by Katie Ashley
I giggled as I slid into the driver’s seat. I put the key in the ignition, and Wyatt closed his eyes as the Porsche hummed to life. “Man, is this a car!”
“You said that already,” I replied, as I eased the car down the driveway.
“Trust me, it’s something that should be said a lot. I can’t believe I’m even riding in one. Course, driving one would be even better.”
I shook my head. “Not happening.”
He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “I bet you don’t know anything about classic cars.”
“I have a 67’ Mustang waiting on me back in Texas.”
His eyes widened. “Seriously? That’s a sweet ride!”
“You sound like my brother,” I replied. My chest tightened at the thought of Remy.
“You miss them, don’t you?”
I nodded. “It’s stupid really. I mean, I’m acting like they’ve been in Siberia for months or something, not just in Florida for a week.”
Sensing we needed a subject change, Wyatt said, “So tell me more about this Brandewine place.”
“Well, it’s a group home made up of twenty young adults with varying disabilities. It was started by former steel tycoon and philanthropist, Elliot Brandewine, who left his house in Savannah to his disabled daughter as well as a trust to start the group home.”
“You sound like a tour guide,” Wyatt snorted.
“It just so happens that my mom and my great-aunt volunteer at this place, which gives us a way in. Not just anybody can waltz in there and volunteer.”
“Lucky us.”
I tore my gaze from the road to shoot him an exasperated look. “Do you have some aversion to charity work that I need to know about?”
Wyatt scowled at me. “There’s obviously a lot that you don’t know about me. I happen to volunteer three times a week at Our Lady of the River Mission.”
I almost swerved off the road at his declaration. “Wow, I’m impressed.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a total screw-up you know.”
“I never said you were.”
Wyatt exhaled in a slow wheeze. “Truth is, the only time I ever really get to my dad is at the mission. He’s homeless…he’s a recovering junkie.”
I shook my head, feeling like a giant ass. “Oh Wyatt, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I mean, you didn’t know.” Wyatt leaned forward and flipped on the radio. He grunted when a twangy tune blared from the speakers. “What dipshit likes country music?”
“Me.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m from Texas, remember? And we are in the South.”
He laughed. “Yeah, well, let’s change it up a bit.” Flipping through some stations, he settled on some classic rock with Aerosmith’s What It Takes.
When we pulled up in front of a Victorian mansion, he let out a low whistle. “Man, you weren’t kidding when you said this was a high end place.”
“Tell me about it.”
As we came to a stop in the circular drive, I saw several of the residents were working in the flower beds beside the wide front porch. I parked, and then Wyatt and I hopped out.
When we started down the walkway, Wyatt smiled and spoke to everyone we saw. “Really playing the part, aren’t we?” I murmured under my breath.
“You know it,” he replied, as we walked through the front door.
We stepped into the foyer underneath an enormous crystal chandelier. An African American woman came bustling up to us. “You must be Julianne St. James! I’m Patricia—one of your mother’s friends. Why aren’t you just the spitting image of her!” she exclaimed with a beaming smile.
I returned her smile. “Yes, I am.”
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Patricia said, squeezing my hand tight.
“It’s nice meeting you as well.”
Patricia gave Wyatt a toothy grin. “And who is this handsome young man?”
“This is…” Crap, I’d totally forgotten to come up with who Wyatt was supposed to be. Time was ticking, and for once in my life, I was completely speechless.
Stepping in front of me, Wyatt offered a hand to Patricia. “I’m Wyatt, Jules’s boyfriend,” he said. When he turned back to me, he shot me a wicked look. Oh yeah, I would have to kill him later.
“Well, we’re very happy to have you as well.” She motioned for us to follow her down the carpeted hallway. “You know, Julianne, we’re just thrilled to have your mom and aunt volunteering with us. Our residents just love them. I’m sure you’ll make a great addition.”
“I hope so.”
“Where would you two like to start?”
Wyatt and I exchanged a glance. “Oh, um, anywhere that we can interact with the residents will be fine.”
