Southern Heartbreaker: A Charleston Heat Novel

by Peterson, Jessica

  I don’t mind entertaining. But I do mind being away from my baby. It’s been just the two of us for so long. I miss her. If I’m being honest, it hurts a little that she doesn’t miss me more—Hannah has quickly become Bryce’s favorite new person.

  At the same time, I wish I had more time to myself. I was ready to get back in the office and take on a full workload. I was not at all prepared, however, for how difficult juggling work and family is.

  Difficult, and exhausting. Being a single parent is not for the faint of heart. I feel like I’m constantly on the run. Constantly tackling a rolling, never-ending to-do list. Meetings. Making breakfast. Financial models. Grocery lists. Contracts. Pediatrician appointments.

  I do my best to clear my mind of all that clutter, and I sell the shit out of Montgomery Partners. The potential investor is a solid, if gruff, guy named Mason Yates who made a fortune back in the early 2000s developing commercial property out in Mt. Pleasant, among other things.

  I only scan the crowd two more times.

  Fine. Three.

  I still manage to close the deal. By the end of our second round, Mason and I are shaking hands. He shoots an email to his banker to arrange a wire transfer for an obscene amount of money—Christ have the numbers gotten bigger since I was closing these deals years ago—and he heads out after declining my offer of another drink.

  I glance at my watch. Eight o’clock on the dot.

  Bryce was asleep half an hour ago. Damn it.

  Still, if I get home now, I can get a head start on our Saturday morning pancakes—they turn out fluffier if I let the batter sit overnight—and answer that handful of important emails I didn’t get to over the course of the day.

  I lift my hand for the bill and push off the bar.

  Push right into someone behind me.

  I turn around to apologize and lock gazes with a familiar pair of gorgeous dark brown eyes.

  Oh God.

  It’s happening. My half-baked plan actually worked.

  “Eva!” I say, my heart skidding to a momentary stop inside my chest. “Hey.”

  She smiles, this big, genuine, unguarded thing, and fu-uck my heart is skidding again.

  Damn she’s a stunner. It’s not just her looks, although she’s a knockout, her brown hair falling in loose waves around her shoulders, full lips done up in pink gloss. She’s got long, dark eyelashes, and a small, Cindy-Crawford like mole above her upper right lip.

  It’s her confidence that catches my eye, same as it did more than a decade ago. The honest, certain way she carries herself. She’s totally at home in her own skin, and it shows.

  I feel a swift kick low in my gut.

  Arousal.

  Regret, too. Part of me always felt like a schmuck for breaking up with Eva, and for saying the things I did. But now that I’m with her again, that regret has intensified tenfold.

  “Two times in two weeks,” she replies. “And both times you’ve been in a suit.”

  Eva lifts her arm, inviting me into a hug. I expect it to be awkward, but it isn’t.

  Nothing with Eva ever was.

  The embrace is quick but warm. My body perks up at the press of her breasts to my chest. The scent of her perfume. Not floral, not sweet. Decidedly sexy.

  “You were never one for suits,” I say, smoothing my tie after I reluctantly let her go.

  Her eyes spark. “I don’t hate them. Not on you. Just takes some getting used to. Although I have to admit that I’m missing the tats.”

  “Tats are still there.” I pull back my sleeve, revealing the lines of script that cover my left forearm. A line from a favorite poem. A block of text from the Dave Matthews Band song we were both obsessed with back in college, if only because it captured the poignancy of our marathon make-out sessions so beautifully.

  Eva turns around so that her back is to me.

  “Mine are, too.” She gathers the thick mass of her hair in her hand and pulls it over her shoulder. Revealing a back that’s almost bare, save for the teeny tiny straps of her silky white tank top. My eyes rove over her skin, smooth. Soft, if memory serves.

  She doesn’t have a lot of ink, but what she does have is pretty. Feminine. Lines of text stacked neatly just beneath her arm—the same Dave Matthews make out quote. A small constellation of stars on one side of her spine.

  I imagine tracing the path of those stars with my fingertips. Then my tongue.

