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Brant wasn’t in the mood, but he would’ve done it. “He’s usually pretty excited to come. How’d skipping a week go over with him?”
She tightened the knot on the button-up blouse that was tied above her high-waisted cutoffs. “He’ll live through the disappointment. It’s important for him to learn that we don’t always get what we want.”
“You’re a good mother,” he said. After the loss of her marriage, it would’ve been easy for her to make Mitch her whole world and spoil him rotten, especially in a small town like Coyote Canyon, where there wasn’t much of a social scene. But she had a way of loving him without going too far, and Brant respected her for it.
“I heard about this morning,” she said, leaning up against her car.
Brant adjusted his baseball cap to better shade his eyes from the late-afternoon sun. “Figured.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She toed the small rocks beneath her red flip-flops. “Your brother called about an hour ago.”
“Which one?” he asked as he went back to trying to straighten out his bumper with the crowbar.
“Kurt.”
“He shouldn’t have,” he said and meant it.
She sidled closer, trying to get into his line of vision, and jammed her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “He told us you had a concussion and didn’t know what you were doing. That true?”
He straightened while deliberating on his response. If he couldn’t tell the truth, he didn’t want to say anything. “Last night isn’t something I’m willing to discuss.”
Ignoring his gruff response, Averil indicated the bruise on his cheek. “Charlie went too far. He should’ve given you the chance to explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain. What happened happened. There’s no changing it now. But I can guarantee you that no one was out to hurt Charlie.”
Her lips compressed into a thin, straight line. “God, I hate her.”
“Why?”he asked, taken aback by the vitriol in that statement.
“First, she broke Charlie’s heart—and as if that wasn’t bad enough, now she’s after yours.”
“She’s not after my heart,” he scoffed. All Talulah had tried to do was take care of him.Hewas the one who’d turned his stay at her place into more.
“She only wants a man until she gets him, Brant. You understand that, right? Jane told me she’s done the same thing she did to Charlie to two other men.Two!”
Standing up so many grooms was excessive, and yet Brant felt slightly defensive of Talulah. After what she’d told him, he sort of understood why she’d done what she’d done and believed she wasn’t being malicious. “She obviously has commitment issues. She’d probably be the first to tell you that.”
“She doesn’t need to tell me. I was a witness to just how big those issues are. She leads the guy on until he goes all in and then—” she snapped her fingers “—it’s over.”
“It’s been fourteen years since the wedding, Averil. When are you going to let that shit go?”
“Emotions aren’t that simple, Brant. She’s a man-eater. And if you’re not careful, you might find that out the hard way.”
“Trust me, I can take care of myself.”
“That’s what you think.”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Aren’t you being a little overly dramatic?”
Ignoring that comment, she said, “Why’d you go there, anyway?” The sulky sound of her voice suddenly made him uncomfortable. Was shejealous? Every once in a while, he got the impression she was hoping for more than the friendship he’d offered her. But then, assuming he’d misread the cues, he’d always been able to talk himself out of it. She’d been like a sister to him since they were both kids, and his feelings in that regard hadn’t changed. He couldn’t truly imagine hers had, either.
“I was just trying to deliver an air conditioner.”
“And she got you into bed that easily?”
