Simple Gone South

back.”

He trusted her professionally. They were not far enough into the work that she had been sure he would. It would have been easy to gush about that but she didn’t.

“I’ll look at it and text you.”

“Just give me a yes or a no and I’ll take care of it.”

“Is it in good condition?”

“Fair. Nothing Will can’t set to right.” He paused. “I wish you could have come.” His tone told her that wish had nothing to do with fireplaces.

“I wish you were here,” she said.

“I will be. Probably by five without a mantle or by six with.”

He had calculated the time. Against her better judgment, she started counting.

Chapter Twenty-Four

As soon as Will dropped Brantley at the carriage house, he picked up his car and drove straight to Lucy’s— where he had every intention of staying until morning.

In the instant before he closed in for a kiss, he noticed that her color was high, and she had an excited- looking little smile. That might have something to do with the surprise she had been taunting him with or that he was back. Maybe both. The two days and night had seemed like a month.

He would have kissed her a month’s worth if she hadn’t pushed him away, gestured to her body, and said, “What do you think?”

No! Oh, how he hated a question like that. One of the things he liked best about Lucy was that she never did that. What was the answer? I like your body? That’s a great new hairdo? Or was he supposed to say something about that pink fuzzy sweater and that gray skirt that hit her about mid calf?

Then she put one foot out and raised her skirt to her knee.

She was wearing knee high black leather boots. The heels had to be all of three inches high and there was as thin strap around the ankle decorated with a few small silver studs and a delicate little buckle.

No doubt she had gotten them at the mall.

Now her smile had a little wicked edge to it and she was doing her best to leer at him. And she was blushing.

She was so proud of herself, thought she was being so bad. His heart positively melted at her innocence and because she was trying to please him.

Trying? Hell, she had pleased him. And something stirred in him that no thigh high vinyl boots, with platforms, eight-inch heels, and studs from top to toe ever could have.

She thought she was being bad and she expected him to respond in kind.

He’d show her bad.

He grasped her to him and pulled her skirt up. “Are you my naughty girl?” he asked, tangling his hand in her thong. “Oh, a thong too? You aren’t just naughty. You’re all the way to the bad zone, Lucy Mead.”

“I am,” she said and reached for the zipper of his jeans.

She wouldn’t be disappointed with what she found. It had been a long two days. Hmm. What he found showed it had been a long two days for her too. Or maybe it was the excitement of her bad girl boots. Either way, she was ready.

He retrieved the condom from his pocket right before his pants hit the floor.

And she laughed for him.

“Sorry to have to do this,” he said and ripped the thong off her. Then he backed her up against the wall and took her right there.

She came three times.

* * *

Later, they lay on the foyer rug, with Eller sniffing at their heads.

“Do you think she will tell on us?” Lucy asked.

“Oh, probably, but do we care?” He smoothed her hair back and she smiled with what must have been afterglow. Suddenly, he wanted to please her more than he had ever wanted to please anyone. That was saying a lot because he was a pleaser. “What do you say,” he said, “that we go to that Chinese takeout place out by the mall? We’ll get some of that shrimp with walnuts that you like. Then we’ll come back and order up one of those movies with somebody like Jennifer Anniston or Hugh Grant in it. Maybe both, if there is one. We can watch it right in bed while we eat.”

“We can’t,” Lucy said. “I told your grandmother we’d come over and help decorate her Christmas tree.”

And the bottom fell out of what had been shaping up to be a perfectly good day.

He should have seen this coming. But it had been so long since he’d participated in the annual Brantley family tree trimming that he had let himself forget. Let? Hell, he’d willed himself to forget—willed hard.

It had always been the same. Tree already set up in front of the window in the study, right by the piano. Big Mama hired that done. Brantley had always played the piano while Papa and Dad put the lights on the tree. Okay, so something wouldn’t be the same.

On the bar, there would be shrimp bisque in a chafing dish and hot open faced sandwiches—crab melts and broiled tomato and cheese—on a warming tray. The season’s first batches of Christmas cookies and eggnog. Probably wouldn’t be any of that bacon dip this year. Mama had always made that and mostly because he liked it.

His tie was too tight. He reached to loosen it and discovered only the neck of his t-shirt.

The boxes of ornaments would be open and waiting, with the construction paper and pipe cleaner ornaments he’d made wrapped in tissue and kept just as carefully as the blown glass angels that Big Mama’s mother had collected.

He’d broken one of those angels when he was small. Hadn’t meant to. It was pretty and he’d only wanted a closer look—but it had been so thin. He had been positive Santa Claus would definitely not come. Papa had swung him into the air. “What’s all this crying about? We don’t cry over things. Just stuff. That’s all it is. Why, your big mama will love that you liked it enough that you wanted to look at it.” And he’d taken him to the hardware store and let him pick out a new ornament to replace it—a hideous plastic frog wearing a Santa hat. They told the story every year and Mama would claim that if she had broken that ornament as a child, the outcome would have been very different. And right there among the sterling silver stars and crystal snowflakes, Big Mama always hung that frog in a prominent place.

Of course, Brantley wouldn’t be expected to hang any of those ornaments. No, he had to play Christmas carols while all this was going on.

Lucy was sitting up now, smoothing her hair and talking about changing into pants in case she needed to climb on a ladder.

“Aw, Lucy. We don’t want to do that,” he said. He held out his hand and tried to pull her back down. “I’ve been gone forever. We want to stay here. Just you and me. Chinese food. Sappy movie.” He smiled and let his eyes half close. “Maybe order up a bad movie for my bad Lucy.”

She laughed. “We have to go. I said we would. Maybe I’ll put those boots on for you again when we get back.”

“I’m not going,” he said lightly but he meant it. “Not going to do it.”

“They are expecting us.”

She was not giving in. It was time to get down to business.

“No, really, Lucy. I am not going. I have been on the road for the better part of two days. I have rifled through everything in a salvage store—and that includes the attic and basement—for hours. Some of it twice. I