by Liz Talley
“Don’t worry,” he said, opening the door and stepping out into the fall humidity. “I’m doing this for us. It’s going to pay off, you’ll see.”
When the door closed, she stared at the dead bolt for a full ten seconds, wondering if his words would prove true. They’d planned a future, laying it out like a house plan. Here’s where we’ll do this. Over there we’ll do that. Foundation, walls, heated floors so their toes would be toasty in the winter. Yet she wondered if they’d started building on shifting sands. What if she and Josh weren’t right for each other? What if they were making a mistake?
No. They were perfect together. Everyone said so.
Turning, she picked up her laptop and climbed the stairs.
She should come clean with the winemaker tonight. Just tell him she’d been lonely and hadn’t meant to mislead him by pretending to be her mother. But the thought of no longer exchanging emails with him made her feel even lonelier.
Emailing another man as her mother wasn’t too wrong. Wasn’t like she was cheating. She just maintained a dishonest friendship with a gorgeous man who probably didn’t deserve to be duped.
As she climbed the steps, she traced the apple on the cover of her laptop. She’d tell Evan the truth.
Eventually.
CHAPTER THREE
“Hey, honey,” Daphne said, lifting Ellery’s ponytail from her neck and giving it a tug. She loved her daughter’s hair—a gorgeous shade of blonde Ellery highlighted. Her baby girl was too pretty for her own good. “You want lunch from Cush’s today?”
Ellery brushed her hand away and tapped on the computer. “No, thanks. I need to start cutting back if I’m going to look good for my wedding. I plan to be a size zero come next spring.”
“Elle, a size zero is ridiculous. People will want to see you in your dress, not wonder if it’s Day of the Dead or something.” Daphne tried to keep her voice light, the way she always did when she tried to suggest something to her daughter. Ellery always bristled at any hint of criticism, but lately it had been worse.
“Real funny, Mom.” Ellery clicked on the graphic and dragged it to a tiny folder, where it disappeared. “I’m going to look healthy. I’m working out at the Barre four times a week. I’ll have the body of a goddess. You want to come with me? They have a beginner class.”
“What are you trying to say?” Daphne asked. Ellery always tried to get her to go to exercise classes, but Daphne preferred running most days. Organized classes had never appealed to her. Exercise was her escape, a time she could jab in her earbuds and listen to podcasts or a book that didn’t feature poodles and tea parties.
“That you isolate yourself out here. Hanging out with Pop Pop and Tippy Lou isn’t exactly being social. You can make friends in these classes, plus use muscles you never knew you had.” Ellery rose and smoothed the T-shirt swing top she wore over a pair of ripped boyfriend jeans. Several strands of delicate gold chain were layered around her neck. Her daughter somehow managed to look stylish and trendy in sloppy clothes. Daphne always looked . . . well, sloppy in sloppy clothes.
“Maybe,” she conceded, only because her daughter was unfortunately correct. She enjoyed visiting her father and playing dominoes with his friends, even if they were out of her age range. And her neighbor Tippy Lou Carmichael, while delightfully droll and enigmatic to the point of oddness, wasn’t going to go shopping with her or out to drinks. Tippy Lou preferred herbal tea on her front porch while she watched the feral cats she fed every morning chase lizards and laze about in her garden.
Daphne had always been the type of person to have only a few close friends. Though she’d cultivated friendships with many of the other teachers at Saint Peter’s Day School, where she’d worked as a teacher’s aide for fifteen years before staying home to write, she’d never been good at being social. She had church friends, a book club, and knew a few local writers who wrote professionally, but her best friend, Karyn Little, had moved to Idaho with her new husband over a year ago.
In a few short years, she’d lost her husband to self-centeredness and her BFF to the land of potatoes.
“Not maybe. Definitely,” Ellery said, looking over at her.
“Maybe I’ll try it.” Going to the class with Ellery might help their relationship, something that Daphne couldn’t seem to get back on track. She didn’t know what was wrong, how she should act, whether she should have given Ellery a job or not. Daphne had only wanted to make things better for Ellery. That’s what every mother did, right?
