by Terri Osburn
Justin tucked a lock behind her ear. “In most cases it wouldn’t be. But in the world of high-dollar development, you need a little cynicism. Enough to check and double-check the numbers to make sure you aren’t building a skyscraper on an empty promise.”
The picture became clear. “So Q didn’t double-check?”
“No,” he confirmed, his chest rising and falling as his heart beat out a steady rhythm beneath her ear. “But neither did I. Another buddy of ours tried to use our project to save his dad’s dying construction business and convinced Q that Rockwood Contractors could do the work. Needless to say, they couldn’t.”
Sitting up, she said, “How could they blame you if he lied?”
“Because it was my job to make sure that everything was cleared, and anyone who looked at their financials would have seen the truth. I trusted that Q had done his due diligence, but I didn’t do mine. The project fell apart, and Chesterfield fired us both.”
Justin had been wrong. Abby definitely wanted to beat someone up. “Then this Chesterfield person is an idiot. You made one mistake. No,” she corrected, tucking the sheet beneath her arms. “Two other people made mistakes, and you paid for them. That’s bull . . . mulch.”
“I appreciate your support, but I should have checked those numbers.”
“If that’s the case, then so should Chesterfield.”
Hazel eyes narrowed. “He put me in charge of the project so that he wouldn’t have to check them.”
Following his line of reasoning, she pointed out what Justin was clearly missing. “What he did was delegate. In turn, you did the same. That’s how things get done. A hospital runs the same way. If I had taken a vital sign wrong, or administered an incorrect dosage of medicine, I would have been the person to answer for the mistake. Granted,” she added, “I could have killed someone and not simply delayed a building project, but still. Iva wouldn’t have been fired because of my incompetence, and you shouldn’t have been fired because of Q’s. Or whoever the other guy was.”
“Howie,” Justin supplied.
“Fine. Howie,” Abby repeated. “If the blame had to go all the way up the chain, then Chesterfield was as responsible as you were. More so, in fact, since his name is on the door.”
Staring as if she’d grown a third eye, he shook his head. “Your brain works in amazing ways, but your logic doesn’t change the facts. To anyone looking in, a major deal collapsed under my watch. Like anything, the developer business is a small world. Once Chesterfield made sure my name was tied to that failure, no one else would touch me. And that’s why I came home. To regroup until I could figure out how to redeem myself.”
Taking his face in her hands, Abby said, “You do not need redemption. Do you hear me? Any man who fights fires and helps sweet old ladies fill their town with flowers does not need redemption.”
Removing her hand from his cheek, he placed a kiss in the center of her palm. “You’re right,” he whispered, rolling until she was pinned beneath him. “I don’t need redemption. All I need is you.”
Pulling him down for a kiss, she replied, “You have me, Justin. You’ll always have me.”
“Thank heaven meatloaf is good cold,” Abby mumbled with a mouth full of bacon. “Remind me to ask your mom how she gets that extra kick. Mine doesn’t have that.”
Licking the grease from her fingertips, Justin shifted her on his lap. When they’d finally left the bedroom, he’d refused to let her out of his reach, even to eat.
“She’ll tell you it’s a secret, but it’s really hot sauce,” he revealed. “Mom puts hot sauce in everything.”
Abby dipped a piece of meat in ketchup. “In everything?”
Justin nodded. “If she ever offers you pancakes, run the other way.”
“Stop telling lies about your mother,” she scolded.
“I’m not lying,” he defended, biting her shoulder. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Swinging her leg, which twitched her bottom against his groin, Abby said, “At the risk of pushing my luck, there’s one more detail about your past that I’m curious about.”
Reaching for another slice of bacon, Justin said, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“That day that we had dinner at the fire station, you said you almost got married once. Will you tell me about that?”
Justin debated his answer, buying time by popping a large bite of food into his mouth. To her credit, Abby waited patiently.
“There was a girl in Chicago. She came from money and liked fancy things. Something we had in common.”
