She handed Shelby a glass, kissed her cheek. “Now you go get yours.”
“Get my what?”
“Your everything. I’d start that off by asking that clever and handsome young man out on a date. Then I’d go buy myself something pretty to wear on it.”
Shelby thought of her spreadsheet. “I’ve got plenty to wear.”
“Something new now and then perks a girl up. You work hard, Shelby. I know you’ve got bills, and I know you’ve been sitting there at that computer worrying about them. I raised you to be smart and responsible, but I’m telling you—” Ada Mae fisted her hands on her hips, just as her own mother was wont to do. “Your mama’s telling you to go out and buy yourself a new dress. Something you’re buying yourself with money you earned. See if that doesn’t lift you up some. And then let Griff lift you a little more. I’m going to have Suzannah bring Chelsea over later, and those girls are having themselves a slumber party here tonight. You do the same.”
“I should have a slumber party?”
After a hooting laugh, Ada Mae drank some tea. “That’s what we’ll call it in polite company. Go on, buy a dress, go over to the salon and get prettied up, and go take Griffin’s breath away.”
“You know I love you, Mama.”
“You’d better.”
“But I don’t think I tell you often enough what a wonderful woman you are. Even beyond Mama, Mama-in-law and Gamma.”
“Now, that’s just put the sprinkles on the icing of the chocolate cupcake of my day.” She gave Shelby a squeeze.
“Let me put things away. I wasn’t just paying bills, and I’m doing all right with that, so don’t worry. I was trying to figure things out, I guess, looking at pictures of my time with Richard. Trying to remember all the places we went, and when and why.”
“You sure did travel, so that’s something you have that can’t be taken away. I loved getting postcards or letters or e-mails from you when you were in those foreign places.”
“I don’t suppose you saved any of them.”
“For heaven’s sake, of course I did. I have them all in a box.”
“Mama, you are wonderful. Can I have them? I’ll give them back to you once I’ve looked through.”
“There on the shelf in my sitting room closet. Blue box with white tulips on it. It’s labeled.”
“Thank you, Mama.” She added another squeeze. “Thank you.”
• • •
SHE DID BUY A DRESS, just a simple summer dress the color of the mint her mother added to tea. And Ada Mae was right. It gave her incredible satisfaction to know she bought the dress with money she’d earned.
It only took a couple of questions to find out where Griff was working that day, and she found both him and Matt, sweaty and stripped to the waist (oh my!), building a deck on a house just outside the town proper.
“Hey.” Griff swiped at his face with an already damp bandanna. “Don’t touch me, I’m past disgusting. In fact, you ought to stay downwind.”
“I have brothers,” she said simply, and bent to greet the happy Snickers. “Congratulations, Matt. Consider yourself hugged.”
“Thanks. Emma Kate said you guys met in the park this morning, and you’re maid of honor. Meet the best man.”
“Well, Best Man, you and I have a lot of consulting to do. Meanwhile, I have a favor to ask.”
“Name it.” Griff grabbed a jug, gulped down straight from it whatever was inside.
“Mama’s got plans for the children, and I have some . . . research I want to do. I was wondering if I could do it at your place. I’d fix you dinner as payment for the quiet spot to work.”
“Sure. I get the best of that deal. I’ve been locking up since . . . so . . .” He dug in his pocket for his keys, pulled one off the ring. “This’ll get you in.”
“I really appreciate this. Matt, the four of us are going to need to get together soon. Weddings require considerable strategy. I know Miz Bitsy’s leading the charge on the engagement party—”
“Don’t scare me when I’m working with power tools.”
“We’ll handle Miz Bitsy,” Shelby assured him. “Emma Kate and I have been planning our weddings since we were ten. Of course, what she wants now may not include a silver princess carriage pulled by six white horses.”
“Really scaring me.”
“But, I have the basics, and I can help work Miz Bitsy around.”
“Will you put that in writing?” he asked, and took the jug from Griff. “Maybe in blood. I don’t care whose blood.”
“It’s a solemn promise. But I need to hear what you want, too. I’m awful good at coordinating things.”
“Emma Kate said the same. I’m counting on you.”
“You can, so we’ll get together soon, all right?”
