Better Than You (The Walker Family Series Book 3) (11 page)

He rolled up along the curb and turned onto a cobbled drive. The gate was a massive piece of iron that belonged in front of a cemetery. Looking at it left his palms clammy.

“You’ll have to punch in the code,” she said, and he could tell she was losing patience.

He buzzed down his window and leaned through. His hands were sweating like crazy. It took more than one try to hit the numbers in the correct order, but the gate finally swung open and admitted them to a cobbled parking pad that faced a five car garage.

“I’m
gonna throw up,” Mike said, and felt bile stinging the back of his throat.

“No, you’re not.” Her hand landed on his arm and her nails bit into his skin through his sleeve. “You’re fine. Take a deep breath.”

“No, I really am. I…” he swallowed hard. He hadn’t been this nervous in his life.

“Michael.
” Delta’s voice was about as soft as broken glass as she grabbed his jaw and turned his head toward her. “This will be fine,” she spoke to him like he was a child. “We’ll just eat, and then leave. In and out.”

Yesterday afternoon, when she’d called him after lunch, he’d been more suspicious than anything. Why did her parents want to meet him? Didn’t they know it was too soon for that? They weren’t trying to scare him off, were they? Or, even worse, Delta wasn’t…right? But now, as his pulse throbbed in his ears, all those
worries had faded into the fuzzy, red periphery of the panic attack that was fast mounting. Her parents were wealthy. She wasn’t just a princess in the figurative sense; now more than ever, she felt so far, far out of his league that he was plagued with the sudden fright that this was all some sort of practical joke played at his expense. Was there a hidden camera in the little headband that was holding Delta’s hair off her face? Was she going to enjoy bringing a hick to dinner as some sort of sick sport?

But under the harsh clench of her jaw, he thought he saw a tremor of anxiety. It gave him hope, but didn’t ease his nausea.

“No dirty jokes,” she warned. “No feet on the coffee table. Okay?”

He nodded.

“Okay. Get out first and walk around to get me because someone’s probably watching from a window.”

“Vomit.
I am
so
going to vomit.”

“Stop saying that,” she hissed and then let go of him and turned away with a smile that was all for show; dear God, someone
was
watching them.

Mike gulped down a deep breath, shook himself all over, and pulled the keys out of the ignition. The slap of cool air across his face when he climbed out of his Beemer helped quiet his
heaving stomach, but it didn’t make his legs any more steady as he walked around to the passenger door. Movement at a lower window, just a twitch of curtains that he might have imagined, squeezed his chest, his breath coming in shallow draws.
Get it together
, he told himself with a scowl, and opened the door for Delta.

She was in a fitted cream
sweaterdress and her long legs and black velvet pumps unfurling down to the cobbles were enough to capture his attention and still his spinning nerves. At least for the time it took her to accept the hand he offered and climb gracefully from the car. She smoothed the skirt of her dress and gave him a slow smile that wasn’t really for his benefit, but for that of whoever was spying on them. Her hand went in the crook of his elbow after he’d shut the door. She’d worn skyscraper stilettos and the top of her head actually came up above his shoulder.

“Breathe,” she reminded again in a whisper, and the walk to the front door began.
“Pretend my dad’s a Doberman,” she said, voice the lightest brush of sound as he tried not to stare at the house. Their shoes sounded too loud against the cobbles. “Don’t look him straight in the eye.”

“You know.” H
e didn’t whisper as well as she did and her nails dug into his arm again, “maybe you shouldn’t have
brought me
. Or at least told me to bring some Milkbones for your
Doberman dad
.”

She sighed but said nothing, which was as good as agreeing with him.

“For what it’s worth,” she said as they reached wide brick stoop of the closest door, “I would never have brought you today if it were up to me.”

“Never.”
He fiddled with his tie for the hundredth time since they’d left his townhouse. “That’s sweet.”

Her brows did their angry slant routine.
“Because I didn’t want to pressure you, moron, not because I didn’t want you here.”

“And now I’m a moron.”

“Oh…would you just pull yourself together already? If you’re going to act like this maybe you should just…”

The black lacquered door in front of them swept inward with a soft sound.

“…leave,” Delta murmured, but clearly, it was too late for that.

