Sweet Nothings (16 page)

She’d lost her virginity and her self-respect all in one fell swoop.

The guy hadn’t even talked to her again after conning her out of her panties.

Joanie buried the past back where it belonged and lifted her gaze to her friend. Lesson learned. She would not repeat.

“Then how do you explain GiGi?” she asked. “She and Pepaw were married for thirty-three years and he just up and left. Not only did he break her heart, but did you ever see her get over it?”

That had been one of the main issues impacting GiGi’s and her relationship. Joanie couldn’t understand why GiGi had never moved on. It was pathetic. Just like her mother. Just like Joanie—if she wasn’t careful.

But she was careful now. She wouldn’t fall for someone just so he could break her in the end.

“I have no idea what happened to make your grandfather leave, but I wish you’d open your eyes and see who you really are,” Lee Ann said. “You aren’t your mother and never have been.” She sounded as if she felt sorry for Joanie. Which ticked Joanie off.

“I never said I was,” Joanie’s tone was heated. In fact, she’d constantly pointed out that she
wasn’t
like her mother.

Lee Ann ignored Joanie’s interruption. “You’re a gorgeous, stable woman who loves her community and loves being a part of it. You
deserve love, and you would be really darned good at it if you’d only give yourself a chance. Businesses can’t make you happy forever.”

“It’s worked for me so far,” Joanie muttered.

But she would silently admit that some nights she wanted more. She had male friends who she occasionally hooked up with, but those were getting far more occasional and far less what she wanted.

Yet she had no idea how to do anything else. Fear that she would become her mother paralyzed her.

She didn’t want to change for a man. And she certainly didn’t want her whole life crushed because of one, either.

“I’m fine the way I am,” she insisted. “Plus, Nick’s already moved on. He has Gina now. They’re probably planning the wedding already.”

Lee Ann shoved the fries back and leaned forward. She lowered her voice. “He likes you, Jo. Can you not see that? I watched him all weekend and that man is disgustingly crazy about you. And I think you like him, too. Give it a shot. You might find you like it.”

“I might find I end up begging for scraps just like my mother,” Joanie said.

Lee Ann shook her head, looking at her as if she were a pathetic child. “Grow up.”

Hot anger shot through Joanie in an instant, but she tamped it down when Holly approached their table. The bracelets on her wrists announced her arrival before she got there.

With her blond hair pulled back in a knot at the base of her head and a sharp look in her green eyes, Holly peered down at them. “You two about finished?”

“What?” Joanie asked, looking around at the mostly empty diner. “Are you needing this booth?”

“I just need you to
not
raise your voices any further. I suspect whatever you’re talking about—since I heard the word
love
, mention of your mother, and the phrase ‘grow up’—you don’t want my customers knowing about.”

“Oh geez,” Joanie moaned. “Thanks, Holly. And no, I don’t need anyone hearing what we’re talking about.”

“Okay,” Holly nodded. She nudged Lee Ann to scoot over so she could sit. “So… someone’s in love? Surely not your mother?”

Holly was several years younger than them, so likely the only things she knew about Joanie’s mother came from years of gossip.

“I wouldn’t have a clue about my mother or her love life, Holly. For all I know, she’s still with the man she ran out of town with.”

Bill
. Though Joanie had serious doubts her mother had managed to keep him, either. He had actually been a good one. He’d liked Joanie. Had taken her to the movies and to football games in Knoxville along with him and her mother.

And then he’d run off with her mother without so much as a backward glance.

Just like all the others.

“Who’s in love, then?” Holly asked, her smile looking a little too innocent.

At Joanie and Lee Ann’s silence, Holly waved her hand. “Okay, fine. Then can I at least tell you what I came over to share? You won’t believe it.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve Gina Gregory,” Lee Ann groaned.

Joanie kicked her under the table.

“Hmmm. Interesting.” Holly looked from one woman to the other. “That’s exactly who I came over to talk about. Have you already heard?”