Taking my lead, Wyatt added, “We’re real personable people.”
Patricia smiled and nodded “Then I would say to start in the recreation room.” She motioned to a door on the right side of the hallway. She then turned and pointed to one on the left side. “Or the art room.”
At the mention of art, Wyatt’s ears perked up. He immediately headed to the left, so I fell in step behind him. The art room was actually a converted sitting room. Easels were set up with five residents hard at work on their drawings.
While I was peering around, Wyatt walked over to a woman who was painting. “Hi there, that’s a great landscape.”
She blushed before smiling up at him. “It’s supposed to be the lake and hillside at my house. Well, the house where my mom and dad live.”
“It’s very beautiful. You’re doing a great job with the shading,” he said.
“Thank you. My name is Frannie.”
“I’m Wyatt, and that’s Jules,” he said, pointing over to me.
“Do you like art?” Frannie asked.
Wyatt nodded. “Yep, painting and sculpting.”
Frannie made a face and then pulled something out of her apron. “Evan put the heat on too much in the kiln, and my cat blew up.” She held up a flattened piece of clay that must’ve once represented a cat.
“I said I was sorry,” someone called from a corner. Both mine and Wyatt’s heads swiveled toward the voice. Evan Marshall sat at a long table shaping some clay into what I assumed would become a coffee mug. When he glanced up to see us staring at him, he shook his head. “I know, I know. I’m new. I don’t know how to work the controls.”
“Oh, it’s okay. Things like that happen,” I reassured him.
He gave a half smile before going back to his clay.
Frannie picked her paintbrush up and then crinkled her nose at the glass of water on the easel. “This water is nasty.” Her paintbrush hovered over the water. “I need fresh water.”
Bingo, I saw my out of the room to do a little snooping. “Here, I’ll refill the pitcher for you,” I offered, raising my eyebrows at Wyatt. He nodded.
“And my brushes have to have bottled water, not tap water.”
“Sure, I’ll be right back,” I replied, as I headed out of the art room. Glancing left and right, I sat the pitcher down on the closest table I saw. Then I practically sprinted over to the winding staircase that led up to the resident’s quarters. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to search Evan’s room.
Fortunately for me, each of the residents had a gold name plate on the outside of their door. Evan’s was the last door on the left. I jiggled the doorknob and was relieved to find it unlocked. I glanced back down the hallway before slipping inside and locking the door behind me.
The room boasted a large mahogany four poster bed, a chest of drawers, a nightstand, an armoire with a TV and video game console, and a desk in the far corner. As I made my way over to it, I surveyed the walls and smiled. Evan clearly had a thing for superheroes—there were several posters of Batman, Superman, and Spiderman covering the expensive wallpaper.
Another superhero figured prominently in pictures on the walls and in antique frames on the desk and nightstand.
Jackson
.
Most of the pictures were of the two of them together or with their grandparents. There was also a few of the two boys and Emmett. It was sad to see that there were more pictures of Sam and Frodo, Jackson’s German Shepherds, than there were of Evan’s real mom.
It was easy to see the love that Jackson and Evan had for each other. Thinking about how kind and compassionate Jackson was just made me want to slap him for dating someone as self-centered and bitchy as Bryn. Ugh.
Turning my thoughts back to the task at hand, I started flipping through some of the papers, desperate to find some registration paperwork or maybe even a letter from Emmett to Evan. There were letters from his grandparents and Jackson and even from his mother. But nothing from Emmett.
Next I opened the desk drawers and started rifling through them. In the bottom drawer, I found a packet of paperwork. “Yes!” I muttered. As I opened the manila folder, my heart sank as I read the name of Evan’s legal guardian in bold print: “Frank Emmett Marshall”. Any address I might find would link right back to Jackson’s grandfather. I guess it made sense not to have a felon signing legal documents, but it still totally sucked for me.