The woman on the other side of the threshold reminded Mike of his own mother: that ext
ra weight Beth called “healthy,” sandy blonde hair piled on her head with a clip, a white apron tied on over her floral long-sleeved dress. She wasn’t what he’d expected and the sight of her soothed his anxiety a fraction.

“Mike, this is
– ” Delta started with the introductions, but Mike beat her to the punch.

“Hi, Mrs. Brooks.”
He extended a hand. “Mike Walker. Your house is beautiful, it – ”

“Oh, honey,” she said, and took his hand in both of hers, smiling, crow’s feet deepening in a way that proved she’d smiled a lot in her life. “Aren’t you
cute.”

“Mike,” Delta sighed. “This is Mrs.
Miller
. Our housekeeper.”

“House…?” He didn’t know what kind of face he was making – the whole thing was numb – but it made the
housekeeper
laugh.

“Delta, he’s
cute
,” Mrs. Miller repeated, and Mike opened his hand and let it fall away from hers. “And big too.” Her eyes did an up and down sweep of him that was somehow maternal. “Wait till your mama sees him.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.
” Delta’s voice had become exhausted and lifeless. But her claws dug into him again and she pulled him along. “Come on, let’s go meet my actual mother.”

The room they entered was an opulent sitting room lined with bookcases. Through an open pair of French doors, he glimpsed stainless steel and white tile that must have been the kitchen, but that wasn’t where Delta led him. They went down a long gallery that ran the front of the house, stepping around tables full of flowers and over rugs that had to be genuine Orientals.
Light fell in through the windows, glittering off expensive knick-knacks he didn’t have the chance to stop and inspect. Mike had a sudden mental image of his dad in this house, poking at things that shouldn’t be touched and whistling and making a total dumbass of himself…and realized that if Delta hadn’t been towing him along, he would have been doing the same thing.

When the floors went from hardwood to marble, when the ceil
ing went shooting up above them –  two, maybe three stories – the urge to puke returned. He swallowed it down, barely, and decided that they were in the foyer. And then they rounded the corner into something out of
Cinderella
and he didn’t decide anything else for a while.

The thing about people with money
, the truly wealthy and not just suddenly-rich singing sensations: they weren’t flashy. The sprawling great room and its curved staircase, its fireplace you could park a car inside, was a study in subtle cream and beige tones. No clutter. No gold and diamonds. Just expensive, solid furnishings, another Oriental rug, and a minimalistic design style straight out of a magazine. This was
Cinderella
alright…only Delta was playing the role of the prince, and Mike was the cleaning girl.

The woman perched on a chaise flipping through a magazine glanced up at their approach and she reminded Mike nothing of his mother.
Fit and thin, in a clinging midnight dress, only the faintest tracing of lines on her face hinted at her age.
Botox
, he thought before he could stop himself. Her hair was probably dark like her daughter’s, but was full of golden highlights. She had Delta’s alabaster skin and dark coffee eyes, the little nose…she was stunning. And she knew it, too, uncrossing her long legs and rising to her feet with a practiced little twitch of her hips.

Delta’s hand slipped from the crook of his elbow and Mike realized she’d been holding him up. He yanked at his tie and tried not to look pathetic as Delta stepped forward to greet her mother.

“Beautiful girl,” the mother greeted like something out of an
SNL
skit, and she and Delta clasped hands and gave each other an air-kiss on the cheek. Then her eyes came to him, latching on bright and hungry and very
not
-maternal. “
Who
did you bring, Delta? This isn’t Greg.”

Delta’s glance was apologetic. “No, Mom,” she said while she shot him a pleading look. “This is Michael.”

“Ooh,
Michael
.” The way she said his name would have come with a complimentary lap dance most places. “Well aren’t you – ”

“Mike, t
his is my mom Louise.” Delta cut her off with a frozen, pained smile. “She’s very friendly.”

The comment halted Louise in her horrifying lean – she just kept leaning and Mike had no idea where she intended to put her hands once she got close enough – and she gave her daughter a sharp glance, sniffing. “You don’t have to be rude, Delta.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Mike had never appreciated Delta’s coldness more than when Louise’s eyes came back to him – well,
parts
of him – and she smiled in a way no mother should have smiled at her kid’s date. “You’ll have to forgive her,” Louise said, eyes going almost cat-like, “I always tried to teach her better but she takes after her father. Speaking of…have you met my husband yet?”

