Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) (11 page)

“Since the night you slept with Selena?” she asked.

“Since the night I pushed you away, thinking I’d be taking advantage of my best friend’s kid sister.”

“So you could move on to taking advantage of his girl?”

“Selena and I were drunk and stupid, Dru. It’s not an excuse, but she and Oliver had broken up already. I was reeling from wanting you so much I ached, and telling myself I couldn’t have you. And none of it has anything to do with now. I made a mess of my life, you got burned in the fallout, and I’ve done my best to make up for it. Things make more sense for me now. You’re doing well for yourself, too. And if I had something to do with that, I’m done apologizing for it. Vivian’s not backing down. So we’re going to cut the bull and figure out how to put up with each other for a while.”

“Oh, are we?” Dru shot back.

Chapter Six

“We’re going to talk this out,” Brad insisted.

Kissing Dru had been a mistake. But he’d wanted to since that morning, since yesterday, since he was a kid. And he hadn’t been able to resist for another minute. It was likely the last chance he’d get.

He counted to ten now and kept his hands to himself. It was entirely possible he’d come to the house spoiling for a fight, instead of driving straight to Travis’s place and giving himself time to regroup. But fighting with Dru, just like dragging her upstairs and finally discovering how good it could be between them, wasn’t what he’d promised his grandmother he’d do.

He was going to talk Dru into not throwing away the future Vivian was offering her. He’d probably finish alienating her in the process. And that sucked, when seeing her again felt as much like coming home as walking through the front door. But his reckless kiss and her sweet, unrestrained reaction to it were beside the point.

He’d spent most of the day and evening with Vivian, wrapping his head around the fact that she was ready to die. Not in a throw-your-hands-in-the-air, “I give up” way. Vi was too gutsy a broad to succumb to vapors. Or to rely on anyone but herself to get her where she needed to go, however she decided to get there.

But this time she
was
asking for help. His help. And Brad had very little time left to give her what she wanted.

Her oncologist had confirmed the worst—the breast cancer she’d battled a decade ago had come back in the early fall, metastasized this time to too many organs to be operable. The tumors were aggressive, though she’d kept her condition to herself until just a week ago. The remote possibility of the success of chemo, radiation, or Hail Mary alternative treatments was too low to make their toxic side effects viable. Any potential cure would have killed Vivian faster than her disease.

So his dame of a grandmother had chosen instead to face the end of her life on her own terms.

Her mind was still as sharp as ever, when she was lucid. But he’d learned there would be days to come when she’d drift away—a side effect of the cancer invading her brain. She was losing weight at an alarming rate, unable now to digest without pain even soft food and clear fluids. And she wasn’t interested in life-sustaining assistance that would only make the pain hurt longer.

“Okay”—Dru folded her arms over her sweatshirt—“talk.”

Brad pulled himself together. Time to clear the air.

“You should have called me sooner,” he said to the most beautiful woman any man could be this frustrated with. “I should have been here. I could have—”

“Talked Vivian into staying around longer for us, suffering?” Dru was already grieving, like him. It was there, shifting like spring rain in her eyes. “I felt the same way last weekend, when she finally admitted what was going on, and that she’d decided on hospice instead of treatment. I felt betrayed. But then she said—”

“That she wanted normal, until normal went away.”

It had been hard to hear, and even harder to accept that it was what Brad should have wanted for Vi. She’d been insistent that she didn’t want him back at Harmony Grove all day tomorrow, hovering and sad as the minutes ticked by until her body eventually gave out. And while she’d been saying it, all he could think was that he needed to be with Dru. He needed her help, sorting the parts of himself that were already missing Vi from the ones that were furious with his grandmother for giving up on getting better.

“She wants us to go on living our lives,” he said, “even though she can’t. She’s enjoyed helping people. You, me, your radKIDS, and who knows how many others. This town means a lot to her. She wants it and the business to mean enough to us to put our differences aside. Or she wants for us to move on and for the business and the house to go to someone who’ll appreciate them. I told her I’d make you understand that.”

“And you thought a kiss would convince me?”

“What did my kiss do to you?” He broke into a sweat, waiting for Dru’s answer.

A sexy blush heated her cheeks, right where he could imagine his fingers caressing her again. His lips could still feel the phantom softness of hers. He’d wanted to linger and savor and tempt them both to discover more.

She worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

“This is trouble,” she said. “It won’t work. What happened to ‘there’s nothing going on between us now’? You and I—”

“Can’t be friends again? For a few weeks?” The reality of just how little time he had left with both Dru and Vivian was killing him. “Vi’s hospice coordinator said they’re going to have to up her pain meds, whether she wants it or not. She won’t always know what’s going on. But being with people she should recognize and hearing about things she should be interested in will keep her connected for as long as possible. The whole town will turn up at Harmony Grove to gossip about us if we make this work. She’ll eat it up, while she pretends she doesn’t want to hear a word of it. You’ve done everything else she’s ever asked of you, including calling me home. Why are you wasting both our time trying to convince yourself you won’t do this for her, too?”

