Sweet Nothings (25 page)

“Larissa.” Joanie paused until the woman looked up from where she was now shelving books. “Are you any good at scrapbooking?”

“That’s one of the classes I teach here. Did you want to come to one?”

“Oh, no. I hate scrapbooking.” Which was very odd given she had every intention of getting a really good start on one today. “But Lee Ann is going to help me work on one for GiGi. It’s pictures of the house renovation, as well as a few other odds and ends.”

She patted the bag she had slung over her shoulder where she held miscellaneous pieces of GiGi’s collections from the house, along with the last letter Pepaw had mailed from Korea.

Larissa nodded. “I’ve heard it’s turning into quite the showplace.”

“It is,” Joanie agreed. “Nick is doing a fantastic job.”

Larissa lowered her gaze as if embarrassed. “My brother is helping out there.”

“I’ve seen him. He does great work himself.”

Joanie thought about Nick and how he’d not only had the foresight to create what the house was becoming, but how he was training some of the younger men as they worked alongside him.

“I was wondering if you might want to join us out back while you have
no one in here, Larissa?” Joanie asked her. “Unless you have something else you need to do?”

“Oh.” A slight blush colored Larissa’s pale cheeks. Joanie suspected she didn’t get invited to a lot, and that included just hanging with the girls. “I don’t know.” She looked around at the rows of books. “I probably should do some straightening or something.”

From what Joanie could see, nothing was out of place in the whole building.

“Okay.” She wouldn’t push. “But if you change your mind, we’d love for you to join us. It’s girls’ day.” She gave Larissa a quick grin. “No boys allowed.”

She headed toward Lee Ann but stopped at the sound of a book being slapped down on one of the shelves. She looked over her shoulder and found Larissa standing tall.

“Yes,” Larissa said with timid authority. She wore a smile and gave a simple nod. “I could use a girls’ day. Heck, I could use two of them. I think I will join you.”

Joanie gave the other woman a wide grin, and they walked out to the patio together.

Lee Ann looked up at the change in plans, and then gave Larissa a welcoming smile. “Please tell me you’re here to help. Joanie might be able to decorate a cupcake, but that’s only because she simply has to squirt a glob of icing on top. When it comes to really making something unique, she’s a dud.”

All three women laughed and got to work. They talked about mundane things, about the St. Patrick’s Day parade coming up that Sunday, and did their own amount of gossiping.

“I heard Holly say she’s thinking about moving to Chicago,” Larissa supplied.

Joanie snorted. “She won’t go.”

“You don’t think so?” Behind the purple-rimmed glasses, Larissa’s wide eyes were green trimmed in gray. They were simply gorgeous. “She seemed enamored with the idea,” Larissa added.

“She’s been saying for years that she’s going to leave. Thinks she’s big city,” Joanie explained. “She isn’t going anywhere.”

Lee Ann pasted a picture of the new third-floor room in the book and nodded. “She loves working in the diner. Loves being in the middle of everything. She’d get lost in a big city.”

“She’ll still be here saying the same thing next month,” Joanie predicted. She looked up at Lee Ann. “I think we should start a bet.”

Lee Ann’s blue gaze blinked before refocusing on the book she and Larissa were doing most of the work on.

“I think it’s funny all the bets I hear about around here,” Larissa chimed in. “There’s one going on right now—”

“That she doesn’t need to know about,” Lee Ann finished.

“Oh.” Larissa looked between both women, then nodded. “Yeah.”

“Lee Ann,” Joanie tried hard for a tone to indicate she meant business, but that wasn’t something she’d ever mastered. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Oh look.” Larissa rose from her seat. “Someone just came in. I’ll leave you two girls to it.”

She was gone in the blink of an eye, and Joanie turned to her friend. “Spill it.”

“It’s no concern of yours.”

“It’s about me. How can that be of no concern?”

“Because it’s not something you need to know about. I’ll tell you after it’s over. After we see how it comes out.”

