Flip This Love (18 page)

So she did. By the time Connie left the boutique, Harley was a thousand dollars poorer and Laney was feeling a little more confident about the cards she held in terms of their relationship. Which said a lot, considering the amount of bluffing the two of them had been doing for the past year or so.

He wouldn’t be back until after they closed the deal on Tarrington House. She’d have time to get what was leftover deposited and write him a check to cancel out the one he’d written her, and they’d be even. They could start again. Free and clear of any obligation or baggage from their pasts. Build a new future, and, one day, maybe even a home and family.

It wasn’t until she was trapped spending the morning with her silent, sullen father that she realized how much she missed having a family. One that talked, if only about polite, superficial things. Even if the head of that family was a spoiled, emotionally stunted snob who’d barely spoken to her since she knocked on the cabin door. He didn’t even try. And the man had the audacity to turn an accusing, bloodshot glare on her when the lady from the title company greeted their arrival at the office with congratulations on the sale of their home.

When the papers were signed and the check deposited into the account with only Laney’s signature on file, Brett Tarrington seemed to shrink even deeper into himself. She tried to dredge up a smidge of pity for him. After all, the last vestige of his heritage was gone. But Tarrington House had been her heritage, too, and he was the one who’d pissed it away.

Gripping the wheel, she turned down the rutted lane that led back to the ratty old cabin her father now called home. Her mother adored him. They’d been a couple. A unit. A team of two, who happened to have a third wheel chasing after them all the time. Laney’d been little more than an accessory to them. A pretty doll to be trotted out at the appropriate times, then tucked away.

Children are meant to be seen and not heard.

How many times had her father said similar things to her? Of course, it was always with a charming smile, a chuck on the chin, or a pat on the bottom. Once she’d reached middle school, Laney finally managed to translate his parental wisdom. They didn’t want her around. Not really. But instead of acting out and rebelling, as so many of her friends did, she quietly bided her time.

There was
cache
in being born a Tarrington. A passel of expectations, too. When she announced her plans to head off to New York to become the next hot fashion designer, everyone expected her family would help her get established. And she’d milked every moment of her time away from Mobile. Until reality came crashing down on all of them.

The car jolted and bumped, groaning as the dirt-packed lane rose up to punch it. Laney gritted her teeth and mentally mapped out the twists and turns to the cabin door. Only two more minutes. Surely she could hold on for two more minutes with her father.

Two more minutes. Anyone can do anything for two minutes, Mama.

Of course, it was easy for Laney to say. She wasn’t the one enduring test after test, and suffering indignity on top of indignity. Her mother’s beloved husband hadn't held her soft, frail hand as the doctors put her through the gauntlet. Laney had.

The moment her cancer had been pronounced terminal, Brett blithely walked away, leaving Camille in her daughter’s care. Until then, Camille hadn’t realized how insular her relationship with her husband had been. She’d ignored his selfishness. Turned a blind eye to his blatant ineptitude. Forgave him over and over for the emotional slights, even though she knew they sliced her daughter to ribbons. But no more. She asked Laney’s forgiveness for her neglect and begged her not to abandon her as well. As if she would.

But then her father stopped coming home. He also stopped paying the bills. He stopped doing everything but hiding out at his cabin trying to drown his self-pity in a bottle of bourbon.

Together, she and Laney stripped the old house of any valuables they might be able to sell. At first, Camille insisted Laney drive to Biloxi or New Orleans to unload the family heirlooms, but those extra efforts weren’t enough to stop the word from spreading. They’d cobbled together enough to keep their affairs out of the bill collectors’ hands, then started calling in favors from friends and acquaintances who’d served alongside Camille on nearly every important local charity.

Jerking to a stop in the clearing, Laney glanced over at her father. He slumped against the door in his too-big suit, a once-handsome man who was steadily and determinedly drinking himself into an early grave. He reached for the door handle, and she gripped the wheel tight enough for bone to glow white against her skin.

“Do you need anything? Food? Money?”

