Sweet Southern Nights (Home In Magnolia Bend Book 3) (20 page)

On the fourth ring she answered, sounding harried. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said. “I’ve been worried.”

“Sorry. I meant to call but things have been crazy this morning. Hold on a sec.” In the background Jake could hear Eva talking to someone. “I’m going to have to call you back, Jake.”

“Wait. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll call you.” And then she hung up.

Jake didn’t want to feel miffed, because he knew Eva had a good reason. He’d just expected things to be different once he admitted that he thought he was falling in love with her.

Last night when they’d talked over the phone before bed, they’d whispered sweet things to each other. He’d talked about her luscious satin skin, and she’d complimented some of his best moves. They each lay in separate beds several miles apart, but the intimacy and tenderness had been so real. And tonight he’d fantasized about sneaking into her room. Dutch wouldn’t hear an explosion in a nitroglycerin plant once his head hit the pillow, so sneaking around and having naughty times would have been a breeze. But that was off the table.

The phone rang.

Eva.

“Hey.”

“Sorry I couldn’t talk. I was at the pharmacy counter. Charlie has the flu, and I had to get a prescription for some obnoxiously priced medicine. I’m pretty sure I’ll be living on bologna this month.”

“I won’t let you starve,” he joked, flopping onto the old recliner Hank had brought from his house. “Fancy won’t let you starve.”

“No, she wouldn’t. Good thing, because taking care of a kid is expensive...and I’ve already used four sick days. Thank goodness I’m not on again until Thursday night. Then I’m going back-to-back, taking Moon’s Friday shift. I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

“I can come over tomorrow afternoon when I get off.”

“And get the flu?”

“Already had my flu shot.” He wanted to tell her he had to see her but Jake was a pro at pretending indifference.

“I miss you, too. I’ve been thinking about yesterday, about the way your body felt next to mine.”

Jake felt his body stir. “Don’t go there, babe. I’m stuck here with Farts A Lot and Snores Insanely. I can’t get—” he lowered his voice “—horny.”

Eva laughed. “Well, the way I look now, you could call me the erection killer. I’m walking ED.”

“Never.”

“Still, I think you better wait until this medicine is in his system. No need for you to get sick.”

Jake said his goodbye and hung up, disappointed he wouldn’t see Eva for a few days. But the rightness between them felt so different than anything he’d ever had with another woman.

It shocked him.

For the past few months he’d been restless, hungrier than normal to blow this town and make a new life for himself. Perhaps his discontent hadn’t been about Magnolia Bend or his career...maybe it had been about loneliness.

Okay, so picking up a little company for a night or two had never been an issue. Willing women were a dime a dozen around any honky-tonk within a fifty-mile radius. Lonely looked for lonely. But this wasn’t about a physical thing. No, what he’d needed was something his brother John had found, something Abigail had found—a purpose for living.

Jake hadn’t really had one.

But seeing Eva in a new light, seeing how well she fit him on all levels, made him understand. It was as if he’d been near-sighted and then pulled on a pair of glasses for the first time. All the fuzzy edges dissolved into sharp contrast. So he knew what he had with Eva was right and good. And he damn sure didn’t want to wreck it by being demanding or unsupportive.

He’d see if Fancy would whip up her infamous chicken soup for him to drop off, and he’d give Eva whatever she needed, because for the first time maybe ever, someone else was more important than himself.

“Who are you?” he said to his reflection in the mirror hanging over the beat-up dresser beside the twin bed.

Then he laughed. Because at that moment he was something more than Jake the Magnolia Bend man whore.

He belonged to someone, and that made him feel almost normal.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

W
HEN
J
AKE
PUSHED
through the door at Ray-Ray’s, everything looked the same. Should have been comforting to Jake, but instead it felt tired. Same place, different man.

“What’s up, Jake?” Ray called from behind the scarred bar. The owner/bartender wiped a mug clean as the perpetually tired Bonnie shuffled past with a tray full of beers for a few rowdy farmhands sitting in the corner playing cards. Jake’s brother Matt played darts with the same guys who came every Thursday, and Clint sat in the same spot he’d sat every Thursday since he and Jake had started coming to Ray-Ray’s.

