She turned her head and eyed the mailbox. Hale had hinted about another letter. She stretched her arms over her head, grinning into the sun and basking in anticipation. She pictured the growing stack of ecru-colored Crane notecards, each neatly tucked back into its envelope. After he’d sent the fifth one, she’d spent her lunch break picking out the perfect satin ribbon with which to tie them together. She hid them in her lingerie drawer. The man was such a romantic his letters deserved to be treated likewise. But in truth, these brief notes––that always told her more than Hale himself could voice––were her most precious treasures. And that thought had her chest tightening and expanding all at the same time.
The first one had arrived a few days after they met. A business lunch was already on the calendar but this note––written in beautiful penmanship and undoubtedly with his ever-present Monte Blanc pen––made her pulse leap.
I’d like to take you to dinner.
Somewhere out of town.
Nothing business. Just personal.
-Hale Evans
The next one had arrived the day after dinner.
You looked so beautiful, I was tongue-tied.
Allow me the opportunity to show off
my conversational skills.
7:00 Friday night.
-Hale
And then the note that arrived tucked into two dozen yellow roses.
These remind me of the way you make me feel.
Thank you.
H-
And then they kept coming. Some were just a sentence. Others were funny or poignant. All caused her heart to soar and her hormones to tingle. And oh, God, did that feel good. So. Very. Good. And yet, they’d taken things slow. So. Very. Slow.
After a dozen dates, countless notes, numerous business meetings, and working together side by side as Hale invested money, time, and energy into her tiny accounting firm, her hormones were raging far more than they were tingling. And now she seemed to be in a constant state of tingling anticipation for when. When was Hale Evans finally going to make his move?
She shook off the surge of sexual tension and got out of the car with her sights set on the mailbox. Please let there be another note. Something more to feed her starving libido. She pulled down the flap and glanced inside, finding catalogs and flyers and a few bills. But, gratefully amongst all of it, she spied the treasured stationery on which Hale wrote his personal notes.
As she headed up her porch steps, she pulled the envelope from the rest and held it to her nose, hoping to get a whiff of his cologne. Opening the screen door, she stepped inside and heard the whirl of a sewing machine. Guiltily she gave in to the desire to read Hale’s note alone and quietly moved up the stairs, hoping Lolly wouldn’t realize she was home. She was acting like an adolescent, but she didn’t care because her whole body felt adolescent. Young. Healthy. Vibrant. Alive! Sensations she’d given up on long, long ago for Lolly. Because of Lolly. And even though she wouldn’t want it any other way, she was so grateful and relieved to be getting another go at it all now.
Hale had changed her life for the better the day he walked into it. And if he chose to walk out tomorrow, she would always think of him kindly.
Think of him kindly, she thought––dumping the rest of the mail on her desk and throwing herself on the bed with his note clasped to her heart––but do her best to drag him kicking and screaming back into it. She laughed at the thought and then carefully opened the envelope, slowing down and savoring the moment.
I think it’s time you met my mother.
She’s invited you to dinner at your convenience.
-Hale
P.S. Rest assured, I am not gay.
What! She sat up and read the line over and over. Gay? Gay! Why would I think he’s gay? She most definitely did not think he was gay. There was no way in hell Hale Evans was gay. She rolled off the bed and grabbed her cell from her purse, planning to text him. Then stopped and smiled. Oh, why not have a little fun with this?
She moved across the room to sit at her desk, pulling the box of elegant stationery to her. She lifted the lid and folded back the stiff tissue that covered the pale yellow notes. Pink was too obvious, and this color reminded her of his roses. She’d never responded in writing before but bought these when she’d searched out the ribbon to wrap his letters in, just in case.
Now seemed like as good a time as any to break in her correspondence skills. She searched the drawer for her favorite pen.
I look forward to meeting your mother
and will gladly arrange my schedule around her pleasure.
Thank you, Gen
P.S. Prove it!
She smiled as she read the note back, wondering how the business tycoon in her life was going to react to the blatant challenge. She was just tingling to find out.
