“Why would you want to do that? Are you thinking of opening up a website of cheesy lines and the responses they get?”
“No, I think it’s for his daily diary entry,” Norman said as he approached. “We both have one. We’re writing a book and calling it ‘Our Courtship of Jacqui B.’”
“Oh, please. That sounds like the title of a porn movie.”
“Why, Miss Jacqui!” William transformed his smarmy smile into a look of titillated innocence. “Was that a declaration of interest? Or, dare I hope, one of intent?”
It was hard not to laugh, which both surprised and pissed her off. She didn’t want to find anything about either of these two men appealing.
“No, that was an assessment—heavy emphasis on the first syllable of that word, gentlemen.”
“We’re wounded.” Norman placed his hand over his chest where his heart—if he had one—would be. “I was certain that you’d find our snappy repartee sexy as hell.”
“Indeed. We’re very witty.”
Jacqui pointed a finger at the two of them. “You’re half-right, there.”
“Ouch.” William laughed. “Am I bleeding? It feels like I’m bleeding.”
“I think there should be a Book Nook rule that if you insult customers, you should at least have coffee with them.” Norman made that pronouncement sound like the most logical suggestion in the world.
“Again—not an insult, an assessment.” And damned if Jacqui didn’t feel herself weakening, and more than a little bit. She shouldn’t even consider their idiot offer, but here she was, looking at the clock, noting that it was already 2:45 in the afternoon.
Nancy’s going to be less steamed at me for working through all my lunches if I at least take a break or two.
Jacqui shook her head. It was one of those rare times when she knew what she was about to do was a mistake, and yet she was going to go ahead and do it, anyway.
“Coffee, huh?”
“We can go right through that archway, and grab the first table. Twenty minutes.”
One cup of coffee. What could it hurt?
Jacqui nodded to Norman. “All right, slick. One cup of coffee.”
“Hey, I thought I was slick.” William’s pout would make a five year old proud.
“Nope. He’s slick. You’re slicker.”
“I should probably object to that, but you said yes to coffee. So, this way, Miss Jacqui.” William used a sweep of his arm to invite her to walk ahead of them.
Already regretting her decision, but not wanting to look like the complete ass she’d accused them of being, Jacqui led the way to the restaurant.
* * * *
Will shot a look at his cousin as Norm seated Jacqui at a table close to the archway. She hadn’t bothered to put the “be right back” sign up on the door to the store. But he’d been in Lusty long enough to know that most folks coming into the Book Nook likely would step into Lusty Appetites if they wanted her to ring up sale and couldn’t see her right away.
Lusty, Texas could write a how-to manual on laid back. He hadn’t really believed a place like this existed, even though Lusty had been a part of his life for as far back as he could remember.
Emily Anne came over to them, a wide smile on her face. “Hey, guys! Do you want menus, or is it just coffee you’re after?” The waitress’s eyes seemed to be laughing as she looked from him and his cousin to Jacqui.
“We’re seeing to it Miss Jacqui has a coffee break, Emily Anne,” Will said. Then he tilted his head. “And since a cup of coffee all by itself is such a lonely sight to behold, I’ll take whatever it is you have that my cousin Tracy made today.”
“Oh, now that’s a good line. I’ll have to remember that for when some of our customers look to feeling guilty about having something tasty from Tracy’s oven.”
Jacqui snickered and he didn’t have to ask why. She was always making snarky comments about their “lines.”
Because she seemed to expect it, he and Norm had made a game of coming up with outrageous comments and pick-up lines the last couple of weeks, just to send her way. The woman was as prickly as a mamma porcupine protecting her babes. It was kind of fun, getting a rise out of her.
Who said there was nothing fun to do in Lusty?
“No charge,” Will said to Emily Anne. Then he laughed. His tactic worked because Emily Anne laughed, too, and then looked at Jacqui.
“What can I get you, Jacqui?”
“Just a sweet tea, please, Emily Anne. I only have eighteen minutes left of my break.” She said that so sweetly that Will almost missed the reference and her point—the clock was ticking and if he wanted to waste it chatting with Emily Anne Richardson, then that would be his loss.
Well, his and Norm’s.
The little minx is jealous! It was nice to know, even though it was completely unnecessary.
“I’m going to have a coffee and a pastry, too, please.” Norm gave the waitress his best very polite smile, after meeting Will’s gaze briefly.
Will actually liked Jacqui’s prickliness. He wondered what that said about him. He couldn’t really explain the way he felt about the young woman, or why she, of all the women they’d ever met, seemed to get to them both.
Emily Anne finished writing their order, turned toward the kitchen, and then turned back again. “Y’all wouldn’t happen to have any idea what’s going on at that first bend in the road off US 84, would you? What they’re making there?”
“Something’s being built out there?” Jacqui frowned. “That’s, what, only a five-minute drive from here?”
“Yes, if that. There’s this old place, been deserted since well before I moved to Lusty more ’n a year ago, judging by the look of it, sitting there on a corner lot. If I had to guess I’d say it used to be an old convenience store, only bigger. Anyway, on my way home from Waco the other day, I noticed it looks as if they’re fixing to do something with it. There was construction equipment and a very large dump bin there.”
