Chapter 18

Heather drove up the gravel drive winding through the woods; her emotions were confused. On the one hand, she was excited beyond belief to have just taken her last final exam. Barring unforeseen flunkage, she’d be graduating from college at long last. On the other hand, her stomach clenched as she considered what it might mean for her—should she stay at the Retreat? Or even in Rivers Bend? This was her home, and the idea of leaving its comforting arms made her feel queasy. She consoled herself by thinking she didn’t have to make any big decisions immediately.

The light got brighter as she pulled into the clearing in front of the cabin Mick was temporarily calling home. Magda had stayed here before she’d moved into Bethanne and Cisco’s little cottage, when they moved into their new home, musical houses, Rivers Bend style. The rustic cabin she approached was shaded by tall trees, and through her open car windows she could hear the river rushing by just beyond the cabin.

Boy she was dreading this conversation with Mick. She’d put it off long enough, maybe she’d waited too long, but she’d set the wheels in motion for Billy, and she needed to smooth the way for him as much as possible. She wondered if the brothers had spoken yet. They hadn’t as of her last conversation with Billy, but he might’ve called Mick today.

She took a deep breath and pushed her oversized, round sunglasses up on her head as she got out the car. In the distance she heard the muted sounds of music and laughter from the cocktail party one of the Retreat groups had scheduled for tonight by the pool, which was located just through the woods from Mick’s cabin.

“Heather. This is an unexpected surprise.”

Mick’s deep voice rumbled from the shadows on his porch, and she jumped at the sound. She hadn’t seen him in the shadows.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you knew I was here.” Mick unfolded his long body from the Adirondack chair where he had been sprawled; he walked to the top step and leaned against the post.

Heather’s mouth went dry, and other parts of her body got wet, at the sight of him. Mick must have taken a shower right after work, his normally immaculate hair was still wet and unstyled; he wore a pair of loose, low-slung athletic shorts. That was it…just shorts. His feet were bare and so was his muscled chest, still damp from his shower on this humid, late spring evening.

He took a sip of the bottle of beer he held loosely in one hand. She tried to swallow, but her throat was the Sahara. She knew she had to speak, was all too aware she was just standing here like some mute geekazoid, but the sight of a half-naked Mick, combined with the post-finals muzziness of her brain, left her completely unable to think of a blessed thing to say.

“Can I get you one of these?” Mick tilted the green bottle in her direction.

Grateful for some conversational guidance, Heather smiled. “No, thank you. I’m on my way out to dinner with the girls to celebrate taking my last final today.”

“The girls?”

“Bethanne, Deidre, Maggie and my nieces, Sam and Caitlin.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Yes, I’m really looking forward to it.”

After a brief silence, when she didn’t say anything else, he said, “Not to be rude or anything, but why are you here, Heather?”

Not to jump your very fine bones, no sirree, bub! Okay…some thoughts were best left unsaid. “I needed to talk to you about something.”

Mick flopped back into his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. Heather walked up the three steps, and sat on the top one, with her back resting against the post.

“That’s interesting, because there’s something I wanted to talk to you about too.”

His icy voice took her by surprise. It was at odds with his relaxed body language. True, they hadn’t spoken since she’d told him they needed to cool it between them, if you didn’t count the awkward meeting at the country club, and Heather didn’t. But she wasn’t expecting the deep freeze from him.

Curious about what had crawled up his butt and died, Heather said, “Okay, you first.”

He took a swig, his eyes smoldering as he looked at her over the bottle as he drank. “Fine. I’ll go first. Why the hell didn’t you tell me Ty Harris was gay?”

Heather blinked. She’d been braced for him to tear into her about interfering with his family, by getting Billy the interview with Ed Miller at the garage. She was not expecting a discussion of her friend’s sexuality.

“It never occurred to me to tell you?” Her confusion at the sharp left turn into Weirdsville their conversation had taken, turned her statement into a question.

“It was easier to let me think you were on a date with him last Sunday? And that you were going on vacation with him this week?”

