by Liz Talley
“Rosemary just texted me. She’s on her way down,” Eden said, smiling at him with eyes that looked too violet to be real. “Do you remember Rosemary?”
Ryan blinked. “Prissy-Pants Reynolds?”
Jess laughed. “Ryan was on the yearbook staff. Photographer.”
“Oh,” Eden said, nodding as if she understood. “Rosemary really wanted to win that state award. It was her biggest goal that year. Well, second biggest.” She and Jess exchanged a secret look, smiling.
“So what do you do, Eden?” Ryan asked, remembering to make conversation. Sometimes it was hard to remember the rules of society. Especially when he wanted to sulk about the enormous loss he’d experienced mere hours ago. His telescoping Darth Vader lightsaber circa 1978 was worth $6,000 alone. Made his stomach hurt.
Eden’s pretty eyes shuttered. “I’m a manager at Penny Pinchers.”
“That must be interesting,” he said politely.
“Nope. Not at all.”
He shouldn’t have tried to make conversation with her. Here, he was out of his element. He felt stiff, like he wore a pair of new blue jeans that wouldn’t bend when he sat down. The Ryan he’d been in Pensacola had vanished after only a few hours back in Morning Glory. He couldn’t find the charm he’d conjured over the past few years, and his mojo was flat on the floor, pinned beneath the oppression that was Morning Glory. Why had he agreed to this?
Because of her.
He looked at Jess. She looked happy … thrilled … in her element.
The door to the Lazy Frog flew open. “Jess!”
Rosemary Reynolds tumbled inside, auburn hair bouncing, hands outstretched. “You’re back home!”
Jess squealed. He hadn’t known she was capable, but the high-pitched frequency probably had the dogs two counties over howling. Then she started singing, “Here Comes the Bride,” and Ryan checked his arms for hives. Okay, not really, but he was taken aback by the exuberance.
“Oh my goodness,” Rosemary said, unwinding her arms from around Jess’s neck and setting her hands on her hips, gaze on him. “Look at you, Ryan Reyes.”
He didn’t know whether to smile like some greasy Casanova and say, “Yes, look at me, darling,” or pretend he wasn’t there. He went with the latter.
“Ryan,” Jess chided, encouraging his response.
“Oh yes. Hi, Rosemary. Nice to see you again. Congratulations on your impending nuptials.” He smiled and tried not to feel like the spaz he used to be.
“Thank you,” she said with a laugh, giving Jess a look that said, high five, my friend.
The girls lapsed into another conversation that made him imagine being on the trading floor of the stock exchange. There were lots of exclamation points used, and they talked over one another as if there were so much to be said they couldn’t wait their turn. And he didn’t understand much of it, so he sipped his latte and studied the cartoon rendering of frogs jumping onto lily pads that had been painted on the wall. After a few minutes, he realized they were no longer talking. They were staring at him.
He felt like a cornered fox and darted his eyes back and forth. “What?”
“Tomorrow night,” Rosemary said, trying to help him out, but he had no clue what they’d been talking about. His former yearbook editor had rounded out and grown softer in her look. Her hair was the same shade of reddish brown, and the light sprinkling of freckles gave her a mischievous look. Her eyes, however, had the same tenacity. He remembered how determined she could be. I know you’ve worked hard, but all of these will have to be retaken. Sorry.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear the question,” he said, folding his hands around the cup so he wouldn’t fidget.
Rosemary’s brow furrowed, and she said, “Tomorrow night after the rehearsal we’re going to the Iron Bull. The girls wanted to give me a bachelorette party, so we’re going dancing. I don’t want anything risqué.”
“Not until the wedding night.” Eden snickered.
Ryan pulled at his T-shirt. He didn’t want to be here. He should have stayed back at his parents’, but he was so angry with his mother, he was afraid he might say something he couldn’t take back. “That’s fine. Jess doesn’t have to check with me.”
“I know,” Rosemary said, tapping his arm lightly. “But the guys are going, too. Sal doesn’t know a ton of people here in Morning Glory. He’s only been here a little over a month, and during that time he’s been working super hard on the restaurant. I’d love it if you’d come, too. Celebrate a little with him?”
