Simple Gone South gs-3

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  He ran his hands through his silky thick hair. She wished she didn’t remember what it felt like. “There could be an alternative.” He held up her red thong and beaded top. “These might make an attractive ensemble. If you’d like to put them on so I can help you evaluate, I don’t mind.”

  She had thought she’d been angry before. That wasn’t anger compared to what she was feeling now; that had been yoga and a massage all rolled into one. All of a sudden, she knew she was going to say everything that had drifted through her mind and heart since she was fifteen years old. It was going to feel good, better than good. It was going to be like lying naked on a mink blanket. And when she was done, he’d walk out of her house and she’d never hear from him or lay eyes on him again. Good. She wished she was sitting so she could jump to her feet for dramatic effect. During her time as Richie Sambora she’d learned a thing or two about drama. But she’d have to settle for moving in front of him and looking down at him, menacing. Oh, yeah. She could be menacing with the best of them. Dennis, even.

  “Listen, here, Mr. Young Architect of the Year. I’ve got some things to say to you and you might want to get your DayRunner out and make a list of it. Number one. I don’t have a Jasmine costume. I am not going to get a Jasmine costume. And while I’m at it, you might as well know Jasmine was not a harem girl. Disney does not make movies about harem girls.” Brantley Kincaid had the audacity to smile, which was like gasoline on a fire. “Number two.” She held up two fingers. “Who do you think you are? You might be the Golden Boy of Merritt, Alabama, and the Prince of Green Hills, Nashville, Tennessee. You might be able to talk somebody out of a silver fork and into carving pumpkins, but you are not going to boss me around. You also might as well know that between my parents moving around from this university to that, and hauling me off to Timbuktu every time I turned around, I’ve lived in about a thousand places. And, Brantley, never, never have I ever heard of a florist who carves Jack-O-Lanterns. I looked it up on the Internet. Florists don’t do that!”

  “They did for me.” He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Of course, they did! That’s my point. You are in charge of your world. People let you be in charge of them. But you are not in charge of me and I don’t ever have to call you back.”

  “You’ve proven that well enough. But about that list where you are laying down the law to me. I’m pretty sure you’ve named about eight things, not two,” Brantley said. “That list making class needs to be sooner rather than later.”

  “I’m not done with two yet!” Oh, what a maddening man. “You can’t tell me what to do. I am not some kid you can bribe with a choice of M&Ms and a full size Snickers. I am not your assistant, your housekeeper, your grandmother, or Missy—or any of the other ten thousand women who are just waiting around to try to please you. Most of all, I am not Rita May Sanderson.”

  “Yeah.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I can tell that by the way you are not throwing objects at me.”

  “What?” He opened his mouth to answer but she carried on. “Never mind. Also, you can’t just—” Waltz in here and break my heart again!

  “What number are we on?” he asked and grinned like the devil he was.

  She hated him! “Shut up. And isn’t it about time for you to get back together with Rita May?”

  “I am not getting back with Rita May. I am done.”

  “You have said that before.”

  “Never. Never have I said that. I have said before we were broken up, and who knew what the hell was going to happen. Well, this time I know what the hell is going to happen. Nothing is what is going to happen where Rita May Sanderson, otherwise known as Tradd Ellis Davenport, is concerned. She threw one taco too many. So if that’s what all the not calling back is about—”

  “It’s not. You should just get in your vehicle and take yourself back to Nashville.”

  He stood and gave her a long slow smile. “I’m not going back to Nashville.”

  “Well, you can’t be here. Until you do, go to your dad’s. Or Miss Caroline’s, or Missy’s. Hell, go check yourself and that dog into the dog pound for all I care.”

  He held his hands out and gestured to the space around him. “Oh, Lucy Mead. You really don’t understand. I am here. I am back.”

  Chapter Five

  “Back?” Lucy sat down on the saddle ottoman and immediately regretted it. Brantley towered over her, even after he sat back down. “What do you mean by back?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like. I am here. I am moving into Big Mama’s carriage house. Today.”

