And it had overwhelmed her at first, threatened to swallow her whole.
That was the Landon who’d saved her. A big, handsome, generous man who only wanted to help, who was willing to extend a hand even in the face of her crude rejection.
Dixie ran her finger over the feathery scar just above her eyebrow, her eyes sad. She chucked Marybell under the chin. “I didn’t know. But I bet he was in a limo, wasn’t he?”
Marybell couldn’t help smiling at the memory. She’d been petrified at the time. All sorts of unsavory characters roamed the darker side of the city, looking to score; she figured he was just one of the richer ones who hid his proclivities behind all his money. “A big, shiny black one that Sanjeev was apparently driving. Somehow they’d managed to get lost in my sordid neck of the woods. It was all just luck.”
“And maybe a little heavenly intervention.” Dixie pointed up at the inky-black sky. “Gracious knows I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that man had connections upstairs. So what happened next? How did he manage to talk you into, of all things, phone sex?”
“It wasn’t just the phone sex. It was the promise of a steady income.” A warm place to sleep, a bed.
Marybell swallowed hard, her chest ready to burst. “I’m sure you know better than anyone, Landon can be very convincing, but it took more than him paying my hospital bill and some smooth-talkin’. I got away from him as fast as I could. I trusted no one, least of all a slick man with a limo and an ascot. There are a lot of crazies out there. But he found me again—not far from where he’d found me the first time—and offered to buy me lunch in a very public place.”
“Because when my Landon wanted something, nothin’ stopped him.” Dixie chuckled at that.
Marybell folded her hands into a fist in her lap and nodded. It felt good to talk about Landon.
Good to tell someone how much love he’d given her in so little time. “To this day, I don’t know what made me believe him, Dixie. I should have been utterly and totally freaked out when I found out he wanted me to work for his phone sex company. I mean, phone sex? C’mon. If that doesn’t sound alarm bells, you have to be deaf. In fact, I stayed freaked out until I staked his so-called company out and watched the women who worked for him come and go.”
She’d done exactly that. Spied on him and Sanjeev, grilled his doorman and the security guard, seen LaDawn before she ever even knew a Marybell Lyman existed. She’d watched skeptically for two solid days until she got up the nerve to ask the doorman to buzz her up.
“Even after he got me inside the penthouse in Atlanta where this all began, I still had reservations. There’s always a catch. Nothing’s too good to be true. Not where I come from. But Landon just had this thing about him....” She shrugged. That warmth in his eyes. That gentle tone. That easy smile. “Well, you know what I mean. It’s the same thing you have. Charisma, maybe?”
Dixie made a face, offering Marybell some of her sugary doughnut. “It’s persistence and the tenacity of a huntin’ dog, is what it is. So when you found out it was all legit? What then?”
“That was more of a process. I was awful at phone sex first. Men called wanting things I just couldn’t provide. But I was determined to make it work because no matter how skeptical I’d go to bed at night over how this was too Cinderella for me, I’d wake up the next morning to fresh peach muffins and Sanjeev pourin’ us all coffee in that fancy kitchen Landon had.”
“Did you know he was going to die, Marybell?” Dixie’s voice skittered, hitching with a pain that was still so fresh for all of them.
She gulped, swallowing the fear and core-deep sadness those months had brought. “I did. He told us all like he was tellin’ us he was going on one of his safaris or to London for some tea he liked in a pub he talked about all the time. We didn’t know until almost the end—it all happened...so fast.”
Dixie sniffed, pulling a tissue from her pocket and dabbing at her eyes.
Marybell grabbed her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dredge up your pain.”
“No, MB,” Dixie admonished with a squeeze of her fingers. “That’s a pain we share. Landon might not have been in your life as long as he was in mine, but you loved him as much. I know you did. I’m okay sharin’ it, if you are.”
Marybell stayed quiet, the lump in her throat refusing to budge.