Chapter Eleven
On Tuesday morning, Brooks received a text from Lolly telling him that Vance tried to hold her hand while they rested on the ground after a hard sprint. When Vance arrived at work, he headed straight toward Brooks and said, “I tried to hold the Lollypop’s hand. She blew me off.” Then he walked away.
Brooks smirked.
On Wednesday, Brooks’ cell beeped indicating a new text from Lolly. This one made his eyebrows raise. ‘Kissed me. TRIED to kiss me. I took care of it.’ Vance must have jogged over to the station before going home because he arrived in his running clothes covered in sweat. “I tried to kiss her,” he said without preamble. “She kneed me in the balls.” Brooks broke out in boisterous laughter and didn’t have time to find out more details before Vance took off.
On Thursday, Brooks started looking forward to the text message updates on Lolly handling Vance. ‘Pulled my hair then ran away. What? Are we in fourth grade? ’
It seemed Lolly was going to be able to handle herself around Vance, so Brooks stopped looking for reasons to be jealous.
When the text came in on Friday, his eyebrows rose halfway to his hairline. ‘Smacked me on the butt. I deserved it.’ When Vance arrived at his desk late that morning he held up his palms and said, “She deserved it.” The look on Vance’s face told him that he was none too happy about whatever had transpired, so Brooks let it drop.
***
It was almost the end of the day on Friday, and Vance knew if he put the call off any longer he wouldn’t be able to sleep over the weekend. So he stood outside the precinct, leaning against his beat-up old pickup truck and dialed Duncan’s work number. Thankfully, the receptionist said he was there.
“Duncan,” Vance started, “I need a favor if you can do it.”
“You got it.”
That made Vance smile. “Thanks, Dunc,” he said a bit shyly. After the way he’d given his buddy such a hard time over his girl, this was akin to crawling on his knees begging forgiveness. He should have figured Duncan wouldn’t be an ass about it.
“Are you familiar with the law firm Collins & Reese?”
“I am. They are litigators. Completely different from what we do here.”
“There’s a girl who works for Collins & Reese. I’m not sure what she does, but she’s a lawyer and her name is Piper Beaumont. She and I were in fourth grade together and…well, here’s the thing, Dunc. It’s going to sound crazy, but she pretty much saved my life back then. Her father moved her out of town after school let out, and I never heard from her again. So lately, I’ve been thinking. Just wondering where she ended up, you know. And it appears she is right there in Raleigh. Working for this Collins & Reese. I was wondering if you might happen to know someone there and if you could do a little research for me.”
“What do you want to know?”
What did he want to know? Hell, he wanted to know if she remembered him. He wanted to know if she was still as sweet as she was back then. If life had been kind to her. There wasn’t anything he didn’t want to know.
“Ah. I’m not exactly sure.”
“Why don’t you just friend her on Facebook?”
“Well, for one,
I’m not thirteen. And two, clearly you’ve forgotten the nightmare I had on my hands during the two weeks I did have a Facebook page. I literally considered changing my name.”
“Oh, yeah. All those girls, finding out about all those other girls. Yeah. Facebook is not for you. Okay. Well, let me do a little checking around. Off the top of my head, I don’t know anyone there personally. But maybe someone else here does. I’m sure there’s a small degree of separation somewhere.”
“Thanks, Duncan. I appreciate this, man.”
“No problem.”
“Listen. You and Annabelle play tennis right? How ’bout coming up and giving Lolly and me a game? We need practice. She’s got me roped into this doubles tennis tournament at the Club and I don’t want to let her down. How’s this weekend? We could have lunch or dinner?”
There was a bit of hesitation before Duncan responded. “Sure. We’d love to. Let me talk to Annabelle and I’ll call you back.”
“Great. Thanks. And, ah…thanks,” Vance said before hanging up. He looked at his phone and shook his head. “I am such an ass.”
