by Ava Miles
“No wonder your music is so real,” she said finally. “You talk to people. And you listen.”
“I don’t talk to everyone, and I probably don’t listen to everyone either.”
She gave him a look.
He held up his hands. “I’m telling the truth.”
“You’re being self-deprecating. No wonder you and J.P. get along so well. He would probably say the same thing about himself.”
“Is that a bad thing?” he asked, studying her face.
Unable to look away, Susannah gazed deep into his blue eyes. He had a light dusting of freckles on his nose. And his eyelashes? She could have skied the long jump off them. But his lips threatened her restraint the most. They were lush and full and made her want to feel them move over her own.
“Susannah?” he asked in a deep tone, one octave lower than usual.
Her eyes flew back to his, and she felt a blush spread across her cheeks. “Sorry…I was…thinking about J.P. I was supposed to…ah…call him.”
As if her blatant staring wasn’t bad enough, now she’d added insult to injury and broken one of the Big Ten, her mama’s nickname for the commandments. She’d just made a liar of herself to cover up her infatuation.
“Maybe you’d better call your brother then,” he said, his lips twitching. “You seem flustered all of a sudden.”
Was he flirting with her? Dag nabbit, he was so not supposed to do that, not when he clearly didn’t intend to ask her out.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, as much to save face as to screw her head on straight.
“You can step outside through the French doors if you want some privacy.”
“Thanks,” she said and took off in the direction he’d indicated.
She did make a call to her business manager to keep up the pretense. When she returned to the studio ten minutes later, feeling more in control of herself, Jake was sitting on the couch strumming a guitar.
“I like that melody,” she commented. “I don’t think I’ve heard it before.”
“I’m working on a new album,” he said, setting his guitar aside. “So you know my music?”
“Please. I live in Nashville, and you write songs with my brother. Of course I know your music. And if for some reason I didn’t, I would have listened to it as research for this job.”
“I don’t want to be a job to you,” he said, scanning her face. “I’d…like us to be friends…too. Your brother is one of my friends, so it only seems fitting.”
Fitting. Is that what he thought? “Friends then. But I’m still working for you as your decorator. That’s an important distinction to me.”
He rose from the couch and came over to stand in front of her. Again, she had to crane her neck to meet his eyes.
“I respect that. So why don’t we do what I do with you brother? He works for me too, technically.”
But he’s not attracted to you, she wanted to add. “What’s that?” she said instead.
“We work together, and we…talk like friends. You’re going to be decorating my house, and unlike the last lady, you’re going to want to do it right. That means we’re going to have to be friendly.”
“Okay, so tell me more about your favorite small towns.”
“Well, the first one that comes to mind is Booger Holler in Arkansas. It’s famous for the town sign that said Population 7…countin' one ol' coon dog. The town is closed now, but it even had a two-story outhouse at one point.”
She laughed. “You’re making that up.”
He crossed his heart like the good Boy Scout he’d probably been. “Nope. Even my lyrics couldn’t be that original.”
“A coon dog?” she asked. There was no way she was discussing an outhouse with a man. She was too Southern for that.
“Mountain folk set a high price on their coon dogs,” he said. That made him laugh too, and the laughter seem to loosen up his whole body.
“You don’t have a dog.”
He immediately tensed up again. “No. I had one when I got back…when I left the Army. But he got hit by a car.”
“I’m so sorry.” What must that have been like? To lose friends in combat, only to come home and lose your dog?
He shrugged. “I forgot my manners. I didn’t offer you anything to drink.”
“You don’t need to be concerned about that.”
“But I am,” he countered, “so what can I get you?”
“Do you have a beer?” she asked jokingly, hoping to lighten the mood.
His face went blank.
“I was just kidding. How about some ice tea?”
Jake was studying her again, like he wasn’t sure how to read her all of the sudden. “Sweet?”
“Of course,” she said easily. “What other way is there?”
“Do you actually like beer?” he asked, readjusting the guitar he’d left sitting on the couch.
“On occasion.”
“Hmm…I didn’t take you for a beer kind of girl.”
Susannah almost gave him a playful whack, but it would be too flirtatious. “I prefer wine, but I’ll drink beer if it’s offered.” Her brother teased her and her sisters sometimes for liking their white wine. And they teased him for liking pretty much anything that came out of a jug—which really wasn’t true. But it’s what siblings did.
“Is your kitchen as bare bones as the rest of the house?” she asked him.
“Pretty much,” he said and led her back to the steps leading to the first floor. “My mama didn’t believe in men cooking growing up, so I never learned. And being in the Army and then on tour didn’t help much.”
“I’ll teach you some basics, if you’d like,” she said before thinking about it. So much for keeping it professional.
“I’d like that,” he answered after a long pause. “I’ll bet you’re good at cooking. In fact, I’ll bet you’re pretty much good at everything you do.”
A while back, Jake had told J.P. he thought she was charming. Apparently she’d been upgraded to proficient.
“My mama is a good cook, and we needed to help growing up.”
