Her Last Love (Small Town Hearts Trilogy #1) (5 page)

Lynn sighed as she swapped the bread for wine and told the girls how Carter had shown up at her door that morning. How he told her about seeing her at the grocery store last night, and how he wanted to meet to clear the air. She took them through the conversation over coffee at the café, ending with the phone call.   

"Wow." Bethany said simply.   

"Always the master of the understatement." Kari's tone had gone dry. "But in this case, I have to second that. Wow."   

"Yeah. I'm afraid I didn't handle it too well. We parted on such hard terms before, and this morning, it all felt ten kinds of awkward to me. I mean, I'm glad he did it. You know, so we could get everything out in the open and all. Because with both of us living here, things could get weird if we didn't." She took a deep drink of her wine, scowled into her glass. "But damn it, did he have to look so good while doing it?"    

"Told ya." Kari grinned as she elbowed Bethany. "That boy was
fine
. I mean, he was cute before, but now he's filled out and got muscles everywhere. Not enough to be gross like a bodybuilder or anything, just enough to go from cute to delicious."   

"You want to date him, or sop him up with a biscuit?" Lynn asked wryly.   

"Either way. Don't tempt me, sister." Kari laughed as Bethany snickered beside her. "I've been in the Sahara in terms of the dating scene."   

"Same here." Bethany raised her hand and nodded in agreement. "I get that it's okay to date again, but I still feel like it's not honoring Shane's memory the way I should if I did." she said, referring to her late husband, who had died in a coal mining accident.   

"Honey." Lynn leaned over to rub her friend's knee sympathetically. "It's been a few years now. You know that Shane would want you to be happy, to move on, even if it's with someone else."     

"I know, and he told me as much." She looked at Lynn. "You know those conversations couples have...'if something ever happens to me'. I just haven't found anyone who would make me want to take that step."   

"Well, don't rush it," Kari said to her. "When it's right, you'll know it, and you'll be ready to take the step when it's time."   

"I know." Bethany sighed, swirling her spoon in her soup. "But sometimes, I miss being part of a couple." She shook off her mood, she turned to Lynn. "Speaking of couples, what do you plan to do about Carter?"   

"Plan to do?" Lynn shook her head. "Nothing. He's married. Well, separated, but still married. We've decided to try our best to be friends, if for no other reason than to keep things from being awkward between us.” Lynn took a deep breath, leveled a look at her friends. “Now, if you don't mind, let's change the subject, shall we?" Lynn snatched the bread off her tray again, hearing the crunch of the crust and tasting the creamy butter as she took a healthy bite.    

"Okay," Kari agreed. "Let's talk about why you're home."   

Lynn felt her throat tighten, and the bread in her mouth seemed to expand as she tried to swallow. She looked down at the piece remaining in her hand, then back at the women who had known her most of her life.    

"It's a long story, one I don't particularly like to tell. Let's just say that there was an incident, not of my doing, that caused me to reevaluate where and what I wanted my life to be."  

"Give us the condensed version."   

Lynn sighed and picked apart the bread in her hand, ripping it into tiny pieces. She knew she'd have to get it out sooner or later, and she knew she could do no better than to have these two women as her sounding boards.   

"Okay, here's the short and sweet version. I was dating a guy, another officer, for a while. Things happened in the relationship, and because of his actions, because he was an officer, he ended up in trouble. And by me dating him, with him being in trouble, I was accused of trying to ruin his career. So I did some soul searching, and realized that if I couldn't get the support I needed and deserved, then I needed to move on to something else. So here I am." She dumped the now crumbled bread onto on her plate, picked up her empty wine glass, and stood to head to the kitchen.     

"I'm going for a refill. Should I just bring the bottle back?" She tossed the question over her shoulder as she left the room. 

"Sure, sweetie, that would be good." Bethany watched her walk away, the look of concern hard to miss.  

Lynn reached the bar where the wine bottle stood, but instead of reaching for it, she set her glass down, flattened her palms on the bar's cool surface, and hung her head, trying to regain her composure. That situation she had spoken of had been behind her for months, but she still didn't like to talk about it, and luckily, she had no visible physical reminders that would evoke questions. She lifted her head, took a deep breath, and poured another glass of wine. It irritated her that her hands shook, that just the memory of what had happened could do that to her. She set the glass and bottle down with a snap as Bethany came into the kitchen behind her.    

