by Various
Her words stemmed the flow of anger as he considered them. He’d never quite seen it that way. And for one long, uncomfortable moment, he stood in her shoes. Then he gently shut the door.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay?”
“I get it. Sort of,” he admitted.
“Brooks,” she said through a sigh of relief, closing her eyes. “Thank you. Thank you for understanding.”
He held out his palm. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that key.”
“Oh.” Tansy dropped the key into his hand. “I know it’s late, but I was hoping we could sort this out a little further. Maybe tomorrow we could….”
“Not happening.” He opened the door.
“Brooks, we have a history. Surely nine months apart didn’t wipe it all out.”
“No, not nine months, Tansy. That happened somewhere within the first twenty-four hours.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Whack!
“I offered to meet him at his house at midnight but he refused. He really doesn’t want me to see his house.”
Whack!
“That’s because he knows you’d end up flat on your back in his bedroom before he finished giving you the tour.”
Whack!
“And what’s wrong with that?” She stopped abruptly and turned. “Is this one of your bad cop moves?”
“How could not taking a girl to bed be a bad cop move?” Vance wondered aloud, spreading his arms wide and looking her up and down. “Although,” he considered, “it’s clearly making you crazy for Brooks. So, if I ever actually do meet someone I’m interested in, I am totally putting it in my arsenal.”
She rolled her eyes and addressed the ball with a big sigh. “I’m telling you, Vance, I have not been sending mixed signals.”
Vance had to laugh at that. “No, I’m sure you’re not. If there is one thing I’m learning about you, Miss DuVal, it’s you don’t pull a lot of punches.”
Whack!
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lolly turned to Vance and watched him tee up another ball.
“It means you’re pretty good at speaking your mind. And telling the truth about things when you probably should have kept your mouth shut. You are getting me into a whole lot of trouble.”
“Honesty is the best policy.” That little saying floated in the air for about three seconds before Lolly broke out into hysterical laughter. “Oh My God. A fine standard to live by for someone who just found out she’s been living a lie.”
“Lolly,” Vance chastised, stepping over his bucket of balls and moving into her space. “You aren’t responsible for the insanity imposed by your relatives.” He took hold of the end of her ponytail and tugged it down. Her face turned up toward his. “You are absolutely perfect. Stay above all that. As crazy as it sounds, none of what went down twenty-four years ago has anything to do with you. I’m here to make sure you don’t own any of it. Ever.”
Lolly stared up into Vance’s handsome face and let his words grant her absolution. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome,” he said, right before he kissed her.
It was supposed to be a brotherly kiss. A friendly kiss to offer her confidence. Lolly knew without a doubt that was what Vance had intended. But his lips lingered a little too long, allowing her to feel and acknowledge their softness. And the kiss was a little too tender, causing heat to stir.
She stepped back and wiped the back of her hand across her lips. “Sorry,” she said, looking at the back of her hand as if checking that the kiss did come off. “That was just a little,” she murmured, raising her head and looking into Vance’s eyes, “felt a little….”
“Too good,” he acknowledged.
She nodded.
“I so need a girlfriend,” Vance groaned. “Lolly, I didn’t mean….”
“I know. I know you didn’t.” Her breathing was heavy. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from Vance. “This is why, isn’t it? This is why Brooks won’t take me to…invite me to his house.”
“Probably.”
“Because he doesn’t trust the two of us.”
“Probably more to it than that.”
“Because he doesn’t trust that I’ve chosen him. Over you.” Lolly blinked a couple of times. “And why should he? I broke a date with him last night, but I’m unwilling to forfeit a match.”
“He knows you’re competitive to a fault. He’s not going to hold that against you.”
Lolly rolled her eyes. “Being competitive is not a fault,” she insisted.
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Vance agreed.
“So what is the holdup? I swear to God if he’d just…do the deed, all this sexual tension would dissipate.”
“Well, there’s the short answer.”
