Tag poked his head over his brother’s shoulder, his eyes finding Jax’s in the crooked bathroom mirror. “Wait. You have a real date? With a real woman? Or one of the blow-up variety?”
Jax smoothed some aftershave over his jaw and grinned at his brother’s reflection. One that wasn’t as haunted or pained these days. “Like you’d know the difference? And it’s not a date.”
Tag punched him in the shoulder and smiled, his eyes lighter than Jax had seen them in a long time. “So who’s this gorgeous woman?”
“Emmaline Amos.” Just saying her name made his gut tighten, bringing to mind those red, red lips of hers. Double shit.
“The one with the ex-husband who wears women’s clothes?”
Jax’s jaw stiffened, his grin fading. He’d never forget the pain on Em’s face the night he’d first seen her in the square after her husband’s secret was revealed at the Founders’ Day gathering.
Raw and so damn palpable. Raw enough that even without knowing anything about her, he’d wanted to beat the shit out of the person responsible for making her cry. “You heard, then?”
Tag nodded, leaning his arm against the chipped pink-and-gray ceramic tile on the wall. “Who hasn’t? This town sees everything, man. Everything. They talk the hell out of it, too. Especially those women who’re part of that gladiola club—or whatever they call it.”
Jax chuckled. “I think it’s Magnolias, and I’ve met Louella and her crew. Interesting bunch.” Somehow, in all the summers he’d spent at his aunt’s, he’d managed to overhear bits and pieces of the gossip that seemed to fuel such a small community, and the Magnolias were almost always at the center of it. Or if Aunt Jess’s words were right, they were the cause of it.
Tag’s broad shoulders rolled. “I don’t know. It’s some damned flower or another. You can’t go into that diner without hearing something about someone.” He put a hand on Jax’s shoulder, his eyes searching his older brother’s.
Tag knew how and when to look for signs something was up with Jax when no one else did. “So what’s so special about Emmaline Amos that she made you decide to crawl out from under your rock after not a single date since the Stone Age?”
Jax shifted his eyes first, focusing on rinsing the sink. He didn’t have an answer to what drew him to Em. He was just drawn—sucked in—total immersion. That was more than he could claim about a woman in a long time. “Not a date,” he repeated.
“Jax’s coming out from under his rock?” Gage asked, pushing his way into the crowded bathroom just like he’d always done since he was ten. “Good. Means you can do the dishes.”
Tag slapped his little brother on the back. “Yep. So that means we’re on dish duty tonight, bro, and Maizy duty, too. Big brother’s got a date.” He cackled the words like they were joke-worthy.
But it wasn’t a joke. He hadn’t dated in a few years. And he wasn’t dating tonight.
Gage whistled and grinned, his face lighting up. “A date? Nuh-uh. Who’d date you, you ugly schlub?”
“Not a date,” Jax repeated.
“Emmaline Amos,” Tag replied, adopting his impression of a feminine voice, complete with a bat of his eyelashes and a twirl of his finger around a lock of his shaggy hair.
Gage’s eyes opened wide. “No shit! The one that works at the phone-sex company with Caine?”
Jax’s eyes narrowed in Gage’s direction. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Gage. She’s the GM. She doesn’t answer the calls.”
Gage flicked his fingers at Jax’s reflection. “Oh, stop getting your back up. Still, workin’ in a place like that—” he wiggled his dark eyebrows “—I bet she knows a thing or two.”
Tag slapped him on the back of the head. “Shut up, Gage. This is the first time our wee boy’s been out in as long as you’ve been sexually active. Leave him the hell alone.” Tag’s eyes sought Jax’s again with the “If you need to talk...” signal before he said, “I’m happy for you, man. Glad to see you’re getting out. New town—new life. Clean slate, right?”
Jax and Tag had a clear understanding of clean slates. Both of them wanted one—both of them were going about finding them in their own ways.
Maizy, the final piece to their nonconformist, but totally a work-in-loving-progress puzzle, dipped between pairs of legs to latch on to Jax’s thigh. “You’re going out, Daddy?”
