by Kait Nolan
When he felt even that thread begin to fray, he gentled the kiss and forced himself to ease back, pressing his brow to hers as his breath heaved, fast and unsteady. “I don’t wanna be friends. I’d rather have this time with you now and be torn up when you go than have nothing at all.”
“Sweetie, if you don’t say yes to him after that display, I’m checking you into the nearest mental hospital.”
Reed cranked his head around to see Christoff smirking with approval from the hall. Well, too late for embarrassment. “That’d be Whitfield. Just so you know.”
“Noted,” he said cheerfully.
Cecily tipped Reed’s face back toward hers, rubbing a thumb along the scruff of his jaw. “Not necessary. I may be crazy, but it won’t be for saying no. Now, go away, Christoff,” she said, and tugged Reed’s mouth down to hers.
Chapter 7
“Thank you so much for having me.” Cecily had on her best Sunday company smile, but nerves jittered underneath as she stepped into Grammy Campbell’s house, Reed on her heels.
“Of course, sugar. You come right on in. Oh here, let me take those.” Grammy tugged the covered basket from Cecily’s hands before she could protest. “Everybody’s in the living room. Anita brought cookies to tide everybody over until dinner’s ready.”
Reed brightened. “Snickerdoodles?”
“What else would I make my favorite son?” his mother said, coming into the foyer and pulling him into a hug.
Was that supposed to be some kind of warning?
“I’m your only son,” Reed pointed out.
She lifted both brows. “Do you want me to take the cookies back?”
“No ma’am,” he said solemnly.
Cecily stood to one side, her hands clasped in a death grip since she no longer had the basket of biscuits to keep them occupied. Reed reached over to tangle her fingers with his, giving her a squeeze that was, no doubt, meant to be comforting.
His mother beamed. “Cecily, it’s good to see you again.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Campbell.” God, was that stiff and formal tone really coming out of her mouth?
“Oh no, there are far too many of those in this house. Anita. Y’all go ahead and get some cookies. I’ll just be helping Mama in the kitchen.”
Reed bent to Cecily’s ear. “Relax. You know everybody here. They already like you.”
“I wasn’t dating you before,” she murmured.
“Even better. Then you know they like you and aren’t just pretending because you’re attached to me.”
Oh, like that helped anything?
They stepped into the living room. “Hey, hey, the gang’s all here!” Reed exchanged fist bumps with his cousins Mitch and Cam, hugs with his other cousin, Miranda, and his Aunt Liz and Aunt Sandy, and a firm handshake with his Uncle Pete. Cecily was proud she actually remembered who all of them were. She gave her own greetings and made a beeline for Norah.
Reed went to the sideboard to pour them both drinks. “Where’s Dad?”
“Manning the grill,” Mitch replied. “His turn on rotation.”
“Who’s got the fire extinguisher?” Reed asked, offering Cecily a glass. “Here. This will help.”
Cecily shot him a look of gratitude as she accepted the wine and took a hefty swallow.
“I heard that. I’ll have you know I haven’t burned anything in a month,” Jimmy protested, coming back inside, a pair a tongs still in his hand.
Uncle Pete grinned. “We have backup timers set.”
Reed mimed wiping his brow. “Oh good. Then we’ll all still get to eat.”
Norah intervened before the teasing escalated into an argument. “Well, now that you’re here and adequately armed, I call for a celebratory toast. The Madrigal Theater is officially back on track.” She lifted her wine glass and clinked it with Cecily’s.
“Here’s to that. How was the party?” Cecily leaned back against the arm of the sofa, crossing her feet and wishing her bitch boots made her feel more confident.
“It was great. And really more of a gossipfest. Tyler and Brody were supposed to be the guests of honor—the structural damage to the theater couldn’t have been fixed without them—but Tyler called to say they’d be late, then they didn’t show at all.”
“Really?” Cecily punctuated the question with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.
“Brody’s truck wasn’t collected from the job site until this afternoon,” Cam reported.