“I expect so,” he said quietly. “I met your mama at one of your brother’s parties, but I’d like to get to know her better. She sounds like an incredible woman.”
“You should come to her church,” she said brightly. “And hear her preach. She’s in her element there.”
From the way he closed down and physically backed away from her, she knew she’d made a terrible mistake.
“I don’t go to church any more,” Jake said, looking down at his boots. “Not that I don’t believe or respect other’s beliefs.”
“Of course,” she said immediately. This topic was a powder keg. “Why don’t you get our tea? I’m going to wander around, if that’s okay, and let some ideas form.”
His chest rose as if expelling a tortuous breath. “Take as much time as you’d like. I want you to have a feel for the house. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She made herself smile. “Good. I’ll find you.”
When he left, she stared at the plain, bare walls. And wondered over the pain in her heart how such a loving and gentle man had been reduced to living in an empty house and closing himself off from church.
Chapter 3
Jake wet a paper towel with cold water and dabbed the back of his neck. He hadn’t expected Susannah’s invitation to church—although he should have. She was rightly proud of her mama’s preaching. And inviting people to services was the Southern way. Heck, J.P. had already issued that same invitation.
But it had filled him with shame to tell Susannah church wasn’t for him anymore. What must she think of him now? She would want to be with a man who would go to services with her every Sunday and raise their kids in some kind of faith. Even her continued attraction to him couldn’t compensate for that.
How was he supposed to tell her he’d lost all his faith when God hadn’t answered his prayer to save Booker? That he didn’t understand God or the way things
worked anymore? He’d prayed in the beginning, sure, but prayers had done nothing to save Booker and a few of his other friends. Wasn’t his friend, Monty, walking around with a prosthetic leg after stepping on a landmine? There had been a few near misses for him as well, and he had a scar on his shoulder to prove it.
The more senseless carnage he’d witnessed, the harder it had become to pray. What kind of God would allow such atrocities to happen? Growing up in a country that had a constant supply of food and water and a system of government that dealt mostly—albeit imperfectly—with things like violence and disorder hadn’t prepared him for the chaos of war. Unspeakable things happened in battle.
Since there weren’t any ready answers to his questions, he’d decided to do the respectful thing and stop pretending to believe in a God that allowed these things to happen. He honored other people’s beliefs—was even heartened by their prayers for him and their own stories of how prayer had changed their lives—but it wasn’t his story.
Jake felt like he’d been abandoned by God, and maybe it was true. Forgiveness was all well and good, but wasn’t there a line whereby a person simply couldn’t come back? Maybe he wasn’t redeemable after everything he’d done, and that’s why God hadn’t saved Booker when he’d cried out. God sure acted like He didn’t love Jake anymore, if you asked him.
“Are you okay?” she asked, making him jump.
The damp paper towel fell from his hand and plopped on the floor. He snapped down to retrieve it. “It’s a little warm in here, don’t you think?” he asked, hoping to cover up his moment of weakness.
She rubbed her arms. “Actually, it feels a little cool to me. Maybe I’ll need that sweet tea warmed up.”
The sweet tea. He’d forgotten all about it. “I can warm it up. And I’ll turn up the heat while I’m at it.”
“Don’t bother on my account if you’re warm,” she said, her moss-green eyes soft.
So she knew he was unsettled.
“I’ll get you one of my jackets,” he replied, liking the idea of seeing her wearing something of his.
Then he had to remind himself that they could never be anything more than friends.
“That’s not—”
He darted out of the kitchen before she could continue to protest. His favorite jean jacket hung in the front closet, and truth be told, it would look nice with her red blouse and navy skirt. Country professional, he decided, and then frowned. His daddy would have called him a sissy or worse for having an opinion about women’s clothing.
Daddy didn’t understand that as an artist Jake knew about things like color and textures, the same way he knew how to pair words with musical notes. But according to Daddy, “real” men weren’t attracted to the arts. But then he and Daddy had never seen eye to eye.
When Jake had returned from his final tour and announced he was leaving the Army, Daddy had been more than disappointed. His brother, Aaron, hadn’t voiced an opinion about his choice, which made Jake suspect he wished he could get out too. None of them spoke to him anymore, but perhaps that was in part because there was so little to say.
His decision to pack up his one battered suitcase and his guitar and head to Nashville had been his salvation. He’d played on street corners and in honky tonks, singing songs that simply wouldn’t be silenced. The more real the songs, the greater the audience’s response. His whole life had changed after he was discovered at Nashville’s famous Bluebird Café.
For the better.
Well, mostly. He didn’t like to think about where he’d be if he’d stayed in the Army. Or if he’d taken up a job at the bank like his mama had encouraged him to do after he left the service.
He’d forged his own path.
Even so, the past still had its hooks in him. He could make music, but it appeared he would never make real love with a woman and raise a family.
But as he walked back into the kitchen and helped Susannah into his jacket, he simply couldn’t make peace with that death sentence. The light in her eyes was like the North Star, and she looked so sweet and small in his jacket. There had to be a way out. There had to be something he hadn’t tried.
