by Terri Osburn
“I won’t be interrogated,” Justin said, heading for the front door.
Abby followed after him. “Why won’t you answer me? Why won’t you tell me?”
“Because not everything is your business,” he snapped, drawing her up short.
“Wow,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry you feel that way, because I can’t live with all these secrets, Justin. I won’t do it.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, snatching his keys off the foyer table. “Because this is over.” Without another word, he slammed the door behind him.
Abby didn’t think she’d ever stop crying. Her sinuses throbbed, her throat felt raw, and she’d already progressed to her second box of tissues. By the time Haleigh responded to her sobbing message and rushed through Abby’s front door, night had fallen, casting the living room in darkness.
“Abbs, honey, where are you?” Haleigh called as she switched on every light in the house.
“I’m here,” she whimpered from her position on the living room floor.
Abby had cried at the table long enough to soak the cloth place mat before moving to the couch and sobbing all over her new throw pillows. As the sun went down, she descended with it, until her bottom hit the floor and her head dropped to her knees. That’s where she’d been ever since, tears creating dark circles on her jeans.
Haleigh dropped down beside her and lifted Abby’s head. “What happened?” she asked, reaching for a tissue to dab her friend’s cheeks.
“I met Justin’s fiancée today,” Abby blubbered. “And she made me think he’d cheated on her.”
“Whoa,” she replied. “Justin has a fiancée?”
“Had,” Abby corrected. “At least that’s what he says, but he’s still paying for their apartment in Chicago.”
“That isn’t a good sign.”
“I know.” She blew her nose before continuing. “If he’d told me the truth, that she’d cheated on him, I never would have accused him of being unfaithful.”
Haleigh put an arm around Abby’s shoulders. “This girl sounds like a real winner.”
“She’s gorgeous,” Abby confessed. “Young and perky and totally sure of herself. Nothing at all like me.”
Squeezing her shoulders, Haleigh said, “I don’t care how gorgeous and perky this chick is, she has nothing on you.” She slid the hair out of Abby’s face, and then held her cheeks, looking into her eyes. “Take a breath now. In and out.”
Abby hiccupped as she fought to calm down, but the tears continued to fall.
“I don’t know how to fix this, Hal. I don’t know how to make it right.”
“Like you said, if he’d been up-front about everything, this might not have happened. Maybe you don’t need to make it right.”
“Please don’t say I told you so,” she sniffled. “I need you on my side right now.”
“I’ll always be on your side, honey.” Her oldest friend kissed her cheek. “But half-truths aren’t enough to make a relationship work. If he can’t be totally honest, then he isn’t the guy for you.”
“I’m just not meant to have a happy ending,” Abby lamented.
“Don’t say that,” Haleigh ordered. “There will be other guys. And if for some reason the right one never comes along, you can still be happy. Your life is wide open, Abbs. You can take all those trips you’ve dreamed about. Snap a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower and Buckingham Palace. And you can take your best friend to the movies when she needs a break from the little ones.”
Leaning away, Abby said, “How many are you planning to have?”
“Cooper wants four, but I’m still negotiating for two.”
“We are twins,” Abby reminded her. “You could get pregnant twice and still get four.”
Shoving her friend away, Haleigh rose to her feet. “Are you trying to curse me?”
Grabbing the box of tissues, Abby rose with her. “No half-truths, remember?” After a deep breath, she said, “Thanks for coming over.”
“Anytime. Do you feel better?”
“Sure,” she said, lying to keep her friend from worrying.
Haleigh shook her head. “No, you aren’t. But you will be. Do you want to come home with me?”
“No, I’ll stay here,” Abby said. If a miracle happened and Justin did come home, she wanted to be there. As stupid as that was.
“You sure?”
With a nod, she walked Haleigh to the door.
“Positive.”
