Simple Perfection

by Abbi Glines

  Laughing, I jumped out of his lap. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy you checking to see if you could get my panties wet, because I assure you that you could, but Blaire seemed to really want to do lunch.”

  Woods nodded. “Go eat lunch with her. I’ll be fine.”

  I blew him a kiss that he caught and pressed to his lips. Then I stepped through the door and closed it behind me.

  “I heard laughter. It was nice,” Vince said from his desk.

  I nodded. “He’s better,” I told him.

  “Because of you,” he replied.

  I just smiled because I knew he was right. I had helped Woods. It had been me.

  Blaire opened the door with Nate on her hip. His small hand was fisted in her long platinum hair and he was tugging pretty hard on it.

  “Come in,” she said with her head tilted in his direction. “Let me detangle myself and get this one in bed and I’ll be right back. There’s glasses and tea on the table in the kitchen. Oh! Nate, that hurts Mommy.”

  I tried not to laugh but a giggle leaked out.

  She grinned and rolled her eyes. “He likes my hair. I’m going to end up bald because he’s pulled it all out.”

  “Go save yourself. I’ll get a drink,” I told her, and she flashed me an appreciative smile and headed for the staircase. It was a grand, elaborate set of stairs. The whole house was pretty fabulous. It had been Rush’s before Blaire. His dad had bought it for him when he was a kid. His mother used to live there when she was in town, but he wasn’t on speaking terms with her at the moment.

  I walked through the house and stopped to look at the life-sized portrait of Nate above the fireplace in the drawing room. His hair was going to be as pale as his mother’s, or at least it looked like it now. The longer it got, the blonder it was.

  The kitchen was at the other end of a long hallway with really high ceilings. There were framed photos of the three of them covering the walls. They weren’t professional pictures but casual family photos of them playing at the beach or opening gifts at Christmas. There was even one with Rush on a slide with Nate in his lap. He so didn’t look like the kind of guy to go down a slide.

  Once I got to the kitchen, I fixed myself a glass of tea. The pantry door stood open and I walked over and peeked inside. I had heard about the hidden room under the stairs that you got to through the pantry. It had been where Rush had stuck Blaire when she first came to Rosemary looking for her dad.

  Smiling, I wondered if they ever went in that room . . . to remember.

  The doorbell rang again and Blaire’s footsteps echoed as she came down the stairs. I had wondered if Bethy would come. I hadn’t seen her anywhere else so I wasn’t sure she would show up, even though Blaire was her best friend.

  Both women walked into the room and Bethy’s sad, empty eyes met mine. I set my glass down and went over to hug her. She looked like she needed a hug.

  “I’ve missed you,” I told her.

  She wrapped her arms weakly around me. “Thanks,” she sniffled.

  “No crying. We’re going to eat the cookies I made and not think about calories, and we’re going to talk,” Blaire announced as she picked up a covered tray, walked over to the table, and set it down.

  I wasn’t sure if this was going to work, but Blaire looked pretty determined. I watched Bethy as she tried to gather herself and took a seat across from me.

  “Okay, so maybe we need to cry first,” Blaire said as she saw Bethy’s face crumple. “Talk to us. We’re here to listen.”

  Bethy lifted her eyes and shook her head. “No, I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of being sad. I just want to be able to smile again.”

  “We haven’t lost the man we love but we both have lost people we love. I’ve lost my mother and my sister. Della lost her mother. We know it hurts and we want you to scream and yell, whatever you have to do to get it out. Then you need to eat cookies and think of funny stories that make you laugh. Think about things that Jace did to make you laugh. Remember him in the good ways. They will overcome the bad memory of that night. I promise you, they will.”

  Woods

  Jimmy had called to tell me I needed to get Grant from the bar. He had drunk too much and was now calling my new golf pro a douchebag. Not a good thing. He’d regret that tomorrow.

  I walked past Jimmy, who was shaking his head with an amused grin on his face. Grant was leaning on the bar, trying to convince the new bartender that he was a congressman and demanding another drink.

  “I got this,” I told the new guy, who looked very relieved.

  Grant spun around and almost fell over a stool. “Hey, Woods! It’s you. Get me another shot, buddy,” he slurred. Grant only called people buddy when he was drinking.

  “Not a chance in hell,” I replied. “Come on, you’re going home. You’re done for the night.”

  Grant jerked his arm out of my grasp. “I don’t wanna go home. I wanna stay here. I like it here. It’s better here. If I go back to my place”—he lowered his voice, although he was still talking really loudly—“she will come.”

  “Who is she?” I asked, grabbing his arm and jerking him up. I started pushing him toward the door before he could protest this time.

  “She is she,” he said, whispering loudly again.

