Surrender to Love (11 page)

J
ulia walked arm in arm with Carson as she marveled at the moonlit sky, while the heady combination of honeysuckle and roses hung wondrously on the night air. Why did it seem as though the stars were brighter here in this small corner of the world? Even the crickets’ songs sounded more like complicated scales of compositions than annoying chirps.

Carson leaned toward her. “A penny for your thoughts.”

She shook her head against his arm. “Don’t waste your change.”

“Come on. It can’t be all that bad.”

She looked up into his midnight eyes and grew uncomfortable with his close scrutiny. “It’s nothing.” She released his arm and slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

To his credit, Carson dropped the subject.

“I can see why you love this place. The peacefulness alone is priceless,” she appraised.

“Yeah. I learned that when I left for college at UCLA.”

“In California?”

He nodded, then smirked at her look of surprise. “Bet you didn’t know there’s more to being a mechanic than knowing how to wield a socket wrench.”

“No clue.”

“Where did you go to med school?” he asked.

Julia hesitated, then answered truthfully. “Emory University.”

“Impressive,” he complimented.

“Thank you.”

Silence once again stretched between them, and minutes later they stood in front of what looked like the only place of business still open for the evening.

“‘Harry’s Pool Hall,’” she read the sign above the door before looking over at Carson. “Do you play?”

He shrugged. “A little.”

Julia lifted a disbelieving brow. “Said the spider to the fly.”

He hung his head for being caught in a lie. “What about you?”

“A little,” she mimicked his reply.

“Then let’s rack them up,” Carson said, slapping and rubbing his hands together.

Inside, the place was almost deserted, which, according to Carson, was normal on a Sunday night. She glanced around and noticed a couple of young girls crooning over the karaoke machine. A small crowd of men was gathered around the suspended television set, watching a ball game.

“Are you a fan?” Carson asked as he racked the balls.

“No, but David was.” Julia jerked at her own careless remark and peered over her shoulder at Carson.

“David. You’ve never told me his name before.”

She swallowed in the hope of stopping the warning bells ringing in her ears. “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to talk about him.”

He held her gaze, then nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“Thank you.” She expelled a long breath and selected a cue from the wall. All the while she felt the weight of his stare on her back, but when she turned to face him, he was busy waving the waitress over.

“What would you like?” he asked Julia.

“A Coke on the rocks.”

“Make that two, Sandy,” he said, then turned back to Julia. “You’re not a drinker?”

“Well, I am walking tonight,” she sassed. “You want to break?”

“Nah. Ladies first.”

“Aren’t you the gentleman?” She leaned over the table and practiced sliding the cue through the bridge of her fingers when a thought occurred to her. “Are you a betting man?”

Carson’s brows shot up at the inquiry. “How much are we talking about?”

“My car.”

He laughed good-naturedly. “Come again?”

“If I win, you fix my car for free.”

He blinked at the bold proposal. “And if I win?”

“You won’t.” She stood with an air of confidence she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“But if I do?”

She thought for a long moment and realized that she had nothing to bargain with.

“How about,” Carson said suddenly, “if I win, you tell me your full name and where you’re from?”

Julia’s heart plunged to her stomach. “I—I—”

“What’s the matter? Are the stakes too high?” he taunted like a preschooler.

She studied him with doubt. This wasn’t something that she should make a game out of, she knew, but she was tempted.

He shrugged. “Then I guess we don’t have a bet, Julia.”

“You’re on,” she surprised herself by saying.

“And I want the truth,” he emphasized by holding her gaze.

Julia leaned back over the pool table and forced a smile onto her face. “Prepare to be humiliated,” she warned, then broke the balls with a resonating whack.

From her break, three striped balls raced into the side pockets. She looked up and reveled in Carson’s surprised look.

“So how good a player are you?” he finally thought to ask.

“I was state champion ninety-two to ninety-six.”

“You don’t think that’s something that you should have shared with me?”

She took another shot and the number two ball flew into a corner pocket. “Not if you don’t think it’s something you should have asked first.”

