His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) (6 page)

“Let me be clear,” Lorelei said. “I am not here to stay. This is nothing more than a layover until I figure out where I’m going next.”

“And where
are
you going, Lorelei?” Spencer asked, his eyes boring into her, demanding an answer. An answer she didn’t have.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here arguing with you, now would I?”

With a smirk, he said, “Maybe that’s your answer.”

Before Lorelei could process that statement, Jeanne returned with their orders. As Spencer dove into his cheeseburger, she ruminated on his words.

Maybe that’s your answer
.

What? Like she was
supposed
to be here arguing with him? Just because sitting across from Spencer Boyd, deflecting his constant need to reveal whatever mushy core he claimed was hiding in her shallow inner depths, felt completely natural didn’t mean a dang thing. Spencer and Ardent Springs had always been a package deal. She didn’t want the second, which meant she couldn’t have the first. But then she realized something. Why should Spencer get to ask all the questions?

“What about you?”

“What about me?” he answered around the three fries he’d shoved into his mouth.

“You live above the garage at Granny’s. Is that your dream? Working construction and catering to an old lady?”

Pointing at her with a fry, Spencer said, “Rosie would have your hide if she heard you call her that.” Then he ate the fry and wiped his hands on a napkin. Lorelei continued to stare, letting him know she expected an answer. “I don’t work construction,” he finally said. “I’m a carpenter, and I’ve taken some architecture classes. I hope to take more.”

That she did not see coming.

“Really? An architect?”

“Don’t act so surprised,” he said. “Rosie told you I was helping with the plans to renovate the theater. Did you think they let any old construction worker do that?”

“I guess I didn’t think much about it.” Lorelei pictured architects as guys in suits in fancy, big-city offices. Not her old boyfriend who was still sporting T-shirts and a cowboy hat.

“Because we’re a bunch of small-town hicks, our project wouldn’t be professional?”

That was exactly how she’d thought of the Ruby project. Dismissing it as small-town and therefore small-time. Yet more faulty thinking on her part.

Not ready or willing to talk about her own misperceptions, she asked, “What do you want to do with the classes? Are you getting a degree?”

“That’s the plan. But I’m taking it slow since I have to balance the classes around my work and helping Rosie around the house.” He took a long draw of his milkshake before adding, “I’m also thinking about going into city planning. Nashville is expanding north, and we’re close enough to attract those willing to commute. Ardent Springs could see serious expansion in the next five to ten years.”

Lorelei had hit her limit of unexpected information. First, Spencer was working on a college degree. Then Ardent Springs as a suburb of Nashville? Their dinky little town expanding? And Spencer playing a role in that expansion?

“Wow,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Again with the surprise.” Spencer lifted his burger. “Don’t you remember my obsession with old barns back in high school?”

“What do old barns have to do with any of this?”

“That was the beginning of it,” he said, after swallowing a bite of burger and wiping his mouth. “I was fascinated by their simplicity and endurance. Then I progressed to churches, and eventually I did research on the old courthouse. Who built it. When. How they managed things back in the late eighteen hundreds, without the benefit of trucks, dozers, and cranes.”

Without thinking, Lorelei swiped a spot of mayonnaise from the corner of Spencer’s mouth with her finger. She froze, realizing what she’d done. As if a single second hadn’t passed since they’d been together, happy and in love.

Wiping her finger on her napkin, Lorelei cleared her throat and asked, “How did they get the clock tower up there?”

Spencer didn’t comment on her gesture, but his brown eyes danced as he answered, “The wings and tower weren’t added until 1929, so they had more machinery by then.” Swirling the straw in his glass, he added, “My research eventually led me to look into architecture programs, and now here I am. A college student at the ripe old age of thirty.”

This was too important to let him make light. “This is a big deal, Spencer. I’m proud of you.”

Lorelei had never doubted Spencer could do anything he set his mind to. She’d just been too self-involved to think about how far he might want to go. His reluctance to leave Ardent Springs felt like a lack of ambition to her wandering heart. Clearly, that assumption had been wrong.

In fact, the list of things she’d been wrong about was getting longer by the minute.

Leaning against the red vinyl behind him, Spencer stared with narrowed eyes. “I guess it’s my turn to be surprised. I never thought college would impress you. If I remember correctly, you didn’t think much of it back in the day.”

“As you pointed out,” she said, strangely pleased to have surprised him, “we’re not in high school anymore.”

A look she hadn’t seen in a long time shone through his whiskey-colored eyes. The look that said she was special. A look that was far from accurate.

“There’s hope for you yet, Lorelei Pratchett.”

If only that were true. Hope was in short supply in her life these days.

Chapter 5

The next morning, Granny nudged Lorelei shortly after nine, ranting that they were going to be late for church. Since Lorelei’s presence inside Ardent Springs Baptist Church was more likely to bring about a sudden lightning storm than do anything to save her long-lost soul, she grunted and pulled the covers over her head. Granny had tried again an hour later, but in the end abandoned the effort.

Not long after she’d heard Granny holler a farewell and close the front door behind her, Lorelei pulled the covers down and listened. Gone were the screaming neighbors, slamming doors, and endless sirens. There was no one living on the other side of the wall or under her feet. The stillness was almost unnerving, but she kept her eyes closed, enjoying the chirping coming from the trees outside her window.

Trees. Looming, lazy, listless trees with not a palm in sight. Lorelei had missed this place. Against her will and her own expectations, she’d missed the crickets and the frogs, the dirt roads and the dirt beneath her toes. She’d wanted sandy beaches and ocean waves, but sand invaded in
places you didn’t want it to reach, and the ocean waves were daunting, trying to suck you in and take you under.

