Three Men and a Woman: Evangeline (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

That summer, they commandeered an out-of-season deer blind, built into the branches of an old oak like a tailor-made tree house. It became theirs for the next ten years. From there, they spied on the neighborhood, the tree house affording them great views of the local trailer court and the titillating comings and goings at the Charles home there. They read books and comics. Shepherd introduced Briggs to his first space fantasy, thereby creating a genre addict and then a successful author. They also pored over the occasional girlie magazines Gio stole from home, though the three of them were careful to keep those hidden from Shepherd. They smoked their first—and last—cigarettes there and, on one highly entertaining summer afternoon when they were eleven, generated their first beer belches, thanks to a six-pack Gio lifted from his partied-out uncle.

But that very first summer, their numbers became five.

Fancy Charles kept her bleached-blond self in booze and who knew what else by entertaining men from town who’d had fights with their wives or long-haulers who came off the highway to spend the night at the local truck stop. Her daughter Evangeline was left to fend for herself.

At six, Evvie wasn’t doing much of a job of it. She got on the school bus with hair that looked like it was in yesterday’s badly done braid, and she wore the same clothes several days running. When Fancy had a man in the house, Evvie was set out on the front steps, which really were nothing more than an uneven pile of cinder blocks. She had nothing to do but look around her, and that was how she discovered the tree house.

Briggs remembered the moment she caught him looking. He held binoculars to his eyes and had been watching when Evvie was put out on the step like a nuisance cat. The sun must have flashed off the lenses because, suddenly, while he was looking at her, she was looking back.

In a couple minutes, she stood and started walking through the cornfield that separated them. It was end of June, and the corn was up nearly to her head, so when he hissed an alarm to the others, they had trouble picking her out.

Gio, Chase, and Briggs all voted to keep silent. She was small for her age so they didn’t think she could make it up to that first nailed-on step on the tree trunk. If they were quiet, and she couldn’t get up there to confront them, she couldn’t prove they were there.

Good-hearted Shepherd wouldn’t have it. He went down the ladder himself and gave her a hand up. She looked at the four of them with those sad, too-big-for-her-little-self blue eyes and became theirs.

They taught her to read. She was a bright one but too shy—too much unwanted—to speak up at school. She eagerly listened to Briggs’s stories. Within a few months she was reading them. And then she was editing them, because she was soon great at spelling and he was, well, not bad so much as not very careful about it. His ideas got going faster than his pencil could manage. That was true even now, with his fingers on the keyboard unable to keep up with the finer points of grammar and spelling when he was on a writing roll. God bless his editor.

She was a part of them for seven years. By the time the guys got to be fourteen and she was thirteen, their friendship became awkward. Conversations halted when she climbed up the ladder, and the guys had to shuffle things around to hide the nudie magazines, now that even Shepherd had started to show some interest.

If anyone had finely tuned senses to know when she wasn’t wanted, it was Evvie. Nothing was said, but she came around less and less often and then not at all. The four guys still looked out for her at school, but they didn’t actually talk to her. They were all glad when Miss Victory, an English teacher at the high school, took Evvie under her wing. By eighth grade, Evvie started wearing clean clothes, had new shoes every season, and learned to take care of her hair.

That was good. She needed them less.

They graduated when Evvie was a junior. As far as Briggs knew, none of them saw her again until the month after they’d finished college when they all looked at her from across an open grave.

That night, in the cold and rain, Briggs had gone to her. He’d knocked on the sprung door of that piece-of-shit trailer. Evvie was alone then—rumor had it that Fancy had run off with a trucker the minute Evvie turned eighteen, or, more probably, several minutes before that.

Evvie had lost a friend, too, the best of friends. Without saying a word, she’d taken him in out of the cold. Into her warm—hot—body.

It wasn’t his finest hour. He’d made hasty, needy love to her. It had felt good, so goddammed good, though he didn’t know if it had been good for her or not.

He’d been her first. He’d realized it too late, of course, to take the care she deserved. And it hadn’t felt just good but remarkably hot. So much so that he’d lost himself in it, driving himself to a quick, harsh orgasm that was entirely self-centered.

But more than anything, for him, it had been incredibly comforting. And he hoped like hell—then and now—that the same had been true for her. Since then, Briggs had acquired some significant experience with women, but those pitifully few minutes he’d spent inside Evvie had meant the world to him.

He hadn’t even used a condom. He’d never spoken to her again—not that he’d spoken that night. He’d never bothered to make sure she was okay.

Things could have happened.

It was way less than his finest hour.

He didn’t blame her if she didn’t like looking at him now.

But that pale face didn’t seem so much disgusted with him as—scared?

And then she smiled and warmed.

“Briggs,” she said. He held out a hand as he walked toward her, and she met it soon enough to keep him at a little distance. He took her hand rather than shaking it, though, and held on.

They looked at each other a moment.

She’d become a beautiful woman. And she was nervous.

Unless she was just, like, put off.

He wouldn’t believe it. That moment that wasn’t his finest had occurred on the worst day of his life and likely hers, too. The Evvie he remembered had a sweet, giving heart, and she probably wouldn’t hold his behavior against him all that much.

He had her hand wrapped in both of his, pulling it—and her—close.

“It’s good to see you.” Maybe there was something wrong with his voice. He hoped not, since he had a speech to give. But those words had come out husky and…weird.

She smiled as though she hadn’t noticed. “You, too, Briggs. I thought I might see you here.”

Something seemed off in her voice, too, or her tone, at least. It almost seemed like she might have been hoping to avoid him.