“We haven’t heard anything,” Norm said. “But then, I don’t know that we would, necessarily. We’ve only been in town for a few weeks. If you like, we could ask Cousin Jake about it. We’re going to be seeing him later this afternoon.”
Emily Anne shrugged even as she laughed. “That’s all right. I’m just being nosy. Living in a small town, you get used to knowing everything about everything as well as everybody. That means when something is happening and you don’t know what, it drives you—well, it drives me crazy.”
“We’ve lived all over, and usually, we didn’t even know who our next door neighbor was,” Will said. “Living here is better. We’ll see if we can satisfy your curiosity for you, Emily Anne.”
“Thanks. I’ll go get your order now.”
It didn’t take her very long to do just that. Then they were alone, he and his cousin who just happened to be his best friend, with a woman who was proving to be a lot more work than either of them would ever have considered undertaking in the past.
There was just something about Jacqui Bethune that got to them both. Once they’d moved in to the two-story Victorian-style house a few blocks from their aunt and uncles’ large home, they’d had some serious discussions, the two of them, about what it meant for them, coming to Lusty.
New York born and bred, neither of them would have considered any other place home except this small Texas community.
Their fathers’ roots were here, even though they themselves didn’t know of it until they were nearly thirty years old—and faced with losing their mother to cancer.
Grandmother Merrick’s confession had come as a surprise for their grandfathers, too. They’d never known their summer romance with the twenty-something Judith Merrick had resulted in Judith becoming pregnant with triplets.
A great deal had happened during that tumultuous winter of 1971–1972, but in the end, Derek, Keith, and James Kendall had not only made contact with their biological fathers, but had built a good, solid relationship with them and their ha
lf brothers—another set of triplets.
Will and Norm had grown up knowing they had relatives in Texas, and looked forward to visiting them every year.
“You mentioned to Emily Anne you’ve only been here a few weeks. You’re on vacation?” Jacqui took a drink from her sweet tea. “You’re in sales, aren’t you?”
Will wondered if he imagined the slight sneer she added to the word “sales.” She’d made the occupation sound like something not to be stepped in on the sidewalk.
“I suppose you could say that, after a fashion.” Norm finished stirring his coffee and set his spoon down. “We’re image consultants.”
Jacqui’s eyes widened. “Like…spin doctors? Those guys I’ve seen on the news taking a statement made by a politician and explaining how what the sap really meant was completely the opposite of what he actually said?”
Norm never let on they’d both been insulted. “No, we don’t take on politicians as clients. Mostly what we do is advise people how to convey the image they want. You may find this hard to believe, but there can often be a huge disconnect between a person’s inner man or woman, and how they show themselves to the world.”
“Really?”
For a woman just twenty-two years old, Jacqui Bethune possessed enough cynicism for ten people.
This was the first time they’d actually sat down and talked with her. Will had thought that when she agreed to have coffee with them they’d won a valuable first step. Now he could see that at some point between agreeing and then actually sitting down—a matter of only about a hundred steps—Jacqui had begun to have second thoughts.
“Really,” Norm said. “Some people let their mouths run away with them, so that anyone listening to them would think, for example, that they’re cold and hard and jaded, instead of what they really are—which is usually just disillusioned or wounded.”
Score one for Norm. Jacqui’s face colored with embarrassment.
“We help business executives learn how to give a speech, and actors and actresses how to present the kind of public image that would best help their careers. And for some, though our advice is sometimes completely ignored, we try to teach them how not to screw up the good fortune life has given them with that first or second major contract. We have an eclectic set of clients—some very wealthy, and some not.”
“Actors and actresses? So some of your clients are famous as well as rich?”
“Yes, some of them are.” Will wasn’t going to tell her that most of them were. Getting those first few Hollywood A-listers signed had been a blessing and a curse. Their business had grown fast, and in their eagerness to ride the wave of success they hadn’t been as discriminating as they should have been.
Thank God Uncle Preston advised us to have that escape clause in our contracts.
“Huh. Somehow I saw you wearing seersucker jackets pedaling less-than-reliable used cars to little old ladies on social security.”
“Yes, we most definitely got that,” Norm said.
“What we don’t know is why you painted us with that brush.”
“You’re both smooth talkers. Kind of smarmy. You know, the kind that say all the right things but mean none of them.”
It didn’t take a minor is psychology—which Will had—to understand that Jacqui Bethune had been hurt by just that kind of man in the past. It occurred to him that he and Norm had two choices going forward—well, three actually.
They could finish this impromptu date and then say good-bye and mean it. Or they could coddle the wounded soul inside Jacqui’s psyche, and treat her with kid gloves.
Personally, Will didn’t care for either of those approaches. So he opted for the third choice.
“Since this is the first honest conversation we’ve ever had with you, Miss Bethune, I find it insulting that you would jump to conclusions about us based on someone else’s sins.”
Norm seemed to be on the same page. “We like you. Don’t ask me why, but we do. We see something in your smile, and in the way you relate to the people around you. There’s a genuineness and a kindness you show everyone—everyone, except us. We’re sorry for whatever crap happened to you in the past, but we all get crap happening in our lives. We’d like to get to know you—but we need you to do one thing before we can do that.”