  “She is she? Really? Man, how much have you had to drink?”

  Once we were outside, Grant looked around and realized we had been walking. “Aww, damn. You tricked me. We left.”

  “Why don’t you want to go to your place? You need to sleep this off.”

  Grant looked around us like he was looking for someone who might be hiding and waiting for him to tell a highly important secret.

  “She’s Nan. Always Nan. And she’s pissed. When she gets pissed she gets possessive, then naughty, then she does things and I end up letting her, but now I don’t want to let her ’cause I don’t even like her. So I can’t go home.”

  Nothing he had said made sense except that he didn’t like Nan. Neither did the rest of the world. I was pretty damn sure there was a Twitter hashtag that said #NanHater.

  “You want to crash in one of the rooms here?” I asked him as he stumbled and sat down on a bench.

  “Can I? She can’t find me here. Can she?”

  I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen him this drunk since boarding school. Nan had done a number on him. “You would think by now you would have learned your lesson about messing around with Nan. She’s poison. Why even go near her?”

  Grant let out a loud sigh and leaned forward.

  “Do not puke on the damn brick. It’s a country club, dickhead, not a bar.”

  He lifted his head and his eyes were glassy. “It ain’t Nan that’s making me drink. It’s her. She’s so damn . . . so damn . . . hell, I don’t know what she is. She messed up my head. She fucked me over, literally. She won’t see me. Won’t talk to me. Nothing. She’s guarded like the damn queen. Bunch of damn rock stars act like I’m a problem. I’m not a problem. I just want to see her. I need to explain.”

  What the hell was he talking about? “I’m lost, dude. You’re not making sense anymore. Come on, let’s get you a room.”

  “She’s got these legs that go on forever. Lots of legs . . . lots of ’em. They’re soft. So fucking soft,” he muttered as I jerked him up and walked him over to my truck.

  “Nan?”

  Grant spit. “Fuck no. I told you this ain’t about Nan. She’s the evil bitch that fucked it up. She fucks up everything.”

  I put him in and closed the door, then got in on my side and rolled down the windows. “If you need to hurl do it outside of my truck,” I told him before cranking the engine.

  “She’s got these legs,” he said again.

  “Yeah, you told me.”

  “You don’t understand, they’re like legs from fucking heaven.”

  Someone had done a number on him. I was thankful it wasn’t Nan. That was the only thing I was thankful for at the moment. If I could get him out of my truck wit
hout his puking, I’d be thankful for that, too.

  “She was a virgin,” he whispered.

  Wait . . . what? “Now I know we aren’t talking about Nan.”

  Grant leaned his head back on the leather seat. “A virgin. She didn’t tell me, either. Now she won’t talk to me. I need her to talk to me.”

  So Grant took a virgin and some rock stars are holding her captive. That doesn’t make any . . . oh shit.

  “Grant, are you talking about Harlow?”

  “Yeah, who the fuck did you think I was talking about?”

  That might just be worse than Nan.

  Yeah . . . it’s definitely worse than Nan.

  He was in deep shit. Nan would never let that happen. Ever.

  Two months later . . .

  Della

  Braden was pregnant. I had hung up with her over ten minutes ago but I hadn’t moved from the swing on the porch. I continued to swing. I needed to let this process. Braden . . . a mommy. My Braden. Wow . . .

  The door to the house opened and Woods stepped outside. “You off the phone?” he asked as he walked over to the swing.

  “Yeah,” I replied, scooting over so he could sit down with me.

  “What is Braden up to?” he asked as he put his arm around me and pulled me over to his side.

  “She’s . . . she’s pregnant.” It was hard to even say it. I had always imagined Braden as a mom. She would make an excellent one, but just knowing that she was about to start another new step in life was a surprise.

  “That’s good, right?” Woods asked.

  I smiled and nodded. I guess in the moment I took to process, I looked upset. “Yes, it’s wonderful. They’ve been trying for a while now, apparently. I didn’t know. She hadn’t said anything. But she’s now three months along and they heard the heartbeat yesterday. She feels it’s safe to tell people now.”

  Woods pushed the swing with his feet so I curled mine back behind me and let him do the work. “She’ll be a wonderful mother,” I told him.

  “I agree with you. She’s pretty damn fierce when she loves someone.”

  I laughed and looked up at him. “Yes, she is.”

  Woods bent down and kissed the tip of my nose. “I love you.”

  “I love you more,” I said in reply. That was always his line. I figured I would take it away from him.

  He chuckled. “Thief.”

  I pinched the skin covering his abs and he squirmed.

