Flip This Love (17 page)

“Mrs. Cade...Connie,” Laney corrected as she set the coffee aside. She pushed herself up again and drew the sheet to her neck to conceal her nakedness from the former lunch lady. “I wasn’t... I mean...”

Her gaze darted around the room, as if she might find a way to talk herself out of this mortifying phone call hidden behind her mama’s collection of cut-glass perfume bottles. No dice.

Drawing a calming breath, she clutched the sheet to her chin and said, “Hello. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine, sweetheart. Trying to keep myself busy, but that boy of mine keeps trying to fire me.”

“Fire you?”

“He’s got some hare-brained idea I should spend my days playing canasta or something.” Laney smiled, picturing the perfectly highlighted “Rachel” hairdo Mrs. Cade adopted in the mid-90s swinging as she shooed away the thought. “I’m only fifty-three, for cripes sake.”

“You look like you’re thirty-three,” Laney responded without thinking.

“Ah, now there’s a girl who was brought up right. I have to admit, I used to worry about you, Delaney. You used to have a lot of your daddy in you,” she confided. “I’m glad to see more of your mama shining through these days.”

Laney blinked. She’d forgotten how blunt Harley’s mother could be. And how she seemed to see everything. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Connie,” she corrected again. “I have to admit, it’s a relief. I had my reservations when I saw Harley was sniffing around you.” Laney sucked in a breath, but the older woman chuckled again. “As much as I hate giving Anson Cade one ounce of credit for the kid he didn’t bother to stick around to see walk, Harley’s got his daddy’s charm...and his bottom, come to think of it. It was only a matter of time before you gave in.”

Narrowing her eyes, Laney dissected that sentence and found the one morsel she was willing to discuss with her new lover’s mother while she was laying in her bed, naked and beard-burned. “He is charming.”

“Anyhoo, polite conversation aside,” Connie said, her tone sharpening as she zeroed in on the point of the call, “Harley tells me you’re going into business for yourself and you might need some help with sewing and such.”

Laney waited for her sluggish brain to catch up with the shift in subject. “Oh, uh, yes. Maybe.” Clearing her throat, she reached for the coffee again, hoping another hit of caffeine would help her kick it into gear. “I mean, I’d be doing most of it myself to start, but maybe eventually I might be able to pay someone...”

She trailed off and thought about the check she’d deposited into her account. The money she’d have to pay back as soon as humanly possible. It was one thing to get in bed with Harley Cade on an investment deal, and quite another to invest her heart and body as well. The sooner she could separate the two, the better.

“Well, when you get to the point where you need some help, you give me a call. I never could do more than rip the hems out of Harley’s pants as he grew, but I know a couple of ladies who do tailoring work and the extra income would sure be welcome.”

Pleasantly surprised, and more than a little relieved she wouldn’t be dealing with Harley’s mother directly, Laney smiled. “Thank you. When I’m ready, I’ll keep your offer in mind.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll let you get back to your morning now.”

“Thank you for calling, Mrs. Ca—Connie.”

“Oh! And I almost forgot why I was supposed to call in the first place,” the other woman cried. Then she laughed her booming laugh again. “See why I can’t play canasta? I can’t remember what card’s been played thirty seconds after I’ve seen it. I’m a magician’s worst nightmare.”

Laney chuckled, certain Harley’s absentee father was given far too much credit for passing along his charm. Connie seemed to have her own brand of charisma—in spades, so to speak. “Why were you supposed to call?”

“Mr. Hot Buns wanted me to tell you his phone was nearly dead this morning.” She paused and Laney suspected the woman was hesitating purely to make her squirm. “Now, I wonder how that happened. Harley never forgets to put his phone on the charger...unless he wasn’t at home last night.”

Laney smiled but refused to bite, earning another belly laugh from Harley’s mama.

“Okay, fine. We’ll act like we don’t all know where Hot Buns was last night,” she conceded at last. “I’m supposed to tell you the charger in his truck isn’t working right, but he’ll pick up a new one at the first truck stop he passes.” She blew out a breath and the silence stretched between them for a minute. “The boy has it bad, Delaney. If I find out you’re not treating him right, well, I have a cast iron skillet, and I’m not too old and feeble to lift it. Do we understand each other?”

