Dining with Joy (18 page)

“See, I told you she's such a tattletale,” Lyric shouted in the direction of Annie's room. “The girls on the team are snobs. They don't like me, and I don't like them.”

“So you quit?”

“Sorry I'm not like you, some kind of softball freak.” Lyric spit out the word
freak
.

Joy bit back her first response. She'd absorb Lyric's anger at her parents if it helped her process. “I didn't want to play softball in the first place. But Granny made me.”

“Granny thought you'd enjoy it. Sports is a great way to gain confidence, make friends, open up opportunities.”

“Well, I don't like softball.” Firing off the bed, Lyric searched around the blanket's edges. When she found her flip-flops, she slipped her toes through the thongs and started for the door.

“Lyric, where are you going?” Joy pushed up from the floor and trailed Lyric down the hall, catching the girl's arm before she rounded the banister for the stairs. “Don't ignore me.”

“I'm going to Siri's.” Lyric wrangled free, but the reflection in her eyes told Joy the whole story. She was hurting. More than Joy realized. But what could Joy say or do to change the damage inflicted by Sawyer and Mindy? “And don't worry, Parker's not there.”

“Lyric, I want to trust you.” Joy smiled, lifting her tone, lightening the moment. “Parker? Not so much.”

From the porch, Joy watched Lyric trail the hem of the gravel drive to the road. Just before she started down the road, Joy cupped her hands around her mouth. “Be home by eight.”

Lyric barely waved before she broke into an easy jog and disappeared around the bend.

A glint of light, like a silver flash, broke through the air just above Lyric's shoulder.

Joy leaned against the porch post, her eyes welling up. Perhaps it was the way the wind blew light through the ancient live oaks and pines, but the glint reflected with a holy memory, something Joy had witnessed once before as a girl—the soft southern tip of an angel's wing.

Saturday afternoon Luke carried Red's duffel bag from the third-floor loft out to the truck, cutting through the hazy drape of eastern light falling over Miss Jeanne's veranda.

“Going to be a scorcher.” Red jumped from the top step to the grass, hitching up his jeans, scooping his hat onto his head.

“Red, why don't you wait and leave early Monday morning?” Luke opened the passenger door and set Red's bag on the floorboard.

“It'll be hot on Monday too. If not here, somewhere along the Georgia highway or Alabama. No offense, Son, but that room of yours ain't big enough for the both of us.” Red shuddered. “Ain't that television show paying you good money?”

“Decent money. It's my first season. I'm saving to pay off debts.” Luke leaned against the truck, the red paint faded and scarred from years on the ranch, and peered up at the nautical window just above the third-floor gable. The loft wasn't so bad. The room where he'd had some sweet talks with Jesus. “You going to be okay, Red? Mercy Bea insists you look peaked.”

“Peaked? That woman is a fussbudget. I'm just a bit pale 'cause I ain't been in the sun for a few weeks. I'm fine.”

“Live to be a hundred.”

“Just to spite you.” Red chuckled, hooked his thumbs through his belt loops, and kicked at the dirt. During Luke's life, he'd only known his dad to have two pairs of boots.

“This old truck running all right?” Luke patted the side panel.

“Better than any newfangled truck they got on the market today.”

“Call if you need anything.”

“Will you answer?”

Luke laughed. “I'll answer. Miss Jeanne's going to miss beating you at checkers.”

“She cheats.”

“So do you.”

Red sighed and gazed toward the western horizon, squinting as if he could see his route home through the trees. “What's noodling
you
, boy?”

“Come again?” Luke tipped his head to see Red's face. “Noodling me?”

“You been quiet.” Red shifted his gaze to Luke's face. “It's Joy, ain't it?”

“Joy?” Luke scoffed, walked around, tugged open the tailgate, and sat. The hinges coughed in protest. “Now why would she bother me? I've just been thinking about the show, reviewing the script for Monday.”

“I haven't seen you pine for a girl in a long time. It's kind of nice.” Red slipped onto the tailgate next to Luke. “I remember the gal from tenth grade. What was her name? She has a big real estate company now. ‘Want to sell your home or business, come see . . .' ?”

“Cara Collins.”