Joanie flipped to a new page in the book and began trying to work the pictures into a pleasing pattern, adding some ribbon she’d found in one of the envelopes of GiGi’s letters. “I think it’s crap you won’t tell me. You’re supposed to be my friend.”

“I am, sweetheart.” Lee Ann took the photos from Joanie and smacked her hand away. “That’s why I’m doing this instead of you. It should be something Georgia will enjoy looking at, not something that makes her flinch.”

Joanie grew silent as she thought through possibilities for whatever bet was going on, but also about going to see GiGi today. Just as she had
Saturday, she was looking forward to the visit. She’d decided to work on the scrapbook for a while today, and then take whatever they had done when she went. By the following Saturday, she should have even more to show her. GiGi would enjoy seeing the bits and pieces of her past come together.

“Can I ask what day Holly has her money on with this bet you won’t tell me about?” Joanie asked. Holly held the record for winning the most bets, so maybe her guess would give Joanie a clue.

Lee Ann looked up, her face pinched even though Joanie could tell she was going for relaxed. “She chose your birthday, in fact.”

Less than three weeks away. Eighteen days.

Something big was supposed to happen then, huh? She and Nick were shooting on having the house on the market by then. Was everybody betting on when someone would make an offer?

That could be it, but it felt more personal.

Her birthday… Her mother had left on that day. At the same age Joanie was about to be. Did that have anything to do with the bet?

And then her heart sank as it occurred to her. The Bigbee Curse.

All Bigbee women fell to it. Now that she had Nick in her life, everyone must assume she was going to go the same route.

Get dumped. Have her heart broken.

Have him leave her.

Well she had news for them. She wasn’t in a relationship. She couldn’t get her heart broken.

Only, she worried that wasn’t exactly true. The mere idea of Nick returning to Nashville gave her palpitations when she thought about it. That’s why she didn’t think about it.

They were having fun, having a good time.

And every single one of the people placing money on her was going to lose it.

“Do I win the money if it doesn’t happen?” she asked.

Before Lee Ann could answer, Lee Ann’s cell rang. She jumped on the call as quickly as if discovering a life raft in the middle of an ocean. Then her face tightened.

“I’ll be right there.” She finished the call and slipped the phone back into her purse. “I’m sorry, Jo. I’ve got to go. Candy got sick at practice. I need to go home.”

“No problem.” Joanie started gathering the materials, shoving them into her tote bag. “I need to head on to Knoxville, anyway.”

Lee Ann handed her the scrapbook. “You’re visiting more often.”

“Yeah.” Joanie held up the book. “I told her we were going to work on this. I want to show it to her.”

“Good for you, hon.” Lee Ann patted her hand and then rose. “It’s good to see you two working things out.”

It was good to be working things out, Joanie thought. It just felt right.

She grabbed the rest of her things and headed back through the library, tossing out a quick good-bye to Larissa, then climbed into her car with a smile on her face. GiGi was going to love what they’d already gotten done.

Twenty-five minutes down the road, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the screen and her stomach sank. It was the nursing home. She’d sent a payment last week, but it hadn’t fully covered the bill. She’d been hoping it would keep them quiet until next month.

At least with them calling, she could get the conversation out of the way and they wouldn’t have to have it face-to-face when she got there.

She answered.

“Ms. Bigbee?”

The voice on the other end was tight and strained. And male. It wasn’t the normal lady from billing. She had the sudden, overwhelming feeling that she needed to drive faster. “Yes?” she asked hesitantly.

“This is Sam Wilpot, director of Elm Hill Nursing Home.”

Joanie felt her shoulders sag. GiGi was worse. She knew it without having to hear it. “I’m sorry, Ms. Bigbee, but your grandmother took a turn for the worse this afternoon. We called her doctor in—”

“I’m heading there right now,” Joanie interrupted. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Ten if she blew out the speed limit.

