“Why?” he asked, suspicious of her motives. His mother had called Berlin’s and they’d put together an entire rack of clothes just for her. He wasn’t about to watch her try on a trunkload of panties for an hour. From behind his sunglasses, he let his gaze slide to her lips. Damn. He felt like a light switch again, and it didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t want to get turned on.
“The store should probably have warning in case they want to get security in place first.”
He looked up into her eyes. The first flicker of desire was snubbed out. Thank God. “I don’t think anyone will recognize you.” If he needed any more proof that she was full of herself, calling a small underwear store and wanting security was it. “Hell, princess, I hardly recognize you and I’ve known you for years.”
Worry wrinkled her brow. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure you’re being paranoid.” He took a few steps down King toward the underwear store but stopped when she didn’t follow. “Isn’t it this way?” He waved in the general direction of Bits of Lace. There was a sports pub near the store and he could grab a beer while he waited.
“We can’t walk.”
“It’s only about four or five blocks.”
“If things get crazy, your car will be too far away.”
Crazy? It was possible that someone might recognize her, but he seriously doubted people would go crazy. Then he thought of her crazy Raffle fans. They were weird. “We’ll drive,” he said, and changed direction toward his truck, even though he did think her pampered ass was overreacting. He doubted her fans knew she was in Charleston, and it was unlikely that someone dressed in some goofy leather and chain-mail costume would pop up in an underwear store.
Henry drove the few blocks and found a parking space across the street from Bits of Lace. While Vivien shopped for bras, he relaxed at the King Street Grille next door. He picked a table near the front, and at that time of day, the place was empty except for three couples sitting at different tables and a group of young guys at the bar. ESPN offered commentary on the Rangers/Cubs game on the television overhead, and he kicked back and looked at the menu. He couldn’t decide between pork sliders or nachos and ordered both along with a bottle of Palmetto porter. After spending the past hour in a women’s clothing store, sitting on fussy furniture, and flipping thorough chick magazines, watching sports and drinking dark beer felt like coming home after an aggravating trip for an annoying employer. His shoulders relaxed and tension drained from his joints. Sitting in the sports bar instead of standing in a lingerie boutique while Vivien looked at panties felt like a reprieve from a firing squad. From the smart-mouthed girl who’d grown into a beautiful woman, and the troubling reaction that he hadn’t expected and didn’t want.
The waitress delivered his beer and he took a drink of the stout porter. Instead of sitting in a pub, still troubled by his physical reaction to Vivien, he should be at his shop, working on the cherrywood island or drafting a bid for the new medical complex in North Charleston. No matter the brand of little French blazers his mother had always dressed him in as a child, no matter the exclusive boarding schools or Princeton degree, working with wood was in his DNA. Like his father, Henry loved the smell and touch of wood beneath his hands. Even as a kid, he’d loved crafting something from his imagination.
He sucked foam from the corner of his mouth and set the glass on the table.
Henry had always done what had been expected of him. Except for when what was expected had almost killed him. He’d walked away from his white-collar career and never been happier. His mother considered his custom millwork a waste of his education. She didn’t see a journeyman as a proper job for a Whitley-Shuler, and he wasn’t at all surprised that she’d volunteered him to drive Vivien around as if he had nothing better to do. Nor was he surprised that Vivien was pushing and testing his patience just like when she’d been a kid.
So when Vivien walked through the sports pub’s doors fifteen minutes after he’d ordered a beer, he had to admit that he was surprised. He’d expected her to take at least another hour just to annoy him.
“I shopped as quick as possible,” she said, almost breathless, as if she’d run from one rack of bras to the next. She set her bag and purse in the chair across from him. “I don’t think I’ve ever shopped that quick.”
Now she was quick. When it didn’t matter. When they still had half an hour to kill before they returned to Berlin’s, and he was kicked back with a beer and some of his favorite bar food. He raised a hand and got the waitress’s attention. “What can I order for you to drink?” he asked as she slid into the chair next to him.
“I’d love a mojito.” She left her sunglasses on her face like she was a member of the CIA. “Thank you.”
