by Lane, Payton
“It's easier to see someone's strengths and weaknesses. It’s just the way things are.”
Jeremy stepped in their path. “Are we closing early today?”
The store was empty and it was a Satuday night. Not a good sign. “Probably not a smart business move, but yes, we're closing early. I’m guessing you have plans?”
“Me?” His high-pitched tone gave him away. He cleared his throat when Lynne only stared at him. “Yes.”
She told him, “Do a deposit and then you're free to leave. Have fun. Be safe. Don’t sell your soul.”
“I’ll give you the same advice.”
“Bite me.”
He smiled. “I thought I said I already have plans tonight.”
“You man-whore.” Her mother gasped beside her. Lynne ignored the silent condemnation. Instead she turned to her with a knowing smile. “The good stuff is in the back.”
Her mother’s lips turned into a thin line, but she nodded. “Show me.”
Eloise took ten seconds to find a dress, which still left Lynne with thirty-five minutes to get ready. She locked the door behind her and dread filled her stomach at what she had to do next. Her mother stood silently beside her.
She sighed. “I need to step into the store next door for a few moments.”
“I’ll come with you.”
She’d known that would be the answer. She’d listened to her mother chatting with Nate earlier and not once did Eloise reveal she was Lynne's mother. It wasn’t like they resembled each other, especially with Lynne’s current appearance.
Lynne pushed through the doors with her mother trailing behind. The silence inside surprised her. Maybe her store's quiet had nothing to do with Nate trying to put her out of business. Maybe it was just a slow day.
Nate emerged from the back with a satisfied grin on his face. Lorelei stood at his side. Great. That also meant Lorelei would have firsthand knowledge about the date. Information the older woman would use for the wager likely going for Nate and Lynne.
“Why am I not surprised,” Lynne muttered.
Lorelei smiled. “Because you know I don’t like to lose. Plus, my husband needs a new suit, anyway.”
“What would she lose?” Eloise asked and moved closer to Lynne’s side.
“Trust me. You don’t want to know,” Lynne said.
The older woman spoke for Lynne. “A city-wide bet these two are going to be an item before long. It seems they’re playing right into our hands, as they have a date for tonight.”
At that, Lynne blinked, having assumed he'd bragged about the dinner.
While Nate asked, “How do you know that?”
“Jeremy,” Lorelei said. “He put down three weeks, but he came to me a half hour ago with a change of mind. Two days, he says now.”
Lynne’s cheeks flushed from embarrassment. “I need to–”
Nate put up his hand. “Give me an hour. I’m running a little behind myself.” His gaze strayed to Eloise and then back again to Lynne. “A nice volunteer?”
She didn’t answer but turned on her heel. As she suspected, her mother wasn’t at her side any longer.
“I’m her mother,” Eloise said, exasperation clear in her tone. “Is that what you told him? A volunteer, Lynne Marie Kelley?”
Lynne winced, but faced Eloise. “It’s none of his business who you are. He knows too much about me as it is.”
Her mother frowned. “Why does he know too much about you?”
Nate opened his big mouth. “I’m trying to convince your daughter it’s in her best interest to sell the store to me.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “Give me a run down of the proposition.”
Nate began his spiel with enthusiasm. If it were possible, time had to have stopped and gone backward. Lynne was back at the day she graduated from college. They had yet to clear the seating area and her parents had started speaking about the future as though it were already carved in stone.
She'd work for her father, a year or two, to ease any fears that Lynne hadn't earned a promotion to head executive assistant for her father's company. During that time, Brandon, her boyfriend, would finally propose, and then she could quit her job and raise beautiful babies.
Had anyone asked what she wanted then? Did anyone care to notice the horror and fear plain on her face? Had anyone stopped to notice through all her fashion and life choices, maybe, just maybe, she wasn't cut out to be head executive assistant?
She shook the memory out of her head. “Excuse me, but I need to get ready.”
Lynne didn’t wait to see if her mother would follow as she made her way home. She hoped her mother didn't while she stormed down the sidewalk. She felt a little petty and it would gratify her to hear Eloise knocking on the locked door.
Then again, from the way Lynne's back teeth ground against one another, it might be best if she wasn’t alone with her mother until the anger dissipated. She always let it go eventually. Life was too short.
She loosened her hold on the garment bag. It would be wrinkled, but at this point it didn’t matter how she looked for Nate.
Lynne knew their relationship so far was mostly business, sometimes heated attraction—not something precious or something that needed to be protected from the public. She wanted to bite his head off because Nate crossed a line if he thought he could use Eloise against her. There were some lows you didn’t stoop to, ever, in the name of closing a deal.
Oh, yes. Nate was going to get chewed up and spit back out. She might even do it with a smile.
“Lynne!” her mother called.
She slowed her step. Her mother caught up a few seconds later.
Lynne kept her tone cool. “Thought you were going to stay and chat with him for a while.”
“You knew I wasn’t,” her mother said. “Why haven’t you taken his deal?”
Standing on the corner with some of the biggest town gossips nearby, Lynne shook her head. “I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Your father would have a coronary if he knew Mr. Craine was offering you that price for the store. It’s almost disgusting. He would think you should take the money and run, or open up another store.”