“What’s the long answer?”
Vance rubbed the back of his neck, hesitating.
“How long can it be?”
“Lolly, have you not noticed that Brooks is loyal to a fault? I don’t deserve it, but he and I bonded in the trenches a long time ago, and in Brooks’ world that means he’s not giving up on me. Ever.”
“Bonded in the trenches? Is that the hazing thing Brooks told me about?”
“Exactly. What did he tell you?”
“He said you kept telling him that it was nothing. He said he would have quit the team if you hadn’t been through worse.”
“He said that?”
“Yeah. You pulled him through.”
“Well, did he tell you what happened the following year? When we were sophomores?”
Lolly shook her head.
Vance rubbed his chin and muttered, “Of course he didn’t.” He took a deep breath and said, “The truth is that a year later when ten freshmen joined the team, I was all ready to turn the tables on those guys and continue the tradition. I mean, it was my right. Right? I’d lived through it, and now it was their turn. In fact,” he laughed, “I had been harboring a slew of goldfish all summer, feeding them three times a day so they would be huge when the time came for their demise.
“Brooks took one look at the goldfish and literally knocked some sense into me. He got in my face as I lay flat on the ground and asked what the hell kind of team building did I think continuing the hazing was going to do.
“And he was right. I hated those upperclassmen with a passion, and here I was ready to make ten new teammates hate me like that. It was stupid, but I saw the light quickly. When Brooks pulled me off the ground, the two of us got into the faces of the juniors and seniors and ended the hazing. Right then. Forever.”
“Oh My God,” Lolly shrieked. “Is there no part of this town that the two of you haven’t single-handedly changed for the better?”
Vance laughed. “Well, if there is, we plan to take care of it when Brooks is mayor.”
“Why do you two love this town so much? I mean, sure it’s home and I like the people, but nothing ever happens here!”
“Anything you want can happen here! Don’t you see? It’s fertile ground. Plenty of room for new homes and new businesses. Plenty of room to work and to play. Granted, we are removed from a big city, but we don’t have many of those big-city problems either. The weather is perfect and the lake is beautiful. There are parks and recreation areas as far as you can see. It’s paradise, and all we need is a little publicity to put Henderson on the map. And that’s our plan.”
“So you and Brooks are in a committed relationship and have a long-term plan,” Lolly quipped, but held up a hand when Vance started to object. “No seriously. I get it. I do. In fact, I’m doing my best to jump on board.”
“Well, my point in all this is that Brooks is loyal. His close personal relationships are extremely important to him. It makes him cautious. The last thing he wants to do is mess things up for any of us.”
“Mess things up?”
“Well, what if you and Brooks become intimate? And for whatever reason, things don’t work out between you two.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you and I continue to play tennis together. Continue to play golf together. Continue to kiss every now and then. One thing leads to another, and—follow me here—the two of us, somehow, end up together.”
“Hmm.”
“Brooks is still going to be my friend. He’s going to have to sit across from the two of us and pretend to be okay about it. He would hate that. I would hate that. You would hate that.”
“I don’t know. I might not hate that.” Then she burst out laughing.
“You are bad!” Vance accused.
“And it’s only going to get worse,” Lolly assured him. “Please, do us both a favor and go get laid. For God’s sake, it’s like you’ve taken a vow of celibacy.”
“That is a dirty word. Now take it back.”
“I’m serious.” She glanced at her watch. “Come on, we’re on the tee in five minutes.”
“Lolly.” He grabbed her shoulder as she began to gather her clubs. “In all seriousness. Brooks wants you. Don’t doubt that for a minute. He’s the good cop, remember. He’s just trying to protect all of us. He’s just waiting for you to be sure.”
“Be sure about what, exactly?”
“That he’s the love of your life.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The love of my life?
