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"Don't run roughshod over everyone. Mom can give a reception without you taking over. Handle Birdie. Handle Cal. Take a bubble bath. Go to a movie. But don't try and take over every aspect of every person's life."
"I don't."
Jake snorted. "You don't know how to relax. Your picture's next to the antonym forchillin the dictionary. It’s true. I looked it up.”
Abigail picked up a second bottle of wine, annoyed that Jake knew her so well. She waggled it. "I can chill."
"That's a start, but don't start using that as a replacement for relaxing. One drink's good for you, five will land you passed out in the kitchen with burned scones." Jake pointed to the oven as he waltzed out the door.
"Oh, crap," Abigail said, grabbing an oven mitt and rescuing the scones from getting burned. She huffed out a breath, suddenly feeling messy and out of control. The thought of Cal acting like he was still her husband made her stomach hurt. Stubborn man. Well, it was time to put things in order. Do as she'd always done when faced with unmade beds, unbalanced checkbooks, and people who didn't fall into line.
If she could just make everything...
She tossed the mitt onto the counter. She didn't deal well with feeling out of control. She wore a girdle on her life, holding in the bad stuff even though it pinched. It was just easier that way... and the same reason why she couldn't complicate her life by seeing Leif on a personal level.
Leif felt messy, like something that couldn't be pinned down. He laughed too loudly, smiled too much, and didn't care what anyone in Magnolia Bend thought about him. He couldn't be cinched into her world even if he made her feel something she never thought she would again.
Not desire.
This was more than her girl parts going zing. Leif brought light into the dark places inside her, into the places that had long gone dead. He made her wonder... what if?
And that was dangerous.
Not that she hadn't gone on dates before. She'd even managed a three-month relationship with a home builder who lived in Baton Rouge. He'd been her rebound relationship, scratching an itch, until they decided the distance was too hard which was code for things were getting boring. So it wasn't as though she hadn't had some kind of a life as a single woman. Just nothing worth bragging about.
But Leif was bragworthy with his disarming smile, hard body, and oozing sex appeal.
And why was he interested in her?
She'd never won any beauty prizes, although she knew she wasn't homely. Her eyes were her best feature, her stubborn silver swath of hair her most dramatic, and thanks to her DNA she had remained slim and athletic. But other than those things, she was a normal forty-year-old woman fighting crow's feet and sagging boobs and contemplating reading glasses. She wasn't like the other single moms who haunted the halls of St. George's carrying cupcakes, splashing around smiles, wiggling in tight jeans and sending unstated invitations with their gravity-defiant breasts. Those women knew what to say, how to seduce, and play those games that Leif was no doubt very good at playing.
Abigail didn't play games, especially footsie. Not when she'd spent the past few years being the referee, keeping order between the lines.
She had no business letting herself go with Leif Lively.
No business at all.
9
LEIF WALKED BESIDE Hilda and her French bulldog, who wore an absurd striped pink sweater.
"Come on, Clyde. Do your business so I can take Leif over to the mercantile," Hilda said to the dog, who merely looked up with an adoring grin and promptly lifted his leg on the tire of Leif's car. "That's a boy."
Leif frowned at the dog, but he supposed he'd had worse on his tire than dog pee so he kept walking.
"Isn't it closed?"
''Of course it is, dear. It's Sunday and everything closes in Magnolia Bend on Sunday. Except the Short Stop. People still need gas."
Leif remained silent as they walked toward the middle of downtown. Surrounding them were yards tired of winter, some clinging to ragged pansies and the occasional snapdragon. The large houses on Hilda's street gave way to smaller Arts and Crafts style houses. Magnolia Bend was a pretty town with a white gazebo in the main square and an imposing courthouse with a history that included an in famous hanging judge. Quintessential small-town USA with Creole zest.
"Now over there is where they strung up a poor man before civil rights." She pointed to a huge oak tree. "Such violent history here in Louisiana. Seems so long ago but it wasn't all that many years really."
Leif inhaled, letting his breath go slowly as he stopped at the tree of twisted darkness, sunshine streaking through, dappling the rich soil where the roots fought to emerge. "I never knew Magnolia Bend had that sort of past."
"Oh, yes. All up and down this river. Started with the Native Americans. That's what they call them these days. When I was young, we called them indians. Took away their land. Many of them hid in the bayous with the pirates and runaway slaves. We've endured slave revolts, the War of Northern Aggression." She laughed. "People still think of it that way. Can you imagine?”
“No, I can’t.”