Rather than the indignation the threat warranted, Laney was surprised to find her eyes filling with tears. Suddenly, she missed her own mama with an intensity that seared. “Yes, ma’am,” she managed to choke out.

As if she could read her thoughts, Connie’s voice softened. “And if he treats you bad, sweetheart, you come tell me. He may be big, but he’ll never be too big for me to take a chunk out of his hide.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, you get up and get yourself ready for work. I’ll be in later this week to buy the Maggie Ruffe jacket I’ve been tryin’ to talk myself out of.”

“It’s perfect on you.”

“You know what? I think I’ll let Mr. Hot Buns buy that pretty little jacket for me. That’s what he gets for using his mama as his secretary.”

“I think you should.”

“Have a good day, sweetheart. And good luck with your little business venture. From what Harley told me, I think your mama is going to be right proud of you.”

Laney stared at the wallpaper on her phone after the call ended. It was a selfie she’d snapped of her mother and herself at Horizons. Camille had been having a particularly good day, so they’d celebrated by donning bright pink lipstick, gypsy headscarves, and matching grins. She could still feel the cool softness of her mother’s cheek pressed against hers. Looking at the photo, she could almost fool herself into thinking she smelled Camille’s signature perfume rather than the cloying antiseptic scent that seemed to invade every pore.

“I’m gonna do it, Mama,” she whispered to the screen.

The phone buzzed and Laney jumped like a scalded cat. Her startled yelp drowned out the first few beats of Right Said Fred’s “Too Sexy.” She glared at the number on the screen, irrationally pissed they weren’t the digits that once belonged to her mother, then swiped to accept the call as she swung her feet to the floor.

“Delaney?” Mrs. Riggs, the realtor who’d been trying to unload Tarrington House before they were forced to auction it to the highest bidder, sounded as breathless as Laney felt.

Pressing her hand to her hammering heart, she took off toward the bathroom. “Yes, this is she.”

“Delaney, you aren’t going to believe this, but we have a buyer. A cash offer,” the woman crowed. “It’s less than the listing price,” she added in a rush, “but not much less, and probably more than you can get at auction.”

Laney looked up, needing to check her own reflection in the mirror to decide whether she would believe this call was for real, or if maybe her mother’s old friend was playing some kind of cruel joke. “Are you kidding me?”

“Laney, darlin’, I never, ever kid about a commission.”

“A cash offer,” she repeated, letting the words sink in.

“Honey, I don’t know the full extent of your situation, so I can’t say the offer's enough to clear everything up, but it sure would give you and your poor daddy some breathing room.”

The sugar-coated sympathy for her father startled Laney from her mental rummage through the piles of unpaid bills. Mrs. Riggs was a divorcee. She’d also been first in line when the parade of condolence casseroles began to pour in. Bankruptcy, negligence, and alcoholism aside, it seemed some women still thought old Brett Tarrington was a catch. Well, they’d be welcome to him. But not until Laney got the bill collectors off their backs.

Her jaw tightened with determination as she met her own gaze in the mirror. “I’m afraid our situation isn’t very good at the moment.”

“Then a quick closing is exactly what you need. We’ll pay the mortgages off directly, then you and Brett can decide how best to tackle the rest.”

Laney fought back the urge to snort at the thought of her father tackling anything. “A quick closing?”

“The buyer wants to wrap it up as soon as the paperwork can be completed.”

“How soon would that be?” Laney asked, her mind awhirl.

“Could be this week if all the paperwork is in order. Title search, appraisal, those sorts of thing…”

The title search shouldn’t be any problem. Until her father mortgaged it, Tarrington House had been free and clear since the day they hung the thick mahogany front door. They’d had a private appraisal done before listing the house and land, so if the buyer would accept the figure, having it in hand might shave some time off as well.

“Who’s the buyer?”

“The offer was made by a company called Heart of Dixie Holdings. Their attorney called yesterday afternoon to see if we were open to selling outright, which of course we are, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s what I thought. Unfortunately, I was at my Zumba class when he called, and by the time I got the message, their offices were closed.”

Laney ducked out of the bathroom, afraid if she looked in the mirror again, this time she’d see Marsha Riggs shaking her money maker to a Latin beat. She eyed her abandoned coffee and the bakery bag with longing. “Do we know who owns this Heart of Dixie Holdings?”