But Ellery had grown more and more distant over the past few months. Daphne suspected that it had something to do with something Rex had said, but Ellery wouldn’t open up. Any time Daphne asked her what was bothering her or if she wanted to talk, her daughter would tell her everything was “fine.” She’d begun to hate that word.
“I’m pretty much done for the day. I have to mail these packages. These are a few of the winners from your online party.” Ellery picked up a bag full of colorful pink envelopes.
“I had an online party? When did you do that?” Daphne asked.
Ellery rolled her eyes. “Mom, I know you’re happy to dump a lot of this stuff on me, but you have to keep tabs on your fans so you know what they want. That’s something many retailers get wrong—they lose touch of who their consumer is. Your goal is to sell books and broaden your reach. It’s important you don’t get too far away from your readers. Go on your interactive website. Check out the games the kids are playing. We just started a ‘Design Dixie Doodle’s New Collar’ contest. Some of the entries are seriously cute.”
“Dixie’s getting a new collar?” Daphne asked, miffed her daughter had designed a contest without her approval. Dixie Doodle was her damned poodle. She decided when the fictional purebred got a new collar.
“Her winter collar. Maybe you can even include the collar that wins in one of your upcoming books,” Ellery said, walking out the door and right into Clay.
“Whoa, hey, Elle,” he said, grabbing her elbow and steadying her. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“I saw you last week at Elmo’s,” Ellery said, shrugging off Clay’s hand. “But I guess you were too trashed to remember?”
“Hey, I was celebrating a new contract, but, yeah, I guess I had a few too many.”
“Honestly, Clay, it’s time you grew up,” Ellery said, pushing past him before spinning back. The Tom Ford scent she wore tickled Daphne’s nose.
“Guys never grow up, do we?” Clay joked.
“Some don’t.” Ellery gave him a flat look.
Her daughter had dated several guys in high school but had been tight-lipped when it came to information on what had happened between her and Clay. Daphne vaguely remembered a dustup with the head cheerleader for a rival school. Ellery had been only a sophomore, and Daphne remembered Clay being her daughter’s first heartbreak. Ellery had rebounded quickly with the quarterback for the Riverton Falcons. She had an uncanny ability to hook a new, even cuter guy after each successive breakup through high school and college.
Point in case—Josh was so pretty angels sang when he walked by.
Daphne still didn’t know her soon-to-be son-in-law very well because he was always studying, but he seemed to truly care about her daughter. And that was what mattered most.
“I’m out, y’all.” Ellery disappeared.
Clay turned his pretty blue eyes on Daphne. “Sorry to interrupt. I wanted to get your opinion on the marble. They sent two different samples in your color range. One has a lot of movement, the other is pretty simple.”
“Sure, I’ll take a look,” Daphne said, following him outside her office and into the heat of late morning.
Ellery tossed the bag of packages into the narrow back seat of her sleek new Lexus and gave them an absentminded wave.
“She’s a firecracker,” Clay said with a smile before jogging down the front porch steps. Today he wore a T-shirt. Thank God. The jeans fit him like a second skin, though. So now she had to contend with t
he butt thing.
Not only had she practically drooled over a shirtless Clay yesterday, but she’d actually rated the bag boy’s backside that morning at the grocery store. Thankfully Steve the bag boy was older than Clay, but she was now convinced her libido had written a memo titled “Take Care of Your Sexuality before You Mount the Bag Boy.” She wondered if something was wrong with her hormones. Or maybe she was ovulating. Something other than going middle-aged crazy.
Wait, was turning forty years old hitting middle age?
Nah. And technically she was still thirty-nine for the next two months.
She just needed a man her own age, a nice companion to take her to dinner, to watch TV with her, and to give her regular sex so she didn’t do anything crazy. Too damn bad there wasn’t a plethora of decent fortysomething-year-old men waiting for a fortysomething-year-old woman needing a booty call.
Clay walked her out to a sheet of plyboard sitting on two sawhorses, forming a makeshift desk. He had a clipboard, a few tools, and two white-and-gray Carrara marble samples. Picking up one, he traced the veins. “See? Lots of movement here. I think it will look good since you went with the gray cabinets. Now this one has less movement, but it will look good, too.”