Abby stayed at the door long enough to watch the silver Ford Focus fade in the distance. On her way through the house, she switched off the lights, pulled a fresh box of tissues from the hall closet, and stopped at her bedroom door. Staring at the bed, a well of pain opened in her chest.
Without a word, she carried on to the spare bedroom next door and crawled under the covers to cry herself to sleep.
Chapter 23
“Explain this to me again,” Justin ordered Q, who rode in his passenger seat. “You just happened to find an available piece of land next to the exit parcel?” The man had insisted that they make this drive today, which required Justin to sacrifice his lunch hour.
“All I had to do was check the public records,” he explained. “This Tanner Drury guy has fifteen acres, including the land his house is on. We don’t need all of it, so he gets to keep his home, and we make the investors happy.” Pointing ahead, he said, “Pull off right up here.”
Justin parked the Infiniti on the shoulder and climbed out. The edge of the original plot of land sat to his right, a field of tall grass sprawled to his left, and a narrow dirt road split the two.
“I don’t see a sign,” he said. “How did you know this land was for sale?”
“It wasn’t,” Q replied, rounding the front of the car. “I took a chance and called the guy up. Made a lowball offer, way under the price per acre we’ll be paying for the first tract, but an amount this dude’s probably never seen in his lifetime.”
He wasn’t about to let Q extort land from a local. “How lowball are we talking?”
“Almost twenty grand less per acre.” He smacked Justin on the arm. “It’s a steal, man. This solves everything.”
It was a steal. And if they moved forward, Justin would make sure the price per acre went up significantly.
“How far does it go?” he asked, strolling down the side of the highway.
Q gestured toward the horizon line. “Just over that rise.” Continuing down the road another thirty feet, they crested the modest hill and a building came into view. “The edge is about an acre past that garage.”
Squinting, Justin made out the sign on the building. “That’s Cooper Ridgeway’s shop.”
“Guess so.” His friend shrugged. “But it won’t be for long. The buildings will have to be cleared once we get rolling.”
Justin shook his head. “Has he agreed to sell his part of the land?”
The jackass snorted. “That’s the beauty of it. The Cooper guy doesn’t own the land his business is on. When he bought the setup, Drury wanted to keep his land intact, so the moron bought the buildings and pays rent for the land.” Q shook his head with a smile. “Gotta love these small-town hicks.”
Snatching the man up by his offensively bright shirt, Justin snarled, “We aren’t hicks, and you aren’t taking this land.”
“What are you talking about?” Q squirmed, his feet barely touching the ground. “This makes the deal, man. Who cares about one stinking garage? The dude can fix cars somewhere else.”
“That’s not the point,” he ground through clenched teeth, shaking the worthless sack of shit with every word. “You don’t get to ride into this town and start ripping lives apart. These are real people, you son of a bitch. Not collateral damage for your stupid land deal.”
Justin released his hold, stirring dust when Q landed on his ass.
“This is our land deal,” he said. “And I’m not giving it up because of a stupid garage. Get your head back in the game, Donovan. This is going to be huge. You know
what we can do with fifteen acres. We’d be crazy to pass this up.”
“Then I’m crazy,” Justin said. “The deal is off. Take your ass back to Chicago and stay the hell out of my life.”
Justin stomped back to the car, leaving his passenger on the side of the road.
“Hey!” Q yelled. “You can’t leave me out here.”
“Watch me,” he mumbled and climbed behind the wheel.
“I’m not sure that’s the right blue,” Abby’s mother said, changing her mind for the fifth time in the last hour.
“It’s the blue you said you wanted,” Haleigh reminded the older woman, growing as frustrated as Abby was.
They’d all gathered at Haleigh and Cooper’s house to work on wedding details. Since Abby preferred to avoid the bookstore lest she encounter Justin, the location of the wedding became the obvious place to meet.
“Maybe we should go with the darker blue. I don’t want Bruce to feel like I’ve turned this into a girlie affair. It’s his wedding, too.”
