He leans down and presses his lips to mine. “Compatible is not the word I’d use.”
I blush. He’s right again.
“First, let’s get you into bed.”
Offering me his hand, he helps me shift from my chair into his bed. Once I’m settled, he slides in next to me.
“Likes and dislikes? Anything in particular?” he asks, once he’s tugged me into his arms.
“Anything and everything,” I reply.
He grins down at me, his hand coming up to push my hair back from my face. “I don’t know what I like more, your hair blonde or black. It made me wonder how one woman can look so different but beautiful both ways.”
I shake my head. “No, don’t talk about me. I want to know stuff that has nothing to do with me.”
He smirks, then mutters to himself, “You compliment your woman and she gives you shit.”
His woman. My body tingled from head to toe at those words.
“Please,” I plead, attempting to bat my eyelashes.
He looks away and then nods. “I hate traveling.”
I blink. Who hates traveling?
“What about it do you hate?” I ask.
Looking back at me, he pulls in a long breath, his chest rising with it. “Whenever things looked bad for my mom health wise, my parents would hurry up to take me somewhere. Like if she died, I wouldn’t mind because we knocked out Paris first. We never went anywhere when she was doing well. I hated those trips and still don’t like traveling.”
That blows because I love to travel, but I never went on a trip thinking my mom might die at the end of it.
“I’m sorry traveling reminds you of that,” I whisper.
He leans down to press a kiss to my forehead. “I’ve never been on a trip with a girlfriend.”
My mood instantly lifts at his not-so-subtle hint. “If you could go anywhere with a girlfriend, where would you go?”
He gives me a lazy grin. “Anywhere you could wear a bikini the whole time.”
Warmth blossoms in my belly. “Sign me up.”
“Have you ever surfed?”
I shake my head, my eyes widening. “No way. There are sharks out there.”
He shrugs. Shrugs!
“I could teach you.” He laughs at my expression. “Okay, maybe not.”
“Not,” I firmly reply.
“Do you like any sports?” he asks.
“I’m not good at playing it but I like to watch college basketball, especially March Madness.”
He grins. “Do you get riled up and shout when you watch?”
I purse my lips and his grin turns into a laugh.
“We’ll watch them together,” he murmurs.
Thud.
That was the sound of my heart stopping. It’s crazy how casually making a future plan can do that to me.
Before I do something completely insane like tell him I’m falling in love with him too, I change the subject. “I know you work in the town government building but I don’t exactly know what you do. . . .” I draw my last word out in an invitation.
“It’s not that exciting,” he replies.
“Humor me,” I counter.
“You asked for it.” He runs his hand over the cast on my arm, his eyes following it. “I work in planning out new roads for commercial and residential development. Whatever is being built will need a road leading to it. Those roads need to fit in to existing traffic patterns.”
“Where do you stand on roundabouts?” I ask.
His brows pull together before he asks, “What?”
“Roundabouts, you know, those traffic circle things. Are you for or against them?”
His forehead smooths and he smiles, “Let me guess. You hate them.”
I nod. “They are the devil.”
He laughs. “Come on, they aren’t that bad.”
“Does that mean you’re for them?” I press.
He lifts his hand in surrender. “They can be a pain in the ass.”
I nod because it’s the truth. Then I ask, “How did you get into planning?”
He presses his lips together, before rubbing them against each other like he is working lip balm into them. “I went to school for engineering.”
Wow, that’s impressive.
He keeps going. “Building, assembling, designing, and planning have always appealed to me. I was the kid obsessed with Legos and I guess I never outgrew that.”
I melt, picturing him with his Legos and love that he’s carried that love into his work.
“Want to see something?”
Before I can reply, he’s already gently shifting away from me and off the bed. Pressing my good arm into the mattress, I push myself up and watch as he walks out of his room. The sound of rustling paper comes from his spare bedroom and then he’s back again, a bundle of pages in his hands.
He stands at the end of his bed and spreads them out in front of me. They’re hand drawn blueprints of a house.
My eyes flick from the pages up to him. He pushes his hand into his hair before resting both of his hands on his hips. Everything from his jaw to the way he stands is tense.
My eyes move back down to the house blueprints. “Did you design this?”
He nods, and then gulps before saying, “I’ve never shown those to anyone.”
Gingerly, I lift one page to examine it more closely. It’s the first floor. A double door entry opens to a great room. There is one room to the left of the entry, labeled office. Other than a bathroom off the back of the first floor, the rest of the space is open.
“This looks amazing.” I stare wide-eyed before reaching for the next blueprint, this one of the second floor. There are four bedrooms and three bathrooms. One of the bathrooms is a Jack-and-Jill-style, shared by two of the bedrooms.
As I stare at the blueprint in my hand, he breaks the silence. “Someday, I want to build this house and live there.”
I look up at him. Somehow, I can picture him there, in this house that doesn’t even exist yet. It’s a feeling, deep in my bones. What I don’t know or can’t feel is if it will be me there with him.
What I do know, as I sit, holding the plans for his future in my hand, is I hope I will be.
“These are incredible, Heath.”