Laughing, he propped himself against a wall and waited for her to miss a shot.

The waitress returned with their drinks, and they moaned when she asked if they’d like to order anything to eat.

“My waist is expanding as we talk,” Julia remarked before following through on the next shot. Another one of her balls deserted the table.

“Am I ever going to get a chance to shoot?” he asked with fake irritation.

“Not if I have anything to do about it.”

And true to her promise, Julia won the game without Carson’s so much as stepping up to the table.

“I was hustled,” he said, frowning.

She laughed as she reached for her Coke. “A deal is a deal,” she singsonged.

“So it is.” He stood. “How about another one?”

“Sure.”

“Any bets?” he asked with hopeful eyes.

“None that I can think of.”

“That’s so wrong.”

“How come I get the feeling that you wouldn’t have complained if I’d lost?”

“I would have taken it easy on you.”

“Right.”

Carson gathered the balls from the pockets to rack them. “I guess I’ll have to wait until you trust me to share your full name.”

“I’m afraid you’re in for a long wait.”

“Just in case I haven’t told you, patience is my middle name.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt that.” She walked back to the table.

Carson stopped her. “If it’s all the same with you, I think I’ll break this time. I would like to actually participate in a game tonight.”

She laughed as she gestured to the table. “Be my guest.”

As it turned out, she was lucky that she had started the last game, because Carson proved to be as good a player as she—missing only on the final shot for the eight ball.

Julia cleared her balls from the table with the grace of a champion, then sank the eight ball to declare another victory.

“You’re no fun,” Carson complained, but started racking the balls again.

“You’re just a sore loser.”

“True. This is true.”

They shared a laugh, and their fragile camaraderie deepened. By the fourth game Julia’s luck had faded a bit, and she started missing shots and scratched more than she cared to.

“I knew I’d wear you down sooner or later,” Carson boasted. To his dismay, his own game went downhill. In the end, he lost when he scratched on the eight ball.

“Aaagh!” He dropped to his knees and pretended to weep.

Julia drew her head back with a burst of laughter. His shenanigans made it easy for her to forget her troubles; his smile made it easy for her to forget herself.

Paul roamed the aisles at Blockbuster, searching for something that halfway appealed to him. Romantic comedies were out of the question; they’d only remind him of Sarah. Action-adventure films were usually too loud and unrealistic. In the end, he decided against renting a movie and for picking up some Chinese food.

Exiting the video store with his hands buried deep in his pockets, he hardly noticed the woman sliding tapes into the drop box.

“Regis?”

He turned toward the hauntingly familiar voice and was pleasantly surprised to see agent Virginia Jacobson smiling back at him. “Well, well. Funny running into you here,” he said.

“I’ll say. A movie buff, are you?”

“Not really. I thought it would be a nice change, but I couldn’t decide on anything.” Was he babbling? He couldn’t tell.

She nodded, then looked across the parking lot.

Paul followed her gaze to an emerald green Honda Civic, where a cute, young girl sat in the passenger seat. “Your daughter?”

“I wish. Actually, she’s my niece,” Virginia said with a butterfly smile.

He nodded. “She looks a lot like you,” he complimented, sensing that it would please her.

Virginia’s smile grew brighter. “You think so?”

“Definitely.”

They stood smiling at each other before Virginia gathered the courage to say, “I wanted to thank you for putting me on the Newman-Mercer case. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

Paul started to answer, but then took in his surroundings and stepped out of the way of a woman who wanted to enter the video store. “You’re more than welcome.”

She nodded in understanding, but looked disappointed.

“Would you like to have lunch sometime?” Where had that question come from?

She hesitated, seemingly taken aback by the proposal. “I think I would like that very much,” she said.

He smiled. “How about tomorrow at one?” he asked.

“Sounds good.”

He walked her back to her car and was given a quick introduction to Penny.

When the women waved their goodbyes and pulled out of the parking lot, it finally dawned on Paul that he’d just made his first date with a woman since Sarah’s death. Then just as quickly he admonished himself. It was a business date—nothing more, nothing less. But as he thought about it, he admitted that he would like to get to know more about the lovely agent outside of work.

