His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) (3 page)

“We’re only playing with you, darling.” The lid came off the Crock-Pot. “I expected you to grow a sense of humor over the years. You always were too serious for your own good.”

Granny filled the bowls with chicken and dumplings, the smell sending memories bouncing through Lorelei’s brain and making her mouth water. She wanted those dumplings, but she didn’t have the strength to endure an evening of these two pointing out every one of her flaws.

“If you two don’t mind, it’s been a long day. I’d like to eat my supper in my room.”

Spencer and Granny exchanged a look that said they both felt sheepish. Good. Lorelei may have been a class A brat, but she still had feelings. She carried her bowl and tea to the base of the stairs before remembering the mystery of Spencer’s home address.

“Spencer?” she said, turning back toward the kitchen. “Where do you live?”

Another glance was exchanged. They were definitely up to something. Soft brown eyes met hers. “I rent the apartment over the garage.”

That meant she could see his place from her bedroom window. And he could see her as well, if she left the curtains open. A shiver of awareness shot down Lorelei’s spine, threatening to make her knees week. Flashes of teenage groping filled her mind.

Then again, there’d been no groping with Spencer. He’d always taken the time to make her feel special.

Lorelei shook her head to send the pictures back where they belonged—in the past.

“Right. Well. That explains it.” Keeping her face expressionless, she smiled at the two people she’d loved and left. “Good night then.”

Spencer watched Lorelei disappear up the steps. “You were right, Rosie. She’s lost.”

“I don’t know what happened to her over there, but it changed her. Hurt her.” Rosie carried her bowl to the kitchen table, where Spencer joined her. “I’m just happy to have her home, where we can help.”

“The last thing she wants is our help,” he said, pushing in Rosie’s chair before taking a seat in his own. “That part is clear.”

“What did she say on the way up here?”

“Not much.” He shrugged one shoulder. “She didn’t even ask why I was there to pick her up.”

Just as she hadn’t flinched at the news that Spencer lived over the garage. He’d been Rosie’s tenant since shortly after his divorce five years ago. Having little to no relationship with his mother, and wanting nothing to do with her family, who were scattered around the back roads of the county, he’d been a bit lost when the life he’d built fell apart.

Rosie had been a sorely needed lifeline. Thankfully, she’d never blamed him for Lorelei’s sudden departure all those years ago, and she offered him shelter when he couldn’t afford anything else. In fact, she’d been more family to him than his own flesh and blood had ever been.

“You’re kidding.” Rosie slid a napkin across her lap. “I expected that to be her first question.”

“Nope. She acted as if my being there was no big deal. As if nothing had ever happened between us.” Which had hurt more than Spencer would ever admit. At least if she’d been angry, he’d know she still felt something for him.

“That’s a bad sign.” Concern etched the older woman’s face. “She’s worse off than I thought. But we won’t give up on her. She needs us, and we’re going to take care of her.”

Spencer was more than willing to take care of the woman he’d never stopped loving, but revealing that fact too soon would put Lorelei’s shapely bottom right on a plane bound for parts unknown. He’d have
to wait her out. Keep a casual distance, but show her he was there when she needed him.

Lorelei had never asked for help a day in her life. Learning that she was on the brink of being homeless had taken all of Rosie’s efforts, and then she’d only gotten her granddaughter to come home by promising to offer shelter and nothing more. If Lorelei thought for one minute they were plotting, making her sound like a fixer-upper project, the visit would end in the morning.

Time was what Lorelei needed. Which was good, since he had all the time in the world. Spencer couldn’t rewrite the past, but he’d be damned if he’d let the past repeat itself.

Champ barked, pulling Spencer out of his thoughts.

“Oh, I forgot to feed him,” Rosie said.

“No problem.” Spencer fetched the dog’s bowl from the pantry, then tossed in two scoops of the dry food Rosie kept on hand. “I’m surprised he’s been patient this long.” He added an extra scoop for good measure.

Setting the bowl on the porch, he gave the dog a pat on the head. “You came around eventually, didn’t you, buddy?” Spencer had found Champ wet, scared, and hungry, cowering on the side of the road two years ago. It took an hour to get him in the truck, and another six months before the dog stopped flinching every time he tried to pet him.

“Lorelei will come around, too.” He watched the dog eat. “I can wait.”

The dream was more like a flashback. Eighteen-year-old Lorelei stood near the founding father statue in the town square wearing tattered Daisy Dukes and a faded Matchbox 20 shirt. Anger, fueled by a lethal combination of hurt, desperation, and pride, threatened to send her over the edge. Lorelei had just told Spencer she wanted to move to Los Angeles
to chase her dream of being an actress, expecting him to share her excitement, lift her off the ground, and tell her how fabulous their life on the coast would be.

Only Spencer wasn’t excited at all. He was obstinate, telling her she wasn’t going anywhere because she was going to marry him and stay in Ardent Springs, where they belonged. How dare he tell her no, as if she were some petulant child asking permission? Lorelei shoved a lid on her temper and calmly explained that she could never be happy in their hometown.

The place where no one ever said anything nice about her. Where the church ladies tittered to each other every time she crossed their paths. Where her peers excluded her, acting as if she were somehow tainted and contagious.

But most of all, where her mother had been judged and vilified and taken from her much too soon.

“I need to do this, Spencer. Come with me,” she pleaded.

