Sweet Southern Nights

by Rochelle Alers

  “Do you trust Levi?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “Do you love Levi?”

  Angela was slower in answering. “I do.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Enjoy the ride until it’s time to get off.”

  Chapter 20

  Angela did enjoy the ride. She had less than a month before things would come to an end, but instead of slowing down it came to an abrupt halt, nearly derailing when the wheels came off the track.

  Traci placed an ad in the local paper for a part-time salesperson and the response was overwhelming given the economy. She interviewed scores of applicants and in the end hired a sixty-something-year-old man who’d worked as an appraiser for an auction house before being forced to take early retirement. His elegant appearance and sophisticated manner had become the bait whenever he was at the Garden Gate.

  Angela cut back on her own hours, spending more time in her home office writing furiously to complete the manuscript. Levi had returned to the hospital and because he was short staffed he alternated working weekends.

  The buzz of the intercom startled her early Wednesday morning. When she answered the call, the guard on duty announced Levi was there.

  “Please let him in.”

  Saving what she’d typed, she went to open the door. Standing on the porch she watched his car’s approach. A tender smile softened her mouth when he got out carrying a large white shopping bag.

  “I brought breakfast.”

  Her smile widened. If he’d lost weight so had she. Traci had joked that while she was gaining Angela was losing, and she could only attribute the weight loss to drinking water and green tea while she was writing nonstop.

  She tiptoed to kiss his stubble. “You are truly my guardian angel.”

  Resting his hand on her hip, Levi kissed her forehead. “I figured I’d hole up here for a while before I go back for the three o’clock shift change.”

  “Mi casa es su casa,” she said, repeating what he’d said to her the first time she went to his apartment. She took the shopping bag and walked into the kitchen. “Where do you want to eat?”

  Levi stared at her slim figure in a pair of jeans that didn’t fit as snugly as they had when he first met her. There were hollows in her cheeks that weren’t there before. “It’s cool enough this morning to sit on the front porch.”

  “Front porch it is.”

  Levi looked around. “Where’s Miss Divine?”

  “She’s probably in my office.”

  Angela reached in a cabinet under the sink for something to clean and wipe down the table on the porch. She’d put out two place settings, brewed coffee and had removed two large containers from the shopping bag, but Levi still hadn’t come back out of the house.

  She went inside looking for him. Levi stood at her workstation, reading her manuscript.

  “What are you doing?”

  His head popped up. An accusing look in his eyes rendered her motionless. “Why didn’t you tell me you wrote novels?” Though spoken softly his words were as cutting as a knife.

  “I couldn’t,” she whispered, finding her voice.

  Levi placed the pages on a corner of the desk. “You couldn’t because you didn’t trust me with your secret. All your talk about trust and you still couldn’t trust me, Angela.”

  Her lower lip trembled and she pulled it between her teeth. “I wanted to tell you.”

  “When!”

  Angela jumped when the word exploded from him. It was the first time she’d heard Levi raise his voice. She closed her eyes, trying to compose herself. “I wanted to wait until I finished the manuscript and take it to New York. I would’ve told you then.”

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Would you have really told me, Angie? Or would you have continued to hide things from me despite what we’ve shared? What we mean to each other?”

  “I don’t—”

  He held up a hand, stopping her comeback. “Thank you for letting me know now before I was unable to walk away.”

  Angela stood, paralyzed by sadness as she watched the man she loved walk out of her house and her life. She refused to cry—not again. A wry smile twisted her mouth. This time she was prepared, because Levi had told her to her face that he was leaving.

  “But heroes don’t leave,” she whispered to the silent room. He’s upset now, but he’ll be back, she told herself.

  She took a step, picking up the pages Levi had read. Her legal surname and pseudonym were in the slug line on every page. There was no way she could’ve denied the manuscript was hers. Traci knew she was Angelina Courtland. Nicola Chase knew she was Angelina Courtland. And now Dr. Levi Eaton also knew she was Angelina Courtland.

  Angela counted down the days the way an inmate would anticipating his release from prison. It was now the last week in June and she still hadn’t heard from Levi. Each time her cell or house phone rang her heart skipped a beat. But when she saw the caller ID display it sank like a stone.

  She’d become an actress, pretending nothing in her life had changed. When Traci invited her and Levi over for dinner with her and Reggie, Angela gave her an excuse that Levi was working double shifts and preparing to return to New York. What made the lie believable was that he actually was going to leave at the end of the month.

  She refused to cry and in the end the pain really did make her heart ache. She loved Levi, loved him more than she could’ve imagined loving a man, and for that she was grateful. If she hadn’t met him, then she never would’ve experienced what it feels like to be in love.

  Try as she might, Angela broke her promise and when June thirtieth dawned she dissolved into a crying jag. Angela called Traci to tell her she wasn’t feeling well and spent the entire day in bed, refusing to answer her phones and deleting voicemail messages without listening to them. Her pity party lasted twenty-four hours and when she finally forced herself out of bed she was ready to face the world.

