by Liz Talley
“What can I do for you?”
Mary Belle lifted an eyebrow and her mouth twitched. The blonde laughed.
“What I meant is, why are you ladies here?”
“Tom Forcet sent me with the dozer—it’s around front.”
This was Lou? And suddenly it clicked. Louise Boyd—a year ahead of him, cheerleader, played the guitar in church and lost her parents in a plane crash.
“Great.” He jerked his head toward the front yard. “The faster I get this greenhouse down, the faster I can bring in all the materials I’ll need to start the renovation on the house.”
He headed around to the drive, trying not to notice how pretty Mary Belle looked in her simple sundress, how her curls bounced in tune with her breasts, or how she smelled like springtime.
Because he’d come to Bonnet Creek for something more important than Mary Belle.
But when he was around her, he had to keep repeating that so he’d remember it.
Lou walked around the trailer and started unhitching cables while he stood next to the woman he’d tried to forget.
“You’re doing the work yourself?” Hands clasped behind her back, she slid a doubtful gaze to him.
“I can do more than solve equations or crown a molar.”
Mary Belle frowned. “It was a question. Don’t get your hackles up.”
And that’s what he was doing. Taking offense to her words, acting as if he had to prove himself at every turn. He was not the old Tripp Long. He’d put himself through college, aced dental school and the general dentistry residency. He was a successful businessman and had penned articles on restorative dentistry in JADA. So why had he reverted back to Tripp the Drip as soon as he’d come home? Why did he feel like less of a man in Bonnet Creek?
“Sorry. Old habits die hard.”
Mary Belle studied him, making him feel more naked then he had a few minutes ago with his shirt off. “You don’t have to prove yourself, Tripp.”
“Tell that to the rest of the world, Mary B.”
“Guess I can drag my old megaphone out of the attic and shout it for you,” she said, giving him a smile.
He angled a gaze down at her. “You still have the cheerleader uniform?”
“Why? You have cheerleader fantasies?” she joked, but her eyes wouldn’t meet his.
“You were my fantasy, Mary B.”
Chapter Seven
Mary Belle set the platter into the dish drain and studied the falling shadows. It was September, hot and dreary in Louisiana, but there was something lovely in the way the light hit the dying leaves of the trees bordering the property between her house and Long House. A flash of movement caught her eye.
Tripp.
He’d been on her mind too much, especially after making that remark about his fantasies.
Flirting. It’s called flirting, nimrod.
She wiped that thought from her mind as she wiped the chipped Formica around the sink.
“Kiki showed me a bluebird nest today,” Mary Belle’s mother said from her place at the table.
“Did she?” Mary Belle turned to her mother as she stuck the leftovers in the fridge. Kiki, the home health care nurse who took care of her mother while Mary Belle was at work, had also baked a hummingbird cake that afternoon.
Twenty years ago, her mother would have baked something to welcome new neighbors, but she was not her mother.
Tripp was as tempting as cake. But there was nothing wrong with just swiping her finger through the frosting, was there? She could make a quick trip to Long House and work on her writing when she came back.
“Let’s eat some cake.” Mama eyed the glass globe dish. “Then you can take some to Melissa and Howie.”
Mary Belle sighed. Her mother knew something was going on over at Long House, but she couldn’t remember that Howard and Melissa Long had moved to Florida right after the scandal. She cut her mother a piece, double-checked the matches were well-hidden and sliced eight big pieces of cake, setting them on a pretty flowered plate.
“You have your cake and milk while I run this over to Long House. I’ll be back in time to watch CSI. Stay here at the table, okay?”
“I can go where I want to. This is my house,” her mother said.
“Of course you can, Mama, but you might catch sight of the bluebird out the window.” Mary Belle pulled back the curtain and pointed at the tree line.
Her mother nodded and gave a vacant smile as Mary Belle left the kitchen.
Good. After she returned, her mother would snooze to CSI reruns and give Mary Belle time to work on the Peterson daylily farm article for Southern Roots magazine. She had no clue if the editors would be interested in the historic piece, but she felt nervous about counting on Buddy for the good word with Guns and Glory, not to mention her professional future.