“So y’all knew about us. Me and Caine and Em?”
Marybell smiled. Landon was a crafty man. This web of love he’d woven had been carefully orchestrated, and as it all began to unfold, she could only sit back and marvel. “We didn’t know everythin’. We knew who you were, and that you’d be coming back for his funeral, and that he hoped you’d run his phone sex company. We didn’t know he’d make you compete for it. He told us all sorts of stories about you two when you were kids.” Stories Marybell had latched on to and lived vicariously through.
Stories of friendships she’d never had, events she’d never attended.
Dixie’s sigh shuddered. “We had so many great times together. I wasn’t the kindest person in the world, or the easiest to love, but somehow Landon managed to love me, anyway.”
“He did mention you were a handful, but he really loved you.” A love Marybell had envied until she’d met Dixie.
“How did he ever get you women to agree to come here?”
“We only knew he wanted to move the company here because this was his hometown, and he loved it. He left us one of his infamous DVDs like he did you and Caine. He told us how hard it would be to come here, and what we’d be up against, and if we wanted to bail, we could do it with a ridiculous amount of severance pay. But he’d told us so many stories about Plum Orchard—he had so many vivid memories. I think we all wanted to be in a place he loved so much. Maybe so he’d always be with us—closer somehow.”
“As unkind as people can be, Landon always garnered respect. He didn’t care that some people didn’t agree with his lifestyle. He didn’t care that they shut up about it because they loved the money he funneled into this town. He did it because he loved Plum Orchard.”
“Most of us would’ve done anythin’ for Landon, and he needed operators to keep this thing afloat until it was on its feet because, in his words on that DVD, ‘phone sex is what’s gonna save a couple of people who’re dear to me, just like it did all of you.’ We didn’t know what it meant at the time, but once we met you and Caine, we guessed.”
Dixie sighed, her breath feathering out from between her lips. “Can I ask you something?”
Marybell hesitated only a moment. “Sure.”
“You know, I’ve been meanin’ to ask you how you feel about a marketing position. Instead of answering calls. You’re so good with social media, and you have some of the most clever ideas for drummin’ up business. Is that somethin’ you’d consider down the line?”
Give up answering calls? “Do marketing positions require a fancy suit and wearing my hair in a bun?” she joked to hide her interest. She’d stay an operator forever if it meant keeping these people in her life, but the chance to do something closer to what she’d once hoped to do was enticing.
Dixie laughed, slapping her thigh. “I don’t care what you wear, MB. I think you know that. I just care that you’re fulfilled. That doin’ what you’re doin’ is enough.”
Marybell squeezed Dixie’s hand. Call Girls, no matter the capacity, would always be enough. “I’m fine, Dixie.”
“Are you happy here, Marybell? At Call Girls. In Plum Orchard? Really happy?”
She hid her eyes, forcing them to her booted feet. “I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. Landon gave me back the will to survive. He gave me security, a retirement fund, for gravy’s sake. I’ll always honor that.”
Dixie’s tongue clucked. “That’s not what I asked you, sugar. I asked if you were happy here. With us. Answerin’ phone calls? With your life.”
She was still afraid to say it out loud. Afraid to put it out into the universe. “I think I don’t always understand
everyone’s definition of happy. But this fits mine.”
Dixie turned to her then, her glittery eyes searching her friend’s face. “Happy is full up, honey. Happy is knowing who you can trust. Happy can be alone, or with someone, but it’s living out loud. That’s happy. I want that for you. I know something’s troublin’ you, MB. I don’t know what. Maybe it’s conflict over this new relationship with Tag—”
“We’re not officially—”
“In a relationship. I know,” she said with a wave of her gloved hand. “But whatever it is, no matter what it is, I’m always here. We’re all always here, and I’ll do whatever it is you need me to in order to help. All of us will.”
So she was going to lie. Right through her teeth, and she was going to eat her guilt about it for the next three meals, but she was going to do it for the time being. Just until she could fix this.