He looked down at his daughter; her bright auburn hair and freckles so much like her mother’s, so unlike the Hawthorne’s dark looks, and his chest tightened with that unconditional love her dark, chocolate-brown eyes summoned. “I am, kidlet.” He scooped her up in his arms, dropping a kiss on her freckled nose. “You got a problem with that?”
She captured both sides of his face and rubbed their noses together. “Only if you’re going out for ice cream. Then I’d be madder than a hornet.”
Jax hitched his jaw, making a comically confused face. “A hornet? Where’d you learn that, Maizy-do?”
She roped her arms around his neck, resting her cheek on his. “Uncle Gage says it all the time. He said it’s better for me ’n the S word.”
Jax rolled his eyes at Gage. “A sight better, I’d say. So, you gonna eat all your dinner like a good girl for Uncle Tag while I’m gone?”
“If he promises not to burn the fish sticks again.” Her honesty always made him laugh. They were all shitty cooks. Him probably being the shittiest. On the best of nights, they only managed to eke out a barely passable meal for Maizy. It included all the approved food groups suitable for a six-year-old.
It just wasn’t always edible—at least not the outside of it. Sometimes, if you picked your way to the middle of a chicken breast, there was a silver lining. But what Maizy lacked in their culinary finesse, they more than made up for with love. No one would ever mess with Maizy Hawthorne as long as her uncles and father were around.
“Note to self—Daddy needs to watch the Food Network more.” He’d made a vow—once they settled into this rundown house so full of all the potential Gage and Tag kept talking about, he’d learn to cook. For Maizy. Because everything was for her, and that’s how it was going to stay.
“Hey!” Tag teased, tugging on a tightly coiled ringlet of his niece’s hair. “They were blackened fish sticks, thank you very much, Ms. Food Critic. Cajun style. I was trying to broaden your food horizons.”
Maizy shook her head full of curls and wrinkled her nose with her trademark display of disapproval at Tag. “Uncle Gage said that was a fib. It was really just burned. It was yucky.”
Gage scooped her out of Jax’s arms and swung her around his back so she could hold tight to his neck piggyback style. “It sure was yucky. Probably the biggest fib Uncle Tag ever told you, too. It was right up there with, ‘Look, Maizy-do—this big ole gooey mess tastes just like Chicken McNuggets if you close your eyes and pretend. Give it a chance.’”
Maizy giggled, squeezing Gage’s neck. “That was so gross. So if Daddy won’t be here, will you be my unicorn tonight, Uncle Gage?”
Gage reached upward and ruffled her hair with a smile. “I’ll always be your unicorn.”
The phone interrupted Maizy’s giggling as Gage galloped out of the bathroom with her. “I’ll get it. You finish prettying up for your daaate,” Tag drawled with a laugh.
One last glance in the mirror, and Jax sucked in a deep breath, bracing his hands on either side of the pink, shell-shaped sink. Damn. He was nervous. When was the last time he could lay claim to that emotion? Especially when it concerned a woman whom he absolutely wasn’t dating?
He rolled his head from side to side to loosen his muscles, tight with anticipation.
Tag’s scruffy head was back in his line of vision. “Uh, Jax?”
“Yep?”
“Someone’s on the phone for you.”
His ears picked up something in Tag’s voic
e—something almost urgent, maybe even ominous. No one ever called them. No one who stirred up the kind of warning Tag’s voice held anyway. “Who is it?”
Tag’s throat worked, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down. His lips fell into a thin line as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans.
A strange chill rolled along his spine. A warning chill. “Who the hell is it, Tag?”
“Reece. It’s Reece.”
The floor fell away from Jax’s feet in a tidal wave of his blood pounding in his ears and his heart dropping to his feet. Well, that explained why Tag’s voice sounded alarms in Jax’s head.
Fuck. Fuck, no.
Five
The front door to Em’s small ranch blew open with a gust of winter wind, Dixie’s beautiful face in the middle of it. “Well, hello, fine sir! Might I interest you in a cheeseburger and some fries with your aunt Dixie and the girls? Like a real dinner date?” Dixie swung Gareth up into her arms, nuzzling his neck with her nose until he was in a fit of giggles.