Except that this Thursday Clint had driven himself.

“What the hell, dude?” Jake asked, sliding onto a stool at the table.

Clint didn’t look up. Instead, he studied the half-filled glass of whiskey as if it was a specimen under his microscope.

“I went to pick you up and your dad said you’d driven yourself. You couldn’t text and save me a trip out to the Duck Blind?”

“Thought you liked driving out to the lake,” Clint said, not looking at Jake.

An odd feeling awoke in Jake’s gut. Clint sounded accusing, but why? The subject of dating Eva would be a hard one to breach since Clint was friends with both of them, and there was this odd jealousy thing happening between them. But Clint would eventually be happy for them. Jake hoped. “I do. I’m pretty fond of the lake.”

“I know,” Clint said, his tone expressionless. “And so you know, I can damn well drive myself. I’m not some pathetic loser who has to wait on the grand Jake Beauchamp to pick him up.”

Jake rocked back at the venom in Clint’s voice. “I don’t do that.”

“Right,” Clint said, turning a shoulder toward Jake.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jake asked, waving Bonnie away when she headed toward them. Though he could use a drink, he’d rather be clearheaded for the conversation that had been brewing for years.

He didn’t need this bullshit with Clint. The last few days had been hard enough not being able to be with Eva, not to mention his job rebuilding a fence for Old Man Turner. And then there was Bobby John, who had approached him about taking some arson investigation classes in order to make a move as the parish investigator.

Bobby John had applied for a position in Shreveport that would pay more and allow him to be near his family—he’d gotten the call that he was hired on Tuesday. The position for St. James parish would need to be filled by the first of the year. But Jake wasn’t even sure he wanted to stay with the department anymore, much less switch to that sort of job. But it might be perfect for Eva, especially since the hours were more nine to five. So, yeah, dealing with Clint acting like a bitch over whatever burr stuck in his ass wasn’t desirable.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” Clint drawled sarcastically. “More like what the hell isn’t wrong with me.”

“Come on, Clint. We’re so past self-pity,” Jake said. “Say what you gotta say.”

“Self-pity. Now there’s a word,” Clint scoffed with a bitter laugh. “I’ve never gone there. Right? I’ve been Polly Positive this entire time. But even a man such as me needs to sink down in the crap hole of self-pity every once in a while. Don’t take that away from me, friend.” Of course, the way Clint said
friend
didn’t sound too friendly.

Jake didn’t have the energy or the patience to play the game Clint had started. “Say what you need to say.”

Clint turned to him then, anger aflame in his dark eyes. “Fine. I want you to leave Eva the hell alone.”

“What?”

“Eva. The woman you took to the lake Sunday and no doubt screwed very well if reputation is to be believed.”

“What?”

Clint continued. “Well, I’m making an assumption it was well done. But yes, Eva. That woman. Leave. Her. Alone.”

His friend had hit him with a metaphorical wrecking ball, and he lay among the rubble, dazed, confused and, as always, guilty. “How did you—”

“I saw your truck go past my house. Saw Eva next to you. I knew where you were going. You always like to screw at the lake.”

“You don’t understand. Eva and I are together. She’s different.”

Clint laughed. Not a ha-ha laugh but a braying laugh of disbelief. “So you’re a couple? Yeah. Okay.”

“Why can’t you be happy for me?” Jake asked, anger starting to chew on his gut.

“Because I hate you.”

“Clint.”

“Yeah, let’s just be honest. Hatred for you has festered inside me for a long time. I got accustomed to it. It was almost comforting. Do I love you? Yeah. Do I hate you for all you’ve taken from me? Yeah.”

Jake had no words. He knew Clint had resented the loss of his legs, had mourned the death of the girl he’d been dating and sometimes allowed jealousy of Jake to break through the surface, but hate? “I’m sorry you feel that way, but you have no right to tell me to stay away from Eva.”

“Yeah, I do,” Clint said, angling his chair so he faced Jake. His longtime friend’s face seemed carved out of unrelenting stone. Something horrible burned inside Clint’s eyes, something he’d nurtured for too long. “Because I care about Eva. Because she doesn’t deserve you. She deserves more than some man who will use her and discard her. So why don’t you, for the first time in your life, take the unselfish route and leave her alone?”