  “Wha—” She never stuttered. Or never used to. It couldn’t be true, not just when she had begun to get herself together from last time. But had she? Begun to get herself together? Surely. It had been fourteen years.

  Logic. That’s what she needed, so she asked a logical question that would make what he was saying not true, make him admit he was lying. “What about your business?”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “My business is here now. Right here.”

  What did that even mean? And if he really was staying in Merritt, how could she not know this? Why didn’t Missy tell her?

  “Does Missy know this?”

  “No one knows, not even my family. See, Lucy, after I decide something, I just get on with it. So, let’s you and me go down to the diner. I’ll buy you some breakfast and we’ll talk about it.”

  “We don’t have anything to talk about, Brantley. And I don’t want any breakfast.” Her stomach growled. Audibly.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Not hungry, huh?”

  “No.” She crossed her legs. “I am not.”

  “Well, I am. I’m starving. You could sit with me while I eat, just sit there and let me look at your pretty self. My attempts to court you through telecommunications have failed miserably so I am here to do it in person.”

  A ragged breath tore through her. She closed her eyes. He was kidding her, had to be. He was acting like he didn’t remember that night in Savannah, when she had been so willing to give herself to him and he’d seemed so willing for her to, but at the last minute climbed out of her dorm room bed and ran. Humiliation of that level didn’t come along every day. She took a deep breath. And then another.

  “Brantley, I am not going to breakfast with you. Besides, I don’t believe you are moving here. There’s nothing for you here. Your business is in Nashville . . . your house—”

  “My business is wherever I say it is,” he said glibly. “I am closing my office down for now. I have put my townhouse on the market. I don’t know what I’ll do when the job here is finished, but until then—”

  Job here? Oh, God. No, it couldn’t be. Yet, it was so obvious. Why had she not seen it coming? Still, she had to ask, had to be sure.

  “What job here?”

  “The Brantley Building, of course. Same job you agreed to.”

  Agreed? That was putting it lightly. She had jumped. She had practically kissed Miss Caroline’s feet. She would have danced in the street, if she’d been a different person. She’d done everything but ask enough important questions.

  “I cannot take the job now, for obvious reasons.”

  “Obvious? Like you are obviously not hungry? What would those reasons be, Lucy Mead?”

  Hell and double hell! Had she invented Savannah? Or had it meant so little to him that he didn’t even remember?

  “We’re friends,” she said, though it wasn’t entirely true. “We’re in the same social circle. I cannot work for you.”

  “For me?” He let out that golden boy laugh that had rung out on golf courses and at fraternity parties and debutante balls all over the south. “If you think you will be working for me, you don’t know much about Caroline Hurst Brantley. No. You will be working for her. And so will I. Miss Caroline rules these parts. She wants me. And she wants you. If you have decided you are not going to do this and plan to sashay over there and tell her so, good luck and by all means, take me with you. I could use a les
son.” He patted his knee and made kissing sounds at Eller, who jumped into his lap and looked at him adoringly. Of course; the story of his life.

  “Brantley, I—”

  And he smiled. “Come on, Lucy Mead. It’ll be fun.”

  That was the hell of it. It would have been fun and so fulfilling. She had already started doing research and had fantasized about the grand opening. Perhaps she would even win an award.

  But that couldn’t happen now, and all because of him—the man who had cost Lucy her heart at fifteen and again at nineteen. She had let it happen and she’d been paying in small ways ever since. She couldn’t count the times she’d had to flee town, had to miss out on plans she had looked forward to, all because the golden boy was coming to town.

  And now he was going to cost her this job that was so much more than a job. It was her heart’s work, the kind she loved best and a sign of true acceptance into her adopted hometown. And that wasn’t the least of it.

  He would be everywhere. Missy, who knew nothing of Lucy’s broken heart and humiliation, adored Brantley and he her. They had been babies together in the Christ Episcopal nursery. Their mothers had been friends. They had shared cotillion classes and high school. They had gotten drunk together for the first time. They had done everything except date and have sex.

