Heartstrings and Diamond Rings (10 page)

“Must be nice to have a date. I haven’t had a date in forever. That customer service guy Jonathan asked me out last week, but he stinks.”

“Stinks?”

“Yeah. He stopped wearing deodorant. Said it was killing the planet.”

Alison had news for Lois. If Jonathan thought it was a good idea to ask her out, body odor was the least of his problems.

“So don’t breathe when you’re around him,” Alison said.

“Right,” Lois said, rolling her eyes. “Like I can do that for a whole date?”
Chomp, chomp, chomp.
“So where’d you meet this guy you’re going out with?”

“He’s a friend of a friend.”

“Blind date?”

“Not exactly.”

Chomp.
“Then what exactly?”

“None of your business.”

“Fine. Don’t tell me.”
Chomp, chomp.
“But I know you got a date because you’re skinny. Guys always like skinny women. What chance do the rest of us have?”

She walked off, stuffing the last bite of the Mallorific bar in her mouth, and Alison felt a surge of contentment. God, she loved working there. Nowhere else on the planet was she seen as the skinny girl who scooped up every man in sight, cherry-picked the good ones, and tossed out the rest for the more undesirable women to fight over.

She looked at her watch. Two forty-nine. If she waited eleven more minutes before checking to see if the plumbers were finished, it counted toward her record. Then again, if she laid off the Mallorific bars and all other sweets between now and this weekend, she might be able to squeeze into that cute little skirt she’d bought at the spring clearance sale at Ann Taylor. But the closer the clock crept to three, the more she got to thinking maybe her little black dress that showed off her cleavage, didn’t cling to her hips, and had room for a sack of Mallorific bars from the inside out was a way better choice for a first date, anyway.

A minute after three, she congratulated herself on her new personal best, then tiptoed across the just‑mopped kitchen floor behind a guy who was putting away his tools and hiking up his Wranglers to cover his butt crack. She snagged a Mallorific bar, then couldn’t resist grabbing a bag of Butterscotch Bits from a box on the counter to round out her afternoon snack.

Yep. The little black dress it was.

The next morning, Brandon sat at his desk, going through files, wondering for the umpteenth time if he had a chance of making this business work. His only successful match so far was for Jack Warren, the guy he’d signed as a client a few days ago. He’d introduced him to a thirty‑eight‑year‑old attorney named Melanie Davis. Neither one had ever been married except to their jobs, and both were allergic to children. She liked his wine expertise and his West Plano McMansion. He liked her biting wit and her cosmetically enhanced breasts. They made plans to see each other again before the first date was even over. With luck, Alison’s first date with Greg would be equally successful.

Now, if only he could generate more new business that brought in new money.

Just then his grandmother’s land line rang. He looked at the caller ID. Unknown caller. Could it be the new business he was looking for?

With a surge of hope, he picked up the phone. “Matchmaking by Rochelle.”

A long pause. “Brandon? Is that you?”

At the sound of that voice, Brandon’s blood turned to ice. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“Hey, Brandon! How’s it going, kid?”

Tension instantly filled him, decades of anger and resentment swirling around inside his head. “What do you want, Darryl?”

“Wow. That’s a pretty frosty way to greet your old man, isn’t it?

A dozen different emotions washed over Brandon, and not one of them was welcome. After what had happened all those years ago, the word “Dad” no longer crossed his lips, and frosty was a really good way to describe the way he felt every time he heard his father’s voice.

“I didn’t know if I’d find you there or not,” Darryl said. “I don’t have your cell number anymore.”

Damned right you don’t
. “You missed the funeral.”

“Oh. Yeah. About that. I was tied up. Couldn’t make it.”

Brandon knew what that meant. Either he was up to no good and lying low, or running from some guy he’d hustled and shouldn’t have.

“You couldn’t make it to your own mother’s funeral?” Brandon said.

“I told you,” he said, anger creeping into his voice. “I was tied up.”

You’re a damned liar
. “Why are you calling?”

“Because I thought maybe I’d like to see you.”

