It's In His Smile (A Red River Valley Novel Book 3) (22 page)

C
hapter
E
ighteen

“I did him,” Miranda said two days later, slumped in the chair across from Lorenda’s desk at Brooks Real Estate. Actually Talmadge had been the one doing
her.
Several times. All of which were quite phenomenal.

“Did what to who?” Lorenda’s printer spit out listings for a client, and she stapled and organized them in the order she planned to show them. Miranda had watched her BFF’s routine a thousand times.

“Talmadge. I
did
him.” Miranda widened her eyes in a you-know-what-I-mean gesture. “Didn’t you see the latest
Red River Rag
? Everyone in town knows he’s been staying nights at my place.”

Lorenda froze, papers in hand. “You slept with Talmadge? Why on earth would you do that?”

“You told me to!” Miranda threw an arm over her eyes.

“I was drinking,” said Lorenda, kind of defensive. “You know I don’t spend much time away from the kids, and I didn’t want to waste perfectly good beer.” She let the listings fall to the desk. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

Miranda pulled the
Red River Rag
up on her phone and handed it to Lorenda.

A picture of Talmadge carrying her purse into the inn was first. Then a close-up, obviously taken with a zoom lens, of Miranda and him leaving the inn the next morning. His bedhead said, “I stayed the night,” and his glaring hickey said, “And hell yes, I got laid.” The caption underneath read,
What we’ve suspected all along is finally official! Red River’s darling has DESIGNS on our favorite architect. But if he built it, did she come?

Lorenda grabbed the phone and ogled it. “On the bright side, you’re now labeled the town
darling
.”

“There is that,” Miranda snarked. “It’s much better than being labeled the town slut.”

“No one in this town has ever seen you that way. You’re just sensitive because of your mom.”

“If Mrs. Wilkinson had her way, I’d have a scarlet letter tattooed on my forehead.”

“Mrs. Wilkinson’s a bitter old woman. My parents joined a different church years ago because of that old bat. Maybe she’s jealous because her husband’s never given her an orgasm.”

Miranda moaned from under her arm like a wounded animal that had been hit by a car.

“So are you guys together”—Lorenda chose her words carefully, her leather executive chair creaking as she shifted—“long term? Because, sweetie, you’re not the sleep-around kind of gal, and he’s not the stick-around kind of guy. He can’t stay forever.”

And that was just the point. He wasn’t in Red River helping her with the inn because he was madly in love with her. He was here to fulfill some sense of obligation to his grandmother. Maybe he didn’t want a one-night stand this time, but at most, they were a short-term fling.

“Together, yes.” In many different positions. “For how long, who knows?” She flung her arms over the sides of the armchair.

Lorenda gave her the same look she gave her two boys when they’d done something stupid and she wanted an explanation. “And why are you
together
with a man who’s going to leave you?”

Because it typically worked better if a girl was actually
together
with the man she was in love with. “Well. He distracted me with his lips and naked muscled chest. You and the rest of the mommy mafia warned me about the chest.” She stared at the ceiling. “And his eyes turned this incredible shade of purple when he watched me play my air guitar routine in nothing but a bra, panties, and his dress shirt.”

Lorenda’s jaw fell open.

“You know I adore purple, right? And it was like I was in this weird trance when he had his lips and his hands all over me. And then I gave him a hickey, and it’s all your fault for telling me to do him, which was clearly the worst advice ever. What kind of best friend are you, anyway?”

Miranda lifted her head off the back of the chair to find Lorenda’s eyes dilated and her mouth still agape.

“You have an air guitar routine? How could I not know this?”

Miranda huffed. “It’s a long story.”

Lorenda laced her fingers and leaned forward. “I’m just worried about you. Starting a sexual relationship can cloud a girl’s judgment.” Her eyes turned sad, and it plucked at Miranda’s heart. She was the only person who knew Lorenda’s secret and what a lonely, rocky road she’d traveled with her late husband. “Once you take the first couple steps through that door, it’s hard to close. It’s like a gushing faucet that can’t be shut off.”

Precisely the problem. Miranda didn’t want to shut it off. She wanted to keep the water running hot and steamy. But that would require Talmadge staying in Red River, which was impossible.

“So what am I going to do now?”

“I can see why he was impossible to resist.” Lorenda leaned back in her chair and gave the ceiling a dreamy stare. “I mean, come on, he’s gorgeous. And very nice. Talmadge is a great guy, actually.”

“Not helping,” Miranda growled.

Lorenda stopped gazing at the ceiling like she was longing for a prince charming to come along for her. “Um, sorry.” She swiveled back and forth in her chair. “You must really care about him, because I’ve never seen you take a chance like this before.”

