Simple Gone South (Crimson Romance) (3 page)

He hadn’t seen Lucy in a while. She’d been out of town the last several times he’d been in Merritt. Her hair was a little longer and she looked good. He let himself enjoy that. Truth was, Brantley loved the look of a girl in shorts and a sweatshirt. You saw that ensemble a lot in the fall and spring in the south when the weather just couldn’t make up its mind. Sweatshirt, khaki knee shorts, and Keds—it was practically a uniform, but one they didn’t like to be caught wearing. Pity.

Missy finally caught sight of him. “Brantley!” She threw herself at him, hat and all.

When he hugged her, he could practically feel her buzzing. “What are you doing at the mall, Missy?”

“We needed some necklaces for tonight and we have to get our hair done here so we were just waiting for you to call.”

“How was I going to do that?”

“What?” She put her hand in her pocket. “No phone?”

“No phone,” he confirmed.

“Then how?”

“I talked to Harris and I used my magic Missy locater.”

“You could have called Lucy’s phone,” she said.

That had never occurred to him. Maybe it should have.

“I have a phone.” Lucy nodded her head seriously and her dark curls bounced around her face. “But you don’t have my number. You’ve
never
had my number.” Then she burst out laughing. She had a wonderful laugh. Brantley remembered then that he’d always thought that, even when she was a gawky fifteen-year-old and he had been the eighteen-year-old King of Main Street. Not too silly, not too loud, just very easy on the ears. But she was giddy today and her laugh gave way to a giggle—better than most giggles, but still a giggle. Missy joined in.

And snorted.

Oh, man. “Are y’all drunk?”

“No!” they burst out together, and laughed some more.

“Well, I hope I haven’t made you late for your hair appointments.” He was no longer interested in why Missy had lowered herself to interacting with a mall chain hair salon. “I have your stuff.” He held out the bags.

“You are the best! And we have some time; you can buy us some coffee.”

“I think y’all have had enough coffee,” he said. “I’m tempted to take your money away so you can’t buy any either.”

Missy stuck her tongue out at him. “They will give us some while we’re getting our hair done.”

“No, they won’t,” Lucy said. “Not here.” Lucy might know a little bit more about chain beauty parlors than Missy was ever likely to.

“How about some food?” Brantley asked.

“Yes!” This came from Lucy. “I want some food. I want some cake. And I want it right now. Chocolate.”

“There will be no cake eating,” Missy said. “Not by you and not by me until this show is over. We have to lie down to zip those pants as it is.”

“Well.” Brantley had had enough. “I need to go see my dad and grandmother. And I’ll see you both tonight.” He waved and they went back to swapping hats.

Lucy had looked really good. Had he said anything to her directly? Surely he had. His mama had sent him to Junior Cotillion to see to it that he had good manners.

Of course, he hadn’t used those manners the one time when they might have made a difference.

Brantley’s grandmother, Caroline Eleanor Hurst Brantley, lived in the historic district in the same Queen Anne Victorian where Brantleys had been living and raising their offspring since it was built in 1889. Brantley loved that house—the turrets, the gingerbread, the nooks and crannies. He had no doubt that it was his happy childhood memories within those old walls that had shaped his passion for restoration and preservation architecture. But they never, as a family, ate a meal or celebrated a holiday in the dining room of that house anymore. Hadn’t in a long time.

For the most part, they had traded dining rooms for restaurants, with the occasional patio thrown in.

Today Brantley would be having lunch with his grandmother and father at the house where he had been born to Charles and Eva Brantley Kincaid—though the dining room was off limits there too. When he and his dad occasionally ate at that house it was always on TV trays in front of the television, but Big Mama was not the type to take a meal on a TV tray.

Sure enough, he found them on the back patio where Charles was grilling steaks and Big Mama was nursing a mint julep and gazing out at the golf course. The wrought iron table was set with a tablecloth and dishes in fall colors. There was even a centerpiece of gourds and Indian corn. That would be Big Mama’s doing. Pull out causal elegant.
We can’t bear to eat at other tables, but the boy is coming home.
We have to Do Right.

For a few seconds he watched them, thinking their separate lonely thoughts and living their separate lonely lives. He put on his happy Brantley mask before speaking.

