up with your mother. Take your time.” He nodded to Grace on his way out. Grace lifted an eyebrow.
“That was strange.”
Lizzie quickly threw on a pair of blue jeans and an old t-shirt. “What?”
Grace shook her head. “Nothing.” She couldn’t help herself. “Is he gay?
Lizzie turned in shock. “What!”
“Yeah, forget I said that.” She stood from the bed. “I guess we’ll finish deciding on the dresses later, huh?”
“Sure thing.” She pulled her hair back and quickly crossed to the door. “Come on let’s go find Josh and my mom. I don’t like to leave them alone together too long. Somehow she feels the need to share every last embarrassing childhood story with Josh.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure my emotional stability can’t handle that sort of abuse right now.”
Grace laughed. “Well, I suppose that’ll really limit the conversations you two’ll be having with your mother on your trips back home.”
Lizzie landed her an evil glare. “I’m serious.” She heard a muffled, “So am I,” before she rounded the corner and found Josh seated at the kitchen table. Her mother was hovering around him.
“Here, Sugar, have some more pound cake. I’m going to fix a nice ham and some butter beans, oh, and some macaroni and cheese for dinner. What else would you like with it?”
“Oh, there you two are!” Lizzie swooped in and planted a big kiss
on Josh’s lips. “Mom, you’re so sweet, but Josh and I already had plans to eat out with Grace and some friends at that new café in town. What’s the name of it, Grace?”
Grace looked confused and Lizzie shot her a pleading look. “Oh, right. I forgot.” “Sally Mae’s Café,” her mother supplied.
Grace snapped her fingers. “Yes, Sally Mae’s Café.” She didn’t miss that Josh looked oh so thrilled by the name. He’d grown up in Atlanta and didn’t understand all the oddities of small town life.
“That’s great, Hon,” he said. “What time are the reservations for?”
“Oh, you don’t need reservations at Sally Mae’s.” Her mother filled a pitcher with water and proceeded to add several scoops of lemonade mix.
Lizzie checked her watch. “Why don’t we go now? It’s nearly six. We’ll beat the dinner crowd.”
Josh nearly wheezed he laughed so hard. “Dinner crowd. That’s funny. What constitutes a crowd around here? A herd of cows?” He chuckled at his own joke.
“Take the car honey, it’ll be dark when you head back. You know, Edenville’s not like it used to be. A lot of riff-raff getting into trouble around here lately.”
Lizzie rolled her eyes. She had to get out of here and quick. She grabbed the car keys to head off anymore banter between her mother and Josh and practically drug her fiancé out the door with Grace hot on their heels.
Normally Lizzie refused to drive the car to town, considering it was all of a quarter mile from their house, but Josh would prefer to chop an arm off rather than work up a sweat so she knew convincing him to walk in the midst of the August heat was hopeless. How he managed to stay fit and trim without ever working up a sweat was beyond her.
They parked in one of the spots on Main Street just outside the café and chose a booth inside close to the air conditioner. Grace sat across from the two of them and smiled at Josh. In typical Grace fashion, she set in asking him questions that had him reeling off answers until the waitress came to take their orders.
Lizzie took a minute to study him. She hadn’t seen him in almost three weeks and she found herself trying not to compare him to any other men she might have lodged somewhere in her brain. His hair was sandy brown, and he kept it cut short and trim. He had chocolate brown eyes that were warm and friendly. His body was good- not too tall or too short and just enough muscle to prove he could hold his own if the need arose. He wasn’t any super hero, or major football star for that matter, but he was warm and solid and that was what mattered.
She was so busy studying him that she was startled when Josh said, “Lizzie? The waitress asked what you want to order.”
“Oh!” She hadn’t even thought about what she should order. She glanced down and back up. Then back down, nibbling on her lower lip in concentration.
“Here, let me do it for you.” He took the menu from her hand and gave it to the waitress. “She’ll have the house salad with Italian dressing, but make sure you don’t include any croutons or cheese- she’s on a low carb diet. And she’ll have the catfish, but can you grill it rather than fry it?” He made sure the waitress wrote down ‘grilled’ and then smiled over at Lizzie.
Grace frowned. “Since when are you on a low carb diet, Bean?”
He playfully nudged her elbow and looked over at Grace. “Lizzie’s so beautiful, don’t you think? She’s been trying to watch her weight up until the wedding and honeymoon, haven’t you , Hon?”
Lizzie giggled nervously. “You know me, liable to gain fifteen pounds just looking at a pecan pie.”
Grace’s frown said it all. “Bean, you know you got your nickname for a reason, right? You’re tall and skinny like a bean pole, remember? And since when did this ‘diet’ start?”
“I’ve been on it for a while. Josh and I have actually.” She smiled into his brown eyes and looked back at her friend. “Funny, huh? I’m the doctor but he’s more of a nutrition freak than I am. Don’t worry, though, those baked potatoes that I could never live without before are only a distant memory now.” Her smile was wistful. “I hardly ever dream about them. Anymore.”