  Fuck me, I still feel a very strong, very immediate pull of attraction to this woman.

  It was always like that with us. Heat, tension. Eyes and mouths and legs. Eva lost her virginity to me in my dorm room bed, and we pretty much never stopped fucking from that point on.

  She’s the same but different. Just as beautiful. A little more weary. Confident and full of life like always, but there’s this sadness about her. It’s new. A gash on the inside that’s still bleeding.

  What caused it? Who?

  “I see you still have the Dave Matthews quote.”

  Eva nods at my arm. “So do you.”

  “Yup.” I lift my sleeve a little farther.

  She smiles. So do I. I’m not ashamed of my tattoos, per se, but I definitely haven’t been showing them off these days. For the most part, I have to cover them up for meetings. Conferences. Consults. To the point that I’ll forget I even have them some days.

  I’ve forgotten that, once upon a time, I was the kind of guy who was capable of being so moved by something, a lyric or the line of a poem, that I had to have it permanently inked on my skin.

  I could be moved by the conviction and the courage of someone like Eva.

  Heat gathers in the head of my dick.

  I should close out my tab and get back to my house. There are so many fucking things that need to get done.

  Then again, I told Hannah I’d be home around ten.

  Who am I kidding? I’m definitely staying for another drink if Eva will have me.

  The bartender appears, and I look at Eva.

  “Whiskey neat?” I ask. My heart lifts, still and hopeful, as I wait for her to reply.

  Chapter Five

  Ford

  Eva looks at me for a beat. Then another.

  I don’t blame her for hesitating. I’m the guy who, ten years ago, all but mocked her for her creative ambitions and broke her heart. Total dick move.

  To be fair, I broke my heart in the process, too. In my stupid college kid lizard brain, I thought I could let her go. Thought getting over her would be easy because we’d grown into such different people.

  Spoiler alert, I was wrong. I was the one who changed. Eva stayed true to who she always was. Took me years to stop comparing every girl I met to Eva Lacy.

  After our breakup, I thought about calling her all the time. But I’d already caused so much damage. I wasn’t going to reach out to her unless I could promise her forever. Which, at that point, I couldn’t. I was two thousand miles away, broke as a joke. Buried in school and internships and job hunts.

  Still. Standing next to Eva, her perfume filling my head, I can’t help but hope she’ll stay. Maybe that makes me an even bigger dick.

  Or maybe I just want to buy her a drink. Pick her brain. Soak up her vitality and her enthusiasm for as long as she’ll let me.

  “Make it a Manhattan, rocks,” she says at last. “Need something cold when it’s this hot. I forgot how damn muggy it gets this close to the water.”

  I almost collapse with relief.

  “Two, please,” I tell the bartender. Turning back to Eva, I take a quick glance around the bar. As far as I can tell, she’s alone. “Meeting someone?”

  “Yeah. Well, I hope to, anyway. I spent the day—hell, the whole week—wanting to pull out my hair over this cookbook. A stiff cocktail was definitely in order, so I asked Gracie to meet me here. She said she’d swing by after work.”

  “Gracie Jackson,” I say. “Love that girl. We knew she’d absolutely kill it with Holy City Roasters.”

  Eva’s smile broad
ens. “I love how y’all support local entrepreneurs. Women especially.”

  Montgomery Partners was, and continues to be, the largest investor in Gracie’s growing coffee shop empire.

  “Are you surprised?” I ask, handing over her drink.

  Her fingertips brush my knuckles as she takes it. My skin warms at the contact.

  “Considering the class where we met?” Eva presses her lips to the rim of her cut crystal glass. “Nope.”

  “Great British Female Writers,” I reply. “Still one of my all-time favorites.”

  She grins. “What? Intro to Economics not do it for you?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “So was Great British Female Writers your favorite because it introduced you to Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf?”

  Taking a sip of my Manhattan, I meet her eyes. “Because it introduced me to all kinds of badass women. Including you.”

  “Stop—”

  “Absolutely not. You are badass. Always were. I’m sorry I made you feel otherwise. I was the opposite of a badass back then. A jackass, if you will.”