Lolly repeated the phrase over and over as she pulled the finely-woven pink canvas through her sewing machine. She’d come up with the idea during the golf match the other night, which probably saved their victory. Stupid Vance had distracted her with the love-of-my-life stuff right before teeing off, and she couldn’t concentrate on anything until she’d devised a plan to seduce Brooks.
Really. Enough was enough. Wasn’t being the love-of-her-summer good enough for now?
The sewing machine stopped.
Who was she kidding?
She’d figured it out weeks ago, she realized as she resumed sewing. She figured out that Brooks was playing for keeps and that had scared the bejesus out of her. For all of fifteen minutes. Then she’d fallen into a deep, restful sleep. And when she laid eyes on Brooks the next day, her body responded mightily to the idea.
Let’s face it. Brooks Bennett became her knight in shining armor the day he fastened that bracelet around her wrist five years ago. And when he pulled her into his arms for that slow dance at Darcy’s party, well, she started falling hard. And while her grip had started to loosen on the dream of moving to New York City—thanks to Annabelle Devine another dream had started taking its place. One that frankly made a lot more sense, considering Annabelle’s contacts. The fact that it also gave her a way to buy into Brooks and Vance’s dream of Henderson was just the icing on the cake. Who said Henderson wasn’t the next textile capital of the world? She and Annabelle were planning to put it on the map. The only person who wasn’t aware of it yet was the future mayor.
Brooks hadn’t exactly been avoiding her calls over the last several days, but he wasn’t knocking down the door to see her either. With his working mornings and nights so he could be on the baseball field during camp hours, he had zero free time. Still she’d be more worried if the whole Sweaty Balls Debacle hadn’t erupted with the heat wave that crashed into this week’s baseball camp.
A frantic, albeit humor-ridden, call from Brooks had Lolly on the phone rallying the males from her design team at State to come to Henderson and take stock of the situation. While the cups worn up against the skin managed beautifully in eighty-two degree heat, they produced a rash of untold proportions when the thermometer hit ninety. Brooks and Vance’s description of the locker room fallout went on for at least two beers that night. Describing how boys of all body types and sizes––naked from the waist down––had laid themselves out spread eagle trying to cool their appendages and soothe the pimpled rashes.
The thirty minutes she and Brooks stole before he headed back to work made it all worthwhile.
And tonight he was working the desk by himself until eleven o’clock. At least that’s what Vance had told her. She hoped he was right because what she was planning to do was actually illegal. Which was sort of the point. She just wanted to make sure it was the right cop handcuffing her.
***
Brooks sat back in the desk chair with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes closed. He wasn’t asleep, he told himself, he was just resting his eyes. A half hour to go and thankfully things were quiet. It had been a long, eventful week and though he truly loved every minute of being a coach—the sun, the kids, and the extra hours of being in charge had taken its toll.
He noticed as a flash of light crossed over his closed lids and figured it was the headlights from a car pulling into the lot. He opened one eye and watched as the black, Smokey-and-the-Bandit Trans Am parked across from the double swinging doors.
His own truck blocked the view of the driver’s door, but he kept watch just the same, wondering what Vance was doing here at this hour and why the hell he was driving that car. But surprise, surprise! Vance did not rear his ugly head. No, thanks to the well-lit parking lot, what he saw was a lot of long, lean, exposed leg walking his way. His gum dropped out of his mouth as he sat up straight and took in the sight.
Bubblegum pink pumps. Dainty ankles. Long calves. Knobby little knees. Firm, sleek thighs. And just a tad further up his heart stopped at the brief flash of tender, stroke-me-right-here inner thigh teasing him as she walked. He licked his lips and ordered his eyes to move up the hemline of a hot-pink, double-breasted trench coat, all buttoned up and cinched tight with a matching belt. Above that, one more button and then the coat was left undone, exposing an enticing V of flesh leading to a long neck, a dimpled chin, and pale pink lip gloss.