The shiny wingtips she’d shoved into his hands that morning sent up a cloud of dust as they hit the hard-packed dirt. He didn’t turn back or even glance at her as he climbed out of the car. A thick gold wedding band gleamed on one of the fingers wrapped tight around the doorframe. He hesitated long enough to get his feet under him, then mumbled, “I have everything I need,” before letting the door slam shut between them.

Tears filled Laney’s eyes as she watched the man who once called her his princess, insincere as it was, shuffle up the shallow steps and disappear into his misery once more.

Cranking the wheel, she punched the gas hard, shooting a plume of dust into the air. Her teeth clacked together and her suspension squeaked and howled in protest, but she didn’t let up as she sped down the rough, grooved path. The second she hit the state highway, she pointed her car toward Mobile and floored it.

The tears blurred her vision, but she didn’t bother batting them away. There was no traffic on the road, and damn it, she was tired of fighting them back. Tired of fighting period. She wanted peace. Security. Love.

She wanted Harley.

But he’d told her he wouldn’t be around until sometime after lunch. Glancing at the clock on the dash, she saw the noon hour was fast approaching. In the meantime, she knew where to go. She needed one last peek at the place where she’d last had all of those things. She needed another moment to say goodbye. To Tarrington House. To her mother. And to all the things she couldn’t change about the past.

From this day—she shook her head hard, blinking furiously at the tears but refusing to give in and touch them—from this moment on, she amended, she was all about the future, and what the days and weeks to come might hold for her.

Oddly enough, the thought of her blurry future and all of its unknowns seemed to center her. The tears stopped by the time she reached the outskirts of town. She eased off the accelerator in deference to the roadside radar sign frantically flashing its warnings at her. Cruising on autopilot, the little Beemer her parents had given her for graduation from Auburn found its way right back to Tarrington House.

But when she pulled to a stop in front of the curb, she was shocked to find the property was anything but peaceful. Peering through the passenger window, she spotted a giant Dumpster sitting square in the center of the lawn.

Incensed to see that the new owners had barely spared an hour since the moment the ink was dry, she climbed from the car. “Oh, my God, the nerve of some people.”

Men wearing tool belts darted on and off the porch carrying tools and lethal-looking pieces of equipment from the pick-up trucks lining the drive. She spotted the familiar logo on one of the trucks a split second before she recognized the tall figure walking along the roofline of the house.

The fire in her belly dried the last of the tears in her eyes. Locked in on her target like a guided missile, she charged across the lawn. She wrinkled her nose as she drew to a stop beside the empty Dumpster, but within view of the roof. Jabbing two fingers into her mouth, she let loose with a cab-hailing whistle, stopping most of the crew in their tracks. But the one whose attention she needed most stood with his broad back to her, talking to another man.

Undaunted, she took a step, blew out another cringe-worthy whistle, then cupped her hands around her mouth as the man turned to find out what the commotion was.

“Harley Cade! What the hell do you think you’re doing up there?”

Harley grinned the moment he saw Laney. There was nothing he liked more than getting her riled, and from the looks of things, he was about to get a dose and a half of her temper. He started toward the edge of the roof. “Hey,” he called back. “Fancy meetin’ you here.”

Laney’s eyes widened, and she held up both hands to halt his progress. “Are you crazy? You’re on the roof! Don’t come any closer to the edge!”

Her indignant concern for his wellbeing raised more than a few chuckles from his crew, but it lit a damn bonfire in him. He’d missed her. Missed her more than any man should ever admit to missing a woman, so he wouldn’t tell her. She was dangerous enough without loading her up with more ammunition. Dropping to a squat near the gutter, his smile widened. “Sugar, I’ve been walking roofs since I was fifteen. I’m fine.”

“Why are you here?” She waved a hand at the line of trucks bearing his company’s logo, then planted angry fists on her hips. “Why are they all here?”

The uneasy feeling he’d screwed up big-time skittered up his spine. He needed to get down off this roof. He needed to look her in the eye if he was going to diffuse whatever it was ticking away inside her. “First day on a new job,” he replied, ignoring the knot of nerves forming in his gut. “Getting things set up.”