Landon was a rare bird. He’d believed in her when no one else had—when she’d been massacred—but that couldn’t happen twice in a lifetime. Not without some evidence to the contrary. No one was that lucky. “Y’all are plumb nuts. I don’t know what you’re seein’ that I’m not, but I promise, I’m fine. Everything is fine. Now stop henpecking me and share this doughnut so our butts are equally flabby.”
Dixie stared at her a few seconds more before her expression changed and she was smiling again. “Heaven forbid we only have one flabby butt among us.” She ripped a piece of the doughnut off and handed the rest to Marybell.
She shoved it in her mouth to keep from saying anything else.
Staying hidden was hard.
Thank God for doughnuts.
* * *
“So it’s a go, Gage,” Tag said, hauling a two-by-four over his shoulder with a grunt.
They were in the middle of repairing Essie Guthrie’s shed when he decided to go for it. Yeah. He was gonna go for it.
Gage looked at him over the rim on his thermos of coffee. “A go? What’s a go?”
“The mill. Use your money, make a bid, do whatever it takes to get your hands on it. You own it. I work for you.”
Gage’s surprise swiftly changed to guarded eyes. “Uh, no. You own it, I work for you.”
“Not gonna happen. When we get it up and running and we’re banking some money, I’ll buy into it. But until then, you’re the boss.”
Gage put his thermos down and spanned the space between them, his face read skeptical. “I don’t know the first thing about running a business, Tag. You did all of that.”
“Then I’ll help you, but no freebies. I lost what little money I had left when everything went to shit. If I hadn’t been so busy wading in my own crap, I could’ve gotten back on my feet again. I didn’t. I drank and gambled. I don’t want any handouts for fucking up. It just doesn’t feel right. So I start at the bottom. You pay me a fair living wage. I work my ass off to get this up and running with you.”
Gage paused, showing his hands in his flannel jacket. “So you’re staying. No running away. No bullshit. Staying here in Plum Orchard, period.”
Tag grinned, damn happy all over for the first time in a long while. “Yep. Right here.”
“I hate to rock the boat, but why the sudden change of heart?”
Because the opportunity to start over kept banging him on the head. Talking with Marybell had forced him to see how he took advantage of always having a support system.
“I really like it here, and you guys are all here now, too. It’s time to be an adult again. It’s time to make a future for myself, and that means hard work and a consistent paycheck. Once things come together at the mill, I’m going to start looking for a place to hang my hat. I love Maizy and Jax, but we both know big brother’s gonna ask Em to marry him soon. They’ll have their hands full blending the kids. They don’t need me hanging around.”
“Damn glad to hear that.”
Tag lifted his knit cap off and wiped his forehead. “It’s time, don’t you think? No more feeling sorry for myself. No more keeping all that anger about Harper and losing the business as an excuse not to get my shit together. I can’t change what happened. I’ll always regret it, but I know I have two choices. So I made one.”
“Harper,” Gage murmured. “I think about her every day. I wish she could see Maizy and how awesome she is.”
Tag looked down at the dead grass beneath his feet. “I think about her every day, too. She was a huge part of our lives. She helped us all in one way or another. She helped Jax with Maizy. She helped me develop the software for the business. Managed to get your skinny ass through college by helping you study. I didn’t realize all of that until it was too late. I don’t want to do something like that where you’re all concerned.” Ever. He didn’t ever want to forget how they’d stuck by him—still stood by him.
Their heavy moment passed and Gage grinned, slapping him on the back. “This is all good news, brother. But I can’t help wondering if it has something to do with all that sneaking in at four-thirty in the morning and a woman named Marybell?”
“And if it does?”
“Then I want to buy her dinner. But first, I gotta ask.”
Tag pointed a finger at him. “Go.”
“The makeup. The hair. Does it bother you?”
“Nope. I won’t say it’s not different. Because it is. But that’s who she is. I like who she is.”