He gave the waitress Vivien’s drink order and asked for a second plate. “How’d it go? Any of your fans jump out from behind shelves of panties and ask for an autograph?”
She laughed and again he was reminded of sunshine and honey. Of whiskey in a teacup that warmed a man up from the inside out. “No. I worried about nothing.” She shook her head and the sunlight pouring in through the large windows slid across her smooth cheek. Her dark hair stuck out the back of the baseball cap and brushed the back of her T-shirt. “Thank goodness.”
“You’re too uptight.” She was all smooth skin and shiny hair and working him like a light switch again.
“Me?” Her mouth dropped and she sucked in a shocked breath. “You were born uptight, Henry.”
She was probably right about that, but he wasn’t ever going to admit it. Vivien’s drink and extra plate arrived and she slid three paltry nachos onto her plate.
“I’m not the one who is so uptight I won’t remove my sunglasses. Inside a bar.”
“I don’t want to draw attention.”
“Your sunglasses draw attention.” He took a drink of his beer. “If people stare at you, darlin’, it’s probably because they think you’re hiding a black eye. God, they probably think I gave it to you.”
“Woman beater.” She laughed and pulled the glasses from her face. She set them on the table and pursed her lips around her mojito straw. “You’re so uptight, you can’t even walk into a lingerie store.” She paused to take a bite of one chip. “You’re probably one of those guys who’s afraid that being surrounded by display bins filled with panties will suck out all your testosterone.”
“My testosterone is not affected by panties.” In fact, he was very fond of the sight of lacy panties on a woman. Especially if she was trying to suck out his testosterone.
She shook her head and tried not to smile. “I remember one summer when you pitched a conniption over my and Momma’s clean underwear hanging on the clothesline.”
He remembered that because he’d been traumatized by the sight of all those granny panties flapping in the breeze. “You two strung your clothesline in front of the carriage house.”
“We didn’t have a backyard.” She shrugged and finished off her measly chip.
“I was fourteen and my friends from school were heading up that day.” He wondered if she still wore big silky underwear. Somehow, he doubted it.
“You could have just taken the laundry down instead of freaking out.”
He doubted he’d freaked out. “I didn’t want to touch y’all’s grann . . . ah, laundry.”
“You haven’t changed. You’re still all uptight and fussy.” She took a drink and swallowed.
“I’ve never been uptight and fussy.” More like annoyed and provoked.
“I think you’re scared that all those panties will touch you and will shrivel you up like a raisin.”
He raised a brow. “Nothing ever shrivels me like a raisin.” Was he really talking about his balls? With Vivien Rochet? “I’m good that way.”
“The proof is in the pudding, as my mamaw used to say.” She reached for her shopping bag and set it on the table in front of him. “Prove it.”
“I’m not sticking my hand in there.”
/> “It’s not a bag of snakes, Henry.” She reached for a chip. “Go ahead.”
“I’m not your assistant. You can’t order me around.”
“Scared?”
“Stop, Vivien.” She was pushing him. Provoking him and, by the sparkle in her eyes, she as having fun doing it, too.
“I double-dog dare you, Henry.”
Behind her pretty face, he could almost see the little girl who’d rummaged through his closet, then dared him to call her a thief. The chubby little kid who stuck her tongue out at him when no one else was looking. “You can’t double-dog dare before you dare and double dare.”
“I’m not playing around.” Her gaze narrowed and she shook her head. “I’m going straight to the double dog.”
“You’re ridiculous.” He put the bag in his lap and kept his gaze locked with hers as he reached inside. Silk and lace touched the tips of his fingers and he pulled out a blue bra. A flimsy, see-through bra. He held it up by one strap and studied the tiny purple flowers before he dropped it back into the sack.
“How do you feel?”
“Not a bit shriveled.” And getting less shriveled by the second. He handed her the bag of bras and panties and glanced at the Tag Heuer on his wrist. “We should get going.” He stood and dug his wallet out of his back pocket.
“Thank you, Henry.”