“How can you say those things?”

Clint narrowed his eyes. “Because they’re true. Don’t you get it, Jake? I wanted Eva. I wanted to marry her and build a life with her. I took it slow, letting her get to know me, being patient, but what good did that do?”

“I didn’t know. You never said anything.”

“I thought I didn’t have to. I mean, you’ve screwed every available woman in this town. I thought you had the decency to leave the good girls alone. But no. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? You just had to take one more thing from me.”

Jake slapped a hand on the table, rattling the empty beer bottle that had been left there. It fell over, leaving sudsy foam on the lacquered table. “I didn’t take anything from you.”

Clint shook his head. “You’ve taken everything. Don’t you get it? You get everything you want. And the thing is, everyone knows you don’t really want Eva. You’re bored. She’s there. You’re just messing around and next month, what? She’ll be yesterday’s news and you’ll be on to the next woman. But Eva’s different. She’s tender and not like those girls who know what they’re getting when they follow you out that door.” Clint jabbed his finger at the tinted glass door.

“I won’t hurt Eva.”

“Yeah, you will. You always do. So why not spare her and be noble for once in your life? Leave her alone and let her have a chance at happiness.”

“With you?” Jake asked. He’d never felt so slammed, so hurt over the accusations spilling from his best friend’s mouth. “You think you can give her what she wants?”

Clint stilled. “I can give her something you can’t—commitment and respect. But I may not be the right guy for Eva. I can handle that disappointment. I’m used to life’s disappointments. But I do know one thing—you are unequivocally the
wrong
guy for Eva.”

Jake gritted his teeth and tried not to unleash his anger on Clint. They were basically the same words Matt had uttered when they went fishing. But still it was hard to hear them from Clint’s mouth. “Is this about the accident? Is this some transference of anger stemming from repressed—”

“Don’t use some psychobabble you learned in freshman psychology on me. Yeah, I’m angry about the wreck. I’m pissed you came out that night, that you insisted I was too drunk to drive but yet managed to soberly wrap us around a tree. And I get it was an accident. Just one of those things in life.” He delivered that last line with bitterness.

“No one could have anticipated the deer crossing our path, could have known the tires were bald on my truck, could have even understood that moving me from where I lay would worsen my condition. I understand all those things. You were trying to do the right thing and it backfired. So, no, though sometimes I feel envy as I watch you strutting around here, dancing with some girl and then no doubt giving her a good time in the back of your truck, and though I itch to punch your lights out every now and then, this is not about the accident. This is about Eva and your track record of being a lowlife with women.”

Speaking of punching someone, Jake wanted for the first time in his life to punch a crippled man. Clint’s words seared him. No, sliced him like a dull razor. “So I’m what? Destined to be this?” Jake swiped a hand down his too tight T-shirt and well-worn jeans designed to show off his ass. Yeah, months ago he’d designed his wardrobe in order to get laid. He wasn’t proud of it at that moment, but he knew what he had been.

But Eva had changed him.

Hadn’t she?

He certainly had thought so, but with Clint’s hard words bashing him and Matt’s earlier admonition regarding Eva, Jake wondered if the men closest to him could see what he could not.

Had he been deluding himself? Was being with Eva dishonorable?

“I don’t know, Jake, but I do know that if you asked anyone to describe Jake Beauchamp they’d say, ‘He’s a good guy but a screwup,’ and I don’t think Eva deserves being a casualty of your messed-up world.” And with that last comment, Clint downed his liquor and rolled away, leaving Jake sitting at the table.

Bonnie approached and propped a hand on her hip. “Well, that looked intense. You need a drink, hon?”

Jake shook his head. “I need something stronger than whiskey right now.”

“Well, we don’t sell that, but if you go up to Hook Road, you can probably score something. Take a gun, though,” Bonnie teased, sashaying off with more energy than she’d shown in years.

Jake felt close to tears, the heavy brick of guilt, doubt and disappointment culling a home in his soul. Across the room, he caught sight of Jenny, who gave him a sympathetic look. How many people had heard Clint’s accusations? How many now knew that he and Eva had messed around?

