“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 lesson.” 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.