The cicadas greeted Mary Belle like an old friend as she headed down the path between the two houses that she’d walked nearly every day as a girl. Tripp had been the only other kid in their isolated neighborhood when she was a girl, and her one true friend. At least he had been until she’d gotten boobs, made cheerleader and nabbed the most popular boy in all of eighth grade—Bear Rodrigue.
And what had that netted her?
A big fat nothing.
A couple of thorns pulled at her bare legs and she stubbed her toe on a tree root, but she made it through the overgrown path to find Tripp sitting on the top step of his porch, holding a beer between his knees and staring out at the shadows.
“Hey,” she called, swallowing the desire that cropped up at seeing him.
He turned, something undecipherable in his blue eyes. “Hey.”
“I brought you some hummingbird cake.”
“Don’t know what that is, but thank you.” His lips twitched. They were nice lips—not too thin, not too plump. Kissable.
What’s wrong with you, Mary Belle Prudhomme? This is Tripp. Former friend. Current neighbor. Not kissable.
Her feet took her to the man who’d shadowed her dreams last night and who’d occupied her thoughts way too often that afternoon. “It’s got pineapple in it. I know you like pineapple.” She jabbed the plastic-wrapped plate toward him.
“You do know what I like.” He looked up at her, his words holding an extra layer of meaning, causing a trembly sensation in her belly that had nothing to do with the spaghetti she’d just eaten. Something sparked between them. Something that had never been there before.
Come on, Mary Belle. This is Tripp. You built a tree house with him, played Power Rangers in his yard and watched him pee on a rock down by the creek.
He’s not sexy.
He’s not intriguing.
He’s not…sitting on the step any longer.
“Wanna go for a walk down by the creek?” Tripp asked as he rose like Adonis from the sea. Or was that Triton? She always got her Greek gods confused.
Yes. She wanted to walk with him. Kiss him. Make love under the weeping willow with him. “Um, no. Uh…the mosquitoes will eat us alive.” And she had an article and journalism career to get back to.
But his blue eyes told her he knew exactly why she didn’t want to go to the creek.
Tripp took the platter. “Your loss.”
And it probably was, but she was too afraid to dip her toes into those waters….
Chapter Eight
After a long day of dealing with office politics between dental hygienists, Tripp could think of nothing more than a cold beer and the bulldozer vibrating beneath him.
And Mary Belle.
She wouldn’t leave his thoughts, and he kept rehashing his flirty intentions the night before.
Weird thing was…he hadn’t planned to flirt with her. But he couldn’t help himself.
Didn’t matter that he still resented the old Mary Belle for her dismissal of a geeky, vulnerable boy. Yeah, he knew she’d been a seventeen-year-old kid when she’d left him hanging at the Sadie Hawkins dance, and teenagers were by definition egotistical, but he’d thoug
ht he’d meant more to her, especially at a time when everyone in Bonnet Creek had been pointing fingers at his family. His head understood why she’d lied, but his heart had never gotten that memo.
Still, the longing for her had never gone away.
Tripp climbed out of the car and entered the hardware store with a list in one hand and his phone in the other. Maybe he’d call her and see if—
“Howard?” The voice sounded shocked. He turned to find Reva Rodrigue standing behind him holding a coiled hose.
Something inside him snapped; he wanted to grab the older woman’s shoulders and shake her until her nicely veneered teeth rattled.
Cowardly bitch.
“No, I’m Tripp.”
Her face paled and she nearly dropped the garden hose. “You look so much like him.”
Reva’s green eyes misted over and her bottom lip trembled. The anger he held tight lessened when he saw the terror and regret in the depths of her gaze.
“Yeah, I do.”
She gave him a wobbly smile. “I heard you were back.”
He didn’t respond. Just watched as she shot a glance toward Cecil Cormier, who stood behind the counter, square, silent and maybe sympathetic, but the man didn’t help her keep up the inane conversation.