  Eva’s eyes flash. She dips her head in a nod. “Accurate. And let me just say there are days when I do feel like a badass, and days when I definitely don’t. I’ve been experiencing a lot of the latter lately.”

  “Let’s talk about that,” I say, pulling out the empty barstool in front of me. My heart thumps inside my chest. “Sit.”

  She looks up at me. Another beat of hesitation.

  The bar thrums with rising energy, and so does the air between us.

  “You really want to hear about my cookbook woes?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you’re really not going to make me feel like an idiot for my career choices?”

  “Fuck no. Only jackasses do that.”

  Her lips twitch. “All right. If only because the jackass in you seems to be genuinely contrite.”

  Sending up a silent prayer of relief, I hold out my hand. She takes it as she slides onto the stool. Electricity zings up my arm from the simple contact and spreads through my skin. Making it feel tight and warm and tender.

  Two heartbeats later, I send up a silent curse when I notice her dress slide up her leg, revealing the smooth slice of muscle running up the side of her thigh.

  I picture Eva kickboxing, pummeling the shit out of a bag as sweat drips down her neck. Down the crease between her tits. Punching and grunting.

  Panting and sweating.

  Clearing my throat, I give my pants a discreet tug underneath the bar. I stand beside but also a little behind Eva in the hope I can keep my badly behaved dick out of sight.

  I never get wood in public.

  I feel like a sick bastard for admitting this, but I kind of like it. Makes me feel wild.

  Young.

  Very far away from the reliable boss and responsible parent I have to be these days.

  “Your mind’s in the gutter again, isn’t it?” Eva asks.

  I blink. Look down at her. She’s got those fucking legs of hers crossed now and her dark eyes on my face, flashing with mischief.

  I always found her brand of mischief irresistible.

  “Nope,” I lie crisply. “So what’s going on with this cookbook?”

  She tilts her head, like she knows I’m lying—oh, yeah, she’s grinning, she definitely knows—but instead of calling me out, she sips her cocktail and sets it on the bar.

  “I just can’t seem to make it work. My first book came from such a place of love and certainty. Like, I knew what I wanted to say. What kind of food I wanted to share. But now…”

  I take a gulp from my glass. They do not fuck around with their cocktails here. The liquor burns into my bloodstream. Adding fuel to the fire inside my skin.

  “Now you’ve gotta go deeper,” I reply. “What else do you have to say? What other stories do you have to tell—the more subtle ones, the ones you’re less certain of? Stories that you’re afraid of, maybe, or that you haven’t quite figured out yet.”

  “First of all, you’re totally setting me up for all these ‘that’s what she said’ moments.”

  “Well, yeah. Old habits die hard. Always liked to make you laugh.”

  “That’s a tall order these days,” she says, but she’s smiling as she says it.

  “I’m up for the challenge.”

  Eva holds up her drink. “This isn’t hurting.”

  “Plenty more where that came from. Keep talking.”

  Because when she talks, she burns. Good, bad—she feels it all, and she doesn’t shy away from it.

  Probably the whiskey, but I’m suddenly starving for that kind of unabashed, unguarded heat.

  “I guess I just don’t know what I’m trying to say. Or if I even have anything else to say. Like, am I a one hit wonder? I put everything I know about meat and smokers and sauces and sides into my first book. What else is there in my world?”

  “Plenty,” I reply. “I mean that. A decade ago, I fell for the woman who wasn’t a successful pit master yet. And she had plenty to say then. She was plenty interesting, and real, and rare. Even if I couldn’t appreciate her in all her glory at the time. You’ll find your inspiration.”

  She turns her smile on her nearly empty glass, curling a damp bar napkin around its base.

  “That’s sweet of you to say. But sometimes…I guess sometimes I don’t feel like I’m enough, you know? Or maybe like I’m not doing enough. I keep thinking if I just try more—” Shaking her head, she lets out a heavy sigh. “Anyway. I was totally floundering in Atlanta, and my gut was telling me to come back home. So I rented an apartment over in the French Quarter next to Gracie’s, and here I am. I’m hoping that visiting my favorite spots in Charleston—places like this—will kind of kick-start my creative muse. Or at the very least kick its ass into gear. Plus I get to see my family a lot more, so that’s nice.”

