by Amy Lillard
“Ginger. You will never guess who I’m standing here talking to in the middle of the Safeway. Nope. Bethie Grace McGee.”
“Actually, it’s Elizabeth. I go by Elizabeth now.”
Candy stared at her as if she’d sprouted tulips out her ears. “I know. Can you believe it?”
Nope.
“That’s what I said too. Uh-huh. I think tonight.” She paused. “Mom can babysit. It’ll be okay. Uh-huh. That’s what I was thinking. Oh great minds!” She tucked the pink-encased phone between her chin and shoulder and gave Elizabeth two thumbs up.
“Yep, seven o’clock. That should give us plenty of time. Yep. Okay, see ya then,” Candy finished and tapped her phone off. “It’s all set. Ginger’s going to meet us at Barney’s at seven.”
“That’s great.” Elizabeth hoped her voice sounded more excited than she felt. She was excited…just exhausted and excited which almost cancelled each other out.
Almost.
Candy and Ginger had been her best friends growing up. Even though they had lost touch over the years, Elizabeth didn’t want to hurt their feelings. She would play catch-up with them tonight and then sleep in tomorrow before setting to work cleaning out her grandmother’s house.
With any luck, she’d be back in LA by the beginning of next week.
Chapter Two
Barney’s would never make it outside of Loveless. It belonged strictly to the locals. So familiar the customers practically served themselves. Which was a good thing, considering the fact that the service was as lackadaisical as the attitude of the patrons. The shed-like building crouched apologetically on the edge of town, where Main Street headed for the interstate. There wasn’t much to it— a small dance floor, a live band on occasion, and the best nachos in all of the Texas Hill Country.
Elizabeth felt every eye turn as she walked in the door just after seven that evening. Everything seemed to stop. Except the jukebox. It must have been new, because it didn’t seem to know that she was back in town and it kept on playing its sad country song.
She felt hopelessly overdressed. In LA, that wouldn’t be a bad thing, but in Texas…Her blouse was raw silk, peach-colored and elegant, her cream slacks high-waisted and belted with a shiny, fine-linked chain belt. Her high-heeled sandals matched to a tee, and her turquoise jewelry set everything off. She looked cool and collected and terribly out of place.
She tried to blend in as she picked her way toward the booth where Candy waited. This was who she was now. Take it or leave it. Not that she had much choice over what to wear; she only had two sets of clothes with her.
“Oh…” Candy squealed as Elizabeth slid into the booth opposite her friend. “This is so exciting. Just like old times.”
Almost. When they were growing up, they’d been too young to frequent Barney’s. But the spirit was still there. The trio plus Holly Carter had gone practically everywhere together, until JD had come along…
“Where’s Ginger?” Elizabeth set her handbag down in the booth next to her and tucked one leg beneath the other.
Candy took a long drink of her Coke and sighed. “Sorry, I only allow myself one of these a week. Caffeine, you know. Ginger’s closing up the shop. She had a late customer, then she had to take Nora by my mother’s…”
“Nora?”
Candy nodded, the blades of her dishwater blond hair swishing around her face. “Her little girl. Cutest thing.”
So Ginger had a daughter, and Candy was soon to be a mother herself. Elizabeth had missed a lot. “Is this your first?”
Candy laughed. “Lord, no. This is our fourth. And our last.”
“Four?”
“Of course we said that after Jonathan, and you can see how well that worked out. But anyways…”
“You have three children?” Elizabeth tried not to let the taint of disbelief creep into her voice. “And one on the way…”
“Amber’s thirteen, Daniel’s ten, and Jonathan will be eight in a couple of weeks.”
“And the baby?”
“This little fella isn’t supposed to be here for a couple of more months. He’s got a ways to grow while I get as big as a house.”
Elizabeth didn’t have time to respond before Candy stood and started waving. “There she is.”
Even after fifteen years, Elizabeth would have known Ginger anywhere. Her long red curls were pulled back into a ponytail, just like she used to wear when they were on the cheerleading squad together. But her eyes, so green it almost seemed impossible, were not filled with mischief and joy as they had once been. Now they looked worried, anxious, and maybe even a little stressed.
“Bethie Grace.” Ginger slipped her purse from her shoulder and flung her arms around Elizabeth.
“It’s Elizabeth,” she explained once again after she had returned the hug and everyone was seated. “I go by Elizabeth now.”
Ginger looked to Candy who merely shrugged and sipped on her Coke as if her life depended on it. “Why?” Ginger had never been one for tact.
“Because—” Because it sounded better. Because Bethie Grace sounded so Southern…so Texas…so not professional. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Everyone in LA just calls me Elizabeth.”
Ginger rolled her eyes over to Candy. “Dontcha just love the way she says that?” Then she turned her attention back to Elizabeth. “I don’t care what they call you in ‘LA’, you’ll always be Bethie Grace to me.”
“And you’ll always be my friend,” Candy added with a smile.
“Because you know all my secrets,” the three of them finished at the same time, laughing at their private joke.
Then Candy burst into tears.