A search of the nightstand came up with nada as well, and the only thing exciting in the chest of drawers were Evan’s Batman socks. Sighing in defeat, I poked my head out of the door to make sure the coast was clear, then tip-toed out of the room before sprinting back down the hallway.
When I finally stumbled back into the art-room, Wyatt was surrounded by the residents and was giving an impromptu class on some kind of sculpting. I held back in the doorway, watching him interact with the group. He spoke slowly and deliberately, explaining how to mold the clay. I felt a little twinge in my chest at how sweet the scene was, and I realized I might’ve misjudged Wyatt.
He glanced up to see me in the doorway. “Hey there, we got tired of waiting on the water, so I decided to show them some sculpting techniques.
“What water?”
“For the brushes,” Wyatt said, jerking his head toward Frannie.
I smacked my hand against my forehead. “I totally forgot. I-uh- I ran into some friends of my mom’s and started talking to them. Frannie, I’m so sorry”
“It’s okay. Wyatt’s showing me how to make my next cat better.”
At the mention of the dreaded cat, Evan held his hands up. “And I promise not to touch the knobs.”
Wyatt reached over and ruffled Evan’s hair. “It’s okay, buddy. Accidents happen, remember?”
I stared at Wyatt like he’d grown horns or something. Where had this side of him been? It must’ve been buried deep underneath the tough guy pervert routine.
Even though I’d come up with nothing, we stayed the rest of the afternoon with the residents. After the art room visit, we moved on to ping pong in the game room. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun doing something ‘good’. When Patricia came to gather the residents for dinner, I don’t think any of us wanted to go.
Patricia smiled at Wyatt and me. “You know, we have our Summer Sweethearts Dance coming up in a week. We can always use extra chaperones. Would you be interested?”
At the mention of the dance, voices rang out all around us. “Oh please come back!” “Say yes!” “Come see us dressed up!” Wyatt arched an eyebrow at me, and I nodded.
“Sure, okay, we’ll think about it.”
There was a chorus of cheers, and Wyatt and I laughed. We waved good-bye and then headed out the door.
When we got out on the porch, I tugged on Wyatt’s sleeve. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just want to say how amazing you were in there.”
He grinned. “Thanks. And hey, you weren’t so bad yourself.”
“Yeah, except for forgetting Frannie’s water and blanking on who you were supposed to be.”
“Having to pretend I was your boyfriend for a few hours wasn’t totally vomit inducing, was it?”
“No, silly, it wasn’t.” I shook my head. “But you know what? When you actually let your guard down and don’t act like such a cocky know-it-all, you’re really a decent person, Wyatt.”
“Seriously?”
“Totally.” I tapped the place above his left pocket. “And you really do have a good heart in there.”
“Whoa, I think I need to get my phone out and record this. Jules St. James is actually calling me decent.”
I laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.”
When we got the car, Wyatt slid inside. “Dude, I’m starving. Wanna grab something to eat?”
“Ooh, like a date?” I teased, throwing back his earlier line.
“Shut up, you gotta be hungry too.”
“Yeah, you can dish it, but you just can’t take it, huh?”
Wyatt laughed. “Whatever. It’ll be my treat, but I get to pick the place.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Steering me out of the Historic District, Wyatt directed me downtown to a run-down pool hall. When I shot him a skeptical look, he grinned. “I promise they have the best hamburgers around.”
“If you so say,” I replied, making sure to lock the car.
“Not all of us can afford the Shrimp Factory on River Street,” Wyatt mumbled, as he held the door open for me.
His comment made me feel like a spoiled brat. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this place is great, okay?”
We slid into a ragged looking booth and picked up two grease encrusted menus. A dark haired waitress with a cleavage-baring top bounded over to us. “Hiya, Wyatt. Good to see you back so soon.” She gave me a momentary smirk before saying, “I’m surprised that you’re not with Carrie again tonight.”
“Hello to you too, Mandy,” he replied with a hint of irritation.
Totally ignoring me, she thrust out her chest. “So what can I get you tonight?”
“I’ll have the usual.”