***
Whenever Brooks Bennett’s cell phone rang while he was driving, he did the same thing he cautioned all the kids to do. He pulled off the road, put the truck in park, and then answered his phone. And wasn’t that just the biggest pain in the ass. But he did it because the one time he didn’t do it, he was sure someone would be snapping his photo and selling it to the Henderson Daily Newspaper. As a cop, he had to practice what he preached. As the Golden Prince of Henderson, or whatever Vance was calling him these days, he had to be seen doing it. And, as the hopeful future mayor, he wanted to do it. Wanted everyone to do it.
So when his cell started ringing on his way to Lolly’s Friday evening, he turned into the corner gas station and pulled up by the air pumps to answer it.
“Hey, Duncan! How’s it going?” The phone calls from Duncan were rare these days, and he didn’t even mind being a little late for Lolly now that he knew who was calling.
“Brooks! Everything’s good on this end. How ’bout you?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Brooks responded in his typical fashion.
“Okay…so why the hell is Vance playing tennis with Lolly?”
“Oh. That.” Brooks chuckled. “Well, that’s a little experiment we are running here in Henderson. The ‘Vance Can Be Friends With a Girl’ hypothesis.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to hold up. Why are you allowing Lolly to be the guinea pig?”
Brooks’ enthusiasm for the conversation dwindled. He sucked in a breath and tore a hand through his hair. “Listen, Dunc. As a result of that conversation we had back in March, Vance has decided to make a change. Lolly has gone into this with her eyes wide open and I’ve got her back.”
“All well and good, buddy, but who’s got yours?”
Brooks’ heart stopped. Stopped because Duncan had just stomped all over it while wading into his worst fears. Duncan expected Lolly to fall for Vance.
“I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice. But, hey…maybe I’m out of line. Maybe way off base. I saw you and Lolly together and just thought there was something there. Something more. I kinda liked the idea of you and Lolly.”
Brooks did too. “You aren’t off base. Your concern is duly noted and appreciated. I can only tell you that I’ve been as up front with Lolly and Vance as I can be. And I’m staying on top of the situation as best I can.”
“All right. I’m backing you up on this. If we need to kick his ass, let’s be pre-emptive. Now who is Piper Beaumont and why does Vance need to add her to the mix?”
“Oh!” Brooks smiled, his mood lightning significantly. “Well, that’s good news if he called you about Piper. And better news for me if you can find this woman and she’s single.”
“Who the hell is she to him?”
“Oh man, Duncan. This girl was like the only person there for Vance when his mother left. He was just a little kid and no one would talk to him about it. This Piper Beaumont did, apparently. And then her father moved the family out of town over the summer….”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what he said, though I didn’t know it had anything to do with his mother. We’ve never talked about that.”
“No, we haven’t. Which doesn’t say much for us but says a lot about this fourth grade girl. Frankly, I’d like to know what happened to her.”
“Okay. I’m on it. Really on it. I’ll find her one way or another.”
“And if you hit a dead end, Vance and I have a few connections in the police department over there we can hit up.”
“Well, if she works for Collins & Reese it should be easy. I’ll keep you posted. Oh, and Annabelle and I are driving up tomorrow to play tennis with Vance and your girlfriend.”
“What the hell?”
“I know! Right? Unless you are planning a threesome, this has trouble written all over it.”
Brooks squeezed his eyes together. “Don’t mention a threesome. Vance is all over that idea.”
Duncan laughed. “I’ll just bet he is. Don’t worry, bro. I’ll find Miss Beaumont, and we’ll drag her hopefully single and shapely ass back to Henderson and get Lolly off the hook.”
“The sooner, the better, Dunc. The sooner, the better.”
Brooks disconnected the call and sat staring out his windshield at nothing at all. He’d be hard-pressed to find words to make Duncan understand all he had riding on this deal with Vance. Because he was just beginning to comprehend it himself.
Yes, the deal appeared catastrophically idiotic—he’d give Duncan that. And perhaps, in the end, that’s exactly how it would turn out. After all, Vance was getting to spend time with Lolly every day while Brooks was stuck reading a romance novel and had acquired only one, albeit quite effective, bad cop move.
