Hunks, Hammers, and Happily Ever Afters (31 page)

Brodie didn’t know why, but he grinned at her defeatist attitude. “Whatever sounds great.”

“Don’t expect this to become a thing.” The determination in her eyes did little to dim his hopes. “I meant what I said, Brodie. I don’t date.”

“Funny. Until I met you, I said the same thing. Gives us something in common.”

“Brodie?”  She grabbed his arm as he headed toward the door, lunch securely in hand. “Did you mean what you said before, about Maura finding her way?”

“I did.”  He knocked his finger under her chin. “I’ve been there, Regan. She just needs to find the right path.” 

She blinked, that amazing dazed look floating across her features tugging at Brodie’s insides. He couldn’t resist the pull any longer. He had to know. He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, the softness of her mouth was everything he’d thought it would be; everything he wanted it to be.

He brushed his mouth against hers one more time. “See you tomorrow.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“I know that look.” Audra MacGowan’s motherly tone blinked Regan out of yet another Brodie induced reverie.

“What?”

“That’s an “I’ve got me some man issues” expression.” Audra laughed. “You’ve been staring at the front of my refrigerator for the better part of five minutes.” Audra flipped the cardboard take-out box filled with sandwiches closed and pushed it aside so she could perch on the edge of the large table in the back room of Pages Unlimited, Lantano Valley’s independent book store. “Given that appliance is older than I am and not nearly as interesting.” Audra inclined her head so her massive tumble of blond waves cascaded around her shoulder, intense blue eyes wide with amused interest. “What’s his name?”

“Who?”  Regan’s forced laugh came out more like a deflated snort. “I don’t have time for a man.” Especially not a man as potentially all-consuming as Brodie. Someday, maybe, but she’d meant what she’d told him at the pub. There wasn’t room in her life for anything—or anyone—else.

“Uh-huh.” Audra crossed her arms and pinned Regan with a look that Regan had sworn never to be on the receiving end of. Audra might be only a few years older than her, but when it came to taking care of her friends, this mother hen was more than perceptive; she was practically psychic.  “No woman has time for a man unless it’s the right man,” Audra said. “Come on, Regan. I’m running out of friends to live vicariously through. First Cassidy bites the dating dust thanks to Ethan and then Loni goes and lands herself one of the art world’s most underrated sculptors. That leaves you and Ella to entertain me and don’t tell Ella, but she’s more likely to land on a rose bush than a man at this point.”  She knocked her shoulder against Regan’s as Regan dipped her head to hide her smile. “I’ve known you for more than five years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen you this distracted.”

“I’m not distracted.”  Regan lifted her beer to her mouth, ready to take a long drink only to have Audra’s hand lock around her wrist. “Audra—” she warned.

“Unless you’ve developed a taste for aged balsamic vinegar.” Audra pried Regan’s fingers from the salad dressing bottle and moved her hand to the amber one beside it.  “There you go. Much better. Now you can drink.”

Regan glared at her over the edge of the bottle and drank large gulps of courage. “Brodie Crawford.” She said his name in a rush, as if maybe she could avoid the flush of warmth that seemed to accompany any thoughts she might have of the man. “Thanks to my brother, we have a date. Tomorrow night.”

“Brodie Crawford.” Audra sat back, brows knitting before she snapped her fingers. “Tall guy, really lush hair to about here?" She waved her hands just above her shoulder. "Looks like he could be a bodyguard or something? Major artwork on his arms.  Cute little girl, um. Cilla, I think?  They were in here a few days ago, left with about a quarter of my children’s section. Do you think five is too young for Harry Potter?”

“No one is too young for Harry Potter.” The idea Brodie filled his daughter’s life with books putting another mark in the positive column. Damn.  “And yes, that’s him. He opened the tattoo par—er, studio, across from the pub.”  She needed to get up to date on the jargon of his profession if they were going to be...friends.

“Ah. You know, single fathers who dote on their daughters can be incredibly sexy.”

“Don’t let Jack here you say that,” Regan warned, referring to Audra’s Marine husband. “I don’t think he’d appreciate the competition.”

“Jack doesn’t hear me say much of anything these days,” Audra said with a touch more vehemence than Regan was used to hearing in her friend’s voice. “Hard to do when you’re half-way around the world.”

“So you were able to find out where he’s stationed?” For the past few weeks Audra had been given the runaround when it came to where her husband’s whereabouts.