Abby flashed Haleigh an I’ll handle this look. “We don’t have enough of the dark blue to make all the bows, remember?” The plan was to put a bow on the first and last chair in every row. “This blue does not look girlie, and Bruce isn’t going to care two bits about the decor so long as you meet him at the end of that aisle.”
Mama sighed. “I guess you’re right. If we don’t have enough, then that one will have to do.”
Rubbing her temples, Abby offered to make her mother happy. “Do you want me to pick up more of the dark blue tomorrow? There’s plenty of time to make more bows.”
“I don’t want to put you out, honey.”
A lie if Abby had ever heard one.
“I have to make a trip for the chalkboard anyway.” Thanks to a wedding planner website Mama had found, guests would be directed throughout the day by chalkboard signs. “It won’t be a problem to throw some ribbon in the basket.”
Cheeks dimpled by a grin, Mama said, “That’ll be good, then. I really do like the darker blue.”
Haleigh rolled her eyes and Abby switched ribbons to begin the bow again. They continued to work in companionable silence, which had been the case for most of the day, since ignoring the subject of Abby’s imploded love affair seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room.
She’d sent Justin a text on Sunday, letting him know she would gracefully back out of AJ Landscaping. There was no question that they would no longer work together, at least on her part. Justin hadn’t bothered to answer, but she knew that he’d shown up on Main Street this morning to pick up where she’d left off.
Abby had also contacted Thea. Justin wouldn’t stand a chance of completing the project on time without the garden society’s continued assistance. Though their breakup had not played out in public, the gossip would commence once those who reported on such things noticed that the two were no longer spending time together. She didn’t know or care what conclusions they’d make, but in case public opinion fell in Abby’s direction, she wanted to make sure the older ladies didn’t withdraw on her behalf.
“Have you decided what you’re bringing to the cookout?” Haleigh asked, referring to the rehearsal dinner Friday evening. With the wedding being held in their backyard, it only made sense to turn the dinner afterward into one of Cooper’s legendary cookouts.
“Not yet,” Abby replied. Truth be told, she hadn’t turned on her oven since the night Justin had made her meatloaf. Cooking for one didn’t require much, and her loss of appetite at least meant she was keeping the weight off that she’d lost working on the flower beds.
“You should bring that pasta salad with the almonds in it,” Mama suggested. “I liked that one.”
As the salad didn’t require heat, other than boiling water, which Abby could actually do without causing major damage, she said, “I might do that.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Cooper roared, tearing into the house like a man on fire.
“Kill who?” Haleigh asked, hopping out of her chair at the kitchen table.
Abby’s brother pointed at her. “Your little boyfriend is going to pay for this.”
She blinked, clueless what Justin could have done to Cooper. “Pay for what? And he isn’t my boyfriend anymore.”
“Good,” Cooper snapped. “Then I won’t feel bad about killing him.”
Mama put down her glue gun. “There will be no killing of anyone. Now what are you ranting about, son?”
“The offer to buy Tanner’s land came from a developer. A small company going by the name of Culpepper and Donovan.” Gripping the seat back across from Abby, he fumed at her. “Sound familiar?”
“I can’t believe it,” she said, rising to her feet.
Cooper picked up the chair and slammed it down. “Believe it, because I saw the paperwork. That piece of shit is going to take my business to build some outlet mall. Who the hell needs an outlet mall up here?”
Abby didn’t have an answer. Limbs numb, she collapsed back into her seat. All this time he’d been working with Q behind her back. Plotting to destroy her brother’s life while sleeping in her bed. And she’d felt sorry for hurting him. Had been crying her eyes out over a man she clearly never knew.
A buzz replaced the numbness, as if she’d grabbed hold of a live wire. “We can’t let this happen,” she said, eyes staring straight ahead. “We have to stop them.”