“At the Iron Bull?” he repeated before catching himself. He sounded like a tool. Like a guy who hadn’t spent a majority of his nights in various beachside bars for the last year and a half. The nightlife was his arena, a place where he bought drinks, danced with hot girls, and charmed them out of their too-tight jeans. Well, he had until Jess tripped over him on the beach. So why couldn’t he hang at the local watering hole? “Sure. If it’s okay with Sal.”
“Speaking of the devil,” Eden said, pointing out the clear swinging door to the man angling toward the Lazy Frog.
Sal Genovese was a big guy with broad shoulders, an Italian nose, and thick brows. He looked a bit like that Friends character—one of the shows Ryan had found fascinating when studying pop culture—with the toughness of Al Pacino. He wore a rock concert T-shirt and paint-stained shorts. The work boots weren’t something Ryan would have worn, but they were probably practical in nature rather than a fashion statement.
“Well, I guess you’re a happy girl,” Sal said, dropping a kiss on her head before snagging a chair from a nearby table and sitting on it backward. He grinned and then noticed Ryan there. “Oh, man. Ryan, right? I’m Sal. Rosemary’s ball and chain.”
“Soon-to-be ball and chain,” Rosemary said, tapping his arm.
Sal held his hand out to Ryan, and he took it. The man’s grip was solid and warm, and the slight hint of yeast accompanied it. “It’s good to meet you, guy.”
“You, too. I’m Ryan Reyes.”
“Yeah, I know. These girls have been talking about you like you’re the second coming, you know.” The man grinned, showing lots of white teeth. Ryan wondered if Sal had used whitening strips, too.
“Well, if you’d known Ryan when he went to school with us, you’d understand. Him turning out so delicious is … well, so delicious,” Jess said, rubbing his thigh. Her touch felt good. It said, You are one of us.
But he wasn’t.
At all.
“People change,” Ryan said for lack of anything better.
“Do they really?” Eden asked, swirling her melting mint chocolate chip ice cream around in the cup. “I mean, physically sure. Look at Candy Simpson. She looks nothing like her eleventh-grade yearbook photo, but down deep we stay the same.”
Jess glanced over at him, and he could read her look. Okay, so he’d freaked out about his mother selling his Super Geek Collection (as he’d dubbed it in his mind) and he tried to hide his intellect behind dude stuff. He knew he really didn’t care anything about Tom Brady’s reception percentage or whatever they called it in fantasy football. And he would much rather watch a documentary than Sex and the City, a show Jess seemed to have a fondness for. But he wasn’t a dork.
Or was he?
The thing was, Jess knew his propensities to watch educational television and get lost in MMORPGs and still wanted to be with him. Hell, she’d begged him to come here with her. But if he were the same inside, what did that make Jess? When she’d been in school with him, she’d been this überconfident cool chick. Her only weakness had been Benton Mason. Whenever the star football player crooked his finger, she came running like a lapdog … much the way he’d done when she crooked her finger at him. Maybe the reason he had tossed his convictions about coming back to Morning Glory out the window was because he couldn’t tell her no. Not all those years ago. And not now. Maybe she was his Achilles’ heel. And maybe he was in love with the idea of having the ideal girl he’d built in his mind all thos
e years ago more than he was with Jess. Of course, he wasn’t in love. Not much. Perhaps infatuated, but love like his parents had? No.
So if all this was true, how would Jess react when she saw Benton again? What if the man who’d thrown his wife away crooked his finger again? Would she go? Because if people didn’t change, how could Jess be truly free of Benton?
“Hey, man, you want to leave the girls here and come with me? I’ve been renovating an old bank here, turning it into my restaurant. You can come take a look. It’s really cool. We just installed the awning and have a few more coats of paint to do in the bathroom, but it’s almost ready to go. Besides, I’ve been working on the menu, and I have a Cajun pizza I designed today. I need taste testers.” Sal looked like an eager dog. Come play with me.