“Cara Collins.” Red popped his hands together. “That's right.

Let me tell you, the years have been good to her.” His broad laugh shattered Luke's narrow, distant memory of the solemn man who raised him after Mom died. “Joy's a looker. Seems right sweet too.”

“Red? Good, I caught you in time.” Miss Jeanne stepped off the porch, a paper bag dangling from her hand. “You're leaving without the snacks I made for you.”

Red's eyes pleaded with Luke. Miss Jeanne had many talents, including tap dancing, but cooking wasn't one of them.

“Stop grimacing, boys, it's just Oreos and Goldfish crackers.”

Miss Jeanne shoved the bag at Red's chest. “I'm going to miss you, you old coot. Something about you reminds me of my brother.” Her blue eyes misted. “He was killed in '44 at Normandy.”

“Then I'm right proud to remind you of him, Jeanne.” Red patted the bag of goodies. “Thank you for these.”

Luke stood on the veranda with Miss Jeanne, watching Red go, missing him and the years that used to be.

“Make sure he gets to the doctor, will you?” Miss Jeanne tapped Luke's arm as she turned for the door. “He looks peaked.”

“That's what Mercy said.” But no word from Luke could make Red go to the doctor. He'd go when he was good and ready.

The screen door slammed behind Miss Jeanne as she went back inside. Luke eased down into one of the bentwood rockers and set it into motion, hearing Red's accusation of
pining
.

No use lying to himself sitting here in the quiet of the veranda. He liked Joy. Maybe, maybe, he loved her. And if Red saw it, Luke imagined others did too.

Sixteen

Luke weaved his way through the cars and trucks parked helter-skelter on Bodean Good's property. Shouts rose above the throng of voices melded in conversations. A beefy bass beat shook the ground and shimmied the veil of moonlight.

Red's absence left a bit of a gap in Luke's day. He'd cleaned his loft, did a load of laundry, then called the café to see if Andy needed him to work tonight after all. He didn't.

By the time the pink glow of twilight settled over a Beaufort evening, Luke roamed Miss Jeanne's, agitated and restless.

On impulse, he grabbed the Spit Fire keys, hollered “good night” to Miss Jeanne, and headed out, toying with the idea of wandering Joy's way when Heath called.

“Come out to Bodean's Mars versus Venus party.”

So that's how Luke found himself at a field party where the women hung out on one side, Venus, and the men loitered on the other, Mars.

Luke slowed as he came to a Y in the tiki-lit path, glancing toward the Venus neon sign hanging from the trunk of a skinny pine. Strings of white lights swung from the lower tree branches, and he strained through the glare in hopes of spotting Joy.

The awkward ending to their Sunday barbecue spilled into the last two weeks of work. She avoided him except during taping, where she powered up her charm. Her ability to separate professional from personal was impressive.

Luke didn't want to separate professional from personal. He'd decided to plow ahead and confront her, find out what he'd said that was so offensive when Allison announced the cookbook deal. When Sharon quit, Joy huddled up with the crew, leaving Luke to watch from the outside.

“Cousin, you made it.” Heath strolled toward Luke from the Mars side of the party and offered Luke a golden brown bottle. An icy root beer.

“Exactly where have I arrived? I've attended high school dances with more boy-girl interaction.” The sweet soda soaked the parched patches of Luke's throat.

“In an hour the Martians will tire of playing their corn hole games and make their way toward Venus.” Heath motioned to a circle of chairs under the canopy of twin live oaks. “The girls have all the food.”

“Among other things.” Luke grinned and took another cool swig. “You'd think women would figure it out. They have it. We want it. Men are completely at their mercy.”

“Hush, man, you're breaking the male code of silence.” Heath tipped back in his chair, balancing on the back legs, and raised his bottle at his passing wife. “Next dance is ours, Elle.”

She gave Heath a quick, soft kiss as she passed, continuing on with her friends.

Would Joy be at the end of Elle's journey? Luke lost sight of her as she moved through the crowd and into the lights.

“Never thought I'd fall in love again after Ava died.” Heath sat forward, the dew of his cold soda bottle dripping to the ground. “I just wanted to survive, take care of Tracey-Love and somehow get through the nights without Ava. Then the mornings, then the afternoons and the nights again.”