Will slid his arm along the back of Jacqui’s chair. She turned and met his gaze. “We’ve never hurt you, and we wouldn’t ever do so, intentionally. So get over whoever that bastard was, and see us for the men we are.”
Chapter 2
Jacqui wished it was anger, a pure, roiling, righteous anger that heated her cheeks and made her lower her gaze.
But it wasn’t anger that coursed through her. It was shame.
She acted as if she’d taken an instant dislike to William and Norman Kendall based on nothing more than their good looks and their smiles—smiles they seemed to be able to employ easily and often and gave to anyone and everyone.
Like my dad.
She wasn’t used to being called on her bratty behavior—mostly because that behavior had usually only been exhibited at her grandmother’s house in Georgia, where she’d spent all of her teen years.
Jacqui had lived on her own here in Lusty for a few months, and got along well with everyone. She had a close relationship with her Aunt Holly, and also with Nancy, who was her boss and her friend. A lot of the other folks in town treated her like a kid sister. It was an interesting situation—on the one hand feeling as if she’d finally come into her own as an adult, and on the other hand, still being allowed to be the baby of the family.
She understood that the men of Lusty kept an eye on her, as if she actually was their little sister. That didn’t bother her one bit, because while she could appreciate the buff bodies and handsome faces, she wasn’t attracted to any of them—or rather she hadn’t been, until William and Norman Kendall had rolled into town.
She lifted her head and looked at first William, and then Norman. Neither man was regarding her with anything except patience. Neither of them were sneering at her, or shooting her dirty looks, which she really deserved. They were waiting to see what she’d say after they’d—justifiably—called her on her snotty attitude.
Jacqui remembered the conversation she’d had with her grandmother, Wanda June Bethune, after Holly’s engagement party. Jacqui had been earnest in her insistence that at the ripe age of twenty-one and three quarters, she was an adult fully grown, quite capable of living on her own.
Well, I’m okay living on my own but I may have to give that whole “I’m an adult” assertion further consideration.
Because what she’d just realized was it wasn’t dislike that lay at the root of her reaction to these two men.
It was an attraction so potent it scared the living hell out of her. Jacqui sighed. It was all right to be scared, but it wasn’t all right to be a bitch to two men who hadn’t really earned it.
“You’re right. I haven’t been very fair in the way I’ve treated you. I apologize.”
“Apology accepted,” Will said.
“That’s it?”
“Yep.” Norm grinned. “Apology accepted.”
“I thought I might have to eat some crow. I deserve it.”
“Naw.” Will winked. “I’ve had crow before. It’s dry and stringy and you choke on the feathers. Not an experience I would recommend to anyone.” When Jacqui laughed, he smiled. “But we could order you one of Tracy’s cream puffs instead, and maybe you could take your eyes off the clock. You can see the book shop door from here.”
“Yes please. I’d love a cream puff…and I really haven’t taken a break today, so I guess I could relax for a little while.”
Jacqui pushed aside the niggling bit of something she felt when Emily Anne came right over in response to William’s slight gesture. It occurred to her as she watched the interaction between the two Kendalls and the efficient waitress that the something she felt was jealousy.
And I am so totally off base.
&nb
sp; Jacqui hadn’t ever been one to waste much time on useless emotion—but she’d always known that she could, oh so easily, be swallowed by it whole.
Her earliest memories were of watching her mother getting ready for a night out, as she sat on the bed and watched. The memory wasn’t complete—there were holes in it, which she attributed to the fact that she couldn’t have been more than five at the time.
Her father had been nowhere in this particular flashback, so Jacqui assumed it was just after her parents separated when she’d been four.
She recalled the uncomfortable feeling as she watched Monica Bethune primp. She hadn’t wanted her mother to go, hadn’t wanted to be left alone again. No, not alone. Alone with the sitter—a sitter she couldn’t, all these years later, remember at all. Those early feelings—which Jacqui had decided, when she was old enough to think about them, to be jealousy—had stayed with her all her life. But as she’d gotten older, she’d done her best to keep her tendency toward jealous feelings blocked.
When she’d moved into Grandma Bethune’s house with her dad, she’d already, at the age of twelve, been an expert at keeping her emotions in check.
Her aunt Becky-Lynn wasn’t much older that she was. Becky didn’t have the same kind of experience keeping a handle on things. She’d lashed out early and often. Grandma had never seen that, but Holly had.
Holly had stepped in and very quickly gotten Becky Lynn to back off.
“What about you? You weren’t born and raised in Lusty. You’re a Georgia girl, aren’t you?”
“Actually, no. I was born and bred in Mississippi. But when I was twelve, my father and I moved in with my grandparents—his mom and dad—who’d moved to Georgia some years before when Grandpa Bethune relocated his business.”
“So you hang on to your birth state identity, do you?” Norm asked.
“I do indeed.” I hang on to a lot of things. “But I’m not alone. Aunt Holly will tell you she left Georgia for Texas, but if you push she’ll tell you she’s a Mississippi girl.”
Love Under Two Extroverts [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 2