Miranda choked back a sob. She’d been able to let him go seven years ago because he hadn’t really been hers. But now they were
together.
Like
together
, together. And she didn’t know if she could survive him leaving again.

“Oh, sweetie,” Lorenda said like Miranda was one of her kids and had just skinned a knee. “It’s obvious by the way Talmadge looks at you that he has feelings for you. Maybe you two can work something out.”

The only solution Miranda could see was Talmadge leaving, and her staying to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

Miranda smoothed wallpaper onto the walls going up the stairs just the way Talmadge had shown her while he went to Coop’s office for more treatment, and she found herself singing. She brushed the damp walls, getting out every bubble, and trotted a few steps up with a bounce in her step and a smile on her face. That bounce and smile hadn’t left her in two solid weeks because of how fast the inn was coming along and the festival was coming together.

The great sex hadn’t hurt either.

Life was good. Maybe it was waking up with the most gorgeous man on the planet wrapped around her every morning. Or the way he touched her so inappropriately when no one was around to see, even with all her clothes on. Or the way he smiled and winked at her when people
were
around and touching was off limits.

It was so good that she had barely noticed Jamie’s absence. How could she with Talmadge filling her bed, filling her thoughts, and filling her body? Heat flashed through her. Talmadge had become her whole world.

And that scared the living hell out of her. It was exactly what her mother had allowed time after time. It was exactly what Miranda had tried to avoid her entire adult life.

Her cell rang, Darth Vader’s heavy breathing—the ringtone reserved especially for her mother—rasping through the inn like a disturbing porn flick.

She took a break to answer. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, sugar.” Her mother’s scratchy voice came through the line.

Hellfire. What did she want this time?

“I’ve been following the stories about you and Bea’s grandson. New picture of you two every day.”

Every day? The last one she’d seen was two weeks ago, taken after he spent the night for the first time. “I don’t keep up.” Probably because of all the sex they’d been having. She choked and cleared her throat.

“Since he’s rich, do you really need to keep going with this pipe dream of yours?” Her mom sucked in an audible drag from a cigarette and blew it out. “It will just suck up all your money if it hasn’t already. And then you’ll be worse off than you were before.”

True. But too late.

Another drag. “Maybe Talmadge could give you the money back, now that you two got a thing goin’ on.”

Well put. She and Talmadge did have a
thing
going on. And she wasn’t sure what else to call it. She was afraid to even discuss it with him. He’d tried, but she managed to change the subject every time. How could it end any other way but bad? The inn and the gazebo were almost done. After that, he wasn’t staying, and she couldn’t go.

She loved Talmadge. And she was pretty sure he loved her. He hadn’t said it, but she felt it every time he touched her, made love to her, and even when he looked at her.

But love wasn’t always enough.

“I’m not giving up the inn, Mom,” Miranda said. “And I’m not letting Talmadge give it to me either.”

Her mother sighed. “You’ve always been so determined, Miranda. I wish I was more like you.”

“You could be, Mom. It’s not too late.”

Her mom blew out another drag. “I hope it works out for you, sugar. I really do. I don’t want to see you end up broke, crying, and pathetic like me,” her mother said, being honest for the first time that Miranda could remember.

“Then do something to help yourself, Mom. Help your situation. And for God’s sake, set a better example for Jamie.”

Her mom went quiet. “I don’t know where you got your strength, but you didn’t get it from me.”

Miranda pinched the corners of her eyes.

Unfortunately, at least some of what her mother said made sense. Miranda was quite sure she’d end up pathetically crying over Talmadge Oaks sooner or later.

Talmadge rolled his shoulder in its socket as he left Coop’s office to head to Bea’s for more clothes. “Almost good as new,” he said to Lloyd, whose poufy head stuck out from the makeshift puppy backpack Talmadge had created. He rarely went anywhere without the little guy anymore.

Lloyd barked at him.

Talmadge made his way across the street to his truck, drawing the warming mountain air into his lungs. Since he’d been back in Red River, he’d somehow acquired several new projects. Miranda’s inn, the gazebo, a fake rec center—which he still hadn’t manned up and told Miranda the truth about because, hell, he couldn’t bring himself to watch the joy on her face, the skip in her step, and those amazing dimples disappear. It was almost like having a career right here in Red River.

Besides the volunteer work he was doing, the good ol’ hardworking proprietors of Red River’s historic district had approached him about renovating their buildings to make them more energy efficient without disrupting the historic preservation of the structures. And since Red River was growing, the Red River Independent School District had called him to consult on a new high school and update the stadium with solar lighting and artificial turf to preserve water.

He’d had to regretfully turn down the paying jobs since he wouldn’t be in Red River long enough to see them through.

At Bea’s he flipped on his laptop to check e-mails and froze.