  And when Judge Brantley and Eva Kincaid had been killed, Missy had slept on the floor by his bed that night, and every night after until Charles Kincaid whisked him off to Ireland.

  No way was any social event that involved Missy happening without Brantley. She’d probably even let him come to book club.

  He sat across from her now, totally unconcerned that he was ruining her life. He seemed to have forgotten that he was even in her presence, so enthralled he was with lavishing attention on that dog.

  Careful, Eller, he’ll dangle his magic in front of you and then snatch it away.

  Telling Miss Caroline would be hard. She had been so pleased with Lucy’s enthusiasm. But she would move on. Strong women like Miss Caroline did. She’d use her contacts and come up with someone else in no time—probably some tall, thin sophisticate who would rent one of those soulless sterile condos out at the lake for the duration of the project. Winter at the lake. Frosted over windows and a gas log fireplace. Brantley would be glad to make the twenty-minute drive out there to work. He might even get snowed in. Tiptoe Watkins had told Lucy last week that they would for sure have snow this winter, because the skins of the apples were tough. That was good. That demon woman who had stolen her job would cut her hand when she tried to make Brantley an apple pie. She wouldn’t die or even lose a finger—just hurt a little and ruin the pie. Oh, and maybe she would bleed all over their plans, so they wouldn’t be able to win any awards. She deserved ruined plans for stealing Lucy’s job and Brantley deserved a ruined pie for ruining—well, everything.

  Miss Caroline would not understand. She was not the kind of woman who let people ruin things for her. It wasn’t fair.

  Brantley pushed his silky moonbeam hair out of his eyes.

  “I need a haircut. Can you cut my hair? Just trim it up a little?” He was teasing her now and his smile was way too sweet.

  “Sure,” Lucy said. “Let me just get my hacksaw.”

  He laughed. “Lucy Mead, I don’t like the sound of that. Maybe I’ll just go lie in the road and let a possum gnaw it off.”

  “Maybe you will.”

  And maybe I won’t let you ruin this job for me.

  That was a new thought. Her heart rate picked up. It had to stop sometime, didn’t it? She closed her eyes and saw herself fleeing town on a Rascal because Brantley was coming to Missy’s ninety-fifth birthday.

  “I have decided to go ahead with the job,” she announced formally. “We can work together.”

  His head snapped up. Of course he was surprised. No matter what she’d said, he had not seriously considered that exactly what he expected to happen, might not.

  “That’s good news,” he said, like it was new news to him.

  “I will not kowtow to you,” she said.

  “No one ever does.” He got to his feet. “Okay. I need to move a few things into the carriage house, plus let my dad and grandmother know I’m here. I’m going to need to leave Eller here with you while I do that.”

  “No.”

  “She’s no trouble. She never poops or pees on the floor. And I’ve got some dog food in the car.”

  “I didn’t think she was trouble. I think you are. But you aren’t going to be my trouble.”

  “Please, Lucy. What if she got hit by a car during all the chaos of unloading my car? That would be terrible.”

  Lucy looked at the little ball of white fur. It would be terrible.

  “Put her in Miss Caroline’s house.”

  “She’d be better off taking her chances in the street than dealing with that monster cat from hell of my grandmother’s—meanest animal on four legs. Come on, Lucy.” He smiled. It wasn’t fair when he smiled. “It won’t be for long. I don’t have much stuff.”

  Lucy hesitated. She ought to make him take the dog to Missy. Or his dad’s house. Anywhere.

  “All right. But you come and get her as soon as you’re done. I mean it.”

  “I will. Then I’ll pick you up at six. I can’t stay out late because I’ve got to fly to San Francisco early in the morning for some PR and glad handing for the project I just finished. I’ll be gone about a week.”

  “Wait! Hold on! What do you think you are picking me up for?”

  “Our date. I am taking you out.”

  “No.”

  “I told you that you were going to hear from me. I made that clear.”

  “I am not dating you.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “That’s mostly what I came back for. I’ll just get that dog food.”