She stopped chewing. “You like fancy things?”
“Have you not seen my car?” he asked.
“One shiny car doesn’t make you a collector of fancy things.”
“No,” he admitted. “But a storage unit filled with obscenely overpriced and utterly useless possessions does.”
Distracted, Abby straightened. “Now I have to know what’s in it. Can I see?”
“Not without a trip to Chicago. Do you want to hear my story or not? It isn’t pretty, so I can stop now with no problem.”
Contrite, she settled back down. “Sorry. Continue.”
“Where was I?” he said, feigning deep thought.
“Fancy things,” Abby reminded him.
“Right. We both liked fancy things, and like an idiot, I thought that was enough to build a marriage on.”
Abby grew serious. “You didn’t love her?”
At the time he’d believed he did, but now Justin knew better.
“What I felt for Victoria never came close to what I feel for you. She was beautiful and connected and had all the same ambitions that I did. We were going to throw the most talked-about dinner parties in our million-dollar penthouse.” Trailing his thumb along Abby’s jaw, he added, “When I think about it now, I can’t believe that I was ever that guy.”
Always ready to soothe, Abby put her arms around his neck. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting nice things,” she said, her green eyes soft. “I’ve been eying a dress in Virgil’s Boutique window all week that is very fancy and very expensive. I’d never have a reason to wear it, but that doesn’t stop me from drooling every time I pass by.”
He loved that she equated a dress with a million-dollar penthouse.
“The point is, she turned out to be someone I not only didn’t love, but didn’t like very much.” Seeing no need to share the part where Victoria slept with Q—as there was only so much humiliation a man would own up to in one night—he ended the story there. “And now I have a girl that I like a lot. She’s sexy, even when she smells like a cattle truck.” Justin turned Abby until she was straddling his hips. “She’s way smarter than I am,” he added, placing a kiss below her left ear. “And being with her makes me a better man.”
Pressing her breasts against his chest, she said, “You really know how to make a girl feel good.”
Caressing her bare ass, he murmured, “I’ll make you feel better than good, baby. Way better.”
Abby pressed down against his erection. “I think dinner is over now.”
Dragging his hands up her back, he nipped at her bottom lip. “Time to move on to dessert, then. What do you think we should have?”
Hot fingers slipped behind the band of his boxer briefs. “I want this,” she said, freeing him from the material.
“Your wish is my command.” Releasing his hold, Justin held his breath as Abby lowered to her knees in front of his chair.
Chapter 22
Abby’s alarm had gone off much too early for a Saturday morning. Especially considering how little she’d slept. Not that she’d change a moment of the night’s sexual debauchery, but the sun could have had the decency to allow the exhausted lovers an extra hour or two of shut-eye.
Thanks to a Donovan family reunion in Franklin, Abby would be handling the delivery of the large street planters on her own. Justin had offered to skip the gathering, but she knew full well that Karen would never forgi
ve her if he did. At least today would not require heavy lifting. All she had to do was point, pace off, and point again.
After the second time she’d paced wrong, requiring the poor deliverymen to pick up and move the misplaced planters to the proper locations, Abby took advantage of her proximity to the bookstore to grab a cup of coffee. The moment she heard a woman at the counter ask for Justin Donovan, her mind came fully awake.
“Who are you again?” asked Bruce.
“Victoria Bettencourt,” the woman answered, her voice bold and confident, as if these two words alone could move mountains. “I’m Justin’s fiancée.”
Amazing. Justin finally shared the woman’s name, and, like magic, his confession seemed to summon her to town.
“I’ve got this, Bruce,” Abby said, strolling to the counter. “So you’re Victoria. I thought you’d be . . . taller.”
The pixie wore four-inch heels, yet they stood eye to eye. She also screamed high maintenance. The clothes were more fit for an art gallery function than the Bound to Please bookstore, and the purse and shoes had designer written all over them. If Abby guessed right, the whole ensemble cost more than her car.
