Simple Gone South

Hell and double hell! Triple hell!

“Mr. Reed, I will not be getting a ring of Miss Caroline’s or otherwise. Brantley and I are not—”

“Of course! Of course!” He gestured to the fork. “Now when—and if—the time comes, if you don’t like Francis I, you can trade this little fork right in. But here’s the thing with Francis I. You can get everything. Ice cream forks, strawberry forks, butter picks, jelly servers, petit four servers—you name it. There’s even a corn on the cob butterer. You don’t find that with all your patterns. I’d like to see somebody come up with a cheese grater in Chrysanthemum, but I can get you one in Francis I.”

Lucy opened her mouth to speak, though she had no idea what she would say. At her elbow, her cell phone rang.

Mr. Reed patted her arm. “I’ll just go and let you get that but I hope to see you soon!”

She gave Mr. Reed a little finger wave and glanced at the caller ID. Oh, yes. This was a call she would take.

Chapter Nine

“Brantley Kincaid, stop peeing on my leg!”

His warm caramel and butterscotch laugh filled her with a certain kind of longing—the impossible kind filled with if only and if it were different.

“Lucy Mead, I would never. That wouldn’t be a gentlemanly thing to do at all. And let me tell you, baby, here in San Francisco they are impressed with how gentlemanly I am.”

“I am sure they are. I’m sure they’re impressed with just about everything about you, but I am not. You left your dog on my porch without asking me and now you have sent Mr. Reed over here with a silver fork. He thinks we’re engaged!”

“I cannot do anything about what Asa Reed thinks but I am sorry about Eller,” he said with no trace of remorse. “I should not have left her without consulting you. I will never go to San Francisco and leave her with you without asking again.”

“I took her to the pound.”

“You did not.”

“I could have. I might yet.”

“Sure you will.”

“When are you coming back? Or are you?” Probably Rita May was out there with him.

“Of course I’m coming back. Maybe sooner than I thought, since you care.”

“I don’t care. Except Miss Caroline has me decorating the carriage house for you and I need to know how long I have. She wants it done by the time you get back.”

“I swear that woman has been trying to get control of my environment for ten years. I guess she’s finally accomplished it.”

“That’s what happens when you move into someone else’s house for free. Anyway, she put me in charge of it.”

Lucy backed up and sat down on the stool. She hated to admit it, but it was fun sparring with him since he was two thousand miles away and couldn’t touch her.

“I want you to give me that gong in your living room. I need it.”

“I am not giving you my gong. Now answer me. When are you coming back?”

“When I’m done.”

“Which will be?”

“About a week. Give or take. Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t you come where I am? We could pick out some curtains and kiss some more. Plus, these people are not fun.”

“I am not coming there. We are not going to kiss. And the correct phrase is window treatments. Or draperies.”

“I’m not saying that. A man starts saying window treatments, and the next thing you know he’ll be figure skating and painting ceramics.”

“I am going to hang up now,” Lucy said.

“I called you fourteen times yesterday and sent you twenty-three text messages.”

“I am aware. I deleted them without reading them. If you have anything to say about what you want your surroundings to look like, you’d better tell me right now because I am not talking to you again.”

He sighed. “Okay. I want my workout equipment in that room downstairs where Tolly had her bedroom.”

“A home gym. Miss Caroline is going to love that.”

“Spring it on her before I get back, if you please. Plus, I don’t need a bedspread. I went to a store and told the woman there I liked a comfortable bed and she hooked me up with some stuff. It cost enough to feed a third world country for a year. I’m going to have to use it for the rest of my life, and after. I’m going to have my coffin lined with it. Who knew sheets and stuff cost so much?”

“Me. I knew. Most people know.”

The conversation continued in a similar vein, and Lucy had hung up before she realized she had not properly addressed that he was trying to make people think they were a couple.

She was considering calling him back when the front door opened and in walked Sandy from the bakeshop with a chocolate cake.

“Lucy!” she said as she rushed to the counter. “Look what Brantley Kincaid sent you! He is so precious. What a precious thing to do. It is perfectly fresh too. I don’t know why I let him talk me into putting everything else off and making your cake immediately. But I did. I guess I am just an old soft romantic. And he says it isn’t your birthday, even. You are a lucky girl!” Sandy looked at her cell phone. “Oops, gotta go! My pecan pies are nearly done, and I can’t trust anyone else not to let them burn. Enjoy!”

And Sandy was gone without ever having given Lucy a chance to speak. She looked at the enemy cake, with its creamy piled-high swirled frosting. She should take it straight to the dumpster—but what a waste. On her way home she would take it to the carriage house for the painters. For now, she would exile it to the top of the filing cabinet in her office. Out of sight, out of mind, not on her thighs.

She couldn’t help but glance at the front door. What next? Or maybe that was the end of it.

Marcia Tate, owner of the Blossom Shop, was what was next—with gifts and painful memories.

She breezed in carrying a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses and a carved Jack-O-Lantern.

“Delivery for you, Lucy!” Lucy liked Marcia but she was the nosiest person in the downtown merchant association. And she didn’t have to sound so surprised, never mind that Lucy had never gotten flowers before.

Lucy sniffed the roses and tried to ignore the Jack-O-Lantern. “I didn’t know you made deliveries yourself, Marcia.”

“I don’t.” She placed her burdens on the counter. “These were special circumstances.” She looked pointedly at the Jack-O-Lantern. “I’m to tell you that I carve Jack-O-Lanterns all the time—that they’re my biggest seller in October. I pointed out that this is November but he wanted it anyway.” She shrugged her shoulders.

There was no point in pretending to be coy about who he was. “Have you ever carved a Jack-O-Lantern?” Lucy asked. “Apart from that one?”

“Of course. I have kids. I was a kid.”

“I mean for a customer?”

“No. Do you want to tell me the story behind it?”

“No.” Lucy laughed.

“Will you?” Marcia coaxed.

“No.”

“Can’t blame me for being curious. When I asked what he wanted on the card, he said he didn’t need a card, that you’d know who was sending you presents.” She pointed to the roses. “He wanted tulips. I had to remind him that tulips are not in season and this isn’t Nashville or San Francisco.”