“Dude, you’re such a girl,” Reed told him.
“Hey, they’re two of my best friends. I have a stake in them getting back together. If it doesn’t work, I have to kick his ass for breaking her heart again.”
Reed snagged Cecily around the waist, pulling her into him. “What’s your interest in this? You barely know Tyler, and have you even met Brody?”
She curled her fingers through his belt loops and grinned up at him, the contact doing what the alcohol had not and dissipating the nerves. “Are you kidding? Living in a small town is like being in the middle of a soap opera. I’ve been following the will they/won’t they second chance romance of those two for weeks. So much better than Days of Our Lives.”
“Stupendously intelligent, talented, classy, and a soap opera addict?”
Cecily narrowed her eyes. “None of those things are mutually exclusive.”
“Of course not. It’s just unexpected and…very humanizing.”
“It’s all Christoff’s fault. Living with him means I’ve developed a much higher drama quotient than I used to have.”
“I don’t know,” Norah drawled. “He’s toned down a lot since Daniel.”
“He’s still Christoff,” Cecily insisted. “He’s just…more cheerful.”
“Speaking of celebratory toasts,” Anita said, coming back into the living room, “Reed, I heard from Marie Lanning the other day. You remember her? She’s one of my old sorority sisters. Her son Shawn and Reed were good friends back in summer camp.” Anita added, clearly for Cecily’s benefit. “Anyway, she and Doug are down on the coast now.”
Cecily’s gaze followed Reed as he grabbed up one of the cookies and bit in. “Yeah? What’s Shawn up to?”
“Living in Virginia Beach. He and his wife are expecting their first baby in February.”
“Good for them.” He took another bite of the cookie, offered it to Cecily for a nibble.
She bit in, enjoying the sweet bite of cinnamon and sugar as it melted on her tongue. Now that was a snickerdoodle.
“She was wishing you congratulations, too.”
“For what?”
“On your engagement.”
Cecily choked as the bite of cookie slid into her windpipe.
“Seems she ran into Annelise, who said she’d run into you and your fiancée in Oxford. Is there something you two want to tell us?” Her brows quirked expectantly.
Reed ignored his mother, peering closely at Cecily. “You okay?”
She coughed a few times, waving a hand until she caught her breath. “I seriously underestimated the whole Mississippi being one big small town factor,” she wheezed.
“Been tellin’ you that since you moved down here,” Norah said.
“Yes, we ran into Annelise, but I never said we were engaged,” Reed’s lips twitched as he looked back at Cecily. “I mean, we might have implied it.”
She couldn’t resist smiling back. “Okay, let’s be honest here. It’s possible that I have an overdeveloped sense of justice, and when I met the heinous hellbeast that was his ex, I decided to put her in her place.”
“By pretending you were some kind of heiress?” Anita asked.
Damn. Seemed her plan for revenge had worked even better than expected if Annelise had been running her mouth that much. Reed looked to Cecily, clearly waiting for her to telegraph whether he needed to cover or shift the conversation. That he was deferring to her on this point gave her all the warm fuzzies. He’d keep her secret, if she wanted. But if they were going to make anything of their relations
hip, his family would have to be clued in eventually.
Cecily took a breath and squared her shoulders. “Actually, that part wasn’t a lie. I’m Cecil Davenport’s granddaughter.
Grammy gaped. “Davenport? As in the philanthropist?”
Cecily actually smiled a little a that. “He’d be pleased that’s the first thing you thought of. I don’t tend to mention it—ever—because people usually get weird. But it is, occasionally, useful.”
“Well, I’d never have guessed,” Grammy said. “You’re so down-to-earth.”
“Thank you. I take that as an enormous compliment.”
“Mom,” Reed interrupted, “what exactly did you say to Mrs. Wallace?” No doubt the last thing he wanted was for the truth to be making its way back to his ex.
