Flip This Love (7 page)

Her eyes widened and her lips parted as she zeroed in on him. Her steps slowed, but she said nothing. Watching him warily, she kept coming, refusing to halt her approach even when confronted with an unwelcome visitor. He admired her pluck, but at the same time wanted to throttle her for not turning tail. Damn it, for all she knew he was some kind of goddamn psycho stalker.

“I’m not a psycho stalker.” As far as successful lines went, Harley had to give himself low marks for that one. If there was one thing he knew about women, it was it rarely paid off if you used the truth as your opening ante.

She topped the final step and stopped a safe ten feet away. “So you say, but the evidence to the contrary is starting to pile up.”

“I know.” He pulled one hand free from his pocket and scrubbed away the wave of weariness swamping him. “I have a couple things to say, then I’ll go.”

“Okay.” She raised an eyebrow to match the skepticism in her tone. “What do you have to say?”

“I’m sorry I left like I did.” He blurted the apology. “I knew I was going. I should have told you I was going. The way I treated you was lower than low,” he continued, warming up to the subject matter. “But to be honest with you, I was pissed off and frustrated.”

This time her jaw dropped in sheer disbelief, but she recovered quickly. “Because I slept with you?”

“Because you jerked my chain for so long. Because you danced around me like one of those harem girls for God knows how many months, then you’d shut me down.”

“Harem girl?”

“You made me crazy. Christ, Delaney, how was I supposed to know you were going to finally go through with it that night?”

“So not telling me you were leaving town was some kind of payback?”

“No! It was some kind of chicken shit.” He hurled the words at her. “I wanted you so bad I was too chicken to tell you I was going before I slept with you. I thought maybe you’d change your mind, and I’m enough of a selfish bastard to do whatever it took to get in your bed.” He threw his hands up in disgust. “There! Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Not really.”

“I was scared. Does that make you feel better?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip, an all-too-familiar sneer marring her gorgeous mouth. “I figured that out already, but it’s nice to know you used your time in the land of fruits and nuts to become so self-aware.”

“Oh, I’m aware, all right.” Planting his hands on his hips, he took a single step forward, then leaned in a bit to close some of the distance without completely invading her space. “I’m aware absolutely nothing has changed for me. I still want everything I wanted when I left, including you, for some odd reason.”

“Get over it,” she shot back.

This time, it was his turn to curl his lip at her. “You don’t think I want to? You don’t think I tried?”

“Try harder.”

The challenge struck him like a glove across the face. The heat of anger drained from his blood, leaving only tepid resignation pulsing through his veins. “Is that what you want? Truly?”

She blinked, and suddenly those big, dark eyes were luminous with unshed tears. “I’m tired, Harley. I don’t have the energy to fight with you.”

“Yeah.” Swallowing the boulder stuck in his throat, he nodded. “Okay, yeah. Okay.” He waved a hand toward the stairs. “I’ll just...”

She stepped aside, flattening her back against her doorjamb as he passed. When the heel of his boot hit the first tread, he heard her whisper his name. He stilled but didn’t turn to look at her. He couldn’t. He was afraid he’d bumble and stammer and everything he wanted to say to her would come out in moron. Better to keep quiet and listen. Really listen.

“I don’t know how to handle you,” she admitted at last. “I’m not sure I have what it takes.”

He turned to look at her over his shoulder. “Sugar, you’ve been handling me for years. I’m not sure I can take much more of it.”

“Something has to give,” she whispered.

Gritting his teeth, he sucked air in between them. “Here’s my final offer,” he said at last, his voice gruff with the weight of what he needed to say. “I’ll give you space. Use it. Figure out if you want me, want us, once and for all.” Bracing a hand on the wall, he twisted his torso to meet her gaze full-on. “Because I’m done chasing you, Delaney. You’re going to have to come to me if you want something from me. Understood?”

White teeth sank into her lower lip. He almost groaned out loud as she gave him a slow nod.

Feeling slightly more confident than he had mere minutes ago, he returned the nod. “And when you do come, be ready. I mean really ready, because I’m done playing games, Sugar. When you say go, you and me, we’re going all in.”

Laney jammed her thumb in her mouth, then closed her eyes and moaned in ecstasy as she sucked the dregs of Bubba’s famous sauce from her skin. When she stirred from her barbeque-induced bliss, she found Brooke openly staring at someone beyond Laney’s shoulder.