"Honey, are you okay?" Bethany asked quietly.   

"Fine." Lynn pasted on a bright smile as she turned to face her. "Just needed a minute, and more wine."   

"Okay." Bethany's tone said that she didn’t quite believe Lynn, but she would accept that answer. For now.   

"Come on, we're supposed to be celebrating!  Let's take this wine back in there, and I'll tell you more about the places I've seen. The people I've met." Lynn picked up her glass in one hand, the bottle in the other, and headed towards the living room, talking over her shoulder. "There was this guy, in Belgium. Know how we were talking about yummy? I'm telling you, if he'd been a box of chocolates, I'd have wrapped him up and brought him home!" With that, Bethany and Lynn, laughing together, went to rejoin Kari in the living room and settled in for a night of long-overdue girl talk. 

4

While the women were enjoying their girl’s night, the men were immersed in night of their own. Poker night. The time when men gathered to drink beer, tell lies, and lose money to their friends. As was the tradition, women never joined in on the weekly game. Not that Carter and his pals were sexist. They weren’t; the guys had great love and respect for the female half of the species. They just wanted to enjoy this time with their pals without having to explain how a flush beats a straight or listen to how unfair it was that they lost all of their chips on one hand. Being distracted by a pretty face and the smell of perfume that tugged at the hormones was another good reason to keep it men only.  

Yes, it was easier with just the guys. Their crowd was pretty much the same every week, with the occasional substitution or missing player. There was Jeremy Hall, the full-time soldier turned weekend warrior. Kyle Murray, goofy and fun-loving, worked with Carter at the mines, as did Anthony Bianchi and Michael Walsh. And they all played a mean hand of poker. They were a motley group of guys, but they'd all been friends for years, most of them since high school.  

Which was why, the men crowded around Carter’s dining room table, elbow to elbow, poker faces on and cards in hand. Leftover pieces of pizza and half-eaten crusts lay abandoned in the cardboard delivery boxes on the counter, next to empty brown beer bottles and used paper plates. Fingers shifted colorful plastic chips with one hand, letting them fall and clack back onto the stacks. Eyes peered over the cards held in the other, searching for tells in the faces of their fellow players.   

"Bet's to you, Jeremy. Call or fold?" Carter asked, eyeing the pretty pair of queens in his hand. Jeremy studied Carter's face, decided that with the measly pair of deuces, the bet wasn't worth it, and tossed his cards face-down on the tabletop.   

"I'm out." He took a swig of beer before leaning back in his chair and hanging an arm over the back, watching as Carter raked in the pot. "Must've been a helluva hand for you to bet like that." 

"Must've been." Carter grinned, adding the new chips to his pile before standing up from the table. "Anybody else need a refill?" he asked, gesturing with his bottle.   

"Yeah, I'll take one," Anthony replied in his faint Jersey accent. "Hey, did you guys hear about Abbott today?"   

"Abbott?" Michael piped up, curiosity piqued at the mere mention of his boss's continued antics. "What the hell did he do now?"   

"Put Baker on probation for missing those days when his wife was in the hospital last week. You know, when she was having problems with the baby."   

"Are you serious?" Carter asked.    

"As a heart attack."   

"Abbott's always been an ass. Who knew he could get bigger?" He asked as he took his seat again, and everyone chipped in their ante.   

"Tell me about it. But, Baker's pissed and is going to HR over the whole thing. Says it isn't right since he filled out all the paperwork for the time off and everything." Anthony picked up the cards that Michael had dealt, studied them before tossing two back onto the table. "He's right, and I don't blame him for going over Abbott's head with this, but it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out."    

"I say it'll get taken care of in one of two ways." Kyle spoke as he tossed his discards on the pile. "Either HR will fix it and Abbott will get wrote up, or Baker will put Abbott on his ass."  

"I'd pay to see that," Michael said, laughing.    

"I think we all would." Anthony nodded, clamping his cigar

between his teeth again as thin streams of fragrant smoke curled towards the ceiling.   