But it was Friday night and Brooks was the one picking Lolly up for a date. A date where he held insider information, thanks to Vance pointing out that the key to Miss DuVal was being the antithesis of nice, safe, and boring. For that alone, he figured he owed Vance big.
Plus––ultimately and selfishly––Vance was Brooks’ right arm when it came to implementing the plans he had for this town. And he’d really, really like to have a healthy, working, and reliable right arm. Since Duncan and Lewis were no longer day-to-day members of their band of brothers, it had fallen to Brooks alone to put out the fires of Vance’s occasional mood swings and to mend fences where Vance’s wrath had let loose and laid low.
Brooks knew it was nothing short of a miracle that Vance was now interested in adopting a more sociable attitude toward women. Whatever Vance’s own endgame, if Lolly could help Vance change his standard operating procedure where women were concerned, this bargain they’d struck would be worth all of the risk.
It might look like a threesome, but one way or another, adding Lolly to his life meant she was implanted into Vance’s life as well. By doing it this way, the risk was obvious. He could lose the one he wanted most to Vance.
But the reward was great. He just might get to keep them both.
Chapter Twelve
It had been five long days since Brooks had set eyes on Lolly.
During the work week he’d texted her, chatted with her on the phone, thought about her a lot, and worried about her a little. Work was hectic and kept him busy, but he’d carved out time each night to read Vance’s ridiculous novel—his secret weapon—in hopes of having a better understanding of what women want.
Ultimately, he had no clue. No clue at all. How the hell was he supposed to glean any kind of real information from a fictional tale involving a Scottish chieftain from the early 1200s?
He stepped out of his F-150, deciding to give up the effort of understanding Vance and the book when he heard a screen door slam. His head popped up and his heart sputtered to a brief halt. Fluffy brunette curls drifted down over bare shoulders and onto a strapless white eyelet dress which had a ruffle at the top, a ruffle
at the bottom, and not a hell of a lot of material in between. His eyes took in a good length of exposed thigh that turned into sweet little knees and just a little lower an un-Lolly-like surprise: a pair of red cowboy boots.
“Hey, Cowgirl,” he called, taking in the entirety of the pretty picture she made.
“Hey, Sheriff,” she cooed, tilting her head to the side and putting a hand on one hip.
“Ready for a rodeo?” he asked, starting slowly up the stairs. He ached to put his hands everywhere. On her waist. On her shoulders. On her thighs. Jesus, under that dress.
“If a rodeo is what you’ve got in mind,” she said, grabbing the center of his shirt as he stepped onto the landing.
“You sure look pretty,” he whispered over lipstick-red lips, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“I have a big date,” she whispered back playfully, batting long lashes over the deep blue of her eyes. “But first, Momma would like to meet you, if you don’t mind.”
“Nothin’ I’d like better,” Brooks assured her.
But they both continued to stand there, eyes locked, hands touching, smiles full. Brooks considered five days of not seeing each other might have worked out okay. She shrugged and gave a quick giggle, turning and leading him into the modest and cheerful cottage home.
Brooks admired her hips, her ass, and the backs of those silky thighs as he followed those cowboy boots through the house and onto a screened-in porch the size of a family room. It was charming with cozy wicker chairs and ottomans, side tables, lamps, and rugs. There was a long folding table set up on the far side loaded down with a sewing machine, fabric, and other assorted creative debris. A mannequin in the corner caught his eye, but his attention was pulled away as Lolly’s mother stood in greeting.
Holy Mother of God….
Genevra DuVal was a Brunette Bombshell, to coin a new phrase. Comparing her with a dark-haired Marilyn Monroe occurred to Brooks for many reasons, one being the retro-styled navy and white sundress she wore. Mrs. DuVal was a knock-out. A knock-out surely dressed for a date because no woman should be sitting alone in her house looking like this. His eyes shot between Lolly and her mother as they stood side by side. They looked like sisters, he thought. Mrs. DuVal looks just like Lolly but with a fuller…a rounder…Jesus Christ. Brooks swallowed.
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