“Music to my ears, buddy. One more question?”
“One more and then we have to knock this out. I have a late lunch date I gotta get to.” He liked saying that in reference to Marybell.
“Did you hear Alison was fishing around, asking questions about you?”
He didn’t even stiffen. Not a single twitch. Her name no longer evoked the kind of anger it once had. “Says who?”
“Just some old friends I’ve kept in touch with since the move here. Apparently she broke off her engagement to what’s-his-name.”
“Ted Hardy. His name was Ted Hardy.” Ted Hardy, rich lawyer.
“Yeah. Him. Anyway, she was asking about you and where you’d landed.”
“Maybe she should have asked that back when she was dumping me for him because I didn’t have any more money, and she needed some.”
“Just figured I’d give you a heads-up. In case she calls or something. I like Tag right now. I didn’t like Tag back then.”
No one had liked Tag back then. Bitter, angry, ugly. But Gage was warning him. Keeping him from backsliding. “I get it. Alison is done. It was done when I found out she was cheating on me with Ted Hardy, rich lawyer extraordinaire.”
“Cool. So, let’s finish up so I can call Falsom, huh?”
Tag grinned again, forgetting about Alison and her questions about him. He was over Alison. He was over her betrayal. She’d run at the first sign of trouble and it had been downhill from there.
Not the kind of woman you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.
Now, Marybell on the other hand...
Whoa, Hawthorne. Slow and steady wins the race.
She said she had things to work out. You don’t know what those things are yet.
She’s not sick—that’s all that matters. The rest will happen when she’s ready.
Right. Slow and steady.
Thirteen
“Bologna and cheese this time? Be still, my foodie palette,” Marybell chirped, smiling at Tag before rubbing her belly.
They’d been having a late lunch together every day for a week now. Lunches filled with so much laughter she even laughed over them when she was alone. She’d never been courted, but the girls had informed her this was how it was done.
Courting made you secretly smile, made you shiver when you remembered intimate moments. Courting gave your stomach a run for its money with all its fluttering. It made your heart race and your blood pump.
He sat across from her at the breakfast bar, cutting her sandwich into a triangle. If he only knew how something so small and insignificant was enormous in her world. “And lettuce. You’ll need your
vegetables if you plan to keep up with me and my insane desire to peel your clothes off right now.”
She shivered. There had been plenty of late-afternoon lunches followed by late-afternoon lovemaking, turning late afternoon into her favorite part of the day.
“I’m on the pill.” She blurted the words out without thinking. It wasn’t the exact setup she’d rehearsed in her mind at all.
Tag looked up from his sandwich making. “Does this mean what I think it means, Ms. Lyman?”
She’d always been on the pill. She’d just been uncomfortable trusting him enough to tell him at first. “What do you think it means?”
“I think it means you want to be my girlfriend—like all exclusive.”
She hid her smile in her sandwich. “It might,” she teased.
Tag wiggled his eyebrows, popping a chip into her mouth. “Well, girlfriend, what brought this about?”
A week of serious thinking. A long week full of choices and talking herself down from the ledge she was on. This seesaw of ups and downs wherein one minute she was sure she could make this right and in another, certain she couldn’t.
And him—everything about Tag had brought this about. His jokes, how hot on her heels he always was with a quip. Princess movies, and medical mysteries, and the promise of more kisses on the couch, more walks in the square, more laughter.
More. She wanted more. She only hoped he’d be willing to give her more with a few prerequisites.
Don’t think about it anymore. Just do it.
“I have a confession, and it’s part of the reason I was so reluctant to date you.”
He sat up straight, mocking a serious face. “Confess.”
Go on, Marybell. Just like you practiced in the mirror. “There’s something I need to tell you, but I have to do it when the time is right. When I know the time is right, and not before. So before you agree to date me exclusively, I need to know you’ll give me the time I need.”
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