Maybe it was going back to church. Maybe if he could figure out why God had stopped answering his prayers—what made him so unlovable to the Almighty—he could find his way back.
“I’ve changed my mind about your offer to go to see your mama preach,” he said before he could chicken out. Sweat was already beading on his back, and his heart had jumped to attention like a new recruit, pounding hard in his chest.
What if God struck him dead when he tried to walk through the doors of the church? If he hadn’t been so tense, he would have laughed at himself.
“You want to go?” she asked, her moss-green eyes wide. “I’m so happy to hear that.”
“This Sunday,” he said, forcing himself to swallow the bile in his throat. Vomiting in front of her would be beyond humiliating.
She took the damp paper towel he’d set aside and dabbed his neck with it. “Are you sure?”
He wasn’t sure of anything, but he had to do something. “Absolutely.”
Silence descended as she studied him, and even though the cloth she was holding to his neck was cool, her touch was hot. He almost yanked her hand away. The control he forced himself to have around her was slipping again, and his gaze dropped to her lips.
The fingers applying the cloth to his neck tensed, and so did his whole body. His hand immediately rose and cupped hers. Her gaze flew to his. He could hear her breathing change from normal to agitated in the same instant his heart rate went from accelerated to manic. His fingers tightened around her wrist, and she leaned into him, and the first notes of something floral drifted to him. Man, she smelled good, woman good. And he wanted to get closer to all that goodness…
His other hand reached for her waist, but when he brushed the hourglass sides of her body, his brain kicked in. What are you doing?
He dropped her hand and stepped back, wishing he could take a deep drag of air into his lungs without being conspicuous. But he couldn’t. So he suffered through a tight chest and limited oxygen as she took a few steps back. Her eyes refused to meet his, but he told himself it was probably for the best.
“I should go,” she said finally, depositing the damp towel on the counter. “I’ll have some ideas for you soon. Given…the size of the job, it might be a week. Then we can talk about scheduling a time to look at some furniture.”
“I didn’t get you that sweet tea,” he said, not knowing how to make things right between them.
Neither one of them could ignore what had just happened. Then again, neither one of them could really talk about it either.
“It’s all right,” she said, stripping out of his jacket so quickly it might have been on fire. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Let me walk you to the door.”
He set the denim jacket down on the counter and followed her long strides. She was halfway to the door when he caught up to her. Who could blame her for making a speedy exit? He slowed to a walk a few steps behind her and tried not to admire the curves of her waist.
When he opened the door for her, she stopped at the threshold. “You don’t have to walk me out.”
“I want to,” he replied, locking his jaw at the change in her voice.
She was so professional and cold now, but he knew it was his doing. “Susannah. If you don’t feel like we should work together on my house, it’s okay. I realize…” What the heck was he supposed to say? That they were attracted to each other? That he was too much of a mess to ask her out?
“It’s okay,” she said, fiddling with the purse and satchel she’d retrieved on her way out. “We’ll manage.”
He didn’t want to manage. He wanted to tell her why things were the way they were. Why they had to be. But he couldn’t force the words out.
“Can I still go to church with you?” he asked.
Her rigidity dissolved like water poured out from a canteen in the
desert. “Of course. You’re always welcome.”
“Should I meet you…” Did they call it the vestibule? He was fresh out of church words.
She worried her lip. “Why don’t you simply find us inside the church? We sit in the front if one of our family members arrives early enough to save us all seats. If we meet…people might think…”
There was no need to finish the rest of the sentence. He knew what people would think if they showed up together. This way it could look like he was joining his friends. Friends like J.P.
“I don’t have to sit with y’all. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or cause unwanted speculation.”
This time she did lay a hand on his arm, but only for a moment. Her touch shot up his arm with as much power as a rifle’s kickback.
“My family would be happy to have you sit with us.”
Walking back into church would take some courage, and if he couldn’t sit with someone he knew, he might chicken out. Since it was only Wednesday, he still might. “Wonderful,” he replied, forcing false enthusiasm into his voice. “Which service do you attend?”
“The ten o’clock. It’s Grace Fellowship. On Country Lane Road.”
“I know it.” He nodded, fighting the urge to shift on his feet. Nerves. The kind he’d locked down each time he took the Humvee out for patrol. Or performed for a sold-out arena.
“We’ll see you then,” she said, playing with her purse strap.
“Thanks, Susannah,” he said as she started to walk away.
Turning, she gave him a smile that brought out the dimples in her cheeks. “You’re welcome, Jake.”
He watched her until she’d disappeared from sight in her sporty Audi. Then he sank down onto his front porch steps.
Was he really going back to church?
For a moment, he wondered what he’d do if that failed to cure him as well.
Chapter 4
Shelby McGuiness cruised into the parking lot of Cream and Sugar in her new convertible BMW. Her sister Susannah was standing near her Audi, waiting for her. She waved as she blew by her sister and, braking sharply, swung into a parking space. When she checked her hot pink lipstick in the rearview mirror, she blew herself a kiss. Then she hopped out of the car, slammed the door behind her, and leaned against the frame.