Frustration whipped through Joanie. She did not want to sit there and listen to tales of Nick and Gina. “Tell it to Lee Ann,” she muttered. She grabbed her purse. “I’m out of here.”

“Stop.” Lee Ann shoved her foot onto the booth beside Joanie, preventing her escape, then jabbed her in the side with the toe of her shoe when Joanie tried to shove it out of the way.

“Let me go.” Joanie’s hissed words barely made it across the table.

“I’m clearly missing something.” Holly narrowed her gaze as she took in the two women.

Joanie just shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Uh-huh,” Holly said with a hum. “Then sit there and listen. I’ve got the best gossip I’ve had in years, and I want to share it.”

“I do not want to hear details about Gina sleeping with Nick.” Joanie managed to free herself from Lee Ann’s foot and slid to the outside of the seat.

“That’s just it. She didn’t.”

Joanie had half her rear off the seat before Holly’s words penetrated. “What?”

An ear-to-ear smile split Holly’s face.

“What are you talking about?” Joanie didn’t move from her half-on, half-off the seat position. “He was with her for hours the other night.”

Holly’s brow creased. “You mean at dinner?” She shrugged. “They were there probably an hour and a half, nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s what happened afterward that’s the best. And she’s telling the story herself.”

“Wait,” Lee Ann said. She reached over and captured Joanie’s forearm as if thinking that would hold her there if Joanie wanted to leave. “Start from the beginning. Nick took Gina to Talbot’s, right?”

Talbot’s was the “good” restaurant in town.

Holly nodded. “Right. Then they went to his place afterward.”

Pain pricked Joanie in the temple. She didn’t understand why hearing GiGi’s house referred to as anything but her own bothered her. She hadn’t lived there in years. “But when they got there I was there. Cramping their style.”

“Right.” Holly nodded. “Only, according to her, nothing ever happened. She’s been over at the salon for the last hour, ranting to Linda Sue about the fiasco. That’s what she’s calling it. A fiasco. Saying all night Nick was coming on to her. Fawning all over her.”

Joanie met Lee Ann’s eyes across the table, where a sympathetic look greeted her.

“After they left your grandmother’s place, they headed to her house. Just where she wanted him, if you know what I mean.”

“We know.” Joanie and Lee Ann spoke in unison.

“When they got there, Nick continued being the perfect date. Helped her out of the truck, walked her to the door, and then pecked her on the
cheek.” Holly giggled and clapped her hands like a schoolgirl. “Pecked her on the cheek. She didn’t even get a kiss on the lips.”

Joanie and Lee Ann stared at each other again, Joanie realizing the more Holly talked, just how much she’d been played. The man had intentionally tried to make her jealous. Just as she’d thought when he’d shown up at the house with Gina.

Relief coursed through her that he was gentleman enough not to go all the way just to prove a point. And the point had been proven, though she had no idea what to do with it.

“I’ll tell you,” Holly continued, “according to Linda Sue, Gina is fit to be tied. Pacing back and forth, ranting about the indecency of the man to get her worked up all night and then not so much as lay a kiss on her. It couldn’t have happened to a better person.”

Holly finally ran out of steam. She eyed Joanie. “That was bugging you, wasn’t it? Thinking he’d slept with her. And only a day after you two were seen in your shop talking about sex.”

Joanie blinked, her eyes going wide. “What?”

“Oops.” Holly rose from the booth and smiled so big a dimple popped into one cheek. “I see orders that need to be delivered. I’d better go.”

Before she could run off, Joanie clamped a hand down on Holly’s arm. “What are you talking about? Who said we were in Cakes talking about sex?”

Holly merely smiled again, then pointed her chin in Lee Ann’s direction. “Ask this one. It’s her mother who’s doing the telling. The church crowd in here heard all about it yesterday.”

