Sweet Talking Man

by Liz Talley

  “Leif Lively,” Leif said, shaking the man’s hand. His grip was firm, not crushing. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” he said, before returning his gaze to Hilda. “So what would an accomplished lady such as yourself want with an old tramp like me?”

  Hilda batted her eyelashes. “Well, actually I wanted to introduce you to my friend Leif. He’s an artist.”

  Everett’s eyes widened. “Oh, he’s the one who did the boudoir portrait of the preacher’s daughter? Now that was quite a bold one, son.”

  The way he said son made Leif’s heart ache. Could this man be his father? He searched for similarities but could find none. “I’m not sure I should say thanks. Seems to have caused a scandal.”

  “It’s art, for pity’s sake.” Everett waved a hand. “So why was Hilda so intent on our meeting? I’m assuming it has to do with a bill on the arts? Something I need to bring to committee? I’m always ready to listen.”

  “Not really,” Leif said, catching the encouraging gleam in Hilda’s eye. “I actually had some questions for you about my mother.”

  “Oh?” Everett said, his eyes narrowing a bit.

  “My mother was Calliope. She was—”

  Everett did a double take. “Wait… Calli was your mother?”

  Leif nodded.

  “My God,” Everett said, shaking his head, a warm expression on his face. “I can’t believe it. I knew your mother well.”

  Leif’s pulse kicked up. “Did you?”

  “We dated the entire summer she was here. Guess you could say she was my first love. Then one night she just disappeared. Not even a letter left for me. Damn near broke my heart.” A small dimple appeared in his cheek as his smile widened.

  And that’s when Leif saw it.

  Everett was the man he’d been looking for.

  “Well, I’m happy to meet you,” Leif said, glancing at Hilda, who nodded, a knowing look gracing her features. She held up her hand indicating she had to go say hello to someone else and left them.

  “And I’m happy to meet you. So tell me, how is your mother? Where is she?”

  “I’m afraid she passed away last summer,” Leif said.

  Everett literally paled, his eyes filling with deep sadness. “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. I would have loved to talk to her. So much was left unsaid between us.” He paused then ran a hand across his brow. “Wow. I’m sorry to seem so shaken. I looked for your mother for a long time. Telling you we were close is a bit of an understatement. We had actually planned to marry. It was a secret, of course. I had a girlfriend in college and I wanted to break it off with her face-to-face, but, Jesus, this is…”

  “Would you like to sit down?” Leif slid a stool over to the man, who was becoming less polished by the minute. “A drink, perhaps?”

  “Scotch will work,” Everett told the bartender.

  After sipping a good single malt, Everett lifted a sheepish gaze to Leif. “Sorry about that. Just hit me out of the blue. Calli meant a lot to me, and this felt so…I don’t know. I’m glad you told me, though. There’s been this hole in my life all this time, you know?”

  The butterflies in Leif’s stomach had turned into fighting cats, scratching and twisting with a mixture of dread and hope. It wasn’t the best time. Things were so…effed up, but Leif was tired of not knowing. “Thing is, when my mother left Magnolia Bend, she was pregnant.”

  Everett set his near empty glass on the bar with a thump, which sounded like a gavel. “Pregnant?”

  Leif nodded. “With me.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Everett looked at the people around him, talking about things like the weather and the food they’d be selling at the festival. So mundane in the midst of the biggest revelation Leif had ever laid on anyone.

  “I don’t understand,” Everett said, shaking his head, looking ashen and sick. “She never told me. Why would she do that? Was it because of Simeon? I’m having a hard time understanding what’s going on. Why you’re here.”

  Something shriveled inside Leif. Suddenly he understood his mother’s propensity to run. He felt the urge to get out of Louisiana. Leave the hard stuff behind.

  “My mother never told me who my father was. On her deathbed she pleaded with me to correct that wrong, so I’ve spent the past few months researching her time here in Magnolia Bend, trying to set things right. You were the last person on my list.”

  Everett looked at him. “You look like her.”