“Candy.” Elizabeth reached across the table toward her friend as Ginger smoothed a hand down Candy’s hair.
She waved them both away. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” she moaned, tears still streaming down her face in black rivers of mascara.
“You don’t look okay.”
“Ginger,” Elizabeth admonished.
Ginger shrugged. “Come on,” she said to Candy as she slid out of the booth and held out a hand to help. “Up you go.”
“Stupid hormones.” Candy stood, wiping the mascara from under her eyes with the edge of a cocktail napkin. “I’ll just go clean up. Don’t talk about anything important while I’m gone.” With that, she waddled away to the ladies room.
As Candy made her beeline across the restaurant, their waitress arrived. Ginger ordered them both margaritas on the rocks, chips and salsa for them to share, and a glass of water for the mommy-to-be.
“So have you seen him since you got back?”
“Seen who?” Like she didn’t know.
“Don’t be coy.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You know he’s sitting right over there.”
Elizabeth was well aware of the fact that JD was just across the room, a plate of Barney’s famous nachos and a beer sitting on the table in front of him. He looked good enough to eat. She was also very aware of the fact that he was by himself.
“Last time I checked it was a free country. He can sit wherever he wants,” Elizabeth countered.
“Oh, Bethie Grace, stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You guys were quite an item once,” Ginger sing-songed.
True. “That was a long, long, long, long, long time ago.”
“Quit being dramatic.”
“I’m not—”
“Have you talked to him or not?” Ginger demanded.
Oh, she had talked to him all right. She had practically fallen at his feet. That was the exact reason why she had to steer clear of the man while she was in Loveless. He had been irresistible enough when he was an eighteen year old man-boy. And now? Whew. “He’s working on my grandmother’s house.”
Ginger nodded. Of course she knew. Elizabeth had forgotten just how small Loveless could be.
“Why don’t you go talk to him now?” Ginger asked.
“Why would I?”
/>
“You know, old time’s sake.”
“Old times don’t really have sakes,” Elizabeth said.
“He’s looking over here,” Ginger said through her smile.
“This is so high school.”
“Bethie Grace, go talk to him.”
“I talked to him this afternoon. We have nothing more to say to each other.”
“You know he’s got a daughter?”
Of course she knew he had a child, but no one had ever told her whether it was a girl or a boy. A girl. JD had a daughter.
“She’s almost fourteen,” Ginger added.
Fourteen years and Elizabeth could remember the telephone conversation like it was yesterday.
“He’s a widower, you know.” Ginger’s words crashed through Elizabeth’s thoughts.
That was something she didn’t know.
“You ought to go talk to him.”
She looked back over to where he sat, and this time he caught her eye. He raised his beer in salute, and Elizabeth quickly turned away as the young server brought them their drinks.
She took a sip of her margarita and let her eyes wander around the room. Well, wander everywhere but a three foot radius surrounding JD.
“What’d I miss?” Candy asked as she slid into the booth next to Ginger.
“Did you do that to get the outside seat?” Ginger asked.
“No, but you have to admit, it did work in my favor.” Candy dimpled a quick smile, and Ginger rolled her eyes.
Elizabeth had so missed them. Her life in LA was full…too full to sit around a tiny little honky tonk and argue over who got to sit on the outside of the booth. She had friends in California…sort of. There was…uhum…well, she had friends just not any she could imagine doing something like this with. Her career came first. Which is why she was one of the most sought after chefs in the business.
“Why don’t you go over there?” Candy asked, bringing Elizabeth around from her thoughts.
“Hmmm?” She shoved the entire tortilla chip covered with salsa into her mouth to keep from having to answer.
“Why don’t you go over there and talk to JD?”
Next time she’d have to get a bigger bite. “Oh, not you too. Next thing you know you’ll want me to pass him a note in study hall.”
“Y’all never had study hall together—” Candy started.
“Just sex education,” Ginger finished amidst gales of hysterical laughter.
Candy joined in leaving Elizabeth the only one at the table not wiping her eyes in mirth. “Laugh all you want. At least I didn’t lose my virginity to Bobby Dan Johnson.”
Ginger immediately sobered. “That was below the belt.”
“But true,” said Candy with the salute of her water glass. “All too true.”
And the girls succumbed to the giggles once more.
****
Laughter erupted at the table across the way, and more than one head turned in their direction.
Bethie Grace McGee had come home.
“She’s something else, huh?”
JD turned his attention to the man who slid into the bench seat opposite him. Gabe Stillman was new to Loveless. Yet he could see that Bethie Grace was different than the rest, no matter how well she fit in once upon a time. Even then she’d stood out. There was just something about her…
“Yeah.” JD took a sip of his beer to keep himself from saying more.
He kept telling himself that all he wanted from Bethie Grace was a bit of her time to catch up, apologize again. But seeing her like that, face to face with her high school cohorts, laughing and glancing his way just like they did in the school cafeteria made him wonder if he wanted more. More of her. More of the golden years.
“So you know her?”
You could say that. “Yeah.”
“Will you introduce me?”
Gabe was a little younger than JD, a good looking man who had moved to Loveless to settle down and find himself…or so he said. JD had liked him immediately. Until now.