“I pretended I knew exactly what she was talking about and said I was getting a wonderful daughter-in-law, even if she is a Yankee. Which is, for the record, exactly what I’d have said if you were engaged.” Reed’s mom shot a pointed look in his direction.
Cecily’s cheeks heated. “I, uh, well, thank you.”
“Okay, let’s stop embarrassing the girl. It’s time for dinner,” Grammy announced.
~*~
Everybody moved through the kitchen, grabbing bowls and platters on their way to the dining room. Cecily placed a basket full of steaming biscuits on the corner of the table and sat down. “Contributed by Beth, of the soon-to-open Dixieland Biscuit Company.”
Norah started the passing of the food. “The launch plan you laid out is fabulous.”
“It was a lot of fun. I mean, how often did we get to make people happy with what we did at Helios?” she asked, referring to the firm she and Norah had worked for in Chicago. “Biscuits make people happy.”
Reed bit into one and moaned as the fluffy, buttery goodness hit his tongue. “Yes. Yes they do,” he said.
Clearly the work made her happy. She fairly glowed as she told Norah about the rest of what she’d lined up. Reed had never seen her get that spark when she talked about the other prospective jobs she was applying for. Not that she talked about them at all, if she could help it. They’d spent the last two weeks powering full-steam ahead, spending every spare minute together in case those minutes were numbered. He even managed to forget, for a few hours at a time, that they might be.
“Does she need help with anything?” Norah asked.
“No. She’s down to finalizing delivery of the backer prizes and getting the first printing of Biscuit Company t-shirts. Then it should be good to go for the grand opening.”
“You ever gonna tell Beth?”
Cecily forked up some potatoes. “Nope.”
“Tell her what?” Reed asked.
Norah arched a questioning brow at Cecily and everything clicked.
“You were the mystery backer,” he said. Everybody in town had been speculating for weeks, but they’d generally assumed it’d been Gerald Peyton, CEO of the non-profit Norah was working with on a number of restoration projects around town.
“I was.” Cecily said it with the same faintly embarrassed tone she might’ve admitted, “I was the secret admirer.”
Reed tried to wrap his brain around that. She’d told him that she didn’t touch the family fortunes except for charity. He didn’t know what he’d imagined that meant, but dropping five grand as casually as fifty bucks wasn’t it.
“How often do you do this kind of thing?” Aunt Liz asked.
Cecily shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a regular, scheduled thing. Just depends on what presents itself and when. And whether I can do it anonymously. Everyone in my family has pet causes and organizations. But I’ve always been drawn more to the personal. I like seeing the impact, knowing that the money went where it was supposed to go and gets a reasonably immediate return on my investment. It’s a rush.”
“Why anonymous?” Cam asked.
Reed gave him a pitying look. “No self-respecting superhero wants actual credit.”
Cecily’s lips quirked. “And what do self-respecting superheroes want?”
“They’re all in it for different reasons, usually relating to some inner wound. Oliver Queen is driven to right the wrongs of his father and save his city from corruption. Spiderman has to overcome the regret of not saving Uncle Ben, and be the kind of man Uncle Ben would have been proud of. Batman has to clean up Gotham so no other kids have to grow up without their parents.”
Intrigue mixed with amusement. “And me?”
“In your case, with great privilege comes great responsibility. To paraphrase Uncle Ben. You’re too driven to prove yourself—and earn things on your own merit—to be comfortable with the fact that you were born to affluence. But you have it, so you feel compelled to use it to help those who need it—particularly those who may be overlooked by others or who wouldn’t be helped by more conventional means. Recognition of your good deeds would minimize them because then people would be focused on you instead of the person or cause you supported, so you prefer to stay in the metaphoric shadows.”
Her look of flirty amusement slid away, leaving an uncharacteristic vulnerability in its wake as she stared at him. “Is that really how you see me?”
“Am I wrong?” he asked quietly.
“No, that’s…stunningly accurate.” And she looked absolutely flummoxed by it.
“Who knew your addiction to comic books would make you an armchair psychologist,” Cam said, in an obvious effort to lighten the mood.