“Hey,” he said. And he watched two faces swing toward him and morph into pure, unadulterated joy.

Being the recipient of such undeserved love could be a hard job.

Big Mama was the first to reach him. She was classy, tall, and gracefully thin with a white chin length bob. She hardly fit the connotation that
Big Mama
mustered up. She looked more like a Grandmere or Mimi, but Brantley women were always Big Mama to their grandchildren.

Brantley’s children, if he had any, would not have anyone to call Big Mama.

“Darling! You look wonderful.”

He kissed her cheek. “Not so good as you.”

Then he went from thin reaching arms to strong hands clasping his shoulders. “Let me get you a beer, Son.”

“Let me get
you
one.” Brantley untangled himself from them and walked toward the small galvanized tub where beer, soft drinks, and bottled water had been iced down. “You’re doing all the work.”

“Not all.” Charles turned back to the grill. “Miss Caroline brought stuffed mushrooms, twice baked potatoes, and banana pudding.”

Of course she would have. All his favorites. “Evelyn made the mushrooms and potatoes but I made the pudding myself,” Big Mama said proudly. Evelyn had worked for Big Mama so long that it was hard to tell who was the boss.

Brantley removed the caps from the beers and passed one to his father. “Nobody makes banana pudding like you,” he told his grandmother. Too late, he wished he hadn’t said that, because at one time, someone else had. But they were so happy to have Brantley there that they didn’t notice his blunder.

The three of them talked easily over the meal. Charles and Caroline had a lot to tell—the happenings at Christ Episcopal Church, Kincaid Insurance Company, Rotary, Caroline’s bridge club, and what was going on with the citizens of Merritt. They also had a lot to ask. There was no detail of Brantley’s life that they did not seize like it was the last gold nugget ever mined.

As they finished their pudding, Big Mama said tentatively, “Darling?” and raised her iced tea glass to her lips.

Brantley leaned in and raised his eyebrow.

“You aren’t going back tonight are you?” she asked.

It was a valid question. It was only a three hour trip from Nashville to Merritt and he’d been known to do a turn around visit in one day a couple of times. Okay, more than a couple; he’d done the turn around trip more times than he’d spent the night.

“No, not this time. It seems I am to dance attention on Missy not only at the actual Follies but at some big to-do at the club after. I thought I’d spend the night.” He looked at his father. “If that’s okay, Dad.”

Charles Kincaid smiled so gratefully that Brantley could have wept, if he was a weeper, which he was not. “I think I can endure your presence for a day or so,” he said lightly.

“Well.” Big Mama folded her linen napkin and placed it beside her plate. That’s when Brantley knew she was nervous. Nervous was not easily recognizable in a woman with a steel spine, but betraying etiquette was a sure sign. One did not remove one’s napkin from one’s lap until arising from the table—of course unless you had to clean food off your person that someone had thrown at you. Which wasn’t likely to happen here. “Do you plan to go to church?” she asked.

Ah, that’s why she was nervous. There had been a time when he would not go—could not go—into Christ Episcopal and kneel for communion at the same altar where those coffins had sat. But he’d gotten past that—more or less.

“Sure,” he said. “If I don’t spill on my good clothes tonight.” Though that wasn’t really a factor. Brantley and Charles were exactly the same size. In fact, apart from a few gray hairs mixed with the blond and a slight softening around Charles’s jaw brought on by age, they looked pretty much the same.

Big Mama and Dad laughed a little, not because Brantley had said anything funny, but because they delighted in everything that came out of his mouth. His head began to pound.

“Good.” Big Mama looked at her napkin, unfolded it, and put it back in her lap. “How do you feel about going to early service and having brunch after?”

“Sounds fine,” Brantley said. “Too bad Lou Anne is closed on Sundays. I could use some diner food.”

“Actually,” Big Mama said, “Evelyn’s nephew went to the coast this weekend and I asked him to bring back some fresh shrimp. She said she would make us some shrimp and grits.”

Shrimp and grits—also one of Brantley’s favorites. Made by Big Mama’s housekeeper of forty years. But that meant—

“Good!” Big Mama rose and Brantley and Charles jumped to their feet. “Don’t get up, darlings,” she said, not meaning a word of it. “I hate to eat and run, but I have errands and I know you two want some time together.” She delivered cheek kisses to her son-in-law and grandson. “I’ll see y’all at church and back at my house after.”

