Simple Gone South gs-3

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “Robby Sipes, does your mother know you’re out here smoking?” Then she thought of an even bigger card to play. “Does Coach Scott?” All three boys hurriedly put out their cigarettes.

  “No, Ms. Mead. We don’t smoke. Not usually. You’re not going to tell on us, are you? Please.”

  “I might,” she said, “and I might not. Either way, I need a ride home. Right now. Who’s got a car?”

  The boys started tripping over each other like the Three Stooges, with a chorus of “Yes, ma’am.” “Right here.” “Get in. We’ll take you.”

  * * *

  Inside, the gym was totally silent. Brantley was the first to recover. He turned to the crowd and smiled. “Note to self and to all you guys out there: don’t propose to your girl in public. I think she’s a little overwhelmed. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to go find her. Merry Christmas!” And he tipped an invisible hat.

  “Brantley.” That was Missy’s voice. He did not slow down. Nor did he slow down in the parking lot until he got to his car. He had no intention of looking for Lucy, even though she didn’t have a car. Missy and the others would catch up with her any second. They were probably all texting right now. Lucy would be fine.

  He drove directly to the interstate and pointed himself north, toward Nashville.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lucy was a doer, not a crier. At least she never cried until she took care of business. As soon as she got home, she sat down and sent a text to Tolly, the friend she could most trust not to take things into her own hands “for Lucy’s own good.”

  I am home. I am fine. I don’t want to see or talk to anyone tonight and maybe not tomorrow. If anyone wants to know what they can do for me, it’s that. Can you make that happen for me?

  A moment later, the answer came. Yes.

  And that’s when she began to cry.

  Why did he have to go and ruin everything? Why could he have not just let things progress on, like normal people? They could have worked on the Brantley Building—and who knew what would happen with that now—made love, laughed, and ended up in forever.

  Except they couldn’t. He needed a savior, someone to hide in. But if he had let things progress, maybe she could have helped him. Maybe he could have grieved until he ended up in a healthy place, ready for a healthy relationship. Of course, if that happened, he wouldn’t need her anymore.

  Oh, it was too crazy, too confusing.

  She crossed her legs and shook her head in frustration. That’s when she heard the jingle of the bells on her toes and hat and realized she was still dressed as an elf. Well, she couldn’t change what happened tonight with Brantley, but she didn’t have to sit around looking like a refugee from the North Pole. That she could change.

  It was when she was in the shower that she realized she’d made a mistake—and a bad one.

  The only man she’d ever wanted had knelt at her feet and offered her an engagement ring. And she had run, like he had always run.

  Oh, it would have been ludicrous to get engaged. After being involved for this length of time, his emotional baggage aside, that would have been insane. But maybe she should have taken the ring publicly and later, in private, told him that they had to slow it down. Or she could have not taken the ring and said something like, “As romantic as this all is, I just don’t think I can get engaged wearing an elf suit. Maybe we’d better go somewhere else to talk about this.”

  And everyone would have laughed. Then they could have gone home and she could have confessed that she loved him, that she was here for him, but this was too much, too soon.

  Then a kernel of an idea took root. Maybe it wasn’t too late for that. Maybe she could still tell him those things. She got out of the shower and reached for her phone. Then stopped. No. This needed to be done in person. She dried her hair, dressed, and grabbed her keys. She would drive around until she found him, no matter where he was.

  * * *

  Thanks to those trying to reach hearth, home, mistletoe, and the foolishness that went with it, the traffic between Merritt and Nashville was a nightmare—slow and congested. It was looking like a three-hour trip was going to turn into closer to four.

  Many men would have been humiliated by what happened, or at least embarrassed. Not Brantley. He didn’t do embarrassment. Never had. Many men would have been mad. He certainly wasn’t that, not at Lucy. He’d brought the whole thing on himself, made assumptions about how she felt. He’d been stupid and he’d lost her. It was that simple.

  He was sure he had not realized the full impact of that yet. He’d never been impacted much when a relationship ended, but none of those relationships had been with Lucy Mead, with the healing laugh and the comforting touch. She was practically magic, but he had not been destined for magic, it seemed.

  Though there for a little while, he’d thought . . .

  Well, at least no one could expect him to do Christmas now. Or the Brantley Building. Out of the question. Good thing his townhouse hadn’t sold yet. He’d hole up there for a few days and pretend he wasn’t supposed to be with her. And next week, he’d make some calls and figure out where to go next. The New Orleans job might still be open. Or New England. Or maybe something else. He’d land in a new place, do some new things, and think some new thoughts.

  Unless she called. That could still happen, though it hadn’t yet.

  As if on cue, his phone rang. He checked the caller ID, like he had every time. Missy, again. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d called. He pressed the ignore button like he’d done numerous times already—for his dad, Big Mama, Luke Avery, and Missy many, many times.

  “Melissa,” he said to the empty air of his car. “Did you know that the true meaning of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Lots of people know that but not everyone knows Albert Einstein said it.”

  The phone rang again. Dad. Not Lucy.