She glanced down. She’d pulled her foot off the accelerator without realizing it and was now barely going twenty miles an hour. She forced herself to press down harder.

“Ms. Bigbee.” The man’s steady, quiet tone stopped her.

She held her breath. “What?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Bigbee. We did everything we could. Her doctor arrived within minutes and CPR was performed for half an hour, but your grandmother’s heart simply stopped beating. We couldn’t revive it. She was pronounced dead at three thirty-five this afternoon.”

The phone slipped from Joanie’s hand as tears poured down her face.

Chapter Fourteen

N
ick jumped from his truck and slammed the door, hurrying around to Joanie’s side. It had been forty minutes since he’d first gotten the call from her. She’d been on the side of the road, about halfway between Sugar Springs and Knoxville, crying so much he’d barely been able to get out of her where she was or what was going on.

To say he’d broken a speed limit or two getting to her wouldn’t be a lie.

He’d called Lee Ann on the way to let her know that Georgia had passed. She had assured him she would call the funeral home to alert them of the situation, and she and Cody would retrieve Joanie’s car later that night. All he needed to do was take care of her.

Which was exactly what he intended to do.

He made it to the passenger-side door and reached inside, scooping her up against his chest, shuddering when she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him like a hurting child.

“Don’t let me go,” she whispered.

He shook his head. He’d hold on as long as she’d let him.

“Never, baby.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then headed for her house.

Expecting to find the door unlocked, he reached for the knob. But when he pushed, he was stopped. Her house was locked up tight.

“I need your key,” he coaxed her.

She lowered one arm from around his neck and dug in her purse, finally pulling out a key, and he took it. He clicked open both the deadbolt and the lock on the knob, then pushed inward to the late-afternoon shadows slanting across the room.

He’d only been in the house the one time, and they hadn’t gotten out of the living room, but she’d mentioned that her bedroom was on the second floor.

As he cleared the top step, he turned and headed down the small hallway, peeking in rooms as he went. A bathroom was first. He could see the counter covered with products, and a couple pair of white stockings hanging over the shower rail. The next room, he hoped, was her spare bedroom. The bed and every space but a small pathway around it was covered in stacked boxes. He hadn’t realized she’d brought that much stuff home.

He moved down the hallway to the quiet, peaceful room decorated in a light purple with butterflies dotting the edges of the walls. The bedspread had lace and looked frilly and girly. Everything about the room felt like Joanie.

“I’m going to put you in bed, baby,” he told her when he started to lean over the mattress but found her tightening her grip. He kissed the outside edge of one wet eye. “Let me tuck you in, sweetness.”

“You won’t leave?”

He shook his head. “I won’t leave.”

“Okay.” The word was said as if she’d already forgotten what she was agreeing to, and Nick hurriedly ripped the covers back and deposited her inside. He went to the bathroom, where he found a washcloth and wet it and was back in less than thirty seconds.

“My GiGi died, Nick.” Joanie peered up at him as he sat beside her, her gray eyes swimming in tears, but at least the tears were finally slowing. “I was making her a scrapbook.”

“I know, baby.” It tore him up to see her like this. He wiped her face and leaned over to press a kiss to catch some of the fresh tears. “She would have loved it,” he whispered.

“I should have made her a scrapbook before.”

What did he say to that? She also should have visited more often? That would make him a hypocrite, wouldn’t it?

He tugged off her shoes, then did the same with her jeans. Once he had her comfortable and mostly calm, he went for a glass of water and brought it into the room, suspecting she would eventually realize she’d dried herself out with the crying. He stood looking down at her, wanting to crawl in beside her, but worried she’d get the wrong impression.

She’d been careful to keep it sex only between them when they were in bed together. The evening hours before they got naked was another story, but he didn’t think she realized they were more than bed buddies at this point. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, and to do anything in the world he could to ease her grief. Because he knew exactly what she was going through. It hadn’t been that long since he’d experienced the same thing himself.