“No, ma’am.”
He swallowed and the sides of his throat stuck together.

“I’ll go find him.” Her departure was a relief, but she turned to shoot them, or maybe just him, a wink over her shoulder. “Don’t get too comfy; I’m coming right back.”

Her footsteps echoed for long moments after she’d disappeared from sight, and it was only when he could no longer hear them that Mike let his knees finally give out and sat down hard on the edge of the chair behind him.

“Your mom’s trying to put the moves on me,” he said wooden
ly. And then, more indignant: “Your
mom’s
trying to put the
moves
on me.”

“You see how fun it
is to be me?” Delta quipped, but then her fingernails raked gently back through his hair. “I’m sorry. This is going to be terrible and…I’m so sorry.”

He glanced up at her and saw the genuine apology marring her pretty face. Her eyes said she agreed that this was ridiculous and unnecessary, but they asked him to tough it out too.
Please
, they said. And Mike didn’t think it was the promise of
thank you
sex that kept him from bolting for the door. It was the challenge. Delta was a challenge, her family was, this Thanksgiving was…everything about her dared him to stay the course, tested her worth in his eyes. He didn’t just want to sleep with her, he realized – he’d already done that, anyway – but he wanted her to
care
. He wanted her to be the one with the emotional investment. Because for some reason, getting this particular girl to care would feel like the biggest win in the world.

“If your dad tries to feel me up, I swear to God, I’ll just be
a human-shaped hole through the front door.”

She quirked a grin.
“My dad feels you up, I’ll be right behind you.”

16
.

M
ike decided that in the movie of Delta’s life, her father would be played by Michael Douglas circa
Wall Street
. He was all swept back silver hair, college rings, salon tan and the kind of tailored suit that wasn’t found in a store, let alone bragged about. No, Dennis Brooks didn’t need to brag – his wealth was so self-evident and he was too sophisticated for shit-talking. With one flat, disinterested glance, he told Mike that their fast handshake was a courtesy only, that he wasn’t happy to meet his daughter’s new guy. And worst of all, it promised questions. Lots of painful, awkward, demeaning questions designed to make Mike look even more like a worthless piece of shit.

“Walker
you said?” Dennis asked as he poured two fingers of Glenlivet into heavy crystal tumblers for each of them. They were in the room Delta had called “the study,” the walls lined with bookshelves and wood paneling.
“Let’s have a man-to-man chat,”
Dennis had said. Across from the massive, claw-foot desk, they stood in front of a wet bar built beneath a window that overlooked the back garden. “I know a Camille Walker. Beautiful violinist. Where’s your family from originally?”

Mike accepted the S
cotch that was handed to him, hoping he could throw the stuff back without choking. His dad was a beer man, and so was he. Scotch wasn’t for the faint-hearted. “I don’t know a Camille…sir.” He managed to tack the title on at the end. The little rivulets of sweat going down his back under his shirt were becoming a distraction. All he could think was that he should have been in a jacket like Delta’s father. “I’m from Marietta,” he said, and tried not to wince at how unimpressive that sounded.

Dennis twitched his
brows and stared down into his Scotch. It sounded unimpressive to him, too. “Marietta…definitely no relation to Camille, then,” he said, almost to himself, then headed for his desk.

Mike had to step aside, convinced the guy would have walked right through him ot
herwise, and watched him settle into the ergonomic swivel chair on the far side of the desk.

“Sit.” H
e motioned toward the tufted leather sofa across from him and Mike complied because he didn’t dare resist.

There was a grandfather clock in the front corner of the room by the door and its deep, resonating
tock
counted every painful second Mike spent staring into his tumbler, scrambling desperately through the idiotic folds of his brain, trying to think of anything he could say that might alleviate the tension and prove to Delta’s father that she wasn’t dating the stupidest doofus on the planet.

Dennis spoke
first, unfortunately. “So, Mike.” If Mrs. Brooks said his name like she wanted to jump his bones, then Mr. Brooks said it like he was diagnosing someone with a gastrointestinal disorder. “What do you do?”

Mike lifted his head to meet the other man’s gaze and the only thin
g that popped into his head was:
your daughter
. But he couldn’t say that, so he swallowed hard instead.