  It was after midnight when he pulled into the driveway of his townhouse that still had the realtors’ lock on the front door. It had started to rain and there was sleet mixed in. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. At first he thought he’d wandered into the wrong place but then he remembered that on the advice of his realtor, he’d hired a property stager. She was supposed to make the place look homey, like somewhere you’d want to live.

  It looked pretty good, he had to admit. Not as good as it would if Lucy had done it, but way better than when he’d lived here. For one thing, it had furniture. There were magazines on the coffee table and a half knitted something with needles sticking out of it on an ottoman. Hell, there was even a decorated Christmas tree and stockings hung on the mantel.

  He wondered if the liquor in those crystal bottles on the bar was real. He took a sniff. No such luck. He shook an elaborately decorated package under the tree. Empty, of course.

  His phone rang again. Dad. He would listen to the voicemails tomorrow, but tonight, he just couldn’t. He considered turning the phone off, but she might call. It could happen.

  Then something occurred to him. They might be worried about him, as in thinking he was dead.

  He picked up the phone and texted Charles. I’m okay. I’m in Nashville. I’ll call you tomorrow.

  The response came almost immediately. Thank you, Son. I’ll tell your grandmother. We love you.

  They loved him. Oh, yes they did. No question. He took the phone charger from his pocket and plugged it up on the kitchen counter. It was easy to love someone who had never destroyed anything. And now he had no chance of making it up. Unless she called.

  He picked up the TV remote and pushed the power button. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. Then he looked closer. Not plugged in. No cable. Of course not. People looking at real estate didn’t usually stop to watch TV.

  He bet they didn’t eat either. He opened the refrigerator. There was a pot of something in there that smelled like oranges and spices, but it sure didn’t look edible. The realtor must boil it t
o make people think there was baking going on where there was none. He hadn’t been upstairs yet, but he was willing to bet the beds were made with outstanding looking quilts and such, but no sheets.

  He might as well think about getting comfortable on that couch. Sofa, Lucy would call it. There on the end was one of those things that women liked to wrap up in when they watched TV. That would do in this house that was all about show and nothing about real comfort.

  Tomorrow—the day before Christmas Eve—he’d go out and get a toothbrush, another set of clothes, and—most important—some bourbon.

  He’d just sat down and started to unlace his shoes when the doorbell rang.

  It couldn’t be! But maybe it was. It was possible, if she had left right after he had.

  He ran to the door and threw it open.

  And there stood Rita May Sanderson, dressed in white from head to toe—knee boots, pants, sweater, ski jacket, hat, and mittens. In the eerily lit rain and sleet, she looked like an undead snow queen.

  He instinctively stepped back, but she launched herself in the door and into his arms, coming close to lacerating his side with her hipbone.

  “You showed up just at the right time!” she said. “My electricity went out. I was afraid the roads might be getting slick from the sleet, so I walked here—all four blocks!”

  He peeled her off him. “The roads are not slick, Rita May. It’s forty degrees. And how did you know I was here anyway?”

  She threw her jacket off. “I knew you wouldn’t stay in that little Podunk town long. I’ve been tracking you.”

  What? Had she installed a tracking device under his skin like a dog, some night while he was asleep? “You have been tracking me? How on God’s green earth?”

  “If you took as much interest in your smart phone as you do in that DayRunner, you’d know. The right app, the right know-how. I’ve known where you were every second since you’ve been gone. Before that, even. Well.” She walked over to the mirror and fluffed her hair. “At least every second I wanted to, when I remembered to look.”

  He was speechless, something that did not happen often. That was one app he was going to learn all about and outsmart. Damn.

  “So my lights went off. I looked at my phone, and guess what? Brantley Kincaid’s come home for Christmas.” She looked around. “This place looks pretty good. You should have had this done before. Do you have any chardonnay?”

  He found his voice. “No, I do not. And even if I did, you aren’t staying—not to drink wine, not to fluff your hair, and not to break stuff.”

  “Oh, Brantley, come on. I have forgiven you for making me break up with you. We always do this. And we always do this.” She came toward him with her arms outstretched.

  “No.” He backed away. “First, you did not break up with me. I broke up with you. I meant it then and I mean it now. Now I find out you have been stalking me. You need to leave.”

  “I told you my power is out.”

  “Even if that is true, which I doubt, then go somewhere else. Your parents. Your BFF of the moment. Or take one of those candles off the mantle and rough it out at your own place but you are not staying here.”

  She pouted but she looked like she might be starting to believe him.

  “I don’t have a way. I walked.”

  “And you can walk back. This is the safest neighborhood in Nashville.” And it was. This was a gated community.

  “I’ve got a blister on my foot,” she whined.

  He could have easily driven her, but that would only lead to more whining, more pleading, and more drama. And he was in no mood.

  “Rita May, you are leaving, whether by dogsled, spaceship, or on the back of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It matters not to me.” This was getting dangerously close to arguing. “I am going up those stairs to get me a pillow and when I come back down, you had better be gone, or I will call security. And I’m warning you. Pillow fetching does not take long.”

