Chapter 16

Mick was uncomfortable in the formal country club dining room, where Gloria had chosen to have dinner, the way he always was in this type of environment. He shot his sleeve under the tailor made suit he wore like armor, or like camouflage, to blend into the rarified atmosphere.

He lifted his chin and looked around; it was like every other snooty club he’d ever set foot in, plush carpet under his Italian leather shoes, white tablecloths, the tinkle of fine china and silver, and a muted version of an old standard being played on a grand piano.

He froze in his surveillance of the room, as his eyes landed on the last person he expected to see—Heather. She was with a man, a man who was not Chase. What the hell? How many guys was she seeing?

This man was attractive, with brown hair and an easy smile, but Mick was happy to note he was a lot more ordinary looking than Chase.

He dragged his eyes away when he realized Gloria had begun her procession to their table. As he trailed in her wake, it felt as though she knew everyone here, and they stopped at each table so she could introduce him to her friends.

He was saying all the right things, but a good portion of his attention was still on Heather and her mystery date.

****

Heather squirmed a little on the plush cushioned seat.

Ty grinned at her across the table. “You hate it here.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m not super-comfortable here, no. When you said you’d take me out to dinner as a study break, I thought you meant a pizza from Mancini’s. If you’d told me you wanted to go to the country club, I wouldn’t have said yes.”

“I know, why do you think I didn’t tell you until I picked you up? And I wouldn’t have even told you then if you weren’t wearing sweats. I had to ’fess up since I needed to tell you to change clothes.” He paled under the blaze of Heather’s ferocious scowl. “Look, it’s not my favorite place either, but I have a membership here for professional reasons, and I appreciate you coming to help me make an appearance, and to use up my food and beverage minimum for this month.”

Heather smiled at her best friend’s brother, who over the years had become a good friend to her also. Especially since Bethanne and Cisco got married, Ty and she spent even more time together. “You sweet talker, you! Way to make a girl feel special.”

“Making girls feel special is not my forté.” He winked at her.

A woman’s tinkling laughter broke the buzz of muted conversation around them, and Ty and Heather both turned their heads to locate the source.

“Oh joy. Gloria Peterson and her latest victim, who is unbelievably hot, by the way. Wonder who he is, and if there’s any chance he actually bats for my team.”

“He’s Mick Evans”—Heather ground out through clenched teeth—“and I hate to disappoint you, but he plays for my team.”

Ty widened his eyes. “Your team—interesting.”

She blushed and picked up her water goblet with a shaky hand. The condensation from it dripped on the crisp tablecloth; Heather swiped at it before taking a sip. “Not my team, my team…I mean, not me personally…I just mean…”

“He’s straight. I get it. I wasn’t trying to suggest you and he played one-on-one for your team.” He leaned back and took a sip of his beer. “At least not until your lame, stammering response. After that, I’ve got some questions.”

Heather traded her water goblet for her wine glass, because she knew Ty rarely pulled his punches, and she knew she would need the alcohol for this conversation. “Okay, let me have it. What do you want to know?”

Ty glanced at Mick and then back at Heather. “I recognize him now from the christening party. I was distracted that day, otherwise I would’ve noticed his incredible hotness, and your barely disguised attraction to him, and been on your case about it sooner. If you and the hunka-hunka burnin’ CEO are an item, then why is he here with Gloria Peterson? And why are you here with me? And why did you go out with Chase last night? Do you have some sort of diabolical plan to keep all the smokin’ hot guys in the South to yourself?”

Heather grinned and shook her head. She played up her southern accent. “Ya got me. I’m fixin’ to be a redneck femme fatale. Watch out, Daisy Duke! Gay, straight—no man is safe!”

Ty leaned forward to clasp her hand, where it rested on top of the table. “Seriously, Heath, it’s a lot more drama than you usually have in your life. Bradens are the most loyal people in the universe, and you are the most loyal of the Bradens. You’ve always been there for me, so if you need me now, I’m here for you.”

Before she could swallow the lump in her throat to answer, Gloria’s royal procession through the dining room stopped at their table.

“Ty, Heather, I never expected to see you two at the club,” Gloria enthused with false cheer.

“I don’t know why not. I’ve been a member here since I finished law school and moved back to the Bend.” Ty kept his voice light and the grip on Heather’s hand tight.