Steel-blue eyes squinted her way, indicating a bit of vanity at play. Heaven forbid she ruin her makeup by wearing glasses.
“Do you know Justin?” she asked, slightly less cordial than she’d been with Bruce.
“I do,” Abby confessed. “I know him very well.”
“Then you must know where I can find him.”
“Oh, you won’t find him around here. He’s out of town.”
Perfectly lined lips parted to reveal pearly white teeth. “Is he in Chicago? That would be just like him to come back to me right when I’ve come to retrieve him.”
Her choice of words pricked a nerve. Retrieve him. As if Justin were one of her fancy purses.
“Justin won’t be going back to Chicago. And he won’t be going back to you, either.”
The petite blonde closed the distance between them, sizing up her opponent with a bloodred sneer. “You must be the country bumpkin Q told me about. What was it? Agnes?”
Abby refused to take the bait. “He told me about you. How you like dinner parties and fancy things. Justin has moved on from that now. You’re wasting your time coming down here.”
“After living with the man for three years, I think I know him a little better than you do.” That detail threw Abby off. She hadn’t expected the revelations regarding his shallow fiancée to be so long in coming. Victoria smiled the moment Abby flinched. “Men like Justin don’t change, Miss Agnes. They get a little distracted sometimes,” Victoria explained, “but always find their way back.”
“It’s Abby,” she corrected. “And I didn’t say he changed. I said he’s moved on from you. I’m sure you had a good run, but there’s nothing here for you to retrieve.”
“You’re feisty,” she said. “I admire that.” High-dollar perfume wafted in the air, making Abby long for the simplicity of her flowers. “Justin doesn’t move on from me, my dear. Regardless of what he might have told you, this isn’t anything we haven’t been through before. We have a little misunderstanding, he goes to his end of the apartment and I go to mine, but we always make up. This time he ran a little farther, but no matter how far he strays, Justin knows that I’m the only woman for him.”
Victoria’s confidence ignited doubts in Abby. The man she described sounded nothing like the man Abby knew, which brought Haleigh’s warning to mind. Though he’d told her about Victoria, Justin had clearly skipped some crucial details.
“Let me guess,” the other woman pressed. “He told you that our engagement is off.” Victoria shook her head with a knowing smile. “Our last fight was more serious than usual, but I’m still wearing his ring, and he’s still paying for our apartment, so I wouldn’t take those claims too seriously.”
Anger simmered in Abby’s chest. As much as she wanted to believe he hadn’t lied to her, she couldn’t ignore her own instincts. In fact, she’d done that far too much where Justin was concerned. In her desperation to find love, Abby had given her heart to a man she knew very little about. Sharing a hometown wasn’t enough. He’d had a full life in Chicago, the details of which he’d glossed over at best. And the only reason a man continued to pay for an apartment in another city was if he intended to go back.
Pride alone kept Abby from admitting defeat.
“I’ll say this one more time,” she growled. “Justin isn’t going back to Chicago, and he isn’t going back to you. This trip was a waste of your time.”
Bruce, who still lingered behind the counter, cleared his throat. “You have your answer now, ma’am. It’s time for you to go.”
Victoria didn’t spare him a glance.
“I’m not leaving until I talk to my fiancé,” she announced, squeezing the life out of her little black clutch. “I know he lives above this store. You can’t keep me from seeing him.”
Bluffing, Abby said, “He lives with me.”
Technically, most of his wardrobe resided upstairs, but Justin had slept at Abby’s house every night since leaving the hospital, and though petty, she wanted the woman to know exactly how far he’d strayed.
“Enjoy him while you can,” Victoria snarled. “Because once he sees me, Justin won’t remember your name.”
With impressive grace, the dolled-up elf marched out the door in a cloud of obnoxious eau de toilette.
Coming to stand beside Abby, Bruce said, “She doesn’t seem like his type.”
“She’s got three years and a ring that says differently,” Abby replied.
