Let Me Love You (13 page)

“It’s a blessing and a curse, but great for business.” Smiling, April hugged her from behind. “Four sugars, two seconds worth of cream. You’ve always taken your cream and sugar with a little coffee.”

Lucy laughed as April slid into a chair across from them. They were the five musketeers. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed their dynamic until this moment.

“Rachael tells us you went out with one of the Brackett brothers Sunday night,” Rhonda blurted, leaning over the table. “Spill!”

Okay, maybe there were things about the dynamic she hadn’t missed.

Lucy took a quick snapshot of the room. With the exception of Rosie (the sweet old lady who’d lost her sense of hearing last year) sitting near the window on the opposite end of the shop, they were alone.

Relief washed over her. The last thing she wanted was her dating conquests shared all over Blue Lake.

“Dude, Rachael,” Lucy said, wadding her napkin up and throwing it at her. “Ever heard of discretion?”

Dodging the flying wad, Rachael took a really freaking long drink of her coffee and avoided eye contact. When she finally set her cup back down, she said, “Sorry, Luce. Couldn’t help it. It’s, like, the best gossip anyone’s had in this town since…since…”

“Since you seduced the rock star?” April finished, and they all laughed.

“Fine,” Rachael said. “Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking.” She put up a finger and shook it side to side. “But for the record, he totally seduced me.”

They all knew the story. Hell, everyone in Blue Lake knew how Rachael and Cole Turner had hooked up. It was an absolute fairy tale, and those didn’t happen very often, if ever.

“So which Brackett brother was it?” Laney probed.

Wasn’t it too early for gossip? There should’ve been a rule: no dirt dished up before ten o’clock in the morning. “Which do you think?” Lucy sighed.

“Dane,” Laney and April said in unison.

“Nah, it was Joey,” Rhonda said.

Lucy was intrigued. “What makes you think that?”

“He’s a total hottie.”

“They’re twins,” April argued, playfully smacking Rhonda in the shoulder. “If one’s hot, they’re both hot.”

“No, there’s something different about Joey,” she went on. “He’s really nice. He’s, like, the total package.”

Precisely.

“What the hell is wrong with him, then?” Lucy spat, smacking her hands on the table. “Please for the love of God tell me because he’s the hottest thing I’ve seen since Channing Tatum flaunted his magic, nicer than anyone I’ve met in this town, and he’s incredible in bed. Someone please tell me—”

“Wait, what?” Rachael squeaked. “I thought you went out with Dane! But you went out with Joey? And you
slept
with him!”

Face palm.

The coffee shop went radio silent. When Lucy glanced up, every one of her friends had her mouth hanging open.

“You boinked him, you little hussy!” Laney barked, drumming her hands over the table. “Good for you!”

“Girl, you’re glowing!” April pointed into Lucy’s chest. “And now you’re blushing.”

“I am not.” But she totally felt as if Joey had lit something inside her. She rubbed circles over her cheeks. “There’s a perfectly rational explanation what happened. I went out with Joey after the auction, had a great night, and we kissed but that was it.” They stared, apparently speechless. “Then Dane asked me out, I said yes, but he couldn’t make it because his sports shop had some kind of damage thanks to the storm, so Joey came in his place.”

“
Really
came in his place,” Laney said, waggling her eyebrows, “if you get my drift.”

“Gross!” April yelled, as Laney nearly choked on her candy. Rhonda stuck her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag. Rachael laughed with a snort.

“It wasn’t like that,” Lucy said when they calmed down. “I can’t even think about what would’ve happened if Dane showed up instead of Joey.”

“What do you mean,
what would’ve happened
?” Rachael’s mouth hung open. “You think you would’ve slept with Dane?”

Laney clacked her tongue against her cheek. “Can you imagine having both Brackett brothers at the same time? Shudder.”

Whistles and purr sounds made their way around the table, garnering the attention of Old Deaf Rosie. They smiled. Waved. She glared and went back to her crossword.

Lucy’s stomach dropped. “I don’t want both Brackett brothers. I only want…”

She couldn’t finish. She wanted Joey again, but only as long as he kept it light. The second she started to get the feeling that he wanted something more, she’d have to bolt so he wouldn’t get hurt. She’d been surprised that he wanted to have sex Sunday night, that he’d wanted something with no strings attached. That wasn’t like him. She’d wanted Dane—the one who was known for his flings and casual relationships.

Now, Dane was an afterthought.

There was no way she’d go out with him now, especially not after she’d gotten involved with Joey this way.

“Look,” Laney said smugly. “She’s glowing again.”

Lucy hid her face in her hands.

“Does Dane know?” Rachael whispered, leaning close.

Lucy shook her head, but didn’t look up.

“Sounds like you’ve got a problem.” Rachael wrapped her arm around Lucy’s back. “If he doesn’t know about what happened, he’s going to want a replacement date to make up for ditching you on the first.”

She’d been expecting the call for two days.

“And if he does know what happened, I’m guessing he and Joey will be going at it,” Laney interrupted, fishing more candies from her purse.

Rachael pulled a Kindle out of her bag. “What are you going to do?”

“She’s going to date Joey,” Rhonda answered simply. “They’d be perfect together.”

The group gawked.

Lucy groaned. “How do you figure?”

“He’s adventurous, and that’s exactly what Lucy is looking for.”

Umm…
adventurous?
Joey? Unless he was charging into burning houses or spelunking in his brother’s place, he wasn’t adventurous at all.

Lucy sipped her coffee. “I think you’ve got him confused with his brother. Dane’s the one always hunting down the next adventure.”
Or conquest.