“Well, I should be getting home. Got to water the azaleas before I lose them to this heat.” Reva moved toward the counter, looking like a convict in a room full of police officers.
“That’s all you have to say? Azaleas?”
Reva laughed nervously, causing her store-bought breasts to jiggle. She dressed too young for a woman nearing sixty, but she’d always been flashy, driving the most expensive car in town, wearing designer clothes, taking what she wanted. But there had been one thing she couldn’t have—Howard Long, M.D. So she and her asshole husband had crucified Tripp’s father with false allegations and driven his family from town in disgrace.
“Water under the bridge,” she said, with another uneasy twitter. She handed the hose to Cecil, who looked as if he was enjoying the showdown.
“Not to me. Your husband destroyed a man who loved his community, his family and his church. All because you wanted my father and couldn’t have him.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“No? Then help me understand why you would frame him as some pervert who would molest you on his exam table.”
All color left Reva’s face. “I sent him a letter.”
“Not good enough. Your accusations ruined his health and nearly ruined his marriage. He couldn’t even stay in the town he loved. It’s time you told everyone the truth. You owe my family that much.”
Reva shook her head and hurried toward the door, leaving the scent of an expensive perfume behind. The clack of her high heels echoed the blood pulsing in his ears.
Cecil stared at him, not moving a muscle as the door closed with a jingle, leaving no sound but the rattle of the window A/C unit and Tripp’s heavy breathing in the small hardware store.
Tripp inhaled deeply, exhaled and handed his list to Cecil. The older man took it, looking embarrassed and at a loss.
“Have these things delivered to Long House, please. Here’s my card. Keep the number on file because I’ll be phoning in orders over the next couple of months.”
Cecil nodded like an old porch hound and withdrew toward the back shelves, leaving Tripp to contemplate what had gone down on aisle three of Cormier Hardware.
He hadn’t been ready to face any of the Rodrigues.
Or Mary Belle.
But the ghosts of his past breathed down his neck.
Chapter Nine
The creek wasn’t even lukewarm, it was plain ol’ hot. Definitely not the refreshing splash Mary Belle had convinced herself it would be.
But she knew she hadn’t gone down to the creek to cool off.
She’d gone because it gave her a nice vista to contemplate—Tripp without his shirt on.
Yeah, he rode the bulldozer shirtless, his mouth a determined line as he knocked down the old greenhouse and scooped the debris into the metal waste container sitting near the tree line.
Mary Belle kicked a small stone into the stream as she balanced on the flat rocks, flip-flops hooked on her fingers. Every now and then she snuck a peek at Tripp, who seemed unaware she watched him from the shallow water that flowed behind their properties. She knew she shouldn’t be dragging her finger through the frosting again, but she so wanted a taste of Tripp. Just a little, and then surely the intrigue would wear off.
The hum of the dozer stopped and Mary Belle looked up.
She didn’t see Tripp for a moment, and then there he was, striding toward her, still shirtless, wearing a pair of cutoff scrubs and Wolverine boots. Somehow the combo was deadly sexy.
“Hey,” she said, not bothering to smile. In fact, she was a little embarrassed to have been caught watching—uh, splashing—in the creek.
“What’re you doing out here?”
She stared down at her toes embedded in the mud. “I’m cooling off.”
“Really?” He cocked an eyebrow as a smile flickered at his lips. “Cooling off?”
Mary Belle shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I have a pool or anything.”
“Thought you were afraid of mosquitoes.” He sat down on a fallen stump and tugged his boots off, then his socks.
“I’m wearing bug repellant. What’re you doing?”
He smiled. That smile. The one that made her toes wriggle. The one that made her belly flop. The one that said, “I’m not that boy you remember. I’m a man. A sexy, self-assured, successful man.”
She swallowed hard as he rose and waded toward her, clad only in those hacked-off scrubs, tied at his lean waist.
“I’m joining you. Figure you’ve been waiting down here for me.”
