by Lucy Score
Maybe an hour at the gym before his late morning appointments in the office would help.
Gia peddled her rubbery legs faster and cursed the need for cardio as the elliptical’s cross-trainer program kicked up the resistance. She was definitely treating herself to a smoothie after this torture.
Monday morning classes — as well as Wednesday and Friday nights — at the yoga studio were covered by Destiny Wheedlemeyer. A free-range chicken raiser, and founder of a very successful knitting store on Etsy, Destiny gave yoga students instructions in a breathy Marilyn Monroe-esque voice and dressed entirely in black.
Gia used Destiny’s Monday class coverage to carve out a bit of free time for handling non-child-related responsibilities. After walking the kids to school — Evan had made her stop two blocks away from the junior high, while Rora had a meltdown at drop off — she headed straight to Fitness Freak for a long cardio session to start the week off right.
Fitness Freak welcomed everyone regardless of physical ability. The front desk was usually manned by a woman named Fran, the coolest person Gia had ever met. Fran had a Mohawk, sleeve tattoos, and a wheelchair. She played bass in a garage band.
The weekday morning trainer at the gym bore a striking resemblance — in appearance and accent — to Dolph Lundgren. And the clientele ran the gamut from retirees in matching tracksuits to third shift semi-competitive body builders.
Her workouts here were a blissful window of responsibility-free enjoyment. No class to lead, no kids to watch, only a good sweat to work up. Fifteen minutes into the elliptical, Gia felt a presence over her shoulder. An irritated one.
“What are you doing here?”
She glanced over her shoulder at Beckett’s frowning face.
“I’m baking cookies. What does it look like?” She mopped her sweaty forehead with her towel.
“You’re everywhere.” Beckett didn’t sound happy about it. In fact, he sounded downright confrontational.
“It’s a small town,” Gia said, trying not to sound out of breath. “It’s bound to happen especially since I live in your backyard.”
Gone was the charming, sexy Beckett that she’d had the pleasure of lusting after. And in his place was a crabby, snippy hot guy. His attitude was as confusing as it was unwelcome. She didn’t get much time to herself. Sharing it with a grumpy neighbor — no matter how attractive — was irritating. And she didn’t know Beckett well enough to warrant him taking out a bad mood on her.
After a long silence, Beckett climbed on the elliptical next to hers.
“You don’t have to be my workout buddy.”
“I might as well since there’s no avoiding you,” Beckett muttered.
“Excuse me?” Gia’s stride faltered before she regained her pace. “Did I do something to upset you?”
He had the good manners to look slightly chagrined. “No. Everything’s fine.”
“Right. Because you sound fine.” She sighed with relief as her elliptical clicked down to a less torturous resistance. “Do you want to talk about it?” she offered.
“No.”
“My dad always says —”
“I don’t need any fatherly advice from him,” Beckett snapped. “I had a father. He was a great man and some second-rate substitute isn’t going to take his place.”
“Is that what you think —”
Beckett cut her off again. His face was red and it wasn’t from exertion. “I also don’t need to be analyzed by some kumbaya yogi who thinks we can all get along and that love will conquer all.”
“Okay then. Message received. You don’t like my father dating your mother.”
“I don’t like your father taking advantage of my mother,” he corrected her, stabbing the resistance button on his machine.
“Taking advantage?” She felt the pulse in her head begin to thud, the sure sign of a headache blooming. “Beckett, I think you have the wrong idea.”
“Is his restaurant in trouble? Maybe he’s behind on his mortgage? He needs a little capital to keep things going so he looks for someone with a nest egg. Maybe someone who’s a little lonely. Lays on the charm. A few months later and bam! He’s moving in with her.”
“I’m going to stop you right there before you go any further down this rabbit hole,” Gia said. She took a deep breath and then another one, reminding herself not to take it personally. He was lashing out because he was hurting with a pain that was palpable.
And she needed to get out of there before she punched him in the face to give him some real physical pain.
“It sounds like you could use some time alone to work out your feelings,” she said, evenly.
“I could use some time without you and your father popping up everywhere in my life.”
“Too bad about that year lease that I signed.” She pressed the stop button on her machine and grabbed her towel and water bottle. “I hope you feel better.”
Beckett didn’t feel any better when Gianna left the gym. In fact, he felt worse. Now, a sick layer of guilt settled over the simmering anger in his belly. He got off of the elliptical and wiped it and Gia’s abandoned machine down before storming into the locker room.
So much for working off some of the mad before work.
Beckett headed into the gray tiled shower stall where he ducked his head under the water, willing it to wash away the sadness.
He was a mess. A mental mess. Obviously he had overreacted to Gianna. He hadn’t expected to see her there in what he considered his space. The woman was everywhere. His backyard, his childhood home, and now his gym.
His attraction to her frustrated him to no end. He’d never felt so enamored with a woman before. Attracted? Yes. Interested? Yes. But this was different.
Gianna was different.
She wasn’t his type. She was too spontaneous, too vivacious. There was nothing subtle about her, from the flaming red curls to the voluptuous curves and her throaty laugh. He preferred quiet confidence, the restrained beauty of sexy suits and impeccably styled hair. A woman he could discuss the law or the latest Wall Street news with, not someone who challenged him with arguments and teasing until he was lightheaded.