“Any good student of literature is an armchair psychologist,” Reed retorted. “Literature is all about exploration of human nature. Just because my choice of literature happens to involve a lot of spandex, capes, and ass kicking doesn’t make that any less true.”
Cecily’s phone began to ring. “Sorry,” she muttered. She slipped it out of her pocket and started to send it to voicemail, then hesitated as she read the display. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” Pushing back from the table, she strode out of the room.
“That’s quite the woman you’ve got there, son,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, she’s pretty damned amazing.” And Reed could only thank God—and Norah—that they’d finally connected.
“Gotta say, I’m pretty proud of the Campbell men right now,” Aunt Sandy said. “Mitch, you’re falling behind here.”
“Hey, leave my love life out of this,” Mitch protested.
“Your lack of love life, you mean,” Miranda said.
“Oh you’re one to talk,” he shot back.
As the sniping continued around the table, Reed just smiled. Until he saw Cecily walk back in, face pale.
He was already half out of his chair, his napkin tossed to the table. “What’s wrong?”
But she wasn’t looking at him as the room fell silent. She was looking at Norah. “You could’ve warned me. When did they call?”
Norah grimaced. “Friday. I didn’t think they’d call you until tomorrow, and I wanted you to have the weekend not to have to think about it.”
“Excuse me, think about what?” Reed asked.
But he knew. Even before Cecily turned stricken eyes on him. “I have an interview with Verdant.”
That meant exactly nothing to Reed. He just shook his head, looking for some kind of elucidation.
“They’re one of the top ten marketing firms in the country,” Norah said quietly.
Of course they were. Because a Davenport wouldn’t settle for anything less. “Where?” Reed asked
Cecily inhaled a shaky breath. “San Francisco.”
With those two words, the axe that had been hovering over the back of his neck for weeks finally fell.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, misery etched in every line of her face.
What was he supposed to say to that? Manners asserted themselves in the absence of a rational response. He straightened fully. “Congratulations.”
Cecily flinched as if he’d slapped her. “I…excuse me, I need a minute.”
For several humming
beats, silence reigned. Reed didn’t know what to do. Should he go after her? Give her a few minutes to compose herself?
Mitch was the one who broke it. “Okay, does anybody else feel like we’ve already done this?”
“She’s not me,” Norah cautioned. “The circumstances aren’t the same.”
No, they weren’t the same. But they were close enough that Reed had been planning for this. “Did you get the stuff I asked you for?”
“In my purse. It’s not as complete as I’d like but given the time constraints…”
Reed nodded. “Thanks.”
He’d foolishly believed he’d have more time to lay the groundwork. Slow and methodical was his way. But the clock had run out. He had to trust that she felt this connection between them, too. That she’d be willing to take a risk on it. On them.
“What are you going to do?” his mother asked.
“Take a leap.”
Chapter 8
Cecily wished she hadn’t answered. It would only have delayed the inevitable, but at least the night wouldn’t have been ruined. She hadn’t been able to lie when she’d come back to the table—wouldn’t have insulted Reed by trying. And it was obvious from the look on his face that he already knew. So they both suffered through the rest of what became the world’s most awkward dinner, with everybody looking worried and biting back whatever opinions they had on the subject.
As they drove back toward town, Reed took her hand without a word.
He made her want to be reckless. To just rush in, without thought to consequences or cost. And, to a point, for the last couple of weeks, she had rushed in, ignoring the countdown in the back of her brain, because while she was with him, it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. She looked at him and saw the possibility of what Norah had with Cam, and she wanted that. She’d be insane not to want it. But a part of her kept hesitating. She didn’t trust her judgment well enough to know if she was projecting, or if what was between them was really real. So she’d held a piece of herself back, and now the final countdown had begun and circumstances would force a decision, one way or the other. After everything she’d worked for, how could she make that call, how could she know for sure that reckless plunge would be worth it, based on a matter of mere weeks?