Since stealth had never been her strong suit, Laney didn’t even attempt it. Instead, she twisted in the booth and peered through the packed restaurant until her internal radar homed in on their former classmate, Darla Kennet.

The Pit was a Mobile landmark, and Darla was the much-beloved BBQ joint’s queen bee. She certainly had tenure locked up. As far as Laney knew, Darla had landed the job waiting tables mere days after she’d dropped out of St. Patrick’s and been kicked out of her parents’ house their senior year of high school. She’d been there ever since, serving up Bubba’s hickory-smoked meats with sides of slaw and sass.

Laney wasn’t entirely sure what Darla had done to earn Brooke’s scrutiny, but in a show of solidarity, Laney gave the curvy brunette a squinty-eyed stare of her own. “What? Did Darla try to put the moves on Brian? Ask him if he wanted extra sauce on his smoked sausage?”

Rolling her eyes, Brooke tossed a wad of red-streaked paper napkin into her decimated basket and tore open the tiny package tucked into the side of the basket. She unfolded the moist towelette with the utmost care, then meticulously wiped each of her fingers, a frown gouging a line between her fine blond brows.

Laney plucked the last rib from her basket and pointed it at her friend. “Keep scowling and your face will freeze that way.”

“I don’t think he’s the one.”

The rib fell back into the paper-lined basket with a thunk. She took in her best friend’s preternaturally serene expression, then let her eyes drop to the oh-so-perfect Art Deco diamond ring glittering on Brooke’s slender finger, denial rising up from deep inside her. True, she hadn’t always been Brian’s biggest fan, but she’d never seen her friend as happy as she’d been since he blew back into town. They fit together like a pair of gloves. Or a pair of geeks. This little bombshell had to be a blip. Or the first sign of an aneurism. Either way, she wasn’t about to let Brooke torpedo her future. Not over what had to be no more than a harmless flirtation with Darla Kennet.

“Now, listen, I tease about Brian’s smoked sausage, but I can tell you there’s no way in hell he’d ever look twice at any woman who isn’t you. Certainly not the likes of Darla Kennet.”

Of course, the hyper-efficient waitress chose that moment to pop up.

“She’s right. He barely even looked up when I smeared Bubba’s best all over my titties and did a little lap dance for him.” Darla snatched both their baskets from the table but steadfastly ignored their nearly empty glasses. “Nothing else for you
ladies
? I’ll bring your ticket.”

“Darla, I—” Brooke began.

Embarrassment burned hot and deep, but as always, Laney tilted her chin up, pulled out the tattered Tarrington pride, and brazened it out. “That’d be great. Thanks so much.”

“Laney!”

Brooke ground her name between her gnashing teeth, but Laney refused to be derailed. “What do you mean you don’t think Brian’s the one?” she hissed. “Of course he is!”

“Brian?”

Perplexed by Brooke’s airhead act, Laney reached across the table, snatched up her friend’s tea glass, and took a sniff. Satisfied there’d been no tippling or tampering with the tea, she abandoned the cup and turned her full attention back to the subject at hand. “Yes, Brian. He is without a doubt the one for you, and you are marrying him.”

The line between Brooke’s brows reappeared. “Without a doubt,” she echoed.

“Good.” Panic eased its chokehold on her throat. “For a second there, I thought you’d lost your ever-lovin’ mind.”

“No, but now I think you have,” Brooke said with a laugh. “Did you think I was saying I thought Brian wasn’t the one for me?”

Losing patience with the conversation and regretting the loss of her last rib, Laney reached for Brooke’s used towelette since Vengeful Darla had taken hers away with her half-eaten lunch. “What the hell were you talking about then?”

“I don’t think Harley Cade was the one who fathered Darla’s baby.”

“Of course Harley isn’t Darla’s baby daddy.” The defense popped out of her mouth. Unfortunately, her brain hadn’t fully processed the speculation.

Brooke’s eyebrows reached for the sky. “Huh. Funny.”

“What’s funny?” Laney asked, eyes narrowing.

“He’s been everyone’s prime suspect for the better part of a dozen years, and now you’re all, ‘Of course he isn’t’?” Brooke’s nostrils flared as she propped her elbow on the table—careful to avoid any saucy spots—and leaned in. “I seem to remember a time when you referred to her sweet little girl as Harlette.”