He didn’t want to like her. Topping the list of reasons why was the fact that she was Franklin’s daughter. There wasn’t a scenario on earth that would make him friendly toward Franklin again.
Beckett twisted the faucet, cutting off the stream of water.
And there wasn’t anything that could change the circumstances of his relationship with Gianna. She was his tenant, she had children. Both factors made the complications so steep that it should have only strengthened his resolve to swear off women for the rest of the year.
Trudy had been a mistake, one that he should have seen coming … and then run full-speed in the opposite direction. While Beckett considered them to be casually dating, the willowy brunette had been measuring his windows for new curtains and practically printing up business cards that said Mrs. Beckett Pierce.
Her biggest mistake had been assuming that being mayor of Blue Moon was just a steppingstone in his political career. She had actually started making inquiries into their district’s congressional election. “For you, darling. Isn’t it time you look beyond this tiny town?” she had asked, stroking a manicured hand down his chest.
She didn’t understand why someone “with his education and drive” would want to stay in Blue Moon Bend. She told him he was wasting his potential. He told her they were over.
And in a move that he never saw coming, the erudite twenty-eight-year-old financial advisor set his welcome mat on fire and handcuffed herself to his staircase demanding that he reconsider ending their relationship.
Ellery had taken great pleasure in calling Sheriff Donovan Cardona to take care of the problem. “She was showing you her crazy all along,” his paralegal had told him. “You just weren’t paying attention.”
Cardona had advised Trudy that it would be wise to never show her face near Beckett again and she had pouted off in her Mercedes, ti
res squealing, presumably to line up a new victim.
It had been enough for Beckett to swear off women for a while. He was grateful that the recent attention from Summer’s article was starting to die down without having reignited Trudy’s interest in him.
Women, he shook his head.
The thought brought him right back to Gianna and her sexy sea-witch eyes.
What was it about her that had his blood and his ability to reason rushing right out of his head? She would be a mistake. They would be a mistake.
At least after the way he had bitten off her head, she wouldn’t be open to making that mistake with him. He dragged a towel through his hair. It wasn’t like him to snap like that. Instead of maintaining an aloof coolness, he had gone temper tantrum on her. He would have to apologize.
Just as soon as he could be sure he wouldn’t lose his control again and yell at her or, worse, grab her and kiss her until they were both shaking.
Just as soon as he completely understood the out-of-control twin urges to push her away and claim her as his.
Beckett went about his business the rest of the day and blocked out all thoughts of the redheaded temptress. He kept his office door closed and stayed focused on work. Both of his appointments went well and he was able to squeeze in a return call to Bruce Oakleigh on the man’s concerns regarding the proposed Halloween parade route. He considered it a success when the call only took thirty-two minutes.
A pop in by the Fincher brothers kept him occupied for the rest of the afternoon. The flannel-clad siblings ran a campground outside of town and were arguing about buying more property.
After the argument was settled and the Finchers were on their way, Beckett thought about texting his brothers to see if they would meet him tonight on the farm to drink a toast to their father at sunset, but decided against it. It was an unofficial tradition that he and Carter had shared in the years since his brother came home from Afghanistan.
It would have been even better now that Jax was home again. But neither of his brothers seemed to be interested in the threat Franklin posed to their family. In fact, they probably weren’t even aware that it was their father’s birthday and he wasn’t going to be the one to remind them.
It was up to him to carry on his father’s memory and that’s just what he would do.
Their mother had never joined them on the bluff and Beckett wondered what she had done in years past to remember the husband she had loved so fiercely. He always made it a point to call her or take her to lunch on his father’s birthday. Every year except this one.
He allowed that thought to eat at him until he closed the office down. He took off his tie and pulled on a lightweight sweater over his button down.
In his refrigerator he grabbed a six-pack and avoided looking into the backyard from any of the windows.
Beckett took his time driving out to the family farm. As often as he visited, the drive today always held a special solemnity. It was a somber tradition cloaked in stubbornness. It was Beckett’s way of refusing to forget, to let time mellow and dull his memories.
Tonight, he would drink a toast to his father, very likely alone. But with or without his brothers, he would remember. He would carry on. Great men didn’t just vanish from the world. They lived on in memory and tradition.
Beckett passed the farm’s drive and instead turned onto the lane that wound around to the stables. It wasn’t any faster this way, but at least he could avoid the farmhouse and its occupants. He followed the trail behind the barn and hung a right at the fork, bumping along the trail flanked by fence posts and fields.
When he rounded a copse of trees, he stopped, surprised to find three figures in his headlights.
Beckett turned off the ignition and slid out of the driver seat.
“About damn time,” Jax called out.
His brothers were kicked back, beers in hand, in two of the four lawn chairs set up on the ridge facing west.
The third figure wandered toward him. Phoebe smiled sadly and opened her arms to him. What had been a dull throb in his chest bloomed into full-blown pain.
Beckett walked into his mother’s arms, tucking her under his chin and holding her close. “Mom.” It was all he could think to say. In all of his years observing this sunset ritual, his mother had never joined him.