The moment Dixie walked through Em’s front door, Gareth launched himself at her. Dixie, Caine, Sanjeev and the girls had become as important to Em and her children as any family member.
Her mother didn’t like it, and no one in town did either for that matter. But she no longer cared what other people didn’t like. She didn’t care that the women in town mocked her parenting for letting the boys be around the women of Call Girls. Their “I can’t believe she’d allow young, impressionable boys in the presence of those women” snide comments rolled right off her like water off a duck’s back.
At least those women were honest. They might talk dirty, but they didn’t talk behind your back.
Over the months, during the hardest transition of their lives, Dixie and the girls were always there for her and her sons.
While she’d picked up the pieces of her life, while she’d driven Clifton to his counselor, while she’d learned how to be single—they’d been there, too. Helping her through meltdowns, passing her tissues and teaching her how to be a part of a group of women who accepted her for who she was. That was more than she could say for her judgmental mother and the Mags.
“Stop, Aunt Dixie!” Gareth cried between bouts of laughter as Dixie kicked the door shut with her foot. “I have somefin’ to tell you ’bout school. It’s ’portant!”
Em held her breath. Please, don’t let it be another incident where one of his classmates poked fun at him about his father’s cross-dressing.
Dixie’s eyes twinkled down at Em’s youngest son. “Did you find a new sweetheart? You better not be courtin’ someone new,” she teased, walking her fingers up his chubby arm until he squealed. “I’m your only girl, buddy. You’d do well to remember that.”
Gareth instantly let his head fall to Dixie’s shoulder to signify his loyalty, snuggling against it and wrapping his legs around her slim waist. “No, silly. I got an A on my alphabet test.”
Em let air into her lungs, sending up a silent prayer it had been a torture-free day for Gareth. That, on top of a phone call from her mother, Clora, reminding her the boys lacked proper discipline because she didn’t make them tuck their shirts in, would have been too much.
“You are the smartest boy ever!” Dixie punctuated her words with kisses. “Now, you scoot—go get handsome for Miss Dixie. I can’t have you goin’ out on the town with me if your hands look like they’ve been rootin’ around a pig farm. Tell that good-lookin’ brother of yours, Clifton, to kick it into overdrive, too!” She let Gareth down with a plunk and a pat on his behind, shooing him upstairs. “Are MB and LaDawn here yet?”
Em sighed with a nod, watching Gareth run upstairs to get his pouty brother. “Upstairs charmin’ Clifton Junior. You’re all so good with them. I wish Clifton would talk to me like he does to y’all. What is it with you and the opposite sex, Miss Dixie Davis? Honest, it’s like anyone with a man-garden falls ripe from the tree when you’re within range.”
“What is it about you and a man, Miss Emmaline?” Dixie closed the front door, putting her hands behind her back and strolling over to Em with a smile on her lips.
Em’s eyes fell to the floor, her fingers tangling up in a shaky knot. “Oh, hush. It’s not like that. We’re just picking out colors and some furniture for Maizy’s room.”
It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t like that because she wouldn’t let it be like that even if Jax wanted it to be like that. Which, surely, he didn’t.
As she’d carefully applied makeup in preparation for tonight, she’d decided to get control of her wandering thoughts and behave like an adult. She was going to put her fantasies about Jax on a shelf where they belonged.
He was a coworker she was helping out because she had a skill he lacked by virtue of being the opposite gender. Single parents needed to stick together and support each other. Rah-rah.
Besides, her life was in such upheaval with the boys and the constant trouble they were having at school with everyone teasing them about their father, she didn’t need another complication in it. Men were complicated.
All she wanted was freedom right now, some room to breathe after holding her breath for so long she didn’t even know it was happening.
But wasn’t it you just a few days ago who was thinking about dabbling in the friends with benefits section of the relationship aisle? Yes. That had been her, but was it the real her?
Was she capable of having sex with no lingering emotional ties? Was she willing to find out? Was she the kind of woman who could take a lover in the afternoon and discard him for another the next day?
