He mentally cleared his head. “Right.”
He stood up, watched her slide out of the seat, enjoying every moment of looking down the pucker in her blouse, and extended a hand. She took it—ah, sweet Jesus, those fingers felt good—and he pulled her up. Right into his face. Or beneath his face. But close enough.
“Who are you marrying again?” he asked her, low in his throat.
She looked blankly at him, then said, “Dubose,” in the next instant.
“Too late,” he replied, much satisfied.
“It’s that vodka,” she said. “And if you expect a favor when you tease me like that, you’d better think again.”
“You already said you’re too busy to help.”
“I did say that, but since you’re an old friend, I’ll do it. As long as it won’t take very long.”
“It won’t. All you need to do is say yes. I can handle the rest. You can just sit back and watch.”
“Really?”
“Scout’s honor.”
“Okay, then.”
“Fantastic.”
They were walking side by side through the restaurant, Harrison nodding at everyone he made eye contact with. Which was everybody. He was good at sweeping a room. Didn’t want anyone to feel left out. He was also a master at acknowledging questions, comments, and good wishes without actually stopping.
“Thank you so much,” he said to a sweet young couple, then, “I know, crazy, huh?” to someone else. When a snarky old guy turned around and told him that he obviously approved of spray tans for men, he said, “You betcha!” even though he’d never had a spray tan in his life. Always better to kill ’em with kindness.
Oh, but that was Roger-the-busboy asking about the tan. Damn. Harrison would’ve flipped him off had there been no ladies present. All in fun, of course.
“Your name’s on the water tower!” cried Mrs. Bloomfield, his old third-grade teacher. “How many people can say that?”
Aw, hell. He had to stop to see her. He leaned over her table and took her tiny, withered hand. “I hope you’re well, Mrs. Bloomfield.”
“Except for a weak bladder, I’m fine.” She smiled demurely.
“Mama.” The woman with her put a finger to Mrs. Bloomfield’s lips, then looked at Harrison. “Sorry. She says anything she wants these days.”
“Not a problem,” Harrison replied.
“You look so handsome,” Mrs. Bloomfield said behind her daughter’s finger, “in your tight trousers.”
Awwk-ward … He glanced at the daughter, who just rolled her eyes and put away her finger. “Uh, thank you, ma’am.”
“You must be rich as Croesus.” Mrs. Bloomfield fondled her dyed macaroni necklace, probably made by one of her own students.
“I never met the guy,” Harrison replied with a smile that had won him millions of female fans, “so I wouldn’t know.”
She laughed. “Is this your girlfriend? Or wife?”
True’s eyes widened. “No, Mrs. Bloomfield. It’s me, True. You were my third-grade teacher, too.”
“True?” Mrs. Bloomfield squinted at her. “Oh, for a minute I could swear you were your mother in that outfit.” Ooh. Sucker punch from an innocent old lady. “Aren’t you marrying Dubose Waring?”
True nodded. Poor kid.
“Then what are you doing with Harrison?” Mrs. Bloomfield said, right into a lull in general conversation in the dining room.
True looked at him.
He’d let her handle this one.
“We’re just friends,” she said into the silence. “Old friends.”
“That’s right,” Harrison told Mrs. Bloomfield. “True here’s putting up me and my brother Gage—and his two mutts—at Maybank Hall while his house is undergoing renovations. A few weeks tops, and then we’ll be out of her hair.”
“What?” True’s eyes flew wide.
“He said you’re letting him and Gage and his two mutts stay at Maybank Hall,” Mrs. Bloomfield repeated to her as if True were deaf.
Which meant the whole dining room stopped chewing so they could hear True’s answer. She smiled like an angel, but Harrison could tell she was seething.
“I heard every word,” she told Mrs. Bloomfield. “I’m just not sure he got that right.”
“Sure, I did,” he said easily. “I’ve got Gage’s pickup truck out front on Main Street now. The dogs are kenneled up in the back. Oh, and we needed to bring his old TV set along. A chair, too, and a few other little things. I hope you won’t mind.”