  “I miss your family! How are Steve and Maria doing? Alex?”

  “They’re okay,” she says. Something about the way she says it—the way the light in her eyes fades a bit—makes me think there’s something going on there. But it’s not my place to press.

  “I still think about your mom’s grits casserole. The one she made that year over Christmas break—remember that? God, it was good.”

  She grins. “I do remember. My dad may get all the kudos for his barbecue, but my mom is a true pro at the family classics like that. Mexican recipes, and Lowcountry ones, too.”

  She drains her cocktail. Watching the sinews of her throat work as she swallows, I feel a leap of excitement at the idea that Eva’s in town for the foreseeable future. I’ve missed this—real, adult conversation. Not business. Not babies. No bullshit.

  Just a guy and a girl talking ideas. Anxieties.

  I wonder if Hannah can stay any later than ten.

  I nod at Eva’s now empty glass. “Another?”

  Eva looks at me. I look back.

  “Please,” she says, and starts to dig her wallet out of her bag.

  I touch one hand to her arm and raise the other for the bartender.

  “I can buy my own drinks, you know,” she says.

  “I know you can. But the least this jackass can do is treat you to a few rounds. You need it, and so do I.”

  She smiles. “Look at the two of us—still walking around with the weight of the world on our shoulders. I can’t imagine life as a single dad is easy.”

  “Christ no.” I quickly order our drinks when the bartender appears, then turn back to Eva. “It’s the best, most difficult thing I’ve ever done. There’s a reason Bryce is my world. She’s often what gets me through the day. She’s my why. But yeah. Definitely wasn’t expecting to have to do this whole parenthood thing on my own. She’s pretty cute though, isn’t she?”

  Digging my phone out of my pocket, I hold it out and scroll through the most recent pictures I have of my daughter. Her pretending to talk on her pink and white plastic cell phone. The two of us on my boat. “So
rry if I’m being that guy showing off pictures of his four-year-old kid at a bar—”

  “Stop. She’s adorable. So are you,” Eva says, smiling—eyes and all—at the pictures. I tuck the phone back into my pocket. “So are you divorced, or…?”

  “Widowed.” Even after all this time, my throat still tightens at the word. Widower. “My wife passed away four years ago, right after Bryce was born.”

  I miss Rebecca, and talk to Bryce about her all the time. It’s important to me that I keep her memory alive. Losing her was just as horrible as you’d imagine. But now that the grief isn’t so sharp anymore, I can focus on making her a part of our daily lives.

  “My God, Ford. I’m so sorry.”

  I grab our drinks from the bartender and pass one to Eva. Her brow is curved upward, expression soft with concern.

  “Not gonna lie, losing Rebecca was devastating.” I take a long, slow sip of whiskey, loosening the walls of my throat. “But thanks to time, therapy, and a lot of help from my family, I’m able to function again.”

  Eva nods. “How did you guys meet?”

  I grin at the memory. “At work, back when I still lived in California. We were analysts at the same investment bank. Bonded over the hellacious hours and our insane coworkers. Together we quit, took the leap into the next phase of our careers, and moved down south. She was my partner in crime.”

  Eva nods. “She sounds lovely.”

  “She was. Thankfully Bryce takes more after her. Same smarts. Same smile. It used to hurt, having that reminder around of what I lost. But now I treasure those moments when I see Rebecca in my daughter.”

  “Right.” Eva nods again. “Not so much a reminder of loss, but of goodness. Goodness you were lucky enough to experience, even just for a little while.”

  I nod, too. Of course Eva is not only totally cool with discussing my wife who passed away. She also gets it. She gets what I’m feeling, why I’d feel it.

  “That’s exactly it. Granted, it took three years of therapy for me to see things that way. And being a single parent—my God, I miss having a partner to help raise Bryce.”

  “You said it’s not easy being a single dad. Talk to me about that.”