“Which one would you choose?” she asked, noting how masculine his hands were. She fanned herself, wishing the blasted heat would go away. It’s October, Mother Nature. Get a damned clue.
“Well, I like a lot of movement in stone. Hides flaws and, I don’t know, seems to have more life. It invites you to touch it.” Clay stroked the white marble with the smoky swirls again. She wasn’t sure if it was the poetic words or the actual caressing of marble that beckoned her libido forth again.
She swayed toward him.
“Hey, you okay?” Clay said, looking at her with concern.
“Oh yeah. It’s just hot out here.” She lifted her brown, curly hair from her sweaty neck and told herself that was the truth. It had nothing to do with the way Clay—who was practically a child—was stroking the damned marble. Something had to be wrong with her. Maybe she needed to make an appointment with Dr. George.
“A cool front’s coming in tomorrow. Now tell me which one so you can get out of this heat.” He tapped the clipboard. “Gotta get this order in to stay on schedule.”
“The one you liked is fine,” she said.
“You sure? You aren’t being picky over this. Most women make me show ’em tons of samples.”
Daphne shrugged. “I’m picking this for the new owners. You like this one. I’m going with it. Easy enough.”
“You sure aren’t like your daughter. She gets her panties up her crack if a guy breathes wrong.” His words should have been an insult, but they held affection. Clay didn’t seem to understand that he’d hurt Ellery long ago. Some guys were just oblivious.
Ellery was strong, opinionated, and somewhat manipulative, but she was also warm, generous, and clever. From the beginning, holding Ellery was like holding a baby doll with blonde curls, big blue eyes, and a Cupid’s bow mouth. Ellery learned early on how to work things to her advantage. She wielded her dimples like a samurai, and she mastered the perfect combination of head tilt and pout that rendered most adults helpless. It didn’t hurt that her daughter was classically gorgeous—a combination that drew people close and allowed her to walk a smooth road to any destination. But having everyone wanting to bask in her glow had drawbacks—Ellery expected people to fall into line with her ideas and stubbornly refused to accept anything less than her vision. Clay Caldwell hadn’t bought into her vision, and Ellery still nursed the slight.
“I’ve learned to pick my battles,” Daphne said, reaching over and tapping the sample he held. “And this isn’t one of them.”
“You smell good,” Clay said, actually inhaling near her hair.
Daphne snapped back.
Ignore the hum of whatever is awakening.
“I showered,” she said with lightness in her voice.
Clay stacked the marble samples, his cheeks a bit redder than before. Like he knew he’d crossed a line. “Right. Shouldn’t take too long to get this in. The supplier usually has both of these at the ready.”
“Perfect,” Daphne said, stepping toward the farmhouse. Her newest book—Dixie Doodle a Southern Belle Poodle and the Disappearing Lights—called her name, but the noisy construction and whatever this thing was that she had going on with herself, this whole Mrs. Robinson fantasy, were too distracting. “I’m going to run down to Tippy Lou’s and pick up the okra for dinner tonight.”
“You frying it?” Clay asked, arching his eyebrows in an endearing way.
“I’m thinking about it. Josh and Ellery usually come out. Tippy Lou, too. You’re welcome to stay and eat if you want. Your brother, too. Probably the last time I’ll cook before you start on the kitchen renovation.” As soon as she issued the invitation, she wondered if she shouldn’t have. Dinners were for family, but then again, her family had been good at no-showing. Josh studied, her father played canasta tournaments, and Ellery sometimes picked up extra shifts. Last week her daughter had missed dinner to go to book club with Rex’s girlfriend, something she’d always blown off doing with her own mother. That had hurt a bit.
Calling Cindy Rutherford Rex’s girlfriend felt so weird. Cindy and her then-husband, Paul, had been the youngest couple in their Sunday school class. When Cindy split with Paul, Daphne had been there to lend a sympathetic shoulder. Daphne had also served on the Pioneer Center Centennial Celebration committee with the blonde, not to mention they’d lunched together, partnered for a tennis tournament, and even done a girls’ trip to Cabo together. So the thought of Cindy living with Rex, eating his half-charred burgers, and folding his boxers was . . . well, awkward.