“Of course she won’t,” said Mrs. Bloomfield. “Who wouldn’t want to help out Biscuit Creek’s two biggest stars? I’m not sure we appreciated the extent of you Gamble boys’ talent when you were growing up. We should flog ourselves for being so obtuse. Or at the least bend over backward to make it up to you now.”
Yeah, that pretty much summed things up.
“Isn’t that right, everyone?” Mrs. Bloomfield said.
“Hell to the yeah,” crowed a guy in a Simpsons T-shirt, his mouth full of okra gumbo and corn bread. Touching—but a little gross.
“Good golly, yes!” Paul the bartender, who was still a geek, piped up from the back. Good ol’ Paul. Rather, Dr. Paul. At least someday.
“Anyone who likes Twinkies is a friend of mine,” one elderly woman at a table of church ladies said.
“I prefer MoonPies,” another church lady averred.
A vigorous discussion of the merits of MoonPies versus Twinkies broke out across the entire dining room, with Harrison trapped right in the middle. True pointed at an invisible watch on her wrist. Crowd control.
Good call.
He wished he had his bodyguards, but he didn’t. It looked like he’d have to do this Biscuit Creek style. So he put his fingers between his lips and whistled.
Like magic, the hubbub ceased. If only the rest of the world would shush at a whistle.
“Hey, everyone.” Harrison took True’s arm, and when she met his gaze, her eyes were snapping blue fire. “As you know, I can’t stay in Charleston. I’d be stalked by the paparazzi. And Gage isn’t fond of hotels. I know here in Biscuit Creek among our own, Gage can work on his crosswords without distraction. And I need a few good weeks of peace so I can write another hit song.” He gazed around the dining room. “If we can both manage to accomplish what we have to do, I’m gonna update the Biscuit Creek library as a thank-you, so it’s in everyone’s best interests not to call in Entertainment Tonight.”
“He needs to write that hit song!” Mrs. Bloomfield clutched True’s arm. “And Gage needs to construct his crosswords! Help Harrison, True. Help him help us. I want more Darynda Jones and Nora Roberts novels in the fiction section. And my son-in-law can’t live without his Gage Gamble Sunday puzzles in The New York Times.”
“Help Harrison help us help the library!” a man in a bow tie and suspenders exclaimed.
“That should be the town’s temporary top-secret slogan,” a second man in a bow tie and suspenders said.
Anything was better than BISCUIT CREEK: YOU WERE HERE!—which was painted on a bullet-ridden sign at the turnoff from Highway 17.
Everyone started chatting loudly about the library and all that Harrison’s money would do for it. One man pulled out a harmonica and started playing a little ditty—for the sheer heck of it. Because some moments were just too exciting not to play the harmonica.
Aw, small-town life. Harrison had forgotten how downright heartwarming yet peculiar it could be. “True?” he whispered in her ear. “Remember I said you just have to say yes?”
“All right,” she murmured back, “but only if you and Gage help Weezie run the U-pick operation while I attend to wedding matters. And take care that Skeeter and Boo behave as nicely as our three hairy hooligans, which isn’t saying much.”
“Piece of cake,” Harrison said. “Deal?”
True bit her lip. “Deal.”
“Who’s getting married again?” Mrs. Bloomfield asked above the harmonica playing.
&
nbsp; Good Lord. Someone was playing spoons now.
“Dubose and I,” said True. “You’re invited. Everyone here is.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Bloomfield’s face fell even farther than it already had due to her preponderance of wrinkles. “I guess I’ll come. Although … are you sure? Harrison here is very handsome.”
“Mama,” her daughter chided her above the merriment.
But Mrs. Bloomfield would not—could not—be stopped. “They’d make a fine couple. In fact, I seem to remember a story about Harrison crashing a fuddy-duddy party after the prom and making some idiot look the fool.”
Dubose, of course.
Harrison coughed into his fist. He had to stay on True’s good side. “We’ve really got to go, Mrs. Bloomfield.”