Jenny offered him a partial smile and a shrug.

He managed to crook half of his lips into either a grimace or an acknowledging smile. He wasn’t sure which.

Matt pulled up a stool and sank onto it. “Well, I told you this would happen.”

“That Clint would call me out about Eva?”

“No, that nothing good could come of you pursuing Eva. I didn’t hear everything Clint said, and I don’t agree with most of it, but he was right about some things.”

“So what? Do I just pretend I feel nothing? Ignore her? What do you suggest? Since your own relationship seems peachy keen at the moment.”

Matt’s mouth turned down, and a coldness descended over his face. “You can learn from my mistakes. Women are complex creatures. You can’t pretend to understand them. Just stay behind the line and refuse to cross the field full of land mines.”

“Bullshit,” Jake scoffed, eyeing the watery whiskey Clint had left behind. From the corner of his eye, he noted his former best friend pushing out the door of Ray-Ray’s. He wondered if Clint was okay to drive...and then he remembered the last time he’d begged a tipsy Clint not to climb behind the wheel. None of his business. He wasn’t a cop or Clint’s keeper.

“That’s your response? Bullshit?”

“It’s all I got,” Jake said, pushing away from the table. He didn’t know what to do at that moment. Tell everyone to jump off a cliff...or back off Eva.

He wanted her.

He thought he loved her.

But could he risk her heart?

Not having the answer, he gave his brother a slap on the back. “I gotta get out of here.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t think in here. This place is...it’s not the place for me right now.”

“I get it,” Matt said, calling Bonnie over to order another drink. “Think hard about this thing with Eva. She’s part of this community, our family, not to mention she’s raising a kid. This ain’t Kate, a gal who knows the score. This is Eva. Be judicious.”

And on those words of wisdom, Jake left Ray-Ray’s.

* * *

S
ATURDAY
CAME
LIKE
a ray of sunshine in a sea of darkness. Turned out nursing a child through the flu was no cakewalk. And doing back-to-back shifts at the station wasn’t much better. Especially when Jake wasn’t there.

That afternoon when she arrived back at her house, paying Birdie for babysitting a suddenly very energetic Charlie for the morning, she set out to give herself a much-needed spa day.

With Charlie napping to old-school Bugs Bunny videos, Eva planned to sink into a bubble bath and read a raunchy erotic novel on her Kindle. She’d been daydreaming about Jake and making love to him for the past few days...well, when she wasn’t changing bedding, making chicken noodle soup and spraying everything she owned with Lysol. She would be happy if she never smelled “clean cotton” spray again.

Usually she didn’t fuss with painting her nails or waxing her bikini area, but she had promised Jake she’d cook dinner, assuring him the place was decontaminated, and wanted to feel pretty rather than like a flu survivor. Last night when she’d texted him from the station, he’d been a bit terse, but she figured he’d felt a little ignored by her. They’d essentially made love, declared a sort of undefined commitment to one another and then...crickets.

Okay, a sick kid and a job were good reasons for those crickets, but tonight she’d show Jake exactly how much she’d missed him. As soon as her nail polish dried and the steaks finished marinating.

Her phone rang and she saw it was her friend Jenny.

She let it go to voice mail because the Pink Sensation still hadn’t dried. Jenny probably wanted to go out, forgetting that Eva had Charlie now.

The voice mail dinged.

Eva padded into her bedroom and slipped on a robe.

“Charlie,” she called.

“I’m watching the Road Runner,” he called back.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I feel like a million bucks. You can stop asking me that now.” He sounded a bit peevish, but it made Eva smile. Getting Charlie through a scary sickness and 104-degree fever had not only stretched her mothering abilities but had also challenged her emotions. Guess there was just something about nurturing a kid when he had his defenses down. She could still feel the way he clung to her, still ache at his little cries when they’d drawn blood at the clinic. Luckily, the Tamiflu they’d given him had helped him get better much faster. The only upside to the whole crazy Monday morning had been Melba Gunter seeing her true parenting skills in action...and ignoring the dirty socks on the living room floor and the empty pizza box in the kitchen. Nails finally dry, Eva padded back into the bathroom, dropped her robe and climbed into her soaker tub full of bubbles.