“This is the first year I’ve been strong enough, happy enough to come out here to remember him this way.” She sighed into Beckett’s chest.
“Where’s Franklin? And Summer?” he asked.
“They’re back at the house. They wanted to give us Pierces some privacy,” she said, looking up at him, her eyes misty behind her glasses.
He was an asshole. An overgrown, immature, pathetic asshole, Beckett decided.
Maybe, just maybe, the man he’d been blaming for fading his father’s memory was actually somehow making it more vibrant for his mother.
And the brothers he’d thought had forgotten had beaten him to it.
He draped an arm over his mother’s shoulders and walked her back to the chairs.
Wordlessly, Carter handed him a beer. Beckett took a seat between his brothers and they all sat in silence, lost in their own memories as the sky went pink and orange.
“Remember that time Dad brought home the three-legged cat he found on the side of the road?” Jax asked, breaking the silence as the sun slipped behind the trees.
“Good old Tripod. He always did have a soft spot for strays.” Carter grinned.
The sound of his mother’s laugh was balm to Beckett’s heart.
9
Gia was feeling decidedly un-yoga-like. She’d considered pawning off her Pierce brother yoga competition judging to Destiny. But that was too cowardly.
Beckett’s blow-up at the gym the previous morning had taken her by surprise. And, if she was being honest with herself, hurt. The last time they’d seen each other, he’d almost kissed her.
But it was a completely different Beckett Pierce that had coldly accused her — and her father — of essentially trespassing in his home, his town, his family. The volatility had seemed wildly out of character. Granted, she didn’t know him very well and he could very well be a closet temper-tantrum-thrower, but somehow she didn’t think so.
Beckett was beloved in this town and one didn’t earn that esteem by lashing out and throwing hissy fits. She sighed. She didn’t have time to crack the enigma that was Beckett Pierce.
It was just the universe’s way of reminding her to stay focused on her kids and her new business, Gia decided.
She padded across the studio to roll out three mats for the Pierces. She’d put them in the middle row so they could follow what the front row was doing without hiding in the back.
She placed yoga blocks next to each mat and then inventoried the water in the little cooler against the wall. If Beckett’s reaction to his first class was any indication, his brothers would need some serious rehydration, too.
She felt a wicked little smile play on her lips. It might be a little fun to torture the Pierces.
Gia checked that the heaters were cranked and the temperature in the studio was steadily rising. A glance at the clock told her she still had a few minutes before her early birds would show up, which meant Beckett wouldn’t be far behind.
The nerves in her belly fluttered to life.
She, Gianna Rose Decker, was nervous about seeing a man. And not a sexy, intimidating Hollywood star-type man. Just a regular ol’ normal hot guy next-door type. A regular ol’ unpredictable hot guy next-door type.
Ugh.
A nice headstand sequence would calm her she decided, bringing her hand to her unsettled stomach. She returned to her mat at the front of the room. Distributing her weight between her forearms and the top of her head, Gia let her legs slowly float up one at a time stretching toward the ceiling.
It was a graceful move that gave no hint at the core strength it took to achieve.
It had taken her a full year of relentless practice to nail thi
s level of headstand. It was a solid reminder of what hard work and focus could bring to life. And that’s exactly what she would do here in Blue Moon. Work hard and focus.
She let her body and breath lead her brain to quiet.
She could do this. She would do this.
The studio door opened and Gia’s eyes fluttered open. Even upside down Beckett was a heartbreaker. She took her time lowering her toes to the floor and coming out of the pose, hoping the longer she stalled, the less time they’d be alone.
She came to her feet. Even though their height difference was comical, she didn’t want to face him sitting down.
“I hope you don’t mind that I came a little early,” Beckett said, his hands shoved in the pocket of his hoodie. His dark hair was perfectly tousled; black gym shorts accented his long, muscular legs. Energy-wise, he was the opposite of the angry man in the gym yesterday. Calm and a little cautious today. He let his gym bag slide to the floor, nudged it with his foot.
Gia turned away from him and busied herself with rearranging the foam blocks on the shelving unit. “It’s no problem. You can start warming up,” she told him, pointing toward the empty mats.
“Actually, I was hoping I could talk to you for a —”
The studio door opened again and Jax and Carter entered.
“I told you he’d weasel in here early and try to earn brownie points,” Jax said to Carter.
“No one is weaseling anything,” Beckett growled.
“Are you sure you want to put yourself in the middle of this mess, Gia?” Carter asked with a grin.
“Oh, I’m looking forward to this,” she said with an easy smile. She felt Beckett’s gaze on her and continued to ignore him. “I set you three up here next to each other. But if you can’t behave, I’ll separate you,” she warned them.
“Why’s it hot in here?” Jax asked.
“This is a hot yoga class,” Gia said innocently. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Piece of cake,” Jax said, with a wave of his hand. His gaze darted to Beckett. “Exactly how hot does it get in here?” he whispered to his brother.
Carter stripped off his sweatshirt and smiled at her. “I thought I’d ask you if you wanted to bring the kids by again soon to ride the horses. Franklin said they were pretty excited about seeing them this weekend.”