She wrinkled her nose and frowned. “I never told you either of those things.”

“No, but you certainly didn’t tell me they weren’t true.”

“I never told you the Earth wasn’t flat either, because I thought you were intelligent enough to figure it out on your own. Clearly, I was wrong about you.”

“But Gloria said—”

“Gloria?” Her voice sounded shrill, even to her own ears, and she tried to modulate it. “Gloria is the one who made you think Ty and I had a thing going on?”

“She said some of it right in front of you; you didn’t correct her.”

“Because I didn’t hear her! I try to tune Gloria out as much as possible when she talks. It’s kind of like when Petunia is after a squirrel—she yaps and yaps, but after a while it just becomes white noise to me.”

“Oh.”

“Why does it matter to you whether or not Ty is gay? I didn’t have you pegged as a homophobe.”

“I’m not. Ty seems like a good guy, and he could be sleeping with the whole starting line-up of the Pintos for all I care, but I thought you were on a date with him, going away with him on vacation…”

Heather held up her hand to cut him off. “And it would matter to you why? Those are ideas you got from your date. From the woman you were still with from the night before…”

“No, I wasn’t,” he interrupted.

At his quiet denial, relief flooded through her, relief she had no business feeling, since she had been the one to break up with Mick. He was free to see whomever he chose, even if it was Ghastly Gloria. Still. It felt good to know he hadn’t spent Saturday night with Glo.

“You weren’t?”

“No. I hadn’t seen her since I dropped her off at home after the benefit Saturday night.”

The feeling of relief grew. “I thought you were spending the night in Baltimore, and having breakfast with her sister Sunday morning.”

“We weren’t, and we never planned to. Why would you think that?”

“Gloria told me.”

One side of his mouth turned up in a way that turned her insides to jelly. “Gloria. The same one you told me you never listen to? The one whose voice is just background noise to you? She told you these things, and you simply believed her?” He stopped and stared past her, and then shook his head slowly. “But I have to admit you weren’t the only one who took something she said at face value. Did you and Chase spend the night together at the hotel in Baltimore on Saturday?”

She blushed and turned her face away from him. “No, but I might’ve let Gloria think we did after she told me you were spending the night with her. I shared a room with my mom at the hotel. Chase stayed somewhere else.”

He put the beer bottle on the table next to him, and wiped the condensation on his hands from it on his shorts. “Looks like we both had some mistaken ideas about how quickly we’d each moved on.”

“Looks like.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. The music from the party drifted through the woods to them, old Motown.

Heather was irritated she had fallen for Gloria’s lies hook, line, and sinker. She should’ve known it wasn’t true, and the other woman would try to stir up trouble between Mick and her.

“How did your exams go?” he asked with genuine interest.

Heather had two brothers, so she wasn’t too surprised from his point of view that the moment was over and the discussion was closed. Two women would’ve talked it to death. She smiled at the thought. She always had been enough of a tomboy to like the men’s way better.

“Pretty well, I think.” She sat in the sun, and he was shadowed by the overhang of the porch, so she just noticed the bruise on his strong jaw line. “What happened to your face?”

“I walked into something.”

“Into what?”

He grinned ruefully. “Your brother’s fist.”

Her head fell back and thumped against the post. “Jeff did that to you? Why? What the hell is going on at work? I knew I shouldn’t have taken this week off.”

“It wasn’t a work-related disagreement. It was more of a…well…you-related dispute.”

She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh God, Mick, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s a big brother’s prerogative. I knew going into it with you that getting socked in the face by Jeff was inevitable.” A slow grin spread across his face. “It was worth it.”

“You two have been fighting all week?”

“No. This happened on Monday, and we’re guys. I dated his sister. He punched me in the face. Problem resolved. Back to work.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Men are such simple creatures.”

“Yep.” He nodded agreement. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

She bit her bottom lip. Here it was, the topic she was dreading discussing with him. “Have you talked to Billy this week?”