He smiles. His lips are pressed together, only the corners of his mouth tipping up. He’s relieved. It shocks me that he was nervous to show me his work. It flatters me even more that I’m the only person he’s shown.
“Thank you for sharing these with me,” I murmur, my voice thick.
“Thanks for looking at them.”
He reaches for the blueprint in my hand and then retrieves the one still laying on his bed. His eyes scan them before he turns to go put them back from whenever he stored them.
When he comes back into his room, he wastes no time in rejoining me in bed.
As I settle back against him, I ask, “Will you build it in Ferncliff?”
He pushes his nose into my hair and inhales. “There’s no other place I’ve ever thought about living.”
When Gigi first approached me about taking over the diner, I panicked. There was something about being tied down to here, or anywhere that made my skin itch. It took time before I finally came to grips with the thought of living here permanently.
Why I fought the pull of this town is beyond me. Maybe I didn’t appreciate how inevitable it all felt. I’ve always hated foregone conclusions and didn’t want to be one myself.
It’s not like I was suddenly going to come into a pile of money that made working an option. Deep down I knew I was never going to let Gigi sell Lola’s.
That’d be like voluntarily cutting off a limb. That restaurant is part of me. It may be a building but it represents family. Now that I’m done pretending Ferncliff isn’t my destiny, I like that there’s no other place Heath sees himself either.
That’s one less thing to worry about. I’m already nervous enough over being his girlfriend.
“What about
you? Have you always wanted to run Lola’s someday?”
His question brings up an unexpected wave of pride. It may have been in his tone. There was a complete and total level of respect in the way he said my family’s diner’s name.
In this town, Lola’s isn’t just any old diner; it’s an institution.
“I’m getting used to the idea,” I reply.
He tilts his head to the side in a silent question.
“When I was younger it seemed so glamorous.” I shake my head. “I get how silly that sounds now but that’s what it seemed like then, like a never ending get together with the whole town. Sure, I bused tables and served the odd plate. It wasn’t until I was old enough to work a full shift that the reality of how much work it was hit me.”
He nods and I keep going, “It’s not just physical but there’s payroll, scheduling, ordering everything in bulk, health inspections, taxes, and this fear that once Gigi retires, no one will come to Lola’s anymore and it will all be my fault.”
His hand cups my cheek, his thumb making a silken slide across the apple of it. “That’s a lot to take on all by yourself.”
I stare at him, stare into his soulful blue eyes as his words unlocked something inside me that I hadn’t considered before. When Lola’s first opened, my great grandmother was the cook but my great grandfather was there as well, working beside her.
When Gigi took over for her, she was already married to Pops. He had his own career but that didn’t stop him from covering shifts every now and then. Or, keeping Gigi company while she worked.
Both my great grandmother and Gigi had that built-in support system. Is that what’s been scaring me about trying to fill her shoes? Am I afraid that without someone to lean on, I’ll crumble under the weight of the responsibilities I’m taking on?
Physically, once I’m up and moving around again, the job doesn’t intimidate me. It’s the empty apartment that will greet me after every shift that does.
Once I take over, I’ll be the owner. Before, I was part of the crew who happened to be related to the owner. I’ll need someone new to vent to on the rough days and celebrate with on the good ones.
“What’s going on in there?” he asks, tipping his face toward me until his forehead rests on mine.
“I think I’ve been so scared to take over Lola’s because I’ll be doing it all by myself,” I admit.
He presses his lips to mine. “I’ll help.”
There. Right there.
Heath uncovers something that I didn’t even know weighed me down and helped lift that weight from me as if it were nothing.
“Will you promise me something?” I whisper.
His face is still so close to mine that I feel his breath on my lips as he replies, “Anything.”
“Don’t change again,” I murmur, my voice wavering.
His eyes pinch shut, little crease lines fanning out around the outer edges, and he sucks in a breath.
My heart thumps five times before he slowly opens his eyes. The intensity in them is so raw I regret saying anything, fearing I’ve ruined what had been a sweet moment.
He does not look away when he replies, “I promise, I won’t.”
It would be a lie to say I did not know where Heath’s parents lived. Ferncliff was a small town and it wasn’t like it was a secret. In fact, all those months ago when Heath and I were . . . well doing whatever we were doing, I may have asked Gigi.
I did it discreetly. Since his mom had been so sick, one of their neighbors had ordered some food be delivered. Neighbors may gossip like crazy here but when times are bad, they’ll also be the first to whip up a casserole, or, in Mrs. Peabody’s case, order some food.
The woman was a notoriously bad chef so it was in everyone’s best interest that she paid for food rather than prepare it herself. What she lacked in the cooking department, she made up for by not being the gossipy sort of neighbor.
Mrs. Wise, who did not live up to her name, lived on the other side of the Mackey’s and was a giant gossip. She’s the reason the whole town knows Mrs. Peabody can’t even boil water without screwing it up.
Bad cook or not, her order with delivery instructions, gave me the street and number of their house. Out of morbid curiosity, I may have memorized that address and took out of the way routes from time to time to drive past it.