Because I want to kiss you again
, Dru didn’t say.

Because she wanted Brad again in a reckless way she’d just told her foster father she didn’t. She had since Brad had sauntered into the YMCA yesterday. And after his kiss just now, she wasn’t certain how long she could keep her distance if she agreed to have him in her life on a daily basis.

She
wasn’t
acting like herself. Running from him last night, avoiding Vi today, wanting to run again that very second, because her brain was frying at the image of curling her body around Brad’s like she once had and kissing him again until neither of them could think about anything else . . .

There are no guarantees, even when you play it safe.

“Do you really think we can work together at the Whip?” She gave him her best no-nonsense imitation of Vivian. “Spending more time together will make this . . . whatever this is between us worse, not better.”

“You do whatever you want about staying here at the house with me. But I’m taking an indefinite leave from work. I’m moving back to Chandlerville for now, and the Dream Whip is still my family business. I have to take care of some things in Savannah tomorrow, but I’ll be at the restaurant Monday morning, feeling things out and helping where I can.”

“Pretending, for your grandmother.”

“Keeping my word. I promised that I’d do my part, whatever you decided.”

“So you’re just biding your time.”

“I’m saying good-bye the right way. Vi’s way.”

“You don’t have to do this.” He couldn’t really expect them to be able to do this. “The house and the Dream Whip are yours. They’ve always been yours. I’d do anything else Vivian asks, but I’m not taking this house from you.”

And she wasn’t staying there with him, wanting to kiss him again no matter how bad an idea it was. He’d reached for her this time. He’d wanted her; she was sure of it. But now he was acting like it had meant nothing to him. She wasn’t agreeing to weeks more of this.

“You’re home free,” she insisted. “I’m telling Vi in the morning to leave me out of the will.”

“See . . . that’s the thing.” He grimaced. “Horace dropped by Harmony Grove this afternoon, while I was with Vivian’s doctor at the hospital. By the time I made it back to her room, he and Vivian had made a change to her will. You contesting your inheritance won’t affect the outcome. If you refuse to work with me before Vivian dies, not only will the business and the house be sold, but your share of the money will go into a trust payable to you. It’ll just sit there until you do something with it, while everything my grandfather and grandmother worked their lives for is gone.”

“She can’t do that.”

“It’s done. Can’t you at least pretend to forgive me for a little while?”

“I . . .” She stuttered as the truth pushed its way to the surface. “I do forgive you. Oliver and Selena aren’t what this is about, not anymore.”

“No, this is about the fact that you don’t trust my intentions where you’re concerned, because you still think I chose Selena over you the last time you tried to tell me how you felt about me.”

Dru’s palm itched to slap him. He made her sound like a schoolgirl who was holding a grudge because he’d refused to go steady.

“This is about you breezing back into town,” she said, “
my
town, and screwing with my life. As if we’re not at each other’s throats whenever we’re in the same place for more than a few minutes.”

“We weren’t at each other’s throats last night during your radKIDS program.”

“That was about the kids.”

“And this will be about Vivian.”

Except a clearly insane part of Dru knew it wasn’t that simple. For so long, Chandlerville and the people here had been enough for her. She’d have been happy to keep doing what she was doing forever. Now Brad was there, being a great guy to her kids, secretly being a great guy to her for years,
kissing
her, and reminding Dru that once upon a time, she’d let herself want a whole lot more—with him.

He headed to the stairs and dropped his duffel onto the third step.

“So,” he said, “we should probably cut back on the bickering, or it’s going to be a long holiday season at the Whip. But there’s nothing in Vi’s will that says we have to be anything more than successful partners.” He stared at Dru’s mouth, as if the memory of kissing her was messing with him, too. “So we keep our hands off. We’re looking for different things for our lives. We’re different people now than when we were kids. Vivian’s not asking for a miracle. She just wants us to declare a truce.”

And exactly what would that truce cost Dru, when he left again?

“You honestly don’t mind about the house?” She looked around the home she’d never thought of as hers.

Yet she’d grown as attached to it over the years as she had the Dixon place. She
had
always dreamed of someday having somewhere that was totally hers. Making that happen had taken a backseat along the way.

“I think it suits you.” Brad sat on the same step as his bag. He gazed around at the security he’d been strong enough to leave behind. “It already feels more yours than it was ever mine. I’ll have the restaurant, though I hope you’ll stay on running it when I head back to Savannah. There’s no way I could do right by the business from five hours away. And I’d hate to see it lose all the great momentum you’ve helped Vi build.” His attention returned to Dru. “It’s clear to Vivian and me how much you love this place, wacky clocks and threadbare furniture and tiny rooms and all. And I don’t want to be the reason you refuse the last gift she’ll ever be able to give you. I wouldn’t be here, doing this to both of us, if I didn’t want you to have this place as much as Vi does.”