No. No way. If he saw his father, it would be just like the last time in New Orleans when they’d barely gotten through one drink before the fight started all over again. Darryl had stalked out of the bar, leaving Brandon with the tab and the sick feeling that nothing had changed. That nothing would ever change.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Brandon said.

“You know, you might think about letting go of that grudge one of these days. Family’s family after all, isn’t it?”

That made Brandon’s blood boil.
Family.
The man didn’t know the meaning of the word. And when it came to holding a grudge, no one on this earth was better at it than his father.

No one.

“Just tell me what you want,” Brandon said.

“Okay. Fine. It appears my mother made a small mistake in her will. Seems she left everything to you.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you think that’s fair?”

“Wasn’t my decision to make.”

“It is now. The house—”

“She left it to her church.”

“Her church? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Are you really surprised about that?”

Darryl let out a humorless, derisive laugh. “Now that you mention it, no. In fact, I’m surprised she didn’t leave every dime to some Bible-beating televangelist.”

Brandon bristled at that. As a teenager, he’d hated like hell when his grandmother had dragged him to church. As an adult, he hated like hell to hear his father mock it.

“So if she left her house to the church,” Darryl said, “why are you there?”

“It’s mine as long as I want to stay here. But I won’t be staying long.”

“What’s still in the house?”

“Nothing that’s worth much.”

“Maybe I should come take a look.”

Brandon imagined what that would be like. His father wanted to sift through the house to see if there was anything worth pawning. He’d open cabinets, pick through closets, and turn over sofa cushions. And when he was satisfied there was nothing to add to his bottom line, he’d be gone. But suddenly the last thing Brandon wanted was his father touching a single thing in this house. And he sure as hell didn’t want him in the middle of the business he was trying to get off the ground.

“I told you there’s nothing here you’d want,” Brandon said.

“The Brunswick. That’s bound to be worth something.”

“No. It’s in bad condition. Maybe I’ll restore it someday, but for now it’s pretty worthless.”

“There has to be something else. China? Jewelry?”

“She was buried with her wedding rings, so don’t even go there.”

“Hey, it’s only fair, don’t you think?” Darryl said, his voice escalating. “What kind of mother cuts her own son out of her will?”

“One who made a decision that was hers alone to make.”

There was a long silence. Brandon’s heart was beating like mad, the way it always did whenever he was forced to confront his father. But no matter how it made him feel, he wasn’t giving in.

“Okay, I hear you,” Darryl said finally, and Brandon heard that edge to his voice, the one that said he was trying to get his temper under control. How many times had he heard that as a kid?

“But those are just material things, right?” Darryl went on. “What about the important stuff? Photo albums. My mother’s recipes. The family Bible. You’d actually deny me those things? This is my mother we’re talking about.”

As if he expected Brandon to believe that? “I told you there’s nothing here you’d be interested in.”

“Maybe I’d like to see that for myself. And maybe you’d like to see your old man.”

No, no, no!
“I already told you. I’m leaving soon. I have…I have a deal brewing in Houston.”

“Real estate?”

“Yes.”

“Thought that industry was in the toilet right now.”

“Not when you know what you’re doing.”

“So you’re still making money?”

Hell, no, he wasn’t. But the last thing he wanted was for the old man to know just how down and out he really was.

“Yeah, Darryl. I’m still making money.”

“Then cutting your old man in for a little bit of your grandmother’s estate really shouldn’t hurt much, should it? Surely she had at least a little cash. Or maybe—”

“I told you there’s
nothing
.”

“Hey! I’m your father! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Look, Darryl. I can’t help it if you’re broke. But if you think you’re coming to me for money—”

“Is that what you think? That I
need
the money? For your information, I’ve got some action myself here in Atlanta. Tournament in two days. I should be able to walk away with the whole thing. So I really don’t need a damned thing from my mother’s estate, now do I?”

Knowing what he knew about his father, that was unlikely. He was a stellar pool player, assuming he kept his head down and his emotions under control. But that never happened.

Never.