Silence settled over the table as Holly left and Joanie turned to Lee Ann. A blush was coloring both cheeks, letting Joanie know that yes, Reba London was indeed spreading rumors that Joanie and Nick had been talking about sex.

Of course, they had been. But no one had heard them!

“How could your mother possibly know what we'd talked about in the store last week? I know you didn’t tell her.” Joanie had called Lee Ann from the tub that night after she’d gotten home to share details of her and Nick’s conversation.

“Apparently Mom was in line to get a cupcake when you and Nick went inside.”

“And what? She snuck in the back to eavesdrop?”

Lee Ann shook her head. “She didn’t have to. You faced the window during part of the conversation.”

At Joanie’s blatantly confused stare, Lee Ann finally added, “She knows how to read lips. She took a course on it.”

“Oh. My. God. What is wrong with your mother?”

Lee Ann gave a noncommittal shrug. “It’s her hobby. She’s trying to top Ms. Grayson for most number of scoops.”

“So she stands around reading private conversations?”

“You know the rules. You guys had this big conversation in front of the glass windows while there was a line of people right outside your door. What’s wrong with you? Of course there are going to be rumors about that, even if they aren’t true.”

Joanie dropped her head to the table and considered pounding on it while she was down there. Yes, she knew how it worked. Of course there would be rumors. If she’d done nothing but sign the contract he’d brought her, there would have been rumors. He did drag her out of her van right in front of everyone. And she’d let him hold her hands more than once while they’d been inside.

She peeked up. “What else is she saying?”

“Sure you want to hear it?”

Ugh
. “Yes, tell me.” Another one of those rare headaches was finding its way to her again.

“That you guys were in there talking about sex, and you were clearly arguing. There’s speculation that maybe you’d already had sex and something wasn’t good about it. The bet is currently leaning toward you being the issue.”

Joanie just stared.

Lee Ann smiled. “But good news, with this new turn concerning Nick and Gina, they might start thinking that Nick is the one with the problem.”

“One can only hope.”

If this were anyone but her, Joanie would love it. The people of this town always made things interesting. Then she caught sight of Brian grinning wickedly at her from the grill line as Holly talked his ear off—no doubt Nick and Joanie sex rumors—and an idea bloomed as to how she could both use the hobbies of the townspeople, and get back at Nick at the same time. “I’ve got it,” she said.

“Got what?” Lee Ann looked genuinely puzzled.

“How I can get back at Nick. I need a date.”

“A date? You won’t go out with Nick, but you want a date with someone else?”

“Well no, there’s no one I’m
wanting
to go out with, but I can’t just sit back and let Nick get away with what he did.”

“What did he do? Talk about sex in your store?”

“Geez, Lee Ann. No. He took Gina out to mess with me.”

“O… kay.” Lee Ann nodded slowly, and Joanie could tell she wasn’t yet buying it. “But just because he didn’t sleep with her doesn’t mean he did it to mess with you.”

“Then he didn’t come home for three hours?”

Lee Ann grew pensive for a few seconds, and then a curve flitted across her lips. “He didn’t come home for three hours.”

“Right,” Joanie stressed. “Messing with me. And I’m going to get him back.”

“You know you’re asking for trouble, hon. Maybe you should let this one go.”

“I can’t.” She didn’t want to examine why not. “He deserves to think I’m doing the same thing he made me think he was doing with Gina.”

“Yet you still don’t want to go out with him?”

Joanie didn’t answer her. She didn’t actually know what she wanted at the moment. “Will you help me or not?”

They were best friends. Of course Lee Ann was going to help her. “Tell me what I can do.”

Chapter Nine

A
s Joanie and Brian turned onto her street, she jerked up straight at the sight of Nick’s pickup lurking in the driveway of her rental house.

“Looks like it worked,” Brian spoke from the driver’s seat. “Dalton is waiting.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, her pulse climbing to a run. “I see that.” That meant Lee Ann had done as planned and dropped just enough info to her mother so it had gotten back to Nick that Joanie was on a date.