She glanced up at Mick, and realized her mother was right. If glowering were an Olympic event, Mick Evans would take home the Gold medal.

Gloria followed his stormy gaze to Ty and Heather’s joined hands. And the brief narrowing of her gaze expressed her displeasure their handholding seemed to bother Mick. Gloria slid her arm through Mick’s, and pressed her breasts to his side. She flashed a bright, triumphant smile at Heather, and it became clear why Ghastly Gloria had stopped at their table. The country club dining room might be fancier than the cafeteria at Rivers Bend High, but it certainly felt like high school all over again. And the prom queen was here to show off her handsome, football player date to the nerdy girl. Except now Heather wasn’t sixteen anymore and she didn’t feel intimidated by Gloria. Furious at Mick, yes. Intimidated by Gloria, no. She sat a little higher in her chair, and held on to Ty’s hand, mainly because it seemed to bug Mick, and his being bugged really seemed to bug Ghastly Glo. It was a win-win.

“I think it was more a dig at me, Ty, rather than you. Isn’t that right, Gloria?”

****

Mick admired the way Heather called Gloria out on her bitchiness. And speaking of Gloria, when had she attached herself to him like a limpet? Mick had been so focused on the lawyer’s heartfelt words to Heather when Gloria and he had come up to the table, their easy camaraderie, and their still-clasped hands he hadn’t noticed Gloria going to full-body contact mode with him. He tried to disengage, but she just held on tighter. Her grip was like one of those toy Chinese finger traps; the harder you try to escape, the tighter they get.

“Since Heather is your employee, I don’t need to introduce you two, but I don’t think you’ve met her escort. Michael Evans—Ty Harris.”

Gloria made a point of stressing Heather was his employee, but right now, seeing her look so fresh and natural in her silky blue top, with her hair tousled—all Mick could think of was Heather, and not at all in an employer-employee kind of way. He remembered her on top of him in her messy bedroom just a week before. And now…his eyes flickered to her hand in another man’s and wondered how everything had gone so wrong so fast. Maybe Danny was right about him, and he was a colossal fuck-up who didn’t deserve a woman like Heather.

This lawyer seemed like a nice guy. He could see Heather settling down with someone like him. He started as he realized the guy had finally let go of Heather’s hand to stand and extend it to Mick in greeting.

“Nice to finally meet you, Mick. My brother-in-law has talked about you a lot.”

“Your brother-in-law?”

“Cisco.”

“You’re Bethanne’s brother?”

He’d never heard Bethanne’s brother dated Heather, but there was clearly a deep connection between them. With Rivers Bend gossip being what it was, it was a miracle this morsel had escaped him. And what about Chase? How did the musician fit into this scenario? A feeling gnawed at his gut he was missing a key piece of the puzzle.

A furrow had formed on Gloria’s brow, and Mick sensed this meeting had not gone according to her plan, whatever her twisted plan had been.

She tugged on his arm. “Our table is ready, Michael.”

Heather leaned back in her chair and crossed her long legs. “Don’t let us hold you up, Gloria.”

Gloria frowned in response to Heather’s easy smile, and Mick realized Gloria had intended to intimidate Heather, but fallen short of her goal. Way short, in fact, she couldn’t even see the goal line from where she stood.

“Nice to meet you, Ty. Heather, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Actually, no you won’t, boss. I’m on vacation this week. Don’t you look at the schedules I painstakingly prepare for you?”

Gloria beamed. “So, Ty and you are kicking off your vacation with dinner out together. How sweet, we won’t intrude any longer.” She tugged Mick away from the table.

****

Ty ran his hands through his reddish-brown hair and scratched his head. “If I’m not wrong, and I so rarely am”—he grinned—“that man has no clue I’m gay, and he was jealous of us.”

Heather frowned and glanced over her shoulder to see Mick pulling out Gloria’s chair for her, while G.G. seated herself like a queen on her throne. She looked back at Ty. “You think?”

“I do. Didn’t you notice the way he glared at us holding hands? He did not like it, and this is not a boss reaction. It’s a boyfriend reaction; what the hell is going on with you two?”

“Nothing”—she flushed under his unblinking stare and fiddled with the cloth napkin on her lap—“now.”

“But something did happen?”