In a move that would have gotten any other member of his crew canned on the spot, he grabbed one of the safety lines he and his foreman had finished securing at the apex and used it to rappel his way down one of the chipped white columns. He fought the urge to grin when his boots hit the porch. One of the young guys he’d hired the previous summer stared at him as if he’d dropped out of a UFO, then eyed the line speculatively.

Harley fixed the kid with a no-nonsense stare. “Pull a stunt like I did, and you might as well keep walking. I gave you a demonstration of what
not
to do. We clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man responded without hesitation.

“Finish unloading, then check in with Marcus to see what to do next.”

Sights set on Laney, Harley started down the steps. Pea gravel crunched under the soles of his boots as he skirted one of the trucks. He scowled at the giant industrial Dumpster, hating that the most strategic place for it was the most conspicuous, but the hideous thing was a necessary eyesore. Big things were about to happen at Tarrington House. He hoped Laney would see them as good things eventually. Judging by the scowl tugging at the corners of her ripe mouth, he was beginning to think it wouldn’t be any time soon. Falling back on the old adage about the best defense was strong offense, he strode across the lawn and, without pause, bent to kiss her hard on her down-turned mouth.

“Hey, sugar, you look pretty. The color suits you.”

Truth was, he hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to the bronze-ish-gold blouse she wore, but as he rocked back on his heels, he was pleased to note he hadn’t lied. She looked like a statue. Polished, gleaming, and perfect. Unfortunately, her expression was reading more along the lines of fierce warrior than sexy fertility goddess.

Drawing a deep breath, he braced himself to bluff his way through whatever minefield she had laid out in her mind. Smiling so hard his cheeks ached, he draped his arm over her shoulders and turned to survey the scene. The carriage house where she used to live lay to the west of the main house. He caught a glimpse of the place where they'd spent their first night together, and for some unknown reason, thought maybe he could distract her.

“So I told the guys I’d handle the carriage house personally. I have fond memories of that place. I’m even considering commemorating them with a plaque or something.”

Laney stared at him, her dark eyes stormy with confusion, then she blinked and they sharpened. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead of shouting or even laying into him, she spoke in a voice low and shaking with barely contained vehemence. “Commemorating what? The first time you screwed me then screwed me over?”

The accusation landed like a slap. “What?”

“How could you do this?” she asked in a harsh whisper. “You’ve got enough money to buy and sell half the town. Are you such an egomaniac you have to take every job that comes along? How could you? After... With me...” She sputtered to a stop and threw up her hands. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. What you do with your business is your business. You want to get into bed with the people who stole my family’s home out from under us, fine. You won’t be getting in bed with me!”

Of course, he latched onto the one word she’d uttered that painted him a criminal. “Stole? Stole it? This white elephant of yours has been on the market for months, Delaney. No one stole anything from you.” Working up a good head of steam, he leaned in closer. “As a matter of fact, you got a better price on this place than you could have hoped for in your wildest dreams.”

“Are you kidding me? They paid thirty thousand under the asking price,” she shot back.

But he wasn’t without a little firepower of his own. “Which is totally fair, considering the work needing to be done. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but upkeep wasn’t high on your daddy’s list of priorities.”

She shook her head so violently he cringed. “Don’t you talk about my daddy.”

His eyebrows jumped, but he had to respect the stubborn set of her jaw. “Fine, then. Let’s talk about your mama—”

She did slap him then. Hard. All the commotion around them stilled as he lifted his hand to cover his stinging left cheek. Tears brimmed in Laney’s eyes, and God help him, he wanted to take the woman who’d slapped the crap out of him into his arms and hold her. Hug her tight against him and rock ever-so-slightly, the way his own mother had when he’d been young and hot-headed and said things he didn’t mean and couldn’t take back. Except this time, Laney wasn’t the one hell-bent on jamming her foot in her mouth. He was.

“Let go of me.”