“It’s too late,” Cooper huffed. “Tanner plans to sign the papers tomorrow. They’re undercutting him on the price per acre, but it’s still more than he can pass up.” Leaning against the counter, her brother’s head dropped. “I don’t know how long I have, but the deal is done. I’m going to have to move the business.”
“To where?” Haleigh asked, rubbing a soothing hand along his arm.
Cooper shrugged. “I don’t know. There aren’t any standing options in town. If I want to keep it going, I’ll probably have to build, and I don’t have the capital for that.”
“Bruce can help you,” Mama offered.
Green eyes cut her off with a glare. “No,” he said. “I’ll figure this out on my own.”
“Honey, maybe you should think—”
“I’m not taking charity,” Cooper barked, stomping from the room.
The women exchanged worried glances before Haleigh said, “If you two come up with a solution for this, let me know. We cannot let him lose that garage.” A second later she darted from the room to go after him.
“You have to fix this,” Mama said. “Find Justin and make this right.”
Abby stuttered. “Mama, I . . . I don’t know how. You heard Cooper. The deal is done.”
“Figure it out,” she ordered, stepping out from behind the table. “You’re the only hope your brother has.”
Once this street project was finished, Justin was boarding a plane, and he didn’t care where he landed as long as it was far away from Ardent Springs.
Everywhere he looked, he saw Abby. Even his own bed above the bookstore. Two nights on the ancient couch had done as little for his temper as for his back. His headaches returned, probably due to spending the morning lifting bags of dirt to fill the planters.
Not that he had a choice. Abby had backed out, likely concerned about rubbing shoulders with a known cheater, and though the garden ladies were still with him, Justin would burn in hell before he’d let one of them pick up a fifty-pound bag of dirt.
As he packed another bag into his third pot of the day, an all-too-familiar voice cooed behind him.
“Surely you haven’t chosen manual labor over coming back to Chicago,” Victoria chimed.
Justin was starting to hate the name of that damn city.
“Why are you here, Victoria?”
“For you, of course. Why else would I be in this hellhole?”
What had he ever seen in her?
“Then you’ve wasted a trip.”
She released a long-suffering sigh. “You’ve made your point. I screwed up.”
“Yo
u screwed Quintin,” he corrected.
“When are you going to stop throwing that in my face?”
Taking a break, Justin leaned on the shovel handle. “We aren’t talking about you breaking my favorite mug or scratching one of my records. You had sex with someone else in our bed. Someone who was supposed to be my friend.”
“That was nothing,” she quipped, brushing away reality with a hundred-dollar manicure. “I was upset that you’d been away so much. I was lonely.”
“Then get a dog, Victoria. Or, here’s an idea, a job.”
His former fiancée had been brought up very much as Q had, only she’d never felt the need to step out on her own. Why bother when she had her daddy’s credit cards to keep her in the lifestyle to which she’d become accustomed? In fact, Justin doubted he could have afforded to keep her happy for long, since those credit cards would have been the first thing to go.
“I have a job,” she defended.
“Hosting nightclub parties is not a job.”
Hot-pink lips flattened in a pout. “You don’t get to criticize how I make my money when you’re standing on a street corner playing in dirt.”
Justin almost felt sorry for her. Victoria would never know the satisfaction of a job well done. Unless one considered twerking a job.
“There’s no point in arguing,” he sighed, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. “Go back to Dearborn Street and forget I ever existed.”
“But Justin—”
“Victoria, I don’t want you,” he blurted, patience spent. “We’re over. Move on.”
Blue eyes turned to ice. “Like you did?” she asked. “I met your little country mouse the other day. Or maybe I should say cat, since she showed me her claws.”
Justin returned to his work. “Stay away from Abby.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll tell her all your bad habits? Maybe scare her off?”
Playing the only card he knew would get her out of his life, he said, “How about if I call your daddy and let him know about that little cocaine habit he’s been supporting?” When her eyes went wide, he added, “Yeah, I know about that.”
She fidgeted, her bravado faltering. “I don’t do it all the time.”