“I was not,” she said, drawing her eyebrows together, trying to look affronted.
“You’re a liar, Mary B.”
“No, I’m not.”
He stopped in front of her. Damn, he really was glorious. Lean muscles. Flat stomach. Dark hair that made a shadow in the center of his chest and tapered down his stomach, making her want to trace the path with her finger, down to that drawstring.
She jerked her eyes up.
“Yeah, you are,” he said, his voice as soft as the sunlight falling through the still branches above them.
At that moment, Mary Belle knew she couldn’t resist him any longer. She dropped her flip-flops and reached for him.
Chapter Ten
The touch of Mary Belle’s lips on his ignited a firestorm of desire that unwound in his belly, then rose and blanketed him in bone-shaking need. Maybe it was the confrontation with Reva making him act rashly, or maybe it was the fact he’d been dreaming of kissing Mary Belle again. Not a peck like last time, but a hot, possessive kiss.
So Tripp hauled her against him, one hand sliding over the back of the white tank she wore, the other tangling in those silky dark locks.
Like a very good girl, Mary B. opened her mouth, allowing him to taste the sweetness he’d only imagined in his adolescent dreams.
Damn, it was better than he’d fantasized.
Her hands wound around his neck, tilting her head, deepening the kiss. Her breasts brushed against his naked chest, inflaming him, burning his control.
He lifted her into his arms and her legs twined around his waist. Not breaking their kiss, he walked toward the bank, feeling the crackling leaves and twigs beneath his feet but not caring enough to stop.
Her slight intake of breath and the way her body slammed against his told him they’d run into something—Mary Belle’s back had hit an oak tree. He didn’t stop kissing her.
She clung to him as he ran his hands up and down her sides, flirting with the side of a breast, brushing the backs of her thighs.
Wrenching his lips free, he lowered his head to her throat. She tasted salty and sweet, like caramel and peanuts. Like heaven. Like Mary Belle.
“Tripp,” she
groaned, dropping her head against the trunk of the tree.
“What, baby?” he murmured, sliding his lips toward the shell of her ear.
“Oh, Tripp.” She arched against him, sliding her body against his hardness, making him lose his own breath for a moment. He dropped his hand toward the hem of her shirt, ready to tug it up and then move his hand down to the lushness hidden beneath those cut-off shorts. Until the reality of the situation sunk in.
“Call me Howard,” he said, nipping her ear.
And that made her laugh. “Howard?”
He grinned at her. “What? Howard isn’t sexy?”
She shook her head, her blue eyes still dilated with desire, her legs and arms still hooked around him. “No. That’s your daddy’s name. You did that on purpose.”
He set her down with a little kiss on her nose. “What? Kill the mood?”
Nodding, she contemplated him. “Why? Revenge?”
Was that why he’d stopped making love to Mary Belle? Had he set out to make her want him only to take that desire and toss it back at her? Was he punishing her for choosing to chase that ass Bear Rodrigue rather than bestow a lowly date on him?
“No. But that went a little too fast, even for me.”
Mary Belle crossed her arms. “So I’m the—”
“No, it was honest and sincere. Don’t make this what it isn’t, Mary B.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Maybe because his scrubs were tented. Or maybe because he’d been the one to stop, making her feel dirty.
“Hey, look at me.” She lifted her gaze. In her eyes he saw vulnerability. Brazen, sassy Mary Belle wasn’t accustomed to being so uncertain. “I don’t want to rush into something with you.”
Her chin jerked. “Jeez, Tripp, don’t flatter yourself. It was just a kiss.”
He smiled. “No, this was way more than that.”
She studied him. “You make me feel like something I’m not.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.” He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Oh, and Mary B. I do want you. Don’t doubt that.”
Her eyes widened.
“But with you, it’s not just sex.”
And then Tripp turned, walked back across the creek, scooped up his boots and socks and headed up to the yard to finish the job with the greenhouse. Because over the years, he’d learned a hard and fast rule when pursuing a woman—always leave her wanting more.