His eyes darted between the flashes of stroke-me thigh and kiss-me-silly lips. In fact, he didn’t realize he was standing, hands flat on his desk, until the distraction of the flashing thighs stopped and he was able to lift his gaze to sparkling sapphire eyes and an innocent dark brown ponytail all tied up neatly with a narrow pink bow.
“I love pink,” he said as if his left brain had shut down. Was he drooling? He felt like he was drooling. He wiped at his mouth with his hand, all the while wondering what she had on underneath that trench coat. “I mean…the coat. I love the coat. Although…” he said, sitting down again very slowly as she came around his desk and propped a hip against the side, “it’s a little hot for a coat. Did you make this?” His eyes flashed up toward hers. “I really love your sewing machine.”
Lolly gave him a broad smile as she stood up straight on her three-inch heels. She started slowly untying the belt.
“Laura Leigh.” Brooks licked his lips, watching her fingers closely. “Just so you know, we are being recorded.”
She stopped abruptly and glanced around. He pointed up. Little half globes graced the ceiling in various spots. She wiggled her fingers at them to say hello. “What are the chances this video will ever be reviewed?”
Brooks reached out and stroked one fingertip up the outside of her left thigh. “I wish I knew.”
“It’s not recording sound, is it?”
He shook his head back and forth as he scooted his chair closer and began to drag two fingertips up the outside of each of her thighs.
“That feels good,” she said, smiling down into the curls on the top of his head. When he kept it up, she added, “You seem intensely focused.”
“Just trying to puzzle this out,” he said to her shoes. His fingers took hold of the sides of her hem as he raised his head. “I’m trying to figure out what you had in mind.” He smiled.
She stroked her fingers through his hair and then down one side of his face. “I thought I’d come in here and try to get myself arrested.”
“By flashing a police officer?”
“For starters.”
He turned his head and captured her lingering fingers with his teeth. He eyed her for a moment before circling her wrist with his right hand and spinning her into his lap. His arms came around he
r waist and pulled her back tight against his chest. He leaned back so that her feet came off the floor and her body slid to his left side and settled in.
He whispered in her ear. “You leave me no choice but to do a little interrogating.” Then he licked the skin beneath her ear, down to the hollow little hot spot above her shoulder. He scraped his teeth on the tender flesh there. “What’s underneath the coat?”
“A little bit of this,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “Not so much of that.”
His hand slid up her outer thigh and felt unimpeded flesh all the way to her hip. “That’s not much of an answer,” he said, his lips brushing over hers. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to apply a little pressure to get you to talk.” His tongue traced her bottom lip and then tucked itself in at the edge of her mouth, urging her to open for him. She capitulated immediately, waving off any protest with a soft moan.
Brooks took his time with the kiss. He wanted to be thorough. He wanted to ease all her secrets from her lips before she knew what was happening.
“Where did you get the Trans Am?” His fingers stroked her hip. His tongue stroked the inside of her bottom lip.
“The what?” Her tongue snuck into his mouth and he mumbled a ‘never mind’ as he let her take the lead.
The phone on his desk rang. He looked at his watch as he eased his mouth off Lolly’s. He looked into her eyes and promised, “Fifteen minutes. Unless this is a life-threatening emergency, we are out of here in fifteen minutes.”
“Henderson police,” he answered. The fog in his brain dissipated as he focused in on the Spanish accent. “Mrs. Flores? This is Brooks.” His eyes shot to Lolly’s. “DuVal? All three of them?” Lolly rose off his lap and started tying the belt of her coat. “Where are they now? Okay. And where is your son? And how ’bout Vance?” He nodded his head three times. “Okay, I’m on my way. Just…you know…open another bottle and play the gracious hostess. Ten minutes tops,” he said before hanging up the phone.
He immediately picked it up again and called 911. “Gail, it’s Brooks at the office. There’s a disturbance out at the Evans’ place. Probably nothing serious but if you can get the word out to Vance and have him head home, I’d appreciate it. I’m on my way and I’m forwarding calls from the office to you.” He hung up the phone.