“You do have a job, don’t you?”

Job…job…get your shit together, dumbass!
“Yes!” he said too eagerly and Dennis cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “I mean, yes. I do.” His throat was too dry and he took a sip of the drink in his hand…which proved to be a mistake because he couldn’t get it down without making a face.
Oh, shit
…he gulped and somehow, the Scotch went into his stomach, but his composure wouldn’t come back. “I’m a staff accountant with Parrish. I’m working on getting my CPA.”

“Oh,” was the first semi-polite thing that had come out of the man’s mouth. “Parrish is a top-notch organization. How’d you end up there?”

“I started as an intern while I was still in college,” Mike said, and felt the knot between his shoulders start to loosen. “They guaranteed me a job once I graduated.”

Dennis nodded. “They pay you well?”

He almost took another sip of Scotch, but caught himself. “Well enough.”

That earned him another nod.
“Probably more than Delta makes.” He frowned. “The girl had brilliant grades. Two degrees. And she’s working at a department store.”

“She’s managing,” Mike reminded.

Dennis’s smile wasn’t kind. “But she could be head of the entire company if she’d let me help her.”

She might get there anyway on her own
, Mike thought but didn’t say.

“I hate to see talented young people squander the opportunities available to them,” Dennis continued, eyes moving over Mike’s shoulder and out the window.
He sipped his Scotch like he liked the stuff. “That’s the problem with the younger generation: they take all the advantages their parents laid at their feet and shit all over them.”

“Um…yes, sir,” Mike said.

“You wouldn’t do that, would you, Mike? You came from a middle class background and you worked your way to where you are now, right? You certainly wouldn’t have turned down advice.”

“No, sir.”

“Good.” Dennis waxed thoughtful, swirling the Glenlivet around in his tumbler. “Delta, though…I dunno. Maybe she had it too easy. She’s a good girl – she can be – but she’s got this stubborn streak.” He took another sip and made a face. “It leads to some poor decisions on her part.”

Mike felt a grim non-smile tugging. So here came the part where he was not-so-subtly backhanded. “Poor decisions like me?” he asked, and Dennis seemed surprised.

He gave a little facial shrug. “That remains to be seen. But I’ve learned to expect mistakes when it comes to my daughter. No offense to you, son, but I always have to assume the worst of her judgment.”

**

Dinner was served promptly at three-thirty at a dining room table long enough to sit twenty, easily. Four heavy silver candelabras marched down the center, the tapers lit despite the almost neon afternoon sunlight that poured in through the heavy drapes. Mike felt the touch of Delta’s hand against his thigh beneath the table and wondered what sort of mistakes her father had come to expect. Wondered how long he’d have to endure her mother’s winks from across the table. Wondered if there was some subject to broach that would go over better than his previous three attempts to ask Dennis about sports.

Finally he said, “D
inner’s great, Mrs. Brooks,” because at least it was a true statement. The turkey and gravy and stuffing and green beans were delicious.

But Louise Brooks caught a laugh behind her napkin, shook her head and gave him another of those dreaded winks. “Oh, honey, you think I made this? That’s adorable.”

“Louise couldn’t microwave popcorn,” her husband said with another of his tight, insincere smiles.

“Denny, don’t talk that way about me in front of our guest,” she said through her teeth, eyes still on Mike.

“Mom and Dad have a chef,” Delta supplied, eyes on her plate. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to suppress parent/child dysfunctional issues, or if it was embarrassing to admit that there was a
chef
involved in Thanksgiving dinner. “He made the meal.”

“Compliments to him, then.”

“Delta, sweetheart,” Dennis said and the endearment sounded as if it lost all meaning when it left his lips, “I know you aren’t
with
Greg anymore, but do you still see him? I had some books I was going to let him borrow. You could take them to him for me.”

It was getting harder and harder to think about
the posh little shit Mike had seen at Nordstrom that day with his hands on Delta. He ground his teeth and watched her profile, the pretty slip of her nose and the downward curl of her mouth as she frowned at her father. “Dad.” Her voice was laced with tension. “I’m not going to
see
Greg anymore. If you think so highly of him, you can give the books to him yourself.”

“Well, I just thought
– ”

“I
don’t
see him anymore,” Delta said, the words snapping off, crisp and sharp.