“Not stationed,” Audra said. “He’s officially retired according to the conversation I was finally able to have with his former CO.  But apparently Jack doesn’t find home appealing anymore.  Not that he’s had the balls to tell me. He keeps finding excuses to stay away.”

The beer churned in Regan’s stomach. “Just how bad have things gotten between you?” For as long as Regan had known Audra it had always been Audra and Jack. High school sweethearts, her with dreams of owning her own bookstore and him determined to serve his country in the Marines. They were, as far as Regan was concerned, the perfect couple. Until the last few months, she’d never once seen anything other than an ideal marriage and an example she could never hope to emulate.

“Bad enough that I’m considering my options.”  The melancholy that settled around them lifted as Audra got her to feet and grabbed Regan’s shoulders, gave her a hard shake.  “It’s about time you got out from behind that shield you’ve kept around yourself, Regan.  If you weren’t going to do something about it, I’m happy one of your intelligent brothers stepped up. There’s more than work and your family.”

“I’m going out to dinner, not eloping.”

“Let’s see how the date goes,” Audra grinned. “And that first kiss.”

There was no stopping the blush from enveloping her face or the memory of Brodie’s mouth on hers for that brief moment. Or from wishing the kiss had lasted longer.

“Aha!”  Audra laughed, the sound so musical it had Regan’s lips curving.  “I knew it! You’re a step ahead. That good was it?”

“What was good?” Loni Talbot sauntered into the room with a large pink pastry box in her hands, Cassidy Wells and Ella Kalokos, the other members of the Lantano Valley book club, nipping at last year’s designer heels.

“Nothing,” Regan said with a warning glare at Audra, but it was too late. Audra was giddy with distraction.

“Regan kissed a boy,” Audra said in a tone that flashed Regan back to third grade.

“Wow,” Loni said in a throwback tone to her mean-girl days. Her shaggy blond hair framed her socialite perfect face in a stylish albeit it ‘I haven’t made it to the salon in a few weeks’ kind of bob. She was adjusting to living on a budget and not out of her parents’ pockets. “Sorry. I meant, how long—”

“We’re still working on her social skills,” Cassidy said in lieu of an apology as she dropped three bags of chips on the table beside the sandwiches and glared at her one time enemy. “She’s a work in progress, aren’t you Loni?”

“Looks like Loni’s been doing some kissing of her own.” Regan indicated the grey handprint on Loni’s jeans encased butt. “Just how much progress are you making with Patrick these days, Loni?”

“What?” Loni looked over her shoulder, then grabbed her backside, but instead of being angry or irritated—both of which Regan expected—Loni grinned, shrugged, and gave her butt a little shake. “Badge of honor.  He’s um, really good with his hands.”

“Speaking of hands.” Cassidy hopped on the table with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. The computer guru had spent the last couple of months transforming before their eyes, moving from Gothic-girl grunge to happily ever after prospects with Ethan. Despite Cassidy’s violent upbringing, Regan had always believed there was more to Cassidy than attitude, sarcasm, and a penchant for weekend-long online gaming sessions with anonymous strangers. “Ella, do you have something you’d like to share?”

“No.”  Ella’s round face ducked and her hippie long blonde hair draped around her face, but not enough to hide the shy smile that appeared. At twenty-three, Ella was the youngest and most soft-spoken of the group. “Cass, you promised.”

“I promised not to tell.” Cassidy grabbed a carrot stick from the veggie tray and bit in. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t force you to come clean. Ella has an admirer. He left a sad looking African Violet on the front porch for her yesterday morning. I nearly tripped over it.”

“Tripping aide.”  Audra patted Cassidy’s shoulder so she’d hop off the table. “That’s a lovely gesture.  But don’t feel obligated to share any details about him if you don’t want to.”

“Hey!” Regan frowned.  “How come I didn’t get a choice?”

“Stephen’s just a friend,” Ella said, her soft voice tinged with what Regan could only describe as uncertainty. “The flower was a congratulations gift, that’s all. Sheila Tremayne asked Buttons and Bows to provide the flowers for Alcina Oliver’s eighty-fifth birthday party in a couple of weeks.”

“Sheila Tremayne asked
you
to provide the flowers,” Cassidy corrected.  “You’ve done wonders with that nursery since you became the manager. Take credit for it. Trust me, the Tremaynes can make you in this town.”