Brantley and Charles sat down again as she clicked away on her little leather flats. Damn. They were going to eat at the dining table. Something was up.

Brantley met his father’s eyes and almost asked.

Charles looked toward the golf course and then his watch. “I believe we have time to play nine before the Crimson Tide kicks off. What about it, Son?”

“Sure,” Brantley said. “Sounds good.”

• • •

Brantley slid into a seat on the back row of Merritt Community Playhouse with no time to spare. He had been given a show program that contained ads, thanks, corporate sponsors, and a spread on Junior League projects—Hospice, Habitat for Humanity, Children’s Hospital. There was a list of the performers in the order of appearance, but not the acts. Missy and Lucy were about halfway into the show. It was only then that it occurred to him to wonder just what it was they were performing.

Most of the acts turned out to be immediately recognizable and predictable—Janis Joplin, Faith Hill, Carole King, a dressed to the nines Dolly Parton, that kind of thing. There were a few show tunes, a la Liza Minnelli and Barbra Streisand. Junior League women weren’t known for embarrassing themselves by having shoddy trappings, so the props and costumes were good. He tried to guess who Missy and Lucy would be portraying but couldn’t think of many female duos, and none that seemed likely. He just could not see them as the Judds.

But there was nothing on this earth that would have prepared him for those two women walking on that stage dressed as Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. And not just any Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. Oh, no. These were not the men of the new millennium who had kids and gave money to the homeless. These were the bad boys from the ’80s. Missy had not been kidding about those tight pants, though she had not mentioned that they would be leather.

And the hair. It put him in the mind of hay bales gone bad. Missy, of course, was Bon Jovi. She was wielding a microphone, complete with stand. Lucy, as Sambora, had a guitar. There was a fog machine and a huge backdrop that spelled out “Bon Jovi” in lights. They nodded to each other, in time. The music started and they lip-synced to everyone in that little audience that they “gave love a bad name.” He made a mental note to go back to the table in the lobby where you could order a DVD of the show for $21.95. And that was before Lucy even did her guitar solo.

They brought down the house. They danced, they gyrated, and they sparkled. Then they told everyone that they were “wanted, dead or alive.”

Being wanted by Lucy Mead might not be a bad job. The thought startled him.

He was driving toward the Country Club when he realized that he was sitting there in his new Land Cruiser smiling into the dark. It was when he passed the Publix that he had an idea. They had a bakery, didn’t they?

He turned the vehicle around.

• • •

Lucy got out of the back seat of Harris Bragg’s Lexus SUV and followed Harris and Missy up the steps of the Merritt Country Club. This wasn’t the first time she went there with them, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but she could not imagine a situation where she would ever want to be there less than she did right now.

Missy said, “Lanie was coming at five today to help set up for the party and she said she’d save us a table for eight.” That was the way of it. They always had a table for eight, because there was no such thing as a table for seven. These days it was always Missy and Harris, Lanie and Luke, Tolly and Nathan, and of course, Fifth Wheel Lucy.

However, tonight that eighth chair would be filled.

She could have had a date tonight—she wasn’t that far gone—but letting Mark Phillips squire her around when she had no interest had seeped into the category of wrong. She was tired—bone weary,
give me some bourbon and put me to bed
tired. That kind of tired is what happened when, by day, you spiffed up houses for people who wanted it done before the holidays, and by night, you were Richie Sambora. She wouldn’t want to go to this party even if Brantley Kincaid wasn’t expected. But he was.

Hell and double hell.

Not that Brantley mattered anymore. Hadn’t in a long time, but, if he had to see her, it would have been nice to have looked her best. It was a matter of pride. But he’d seen her first in ratty old clothes and second dressed like a 1980s Richie Sambora.

At least now she looked pretty good. They had gone to Missy’s right after their performance to wash the gel out of their hair and dress for the party. She’d paid way too much for her dress, not unusual when shopping with Missy, but it
was
flattering—something that never ceased to amaze her. The burnt orange silk shirtwaist dress had a wide belt and left her arms and knees bare—not cocktail attire, but not suitable for work either.