There was a brief pause on the other end, then Mrs. Riggs said gently, “Why, no, dear, I don’t. Does it matter? It could be Donald Trump himself for all I care. They’re making a cash offer.”

“Right,” she repeated.

Moving on autopilot, Laney went back to the bedroom to collect the presents Harley had left her. It didn’t matter what her daddy said, if he dared to say a damn thing. She was giving Harley his investment money back before she paid any other bills. She took a big slug of the now-cooled coffee then curled the cup protectively into her chest.

“Let’s close as soon as possible.”

“Good girl, Delaney,” Mrs. Riggs cooed. “Now, you know we’ll need your daddy to do the actual closing.”

Laney tried not to let the sly calculation in the woman’s tone irk her too badly. This was a good thing. A great thing. The chance for a fresh start. With the sale of Tarrington House, she could pay off much of the crippling debt they’d incurred from her mother’s illness. The moment her mother said the word “cancer” out loud, Laney knew her life would never be the same again. Her mama was dead and gone and her daddy might as well be. It was long past time for Laney to let go of any girlish hopes she might have of things going back to the way they once were.

“You set up the date and time. I’ll make sure Daddy’s there.”

After thanking Mrs. Riggs and dredging up the expected amount of excitement, Laney ended the call. Glancing at the clock, she saw her leisurely morning was now officially shot to hell. She had exactly forty minutes to wash an entire night’s worth of mind-boggling sex off and make it to the store. God forbid she wasn’t minding her station when Miss Jeanette came in to check on her.

* * * *

By the time they closed on the sale of Tarrington House Friday morning, Laney’s mood was somewhere in the depths of the sewer. When she explained to Miss Jeanette her reasons for needing the morning off, the older woman was the very essence of Southern solicitude—which meant she put in hours alternating between doling out sympathy and piling on guilt.

Laney had spent the week on the phone cajoling, warning, and outright threatening her father into what she hoped would be a state of semi-sobriety. It didn’t work. She drove out to the old cabin to pick him up and the man smelled like he’d been living in a distillery. She managed to chase him into the shower, convinced him to shave by threatening to do the job herself, then sat slumped against the wall outside the tiny bathroom until he emerged dressed in the shirt and suit she’d picked out for him, but without a tie. Laney stared at the red silk he’d tossed into the tiny porcelain sink and decided neckties were not a battle worth fighting.

She was also done fighting her feelings for Harley. True to his word, the man called from Mississippi every evening. He started each conversation by asking about her day, which she didn’t want to rehash, then filled her in on what they’d uncovered at the old Jefferson County plantation home he was consulting on, before conversation devolved into wicked promises he spoke in a whisper, and her shallow, panting breaths.

Hard to say if pride, shame, or sheer stubbornness kept her silent, but Laney said nothing about Tarrington House. She didn’t want to dwell on the sale of the place where she’d spun her childhood daydreams. Not when the man who fired her very grown-up fantasies was talking soft and low about all the things he wanted to do with her. She’d said her goodbye to the place she’d called home when Brian and his older brother, Jake, had loaded the last of her things into a rented van and trucked them over to the apartment she was subletting from Brooke.

The high point of the week had been Tuesday afternoon, when Connie Cade plowed through the door to Sassafras, choppy layers swirling around her remarkably unlined face, and a gleam of determination burning in the clear green eyes she’d passed on to her son. She plunked a credit card belonging to Cade Construction down on the counter, flashed a brief, borderline-polite smile at Miss Jeanette, then zoomed in on Laney.

“Do you earn a commission?”

Taken aback by the question, Laney could only blink and nod in response.

“Give me that Maggie Ruffe jacket we talked about, the pants, too. Throw in three or four tops I can wear with any or all of it,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Make sure they’re all really expensive.”

“Um, okay.” Laney drew the word out as she hung the steaming wand on its rack and stepped out from behind the counter. “Any color preference—”

Connie cut her off by holding up her hand like a traffic cop. “Let me make a few things clear. One, I hate clothes shopping. Two, I trust you not to make me look like a clown. Three, my boy isn’t going to be back in town until Friday and he’s too chicken shit to tell you.” She shoved the credit card across the counter. “I’m the messenger, and I am counting on you to make him pay.”