Sweet Nothings

by Kim Law

  Why had he brought Gina back to the house? Was he really so petty that he’d wanted Joanie to see he was not sitting around waiting for her? That he was the type who could sleep with a woman one night and move on the next?

  Though he’d proved that not to be true tonight.

  The idea of sleeping with Gina had quickly been tossed out the window. Not only because he’d kept thinking about Joanie, but because it had become very clear that if Gina was given even the tiniest hint of suggestion, she would dig in and wouldn’t let go. The woman may be willing to sleep with him on a first date, but that was not her ulterior motive. She wanted a husband.

  And he didn’t want her.

  He slammed the door as Joanie got into her car without so much as a backward glance, and then stormed across the room, yanking off his jacket as he went. The damned fabric smelled of strong perfume and a woman that wasn’t Joanie.

  After he’d dropped Gina off, he’d driven around for hours, waiting for Joanie to leave, refusing to let her see him come home early. He couldn’t let her know she’d been right. He wasn’t the type of man to take a sure thing and move on to the next. At least, not when someone else clouded his mind.

  He did not want to fall for Joanie. She was not what he was looking for. Yet stupidly, she was all he seemed to think about.

  And now he owed her an apology.

  Whether she wanted a relationship or not, they’d had a connection. He shouldn’t have tried to make her jealous. But dammit, she got under his skin. One damned date. That’s all he’d asked.

  He threw his coat on the bed and stomped into the bathroom. Who was he kidding? One date wouldn’t crack the surface of what he wanted with Joanie. Maybe it wouldn’t go more than a few weeks, who knew? But what was so wrong with wanting the opportunity to explore the option?

  She was fun. They could have a good time together.

  When he returned to the bedroom, he took in the mess scattered outside the closet door and shook his head. Joanie had great intentions, but she stunk at follow-through.

  He spent the next few minutes dragging what he was fairly certain was trash out to the Dumpster, then loaded up the bags of clothes into the back of his truck. Since they were of the fashion of a woman much older than Joanie, he suspected they were meant to be donated. He’d check with her later and drop them off wherever she needed them to go.

  Next he opened the three boxes pushed haphazardly to the middle of the floor and stared down at the mounds of colors and fabrics, unsure what she intended to do with those. Surely not keep them. Though given the amount of junk he’d watched her load in her car to take home with her so far, it wouldn’t surprise him.

  He checked the two smaller boxes next. Spoons?

  He nodded. These she intended to take home. Junk.

  The fabric went into his truck, spoons were stacked beside the front door so she could easily sneak them out when he wasn’t looking, then he returned to the bedroom and stared down at the piles of letters spread out in a half-circle. She’d clearly been sitting in the middle of the pile. He stooped to study them more closely.

  They were yellowed and crinkled with age, and all appeared to be addressed to her grandmother. He pulled one out and saw that it was signed by Gus Bigbee. Joanie’s grandfather.

  Scanning over several lines of the block penmanship, it hit him like a brick to the side of the head that they were love letters. From the man who’d left his wife after thirty-three years of marriage.

  What history he held in his hands. He couldn’t help but wonder if Joanie could get any answers about her grandparents’ lives from these letters. Or if she already had.

  While he’d been out with Gina.

  He growled under his breath at his stupidity, then carefully gathered the envelopes back into the cigar box that sat empty in the floor. When he stood, he looked around, trying to decide what to do with them. He could add the box to the spoons by the door, but his gut told him it would be better if Joanie wasn’t alone when she went through them.

  They were personal. He couldn’t let her read those alone. So far, anything she’d come across that had been the slightest bit personal had caused her to go quiet, while at the same time get a faraway look on her face.

  She was fighting through the past, as well as her feelings about her grandparents.

  And he didn’t want her to have to do that by herself.

  He’d been the only one around to dig through his mother’s things after she’d passed, so he understood how it felt. Losing her may have only hurt from the loss of the idea of a mother, but reliving her life through her personal effects had not been easy.