  He was satisfied that she believed him before he mounted the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lucy had not known it was possible to drive around Merritt for so many hours. As she drove, she rehearsed what she would say. She loved him. She wanted him. She wanted to try, try really hard to turn this relationship into something more than temporary. But he needed to face his grief. She would help him; she’d be there every step of the way. She wanted to be his safe place, but she needed him to want her for more than safety. It would all sound very reasonable.

  What wasn’t reasonable was that she couldn’t find him. Not at the carriage house, Miss Caroline’s, or his father’s. Not at Missy’s. He and Luke had been fraternity brothers at Vandy, so she drove to the farm. Not there either. It was less likely he’d be with Tolly and Nathan, but she tried there too.

  She didn’t go in at any of the places. She would only do that if his car were there. But it was nowhere. Then she tried less likely places—the gym, the fish restaurant out by the lake, the country club because he could be in the bar drinking.

  Then she started all over again. Finally, she faced that he was not in town. He had run. That wasn’t new and it wasn’t a surprise. And maybe he had good cause this time. She could lead him home; she was sure of it, if she could just find him.

  It was going to have to be the phone after all. She pulled into her driveway, went in, and sat beside the Christmas tree they had decorated together. For good luck, she pulled one of the antique doorknobs he’d given her from the crystal bowl on the coffee table where she had arranged them.

  Then she dialed the number.

  It rang twice before she heard it click on. She took a deep breath and got ready.

  But the voice was not warm caramel. She didn’t know what it was, but not that.

  “Hello, this is Brantley Kincaid’s phone. Rita May Sanderson speaking.”

  Lucy did what anyone in her situation would have done. She hung up and drank half a bottle of red wine straight from the bottle. Then, knowing she could not bear to crawl into the bed that she had so recently shared with Brantley, she went to sleep on the sofa.

  Chapter Thirty

  Lucy woke with a pounding head and a mouth like the desert. She looked at her watch. Almost six. Not only was she still wearing her watch, she had not removed her jeans and sweater. Though she didn’t remember taking them off, her shoes were laying helter-skelter next to the half empty wine bottle. Brantley always set his shoes neatly side by side, with the laces tucked inside.

  His shoes would be sitting by Rita May’s this morning—probably tall black boots with studs—or she might still be wearing those boots, right in bed.

  Sometimes a person who’d suffered a traumatic event didn’t remember it until they’d been awake a minute or so. Not her. She’d gone to sleep with it on her mind and woke with it on her mind. She’d probably dreamed about it. When she sat up, her stomach rolled, not with nausea but hunger. No wonder. She never had gotten around to taking a single bite of the pizza from last night, so she’d had nothing since a salad yesterday at lunch—unless you counted the wine. And how much nutritional value could half a bottle of wine provide?

  After showering, she put on a set of ratty old sweats because what she wore did not matter. No clients, no meetings, no Brantley. No Brantley ever again.

  But McDonald’s was open, even this early.

  She picked up her keys, headed out the door, and drove there. What she really wanted was a quarter pounder with cheese and French fries, but it was too early to get that. And an apple turnover would be just the thing. She hadn’t had one of those in years. Oh, look! She could get that—it was right there on the drive-through breakfast menu. She might get two. Could you get a milkshake this early?

  What was wrong with her? She never ate fast food and certainly not for breakfast. She was a good girl, kept right to the good nutrition rules. In the face of all this, why couldn’t she be lying on the sofa nauseated at the very thought of food? That’s how it always was in books.
But she was not that person.

  Oh, no. She was the once and future fat girl.

  Evidently, she was going to eat her grief away, become plump, then fat, then morbidly obese. So what? She was good at her work. She’d throw herself into it—that and eating. Everyone would be clamoring for her to come evaluate their houses, vacation homes, and guest houses—if she could get through the door.

  She wouldn’t do historic restoration anymore—only modern and futuristic. That would be her eccentricity. Eccentricities were tolerated from the brilliantly talented. Everyone would whisper about it.

  “Why won’t Lucy—” because by then she would be just Lucy, no last name “—do restoration? That used to be her specialty.”

  “I heard the White House begged her to restore the Lincoln bedroom but she refused.”

  “What? You can’t turn down the White House!”

  “Tell that to the First Lady.”

  “And there’s that other thing. She always insists on incorporating at least one antique doorknob into her designs. Some critics say the juxtaposition between those knobs and her sparse designs is brilliant; others think it’s just peculiar.”

  “I heard she was disappointed in love while working on a restoration project. Some say her lover fell, hit his head on a glass doorknob, and died.”

  “That’s why she eats.”

  “Take your order, ma’am?” Oh, good God. Could she be any more melodramatic?

  She returned home with an Egg McMuffin, hash browns, two apple turnovers, and a large coffee. She sat down at the kitchen table but not before she noticed there were now two messages on her phone. Too bad. She was going to eat first, eat every bite. Well, she might save one of those turnovers until later. It had been defiance that made her get two.

  After eating, she felt a little less giddy, if not better. Lucy hit the button for the first voice mail and reached for her coffee. This might take a while.