“How about my place, Saturday night?” Griff asked. “We’ll throw something on the grill and strategize. If you don’t want to ask your parents to watch Little Red, bring her along,” he added, anticipating. “We can always hang her in a closet, stick her in a drawer.”
“Let me work on that. I’d better get going, and let you get back to work. Pretend I gave you another hug, Matt. You’ve made my very best friend happier than I’ve ever seen her. So I’m inclined to love you a lot.”
“I’m getting married,” Matt said when Shelby left.
“That’s right, pal. Hold on a minute.” He set down the nail gun he’d just picked up, jogged after Shelby. “Hey. I didn’t get a pretend hug.”
“No, you didn’t, but that’s because I’m going to give you a lot more than that later. No pretending.”
“Oh yeah?”
“On the instructions of my mama.”
“I really like your mama.”
“So do I. Bye now.”
“We’ll probably knock off around four, four-thirty,” he called out.
“I’ll be there.”
“Nice to know,” Griff said quietly, then grinned down at Snickers, who’d followed him and his boot laces. “Really nice to know.”
• • •
SHE WENT BY THE MARKET FIRST, as she’d decided on what she’d fix for dinner when she’d seen Griff at his job site.
She settled down in his kitchen, angling herself so she could see out those wonderful glass doors to the view whenever she looked up.
But once she opened her mother’s keepsake box and began reading, she didn’t look up often.
She broke to work on dinner, get it in the oven. And think.
It was odd and fascinating to see herself, to review her own perspective through the prism of time. Only a handful of years, really, but a lifetime altogether.
She could see it now, the naiveté, the nearly blank slate she’d been. Richard had seen that, too, and used it very well.
Callie had changed her—she could read that, too, in photographs and letters. What she’d written, how she’d written it, had shifted after Callie was born.
Had her mother been fooled by the bright tone of the letters, the e-mails, the quickly dashed postcards once the daughter had become a mother herself? Shelby doubted it. Even now she could hear the tinny tone under the brightness.
She’d been so unhappy so quickly, all the fierce self-confidence gradually, carefully, she saw now, wiped away. The only true happiness broke through when she wrote of Callie.
No, her mother wouldn’t have been fooled. Her mother would have seen, very well, how she’d written less and less of Richard.
But in the first year or so, there had been plenty, and minute details of where they’d traveled, the people she met, the things she saw.
She could follow herself easily from her own words, and begin to see.
She’d think a great deal more, she promised herself. She might never have the answers, but she’d found a bank box from a key in the pocket of a jacket.
So she’d think a great deal more.
She had the counter set for dinner, the wine she’d bought—she’d have to hope for good tips on Frid
ay night—ready when she heard Griff’s truck.
She got out a beer, opened it and walked out to meet him.
He looked hot, sweaty and all but edible when he smiled over at her, leaned on his truck, tipped his sunglasses down to look at her over them while the dog ran in circles over the front lawn.
“Now, that’s what’s been missing from the front porch. A beautiful redhead with a cold beer.”
“I figured you’d be ready for one.” She walked down the steps. “I have brothers.”
“I’m more than ready for one. I’m still not touching you. May turned to August today.”
“It often does.”
“You should brace yourself for after I get a shower. How’s Callie doing?”
“About to have hot dogs on the grill for supper with her cousin and her best friend, and that’s after they were all stripped down so they could run around in the sprinkler.”
“Sprinkler sounds pretty good. Hot dogs don’t sound bad.”
“Those’ll have to wait for next time.”
“When I have a beautiful redhead with a cold beer fixing dinner, I’m not picky.”
He walked in the house with her, with the pup rushing to keep up. Griff sniffed the air. “What’s cooking? It smells great.”
“Meat loaf with baby potatoes and carrots.”
“Meat loaf?” He sniffed again. “Seriously?”
“It’s a warm day for it, but a manly meal. You looked like meat loaf for supper when I saw you today.”
“I haven’t had homemade meat loaf since the last time I was in Baltimore and sweet-talked my mother into it. Why don’t most women appreciate the loaf of meat?”
“You just answered your own question. I’m just going to go check on it.”
“I’ll grab that shower. Then brace yourself, Red.”