  He made a decision and took the letters into the kitchen, placing the box inside one of the new cabinets. He would offer to read them with her. After she calmed down from tonight.

  When he once again returned to the bedroom, ready to shuck his clothes and crawl under the covers—where he knew he would only dream about Joanie, because that’s all he’d dreamt about for days—he pushed the closet door closed, but opened it again when something caught his eye. A small black square in the back corner. He stooped to look closer and as he picked it up, realized it was an old Polaroid.

  The cute girl on the swing had to be Joanie. It was her smile. He could practically hear her happy laugh just looking at it. Which made him smile, too.

  Oh geez, he had it bad.

  He opened the drawer beside the bed and dropped the photo in, then turned out the light. Joanie was supposed to be over this weekend to continue cleaning out the house. Maybe he could use the picture as an opening to an apology.

  “Three hours. Can you believe that?” Joanie dragged a fry through her chocolate shake and popped it in her mouth as she sat across from her friend the following Monday afternoon. The salty, chocolate treat did little to help her remaining irritation over Nick. “There’s no doubt in my mind what he was doing for those three hours.”

  Lee Ann did what good friends were supposed to do and grunted her disgust, as she’d done with everything else Joanie had ranted about for the last forty minutes. They’d spent the weekend together working side by side at GiGi’s, but since they’d been alongside Cody and the girls, Joanie had held off on sharing the full details of Friday night’s disaster. She hadn’t wanted to risk anyone getting the idea she was jealous.

  She’d dragged her friend over to the Barn so she wouldn’t have to be alone in the house with Nick, but needn’t have worried. There had been a houseful of workers around all weekend. It was astonishing what had gotten accomplished. She was already starting to see Nick’s plans coming to fruition. Even more unbelievable, she’d managed to spend hours there without once having to make more than the barest hint of conversation with him.

  She was skipping out on going back tonight, but she couldn’t do that much longer. There was too much to get done. She would eventually have to talk to him again, she knew, but not yet. Right now, she was still too annoyed at his veiled attempt to rub Gina in her face.

  This afternoon she and Lee Ann had decided to do their normal Monday girls’ day, so they’d ended up at the diner. They were currently on a milkshake kick, and the diner made the best.

  “I just don’t get it,” Joanie continued. “Why’d he ask me out one day and then sleep with her the next?” And why did I end up in tears about it?

  Two French fries and a gulp of chocolate shake later, Lee Ann pierced Joanie with a questioning look. “If it’s bugging you so much, why did you refuse to go out with him in the first place?”

  “Are you listening to anything I’ve been saying? I can’t go out with him because he’s a long-term guy. You know I don’t do that.”

  “I know you haven’t in the past. But I don’t see why you can’t.”

  Joanie gave her friend a long-suffering stare. “Because I won’t be like my mother when it comes to men. Or my grandmother. Or any other number of Bigbee women. Did you forget about that? We’re losers in love, Lee. The whole town knows that. Th
ey’ve written newspaper articles about it.” She shook her head and shoved another milkshake-covered fry into her mouth. “I’d rather be without than be a broken shell of myself,” she said around the food. “Or be pathetically chasing one after another my whole life.”

  Lee Ann just stared at her and then dipped her own fry in her shake. “Your mother was a loser. If a deadbeat walked in the room, she was on him like white on rice. But she bent over backward to morph herself into what she thought they wanted. No wonder she never kept any of them. She didn’t know how to love. You’re nothing like that, Jo. Everyone in town loves you because you are so genuine. You’re always you.”

  Joanie glanced down at her plate. Lee Ann must have forgotten what had happened when Joanie was sixteen and her grandmother had gone out of town.

  GiGi had discovered Pepaw had died and was being buried at Arlington, but Joanie had refused to go. He’d left them. She didn’t see why they needed to be there for him. So GiGi had left, and Joanie had invited her boyfriend, Adam Langston, over to keep her company. She’d thought it would be romantic.