“What is this junior high?” he snapped. “Go introduce yourself.”
Gabe blinked once, but didn’t respond as Trey Alexander nudged Gabe to the wall and slid into the booth next to him.
“Have you seen her?” he asked JD.
“Yeah.”
“So are you going to go talk to her?” Trey pressed.
“I already did. I’m working on her grandmother’s house, remember?”
Gabe looked from one of them to the other. “That’s Bethie Grace McGee?”
“The one and only.” Lane Edwards pushed at JD until he scooted over for him to sit down. “So have you talked to her?”
“No, but I’m thinking about asking her to the homecoming dance. Maybe you could meet her at her locker and give her a note for me.”
“Ah…don’t be that way.” Lane snatched a cheese laden chip off of JD’s plate and shoveled it into his mouth.
JD and Lane went as far back as him and Trey. They’d all been in high school together, had planned to go off to college until JD did the unthinkable and accepted a scholarship to Oklahoma and went to play football for the Sooners. It was something neither man ever let him forget.
“Just how do you want me to be, Laney? I haven’t seen her in fifteen years.”
“I think she likes you,” Lane said.
“Funny,” was all JD could manage.
There had been a time when she’d more than liked him, and now…well now was something else entirely. The worst part of it all was that the more she pushed him away the more he wanted to get closer. He wanted to know about her life in LA, all that she had been doing for the last fifteen years. Erase that cache of pain that flashed in her eyes every time he came near.
“Y’all were something back then. Voted most likely to get pregnant in high school,” Lane reminisced.
“That was insulting,” JD countered.
Trey laughed. “And most likely to come to school with a hickey.”
“Now that was fun.” JD couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. They’d had more than their fair share of good times and then…
“So go ask her to dance. Buddy and the guys are warming up. They play a mean country waltz. You can see about polishing your belt buckle,” Trey said.
“And maybe more,” Lane added, with a bob of his cowboy hat.
JD shook his head. His friends had no idea of what happened between them after graduation, after time had tested them and the depth of their feelings for each other.
He nudged Laney with his leg until the lanky cowboy stood, allowing JD to do the same.
She had shot him down cold that very afternoon, yet the thought of holding her once again was entirely too tempting to let pass by.
****
Elizabeth sensed his movement even before he rose from his seat and approached their booth. Her mouth was dry, her palms wet, and her heart pounding by the time he made his way across the room.
She could hear the girls whispering to her, but she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. All she could think about was him.
“Candy. Ginger.” He nodded his head at each of them in turn. “Bethie Grace.”
“Hey, JD,” Ginger responded. “You wanna sit down?”
He shook his head. “I came over to ask Bethie Grace to dance.”
“She’d love to,” Candy answered before Elizabeth could even so much as open her mouth and voice the hundred protests that sprang to her tongue.
He reached out a hand, and Elizabeth took it instead of staying seated and kicking Candy under the table. As much as she didn’t want to dance with JD, she wanted to dance with him twice that much. Despite the lies and hurt and anger, she wanted to be held by him once again.
His fingers were warm and strong, hands calloused and protective as he pulled her to her feet and led her to the tiny little dance floor. They were the kind of hands that made a girl know the man who owned them would shelter her as well. When they were teen
agers, his hands had borne the same marks from playing football in the fall and working with his father all spring and summer as his practices permitted. Taking his hand was like stepping back in time.
Buddy Epperson and his band the Wildcats were just starting their first song. The music was upbeat enough, but was still a two-step that required contact.
Elizabeth felt like she had grabbed a hold of a live electric wire. JD seemed to hum and vibrate with…something…she just didn’t know what to call it. Manliness, sex appeal…just flat out testosterone. Whatever it was, it was potent as he loosely held her.
“You didn’t want to dance with me,” he said.
“No,” she said truthfully.
He frowned and pressed his lips together. “That was a long time ago, Bethie Grace.”
“It’s not that.” She tilted her head back and met his gaze, then immediately she wished she hadn’t. How easy would it be to forget all her problems and just sink into those sexy blue eyes.
“Then what is it?”
How did she answer that? “It’s…complicated.”
JD smiled, that irresistible flash of teeth. “No, it’s not. You’re making it complicated. All I wanted to do was dance.”
“And nothing else?” She didn’t have any more to give.
But just being back in Loveless was hard enough, being assaulted with memories and “what might have beens” was killing her. And she hadn’t even been there a whole day. The last thing she needed was to be back in JD’s arms comparing the man in front of her to the boy she had known.
“And nothing else.”
His lips said the words, but his eyes showed something different. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that— just one more on the growing list of things she would have to sort out. He was right. That had been a long time ago. If he had the decency to lie about it, she should have the decency to pretend to believe it.
She didn’t answer. Instead she tried to not concentrate on the clean masculine smell of JD up close. He’d changed colognes since high school. Back then he’d smelled like the discount aftershave he’d smuggled out of his father’s medicine cabinet, but now he smelled of clean air and pine. It brought to mind that day at the lake when…