Ella’s face flushed.  “She said they’re still looking for someone to do the centerpieces for the Pediatric Cancer Treatment Center’s opening gala.”

“Sounds like a test run to me,” Loni said. “Maybe you should talk to the owners about opening a flower shop on site.”

“Maybe.” Ella shrugged, but Regan could see the gears begin to turn in the young woman’s head. Ambition was something she never would have equated with the one-time-wall-flower who was only now coming in to her own. Then again, compared to Regan, Ella’s social life may as well be a feature story in
Cosmo.

“It was very nice of Stephen to acknowledge your hard work,” Audra said. “And Cassidy’s right. Getting in with the Tremaynes can open all kinds of doors, right, Cassidy?  Good for you, Ella. And flowers already?” Audra gestured to the others to grab a portion of dinner and follow her into the store where she deposited the box of sandwiches on what was normally a computer workstation before she turned the store sign to closed. “Looks like someone’s getting ahead of you, Regan.”

“Do I strike you as a flower kind of girl?” Regan downed the last of her beer. She’d much rather get tickets to a baseball game or MMA fight.

“Sounds like they’re on equal footing to me,” Loni said and ripped open a bag of Barbeque chips and dived in. “One gets flowers, one gets kissed.”

“Patrick ever give you flowers?” Cassidy asked as she dropped into one of the straight-back chairs.

“There’s more to life than flowers,” Loni said with a sigh. “But I’ll drop that hint on him tomorrow morning. So who is this Stephen, Ella?”

“Stephen Liatos. From Liatos Landscaping,” Ella said.

Regan pinched her lips into a line to stop from smiling. There was no hiding the feminine interest shining in Ella’s eyes.

“He’s a landscape designer?” Loni’s eyes went wide as she gave an appreciative nod. “Well, if that isn’t a perfect match—”

“It was just a flower.” Ella shrugged, her daisy yellow sweater bunching around narrow shoulders. Regan had always considered Ella, well, for want of a better term, fragile. But in the last couple of months, she’d broken free of the expectations of her traditional Greek parents and ventured into her own life.

Regan had made a promise to her mother, to her siblings, to herself.  She wouldn’t abandon them. She’d vowed to put the family, the business, everyone’s future first even if it was in front of her own.

All the more reason to nip whatever this thing with Brodie was in the bud. One dinner would be it. She couldn’t afford for affection, or desire, to take hold and as much as she enjoyed Cilla—she held a particular affinity and weakness for little girls without a mom—Regan had raised and was still raising her family. At this point, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do it again.

“Can we talk about who Regan’s been kissing?” Ella shifted the topic with enough ease that Regan knew she’d been taking cagy lessons from Cassidy.

“Brodie Crawford,” Audra announced. “They have a date tomorrow night.”

“For the love of—” Regan was going to need another beer. “Are we all going to out each other all night?”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get a chance to finish the book for this meeting.” Cassidy grinned. “If I’m alone in that—”

“You’re not,” Loni said as she uncorked a bottle of Riesling.  “Ella?”

Ella shook her head.

“Sounds like a night of gossip and girl talk ahead to me,” Audra said. “But first.”  Audra walked over and retrieved the glass votive from the frame on the wall.  “We’ve been a little lax including Serena in recent weeks, but I think she’d appreciate the shift in topic this evening.”

Regan’s eyes misted as she and the rest of the book club stared at the lighted candle they kept in memory of their friend and founding member who had died of breast cancer the year before.

“A toast,” Regan said as her throat tightened.  “To friends lost but not forgotten.”

“And to the ones still here,” Audra added. “Thank you, Regan. Now let’s eat. And you can tell us all about Brodie.”

~*~

I
f Regan didn’t know last night that she shouldn’t have had that third beer, she sure as hell did when she slipped on her sunglasses ten minutes after she got out of bed.

The pounding in her skull was loud enough to wake half the dead in Lantano Valley cemetery, but the pain was nothing compared to the laser hot sun shooting like laser beams through her eyeballs. Misjudgments and hangovers, however, couldn’t stand in the way of a typical Regan Murphy day.  A very long, full, nerve-wracking day. Culminating in dinner with Brodie.

A date. She had a date. Her stomach did a little jump and curved her lips into a reluctant smile as she showered and dressed.