Mandy scribbled the order down, and then reluctantly turned to me. “Yeah?” she asked, as if it pained her to even acknowledge me except to rub it in my face that I was sitting across from a womanizer.
“I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a coke.”
She heaved a sigh, and then glanced back at Wyatt. “Be right back with your drinks.” When she left the table, Mandy made sure to swish her hips provocatively in her short shorts. After Wyatt finished watching the show, he met my death glare. He grinned sheepishly.
“Friend of yours?”
“Maybe.”
“Nice. Maybe you can ask her to be your date to the Summer Sweetheart dance. Or better yet, your flavor of the week. Carrie, was it?”
He nudged my foot under the table. “Ha, ha, funny. I’m not a manwhore.”
I glanced around. “You must bring your girls around here a lot, huh?”
“This is where my friends and I usually hang out, smartass. The owners are pretty cool about letting us come around since we’re under eighteen.”
“Uh-huh,” I murmured skeptically.
“I guess if I told you I went to mass every Sunday, you wouldn’t believe that either.”
Wow, there was an interesting newsflash. Dad, or I should say Big Mama, had us in church every Sunday as long as we weren’t on a major case. But I had no idea that Wyatt was serious about faith. Mandy interrupted my shock with our drinks. Fortunately, she didn’t linger. Twirling the straw in my coke, I asked, “You really go to mass?”
“Yep. At St. John the Baptist—the oldest Catholic church in the South. You should come with me some time. It’s really beautiful inside, with these massive stain glass windows and marble everywhere.”
“Now who sounds like a tour guide,” I joked. Wyatt responded by blowing his straw wrapper on me.
Conversation flowed easily between us, and it wasn’t long before Mandy returned with our food, which smelled heavenly. The moment I bit into my burger I moaned in delight. “Oh. My. God. This is delicious!”
Wyatt laughed. “I told you so. It’s something about the
way they cook the patties in their homemade chili.”
I practically inhaled my plate within a few seconds. Wyatt held a fry mid-air as he shook his head. “Damn, you can really put the food away for a girl.”
“Watch it.”
He smirked at me. “Oh, no, I’m not dissing you at all. I totally agree with Jackson about you being in…wait, how did he describe your bod again?”
Tossing my napkin at him, I said, “Ugh, don’t remind me. Having you listen in on our date was not one of my finest moments.”
“I kinda enjoyed it myself.”
“Yeah, you would.”
Shoving his plate aside, Wyatt leaned forward on his elbows. “It was actually cool seeing that a rich dude like Jackson doesn’t have everything when it comes to having game.”
“And how could he have ‘game’, as you say, when we weren’t supposed to be on a real date?”
He shrugged. “You either have it or you don’t.” Winking at me, he said, “We’re not even on a real date, and I’ve still got game.”
“Oh really?”
“Yep, totally.”
We were interrupted by a loud group of guys sweeping through the door. Wyatt grinned broadly at their appearance. “Hey, it’s Wild Man!” a guy with blue spiky hair called.
“Your nickname is Wild Man?” I asked.
“Long story,” Wyatt replied.
The guy came charging up to our table. He and Wyatt did the testosterone induced guy thumping hand shake thing. “Hey Chase,” Wyatt said.
When Chase eyed Wyatt’s attire, he grimaced. “Dude, I’m so sorry. Who died?”
Wyatt and I laughed. “It wasn’t a funeral. I just needed a new look this afternoon.”
Chase turned to give me a skeptical look. “Who’s the Uptown Girl?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
He grinned. “Ya know, like Billy Joel. Rich girl slumming with Wild Man here.”
“I’m so not an Uptown Girl.”
Wyatt nodded. “This is Raye’s cousin, Jules. She’s also in the business, and could totally kick your sorry ass, so I’d watch what you say to her.”
“Yeah right,” Chase replied, shaking his head.
I thrust out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
As Chase and I shook hands, a heavily tattooed guy with pierced eyebrows shouted over at Wyatt from the pool tables. “Hey Wild Man, how about a rematch?”