“I bet he would.” Bitterness filled her mouth.
Because for her father a promise to a friend could fall by the wayside with the right amount of money. The friend, of course, would understand.
Her mother wrapped a hand around Lynne’s arm. The grip tightened when Lynne refused to stop. She finally faced Eloise.
“I’m going to be late.” Lynne kept any emotion from her voice.
The other woman's gaze inspected every square inch of Lynne's face. “I can see you made a home here. It’s more than Megan giving you a good deal on the store, but don't you think you should take it? I mean, imagine all you could do with that money? “
Lynne shifted, surprised and a bit uncomfortable at her mother's reasoning. “You remember my old boss' name?”
Eloise clutched her arm tighter. “I remember everything, and that you shouldn’t forget.” The hold loosened. “I guess I’ve been used to thinking business first, with your father, all the time.”
This was her mother's way of apologizing. The words should have been enough, but most things with her parents never were for Lynne. She'd gotten used to disappointment.
What was wrong with saying I'm sorry?
That simple. She pushed the thought away, and the knot in her stomach didn’t loosen. She smiled, though, for her mother’s sake. It felt brittle on her lips.
Lynne gestured to the street. “We’ve only got one more block to go.”
Eloise narrowed her eyes, but finally let go of Lynne's arm.
Her mother cleared her throat. “The last time we came by, you were trying to get some curtains up.”
“I got them up,” Lynne answered, going along with the change of subject. “Then I realized I needed something softer for the windows. Haven’t decided on the curtains yet. The house is kind of bare at the mom
ent.”
She mentally winced. Why did she say that? It was like an open invitation to have her house decorated by Martha herself. A bare house. Dear Lord. Who knows what I might come home to tomorrow?
Quickly Lynne added, “But I’ll get around to it eventually. I’d rather be one-hundred percent sure of a look and feel than to rush one up just to have one.”
Good save! She took in her mother’s pinched expression. Okay, not a good save. By the time she could come up with another decent excuse, they’d made it to her door. No gnomes decorated her yard, or anything other than her Wipe Your Paws welcome mat. At least her grass was freshly cut.
Lynne went in first, slipping out of her shoes. “I’m going to head into the shower. Make yourself comfortable.”
Her mother made a noncommittal noise. Within five seconds the room would be meted out a judgment. Lynne couldn’t remember how it looked the last time her parents had come by. Well, they had given her a heads up, so it was, at the very least, clean.
She cringed at the sight of her kitchen table. Design plans for Hart and Style covered the polished cherry wood. In the corner, an empty box of sweet-and-sour pork acted as a paperweight. She would deal with that later.
Another glance at her mother. No, from her mother’s expression, Eloise would deal with it when Lynne disappeared into the shower.
Either way the eyesore would be gone. Her place would be immaculate, like her mother. Lynne forced down the irrational tug that said, “Never good enough.”
She pushed it all out of her mind, running her fingers along the hallway’s wall as she went to the bathroom to prepare for her date. Well, a date with Nate. She had to prepare for war.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nate climbed the short steps to Lynne’s door. It had taken some fast moving on Sylvia's part, but a rented car and driver sat in the driveway. The house was squashed between two very eccentric homes. The one on the left was painted an electric blue with white lightning bolts. The owners had taken the time, and only God knows how many man hours, to paint and arrange their shingles into twinkling stars. The one on the right had every wind chime known to man on their front porch.
Given it was Lynne, surprise washed over Nate at how normal and out of character her house appeared. Nothing personal in the yard or anything added to the sidings pale yellow paint. It was a picture-perfect home. For some reason the normalcy disappointed him. He’d gotten used to her flamboyant exterior and had expected the same from her home.
Quelling the emotion, he knocked on the door. When Eloise answered, her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes, so much like Lynne’s, narrowed for a moment.
She pressed her hair behind her ear. “I can’t say you clean up well, because you seem to always dress very nice for a young man.”
“Thank you.” He pushed his shoulders back, tension climbing between his shoulders. “Is she ready?”
She jerked her head to the side, motioning for him to come in. He wondered if the chestnut shade was Lynne’s natural hair color. In this town, where perpetual sunlight seemed to rule, caramel streaks would form in her silken locks and accentuate her skin tone, but then Lynne appeared out of a hallway, staunching the thoughts.
The slicked back hair he’d gotten used to was gone, replaced by gentle waves. No. She had pin-up woman hair. The dress hugged her curves as if it had been made for her. The brandy-orange color complimented the particular shade of red in her hair.
The Lynne he’d gotten to know would never have fallen into the vixen category, but this version of her did. He would have swallowed, but his mouth had gone dry.
“Um,” he sputtered.
She smiled. “Score for Team Mom.”
Eloise clapped her hands together like a fairy godmother whose work was done. “I won’t be staying up for you two to get home. Have fun. Be careful.”
Lynne slid past him, and her breast brushed his arm. He bit the inside of his lip to keep from groaning. He cleared his throat and directed his comment at Eloise.