“Yes, but seriously, Ty, could we please talk about something else? Anything else, even mind-numbingly dull legal talk would be fine with me.”

He screwed up his mouth as he searched her eyes. “Sure. Fine. But if you ever need to talk…”

“You’re there for me. I know, and I appreciate it.”

He paused a beat and then said, “So, graduation coming up, that’s big stuff. How many tickets do you get?”

“They limit it to four, since there are so many of us graduating, but I don’t know if I’m going to walk.”

Ty’s jaw dropped. “What? After all the years and hard work you’ve put in to get this degree? You’ve got to go to graduation.”

She held her glass of Pinot Grigio up to the glow from the candle in the center of their table, and stared at the light reflected in the pale liquid. She shrugged.

“What? Is this topic off limits too?” Ty slapped the table in exasperation and the heavy silverware rattled. The voices around them hushed at the clatter. Ty leaned in to whisper, “That was a little harder than I intended, but I’ve got to tell you the other off-limit topic is staring at us, and he is not happy.”

Heather fought the urge to look for herself, and decided to stick with the safer topic at hand. “I guess I’ll go to graduation. It’s just I’m not a kid; sometimes I feel like a senior citizen around the other people in my classes. And Saturdays are busy days at the farm and the Retreat. I hate to ask anyone to take the time off to go.”

“Trust me, you won’t have to ask; we’ll all be fighting each other to get one of the four tickets to be there to cheer our girl on.”

“It would make for some fine entertainment at Mom’s Derby party this Saturday.”

Ty deepened his voice to sound like the ring announcer at a pro wrestling event. “Be there or be square for the Graduation Ticket Death Match, this Saturday, live at the Braden Farm!”

****

Gloria’s eyes glittered in the flickering candlelight and Mick didn’t think it was from passion. In spite of her syrupy tones, he knew a pissed off woman when he saw one, and he was looking at one across the table right now.

“I am not a woman who is happily disposed to playing second fiddle, Michael, just so you know.”

“I never thought you were.”

She arched her eyebrows. “Then you should have known better than to put on your little caveman display over Heather Braden when you are with me this evening.”

“I never behave like a caveman.”

Her words stung. Caveman was one step below redneck.

“Oh good gracious, Michael! If you’d had a club hidden in your lovely suit of clothes you would have conked her over the head and dragged her off to your cave. Such a display.” She tsked her tongue.

“I don’t think it was that bad, and I…”

The end of his sentence was cut off by Gloria’s sharp interruption. “At my club; in front of my friends…oh yes, Michael, it was that bad.”

Mick picked up where he’d been cut off, as if she hadn’t interrupted him. “…never intended any disrespect to you.”

The waiter provided a much needed cooling off period for them both when he came to the table to take their order.

From Mick’s point of view, the whole purpose of this dinner was to help him pull away from Heather, and yet here he was with his stomach in knots, because Heather was here with yet another man. And right now, Gloria was a whole lot less appealing to him than Heather.

Gloria gave new meaning to the phrase ‘high maintenance,’ but she was only interested in superficial, and a woman with a shell as hard as Gloria’s would never break under his darker moods. He needed to remember why he was here with Gloria, and forget about Heather and her date. Heather deserved a nice guy like Ty, and not someone who was a clone of his mean-spirited father.

He forced a smile to his lips. “Since we’re at a country club, I’ll use a golf analogy: may I have a mulligan, and we’ll start this evening over?”

Her feline smile made Mick wonder why she just hadn’t ordered a bowl of cream for dinner and been done with it. “If you can focus on me while we’re in front of my friends, and pretend Heather Braden is back in the barn where she belongs, I think a mulligan can be arranged.”

Mick bit back the harsh defense of Heather her snarky words inspired in him. Heather was not his to defend. That was Ty’s job, or Chase’s, he wasn’t precisely sure whose job it was, he only knew it wasn’t his. Remembering the way Heather held her own against his father and Danny, Mick realized she didn’t need any man to defend her. He felt such pride burn in his heart as he thought about her spunkiness, he wondered anew what he was doing on a date with Gloria.

He rolled his neck, and smiled at some long story Gloria told him about people he didn’t know, and frankly could give two shits about, and wondered when his social life had gotten this complicated. He just knew he had to hang tough for Heather’s sake. She was better off without him.