“Would you?” She transferred her attention back to Wyatt.
“Would I what?”
“Take me to a bonfire.”
His eyebrows rose along with one corner of his mouth. “If you want to go.”
Pre-dumped Sutton never would have seriously considered going. “You promised me fun, right? I’ve heard about them.”
He laughed softly. “It will never live up to what you’ve heard. Just like me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve heard things about me, right? My guess is most of it’s either not true or greatly exaggerated.”
“So you’re not the greatest lover either side of Cottonbloom has seen in a half-century?” The flirt in her voice bubbled up unexpectedly.
His look of surprise was followed by booming laughter, and she couldn’t help but join him. Their agreement didn’t feel very businesslike. It was tinged with a burgeoning friendship, flirtation, and more than a slight attraction—at least on her part.
“Okay, you got me. That one’s true,” he said between guffaws.
“What’s so funny? I love a good joke.” Her daddy, Judge Mize, or simply the Judge, as he was known around most of Cottonbloom, hauled her to his side in a slightly sweaty hug.
He wasn’t physically imposing, but carried himself with the bluster of a bigger man and had a voice that could instill fear in lawyers and criminals alike. Her daddy liked to joke they were one and the same. With a full head of blond-silvery hair and the tanned faced of an outdoorsman, he reminded her of an aged lion, still prideful and strong and attempting to retain control of his territory, which included her.
She suppressed another spate of giggles and deflected. “Great turnout.”
“All the important players showed up.” He cast a glance over his shoulder before turning his assessing eyes on them. “Good to see you, Wyatt.”
Her father held out a hand. Wyatt took it, and her father seemed satisfied with the firmness of his grip. Her daddy counted himself an excellent judge of character, although after he gave Andrew his stamp of approval, his abilities must be called into question.
“Nice to see you somewhere beside the garage, sir. How’s the Escalade running?”
“Excellent. Not a bit of trouble with it.” Sutton’s daddy pursed his lips. “I’ve played golf with your brother Ford a few times now. I invited him this afternoon as a matter of fact.”
“Did you now?” Wyatt’s voice lowered and turned dry. “Can’t wait to see him.”
“Yes, indeed.” He wiped a white handkerchief over his forehead. “Sorry the deal with Tarwater’s car fell through. I could tell Ford was mighty disappointed.”
“No worries.” Wyatt glanced in her direction. “But if you know of anyone else looking to get their car restored, please send them in our direction.”
A half hour of flirting and having fun with Wyatt, and she had flubbed her end of the bargain. Forgotten, is more like it. “Yes, Daddy, could you point them in the Abbotts’ direction?”
“Sure, sure. Your father was a good mechanic and even better man. I know he’d be proud of you boys.” Her daddy clapped Wyatt on the shoulder, but his attention had shifted to something or someone else. “If you two will excuse me.”
A silence she interpreted as uncomfortable settled between them. “I’m sorry.”
“For what now?”
“I should have said something first. I’ll do better, I promise.”
He cocked his head and looked her over. She wasn’t sure what he saw, his expression giving nothing away. He shook his head and finished his drink, the ice tinkling. “You’d be happier if you worried less about making everyone else happy.”
His assessment was so unexpected and on-point, her knee-jerk response was automatic. “I’m happy.”
“That’s what you tell everyone—even yourself.”
She took a sip, but the wine had a hard time making it down her tightened throat. She’d lost her fiancé. And best friend. Deep down, she was lonely. And scared of taking chances.
“I love Abigail’s,” she said unable to mask the defensiveness in her voice.
“I sense a ‘but’ in there.” His perceptiveness stripped away the polite façade she usually maintained. Things she’d not told her sister or her parents or Andrew slipped out.
“I really wanted to get a fashion degree from Savannah College of Art and Design. Instead, I went to Cottonbloom College, majored in business, and lived at home. When my parents offered me the money to buy Abigail’s, I couldn’t turn it down.” She chuffed and shook her head. “That’s a lie. I wasn’t brave enough to break free. But, my parents love me.”
