Once and Again: Petal, Georgia, Book 1 (7 page)

“Have you given any serious thought about doing portraits for people?” Beth shifted and put a mug of tea into Lily’s hands. “Not wine, but chamomile. It’ll help some.”

“I used to do it on the side for extra money. I may again. Right now, especially until the end of the school year, my focus is Chris. But then I’ll have to re-evaluate my long-term job stuff.”

She did feel better after the tea. Mainly it was being surrounded by her friends and being able to vent about Nancy. But the new haircut was good too. She felt younger and lighter.

“What do you think?” Anne stood back, holding the mirror up so Lily could see the back. She’d styled it into big, lush waves. “I know you know how to do this one. I’ve seen you in it. But even when you don’t want to do the waves, you can still do a quick style and go.”

“I like it.”

He could
not
be there.

But he was. Her heart skipped a few beats as she took Nathan in from the tips of his boots up to that face of his. Lordamighty he was a good-looking man.

A good-looking man who seemed to show up everywhere she was in town.

“I’d say, fancy seeing you here. But I get the distinct feeling it’s not a coincidence at all.” She cut her gaze to Beth, who busied herself tidying up.

“Don’t have any idea what you mean.” He grinned, and her panties tried to jump from her rear end at the sight. “I was just stopping in after school to say hello to all my sisters. Your being here is a bonus.”

She paid and ignored Anne’s squawking about the tip being too much. “Thank you, Murphy ladies, for the tea, the sympathy and the hairdo. Yes, Beth, I’ll see you Saturday.” She tried to rush past but he followed her out.

“Have dinner with me.”

“Nathan, we can’t have dinner. I’m due home for dinner. I’ve got to run to the school to pick Chris up, and then we’re getting a pizza to bring back home.” She should probably order extra since Nancy was around.

“Tomorrow then.”

She wanted to say no, punch him in the stones and walk away. But she wouldn’t, because the part of her that wanted to say yes was far greater.

“Look, we’ve said all we need to say.”

“No we haven’t. And it’s not about that anyway. Not entirely. I want to catch up. Talk about Chris. It’s just a dinner. The Sands? Five? It’ll still be broad daylight. Full of seniors getting the early bird special, but the pie will be fresh. I haven’t forgotten how much you like peach pie.”

She sighed. He made her weak. Made her wish for things she tried to convince herself not to want.

“It’s not a date.”

He grinned, triumphant, reminding himself to send a huge bouquet of flowers to his sisters the following day.

“Of course not. Just dinner between old friends.” He’d work on the date stuff later. But when he’d fallen for her originally, it had been after he’d gotten to know her as a friend. It had a certain lovely rhythm that he’d get to know her again and hopefully get that second chance.

“I’ll see you at five.” She walked down the steps and toward her car. “Not. A. Date.”

Feeling like an idiot, he looked at himself in the mirror for the dozenth time. He’d actually changed clothes already. Twice. This was approaching utter fail status, and he needed to get his head into the game or he’d blow this chance.

Before, when they’d been together he never would have been this nervous. She’d always felt natural to him. They’d been friends a long time and when it moved to something else, it had been easy.

But now. He checked the mirror. Now he knew just how he approached this thing, how he handled himself with all the right groveling and wooing was integral. No time to rest on being handsome or charming. She’d been there and done that.

Beth breezed in like he didn’t have his front door closed for a reason. “Hey.” She looked him up and down, ignoring his annoyance. “Nice. Don’t wear that jacket. You look like you’re going to a funeral in that thing.”

“Is your hand broken?”

She gave him the finger. “I don’t need to knock on your door because I’m here to give you some advice.”

He looked at her warily and she laughed. “Is this like that time you came to the movies and sat behind me and my date and kicked my seat the whole night?”

She grinned again. “Ah, good times. If I recall correctly, Lily was with me that day. Anyway, I’m not here to torment you for your bad choices. Not tonight at least. Look, as annoying as you are and all, you’re a good guy and Lily is a great woman and even though you screwed up big time you both deserve a second shot. If you mess it up I’m telling Tate on you.”

“Mmm-hmm. So what’s this advice then?”