“Nope.” Rhonda unwrapped a candy and shoved it into her mouth. “I mean Joey. He hasn’t flown recently, but he’s still got the plane. That adventure is in there somewhere. Come to think of it,” she said, gazing out the window, “he used to fly all the time, but I can’t remember the last time I saw his plane flying over the ridge near my place. Wonder what made him quit…”

Lucy remembered Joey in high school, and vaguely recalled classmates talking about how he’d gotten his pilot’s license before his driver’s license. She’d thought that was weird. Cool, but bizarre.

But he hadn’t mentioned flying or a plane. He talked about the sky and stars, but if he had his pilot’s license and flew as much as Rhonda seemed to remember, why hadn’t he brought it up?

She’d completely forgotten about Joey being a pilot.

“It must be expensive,” April said, refilling their coffee. “Gas isn’t cheap. He probably can’t afford to fly.”

Rachael shook her head. “Not when he’s supporting Janice. That’s got to be the reason. I always wanted to skydive before I had children, because I figured I wouldn’t want to leave them motherless if my chute didn’t open.”

“Only you would think about something like that,” Lucy said.

“Well, the day might be coming sooner than we think.”

All eyes shot her way.

“I’m not pregnant,” Rachael clarified, a toothy grin spreading across her face. “But we’ve set a wedding date. We’re getting married next summer at the inn. And we don’t want to wait to try to get pregnant. Cole wants little Rachaels running around as soon as possible. That’s what he said. Little Rachaels.” She glowed with happiness. “Isn’t he the cutest?”

The friends swooned. Lucy teared up and embraced her friend.

Everything was coming together for her. For all of them, really. Rachael had the perfect ending with Cole. April had Mason, the photographer who captured her heart at first sight. Laney had Charlie, “the one” who’d been right beneath her nose for years.

Lucy glanced at Rhonda, the only other one in the group who was still single. While Lucy enjoyed solitude, Rhonda had been looking for Mr. Right since high school.

As they gushed over Rachael’s news, a group of farmers came in, wearing flannel, work boots, and dirty tractor hats. If “country male” was a fashion trend, they’d own it.

“I gotta work, guys,” April whispered. “We didn’t even pick a book yet.”

“How about this one?” Rhonda said, pulling a paperback out of her purse. It had a woman in a red dress on the cover, holding a basket of flowers. “It’s a romance:
Something Amazing
by Grayson Thompson. He’s scheduled to come through Blue Lake on his book tour in a few months—after rescheduling half a dozen times—so if he does actually show up, it’d be cool to say we’ve at least read one of his books. What do you think?”

“Yes from me,” April said, and then spun to the counter to help the new customers.

“Sweet,” Laney said, and started tapping her Kindle screen. “I’ve got it.”

Lucy didn’t want to read a romance that was all about the fanciful ideal of what a relationship should be. Whatever happened to female independence? The woman who didn’t want to find the clichéd man who’d propose and offer a future she hadn’t seen for herself when she first met him?

That’s what Lucy wanted.

She needed a man who wanted something for himself, and wanted his heroine to want things for herself too. There should’ve been absolutely nothing wrong with a man and woman sleeping together, and then splitting ways to sleep in their own beds, in their own home.

Where was that book?

She hoped Grayson Thompson came to Blue Lake. Because when he did, she planned on asking him to write it.

Forty minutes into his grueling workout, Joey fought to press the bar off his chest. He exhaled as he extended his hands above him.

Six.

Adjusting his body on the bench, he heaved the bar over his head again.

It felt heavier this time.

Seven.

AC/DC blared over the radio, echoing through the fire station. He’d been lifting for over an hour, and had gone for a six-mile run before that. It was the same workout he’d punished himself with yesterday.

He couldn’t get Lucy out of his head.

Eight.

Sweat dripping off his brow, Joey lowered the bar, resting it on his chest. It was heavy. Dead weight.

He hadn’t called Lucy after spelunking Sunday night, although he’d wanted to. She didn’t want something serious, and he didn’t want to spook her. After Dane had texted, Joey thought Lucy would’ve run out of his arms and right into his twin’s. She
had
wanted to date Dane over him initially. But she hadn’t done that at all.

Nine.

Dane hadn’t called Joey once. It was probably for the better. How do you tell your brother that you pretended to be him on one of his dates and then swooped in? Joey’d had his eyes on Lucy first, but Dane didn’t know that.

As the bar pressed over Joey’s head a tenth time, the weight on his chest increased, threatening to crush his sternum. Only the bar wasn’t resting on his chest. The pain was from something else entirely.

“Brackett!” Chief Hammock hollered, striding into the engine bay. “You’re making the rest of us look bad! Ron’s doing bicep curls, only he’s lifting drumsticks.” He belly-laughed at his own joke. “Want to eat with us, or wait until we set up at the school?”

Tempting to eat now, but… “I’ll wait.”

Joey tried not to breathe in the heavenly aroma of fried chicken and buttered corn on the cob, but he couldn’t help it. He breathed in deep, letting the mouthwatering aroma fill his lungs. Ron had a special recipe for chicken—they called him Colonel for shits and giggles—and he’d been talking about tonight’s feast for weeks. Once Ron was finished frying, the on-duty crew was delivering and serving dinners at a Blue Lake High School drive-through dinner fund-raiser.

“Suit yourself,” the chief said.

As he turned, the alarms went off, shrill and deafening. At the first piercing warning tone, Joey charged to the rack of gear, his step sure and determined, his head suddenly clear.

Fire.

* * *

Late Friday night, Lucy walked the rows of grapes at the end of the work yard, with Zin—the adorable little sucker—following at her feet. Brushing her hand over the leaves, pride streaked through her and she couldn’t help but smile. Despite fears about the drought, she had high hopes that the crop would be good this year. Better than the last, and that was really saying something.

Her parents would’ve been proud of her.

She knew how they would’ve felt—they didn’t need to be standing next to her, patting her back.