“I can see that they do.” His voice was understanding and soothing. “Believe me, we’re more similar than you can imagine.”
With an unexpected clarity, she recognized the truth behind his smiles. “Are you lonely too, Wyatt?”
His eyes flared wider, but he didn’t break their connection, the ebb and flow of feelings between them intense and difficult to define.
“Maybe.” His mouth may have uttered the equivocation, but his eyes said, “Yes.”
“But you have your brothers.”
“Lots of love there. But since Pop died, we’ve drifted apart. If I walked away tomorrow, Mack and Jackson would take up the slack and keep working. They wouldn’t miss me.”
“That’s not true.” A desperation tinged her denial.
If Wyatt disappeared tomorrow, she had no idea how his brothers would feel, but she would miss him. Terribly. It made no sense, but her life had stopped making sense the moment he’d pulled Bree’s panties from under Andrew’s seat.
She stumbled back onto a semi-logical path of thought. “You’re a natural salesman, you know. You put people at ease. You’re trustworthy. You should go around to car shows and drum up business for the garage.”
“Can’t. That’s Ford’s self-designated area of expertise. As he likes to remind us whenever he can, he’s the one with a marketing degree. The only one of us who went to college.” The bitter flavor in his voice was shocking when compared to his usual tone.
“Degree or not, people like you. Anyway, drumming up business doesn’t seem to be Ford’s top priority.”
“What do you mean?”
“Golf at the country club several afternoons a week. He’s on everyone’s guest list these days.” She gestured around them. “This lifestyle can be appealing to some people.”
Wyatt ran a hand over his jaw and caught what sounded like a string of four-letter words into his palm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe a nuclear warhead about to hit the garage.” He leaned so close, she could make out the start of his five o’clock shadow that her fingertips itched to explore.
“Can I trust you?”
The question jarred her out of the runaway train of her inappropriate thoughts. “Of course you can.”
“Has Ford put out any feelers to sell his part of the garage?”
The argument she’d interrupted days ago fell into place. “Surely, he can’t do that?”
“Nothing in the will forbids it. Pop assumed all of us loved the garage as much as he did, but Ford was never happy working there. Not sure why Pop couldn’t see that.”
She glanced toward her parents, standing side-by-side and entertaining their constituency. They’d had the best intentions when they’d convinced her to stay in Cottonbloom and later pushed her at Andrew. “Families are complicated.”
“Understatement of the millennium.” Worry drew his eyes into a squint and tightened his mouth.
She put her hand on the curve of his shoulder and shifted to stand in front of him so he would have to look at her. “I haven’t heard anything, but I’ll ask around.”
“That’d be great. I’d really appreciate it.”
“The least I can do considering…” She waved her hand around.
“Considering what?” His confusion seemed genui
ne.
“Don’t pretend this isn’t boring. You’d probably rather be anywhere else.” She rolled her eyes.
“Hey.” He waited until she met his gaze through her lashes. “Doesn’t matter where we are, spending time with you is no hardship. If things had been different, I would have asked you out for real in a heartbeat.”
Her world tipped and realigned itself along a new axis.
* * *
His confession hung between them. Yes, she was the sweetest, sexiest thing he had ever crossed paths with, but telling her wasn’t something he should do. Not with their arrangement and her recent heartbreak coloring everything—and not in a happy rainbow kind of way. She would assume he was manipulating her for his own gain just as Tarwater had done.
As if summoned from Wyatt’s damning thoughts, Tarwater stepped through the jasmine bower in seersucker pants with a grin that rivaled a catalog model’s. For once though, Wyatt was thankful for the interruption. He put his arm around her shoulders and hauled her tight against him. He had a part to play, after all.
“Tarwater has arrived. Alone.”
“Mother told me Bree sent her regrets.”
Wyatt hummed. “Maybe she has a heart after all. Unlike your ex. Who—don’t look—is headed this way.”