“I hope to see you at the wedding,” True said, her smile tight. “Bye, now.”
Mrs. Bloomfield blew her a kiss. “Good-bye, dear. Live it up while you still can.” She looked pointedly at Harrison then back at True. “For me if not for you.”
“I-I’ll do my best.” True took off, her gorgeous behind swishing like nobody’s business between the seats, in time to the beat of the spoons.
Harrison had a feeling she wasn’t even aware of it. He kissed the back of the old lady’s hand and went after his new landlord, who had damned good rhythm.
“My, he’s a hottie,” he heard a third church lady say. “But no Entertainment Tonight reporter will ever hear those words from my lips.”
Good, Harrison thought. At the door he found Carmela trying to soothe True by offering her a stick of Fruit Stripe gum. Lord, this really was a small town.
“We’ll go get Gage,” he said to Carmela—no way was he going to look at True, but he could hear her, groaning and whimpering under her breath while she worked that stick of gum—“if he’s still at your store.”
It was time to move into Maybank Hall.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lord, have mercy on my soul, thought True, borrowing one of Ada’s favorite sayings. She had one goal: to keep her sanity long enough to marry Dubose. But with Harrison and Gage moving into the house, the bumper tomato crop, and all that she had to do to keep her wedding from turning into a shambles, she didn’t know that she’d make it. She really wanted to get to her studio. Playing with her canvases always calmed her down. But since she couldn’t, she had to be content with getting the men settled in, the rules established, and Weezie cooperating.
When Harrison and Gage arrived at the house, the first thing they did was let the mutts, Skeeter and Boo, out of their kennels to be welcomed by the Maybank Labs. That was a chaotic scene. And then everyone worked together to unload a few things from the trailer and put them upstairs in Gage’s temporary quarters: an old rag rug, a dented desk, a hideous plaid armchair, an ancient tacky bedspread.
The vintage TV set they left downstairs in the front parlor.
Weezie was in awe of it. “Is it really from 1979?” she asked Gage. “What’s that dial? Where are all the channels? Why is it so big? What’s that giant antenna for?”
She couldn’t have cared less that an international country superstar was temporarily moving in, or that his brother the crossword constructor would be creating marvelous puzzles for the most widely read newspaper in the world. She had to watch her talk shows on that TV.
“Sorry,” said Gage. “It won’t get any of the networks.”
“Jumpin’ Jehosephat,” Weezie exclaimed. “What good is it then?”
Whereupon her love of the vintage appliance ceased forthwith.
In between herding dogs and testing the antenna’s reception on the TV, Harrison grabbed Weezie around the shoulders and squeezed. “So you finally got your boarders. How do you like it?”
And with that, she suddenly seemed to see him for the first time again. “Oh, Harrison!” She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s not fun with just True.” An awkward beat went by. “Is Gage nice?” she asked right in front of him.
Without waiting for Harrison’s answer—maybe she never really wanted one—she sat down next to his brother and watched him flip through Daddy’s old fishing encyclopedia, which Gage had picked up from the coffee table. “Hey, what’s your favorite color?”
He made brief eye contact. “Gray.”
“That sucks,” Weezie said. “No one says gray.”
“I do.” Gage kept reading.
She leaned over his shoulder. “What do you think St. Peter will say when you show up at the Pearly Gates?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. You’d have to ask him.”
“But I can’t.” Weezie was getting flustered. “It’s a joke. You’re supposed to go along with it. Don’t you know who James Lipton is?” She put her palm over the page he was on.
“Of course I do.” He pushed her hand off. “But I don’t like jokes. Not unless they’re clever. Some crossword clues could be called jokes. There’s a twist, an aha moment. What’s the aha moment about St. Peter?”
“I don’t know,” said Weezie, worriedly. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about.”
“Me, either,” said Gage, and he went back to reading.
Weezie flung herself out of her chair and stared at him, her thumbnail in her mouth. “Someday, Gage,” she said with utter sincerity, “someday I’m going to get this interview with you. And it’s going to be a shocker. Secrets unveiled. Assumptions blown out of the water.”