Carson squinted at the small screen as his selected music filtered through the raggedy overhead speakers of Harry’s Pool Hall. After the song’s introduction, he brought the microphone up to his lips and belted out his rendition of “Short People” through the karaoke machine.

Julia, now accompanied by Carson’s best friend, Quincy, and his wife, Stacy, was absolutely horrified by Carson’s inability to hold an identifiable musical note.

The couple were apparently regulars at the pool hall, and Carson was ecstatic to see them and had invited them to join him and Julia.

Stacy leaned over the table to confide to Julia, “I told you he was tone-deaf.”

“I believe you’re right,” she said, covering her ears.

“Short people got no reason to live.” Carson bobbed his head in time. He gave no thought to how ridiculous he looked on the small stage. For him, it was a needed reprieve. It had been ages since he’d hung out with Q and his wife. And it felt good.

It hadn’t taken Julia long to warm to the friendly couple before they were all sharing jokes and enjoying what was left of their Sunday night.

The skeleton crowd burst into applause when Carson’s number ended. He took a dramatic bow and actually blew out a few kisses to what he pretended to be his adoring fans.

Julia, however, booed him to get him off the stage.

“Oh, you think you can do better?” he challenged from the stage. “Why don’t you come up here and show us what you’ve got?”

Quincy and Stacy turned in her direction and were suddenly egging her on. Soon the rest of the patrons joined in on the challenge.

Carson moved toward the table, despite Julia’s feeble waves of protest, and handed her the microphone.

Heat scorched Julia’s face at being the center of attention, and her knees wobbled when she stood on them. What was she thinking? She’d never sung in public in her life.

“How about ‘The Greatest Love of All’?” Carson suggested from the menu.

“Not without three shots of tequila.” She frowned. There was no way she was going to attempt such a piece in order to be humiliated.

“This isn’t the Apollo,” he reminded her. “This is supposed to be for fun.”

She waved him off and continued to read her choices. None of them appealed to her. When she apparently took too
long to make up her mind, Stacy jumped up and rushed to join her onstage.

“I know which one we can do.”

“You’re joining her?” Carson inquired with a wide grin.

“You got a problem with that?” she sassed.

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “No. No, of course not. The more the merrier.”

“Good. Now go and sit your ‘Short People’ butt down and watch how us girls show you a thing or two about singing.”

Contrite, Carson grumbled, “Yes, ma’am.”

Before Julia could bat an eye, Stacy made a selection and grabbed the spare microphone from a nearby stand.

Music from the Commodores resonated in the billiard hall, and Julia blinked in surprise just as the TelePrompTer scrolled the lyrics to “Brick House.”

The men hooted and laughed at their selection, but there was no doubt that the women, at least, could sing. When the evening wound to and end, Carson and Julia said their goodbyes to Quincy and Stacy and headed back to the Georgia Inn on foot.

“They seem like really nice people,” Julia commented as she walked by Carson’s side.

“They’re the best. Quincy and I have been friends forever.”

She nodded, then enjoyed the night’s gentle breeze against her skin. How could she not love the town’s tranquillity—or everyone’s genuine hospitality?

“If you don’t mind my saying so, I think you and your daughter would be a nice addition to Moreland,” Carson said quietly.

She smiled and glanced at him. “I don’t mind.” She drew in a deep breath; the clean air cleared her head. “A person would have to be crazy not to fall in love with a place like this.”

“I always thought so,” he agreed. “When I went off to
college, I thought I wanted to get as far away from this place as possible.”

“You’re kidding.”

He shook his head. “No. I was young and thought this place was as backward as Andy Griffith’s Mayberry. Have you ever seen that show?”

She looked guiltily away. “Once or twice.” She tried to sound casual.

“Anyway, when I lived out in California, I found that people weren’t as friendly as they are here, not to mention that they were obsessed with material gains, and less family oriented. Of course, this is just my opinion.”