The men studied the cards in their hands as the second round was dealt, the bets were raised and called, or hands were folded. Carter tossed his cards when then bets were too rich and looked on as Anthony added the chips to his meager winnings of the evening.

"Hey, man." Kyle nudged Jeremy with his elbow. "Didn't you have a date with that chick, the hot blonde from the front offices, not too long ago?"   

"Her name is Melody, and yeah, we went out." He scooped up a handful of pretzels and munched while he watched fresh cards being shuffled and dealt.   

"That's it?" Kyle asked incredulously. "That's all we get? C'mon man, ya gotta give us more than that!"   

"There's not a lot to tell. Took her to dinner and the live show going on at the playhouse. She was nice, and we had fun, but that's it."   

"A one-and-done, huh?" Carter asked, tossing his cards away.

"Yeah. Don't see us going out again. No real spark. I mean, yeah, we could've hit the sheets, if I was reading her right. But I wasn't feeling it. Maybe I was just off my game." Jeremy shrugged, studied his hand.   

"Bummer." Michael sympathized as he folded.   

"It is what it is," Jeremy said, raising the bet. "What about you? Didn't you say something about a date last week?"

"Yeah, but unlike you, I was definitely feeling it." Michael bragged, grinning before turning his attention to Anthony. "What about you, Tony? You and Dani go out again?"   

"Yep." Anthony tossed in his chips to call the bet. "The high school was playing a home game, so we went. The boys lost, but I scored." Wagging his eyebrows and grinning, he looked over at Jeremy, and each man showed his cards.   

"Full house, aces over threes. Looks like I scored again." Anthony separated the chips from the pot and stack them at his elbow as Jeremy tossed his cards on the table in defeat.

"So, Carter." Kyle pulled in all the cards from the other players and shuffled them. "Speaking of women.... what's this I hear about you and a certain redhead, huh?"   

Carter went still, sending Kyle an arch look over the bottom of the beer he was drinking. Kyle just grinned at him as he dealt the next hand of cards. Carter set his bottle down, and without replying, picked up the new hand he'd just been dealt.   

"There's nothing to tell," he said after a lengthy pause. "She came home and, we met up for coffee to clear the air. That's it." Disgusted at that fact, and the cards in his hand, he folded.   

"Wait, what? What redhead?" Feeling lost, Michael looked around the table.   

"You know. THE redhead. The one who broke our buddy's heart, here." Kyle tipped his head in Carter's direction.   

"You don't mean....Lynn?" Anthony chimed in, setting his elbows on the table’s edge and leaning forward in interest.  

"The same." Kyle as he confirmed.   

"What the hell is she doing back in town? I thought she was off playing G.I. Jane overseas somewhere." Michael snorted.   

"Hey, there's nothing about 'playing' when it comes to serving our country," Jeremy stated, insulted.    

"Sorry, just saying.... I assumed that she was long gone. Never to return." Michael looked over at Carter, a questioning look on his face. "I'm guessing that's what you thought, too, huh?"   

"Yeah." Carter cleared his throat. He took another quick swig to rid himself of the sudden dryness. "It was a shock seeing her, let me tell you. How did you find out about it?" He asked Kyle.   

"Small town grape vine. People saw you guys at the café a while back, and word got around that she was home."   

"Mm-hmm," Carter murmured. "Sounds about right."   

"So, how did all that go down, anyway?" Jeremy asked.   

Carter took a deep breath, toyed with his beer bottle as he gave the guys the brief version of how he had seen her at the store, of showing up on her front step. He finished up the rundown, and his beer, with the conversation at the café.   

"Man." Kyle blew a hard breath. "That's rough."   

"Yep."   

The men sat in silence, each studied the cards in his hand. As they began to toss away their discards, Jeremy spoke. 

"Did I ever meet Lynn?" 

"No, man." Kyle got rid of his cards, signaled to the dealer for two more. "She was gone before you got here. But, you may have seen her around town since she's been back. Heard she immediately hooked back up with the other members of the trio." 

"The trio?" 

"Yeah. Her and her two best friends." Carter picked up the new cards he'd been dealt, arranged them in his hand. "They grew up together from the time they were in preschool. Were practically inseparable all through school." 