  Angela shared the Fourth of July with her parents, laughing, eating and when she returned home she gave Miss Divine an extended massage, then sat down to complete her manuscript. She cried again, this time it was tears of relief. Angelina Courtland would deliver her latest project two months before the deadline.

  Miriam Jabin, as promised, had overnighted her travel itinerary. A driver would pick her up from her house, drive her to the Louisville airport where she would fly first class to New York. A driver would meet her flight in New York and take her to a hotel where Miriam, Angela’s agent and publicist would meet her for dinner. She would spend three days in New York before returning to Louisville. That would give her enough time to do some shopping and sightseeing.

  Angela adjusted her shoulder bag and walked into the hotel restaurant. “I’m here to meet my party. The name on the reservation is Jabin.”

  The maître d’ nodded. “Come right this way, madam.”

  Her eyes met those of the women seated at a table in a secluded corner of the restaurant. She shook hands with Miriam, then hugged her agent and publicist.

  Miriam peered at her over a pair of half glasses. She had a gray boyish cut, a misshapen cotton blazer and character lines that surrounded a pair of sharp blue-gray eyes when she squinted. Her style confirmed that the brilliant editor was no-frills and no-nonsense.

  “Sit down, Angela,” Miriam ordered with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You’re a lot prettier than I thought. It’s a damn shame you’re hiding behind a silly-ass pseudonym.”

  Angela sat up straight. “My private life will remain exactly what it is—private. Even my parents don’t know I write, so the subject is closed.”

  “Damn,” Miriam said, smiling. “So there’s some fire under that sweet, Southern, sugar-wouldn’t-melt-in-your-mouth charm,”
she said in a perfect Southern drawl. Everyone laughed, including Angela. It put everyone at ease.

  Over dinner, two bottles of wine and a very dirty martini for Miriam, Angela realized why she’d been summoned to New York. Her agent and editor had shown the proposal to a television network executive who wanted to option the novel for a made-for-television miniseries.

  Angela slumped back in her chair, pressing a hand to her chest. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it, Angela,” said her agent, who was only a few years older than Angela. “Miriam is going to work closely with the scriptwriter to make certain he hits all the plot points in the novel.”

  Brad Linden, a highly regarded publicist, spoke for the first time. Brad and her agent were partners in and out of the office. “I plan to put together a spectacular marketing package that will guarantee that this novel makes all the major lists.”

  Miriam tapped her glass, signaling to the waiter she wanted another martini. “And because the network really wants this project, they’re willing to offer you an obscene amount to option it.” Picking up a pen, she wrote an amount on a cocktail napkin, then pushed it across the table to Angela. “Do you think you can live with that?”

  For the second time in minutes Angela was at a loss for words. The cable network was offering to pay her seven figures for a miniseries based on her yet-to-be-published novel.

  “It looks good.”

  “You bet your ass it’s good,” Miriam said. “It’s insane.”

  “Are you saying my book isn’t worth what they want to give me?”

  Miriam shook her head. “I deal with books, not movies. I’ve never signed off on a million dollar advance, but I’ve seen million dollar royalty checks. You’re one of those rare writers that will get both. You have an enormous talent, Angela, and I respect you for wanting to keep a low profile. But you’re going to have to ask yourself how long can you hide. It may come back to haunt you.”

  Angela wanted to tell her that it already had haunted her. Whenever she thought of Levi she remembered the look on his face, the pain in his eyes when he believed she didn’t trust him enough with her secret.

  Brad leaned close to the waiter when he brought Miriam’s martini. “Can you please bring us four glasses of your best champagne?”

  Angela groaned inwardly. She’d drunk two glasses of wine, and a glass of champagne was certain to put her out for the count. Then she realized she wasn’t driving. All she had to do was walk out of the restaurant to the elevator that would take her to her hotel suite.

  Angela woke up with a headache the next morning, but after swallowing two aspirins she was ready to take on the Big Apple. She took the open-air, double-decker sightseeing tour bus, viewing the city from the top deck. She returned to the hotel, showered, changed into a shift dress and ballet-type flats, then walked across town to Macy’s to select gifts for her mother and Traci. Angela had decided to get a large bottle of her mother’s perfume and a maternity outfit for Traci that she could wear after she delivered her baby.

  The first thing Angela noticed about New Yorkers was that they always seemed to be in a hurry. Even women in five-inch stilettoes walked fast. Macy’s was crowded with shoppers and she had to literally push her way to the escalator to ride up to the maternity department floor.

  Angela had just stepped off the escalator when she saw him. Levi was standing with a woman with an obvious baby bump. She must have made a sound because he looked directly at her.

  “Move lady!” she heard someone shout behind her, and Angela moved aside as she watched Levi close the distance between them.