“No,” Brandon said. “I guess you don’t.”

“That’s right. I don’t. So you just keep that pittance your grandmother left you. Apparently you need it way more than I do.”

And then he heard a click, and the line went dead.

Brandon hung up the phone and sat back in his chair, anger eating away at him. He hated this. He hated the way his stomach churned and his brain grew foggy after just one lousy five-minute conversation. It reminded him of how he’d felt as a kid, when his father had jerked him from one town to another, working just long enough to put food in their mouths before moving on again. Or worse, he’d piss somebody off and be forced to leave town. Every time they moved, it meant Brandon had to start at a new school. When he was nine or ten, he’d been the quiet kid nobody even knew was in the room. What was the point of getting to know anybody when he wasn’t going to be there for long? But by the time he was a teenager, he was entering every classroom with the kind of screw-you attitude that made most teachers want to give up the profession just from looking at his scowling face.

It’s the nine to five that keeps a man down, Brandon. Remember that. You let yourself get caught up in that, and you’ll die a slow death.

When he was a kid, he’d hung on his father’s every word. It wasn’t until he was older that he began to realize there was nothing to back up the old man’s words. The truth was that he didn’t move around to avoid the nine to five. He just didn’t want to work, so he’d screw off, or show up drunk, or do something else that got him fired. Then the hustling would start again. And by the time Brandon was fifteen, his father had taught him to follow in his footsteps. Once the man realized just how good his son was and that he had a gold mine on his hands, he stepped up the hustling like a man possessed.

That had been the beginning of the end.

Sometimes, when he hadn’t been around his father for a while, Brandon got to thinking maybe it could happen. They really could bury the hatchet, forget the past, let bygones be bygones. Then he’d talk to him again, and all that wishful thinking would go straight to hell.

The truth was that if he never saw his father again in this lifetime, it would be too soon.

A
lison detested first dates, so by the time Saturday night came, she’d already worked herself into a wad of tangled nerves. First dates were like minefields. No matter which direction you stepped, something could blow up right in your face.

She drove to the West Village and managed to wedge her car into a parking space in a tiny lot three blocks away from the restaurant. As she got out, she tugged on the hem of her dress to make sure it was hanging straight so she wouldn’t look half drunk before the night even began.

She took a yoga breath and walked toward the restaurant. Whenever she’d gone on dates with men she met on match.com or Yahoo! Personals, they always turned out to be shorter than their profile said they were, ten years older than the photos they put online, and “physically fit” meant they had a highly developed right bicep from opening and closing their refrigerator door.

And every one of them had issues of some kind. In her early twenties, it had been a lack of focus. Okay, so that was generous. What she really meant to say was that they still lived with two other guys in a one-bedroom apartment decorated with pizza boxes and dirty laundry and spent all day playing World of Warcraft. Her mid-twenties led her to guys who lied a lot about their jobs and the four other women they were seeing besides her. Now that she was thirty, suddenly every guy she met had already been through divorce court.

Supposedly Greg was none of those things. But Alison had been burned so many times that a better outfit for the evening might have been a little black asbestos jumpsuit.

She strode up the crowded sidewalk, sidestepping two hand-holding men and their Yorkshire terrier, then a couple of granola heads wearing tie-dyed T‑shirts and looking for a tree to hug. An eclectic crowd hung out in the West Village, but the indigenous population was mostly young, upscale, and rich, and judging from the reviews online, they
loved
Sonoma Bistro.

She reached the restaurant and went inside, not the least bit surprised to see dark wood, wine casks, and brick walls. How original. She’d never been to a wine bar decorated like a wine cellar. What would they think of next?

“Excuse me. Are you Alison Carter?”

She turned quickly to see a man standing behind her. Greg? No. It couldn’t be. He looked just like his photo. Didn’t that violate dating law?

If so, this guy had committed a third-degree felony.

He had the same boyish smile and the same sandy brown hair as he did in his photo, both of which coordinated perfectly with his sparkling green eyes. Just looking at him made little zings of pure pleasure shoot down her spine.

