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I decided a dinner alone with a good book was the ticket. I headed for the café door and reached for it when a loud voice boomed, “SHELBY! SHELBY DUCHANE!”
My heart seized. I would recognize that voice anywhere. The question was, what was he doing here? I stepped away from the door and slowly turned toward the drawl so Southern it was dripping in biscuits and butter. An overgrown, slightly overweight man was barreling toward me, his arms outstretched. Before I knew it, I was in those big, burly arms being squeezed half to death.
“Shelby Duchane, girl, it has been a day since I’ve seen you. You’re as pretty as you ever were.”
“Bobby… Jay,” I barely breathed out against his chest. He still smelled like muscadine wine. I swore he bathed in the sweet liquid. “What in the world are you doing here?” He was not the Prescott cousin I was worried about running into today.
He leaned away from me all smiles. His mop of dark hair ruffled in the breeze while his blue eyes danced. The man always looked like he was hiding something up his sleeve. “You haven’t heard, huh?”
Oh, I had heard some things, but based on his mischievous grin, I wondered if there was more. But there was no way I was admitting to knowing a thing. That would have only meant that I was still taking an interest in his lying, rotten cousin. I stepped away from him. “Heard what?”
“I’m the new VP of Sales for an upcoming technology company in the area.” He wagged his bushy brows.
I faltered back. He had to be talking about Prescott Technology. Why didn’t he just come out and say it? And what was Ryder thinking making him the VP of sales? Last I saw Bobby Jay, he was the sales manager for a small appliance store outside of Eatonton.
Bobby Jay took pleasure in my shocked reaction. “Don’t look so surprised, girl, you know I can sell mud to a mire.”
I shook my head at the cocky man. It was a Prescott trait.
“You should see the deals I’ve closed for—” He looked up over my head.
“For who?”
“Me.”
I froze on the outside while my insides ran hotter than a summer night in Georgia. Bobby Jay’s eyes were daring me to turn around and face the man who I was fighting for custody of my heart.
When I didn’t turn around for fear of acting unladylike, Ryder decided he wasn’t done hurting me. “Miss Duchane,” his smooth voice taunted me, egging me to turn around and face him.
He had only ever called me that once, during our first fight when I’d broken up with him a few months after we started dating. I had been tired of feeling like I was being torn between two worlds. He took that as I didn’t think he was good enough for me. It wasn’t that at all—I hadn’t wanted my parents to hurt him anymore. But in his anger, he used the term only used by my parents’ maids when they spoke to me. I acutely felt the slight and the meaning behind it immediately that night. When the tears had welled up in my eyes, he took me in his arms and apologized. He promised never to call me that again.
He was a liar.
I spun on my tan heels and faced the inconsiderate, arrogant man. Mylanta, was that a bad idea. Ryder had transformed from bad boy to business man, and I hated to say it, but it suited him well. His long, dark blond hair was replaced with a clean textured top, faded on the sides. He looked more boardroom than farm boy, right down to his crisp dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows and pressed slacks. I’d never seen him wear anything but jeans or . . . never mind.
I tucked some hair behind my ear before I remembered to act unaffected. I showed off my etiquette classes by standing tall with my shoulders back. But regardless of how proud I stood, my tongue was stunned into silence.
For a moment, Ryder also seemed to be at a loss for words while he perused me from head to toe. That was, until he did something far worse than insult me by calling me Miss Duchane. “Chief,” he stuttered before shaking his head.
That stirred something fierce in me. How dare he use that term of endearment? He was no longer worthy of it. I fired back with the only thing I could think of. “Hello, Carroll.”
Bobby Jay bent over in fits of laughter while Ryder’s face turned redder than the radishes in his nana’s garden.
That’s right, two could play his game. Ryder’s God-given name was Carroll Ryder Prescott and he hated it with all he had, but his momma had insisted on it, on account it was her granddaddy’s name.