Before he’d found her in Macy Jane’s muddy garden, he didn’t think he’d ever heard “thank you” pass her lips. “For what? You didn’t eat much.” He tossed two twenties on the table then stuffed his wallet into his back pocket.
“For driving me around today when you didn’t want to.” She grabbed her purse and sunglasses. “And for making me laugh and forget for just a few minutes why I’m here.”
He looked down into her green eyes and the laughter fading from her gaze. “You’re welcome, Vivien Leigh.” She slid the sunglasses on her face and he put his hand in the small of her back. As they crossed the street, he tried to recall exactly when he’d last put his hands on a woman’s bra and panties. It had probably been a few months ago. A few months’ worth of pent-up lust explained why the sight of Vivien in a black dress, the touch of a blue bra, and the warmth of her back against the palm of his hand made him think about sex. He opened the passenger door of his truck for Vivien, then moved to the driver’s side. He definitely had to do something about the dismal state of his sex life. The problem was, he wanted more than just sex. He was thirty-five and had been in two serious relationships. Both women had left him when they’d figured out that he hadn’t been serious enough to put a ring on it. It wasn’t that he was opposed to marriage, he just hadn’t ever been ready.
Cool air from the truck’s vents brushed across his forearms as he drove Vivien back to Berlin’s. He thought of the single women he’d dated since he’d been back in Charleston. Most had been smart and attractive women. A few had even earned his mother’s stamp of approval, but he wasn’t Spence. He didn’t need Nonnie to approve of the women in his life.
He pulled the truck next to the curb in front of Berlin’s and Vivien ran in to grab her dress. His brother had married a bona fide St. Cecilia debutante. Nonnie had been beyond thrilled to have a daughter-in-law, like herself, who’d been presented at the ultra-exclusive St. Cecilia ball held every November. Spence had done what had been expected. He’d married “true Southern,” but look where it got him. In the middle of a brutal divorce and chasing the pain away with booze and women. Henry was different. He wasn’t looking for a pedigree. He was looking for a woman that he would love forever. That he wanted to love forever.
After he dropped Vivien off at the carriage house, he pointed his truck toward his small home on John’s Island. The size of the house and the fact that it was only six years old had appealed to him almost as much as the large shop located out back. Before moving into the fifteen-hundred-square-foot house, he’d torn out several walls and made the kitchen, dining room, and living room all one larger space. He’d converted one bedroom into an office and he’d torn out the wall between the other two to make his master suite. The whole house could fit in his mother’s bedroom, but he loved it.
Orange streaks splashed across the sky by the time Henry pulled his truck into his driveway and parked next to the garage in back. Even before he opened the door to his shop, he could smell freshly cut wood and sanding dust. He unlocked the door and flipped on the lights. Besides fresh wood, the building also held the scents of stain and varnish and was filled with molding and millwork machinery. His shoes kicked up a thin layer of sawdust covering the floor as he made his way to the kitchen island he’d fabricated for the penthouse in town. He ran his hand across the gleaming wood as he continued to the clamp table holding the spines and seat of a chair. It matched two others as well as the maplewood table he’d been building for Macy Jane. Now it belonged to Vivien. He’d have to ask her what she wanted done with it.
He thought of Vivien in her hat and sunglasses, all paranoid as if crazed fans were hiding around every corner. As if she might be recognized when in reality, no one had given her a second glance.
The cell phone rang in his shirt pocket, and he looked at the number a second before hitting the talk button. “What’s up, Spence? Are you back in town?”
“Yeah,” his brother answered. “I got home about an hour ago.”
For the past week, Spence had been blowing off steam on a fishing boat in the Florida Keys. “Did you catch anything?”
“Nothing to brag about. I heard about Macy Jane.” Spence paused before he added, “That’s damn sad. She was a nice lady.”
“Yes she was.”
“I heard you took Vivien shopping today.”
He bent down and picked up a bar clamp someone had left on the floor. “You must have been talking to Mother.”
“No. Rowley Davidson just sent me a text. His wife, Lottie, went to school with Vivien, and she showed him something on the Internet.”
Henry walked toward the clamp rack and placed it in the row where it belonged. “Exactly what does Rowley Davidson’s wife, Lottie, have to do with me?”