Letting out a low whistle, he patted her on the back. “Looks like our Mr. Donovan has some explaining to do.”
Yes, she thought. Yes, he does.
Loaded down with various samples from the Donovan Family Dessert Drive, Justin fumbled into the house, eager to tell Abby about his day. On the way home he’d decided to start with the bicycle story, featuring Uncle Willard and his pet squirrel, before rolling into the real entertainment of the afternoon, when Truline had displayed impressive pugilist skills up against cousin Wanda Jane.
Colt Thompson should have been the one getting the beating, since he’d been stupid enough to show up with Truline, and then swap spit with Wanda Jane behind the barn.
At times like these Justin found great peace of mind in the fact that Donovan blood did not run through his veins. Although his adoptive status had also led to more than one awkward pickup line at the buffet and an overexuberant good-bye kiss from Aunt Jezebel, who came by her name honestly.
“Hey, baby,” he called from the foyer, dropping his keys on the side table. “I come bearing presents.” Justin found Abby in front of her laptop at the table. “I grabbed a slice of pecan, like you asked, though I almost had to arm wrestle Uncle Moody for it.”
Abby continued to stare at the screen. “You never seem to tell me the whole story,” she said, voice even. Emotionless.
“What are you talking about?” He set the foil-covered paper plates on the table. “What story?”
A glance over her shoulder revealed the headline Bettencourt Engagement Called Off—Infidelity Suspected.
Slowly, Justin lowered into a chair. “Why are you looking at that?”
“She’s beautiful,” she said, ignoring his question. “A little too made up for my taste, but I can see why you chose her.”
“I told you about Victoria last night. Why are you acting like this is a surprise?” He closed the laptop. “Look at me, Abby.”
Like a robot, she turned his way. “You didn’t tell me that you were still paying for your apartment in Chicago.”
“The lease isn’t up until October, but how do you know that?”
“I should know it because you told me, but instead I heard it from your fiancée. She showed up at the bookstore looking for you today,” Abby explained. “Your Ms. Bettencourt said she’d come to retrieve you. Like a rebellious puppy who’d gotten out of the fence.”<
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Justin had underestimated his former fiancée. “She isn’t my anything, and I’m not interested in being retrieved.” The second half of the headline lit like a neon sign in his mind. “Let’s get to the point here, Abby. You aren’t pissed because of a rent check. You think I cheated on her.”
“According to a source close to the couple, infidelity played a major role in the split,” she said, clearly quoting the article. “During our conversation today, Victoria let me know that no matter how far you stray, you always go back to her. Interesting choice of words, don’t you think?”
Holding his temper in check, he said, “I’m not a dog, Abby. And I sure as hell don’t stray.”
“Did your engagement end because of cheating or not?” she asked.
Knowing what conclusion she’d drawn, he replied, “Yes, it did. And you assume the cheater had to be me.”
Green eyes glowed with unshed tears. “What else am I supposed to think, Justin? Why else would you conveniently leave out that part of the story?”
“I’ve done nothing to make you doubt me. Nothing!” he bellowed, rising fast enough to send his chair flying. “You want to know the whole story?” he said, leaning over her. “Then I’ll tell you. I walked into my apartment on a sunny March day to find my fiancée fucking Quintin Culpepper in my bed. That’s why I left that part out. Forgive me for choosing to keep the humiliation to myself.”
Abby sprang to her feet. “That’s why you didn’t tell me? Because you were embarrassed? What did you think I would do?” she asked. “Laugh at you? Justin, this can’t work if you don’t trust me with the truth.”
“Trust?” he snapped. “You just accused me of being a cheater, and you want to talk about trust?”
“If you had told me everything, I wouldn’t have been blindsided by Victoria Bettencourt. But this is what you do,” she charged, stabbing a finger into the table. “You never tell me the whole story. Like why, if Quintin slept with your fiancée, are you helping him find property around here? Is that even why he’s really in Ardent Springs?”