  She’d thought they were in love.

  And she’d stupidly thought the curse didn’t apply to her.

  It was amazing how quickly she’d learned that not to be the case. Seemed she hadn’t missed out on that trait after all. She could pick losers just like the rest of her female relatives.

  She’d lost her virginity and her self-respect all in one fell swoop.

  The guy hadn’t even talked to her again after conning her out of her panties.

  Joanie buried the past back where it belonged and lifted her gaze to her friend. Lesson learned. She would not repeat.

  “Then how do you explain GiGi?” she asked. “She and Pepaw were married for thirty-three years and he just up and left. Not only did he break her heart, but did you ever see her get over it?”

  That had been one of the main issues impacting GiGi’s and her relationship. Joanie couldn’t understand why GiGi had never moved on. It was pathetic. Just like her mother. Just like Joanie—if she wasn’t careful.

  But she was careful now. She wouldn’t fall for someone just so he could break her in the end.

  “I have no idea what happened to make your grandfather leave, but I wish you’d open your eyes and see who you really are,” Lee Ann said. “You aren’t your mother and never have been.” She sounded as if she felt sorry for Joanie. Which ticked Joanie off.

  “I never said I was,” Joanie’s tone was heated. In fact, she’d constantly pointed out that she wasn’t like her mother.

  Lee Ann ignored Joanie’s interruption. “You’re a gorgeous, stable woman who loves her community and loves being a part of it. You deserve love, and you would be really darned good at it if you’d only give yourself a chance. Businesses can’t make you happy forever.”

  “It’s worked for me so far,” Joanie muttered.

  But she would silently admit that some nights she wanted more. She had male friends who she occasionally hooked up with, but those were getting far more occasional and far less what she wanted.

  Yet she had no idea how to do anything else. Fear that she would become her mother paralyzed her.

  She didn’t want to change for a man. And she certainly didn’t want her whole life crushed because of one, either.

  “I’m fine the way I am,” she insisted. “Plus, Nick’s already moved on. He has Gina now. They’re probably planning the wedding already.”

  Lee Ann shoved the fries back and leaned forward. She lowered her voice. “He likes you, Jo. Can you not see that? I watched him all weekend and that man is disgustingly crazy about you. And I think you like him, too. Give it a shot. You might find you like it.”

  “I might find I end up begging for scraps just like my mother,” Joanie said.

  Lee Ann shook her head, looking at her as if she were a pathetic child. “Grow up.”

  Hot anger shot through Joanie in an instant, but she tamped it down when Holly approached their table. The bracelets on her wrists announced her arrival before she got there.

  With her blond hair pulled back in a knot at the base of her head and a sharp look in her green eyes, Holly peered down at them. “You two about finished?”

  “What?” Joanie asked, looking around at the mostly empty diner. “Are you needing this booth?”

  “I just need you to not raise your voices any further. I suspect whatever you’re talking about—since I heard the word love, mention of your mother, and the phrase ‘grow up’—you don’t want my customers knowing about.”

  “Oh geez,” Joanie moaned. “Thanks, Holly. And no, I don’t need anyone hearing what we’re talking about.”

  “Okay,” Holly nodded. She nudged Lee Ann to scoot over so she could sit. “So… someone’s in love? Surely not your mother?”

  Holly was several years younger than them, so likely the only things she knew about Joanie’s mother came from years of gossip.

  “I wouldn’t have a clue about my mother or her love life, Holly. For all I know, she’s still with the man she ran out of town with.”

  Bill. Though Joanie had serious doubts her mother had managed to keep him, either. He had actually been a good one. He’d liked Joanie. Had taken her to the movies and to football games in Knoxville along with him and her mother.

  And then he’d run off with her mother without so much as a backward glance.

  Just like all the others.

  “Who’s in love, then?” Holly asked, her smile looking a little too innocent.

  At Joanie and Lee Ann’s silence, Holly waved her hand. “Okay, fine. Then can I at least tell you what I came over to share? You won’t believe it.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve Gina Gregory,” Lee Ann groaned.