"Do I know the other two women?" Michael asked. 

"Sure do." Kyle looked at him and grinned. "Kari Nelson and Bethany Lewis."  

"Kari? Isn't she the cute little blonde that runs the restaurant?" 

"That would be her, yes." 

"Huh. Wonder what her story is." 

"Why? You interested in her?" This from Anthony, who nudged Michael with his elbow. 

"Maybe. Maybe not." Michael shrugged. "Just that I've never seen her around town with anybody. Guy wise, I mean." 

"Well, she's pretty picky." Carter rejoined the conversation. "And with good reason. She's a mom, got a little girl about eleven years old." 

"She married?" 

"Was. Kid's not his though. He came along about the time the girl was a year or two old." Carter scratched his head as he thought back to that time in Kari's life. "Kari got pregnant young, like seventeen or eighteen. I remember the guy, her kid's dad. Nice enough guy, but was only here for the summer. The two of them were together all the time. He went back to college and so did she, only to find out she was pregnant. I don't know all the details after that, except that Bethany helped her through the whole thing." 

Jeremy let out a low hum under his breath as he looked down at the cards in his hand. Kyle looked at the other guys around the table and smiled broadly before turning his attention to his own cards. 

"What are you smiling about, you idiot?" Anthony laughed as he tried to figure out what was going on with his friend. 

"Oh, nothing." Kyle looked up, smirked as he lifted an eyebrow. "Well, maybe something, but it's more of a feeling than anything else." 

"About what?" 

"About our friend Jeremy here." 

"Me?" Jeremy looked to Kyle, a scowl on his face. "What the hell are you talking about?" 

"About the fact that I think you have a thing for the hot librarian." 

"What?" Carter looked from Kyle to Jeremy, saw the look that passed between the friends. "When did this happen?" 

"Nothing's happened." Jeremy sighed, threw his folded hand to the center of the table in disgust. Not only at the cards in his hand, but at Kyle for letting the cat out of the bag about Bethany. "Look, I've talked to her several times. At the bonfires, couple times when I went into the library. She's a sweet, interesting, attractive woman." 

"I can't believe it." 

"Believe what?" 

"You went into a library?" The men all laughed as Jeremy gave them the finger, shook his head. 

"I checked out some movies. They've got a decent selection." 

"Uh-huh." Carter looked at his friend. "You going to ask her out or what?" 

"Man, I don't know." Jeremy grabbed his beer, leaned back in his seat and ran a hand around the back of his neck. "Like I said, she's nice and smart and all, but...she's got kids." 

"So?" 

"I've never dated a woman with kids." 

"Never?" 

"Nope. Especially women who have daughters as old as hers are." 

"How is that a problem?" Kyle asked, a look of slight confusion on his face. "It's not like you're going to marry her after the first date." 

"I've known Bethany for a while. I worked with Shane." Jeremy's voice dropped. "I was there when she and the girls buried him. It would be too weird, like I was trying to step into his shoes or something." 

"Shane's been gone awhile, man." Carter told him quietly. "If you want to ask her out, you should. And if it goes into more than a few dates, then address it. Don't forget, I've known Bethany awhile too. She knows you guys were friends and she'll appreciate it if you're upfront about not trying to take his place, if it gets to that point." 

"Yeah, I guess." He pushed the idea of asking Bethany out on date to the back of his mind as he stood. "I'm gonna take a smoke break. Go ahead and deal me out of the next hand." With that, Jeremy grabbed his beer and went out the back door. 

"He'll be alright," Michael said as he nodded, took a swig from his own beer bottle. "Just needs some time to figure it all out." 

"Yeah. And it explains something else too." Kyle fidgeted with the cards, felt slightly guilty about razzing Jeremy in front of the guys. 

"What's that?" 

"Now we know why he's off his game." The guys gave a low laugh, finished out the hand. When the hand was over and the winner raked in the chips, Kyle looked over to Carter. 

"Let me ask you something."   

"Shoot."   

"Is Lynn still hot?"   

Carter, laughing, got up to grab another slice of pizza and, deciding he'd had his limit on beer, opted for a soda instead. Taking a bite of the thick pepperoni and half-melted cheese as he settled back into his chair, he nodded in response.