Dennis sighed and glanced up at the ceiling.
God give me patience
or some such bullshit.

No wonder Delta was such a
Wuthering Heights
fan – she lived every day inside it.

Her hand came back to his thigh and squeezed.
Don’t worry about Greg
, he interpreted, and he didn’t.

**

Delta didn’t take a deep breath until her heels were clipping against the cobbled front walk on the way back to the car. They’d survived. It had been dreadful – embarrassing and far too revealing to have only known Mike the short time she had – but they were both breathing and even better, they were escaping.

He didn’t offer his arm and she didn’t reach for it, struggling to come up with an apology that didn’t make her feel like too much of an idiot. If she was too earnest, she’d look weak. If she was too cool, he’d start bricking up a wall between them. Or at least, that was her experience when it came to men.

She didn’t have the chance to say anything, though, because his phone rang when they reached the Beemer. He read the ID display and sighed, answering with a tired-sounding, “Hi, Mom.”

Delta couldn’t hear the words from the other end, but s
he could hear a vibrating, high-pitched murmuring voice, and it didn’t sound happy.

“No…Mom,” Mike said, “I told you…no…but…
” He sighed again. “Yeah.
Yes
. Yes, ma’am.” He hung up and gave her a guarded look. “That was my mom.”

“I could tell.”

“She wants us to come by for dessert.”

He wasn’t asking her, but
he wasn’t
not
asking either. He was giving her a chance to say no. Delta guessed it was only fair, after the
Night of the Living WASP
horror they’d just endured. She offered a thin smile. “That’s fine.”

**

Mike had grown up in a subdivision built in the eighties, full of trees and brickwork houses, big yards that were beginning to get shaggy and driveways full of more than one generation’s worth of cars. His parents’ house was a two-story brick box, blue doors and shutters, wide, flat front yard with azaleas planted around a flagpole, the grass flat in places where footpaths had been worn over the years. The drive was an odd mix: a new Yukon, an old red Dodge truck, a Tahoe, a Mustang, a Jeep and a Buick. And God knew if there were more cars in the garage.

It was unimpressive.
Characterless. Jarring to look at as she sat in Mike’s Beemer and tried to rectify his ties and oxfords and gray satin sheets with this uninspired piece of suburban hell.

“It’s…” she tried to come up with some sort of compliment.

“I know,” he said with yet another sigh. “Come on. Brace yourself for this shit.”

She could hear the voices through the door as they stood on the front stoop, raucous and tumbling over one another. Mike didn’t ring the bell or wait for someone to welcome them in, instead opened the
door and urged her in after him. The foyer floors were scarred and scraped, a hall tree strung up with too many coats and stacked at the foot with shoes. The air was too warm and smelled too strongly of dinner. And the voices were even louder in here.

“Mikey?” a big, booming man’s voice called.
“That you?”

“Yeah!”
Mike called back, his voice an echo of the first, and Delta just knew it had to have been his dad who’d yelled: they had the same voice. And then the man himself stepped out of a doorway to the right, and Delta knew exactly what Mike would look like in another thirty years.

His dad was big and broad-shouldered too: blonde and square-jawed and green-eyed, she saw, as he came toward them. He had the look of a retired footballer
and the fashion taste of a twelve-year-old, his dark green sweater and jeans fraying and grass-stained in places.

“Hey, Mikey,” he greeted, and pulled his son into a hug that was only half-returned. Then his eyes fell on Delta. “And you’re way too pretty for him, sweetheart.” A big hand came out for hers and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at the odd juxtaposition of similarities and differences between the two Wal
kers. She took his hand. “Randy.” He gave her his son’s smile.

“Delta,” she managed to twitch a half-smile.
“Nice to meet you.”

Mike put a hand at the small of her back and guided her deeper into the house, into what had to be the living room. It had couches and a TV. She spotted his younger brother.
A man who was clearly his other brother. A dark-headed, too-fashion-conscious-for-the-room man who reminded her too much of Greg. And then the lone woman stood from the couch and turned to face the doorway, and them.

Delta gasped before she could catch herself.

She was slight; thin, athletic, but curvy enough that even in her jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt, Delta could see how the boys would like her. She had a wavy mane of dark blonde hair shot through with brown, a sweet-looking pixie face and big, bright eyes that were more blue than green.