“Yes, I’m Alison.”

“Oh, good,” he said on a sigh of relief. “You know how it is sometimes when you meet somebody for the first time. They never look like their photo. But in your case…well, let’s just say I’m pleasantly surprised.”

A slow grin spread across his lips, lips that looked so kissable that Alison was already imagining what they’d feel like against hers.

Easy there, Sparky. Sexy lips do not a soul mate make. And he’s a vegan, remember? Can you really fill your fridge with tofu and beans for the rest of your life?

The hostess led them to the best table in the restaurant. The vegan thing came up right away, and Greg asked if she minded him ordering for both of them. The prospect of eating so scantily made Alison a little wary, not to mention the fact that a man ordering for her usually offended her feminist sensibilities. But he asked so kindly with a sparkle in those beautiful green eyes that she just couldn’t hold it against him.

He ordered a bottle of Shiraz that was to die for, and she wasn’t all that crazy about wine. Then an appetizer, which consisted of a flat bread with roasted red peppers, garlic, and sweet basil that Alison couldn’t get enough of. But it wasn’t until they were halfway through their entrees—whole grain pasta with grilled vegetables, fresh spinach, and an array of spices that gave her a culinary orgasm—that Alison finally came to the conclusion that she might indeed be able to eat like this for the rest of her life.

They talked about anything and everything—the news of the day, the movies they’d seen, where they lived. He dropped his gaze to her cleavage only a couple of times—enough to show he liked what he saw but not so much that getting laid might be number one on his hit parade. He listened intently when she told him about her job, tilting his head with what looked like interest and laughing at the stories that were supposed to be funny. After two glasses of wine, she let herself think that maybe she really was as fascinating as he appeared to think she was.

“So you’re in pharmaceutical sales,” she said. “That sounds interesting.”

“Actually, it is,” he said. “The hours are long, and the clients can be really difficult sometimes, but…” That cute grin again. “I can’t argue with the compensation.” Then he leaned in and spoke with what looked like utter sincerity. “I admit it, Alison. I’m pretty traditional. I think it’s important for a man to be able to support his wife and family in the manner they deserve. Not that I’m against a working woman. I’d just like her to do it because she wants to, not because she has to.”

And just like that, the heavens opened and angels began to sing.

She couldn’t believe it. Brandon had done it. He’d actually done it. He’d found her a wonderful man. The money she’d spent to find him felt like pocket change compared to the reality of the man who was sitting in front of her now. She felt the weirdest rumbling sensation just beneath her solar plexus. Under any other circumstances, she might have brushed it off as indigestion, but when she was in the presence of a man who just might be
The One
, it was more like a swirl of hope, telling her from the inside out that this—
this
—was the man who would make her life complete.

The rest of the evening felt fuzzy and unreal in a delightfully dreamlike way. Later, when they left the restaurant, Greg told Alison he’d walk her to her car. It turned out they’d parked in the same lot, and they passed his car on the way to hers. When he pointed it out to her, she quite simply couldn’t believe it.

He drove a Jaguar convertible?

“Beautiful car,” Alison said, congratulating herself on shutting her mouth before the second part of that comment popped out:
May I have your baby?

“Want to go for a spin?” Greg asked.

She came very close to hopping right over the door and plopping herself in the passenger seat, only to remember First Date Protocol. But it wasn’t as if she was meeting a guy for the first time from an Internet dating site. Brandon had vetted this guy from top to bottom and deemed him to be a quality match, so who was she to worry?

“Sure,” she said with a smile. “I’d love to.”

Greg opened her door for her—extra points—then circled the car to hop into the driver’s seat. He was just so sweet and warm and attentive that he couldn’t possibly be real. This had to be a dream. A wonderful, lyrical dream filled with fluffy clouds and castles and ocean waves and magical forests, and…oh, my. Over there. Wasn’t that a
unicorn
?

Alison didn’t giggle out loud—that would have been weird—but inside her head she was tittering like a schoolgirl.