  “Almost exactly like her.”

  Everett turned away, blinking tears, looking scared. “Are you telling me I might be your father?”

  Leif didn’t say anything. The night had literally shredded apart right in front of him, littering the ground with regret, uncertainty and shame. He wasn’t about to compound it.

  “Like right here at this shindig…you’re telling me Calli was pregnant with my son. And I never knew?” Everett said.

  His voice had risen so Leif pressed a hand in his direction. “I’m not sure of anything. I didn’t know she’d been in Louisiana until she told me on her deathbed. I’m just…” He picked up the glass the bartender had filled when he poured Everett his shot.

  “I’m sorry. I need some air,” Everett said, rising suddenly, sending the stool skidding backward. Charging toward the huge bank of French doors off to the left, Everett ran, leaving Leif feeling empty, that age-old fear of rejection rearing its ugly head.

  No hugs. No smiles. No pride.

  Just emptiness.

  But what had he expected?

  Finishing the drink, Leif stood, avoiding those around him who seemed to want to talk about, no doubt, the Abigail nudie sketch, and got the hell out of the gala.

  No one stood in his way.

  Not even Cal, who seemed as if he were about to say something, but turned in the other direction instead.

  Leif strode into the night, heading toward his car, not even caring at this point that he’d downed three shots of whiskey and shouldn’t drive.

  Hell, he’d add that to the colossal speeding ticket in his pocket.

  What did anything matter at this point?

  Everything was shit.

  He’d crossed the tennis net, bumping his hips against the crank, when Abigail appeared beside him, jogging in her high heels.

  He skidded to a stop.

  “Jesus, I thought you’d never slow down,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ABIGAIL STRUGGLED TO catch her breath because, for a laid-back, easy-living guy, Leif moved awfully fast when upset.

  “What?” he said, his voice laced with pain.

  “I want to talk to you,” she said, hobbling beside him because the new shoes, while totally sexy, pinched the hell out of her toes.

  “I thought you didn’t want to talk,” he said, stopping again, glaring at her.

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Well, too late.”

  “Is it?” she asked, an extra layer of meaning coating her words. “Listen, I know you didn’t put the artwork of me naked in the auction.”

  “No shit. That was for me alone,” he said, his jaw still set, his eyes flashing anger and pain intermittently.

  “Birdie told my mother what she did, but it was too late to pull the piece. They’d already opened the room and people had seen it.”

  Leif shrugged one shoulder but said nothing.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, pressing her lips together so she wouldn’t cry or have her voice break with emotion. “It really is. I could feel…well, it just took my breath away.”

  “I’ll bet,” he said, pulling his gaze from her, looking as if he might cry. And that killed her. She wanted to fix things, she wanted to make everything right again.

  She’d spent the past fifteen minutes on the phone with her daughter, who’d cried, begged and pleaded with her for forgiveness. Abigail couldn’t believe the child she’d cherished her entire life had done something so cruel.

  “Why?” she’d asked Birdie.<
br />
  “Because you lied. You said you were just friends. Just hanging out. But you were having sex with him. You let him draw you, like pornography. Like the stuff you told me was dirty.”

  “That was not pornography. That was something he made for me, and you showed it to the world. I don’t understand why you’d do that. Do you hate me so much?”

  Birdie stayed silent for a few seconds before saying, “You know I don’t hate you.”

  “So this was to punish me? Embarrass me?”

  “I don’t know,” Birdie cried, sniffling into the phone. “I guess I wanted you to hurt the way I did.”

  “The way you do?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. I’m so mad all the time and I don’t know why. I wanted everything to go back like it was…when Dad was here. But you didn’t even give him a chance. You were too busy screwing around with my teacher. Do you know how messed up that is?”

  “No. Tell me.”

  “It just is. I tried to tell you. You’re a mom. And you’re not acting like my mom. You’re acting like you’re…I don’t know. You said all that stuff about love and sex. You said you have sex with someone you love, someone you’re committed to. But when I saw that picture of you, I knew you were a liar. It made me so pissed. I wanted to hurt you.”