Now that a man had taken an interest in her—even if it was only about color palettes and canopy beds, a gorgeous man she’d logged hours daydreaming about, she was all tail between her chicken legs. One more reason to maintain a careful distance.
Just a few nights ago, she’d been ready to learn the finer points of talking dirty so she could nab a man and quell this raging desire to explore her lack of sexual experience. Tonight, she was throwing salt all over her libido’s fire.
Dixie ran a hand over the red knit beret Em wore and fluffed the scarf around her neck. “Helping a man pick out colors for his daughter’s room is very personal in nature, leading me to believe Jax wouldn’t just ask anyone.”
“He said I’m the only woman he knows in town. That’s why he asked me, troublemaker.”
Dixie’s arched eyebrow rose, skeptical. “He knows me....”
“Maybe he’s seen Landon’s guest bathroom?” she teased. The horrors she’d corrected with Dixie’s bad eye for color since she’d moved into the big house were too numerous to mention.
Dixie rolled her eyes. “I’m tellin’ you, Em, it looked like taupe. Who knew taupe had so many undertones?”
“I did. I knew, and if you’d asked me, I woulda told you so.”
“Point is, Jax asked you because he likes you. He’s clearly interested in you. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because big, rugged, beautiful men like Jax Hawthorne don’t like girls like Em, right?” Marybell quipped, making her way down the stairs, Clifton’s jacket in hand. “That’s plain nonsense, and you know it. I don’t know how you see you, but you trust me when I tell you, we don’t see you in the same light. And by the way, he knows me, too. We’ve had some very nice chats in the break room at Call Girls. Not only is he so hot I think I burned myself on just his fingertips when he passed me the ketchup, but he’s funny, too. So funny. And can that man eat. Finished a whole pizza all by himself on pizza night. Which means his other appetites are probably just as big.” She fanned herself with a chuckle.
Em blushed more at the stab of jealousy she felt over the ease with which Marybell must have conversed with Jax than the implication his appetite was as big as he was. Why was it so hard for her to loosen up and just be Em?
> Maybe because lately she wondered if simply being Em wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough for Clifton.
“So why didn’t he ask me to help choose colors for Maizy’s surprise bedroom reveal? If we go by your standards, he knows me better than y’all.” Marybell pondered, settling into a puffy beige chair by the window seat Em had created late one long DIY marathon night.
“Or me?” LaDawn called from the kitchen where she was gathering wet wipes for Gareth. She sauntered out into Em’s small living room, dropping the bag on the couch. “I had a nice cup o’ coffee with your heart’s desire just the other day, and he sure wasn’t askin’ me to be his companionator in color coordination. Know why? Because he doesn’t like me or us the way he likes you. I’ve seen the way he’s been lookin’ at you, Em. Like he’d sop you up with a biscuit.” She waved a finger at her, tucking the wet wipes into her oversize purse. “I know men. He likes what he sees when he sees you.”
“Clifton liked what he saw, too. Now he’s off liking something else he’s seen.” Sometimes, the insecurity she fought so hard to overcome, overcame, and it blurted out of her mouth, weak and whiny. Which was why she probably overcompensated at work. To show she was strong. Tougher ’n nails.
Dixie pulled Em’s hand into hers. “Oh, honey, you can’t base everything that happens from here on out on your experiences with Clifton. He didn’t trust you enough to tell you his struggles. That has nothing to do with how perfect or imperfect you are. That’s a Clifton problem.”
Pulling her purse over her shoulder, she shook her head. She’d told herself that over and over. It wasn’t her, it was him. But what was it about the woman he’d left her for that had inspired his confessions? What had she had that Em didn’t?
She didn’t love Clifton anymore. Of that she was sure. In hindsight, she realized they’d been drifting apart long before his big revelation. Yet, she’d lost most of her respect for him when he’d all but abandoned the boys just because he wanted to wear dresses. He didn’t have the courage to tell them the truth. Instead, he’d left the truth tellin’ to Em. While Clifton went off and enjoyed his new life, she dealt with the day-to-day fallout.
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