“I promise to bring her back at a reasonable time. This is a business dinner. Only.”
“Right,” Eloise dismissed his comment. “You kids have fun.” She closed the door behind them.
Lynne hadn’t waited for him. The driver held the door open, and she climbed in. He knew she was probably pissed at him for the way he’d acted earlier. His actions had been unprofessional, but Eloise had seemed interested. More so than Lynne had been since he first propositioned her. He shrugged off the guilt.
It was business.
But when he slid inside the rented car next to Lynne, he wondered who the hell he was fooling? This deal bordered on torture, insanity, and pleasure. She crossed her legs at the knee and his gaze followed the bare golden-toned calf. The straps of her shoes sparkled in the false light. Plain red toenail polish. His shoulders tightened.
“Something to drink?” He motioned to the chilled champagne.
“My, my. You went all out for little ol’ me.”
“It’s customary to put your best foot forward.”
She stared at him for a moment. “Business. You can’t see it for anything else, can you?”
He could. He just refused to. “Because that’s exactly what’s between us.”
“What color is my toenail polish?”
He ignored the question, reaching forward to pour champagne into a flute. He handed her a glass. She took it, but didn’t sip.
“You don’t like that question,” she said.
She leaned over, close enough that if he were a weaker man he could sniff the air around her. Inhale the very essence of what made Lynne, Lynne.
“Let’s try...” She lowered her voice, her breath wispy along his ear lobe. “Am I wearing underwear?”
Nate hadn’t noticed, but now he wanted to know. Needed to. He shifted to face her.
“Are you upset that I talked to your mother about our business...” Taking a moment to sip from the glass, he searched for the right word.
No matter how much he wanted to get them back to a more acceptable relationship–business and business only–spending time with Lynne to make cookies, kissing her in a heated kitchen—both of them covered in flour, didn’t exactly make a professional relationship.
“You can’t even pick a word for what we are, so how can you try to apologize for your behavior? To be honest, I don’t know either. We haven’t talked about what happened in the kitchen.”
“It was–”
“Don’t.” She finished for him before Nate found the words.
“Confusing,” he decided on. “I usually go into these situations and get the job done. I don’t dally.”
“Dally? As in dalliance?” She smiled. “You sound like a Brit.”
“It’s just the proper word to use here. It’s not a one-night stand, but it doesn’t have much weight behind it.”
She took a sip and, hummed her approval. “Can’t call it an affair either. Our hearts aren’t involved in this. Same overall goal and mutual attraction.” She nodded in agreement. “Still doesn’t make it okay to talk to my mother about what’s going on.”
“There’s a history there, between your mother and you, and I don’t want to get in the way of it.” The words left his mouth without conscious thought. This was business.
“Lies,” she murmured. “You want to know more so you can write it down in a notebook somewhere to use when it’s convenient. I should be totally turned off by you.”
Her eyes, taking stock of him, almost did him in. Those eyes weren’t turned off by what they saw.
“I take pride in how I attain all the information on my opponent.”
“You’re not even in my league, Mr. Craine.”
When she uncrossed her legs, and his gaze followed the movement, he had to concede that point. “Tell me about your mother.” He lifted his hands as if in a truce. “I don’t even have a notebook.”
“Fill my glass. I’m going to need it.”
He did and handed it back
to her.
She sighed. “As you can see, she’s a home-and-hearth type of woman.”
He thought of his own mother, who had tried her best to do that with the limited funds they had. “Not a bad thing.”
“It is when your parent expects you to follow the same cow path. I’m not home and hearth.”
“You could be if you wanted to.” He frowned at her. “I've seen you with Jeremy, hell the townfolk. You're kind, thoughtful. You're just not the picture of home and hearth.”
“You're seriously deluded by your sexual attraction.” She smiled. “It's kind of cute.”
His frown deepened. “I don't do cute. Your argument is weak. You can make cookies from scratch.”
She shook her head in disagreement. “That’s a learned skill. Trust me. She made sure I had all the skills of a perfect housewife. Not a bad thing, but it wasn’t for me.”
“Your dad?”
“We kind of agreed we would stick to my mom.”
He chuckled. “No, we didn’t.”
“Where are we going?” She took another sip. “I should slow down on my drinking. I might dance on a tabletop at this rate.”
“Sounds like you would agree to anything. Need a refill?” He took a sip from his own flute to hide his smile.
She gave him a pointed stare. “She used to buy me these frilly little sundresses. Then I started to fill out. The boys noticed, and I noticed right back.” She tilted her head and smiled wistfully. “That was my leave-nothing-to-the-imagination phase. I could have knocked my mother over with a feather the first time I wore a very low, v-neck shirt. You couldn’t put a quarter in my jeans they were so tight.”
Nate closed his eyes to imagine. He opened them again because it was too easy. “We’ll be there in half an hour.”
He could see her mind going to work. To distract her, he topped off her glass.
“So,” he said, “you’ve spent all your adult life trying not to be like your mother.”
“In a way. In another I was trying to find my own path.”
“You settled on a wannabe, punk rocker.”
“No, a goth, punk rocker with Lynne flair. Now tell me about your mother.”