The guests in their general vicinity all seemed to strain toward the three of them.
Wyatt’s cheeks were growing sore from his fake smiling. He debated on extending a hand, but if Tarwater rejected it, he didn’t want to escalate the flames of gossip. He settled on a polite, “Afternoon, Tarwater.”
“I’m surprised to see you, Andrew.” Sutton’s voice was cold and calm. Wyatt wanted to give her a high five, but confined his response to a smirk in Tarwater’s direction.
“Only natural I should be invited. I’m one of the Judge’s biggest supporters.” Tarwater fiddled with the rolled-up cuffs of his loose white linen shirt. “Although lately I’ve been wondering if the county needs some new blood in the judicial branch.”
The silence that settled after his announcement was on par with the countdown to a bomb exploding.
“Is that a threat?” Although anger heated her words, a smile remained on Sutton’s face. “You’d never beat Daddy.”
“Your little indiscretion has garnered me countywide sympathy.” Amusement sharpened his features in a feral, unattractive way. “Still time for me to get on the ballot.”
“My indiscretion. That’s rich.” She huffed a laugh.
Tarwater looked like a tomcat ready to pounce. “Are you ready to admit that you and Abbott here made the whole thing up?”
She slipped an arm around Wyatt’s waist and notched herself even closer into his side. “We didn’t make anything up.”
Wyatt heard the slight waver in her voice. Maybe that was her tell, like his twitching eyebrow. He laid a kiss on top of her head. “Sorry, Tarwater. We’re together. And happy. Where’s Bree?”
Tarwater made a pfft noise and walked off as if they weren’t worth his time.
“Could he actually give your dad a run for the judgeship?” Wyatt asked, keeping his gaze on the back of his enemy’s blond head.
“I don’t know,” she said with a vague worry that in turn worried him. “He’s young and successful and handsome.”
“You forgot fake and dishonest.” Tarwater stood with a group of men who together looked like an ad for some preppy clothes catalog. The kind of catalog Wyatt ripped apart and used to soak up oil stains. “And he’s not that good looking.”
“You sound jealous.” Her voice was singsongy, and the spot she poked underneath his ribs had him squirming away with laughter. “Oh my stars, you’re ticklish. I never would have guessed a big, sexy dude like you would be ticklish.”
Her words punched away his laughter, and he grabbed both her wrists to stop her jabs. “You think I’m sexy?”
She pinched her lips together before she muttered, “Maybe.” But her eyes said, “Yes.”
He wanted to lean down and kiss her. Not to prove something to Tarwater or Cottonbloom, but because he wanted to—desperately.
A hand fell on his shoulder and dug into muscle. He let go of Sutton and whirled. Ford stood there with murder in his eye. Or at least the promise of a good beating.
“What are you doing here?” Ford didn’t bother to mask his exasperation and annoyance. He’d fit right in with Tarwater and his ilk in light-colored dress pants, a pink button down, and a blue-checked bow tie.
Wyatt forced a smile. “That’s no way to greet your baby brother.”
“Haven’t you done enough by losing the Camaro? I’m here to clean up your mess.”
“It wasn’t my fault.” The denial sprung out before he could stop it. Ford had worked his way under Wyatt’s skin like a rash when they were kids, and he had never found a cure.
“Whatever.” Ford pulled his mouth into something resembling a smile. “Hello, Sutton. Where’s the Judge?”
She stepped between them, facing Ford with her hands on her hips. “Around. And busy.”
Wyatt almost smiled at the shooing tone of her voice. Was she trying to protect him?
“Can I talk to you? Alone.” Ford bored his stare over Sutton’s head and into him.
“Sure. Give me a sec.” Wyatt waited until Ford stepped out of earshot, let out a breath, and tilted toward Sutton. “You gonna be okay if I leave you here?”
She grabbed his hand. “Are you going be okay?”
His heart warmed like it had been wrapped in an electric blanket. He leaned in to brush his lips against her cheek, unable to find the words to answer her.