I never slowed to a crawl or anything crazy like that, I mean, apart from what the posted speed limit was. There was some part of me, in the days where I was the most vulnerable, that wanted to see the house he grew up in.
It was silly and immature but it’s not like I egged the place or anything. At worst I teared up and drove home, wondering why I wasn’t good enough.
In my head I came up with this theory that it was Heath’s desire to please his parents that made him ditch me. I’ve clung to that assumption for so long it’s strange learning how off base I was.
Heath parks and looks over at me. Or, I think he does. I can feel his eyes on me but mine are glued to the house he grew up in. It’s a pretty house. You’d think that in caring for a person with a long-term illness, other things like landscaping and exterior maintenance could fall to the wayside.
“Ready?” he asks, the click signaling the removal of his seatbelt.
“Are you sure they’ll like me?” I reply.
When he doesn’t answer me, I turn my head to look at him. His expression is soft. He leans toward me and kisses my cheek. “Yes.”
I force a smile and nod. He gets out first and goes to grab my chair from his trunk. While I have the car to myself, I make myself take some calming breaths.
Then, Heath is at my door and I’m in my chair. There are steps from the front walkway up to the front door. When he reaches them, he pushes down the wheel break and then carries me up the stairs.
I stand, all my weight on my good leg as he hurries back down the stairs to grab my chair. The front door opens as I’m sitting back down.
“Need a hand?” Mr. Mackey asks.
“Could you hold the door?” Heath replies.
Once we’re inside, he thanks his dad with a hug before they both turn to look at me.
I’ve seen Mr. Mackey more than once and have even served him a time or two at Lola’s. Still, the resemblance between the two of them, now that I see them side by side, is uncanny, except for the coloring.
The build, the jawline, the nose, all the same.
“Dad, I’d like you to meet Sydney Fairlane.”
I’m not sure why but I blush. Heath went to work like usual this morning and while he was gone, Gigi came over to help me get showered and spruced up. Instead of wearing ugly track pants, I’m wearing a loose maxi-style skirt that is not only pretty but helps disguise the casts on my leg.
On top, I’m wearing a dressier top to go with the skirt. It has flow-y three-quarter sleeves that I was able to fit my arm cast through.
This is not my usual style but considering the circumstances, it’s the best I could do. Then she curled my hair and kept me company while I put on makeup for the first time in weeks.
Judging by Heath’s reaction when he saw me, I cleaned up all right. I needed to fix my lipstick twice after he was done kissing me but I was okay with that.
Mr. Mackey surprises me by ignoring my offered hand and bending down to kiss my cheek. Now I know where Heath got that from, remembering his sweet kiss from the car.
“It is so nice to officially meet you, Sydney. Please call me Tom.”
I blush. “It’s nice to meet you as well. Thanks for having me.”
He smiles warmly and claps his hands. “Mrs. Mackey will have my head if I keep you from her any longer.”
He gestures toward a set of double doors further down the hall. I start to push myself but Heath stops me, doing it for me. The room that he pushes me into must have been a family room or a den before they put his mother in it. It’s big and with the shades up and windows cracked, bright and airy. My eyes stay focused on the bed in the center of th
e room though, and the woman in it.
She is so thin and pale. My breath catches just looking at her. I’m not sure what I expected. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that she looks sick but it is. Her sickness, while startling, could not hide that she once was a beautiful woman.
The closer Heath wheels me to her bed, the wider her smile grows. Once I am right next to her bed, she reaches her arm out toward me and I reach mine out to meet hers.
Once her hand clasps my forearm, she looks up at Heath, her blue eyes, the same shade as his, bright with excitement and says, “Thank you for bringing your lovely Sydney to meet me.”
My Sydney, damn right she is.
I smile down at my mom. “Did you want to sit . . .” My words trail off when I see my father quickly shake his head and cover it by turning to Sydney as though my question were for her. “ . . . down?” I lamely gesture to a chair behind us.
Her forehead wrinkles in confusion. “I thought I’d just stay in my chair.”
I nod. “Of course, you’re right. That makes more sense. I only asked because I thought that chair might be more comfortable.”
The creases of confusion that lined her skin fade away as she smiles up at me. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“Son, give me a hand in the kitchen. That way the ladies can get better acquainted.”
I bend somewhat over Sydney to kiss my mom on the cheek, pausing to kiss the top of Sydney’s head before I straighten and follow Dad out of the den. He surprises me by closing the doors behind us.
“Everything okay?” I ask, my gaze moving from his hand on the doorknob to his eyes.
He tilts his head toward the kitchen and I follow him there. He doesn’t make me wait. “Your mom had a rough morning. She spent most of it on oxygen.”
My head turns toward the den. “She looked good.”
“We upped her pain meds.”
I close my eyes. For my mom, that’s a big deal.
“Do you think it was too much for her to bring Sydney?” I ask, fearing a crash.
“There’s no way you would have been able to talk her out of it,” he replies.
He has a point. Pure stubbornness has had my mom defying every prognosis she’s ever been given. If she had believed the first doctor who diagnosed her, she would have died years ago. That doesn’t mean she’s invincible.
Why Lie? (Love Riddles #2) Page 14