Ryan looked at the three girls. Rosemary had pulled out her phone and was showing them pictures of the wedding cake with filigree frosting. “And look at this. These are the napkins I ordered. Do you think the gilded font is too much? My mother said it was, but I love how neutral metallics are now,” she said, swiping her phone.
Ryan looked back at Sal. “Yes, please.”
Sal slapped his hands together. “Okay, we’re out. Later, ladies.”
The three girls barely looked up as the two men rose. But the screech of Ryan’s chair on the floor caused Jess to look up. Her amber eyes glowed with such tenderness. She reached out a hand and gave Ryan’s arm a squeeze. She didn’t say anything else, settling on a sweet smile before she turned her attention back to pictures of cocktail napkins.
Sal pushed out into the heat. “Jesus, I can’t get used to the heat down here. I always thought the city was hotter than shit, but this place is soul sucking. The heat, that is. Actually, I like the rest of it.”
Ryan fell into step beside Sal, liking the easy nature of the man. This man was likely comfortable in his own skin no matter where he went. Made friends easily. Probably had a big, noisy family and the ability to blend into whatever social situation. He’d probably never drunk kava tea or had play clothes with weird mushrooms on them. “You like it here?”
Sal shrugged. “Rosemary’s here. And, yeah, I always wanted to live in a community like this. No taxis trying to mow you down, garbage in the street, and sirens twenty-four seven. We’re going to have a yard. I’m looking forward to that.”
Ryan nodded.
A mailman spotted Sal across the square and made a beeline for both men.
“Uh-oh, here comes Fred,” Sal said, sounding a bit weary.
“Fred?”
“I thought you were from here? Fred Odom. Can’t get away from the son of a gun once he gets to going. Better hurry. Once I’m inside the restaurant, he won’t bother us. Step it up,” Sal said, lengthening his stride and digging keys out of his pocket.
They’d just reached the locked door of Sal’s New York Pizza when the chatty mailman Ryan didn’t remember appeared, calling out, “Sal. Wait a minute. I have something to tell you.”
“Shit,” Sal whispered under his breath. Turning, he donned a big smile. “Yo, Mr. Odom, how’s things?”
“Good, good.” The mailman wiped his sweaty, bald head, noticing Ryan. “Oh, hey, I’m Fred Odom. You must be a friend of Sal’s here for the wedding.”
“No. I’m Ryan Reyes, and actually I used to—”
“Oh, of course, Martha’s boy. The one who discovered stem cells! Well, I’ll be.”
“No, I didn’t discover stem cells, merely a bio—”
“Same thing,” Fred interrupted, giving a wave before wiping his bald head again. Then he smoothed down his bristly mustache. “I hear you came home with the Culpepper girl. Her mama told Stewart Wilson over at the Piggly Wiggly that you two have been seeing each other. Poor girl, after what Benton Mason did to her.”
Ryan looked at Sal, who now stood behind Fred. Sal made talking hands … and a face that said, Sorry we weren’t fast enough, bud.
“It’s good running into you, Fred, but I have to help Sal hang something,” Ryan said, lying like a dog. He’d forgotten how bad gossip could be in a small town, especially when there was a mailman who delivered juicy tidbits along with his mail. He pulled at the neck of his T-shirt again. Stifling.
“Sal, I came to tell you that while I was delivering mail over at the B and B—that’s bed-and-breakfast, you know,” Fred said, pausing so Sal could acknowledge the explanation. Sal nodded. “Well, anyway, while I was there, your mama and the rest of your family arrived. Thought you’d want to know. Your mama’s a right nice woman, and she looks a lot like you. Go on and get back to work. Everyone in Morning Glory is looking forward to sampling some real, legitimate New York pizza pie.”
“Great. Thanks,” Sal said, slapping the man on the back and darting into the now open restaurant door like squirrel escaping traffic. “Later.”
With a nod to Fred, Ryan followed, and for the sixteenth time that day wondered why in the hell he’d agreed to come back to Morning Glory.
Chapter Fourteen
The hot-pink dress was too loose on Jess, but Rosemary whipped it off her and had the material under the foot of her sewing machine before Jess could refasten her bra.