He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere, and if you loved me, you wouldn’t be either.”

Spencer’s words flipped something in her brain, and her temper boiled over. Their raised voices had drawn a crowd of onlookers, providing Lorelei with the perfect audience. She’d tell these people what she thought of them. No one in this town had ever cared one ounce about Lorelei Pratchett, so why should she spare their precious feelings?

“This town is nothing!” she’d yelled, making sure everyone could hear her loud and clear. “You’re a bunch of worthless, judgmental hypocrites, and you can all go to hell.”

Turning on Spencer, she dragged the engagement ring with the almost nonexistent little diamond over her knuckle.

“You’re no different than the rest of them,” she accused. “I don’t need you or your crappy ring.” With that, she flung the piece of jewelry through the air, running in the opposite direction before it ever hit the ground.

And she kept running. Lorelei ran until her lungs burned and the lights of the town square had ceased to fill the night. Until she could see nothing in the darkness, but she could still hear them. The taunting voices tormenting her brain.

“Go, you little brat.”

“We won’t miss you around here.”

“You’ll never amount to anything, just like your mother.”

The last voice jerked her from the dream, and Lorelei woke to the sound of incessant barking and what sounded like someone relieving himself outside her window. The dream wasn’t new, but she hadn’t experienced it in several years. She should have guessed coming home would bring it all back to the surface. Roused memories she’d spent twelve years burying in her psyche.

Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she waited for her heart rate to slow before throwing off the old wedding ring quilt Granny’s granny had made and padding to the window seat.

What she saw made her wonder if she’d gone from dreaming about the ugly past to what life could have been if she’d stuck around.

A gorgeous man, wearing nothing but low-slung jeans and cowboy boots, pointed a garden hose straight up in the air, shaking drops of water from his sun-bleached hair and laughing as his dog danced in circles, trying to catch the falling mist on his tongue.

So this is what she’d given up.

Spencer had always been able to find pleasure in the simple things in life. What he’d ever seen in her, Lorelei didn’t know. She’d certainly never earned his misplaced love. And whatever it had been, that part of her was gone now.

Lorelei’s brain told her to leave the window, but her heart wasn’t letting her go anywhere. She enjoyed watching them play, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Of course, the dog didn’t. But how had Spencer stayed so happy over the years? He’d been through some rough times of his own. A failed marriage to some hometown girl Lorelei didn’t know.
A lost child, though she’d never bring that up to him. Even
she
wasn’t that heartless.

Besides, breaching such a deep hurt would open up an intimacy between them that Lorelei didn’t want to encourage. Encouraging anything between her and Spencer would only lead to trouble. To more hurt when she once again caught a plane out of Tennessee.

Then again, if he knew what she’d become, that she’d been “the other woman” who’d destroyed a family, he wouldn’t want anything to do with her anyway. Spencer deserved better than Lorelei Pratchett. He always had.

Sliding onto the cushioned bench, she pulled her knees to her chest and watched Spencer alternate between washing his truck and sending his dog into water-filled fits of joy. He’d make a good dad someday. She wished that for him. To find a woman who would give him the family he’d always wanted.

Knowing Spencer, he wished the same for her.

Though right now she wished he’d put a shirt on. Why couldn’t he have developed a beer belly and gone bald? That might have made it easier to remember she wanted nothing to do with men, especially this man. Then again, Spencer would still be a sweet, generous, reliable guy regardless of his outward appearance.

He’d still be her Spencer.

Before Lorelei sunk too deep into pondering her high school sweetheart’s positive qualities, the smell of Granny’s nut bread drifted into the room. After a quick trip to the bathroom to brush her teeth and splash water on her face, she charged down the steps the same way she had as a girl.

Upon reaching the kitchen, Lorelei gawked at the spread before her. Breads, muffins, cloverleaf rolls, and an array of cookies covered every available surface.

How had she not noticed the smell before now? She would have
loved to spend the morning baking with Granny, just like in the old days. The memory tasted almost as sweet as the treats spread out before her.

“Please tell me you didn’t do all of this for me,” she said, stepping up to the island. “I’m going to put on ten pounds the first week I’m here if you did.”

Lorelei reached for a muffin, only to have her hand slapped.

“Don’t get any ideas. These are for the bake sale tomorrow.”

“Bake sale?” The church must be in need of new hymnals or something.

“For the theater,” Granny said, slicing brownies and stacking them on a blue platter. “I’m sure I told you in my last letter.”

The letters Lorelei had barely skimmed, if she read them at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hear from Granny, she’d simply been too busy making a mess of her life to keep up with the gossip from Ardent Springs.

“Refresh my memory. Are we talking about the Ruby?” Lorelei sneaked a cookie, earning a scathing look from across the island. “Do they need a new concession stand or something?”

Granny stopped what she was doing. “You didn’t read those letters, did you?”

“I might have skimmed.” Lorelei popped a bite of cookie onto her tongue, sending a burst of pure pleasure to her brain. “I’d swear you put crack in these cookies. How did I ever live without them?”

“Good question,” Granny replied. “Take another and you’ll lose a finger.”

Lorelei stuck out her tongue, revealing a mouth full of chocolate chip cookie.

Granny went back to her brownies. “The Ruby is falling down. Some on the city council want to knock it down, but we’re trying to save it.”