“He sent me an Internet link to one of those gossip sites.” Spence laughed. “You should take a look.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” Again Spence laughed like there was some sort of hilarity going on. “I’m saying good-bye now so I can send you the link.”
Spence hung up, and less than a minute later, Henry received his brother’s text. He touched the link with his thumb and waited. A red and black site popped up—along with a photograph of Henry sitting next to Vivien at the King Street Grille. She had a nacho in one hand. He had her bright blue bra dangling from one finger. The cutline read: Unidentified man fondles Vivien Rochet’s bra.
Chapter 7
Dear Diary,
I got a pain in my chest yesterday. I’m sure I’m going to need a bra any day now. ☺
Dear Diary,
Yesterday I was cleaning the inside of Henry’s closet. It’s terribly dusty, ha-ha! I found one of those wood boxes he’s always making with hidden drawers. The last one I found wasn’t very tricky and I found an old watch in one and a tiny jade elephant in the other. I really wanted that elephant, but I was afraid he’d know it was gone. This time he thought he was extra tricky and made the box with a puzzle top. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I’ll get it open. Henry Whitley-Shuler will never outsmart Vivien Leigh Rochet!
Dear Diary,
Hip Hop Hooray!!! Momma said I can take hip-hop and ballet class because we’re Episcopalian now. We were First Baptist and dancing is a sin if you’re Baptist. Drinking alcohol, too. Nonnie took me and Momma to St. Phillip’s, and the Episcopalians said I have to get baptized to wash away all my sins, but I’m only thirteen (in three months) and I don’t think I’m done with sinning yet. I said I want to wait until I’m twenty-five. That way I don’t have to worry for a while yet about going to hell if I tell a lie, and the Episcopalians will have lots more sins they
can wash away. Nonnie frowned like Cruella de Vil and Momma said, “Don’t make me call Santa on you, Vivien Leigh!” I don’t believe in Santa, so that doesn’t worry me anymore.
Dear Diary,
Curses, Josephine!!! Tropical Storm Josephine knocked down a tree on our power line. No TV for two days!!!! Nonnie said ocean water got in the Shuler house at Hilton Head. ☺ Storms always make me think of my daddy and I get sad. ☹ He died before I was born and before he could marry Momma. I think that’s why Momma can never find a boyfriend that sticks. She’s still sad about Daddy. Momma showed me an old newspaper article about Daddy and Hurricane Kate. Sinking his schooner. He and his whole family loved to sail and were rescuing Cubans, kind of like that Elian kid a few years ago, when Hurricane Kate happened. I got sad reading about it. Daddy never got to see me, but Momma said he’d wrap me up in sweet if he’d lived. I don’t know. Sometimes I act up and make people mad. Sometimes I’m not sorry when I say I am.
Dear Diary,
HELL’S BELLS AND HEAVENS TO BETSY!!! I got Henry’s puzzle box open. It was filled with a wood pipe, two keys, and letters from a girl named Tracy Lynn Fortner. I think her family has a town named after them. At first the letters were so boring that I almost fell asleep then I choked and swallowed the gum I stole from Spence. The letters were all mushy about how much she missed Henry when he was away at school and how much she loooooved him and looooved talking to him on the phone. Ugh!! Then she wrote that she was really afraid and that her parents were going to be disappointed and humiliated because she failed a test. At first I thought she was buggin’ because she’d failed a math test or maybe gym class. But NO!! She said she took three E.P.T. tests. Henry got a baby on Tracy Lynn Fortner! Then she wrote that she didn’t want to see Henry anymore when he was home. She said it was too painful, and she told him not to call or write or talk about it to anyone. Did Henry have a baby? Where is it? I can’t ask about it or tell anyone because I’ll get in trouble for snooping in Henry’s stuff. It’s a pickle, but when I really think about it, I wouldn’t tell anyway. Some stuff hurts people and shouldn’t be talked about. Like Momma’s sadness. I don’t like it when kids at school talk about Momma’s sadness.
Just Kiss Me Page 7