  Chapter Six

  Things had not gone as well with Lucy as Brantley would have liked but better than he’d feared. After all, she had let him leave Eller. That was something. At first, he had been surprised at her refusal to return his calls. People almost always returned his calls and if they didn’t, he didn’t care.

  But not Lucy; she refused and he cared. Even after he’d gotten the message that she wasn’t going to call, he had kept calling to hear her recorded voice, and because he wanted to tell her something. He had suspected she was listening to the messages he’d left and he’d been right. She’d proven that this morning with all that talk about hiring pumpkin carving.

  Several times, he’d vowed to leave her alone but he just couldn’t.

  She was his happy place and he knew as well as he knew the earth turned that she wanted him too—though you sure couldn’t prove it by her actions. Even as he’d made his plans to return to Merritt, all he could think about was seeing her, being near her—and he had not been at all sure that she would let that happen. Last night, he had packed his final box and had intended to sleep late this morning before making the drive. But he’d woken in the wee hours, overwhelmed by his need to see her. So he’d ambushed her on her porch. He’d been afraid, afraid of how he felt and afraid she wouldn’t let him in. So he’d gone all smartass on her—probably not the best move but he was making this up as he went.

  But oddly, he took it as a good sign that she wanted to run from him. That proved she had some feelings worth running from.

  He had no idea why, after all this time, such strong attraction kicked in. But there was something there—something fiery and fine that made him remember a bourbon-soaked late spring night in Savannah, Georgia when they had danced and laughed and he’d almost committed the unpardonable.

  “Don’t poop where you eat, boy,” Papa Brantley had said to him more than once—and he had almost done that. Having a one night stand with a hometown girl from his inner circle would have been bad enough, but taking her virginity would have been the ultimate in mixing pooping and eating. Thankfully, he’d realized before it was too late and remembered who he was.

&nb
sp; “Brantley, remember who you are. If you aren’t acting like a gentleman, you need to slow down and think.” More wisdom from Papa.

  But that was a long time ago—fourteen years. They’d been kids—though at twenty-one, he hadn’t thought so. That would have made Lucy nineteen. But what had he known? What did he know now? A smile spread over his face. He knew he wanted a little Lucy Mead magic for himself and it didn’t matter why. She wasn’t a kid anymore and he wanted more than a one night stand, though how much more he couldn’t say. He was still working that out.

  Things had been so complicated with Rita May. Aside from her temperament, which was enough to make for a hard day for anyone, his family and friends had not liked Rita May. Charles and Big Mama had been as quiet on the subject as Missy had been vocal but there was no doubt that they all lived in fear that he would marry her. How peaceful it would be to rest in that Lucy magic, how simple to embrace something that was accepted and familiar. Plus, he doubted Lucy spent much time throwing stuff at people.

  As he pulled into Big Mama’s driveway, his heart beat a little faster and his face suddenly felt hot. She didn’t know he was here. Neither did Charles. He wasn’t really sure why he hadn’t told them he was coming. He’d already emptied out his townhouse and called a realtor. The movers would be arriving Monday with the few things he’d wanted to keep—his workout equipment, his electronics, and some family furniture Big Mama had sent up there when he’d bought the townhouse. Maybe he hadn’t told them he was coming because there had always been a possibility that he might change his mind. But he would say he’d wanted to surprise them. They believed everything he said.

  He looked at the house and frowned. He didn’t like the look of that gingerbread bracket under the west eave. It was sagging. He was sure of it.

  He’d climb up there and take a look later today. He almost hoped it was a complicated repair that would take hours. He could fix it himself, and he took a lot of pride in that. Not everybody knew he was capable of manual labor. Fact was, he knew enough about how to repair a plaster wall and lay tongue and grove flooring to tell the difference between a craftsman and someone who could just get it done. Just getting it done wasn’t good enough, and he was secretly glad when he had to get his hands dirty from time to time. He’d won the respect of more than one contractor by rolling up his sleeves and pitching in. He’d made some mad too.