Which described the majority of Lorelei’s time in LA.

As the rush of failure threatened to drown out the quiet country sounds, something sharp and heavy pounced on Lorelei’s foot, jerking her upright in bed.

“What the—?” she started, but Ginger followed the moving foot, her claws puncturing the quilt like a razor blade through toilet paper. “Get off of me, you crazy cat!” Lorelei pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged under the covers. The fur ball shifted, looking for its prey, then shot Lorelei an evil look before dashing out of the room. “Fine. I’m awake. And you’re still evil,” she said to the cat, who was long gone.

“And you’re still not a morning person, I see.”

The man was like a freaking rash she couldn’t shake. “What are you doing up here, Spencer? I don’t remember extending an invitation.”

“Not lately anyway.” His grin did funny things to her brain, which she hoped didn’t show on her face. “I helped Rosie load up the baked goods, and she asked me to keep an eye on you.” He moved into the room with the grace of a dancer, a quality she hadn’t appreciated nearly enough in her younger days, and dropped onto the window seat. “The fund-raiser starts an hour after the service ends. As the newest member of the Ruby Restoration Committee, you’re expected to be there.”

“First off, I don’t need a babysitter. It’s not as if I’m a flight risk.” She’d run away from home to chase a dream, then run from LA to save her sanity. This didn’t mean there was a pattern forming. “And do they really need me to sit around selling cookies and muffins to the devoted?”

“You can’t avoid the locals forever,” he said. “Might as well face ’em and get it over with.”

She hated how well he knew her. Facing Jeanne the waitress or even Becky Winkle one-on-one was bad enough. The thought of standing before a fellowship hall filled with the people who’d been judge and jury for both her and her mother made her reconsider the running idea.

“Don’t you think my presence will do more harm than good?”

“Only one way to find out.” Spencer rose from his seat and headed for the hall. “But then the locals might surprise you.”

“Like they did yesterday?”

He stopped at the door, turning clear brown eyes her way. “Look at it this way. You got the worst encounter out of the way. And though you didn’t exactly come through smelling like a rose, you proved that you’re still as tough as ever.” With a wink, he added, “You can do this, Lor. And Rosie and I will be there with you. Now get your butt in the shower.”

Before he took two steps, Lorelei said, “You’re more annoying than you used to be.”

“Then at least one of us has changed,” he said, ducking his head back in. “Rosie left four cinnamon rolls. I can’t promise there will be any left by the time you get down here, so hurry up.”

Lorelei hurled a pillow at the empty doorway, but she was laughing as she gathered her clothes for a shower.

He never should have gone up those stairs. Spencer told himself not to do it, but it was as if his feet had a mind of their own. Though if he were honest, he’d admit his feet were being ordered about by a different organ altogether. He’d been halfway up when she’d screamed, kicking his heart around in his chest and sending him sprinting the rest of the way. Fortunately, she’d been too distracted dealing with the feline to notice him arrive at her door in a panic.

She’d been beautiful when he’d found her on the bench at the airport. She’d been pretty in a pout at the diner the day before.

But Lorelei had been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen sitting up in that bed, blonde hair tossed and scattered around her face, blue eyes snapping, and the strap of her blue tank nightie falling off one
delicious shoulder. His body was headed for the bed when his brain jerked the wheel in time to send him to the window seat. Keeping any distance between them was a struggle. Not crawling into bed with her had been the toughest thing he’d done since watching her pull away in a Greyhound a dozen years before.

His life hadn’t been all that great while she was gone, so that was saying something.

To his surprise, she’d taken a shower and appeared downstairs in record time. For Lorelei, anyway. Dark denim made her legs look longer, if that were possible, while the blue button-down shirt matched her eyes. The outfit bordered on conservative compared to her usual attire, and he could only assume she’d dressed with their destination in mind.

After downing one of the cinnamon rolls with the claim that she was saving the other for later, she applied lip gloss while he cleaned up. Spencer worried she wasn’t eating enough, fueled by her extra-thin appearance and her comment from the day before, but he let the subject slide for now. They rode to the church in silence, Spencer too busy picturing Lorelei looking like a sex kitten to keep up a conversation.

The almost-prim outfit did nothing to block out the sexier image of her sitting in the middle of a rumpled bed.

“Do I really have to go in there?” Lorelei asked as Spencer put the truck in park in front of the Ardent Springs Baptist fellowship hall.

He glanced her way to see fear in her eyes. His tough, screw-you-if-you-don’t-like-me Lorelei was really scared.

“Like I said, you can do this.” He unbuckled his seat belt. “Becky was never going to change, but give the rest of the town a chance.”

“The question is, will they give me a chance?” she asked, her voice smaller and so unlike the girl he knew.

Resting his arms on top of the steering wheel, Spencer watched an elderly couple pass through the hall doors. “I guess that depends on which Lorelei walks in there.”

“If you’re suggesting I put on an act, there are two coaches and countless casting directors in California who would say you’re wasting your breath.”

“Lorelei, look at me.” He waited for her to turn his way. “Twelve years ago, you were a driven eighteen-year-old desperate to break out of this small town. A town where your mother didn’t have the best life, and that hadn’t been all that kind to you because of circumstances outside your control.”

Breaking eye contact, Lorelei slid her hands under her thighs. “When you put it that way, you make me sound like a victim. Like I didn’t earn most everything these people thought about me.”

“Everybody deserves a second chance. It’s up to you how this one turns out.”

An empty laugh escaped her lips. “Right. I’m in control. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“You can’t control what anyone else says or does.” Spencer tucked a wayward lock behind her ear. “But you
can
control how you respond to them.”