Jess had spent Friday morning with her parents, touring the renovation they were doing on their 1920s Queen Anne house with its whimsical gingerbread trim and two turrets. Jess’s bedroom had been in one of the turrets, and she’d curl up in the window seat reading Sweet Valley High books along with all Anne Rice’s vampire novels. A fanciful house for a not-so-fanciful girl … on the surface. But Lacy had been right. Beneath Jess’s no-nonsense demeanor beat the heart of a romantic. Her parents had been thrilled to see her. Her mother in particular had been ecstatic to see Ryan. She’d insisted on taking him to lunch at the Feedhouse, a barbecue place that had opened up near Lake Powhatan. Ryan had received more than a number of double takes. Jess would be willing to bet the town was already humming about the hunky former nerd … and how he’d shown up with poor Jess Culpepper. The thought of everyone gossiping about them made her uncomfortable, especially after last night’s dinner with Ryan’s parents. Ryan had relayed that Fred Odom, nosiest mailman in the whole state, had said something about her and the way Benton had dumped her. Yeah, they’d stolen some of Rosemary and Sal’s spotlight. At least until the Elvis impersonator showed up.
“I can’t believe how much weight you lost last year,” Rosemary mumbled, pins clamped between her lips. “It’s so not fair.”
“Well, marry Sal and then in six years have him come in and tell you all this was a big mistake and see how your appetite is then,” Jess said, wrapping up in the robe Rosemary kept in the dressing room of Parsley and Sage, her fabric and sewing shop. Often Rosemary did alterations or sewed costumes for the local high school productions, so she had a small tri-mirrored platform for fittings in the back of the shop. Several quilted pillows for her new venture with a New York City designer sat in piles along the mirrors.
“Point made,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she took in the waist of the satin dress.
“But I’ve put on a few pounds since I hooked up with Ryan.”
“Need plenty of nourishment, do you?” Rosemary asked, looking up and shooting her a half grin. The other side of her mouth still held the pins.
“Not just that, though that is really good, but he makes me happy,” Jess said, sinking into the lone stuffed chair in the corner. Up front Lorraine worked the store as she hummed a Beatles tune. Eden had slipped off to give her mama the medicine she needed before the girls got dressed for the rehearsal that evening. They’d spent the afternoon helping Rosemary prepare small gifts for the wedding guests and oohing and ahhing over the vintage wedding dress Mimi had given to Rosemary. Her friend’s older next-door neighbor had once lived in Chicago as the mistress to a railroad baron. When she’d married Ed Griggs and moved to Morning Glory, she’d stored all her fabulous clothing in her rambling antebellum house. The woman had no children, so she treated Rosemary as a granddaughter. Which
meant Rosemary had played in Chanel and Dior as a teen.
The day had been nice, but still Jess felt so unsettled. She’d thought she’d be happy being back in Morning Glory, but instead she longed to hear the ocean crash on the beach and sip wine with Ryan while he gave her a foot rub. So odd to feel discomfort in the place she’d always thought she belonged. But everything felt so different.
“So I see,” Rosemary said, turning the dress in order to take in the other side of the bodice. “And what about Benton?”
“What about him?”
“Are you prepared to see him again?”
“I don’t want to, because I still want to kick him in the balls. But I suppose I must, so …”
“Are you still in love with him?”
“No.”
Rosemary took her foot off the sewing machine pedal and looked up. Taking the pins from her mouth, she popped them into the giant tomato pincushion that had once been her nana’s. “You said that very quickly.”
“Because it’s true.”
“I’m not sure I could ever stop loving Sal.” Rosemary pressed her hands against her worktable. Jess didn’t like the way her friend looked at her. Like she knew so much about love. Sure, Rosemary couldn’t imagine anything going sour with Sal. She stood on the cusp of the best two days of her life, deeply and profoundly in love with her New Yorker. But Jess had once been there. The day she’d walked down the aisle to Benton, she could never imagine a life different from waking up to him every morning, having his children, sitting out in their rockers as the grandkids hid Easter eggs. At that moment on her daddy’s arm, not loving Benton was inconceivable.