Josh laughed like he thought her comment hysterical, while Grace merely chuckled.
The rest of the meal they spent catching up on wedding plans and chatting about Josh’s work. Since Grace worked at the bank in town she was curious to quiz Josh on his knowledge of stocks and bonds. He was an accountant at a major firm in Nashville, but he was also a Certified Financial Planner and Grace was interested in hearing his thoughts on some plans they were making at the bank.
Asking Josh anything about work pretty much guaranteed that no one else would get a word in edge wise for the duration of the conversation so Lizzie plastered a smile on her face and nibbled a piece of lettuce from her salad. It would have tasted much better if had been smothered in, say, blue cheese dressing, but she supposed it was healthier for her this way.
“Hon, you ready?” She looked up to find Josh standing with a hand out to help her out of the booth. “I’ve paid the bill already.” He looked at her oddly. “Are you feeling alright?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh. I must be a little tired. I should prob’ly get more sleep.”
He agreed. “Yes, I noticed the dark circles under your eyes. Why don’t you use that eye gel I gave you? It’ll help you look a lot better.” He patted her shoulder and led her out of the restaurant by the small of her back.
Payton had had enough fun for one day, and was ready for a cold beer. It was only Monday and he’d already had more than enough trouble for the week. He had been excited when he’d taken the coaching position at DixieAcademy, but that was before he realized exactly how much the people in the community would want to poke their nose into his business. If it wasn’t one of the boy’s fathers telling him his son needed more playing time, it was some farmer telling him exactly what sort of fertilizer was best for putting a better coat of green on the turf. And now today, he’d spent the better part of the afternoon convincing the women’s portion of the PTA that re-sodding the football field actually was a necessary budget line item, which sent him nearly through the roof with annoyance.
He’d come home from the meeting about ready to spit nails, and only after twenty minutes of pounding on his sandbag had his anger cooled enough to think straight. Now what he needed, he thought as he threw on jeans and an old, comfy shirt, was a cold beer and something other than his TV to keep his mind occupied.
He grabbed his keys off his dresser and flipped the lights off as he exited through the screened front door. It slapped closed behind him, reminding him that he needed to fix the stopper so it wouldn’t make quite so much noise. He climbed into the driver’s seat and took a deep whiff of the leather and new truck smell that still saturated the truck’s interior. He’d had his new truck, a big black diesel he used to haul hay and trailers around his farm, for nearly three months, and he loved it. Almost as much as he loved Lizzie, he thought with an ache.
He’d bought it for himself as a reward for his team winning the state championship two years in a row, and he could remember at the time he bought it thinking how great it would be if Lizzie was sitting next to him in the truck. Payton ground his jaw and set his eyes on the road ahead of him. That dream had shattered about ten years earlier when he’d broken her heart. Dumb fool that he was.
The parking lot at Moe’s Pub was about as full as it normally was which wasn’t saying much. Moe Henry had opened up this tiny little hole in the wall bar about five years back, and somehow he’d managed to keep the joint going. It was the only bar within fifty miles of town, and typically did pretty well on the weekends and when the college kids came home for the summer, but other than that, it was business as usual.
Payton never understood why Moe named the place Moe’s Pub. It sounded a little too Irish to be sitting in small town USA, and Payton knew for a fact that Moe didn’t have an ounce of Irish blood running through those veins. Moe always shrugged and smiled that old smile whenever he was asked about the name. See
med to suit him okay, so who was Payton to object?
Payton tipped his baseball cap to Moe and Sally, the waitress behind the bar, as he entered, and let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting around him. It was a typical small town bar- old wooden tables set up, a few booths set up in one corner, and a make shift dance floor in case anyone got really crazy, or drunk, and wanted to dance. An old juke box that Payton swore was on its very last life stood in the corner, currently playing some sappy Dolly Parton song about painted on blue jeans. Payton thought he actually might like to see what painted on blue jeans looked like.
Bobby Stanley sat in his usual corner booth, his hat slung low so as not to attract company, and a few other stragglers played a game of pool off in the side room. Other than that, the bar was empty, but it was still early and it would liven up at least a little more before the night was over.
“Evenin’ Coach,” Moe said as he slid a cold frosty glassed mug of beer down the bar.
“Evenin’ Moe. What’s new around here?” Nothing, Payton suspected, but still he waited and let Moe have his turn.
“Oh, you know. The usual. Did hear some good gossip in town earlier, though.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” He took a swig of beer and let the cool liquid wash down his throat.
“Heard Miss Lizzie’s fiancé showed up in town today looking to buy her some big expensive piece of jewelry. Called it a wedding day present. Seems she’s gonna get herself hitched after all.” Payton would have laughed at the odd way Moe pronounced fiancé- with an emphasis on the I, instead of the E at the end- had his heart not been turning slowly into a burning heap of pitiful mush. Payton looked ahead, trying not to show his upset.
The Heart Will Lead You Home Page 25