  We sat there for a while and enjoyed the evening breeze. Fall was here and Rosemary was peaceful again. The crowds were gone. Jace’s absence still clung to us. We all felt it. We knew we always would. But lately we had all been able to talk about him again. Someone would tell a funny story about him and we would all laugh instead of cry.

  Bethy was at work again but Woods still wasn’t ready to speak to her. He knew he was wrong. He admitted it to me one night. But he said he couldn’t forgive her. I let it go. I knew he just needed more time.

  Tripp was also back in town. He had been gone for about a week and packed up his place in South Carolina. Then he’d moved back here into his condo. Woods had given him a place on the board of directors at the club.

  “Della?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  I thought about it a minute. I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t given much thought to the idea of fate before.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “I mean . . . do you think things happen for a reason, and no matter what we do or what we choose they’ll happen anyway?”

  He was thinking about Jace’s death. He didn’t want to hate Bethy. But his heart wasn’t letting him forgive her because of his love for Jace.

  “I think that everyone’s life is controlled by a series of events. They choose what they want and if it is in their control they can reach it. Sometimes luck shines on them and sometimes it doesn’t. I also think accidents happen and we are placed in situations where we have to do things for those we love that we don’t want to do.”

  Woods didn’t say anything.

  I let him think about it. I wasn’t going to push him to forgive Bethy.

  That would be something he’d have to find within himself when he was ready.

  Woods

  I slipped my phone in my pocket and waited by my truck for Della’s car to pull into the gas station. I had made sure her tank was low before I left the house an hour ago. She was going to need gas before she met me at the Mexican restaurant where we’d gone before our one-night stand. I had convinced her earlier that she wanted the quesadillas for dinner. Talking about melted cheese had been all I needed to get her to agree to drive the short distance out of town.

  Her car turned the corner, and just like I’d planned she pulled up to the tank. She had already spotted my truck parked on the other side of the pump when she pulled up.

  Her car door swung open and she was grinning at me like I was crazy.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you were waiting on me at the restaurant.”

  I stepped around the pump and leaned against her car. “I believe we’ve been here before,” I said, watching as she realized what I was talking about.

  Her smile grew and her eyes twinkled with laughter. “Yes, I believe we have. But good news: this time I can pump my own gas,” she said.

  I had met her for the first time in this very spot. She’d been wearing tiny little shorts, looking sexy as hell, and had no idea how to pump gas. I had needed a distraction from my life and there she was.

  “Damn, I was hoping I could pump it for you,” I said.

  She pressed her lips together in a smile and shrugged. “If you really want to, then you can.”

  “I need you to pop the door,” I told her, pointing to the little door where the fuel went.

  “Oh! I saw you and forgot to do that.” I watched as she turned around and bent inside the car to push the button.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small box that I had kept hidden in my sock drawer for a week. Della turned around and started to say something but stopped when I went down on one knee.

  “A year ago I was lost. My life was a fucked-up mess. I stopped to get gas right here and found this gorgeous brunette who couldn’t pump her gas. I then somehow convinced her to eat with me. She made me laugh and made me horny as hell. When the night was over and I had to leave her sleeping on that bed in the hotel, it was hard. I didn’t want to. But my life was fucked and she was traveling the world, finding herself.”

  I stopped as Della reached up and wiped a tear that was running down her face. Her big blue eyes were swimming with tears.

  “Then she came back into my life and saved me from hell. She changed my world. She taught me to love and she owns my soul.”

  Della’s small hand went up to cover her mouth and a sob came out.

  “Della Sloane, will you marry me?”

  She was nodding before I could get the words out of my mouth. I stood up and slipped the diamond that I’d spent weeks trying to find onto her finger. When I found it I had known it was the one. It was worthy enough to grace Della’s hand.

  “Yes,” she finally said before throwing her arms around my neck. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, clinging to me.

  I held her against me and realized that if there was no such thing as fate, then someone had to be up there dealing out winning hands.

  “Can we skip the Mexican and go back to that hotel room instead?” I asked her.

  She tilted her head back and flashed me a saucy smile. “What about your truck? I don’t want to skip that part.”

  Neither did I.

  Also by Abbi Glines

  THE PERFECTION SERIES

  Twisted Perfection

  Simple Perfection

  THE TOO FAR SERIES

  Fallen Too Far

  Never Too Far

  Forever Too Far

  THE SEA BREEZE SERIES

  Breathe


  Because of Low

  While It Lasts

  Just for Now

  Sometimes It Lasts

  Misbehaving

  THE VINCENT BOYS SERIES

  The Vincent Boys

  The Vincent Brothers

  THE EXISTENCE SERIES

  Existence

  Predestined

  Ceaseless

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Books eBook.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Abbi Glines

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Atria Paperback edition December 2013

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