  “It’s fine to be angry. It’s not fine to do what you did. You embarrassed our entire family, including your father, with this antic. Your grandfather had to pay the full amount for the painting just to keep some wacko in town from buying it. And, thanks to you, everyone now thinks—” Abigail took a deep breath. “You know what? I don’t care what they think. What I had with Leif wasn’t like that. Not that you would understand. Truly, baby, you’re still a little girl and you don’t know what love is. But one day you will, and you’ll feel ten times worse than you do right now when you recall what you’ve done.”

  Birdie didn’t speak.

  For a moment, sitting in the club manager’s office, Abigail felt such an absolute failure as a mother, as a daughter…as a person.

  All she had planned for the night—talking to Leif, being more open and honest—had been swept away. She’d left Leif in that auction room, feeling hopeless.

  But five seconds after walking out, she’d wanted to kick herself. Leif hadn’t put that picture in the auction. Why had she doubted him for even a second? Why had she let the old ghost of herself come out again?

  “Mom, I’m sorry. I really am. Please don’t be mad at me.”

  “Doesn’t work that way, Birdie. We have some things between us we have to fix, honey, and that might take some help from a therapist who can help me, you and Daddy understand each other better. I’ll talk to you later. Go to bed.”

  “Mom, I love you.”

  “And I love you. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have repercussions. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  She’d hung up, briefly told Cal what their daughter had done and then apologized to her father, who gave her a kiss on the cheek and told her she’d never embarrassed him.

  Abigail had never loved her father more than at that moment,

  Then she’d gone to find Leif…only to catch Everett Orgeron leaving him, looking stricken. Leif had risen and hurried away as if a demon nipped at the rather quirky Converse high-tops he’d worn with the dinner jacket. Something told her Leif had found his father…and it hadn’t gone as well as hoped.

  Now Leif stared at her as though she was too late to apologize…too late to declare her love. “I’m sorry the whole town saw the painting.”

  “I’m not.”

  Leif crooked an eyebrow. “So where did you put the Abigail I know? ’Cause she’d have a shit fit at the thought of anyone seeing her completely vulnerable…almost naked.”

  “Maybe I’ve changed.”

  “Do you still have a label maker, a triple-pocketed agenda and sticky notes in every color? Do you still fear everyone knowing you’re human? Are you still scared to love?”

  “Well, yes. I mean no. What I meant is that I don’t mind being naked. I don’t mind everyone knowing that you are my, uh, whatever you were.”

  “Well, ain’t I special?” he drawled, heavy with sarcasm and hurt before turning toward the parking lot beyond the chain-link fence. “I’ve got to go.”

  “No.”

  He ignored her, kept walking.

  Abigail clacked behind him and grabbed his arm, spinning him toward her. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said yes to a break. I didn’t want freaking breathing room.”

  “It wasn’t entirely up to you,” he said, shrugging off her grasp.

  Abigail reached for the side zipper and unzipped her dress, shimmying her shoulders so the dress fell forward.

  “What are you doing, Abi?”

  “I’m taking off my dress.”

  His mouth fell open a little. “Why?”

  “Because I have no shame. I want you to understand that I no longer care what anyone thinks.” She kicked the dress off, and stood on the tennis court of the Magnolia Bend Country Club wearing only her strapless bra and a pair of nude Spanx.

  “You’re crazy,” he said, moving toward her, casting a glance around to see if anyone might be watching. A beam of headlights swung past them, reminding her of the night when Leif first kissed her. She’d been so paranoid. And now she wasn’t…because she’d toss her dignity under the bus if it meant proving to Leif she needed him in her life.

  Abigail reached around and unhooked her bra. “Yeah, crazy for you.”

  “Stop,” he said, catching her hands as she released the krakens. Wrapping his arms around her, he dragged her into the shadows. “Your father’s a preacher. And you have a daughter.”

  “But what does that mean if I can’t have you? Let everyone know I have lost my mind. That’s what this feels like. I’ve been miserable since that night we broke up and I don’t want to live that way.”