  Joanie kicked her under the table.

  “Hmmm. Interesting.” Holly looked from one woman to the other. “That’s exactly who I came over to talk about. Have you already heard?”

  Frustration whipped through Joanie. She did not want to sit there and listen to tales of Nick and Gina. “Tell it to Lee Ann,” she muttered. She grabbed her purse. “I’m out of here.”

  “Stop.” Lee Ann shoved her foot onto the booth beside Joanie, preventing her escape, then jabbed her in the side with the toe of her shoe when Joanie tried to shove it out of the way.

  “Let me go.” Joanie’s hissed words barely made it across the table.

  “I’m clearly missing something.” Holly narrowed her gaze as she took in the two women.

  Joanie just shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Uh-huh,” Holly said with a hum. “Then sit there and listen. I’ve got the best gossip I’ve had in years, and I want to share it.”

  “I do not want to hear details about Gina sleeping with Nick.” Joanie managed to free herself from Lee Ann’s foot and slid to the outside of the seat.

  “That’s just it. She didn’t.”

  Joanie had half her rear off the seat before Holly’s words penetrated. “What?”

  An ear-to-ear smile split Holly’s face.

  “What are you talking about?” Joanie didn’t move from her half-on, half-off the seat position. “He was with her for hours the other night.”

  Holly’s brow creased. “You mean at dinner?” She shrugged. “They were there probably an hour and a half, nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s what happened afterward that’s the best. And she’s telling the story herself.”

  “Wait,” Lee Ann said. She reached over and captured Joanie’s forearm as if thinking that would hold her there if Joanie wanted to leave. “Start from the beginning. Nick took Gina to Talbot’s, right?”

  Talbot’s was the “good” restaurant in town.

  Holly nodded. “Right. Then they went to his place afterward.”

  Pain pricked Joanie in the temple. She didn’t understand why hearing GiGi’s house referred to as anything but her own bothered her. She hadn’t lived there in years. “But when they got there I was there. Cramping their s
tyle.”

  “Right.” Holly nodded. “Only, according to her, nothing ever happened. She’s been over at the salon for the last hour, ranting to Linda Sue about the fiasco. That’s what she’s calling it. A fiasco. Saying all night Nick was coming on to her. Fawning all over her.”

  Joanie met Lee Ann’s eyes across the table, where a sympathetic look greeted her.

  “After they left your grandmother’s place, they headed to her house. Just where she wanted him, if you know what I mean.”

  “We know.” Joanie and Lee Ann spoke in unison.

  “When they got there, Nick continued being the perfect date. Helped her out of the truck, walked her to the door, and then pecked her on the cheek.” Holly giggled and clapped her hands like a schoolgirl. “Pecked her on the cheek. She didn’t even get a kiss on the lips.”

  Joanie and Lee Ann stared at each other again, Joanie realizing the more Holly talked, just how much she’d been played. The man had intentionally tried to make her jealous. Just as she’d thought when he’d shown up at the house with Gina.

  Relief coursed through her that he was gentleman enough not to go all the way just to prove a point. And the point had been proven, though she had no idea what to do with it.

  “I’ll tell you,” Holly continued, “according to Linda Sue, Gina is fit to be tied. Pacing back and forth, ranting about the indecency of the man to get her worked up all night and then not so much as lay a kiss on her. It couldn’t have happened to a better person.”

  Holly finally ran out of steam. She eyed Joanie. “That was bugging you, wasn’t it? Thinking he’d slept with her. And only a day after you two were seen in your shop talking about sex.”

  Joanie blinked, her eyes going wide. “What?”

  “Oops.” Holly rose from the booth and smiled so big a dimple popped into one cheek. “I see orders that need to be delivered. I’d better go.”

  Before she could run off, Joanie clamped a hand down on Holly’s arm. “What are you talking about? Who said we were in Cakes talking about sex?”