“It’s that you never tried to talk to her. After she caught you with your floozie. Her freaking cousin!”

“She wasn’t my anything.” He glared but she was a Murphy and therefore made of sterner stuff. Her response was a bland, bored look. “Thank you for telling me that,” he amended.

“Don’t wear that shirt.” She headed to the closet and tossed him the one he’d been wearing first. “This one is nice on you. Makes you look handsome in that non-threatening way.”

“If I wear it will you stop pestering me?”

“Hell no. But I will for now.”

He snorted and took the shirt. “Now go or you might see something you’ll have to tell a therapist about.”

She sniffed with mock indignance. “Your scrawny chest is nothing to write home about. If you mess this up, I will be so mad at you.”

He pulled the shirt on quickly and then hugged her. “I’ll try not to be a dumbass.”

“Big challenge but you do have that big-city diploma and all.” She looked him over. “Nice. Handsome. You have all your teeth. Also a plus. I’m all about these little glass-half-full moments, Nathan.”

They walked out to his car, and she gave him a look and another warning before he drove away.

It wasn’t his first date, for God’s sake. He’d had unlawful carnal knowledge of this woman. More than once.

Heat flashed through him at the memory of what they were like together. Of what she’d been like, all curves and valleys. So pretty naked. The kind of woman who liked to laugh when she had sex.

He really needed to stop thinking of that. He walked in the diner’s front door and waved at a few people in that way you do when you don’t want to be interrupted. Thank heaven none of his students were in the place.

He grabbed a booth fronting Main and waited, totally not thinking about how he’d been the first to teach her all sorts of things.

When she came in, his heart sped and he sat up, caught in her pull. She looked like a freaking movie star off the set of an old movie. A fitted skirt to just past her knees, a blouse and then a belted coat to match the skirt. Pumps that made her a good four inches higher. That sway as she moved toward him was like magic.

Bam, bam, bam, her hips switched. Her hair was done in those big forties-style waves. Deep-red lipstick. Holy shit.

But her look was apologetic as he stood while she slid into the booth.

“I’m sorry. I meant to go back home to change but things ran late.”

“Wow. What is it you’re apologizing for? Sugar, you look amazing.”

She paused, surprised pleasure washing over her face. “Thank you.” She slipped from the jacket and folded it carefully. “A friend of mine, also a photographer, did some shots of me in some of the clothes I make.”

“Do you need a menu? Oh, hey there, Mr. Murphy.” Their server, clearly a third-generation Sands, was in his first-period AP English-lit class.

“Hello there, Derek.” Nathan looked back to Lily. “Do you need a menu?”

Lily turned her smile on the kid. Nathan nearly swallowed his tongue at how pretty she was when she smiled. “Heck no. I’d like the pot roast with greens and scalloped potatoes. Tea and what’s the pie situation? Do I need to stake out some lemon meringue?” She was teasing, not inappropriate at all, but Derek there seemed struck dumb.

The boy was simply ensorcelled by all that abundance of feminine beauty. He sputtered and gulped.

Nathan interrupted to give the kid a break. “I see you still consider pie a food group.” He grinned at Lily, who blushed. “I’ll have the chicken. Sweet potatoes and some corn bread. Tea and a slice of the pecan for me. With ice cream.”

Once the boy was out of range, Nathan turned back to Lily, laughing. “That boy might hurt himself you got him so twisted up.”

“I was going to go home but then I’d have been late and you might have thought I wasn’t coming, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” She looked less than pleased at the last bit. But he liked it just fine.

“You make clothes?” He steered her back to the conversation they’d been having earlier.

“Oh, yes. I do. I made what I’m wearing. Anyway,” she continued as if it wasn’t an amazing thing that she’d made the clothing she wore, “two years ago I started making a limited number of outfits and separates every year. I have a consignment place in Macon that I work with. They sell my stuff there and I’ve got word-of-mouth clients.”

She sipped her freshly delivered tea before continuing.

“But Beth suggested I set up a little website. Nothing too fancy, just pictures of the items I had in stock and also some of the other pieces I’ve made in the past to be special ordered. There are different places online—crafting communities and the like—and I can have my store listed there as well.” She shrugged. “So a friend of mine, another photographer I know, owed me a big favor and today he paid up by taking pictures of me for the website. I’ll need a way to make a living here. The extra money will be helpful.”