Greg swung the Jag onto McKinney Avenue and hit the gas. People on the sidewalk turned to stare as they drove by. She only wished she could ask him to slow down in case somebody didn’t get the opportunity to see her riding in this gorgeous car with this wonderful man.

In minutes they’d reached Woodall Rodgers. Greg eased the Jag onto the entrance ramp, then gunned it onto the freeway. They buzzed along, weaving in and out of traffic as they drove past the West End. As they circled around the west side of the American Airlines Center, Alison leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes, enjoying the whine of the engine and the feel of the wind as it whipped her hair into a frenzy.

Then all at once, she heard the pulse of a siren. She sat up suddenly and turned to look behind her.

A police car?

“Uh-oh,” Alison said. “Were you speeding?”

Greg gave her a sly grin. “Sorry. I just couldn’t help it. All these horses under the hood are hard to rein in sometimes.”

Alison gave him a forgiving smile. Could she really be angry? After all, if she’d been driving this car, she probably would have been speeding, too.

Greg slowed down, then turned onto the shoulder and brought the Jag to a halt. The police car came to a stop behind them. Several minutes passed, but for some reason, the officer wasn’t getting out of his car.

“What do you suppose is taking him so long?” she asked.

Greg’s sunny expression grew a little cloudy. “He’s probably just running my plates. But don’t worry. We’ll be out of here in a minute.”

But then another police car pulled up behind the first one.

“Two of them?” Alison said. “Isn’t that kind of weird for just a routine traffic stop?”

Greg’s Adam’s apple bobbed with a heavy swallow. “Uh…yeah.”

Just the way he said that made Alison’s heart suddenly start whacking her chest. “So what’s going on?”

Greg was silent, his gaze glued to his rearview mirror. When a third police car drove past him, then swung to the shoulder to park right in front of his car, he squeezed his eyes closed and pounded his fists on the steering wheel. “Shit!”

Alison jumped as if he’d slapped her. “What’s the matter?”

“They must have found out. Shit, shit
shit
!”

“Found out what?”

Greg groaned. “Damn it! The money was just so
good
! How was I supposed to turn it down?”

“Money? What money?”

“How else was I
ever
supposed to drive a car like this? Not working as a fucking night manager at Wendy’s, I’ll tell you that!”

“Wendy’s? What does Wendy’s have to do with—”

“Sure, I’m a good-looking guy,” he said, talking with his hands now, like a crazy man who’d just broken free from a strait jacket. “Some chicks think I’m really hot. But it’s funny how hot goes away when I’m staring at them through a fucking drive‑through window!”

Alison leaned away, plastering herself against the passenger door, wondering who this madman was and what he’d done with her mild-mannered vegan. Her nerves—the ones that had had been doing dainty little pirouettes all evening—were suddenly stomping around as if they were running from Godzilla.

Oh—could that be what was happening here? A gigantic Japanese monster was on the outskirts of Dallas, and the police were warning all the residents?
Please, God, let it be that and not one more date gone to hell.

“And once I had more money than God,” Greg said, “I figured, hey, why screw with finding my own women? Why not pay somebody else to do it? It’s like ordering room service. I told that dude what kind of woman I wanted, and she showed up. I sure as hell couldn’t have done
that
on a fucking night manager’s salary at Wendy’s!”

“I’m going out on a limb here,” Alison said, “but were you once a night manager at Wendy’s?”

“Yeah, and if I’d asked you out, you would have told me to go fuck myself, wouldn’t you?”

“Well—”

“See?
See?
” He spat out a breath. “I really liked you, you know? I think we could actually have had something together. But we can’t now, because I’m fucked. Totally
fucked!
”

What is this man talking about?

No. Better question. Why were all those officers getting out of their cars now? Why were they drawing their guns? Why did this look like every arrest on every episode of
Cops
she’d ever seen, except Greg had all his teeth, no tattoos, and was wearing a shirt?

Then she found out. And through it all, one furious thought filled her mind, practically burning a hole through her skull.

Brandon Scott was a dead man.