“I'm still waiting for the first time.” Actually, Luke had been in love once.
With Ami's
. With the adrenaline of owning a five-star restaurant, with the fantasy of being one of America's great chefs. But ambition was a cruel, stingy lover.

“Ah, come on, you've been in love.” Heath tipped up his bottle. “What happened to the woman you introduced to Elle and me when we visited you in New York last year?”

“Tessa? The actress.” She'd endured longer than his other three girlfriends. She put up with his obsessive work habits, indulged his love affair with the business, listened to his diatribes about vendors and lackluster profits. She even hired on at Ami's part-time just to be with him. “She bolted when the bankruptcy started, and I didn't blame her.”

“What about that one over there?” Heath pointed to his left, drawing Luke's attention across the field and through a cluster of trees.

In the blue, red, and green hue of the plywood dance-floor lights, Luke spied Joy chatting to a walking-talking muscle in a deputy's uniform.

“Brrrr.” Luke exaggerated a shiver.

“Really? I thought you two were hitting it off.”

“We were. A couple of Sundays ago we had this great, spontaneous picnic at her place with Red, Rosie, and her nieces. We were talking, sharing, then I brought up a recipe idea for her to do on the show and
bam!
She slammed the door.” Luke glanced at Heath. “It's been icy ever since.”

The music wafting from the stage softened, and Elle appeared from the shadows to tug her husband to the dance floor.

Heath handed his empty bottle to Luke. “Duty calls.”

Luke drained his soda in one guzzle, then returned both bottles to the crate. He moved across the mowed field toward the dance floor, the moon and music his wingmen. The heady scent of sunbaked grass escaped the ground where his feet broke over the grass.

About twenty yards away, Joy still engaged the deputy, laughing, flirting. Since when did deputies moonlight as comedians? Then the lawman gestured toward the dance floor.

Smiling, Joy backed up, shaking her head. That-a-girl. The deputy tried again. She refused and patted his arm, turning away. When the deputy cupped his hand around her waist, Joy spun free and glided away.

Luke moved into her path. “I thought I might have to step in to rescue you.”

“From J.D.? He's harmless enough.” She buried her hands in the folds of her skirt. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard there was a party.” The fragrance of warm cotton permeated the air around her. Luke appreciated the way her pale yellow dress fit her curves and accented her auburn hair. “Red left today and Andy didn't need me at the café . . .”

He cleared his throat and reached for her elbow. “May I have this dance?”

Joy molded into his arms, resting her cheek against the plump of his chest. His hand warmed the small of her back. She found it difficult to remain professional toward him.

“I'm sorry, Luke, about the picnic.” She tipped back her head to see his face. “I just . . .” What? What did she just . . . ?

“It's okay. I can be pushy.”

She leaned against him again and followed his sway to the music as the band's lead singer crooned a George Strait cover, “You Look So Good in Love.”

Luke pressed her closer. Joy softened her posture when she inhaled the warm, woodsy scent slipping through the fibers of his shirt.

You look so good in love.
. .

She should tell him. Just confess. Sharon had relented on her threat to quit and shown up for work this past week, her cheery old self. But Joy didn't trust the dark light in her eyes.

Stop thinking about the show
. She was ruining the moment— dancing on a warm, starry night in the arms of a handsome man. Besides, really, if Luke hadn't figured out she can't cook yet, maybe he was too dumb to be on the show.

Luke ran his fingers along the hot texture of her neck, and Joy surrendered to the sensation of being wanted. When the song faded, she raised her face to his.
You can kiss me
.

“Can I ask you something?” He brushed her hair from her eyes with gentle strokes.

“A–a question?” She swallowed her desire. “While the breeze carries a George Strait tune? Even the stars are dancing.”

The band moved into another slow, melodic song and the floor lights dimmed.

“Joy, if you can't . . .” He paused, letting the silence fill in the blank. “Will you let me teach you?”

She eased out of his arms. “Can't what? What are you asking me, Luke?” Her heart thumped at this moment of truth. Did she really want him to know? She'd not calculated his possible response.