Gage turned a page. “I had no idea the lowly bristlemouth was the most common fish in the world,” he murmured to no one in particular.
True exchanged a glance with Harrison.
“They’re like two ships that pass in the night—and need to keep on going,” he murmured in her ear.
She almost giggled. But it wasn’t funny. Or shouldn’t be. Yet somehow it was.
“Guys,” Harrison said good-naturedly to Weezie and Gage. “Be polite. Weezie, thanks so much for having us in your home. Gage, Skeeter, Boo, and I will try to stay out of your hair. Gage, I know you’re old enough by Weezie terms to be mummified. But if she’s trying to engage you in conversation, it wouldn’t hurt you to pay attention. We’re guests here.”
Weezie sent a cool glance Gage’s way. “You’re boring.”
Gage didn’t react beyond glancing up at her and then getting back into his book. Harrison threw True a look—I’m sorry I brought this on you—and put his hands in his pockets. He strolled over to Daddy’s bookshelf and pretended to peruse the pictures there. Or maybe he really was. He held one up to the light—it was of True in a hideous dance costume. She was a young teen and had just won a first-place ribbon. That was the era in which she’d wanted to please Mama and Daddy at all costs—an era that was still upon her, she supposed.
“Weezie,” said True. “Apologize.”
“No,” she said. “It’s the truth. Gage is boring.”
“Listen closely to me, Weezie.” True was firm but calm. “If you ever want to hold down a job or build relationships, sometimes you’re going to have to hold back. If there’s one thing you’ll take from this house—along with the fact that you are loved—it will be that other people’s feelings matter.”
Weezie blinked. She wore the wistful, almost frightened expression she got when she realized she’d messed up.
It was only the ten thousandth time True had told her to think before she spoke. Sometimes it was frustrating. Sometimes she wondered if Weezie would ever learn. But on those days when True really did despair, she made herself look back long-term and saw that Weezie, indeed, was advancing. Every year, she learned more and more about how to behave properly.
“But I was trying to find out what interested him.” Weezie sounded on the verge of tears.
“You have to take your time.” True softened her tone. “You could see that Gage was reading. That meant he wasn’t ready to be interviewed.”
“Come on, man,” Harrison chided his brother. “You should have been paying attention to Weezie. Not a
book.”
Gage seemed to come out of his trance. He put the book down, his face registering a flash of resentment that he had to talk to a teenage girl with whom he had nothing in common. But then, catching Harrison’s irritated gaze, he seemed to pull himself together. “Sorry, Weezie.”
“It’s all right.” Weezie dropped her eyes.
Gage scratched his temple and sighed. “My brother’s right. I should have put the book down. I-I get caught up in things sometimes. I love learning new facts.”
“About fish?” Weezie looked up, her face alight.
True’s heart turned over. It was so easy to make her sister happy. She just needed company.
“About everything.” Gage’s mouth went up at the corner. “For my crosswords. You can interview me sometime, okay?”
“Okay.” Weezie sounded good again.
Gage went back to reading.
True had to wonder if this gap in understanding between them would crop up again. It seemed all too likely. Maybe it was no big deal. But she’d like to keep it that way.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked Harrison pointedly.
“Sure.”
They walked into the kitchen, where she’d already put on a pot of water to boil for pasta. They had home-canned tomato sauce—jars and jars of it—and right now the contents of two were simmering in a deep frying pan. She’d fried up a pack of ground sirloin and some onions in a third pan for the meat lovers among them, and in a fourth pan chunks of tofu for Weezie. The chopped salad was ready, Mama’s homemade vinaigrette mixed, and a crusty loaf of whole-grain bread from the Publix bakery was warming in the oven. True peeked into the water pot and saw it bubbling.
She was glad to stay busy around Harrison. In this house, especially, her own territory, he felt dangerously close. He was handsome, funny, and smart. And he knew something of what she was going through with Weezie.
He leaned on the counter a few feet away. “So,” he said—and even that sounded sexy—“what’s on your mind?”
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