“I guess I was wrong.” About so many things.

“About what?”

“I was just wondering if you’d be back to Macon again once the situation with Chris evened out. I figured you would.”

“I told you I was back for good.”

“You did. I misjudged you.” He paused when their food arrived.

“I missed this place.” She looked around, avoiding the subject. He let her. For the moment.

“I lived in Atlanta for school and liked it. I’ve traveled around the country and even went to Italy three years ago, but Petal is home. How’s your mom holding up?”

She sighed and forked up some potatoes. “Some days she’s close to the woman she was when I was growing up. Those are the days I think she’ll pull her head out of her behind and get her life in order. Some days she’s stuck in a bottle with a handful of pills. Christ. I don’t know what to do with her.”

“I take it your dad isn’t any help.”

“If only I happened to be a twenty-year-old looking to cash in.” Her laugh was laced in irony. “He told me to take out a loan to send Chris to military school.”

He had his own crazy, selfish, abusive parents, but hers were worse to his mind. There was no reason for a good kid like Chris to have fallen behind the way he had. No reason for it to have gone on for so long before Pamela admitted she needed some help. And for any man to turn his back on his own child so he could keep on getting some young thing in his bed? Nathan wanted to punch the guy right in the face.

“You’re making a difference with him. He’s much calmer. His work is better. Consistent. He’s not so sullen and angry all the time.”

“It’s that program you recommended, actually.”

Nathan had told Lily about an afterschool tutoring and mentoring program. It was therapeutic, the adults were experts in one field or another, and the other kids were often facing troubles at home like Chris, or worse. The older ones, the tutors, were kids who’d overcome those troubles. It was a great option. One that would have been cut had it not been for a fundraising drive Tate’s mother-in-law held last fall. Polly Chase had been able to raise enough to keep the program for two days a week—once in the middle school and once in the high school—for the next two academic years.

“Glad to hear it. Tim does some volunteer work, takes on some of the older kids who may be interested in filling journeyman positions with local businesses like his.”

She smiled at him. A real smile, like the one she’d given Derek, and it made him miss what they’d had, that easiness between them.

“Really? I’m not surprised. He’s hanging out with some kids I think will be better for him in the long run. It’s been a month or so, but I’m cautiously hopeful. I’ve been very grateful for all the support he’s received from the school.”

“Is your sister not helping at all?”

“Is that a rhetorical question? She’s still telling our mother to hold on, that our father will finish up with his little friend and come back. The worst part is, I think my mother believes it. He’s so mean to her, it would be the worst thing possible for her to go back. But…” She shook her head and ate for a while. “It’s none of my business if she does. But I think it would be bad for Chris to have our father in and out of his life. Parenthood isn’t a place you visit when you get bored.”

“You’re right. He’s lucky to have you.” And he was.

“He’s my family.”

“Yes, he is. But a lot of people don’t put the same meaning into it that you do.”

“Or you.”

Really she was irresistible.

“I was wrong not to at least try to explain what happened.”

She began to speak, but he held a hand up.

“Please let me say this.”

“It’s too late.”

“Even so. Look, I was stupid. Egotistical. The kiss was nothing to me. It was a moment, not even a moment, and I was pushing her back when you came in. I was dumb and she was dumb and she kissed me and I kissed her back. I told you while we were on a break that I’d not see anyone else and but for that moment, I didn’t break my promise. But I
did
break it and then I didn’t own it. And then you left and I told myself I didn’t need you because it was just a stupid thing and you didn’t even want to hear what I had to say. When really it was that I was an ass and felt guilty and resented that.

“And the longer it went unspoken, the harder it got until I just didn’t do it, and then you finished school and left Atlanta and I finished school and came back to Petal. I should have gone to you. I should have explained. I should have told you then that I was being a dick and that I was sorry. I should have begged you to take me back. But I didn’t and here you sit and I miss you, Lil. I miss you so much that every time I see you it takes all my strength not to touch you like I once did.”