Amused, stirred, she went back to the stove, judged she’d timed it well. Then reconsidered.
Self-confidence, she thought. She remembered what it was like to be confident and bold.
She turned the oven down and went up the back stairs.
Griff chugged the cold beer while cool water rained blissfully down on his head. It felt like pounds of sweat and grime sliding away. It was going to be a nice deck, he thought, but he hadn’t been ready for the change in the weather.
Spring had come in so soft and benign, he’d forgotten what a hot, wet hammer summer could pound with in the Smokies.
And today had been just a quick preview of coming attractions.
Once it hit full, he and Matt would start earlier in the day, knock off earlier in the afternoon. And that would give him time to work inside on his own projects. Then there were the plans for the bar and grill once the permits came through.
Then, of course, there was Shelby. He wanted as much time as he could steal with her.
Even as he thought of her, the glass door opened.
She stood, her hair curling wildly over her shoulders, wearing nothing but a knowing smile. With her eyes on his, she took the beer out of his hand, set it on the counter behind her.
“You’re going to need both hands,” she told him.
“It’s a day of miracles,” he said, and reached for her.
“It’s cool.” Tipping her head back, she traced her fingertips up his back. “The water’s cool.”
“Too cool?”
“No, it’s nice. And this is even better.” She rose up to her toes, fixed her mouth on his. And there was nothing cool in the kiss.
He thought it a wonder the water didn’t go to steam the way she heated his blood. Instant and fierce. Every sweaty hour he’d put in that day, every restless hour of the night he’d spent wanting her, worried for her, spilled away.
Soft skin, eager mouth, greedy hands—in that moment, she gave him everything he needed.
“I’ve been wanting you since I had you.” He couldn’t take fast enough. “Going crazy just to touch you again.”
“I go crazy when you touch me. Don’t stop touching me.”
Heat and need and pleasure mixed to hammer in her heart, to shimmer under her skin. The more he gave her, the more she wanted, and reveled in her own appetite.
For him, just him, the hard hands, the tough, workingman’s body. His mouth, patient and demanding at once, made her head spin.
He hiked her up by the hips, bringing her off the shower floor. That surprising strength, the hard grip with rough-palmed hands, combined to make her feel vulnerable, desirable, powerful.
Eyes on his, she wrapped her legs around his waist, dug her fingers into his shoulders for purchase.
Then she was crying out as he plunged into her. Shocked and thrilled and quivering for the next mad thrust.
Water striking, seeming to sizzle and spark against tile. Wet flesh slipping, sliding under her hands. And her own breathless gasps.
She felt weightless, wondrous, clinging to him as he whipped them both higher. Clung still as they tumbled into the blissful dark.
“Hold on,” he managed, and groped to turn off the water. “Just hold on.”
“Mmmm. I feel like I might slide right down the drain.”
She sensed movement, stayed wrapped around him even when he dropped them both on the bed.
“I need a minute,” he told her.
“Take your time.”
“I meant to. But you were all wet and naked. I’ll get towels in a minute.”
“I bought a new dress.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah, and I was going to put it on for dinner, then let you take it off me after. I didn’t take my time, either.”
The image brought on a small but definite surge of fresh energy. “Do you still have the dress?”
“Hanging in your laundry room.”
He trailed a finger down her side. “You could go with your plan, and we’ll both take our time.”
“I like that idea. What I didn’t think to bring was a hair dryer. I don’t suppose you have one.”
“Nope, sorry.”
“Well, between the shower and the humidity and no hair tools, my hair’s going to be as big as the moon. I must have bands and clips in my purse.”
“I like your hair.”
She curled into him. “I like yours. I like how the sun’s starting to streak it. You’d pay good money for highlights like that at my granny’s.”
“Men who eat meat loaf don’t have highlights.”
She kissed his shoulder. “You do, and I’m getting those towels, and turning dinner back up.”
“You turned it down?”
She gave him the slow, flirtatious, under-the-lashes smile Callie often did. “I wanted you in the shower, so dinner’s going to take just a little longer than I’d planned.”
“I like that you turned it down. I’ll get the towels.”
He rose, walked back into the bathroom. “What were you researching—or was that a ploy to get me wet and naked?”