It bugged the hell out of her that Ellery preferred to spend time with Cindy over her own mother. When Ellery had moved back, the silver lining to her daughter’s disappointment had been the opportunity to reconnect. But something sat stalwart and fat between them. Daphne wasn’t sure what it was—blame, anger, or just Ellery pulling away into being an independent adult. But it was there all the same in the way Ellery sometimes looked at her, the shortness of their conversations, and her daughter’s general lack of enthusiasm for going shopping or making brownies. Daphne was all aboard her new life plan, but the one thing she didn’t want to let go of was the closeness she’d once had with Ellery. Her career and Ellery going to college had been a roadblock, but Daphne had been determined to reestablish their close relationship.
She just wished Ellery had gotten that memo.
“Cool. I’ll ask Law, too. If I come, I’ll bring dessert,” Clay said.
“Now that I don’t need,” Daphne said, reminding herself that Clay was her contractor and a kid. He wasn’t looking at this as anything other than dinner, the same way he would have six or seven years ago when she had tons of teenagers staying over for dinner. Her crazy preoccupation with noticing Clay as a man was her problem, and she needed to get it under control.
With that in mind, Daphne climbed into her eight-year-old Acura and drove down the road to Tippy Lou’s ranch-style house. When she climbed out, a cat shot out from the porch to curl around her ankles.
“Hey, Butterbean,” Daphne said, reaching down to give the fat old tom a scratch behind his ragged ears. Butterbean was one of the tame cats. The ferals skulked about, eyeing her with suspicion. Many had been trapped, fixed, and rereleased. All were well fed and slept in the old barn.
“Howdy, Daphne,” Tippy Lou called from the swing on the deck she’d built beneath the shade of several pecan trees. She fanned the smoke and pinched the glowing end of the joint. “I’ll put ’er out.”
Daphne climbed the steps. “Thank you.”
“It’s medical,” Tippy Lou said, as she always did.
They smiled at each other and said in harmony, “No, it’s not.”
“But it helps,” Tippy Lou said, smoothing the seat beside her. Tippy Lou had been Daphne’s mother’s best
friend, and the woman had stepped in as a mother figure when Daphne lost her mom. Daphne visited a few times a week for tea, advice, and much-needed laughter.
“Helps what?” Daphne said, wrinkling her nose at the potency of the pot. Tippy was also an old hippie who hadn’t bothered to surrender the Bohemian lifestyle she’d discovered in the late sixties. Her one concession was she didn’t drive her “groovy” van any longer and she’d settled down in her great-aunt Maude’s house. She still dressed in wild prints, wore her hair in a long braid, and listened to weird music.
“Everything,” Tippy Lou said with a laugh. “You should try some. Loosen up a bit.”
“I’m loose.”
Tippy Lou’s reply sounded half strangle and half cackle.
“I am,” Daphne said, knowing she wasn’t exactly “loose,” even if she tried to master not giving a damn.
“You’re as loose as these jeans,” Tippy Lou said, lifting her polyester tunic to reveal a flap of skin hanging over her waistband. The jeans looked decidedly uncomfortable.
“How are you even breathing?” Daphne joked, kicking the swing into motion.
“I was breathing very well until you got here, tight-ass,” Tippy Lou said, casting a glance at the extinguished joint.
“I’m not a tight-ass. In fact, I invited a twentysomething-year-old man to eat with me tonight.” Damn it. Why had she said that? Tippy Lou was astute, always looking for hidden meanings and reading people’s emotions. Daphne didn’t want to let Tippy Lou sense a crack in her sanity when it came to Clay. The woman had been pushing her to get in touch with her inner goddess for months. Thus the book on arousing her inner female sexuality. Lord.
“Did you say you invited a twentysomething man to eat you?” Tippy Lou said, turning laughing brown eyes on her.
“Yeah, I’m going to strap myself down naked on the dining room table.” Daphne snorted.
“I’ve done that before. Make sure you don’t use furniture polish. I had a rash on my ass for a week.”