Ford had a drink in hand by the time Wyatt joined him. Ford nudged his head, and Wyatt followed him out into the field of flowers.
“I like your clip-on bow tie. Real suave.” Wyatt kept his voice teasing. No reason to get Ford more riled up than he already was. “The Camaro wasn’t my fault, you know.”
Some of the fight went out of Ford. “I know. I heard what happened. It’s frustrating, you know?”
“Mack said the garage could weather the loss.”
Ford kicked at the ground, uprooting a flower. “It’s all about the garage surviving.”
His bitter sarcasm wasn’t anything new, but Wyatt studied him with fresh eyes. He looked like hell. Dark smudged under his bloodshot eyes, and new lines bracketed his mouth. He’d always been leaner than the rest of them, but now he bordered on downright skinny. Was it stress or something else?
Wyatt squeezed Ford’s shoulder. “Are you okay, bro?”
Ford killed his drink in one go. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look like shit.”
“At least I have nice clothes. That the best you could come up with?” Ford waved a finger over Wyatt’s khakis and plain golf shirt.
As insults went, it was lame. Ford wasn’t even trying, which planted more worry. “I could help you.”
“Don’t need your help.” Ford’s shoulders squared. “Give me a week, and I’ll bag an even bigger project for the garage. What will Mack have to say then?”
“Probably ‘good job.’ Unless I’m mistaken, bringing in business is kind of your job, right?” Wyatt kept his voice light. He wouldn’t win any confidences if Ford was on the defensive.
Ford ignored him and tipped his glass back, but only ice remained.
Wyatt continued. “Listen, what you said the other day about selling out … You didn’t mean that, did you?”
“Nah. Just trying to get a rise out of Mack.” Ford didn’t meet his eyes, making it difficult to get a read on truth or lie.
Someone Wyatt didn’t recognize greeted Ford like a long-lost frat brother. Wyatt slipped away, his talk with Ford doing nothing to alleviate the foreboding feeling following the family like smog.
He scanned the crowd for Sutton and spotted her in conversation with an older lady. Sutton’s smile was warm and genuine. As if she sensed him watching her, she glanced up before he could play things cool.
His stump speech was followed by food and lots of it. Wyatt stayed by Sutton’s side, but he was little more than a curiosity to the stream of people he was introduced to. By the time dusk was on them, his head hurt from the sun and constant smiling. He retreated to the field and rotated his jaw.
He startled when Sutton slipped her hand in his elbow. “When I was a kid, I would hide in the flowers, pretend I couldn’t hear Mother calling, and tell myself stories about the things I saw in the clouds. But if I was feeling really brave, I would go all the way to the river and look for skipping stones.”
Lightning bugs blinked amongst the wildflowers. It was hard to believe the same river had unknowingly connected them. “Jackson and I used to do that too. We’d fish or catch frogs or swim.”
“You had a built-in best friend.” A hint of wistfulness had him shifting to see her. The orange glow of the sun glinted off her blond hair and made her eyes sparkle.
“The very best. You had a sister.”
“We’re closer now, but her nose was always in a book. She didn’t need a friend. I was alone a lot except when I was with—” Pain that looked almost physical in nature flashed over her face. The thought of losing Jackson made Wyatt’s stomach crimp.
“You miss Bree,” he said.
“Crazy, right?” She picked a small purple flower on a long stem and plucked the petals off. “I’ve actually picked up my phone to call her before I remember.”
“Hey.” When she didn’t look up at him, he stopped the flower carnage with one hand and took her chin in his other, forcing her to look at him. “You can call me anytime, day or night.”
“Are you my friend?”
Friend didn’t seem the right label. He wasn’t sure what they were becoming. The beauty of her eyes put him into a trance-like state. A woman called Sutton’s name and shook him free of whatever spell had been cast. She appeared just as dazed and glanced toward the river. If she suggested they run through the field and to the river, he’d grab her hand and go.
“Mother asked if I would stay and help clean up,” she said finally. “You don’t have to wait around.”
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