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“Me? Try again. Nobody’s going to believe a brainiac like Blue Bailey would fall for a mental lightweight like you.” He ignored her and pulled out a paper. She stepped in front of him. “Before we head for the grocery, I need to make inquiries about a job. Why don’t you have some lunch while I look around?”
He tucked the paper under his arm. “I already told you. You’re working for me.”
“Doing what?” She squinted up at him. “And how much are you paying?”
“Don’t you worry about it.”
He’d been irritable with her all morning, and she didn’t like it. It wasn’t her fault his mother was dying. All right, so it was her fault, but he didn’t know that, and he shouldn’t punish her for April’s medical tragedy.
When they reached the grocery store, the introductions started all over again as one person after another welcomed him to the town. He was cordial to everybody, from the pimple-faced produce clerk to a crippled old man in a VFW cap. T
he older kids were in school, but he rubbed bald baby heads, shook a slobbery fist, and engaged in an encouraging conversation with an adorable three-year-old named Reggie who didn’t want to use a potty. Dean was the weirdest combination of ego and decency she’d ever met in one person, although his decency seemed to stop with her.
While he handled PR, she slipped away to do the grocery shopping. The store didn’t carry a wide selection, but she found the basics. He met up with her at the checkout line, where she had to stand silently by as he whipped out his Visa card. This couldn’t go on. She had to make some money.
Dean unloaded the groceries and left Blue the job of deciding where to put them while he went back outside to move his car into the barn. Even Annabelle didn’t know the identity of his real father, but Blue had dug it up after spending only four days with him. She was the most intuitive person he’d ever met, not to mention the most devious, and he had to play a smarter game.
After he’d cleared out a space in the barn for his car, he poked around in the shed for a shovel and hoe and started attacking the weeds growing near the house’s foundation. As he breathed in the smell of honeysuckle, he remembered exactly why he’d bought this place instead of the Southern California beach house he’d always imagined. Because being here felt right. He loved the old buildings, the way the hills sheltered the farm. He loved knowing this land had been part of something more lasting than a football game. But most of all, he loved the privacy. No crowded Southern California beach could give him that, and when he needed his ocean fix, he could always fly to the coast.
He barely knew what privacy felt like. First, growing up in boarding schools, then embarking on a college athletic career that had brought him instant recognition. After that, he’d turned pro. Finally, with those damned End Zone ads, even people who weren’t football fans recognized him. He stiffened as he heard the jingle of bracelets. Bitterness curdled his stomach. She was trying to ruin this like she’d tried to ruin everything else.
“I was planning to hire a landscape crew,” his mother said.
He jabbed the shovel into a clump of weeds. “I’ll deal with it when I’m ready.” He didn’t care how long she’d been sober. Every time he looked at her, he remembered tear-streaked makeup, slurred speech, and the weight of her arms dragging on his neck during her drunken, drugged-up pleas for his forgiveness.
“You’ve always been happiest outside.” She came closer. “I don’t know much about plants, but I think you’re trying to take out a peony bush.”
Considering the life she’d led, his mother should have looked like Keith Richards, but she didn’t. Her body was toned, her jawline a little too smooth to be entirely natural. Even her long hair offended him. She was fifty-two, for chrissake. Time to cut it off. As a teenager, he’d been forced into more than a few fights when one of his classmates gave a too detailed description of her ass or whatever other body part she’d chosen to show off on one of the rare days she condescended to visit him at school. With the toe of her shoe, she unearthed a flattened tin can. “I’m not dying.”
“Yeah, I figured that out last night.” And Blue was going to pay for her lie.
“Not even sick. There goes your big celebration.”
“Maybe next year.”
She didn’t flinch. “Blue has a big heart. She’s an interesting person. Different than I would have expected.”
She’d gone on a fishing expedition, but she wasn’t going to catch anything. “That’s why I asked her to marry me.”
“She has those big innocent eyes, but there’s something sexy about her, too.”
An X-rated nursery rhyme…
“She’s not beautiful,” April went on, “but she’s… something better. I don’t know. Whatever it is, she doesn’t seem to have a clue about it.”
“She’s a train wreck.” Too late, he remembered he was supposed to be smitten. “Just because I’m in love doesn’t mean I’m blind. It’s the fact that she’s her own person I’m attracted to.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
He grabbed the hoe and began hacking at some weeds around a rosebush. He knew it was a rosebush because it had a couple of flowers.
“You heard about Marli Moffatt,” she said.
The hoe struck a rock. “Hard to avoid. It’s all over the news.”
“I guess her daughter will go to Marli’s sister. God knows Jack won’t do anything but write a check.”
He tossed down the hoe and picked up the shovel again.