“My brother? No. Why? Is everything all right at home?”

“Yes! Nothing’s wrong.” Her words came out in a breathless rush to reassure him. She paused before adding, “Not wrong, precisely. In fact, it might turn out to be good news.”

Mick pulled his legs up and straightened his posture in his chair. “Now you’re making me nervous.”

“I got my oil changed last week at Miller’s Garage. Have you met Ed Miller yet?”

Mick’s forehead wrinkled. “You have totally lost me. How did we get from something going on with my family to your oil change at Miller’s Garage?”

“Ed is getting older; he’s starting to think about retirement, and he has no one to pass the garage on to. He asked if I knew a young mechanic who might be interested in working with him and eventually taking over the business. Right away, I thought of—”

“Billy.” He finished her sentence and clipped the name so short, his jaw snapped shut, and his teeth clicked together.

“Yes.” The word caught and she cleared her throat before repeating it with more force, “Yes. I called Billy to tell him about the opportunity.” She peered up at him through her choppy bangs. “He didn’t call you?”

“I had a voicemail from him, but it’s been so crazy at work without you this week, by the way, on Monday I need to talk to you about a raise, you totally deserve one. I haven’t had the chance to call him back. I was going to give him a buzz tonight. Why do you ask? Is there something more you need to tell me?”

“He spoke to Ed, and they hit it off over the phone. Billy’s coming to Rivers Bend next week to interview with him in person.”

Mick ran his hand over his jaw without thinking, and winced when he got to the bruise. This woman was causing all kinds of pain and turmoil in his life. Again. “What you’re telling me is Billy is going to quit the mine to move to Rivers Bend and become a mechanic.”

“He’s coming to see if he’d like it; he might not want to do it after the visit.”

Mick raised his eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? Of course he’s going to want this job. It’s what he’s wanted to do since the first time he touched a car engine, and I have to admit it would be nice to have him here, but the old man is gonna be pissed.”

“With both of you?”

Mick inclined his head and lifted the bottle off the table. Before he drank from it, he looked at her over the lip of the bottle. “With all of us. Don’t think not being an Evans will help you escape my old man’s wrath, Miss Braden.”

She swallowed hard. “I can handle his wrath, but how about yours? Any wrath on your part?”

He thought for a long time, and the sounds of the party in the distance made Heather want to run to it to escape from this uncomfortable conversation. He was taking too long to think about his answer. She had overstepped her bounds and he was angry. She licked her dry lips and looked longingly to the sound of the boppy hits of the eighties now playing at the party. It sounded happy, and more important, it sounded far away from the dressing down she feared she was about to get from Mick.

Finally he shrugged. “I’m not sure how I feel about you interfering with my family. It’s like you’re my girlfriend, but without any of the benefits of being in a romantic relationship. A small part of me is pissed you meddled, but the rest of me knows you did it with good intentions, and maybe it’s the push Billy needed to get out.” He took another drink from the bottle and shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m feeling about you right now, Heather. I really don’t.”

The tightness in Heather’s chest loosened a little. At least he wasn’t furious with her, but she didn’t think he only meant he didn’t know how he felt about her with relation to her interference. He could just join the confusion club, because she was right there with him. Their relationship had gotten so complicated, it felt like the plot of a nineteenth-century Russian novel, transplanted to modern, small-town Virginia.

She rose and brushed off the seat of her pants. “I’ll have to wait for another time for you to figure things out. I’ve got to pick up Sam and meet everyone for dinner.”

As she walked to the car, she heard his footsteps on the porch, and then his deep voice rumbled, “Congratulations on finishing your last exam. You should be really proud of yourself. I know I am.”

She raised a hand in acknowledgment and got into her car. As she turned her car around to pull out, she couldn’t resist another peek at Mick. He stood on the top step of the porch, one shoulder leaning against the post. And my-oh-my that was one fine glower on his face. She never thought she was the kind of girl to fall for some kind of brooding, Gothic romance novel hero, but she had to admit to herself Mick’s Heathcliff routine really did it for her like nothing else did.