  It was no wonder he couldn’t stay in Kentucky because it was obvious he’d gotten someone in New York pregnant. That’s why he’d said so explicitly that he would take responsibility for not getting her pregnant. The woman held up a top and Angela noticed her left hand was bare. So Levi hadn’t married his baby mama.

  Levi felt a flood of emotion sweep over him when he came face-to-face with the woman who’d continued to haunt him—night and day. He reached out to touch her, but she pulled back.

  “What are you doing in New York?”

  “I came to meet with my editor, agent and publicist.”

  “I called you, Angie, but you didn’t call me back.” Why, he thought, did she have to look so delicious?

  “I probably deleted the voice mails.”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Levi. Your girlfriend is looking at us.”

  Levi glanced over his shoulder. “Crystal’s not my girlfriend. She’s my cousin.”

  “Your cousin?”

  “Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “Did you think I’d sleep with you if I’d gotten another woman pregnant?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Levi. Right now my life has been a little crazy.”

  “It appears as if we have a similar problem. Come, let me introduce you to my cousin.” He extended his hand and wasn’t disappointed when Angela placed her hand in his. “Crystal, I would like you to meet Angela Chase. She’s the woman I’ve told you about. Angie, my favorite cousin, Crystal Eaton.”

  Tall, slender, with black cropped hair and velvety dark skin, Crystal stared at the woman who had no idea of the power she held over her cousin. She inclined her head. “It’s nice to finally put a name with a face.”

  Angela smiled. “Congratulations.”

  Crystal rested a hand on her rounded belly. “Thank you. I know Levi hates shopping, but he offered to come with me to pick up some clothes to hide my rapidly expanding waistline.”

  “I came to pick up some for my cousin who also can’t fit into her regular clothes.”

  Crystal’s eyes lit up. “There’s a designer who has a line of separates that can be worn as maternity clothes and after the baby is born. Some of the tops can be worn as dresses or tunics. There are also leggings and cropped pants.”

  “That’s what I’m looking for.”

  Crystal took Angela’s arm. “They’re over here on this rack.”

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Levi watched the two women go through racks of clothes as the piles over their arms became bigger and bigger. He’d promised to bring Crystal into Manhattan so she could meet with her attorney to draw up papers naming him legal guardian of her unborn child in the event something happened to her. As much as he’d pressed, she refused to divulge the name of her baby’s father.

  They’d stopped to eat lunch and were ready to take a taxi back to Grand Central Station when Crystal suggested stopping at Macy’s so she could do some shopping.

  “We’re finished,” Crystal announced proudly.

  Levi took the pile of clothes from her and made his way to a register. He pushed his credit card across the counter when the clerk totaled the purchases. He signed the receipt then stepped aside when Angela placed her pile on the counter. He knew he shocked her when he handed the clerk his card. “I’m paying for this, too.” The woman’s eyes shifted from Crystal to Angela. “One is my cousin and the other is my fiancée.”

  The clerk flushed in embarrassment. “I… I…”

  Levi winked at her. “It’s okay. I know what you were thinking.”

  “Shame on you, Levi,” Crystal chastised when they headed for the elevator. “How did you know what she was thinking?”

  “She probably thought I was a pimp and you were my girls.”

  “You don’t look like a pimp,” Angela said.

  Levi stepped aside to let the two women precede him into the elevator. “How many pimps have you seen?”

  “I’ve seen movies.”

  Moving closer, Levi dipped his head, inhaling Angela’s perfume. “That’s just Hollywood’s version. I know pimps who loo
k like Wall Street executives.”

  Angela turned to look up at him. “You hang out with pimps?” she whispered.

  He resisted the urge to kiss her until she lost her breath. “We’ll talk about this later. Where are you staying?” Angela gave him the name of her hotel. “What room?” She gave him that, too. “As soon as I take Crystal home I’ll come back into the city to see you. We need to talk.”

  “Why, Levi?” she whispered. “You said all that needed to be said last month.”

  “No, I didn’t. And if you hadn’t erased my voice mail messages you would’ve known that. I’ll see you later.”

  They exited the elevator on the first floor. Levi led Crystal out the revolving door to the street to hail a taxi, while Angela went over to the perfume counter to buy perfume for her mother.

  Levi wanted to talk and she was willing to listen.

  Chapter 21

  “Angie, please sit down.”

  She stared at Levi as he sat in a deep armchair. He looped one leg over the opposite knee. “Why?”

  “You’re making me nervous.”

  “You’re a doctor, Levi. You don’t get nervous.”

  “It’s different with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not personally involved with my patients.”

  “Are we involved?” Angela asked, continuing to pace back and forth over the deep pile carpet.

  “Of course we’re involved. We’re involved and in love.”

  She stopped, resting her hands at her waist. “What is love without trust?”

  “What is trust without love?” He stood up and held her shoulders in a firm grip. “When I called you it was to apologize. I only thought of myself when I accused you of not trusting me. But, that was before I spoke to Traci.”

  Angela blinked as if coming out of a trance. “What does Traci have to do with us?”