“Yeah, I’m speaking. But why—”

“I’m late, Briggs. Maybe I’ll see you after?”

But not if she could avoid it. He was sure of the subtext that time. He was still trying to fathom it when she tugged her hand away and was gone.

* * * *

Being a best-selling writer who was courted equally by publishers and Hollywood producers had its advantages. One of them was sitting down to dinner at the extremely posh Wallkill Mountain Resort with a Benny Award-winning editor.

Who didn’t want to be there. At least, not with him.

Briggs had spent a pleasurable minute watching Evvie stride away from him. Those damn stilettos put a wicked sway into her hips. She wore a sexy little red silk thing that she probably called a suit but was way too hot for such a mundane description. And he realized it wasn’t exactly red—or those damned heels, either—but tinged with pink into one of those colors only women knew the name for. The short, tight skirt clung to her ass like, well, like his hands wanted to.

He stood there stunned long after she was out of sight.

She was freaking hot.

She’d fucking brushed him off.

Those two equally noteworthy observations tumbled around in his head. Finally, he came to his senses and reached into his jacket pocket for the day’s program.

There it was. Writers’ Choice Editor Award: Evangeline Charles.

WTF. This was no small thing. Editors got about zero recognition from the reading public, but all good writers knew they owed half of whatever success they’d earned to a good editor.

Writers would kill for good editing. At the least, they vied for it, seeking publishing houses on that basis and competing for the best.

And here was his Evvie being acknowledged for her skill by the writers themselves—a serious tribute.

He hadn’t had a clue. She’d kept herself entirely off his radar, and he had to think that had taken some effort on her part.

Effort that he’d ruthlessly undone by cozying up to the chief of her publishing house to have a word. How surprising it was that Evvie had never mentioned being childhood friends with Briggs Henriksen. Surely, Evvie would be delighted to have dinner with him—the chief would make certain that she’d have herself available. It would be a lovely way for her to celebrate the recognition she’d so well earned.

And so Ev sat across from him, cautiously—suspiciously, one might even think—sipping at the champagne he’d ordered. She was at least a bit put out, but could hardly have said no to a boss who had dollar signs in his eyes and hopes that Evvie could seduce a best-selling author into a new contract.

Briggs realized that thought made him uncomfortable—and probably her, too. So he dealt with that first.

“Okay, I admit it was a bit of a cheat to conspire with your boss so you’d have dinner with me. I kinda got the sense you wouldn’t otherwise. So, sorry about that. And let’s just say right now that I’m entirely happy with my current house and won’t be making any changes. Though I can’t promise I won’t try to steal
you
away, if you’re as good as that Benny indicates you are.”

He’d spoken quickly, over at least a couple objections she attempted to make, until she settled and let him finish. But she watched him in wry amusement until he got it all out.

“I am that good. I was taught by the best, wasn’t I?”

That was more like it—the fondness that he’d have expected from his friend. He grinned. “You were.”

She grinned back. “But you’re too damn slow. How close is Book Four? I can’t believe you left us hanging, not knowing whether Aulandreo survives the firestorm on Hebredus. I wish I could trust you not to kill off my favorite characters. And can’t you write a little faster?”

He let her words settle into his heart. He loved getting that question. And that she only asked him to write faster, not reveal his story. She was—grudgingly—willing to wait for it. “A fan. That pleases me immensely, Evvie.”

She shrugged, likely covering for a blush. The deep vee of her little jacket—it was held closed with only one button, and he’d gotten a glimpse of nothing but a bit of lace under it—shifted and revealed a very pretty curve of breast. “Of course I’m a fan. I was your first, wasn’t I?”

She was. His first fan. His first reader.

“Tell me how it happened.”

“That I got into editing? Well, it was natural, wasn’t it? After you guys got me reading, and you needed so much help with your sloppy first drafts.”

He raised a faux-irate brow and made her laugh.

“
Yes
, sloppy. I can tell you I don’t envy your editor, and, no, you won’t entice me away.”

He chose to believe the first of that was a lie—he had to think she’d love to have first go at his work. “You’re happy where you are?”

She shrugged again, and it took a manful effort to keep his gaze on her face. “I work from home, and I love that.”

“Where is home? You’re not still in Cartersville.” He’d gone by the trailer court once, a couple years back, just idly curious.

“Keuka Lake. That’s really the story of how it happened. I know you remember Miss Victory—you include her in almost every dedication.”

He nodded. Yes, in addition to his gratitude for the way the old English teacher had taken lost little Evvie under her wing, he owed her for bringing some discipline to his wild—not to use the word
sloppy
—writing. He’d had little patience for diagramming sentences back in the day, but the exercise had indeed served him well. Just as the strict but indulgent teacher had predicted.

She’d seen the talent behind his rough work and, after Evvie, was his next fan.

Briggs waited for Evvie to go on.

“After graduation, I went part time to Genesee Community College. I was working, and so—”

So she couldn’t go to school full time. Her mother had beat feet out of town and so she was on her own.

“After I saw you—” She took a deep breath.

“After Shep’s funeral,” he put in for her.

They exchanged a look then, remembering very much. And then were interrupted by the arrival of their meals.

“Yes,” she said softly, eventually, looking more at her dinner than at him. “After that. I was alone. The trailer had been repossessed.”

Briggs humphed at that. More likely, it had collapsed.

“Miss Victory retired that year.”

“About time. She was old as dirt.”

Evvie shot him a look, but she smiled with it. “She took me into her home. I had no way to complete my degree. But she took me in, and I transferred to Naz and got my B.A. in literature.