She blasted the air conditioning to cool off a little before she had to face her friends and family, with their all-seeing, all-knowing eyes. This thing with Mick couldn’t go anywhere, and she wasn’t in the mood for the Spanish Inquisition, Rivers Bend style, so she didn’t want her flushed cheeks and bright eyes to give anything away over dinner.

****

“Something is so going on with you,” Bethanne observed sagely out of nowhere. The talk had all been about her graduation and the Derby party tomorrow.

She brushed her bangs off her forehead and said too quickly, “There’s nothing going on with me. Why would you say that?”

“Don’t kid a kidder, Heather. We all know you well enough to know something’s up, I’m the only one brave enough to say it.”

“Brave or brazen?” Heather challenged with a jut of her chin.

Bethanne narrowed her eyes. “Why were you late getting to the restaurant tonight?”

“I had to stop to talk to a friend before I picked up Sam.”

“Mm hm. What friend?”

“A friend. Sheesh, Bethanne, what’s with the third degree? I was only five minutes late.”

“And you’re being so defensive—makes a girl wonder where you were.”

“I told you—with a friend!”

Her sister Deidre looked around the table, before saying with emphasis, “All your friends are here, darlin’, so I’ve got to wonder who you were with too.”

Bethanne leaned back in her seat, before turning her head to look at Sam so fast her hair spun out around her. “When your Aunt Heather picked you up tonight, what direction did she come from? Was it the main drive to the Retreat?”

Sam squirmed in her seat. “No. She came from the road leading to the guest cabins.”

Bethanne shot up in her seat, and yelled as if she were a lawyer interrogating a witness, “Ah ha! The road to the guest cabins…interesting. Would those be the same guest cabins where a certain Mick Evans is currently residing?”

Heather felt her face heat up, as she picked up her Dark and Stormy and slugged some back. “Really, Bethanne, you need to get out more and stop watching reruns on TV. This isn’t an old crime drama, and you’re not a lawyer. This was supposed to be a dinner to celebrate me taking my last exam today.”

“Don’t knock Perry Mason, everyone cracked under his cross-examination. So…were you or were you not late because you were with Mick Evans?”

Sam excused herself to go to the ladies room, and Heather’s mom leveled a look at Bethanne. “When my granddaughter gets back, will you please leave her out of your interrogation? Better yet, drop the whole thing altogether.”

“Thanks, Mom!”

Joyce swung her head to look at Heather. “Don’t be too fast with your thanks, missy, I just don’t want Sam to be put in an awkward position, but I do want to know what you were doing coming from Mick’s place tonight.”

Heather’s eyes drew round. “Why is everyone so interested in this? I stopped by Mick’s to tell him Ed Miller is interviewing his little brother about a possible job opening at Miller’s Garage, on my recommendation. That’s all, end of story.”

Caitlin leaned forward and asked eagerly, “Mick has a little brother? How old is he? Is he as hot as Mick?”

“Down girl,” said Deirdre. “My boy-crazy daughter, ladies.”

“I’m not boy crazy, but you can’t deny if Mick’s brother is as good looking as he is, it’s worth knowing about him before every other girl in town.”

Deidre rolled her eyes and looked at Heather. “So are you back with Mick? He didn’t bring Gloria into the Nosh Pit all week.”

“That’s because he didn’t take a lunch break all week,” Bethanne said. “Cisco told me without Heather there, the Retreat was a zoo, and Mick was a real trouper about pitching in with everything. He was running himself ragged trying to do his job and Heather’s.”

“Here comes Sam, so I don’t want to be talking about her friend’s mother when she gets back to the table, but just so you will all stop match-making, I’ll just say, I saw Mick Sunday night, when he was out to dinner at the country club with Gloria. Seeing them together didn’t feel good, I’ll tell you that! So, please, stop trying to push us together. It’s not happening.”