Laney tried not to rise to the bait. Tried as hard as she could, but it was no use. She bit. “I was a stupid eighteen-year-old girl who thought she knew everything.”

Now she was a stupid nearly thirty-year-old woman who refused to talk to the same man because she was too scared to risk being left again.

“You were calling her the same name years later.”

Huffing, Laney fell back against the booth. If a woman was going to get nailed to the cross with pesky little things like facts, there was no point in worrying about good posture. “Fine, you’ve got me. I’m the world’s most horrible woman.”

“And you had a very definite opinion on the matter. Is it based on knowledge or wishful thinking?”

“Neither.” The denial came automatically, but there was nothing to gain by trying to avoid the question. Brooke loved it when her probing made people squirm. And no one knew better than Laney that the one-time Pulitzer nominee was the most single-minded woman on Earth once she caught the barest whiff of a story. “I just...” She blew out an impatient breath, ready to move off the subject of the frustrating Mr. Cade once and for all. “Anyone who has seen how good he is to his own mama would know Harley Cade would never abandon his child.”

Instead of the argument and skepticism Laney expected, Brooke met her eyes and smiled the smile that could have taken her straight to the Miss America Pageant. “Exactly.”

Brooke tore a napkin from the dispenser and used the thin scrap of paper to clean a spot for the notebook she’d set aside when their food arrived. Darla reappeared holding their ticket and Laney watched in awe as Brooke toned down her smile enough to make it breathtakingly sincere.

“Darla, I’m so sorry Delaney was so bitchy a little bit ago. This is the first full meal she’s had in a week.” She gently removed the check from the waitress’s grip and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ll take it. Her daddy lost all their money, you know. Poor thing’s broke.”

Darla smirked down at them. “Yeah, well, at least she didn’t get knocked up, right?”

“Exactly,” Laney drawled, mimicking Brooke’s earlier ass-kissing tone.

“And she hasn’t eaten dessert in almost a decade,” Brooke persisted.

Heaving a sigh, Darla rolled her eyes. “You two never change.”

Brooke took full advantage of what appeared to be a moment of weakness. “But it wasn’t Harley Cade, was it?”

The girl they’d known since the first grade simply quirked an eyebrow, then pulled her order pad from her back pocket and turned to wait on the table behind theirs.

“Damn, she’s a tough nut,” Brooke muttered.

Laney nodded, a grudging admiration overtaking the flash of annoyance the non-answer from Darla ignited. “Not many women could keep a secret for so long.”

“Hell, you wouldn’t be able to keep quiet for five minutes.” Brooke flipped through the pages of her notebook. When Darla tried to bustle past, Brooke caught her arm without looking up. “Double your tip for refills on the tea.”

Darla glanced at the line of customers waiting at the door. “Add a piece of pecan pie to your tab and promise not to take more than fifteen minutes. I have to turn this table.”

“Deal,” Brooke answered with a nod.

“Sucker,” Laney sing-songed as their former classmate sashayed away.

“You know she’ll time us, so let me recap. As Mrs. Oliver mentioned, there is a thriving market for this type of cottage industry. As much as I hate to say it, cancer—really, any illness, acute or chronic—is big business. There are other gowns out there, but let’s face it, yours are more attractive. I ordered a couple I thought might be closest to yours.” She waved a hand at the plastic shopping bag she’d carried into the restaurant. “The fabric isn’t as nice as yours, and the finishing isn’t what it should be. I’ll give them to you and you can take them home and tear them apart.”

Laney took the bag, wrinkled her nose at the insipid print patterns, and knotted the handles of the bag. “Thank you.”

“The crux of the problem is working capital. We need to tap a few sources to get the seed money for supplies. First, you need to meet your commitment to Horizons. I noted approximate costs and comparable prices on this page.” She flipped the sheet and turned the notebook so Laney could read the column of numbers. “All of this is doable. I don’t think there’s any question.” She closed the notebook with a flick of her hand, slid it from the table, and thrust the plan at Laney as Darla returned with their tea and dessert.

Brooke reached for it, but Laney snatched the revised check from Darla. “We’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”

“Y’all have a nice day,” Darla replied, then moved on.