  Leif pressed her bra cups against her chest, placing her hands over them, while he went to fetch her dress. “You said we weren’t about a future. I thought that’s what you wanted. Friends with benefits.”

  “Well, I say a lot of things. I’m good at saying things, drawing lines, but problem is, I fell in love with you. So I’m—” She dropped to her knees, still holding the bra close to her not so much out of modesty, but because it was pretty damned cold.

  “Abi, get up,” Leif said, looking exasperated. When she didn’t, he dropped to his knees. “You’re freezing and talking out of your head. It’s probably the shock.”

  “Nope. I love you. I fell in love and violated the whole unwritten contract we had. I couldn’t help it, and so now I’m here to beg you to spend whatever time you have left in Magnolia Bend with me. I’ll take what you can give me.”

  Leif pulled back, looking deep into her eyes. “You’re serious.”

  “As a heart attack…and those can kill a person. I’d never joke about a life-or-death situation.”

  Leif kissed her. He tasted of whiskey and his lips were cold, but his arms were warm as he wrapped her in them. For a good minute, they reveled in the taste and feel of being in each other’s arms. Finally Leif eased away. “Tonight has been about as shitty as they come, but you’ve just handed me the golden goose. You’ve changed everything.”

  Abigail felt her heart squeeze when she looked at him. “Are you calling me a goose?”

  “Yes. But a golden one. The one I want to keep forever. But when did you change the way you feel? You’ve been so cold. Not cold like you are tonight but—”

  “It was the only way I could be around you and not cry. I left your house that night knowing I’d been an absolute fool for agreeing with you. I didn’t want a break. I was just too afraid to take what I wanted. It was my fault. Not yours.”

  “But I share in the blame. I got insecure—something I never am—and I pushed outside the lines. Things just spiraled out of control and I opened the door to go after you, but you’d already gone.”

  “I hate to quote
a movie line but we’ve been so stupid.”

  Leif kissed her again, sliding his warm hands over her chilly back. “But not so stupid that we didn’t find a way. Thank you for taking that leap of faith. I love you, Abigail.”

  Abigail sank into him, laying her head on his shoulder. “I love you, too, Leif. You make me so much better than I ever thought I could be. You helped me let go.”

  “And you helped me hold on,” he said, dropping a kiss on her head. “As much as I want to stay here and enjoy this moment, I’m really afraid of you getting hypothermia. Let’s go home and warm up.”

  “Okay, but I’m going to need help getting in that dress. And we need to ask someone to grab my wrap from the coat room. And maybe—”

  “Hush,” Leif whispered, dropping another kiss on her mouth. “Everyone will survive without you…except me.”

  They rose together, still intertwined beneath the moonlight. Abigail concentrated on the breaths Leif took, reveling in the security she felt in his arms. She took her final leap and whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

  Leif squeezed her tighter. “No chance. I’ve finally found where I belong.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  And she meant it.

  If anyone had told her months ago that she’d be half-naked on the country-club tennis courts with a man who burned incense, never ate meat and played the ukulele, she would have locked that person in an asylum.

  But at that moment, she knew she’d finally found the man who fit her better than anything she’d ever worn.

  Maybe this being-naked thing wasn’t so bad.

  In warmer weather, of course.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  Four months later

  THE GOOD-SIZE crowd gathered around the gazebo in downtown Magnolia Bend held familiar faces, which made Leif relax slightly in the chair perched next to the fancy podium. Several news cameras from around the state clustered at the back of the crowd, preparing for an announcement.

  The microphone squealed slightly as Everett Orgeron bent it to the correct height.

  Abigail squeezed Leif’s hand as his father cleared his throat.

  “Good morning, friends,” Everett said, smiling gently at those gathered. Abigail’s family sat in the middle section, and even Cal had shown up, bringing Birdie to the press conference because she’d promised her mother she’d be more supportive of Abigail’s relationship with Leif. The kid was trying.