Gentlemen Prefer Curves: A Perfect Fit Novel (37 page)

“I missed you, Grandma.” Ruby turned to look at Belinda. “Grandma, this is Belinda. This is Daddy’s wife. I told you about her on the phone.”

She nodded briefly at Belinda. “Yes, darling. I remember her. Miranda, how are you?”

“Her name is not Miranda,” Ruby frowned. “It’s Belinda, Grandma. I just told you.”

“It’s okay, Ruby. Sometimes, very old people have problems with their memory. You’re looking well, Bernadette,” she said loudly. “Give my compliments to your doctor. You hardly look like you’ve had anything done at all. Next time I would tell him to go easy around the eyes. You don’t want to end up looking like a snake.”

Bernadette froze for a moment, surprise crossing her face. The last time they had met, Belinda had been reserved, trying so hard to make this woman like her that she hid her true self. But those days were over, and she refused to be treated or feel like shit.

“Thank you, dear,” Bernadette said, recovering. “You are looking well yourself. Pleasingly plump as I remember. When I walked in and saw you in that green dress, with the way my granddaughter was sprawled all over you I almost mistook you for one of those beanbag chairs.”

“Like father, like daughter. I think being sprawled all over me was one of the things your son liked best about me, too.”

Ruby frowned at them in confusion and Belinda remembered that there was a small child in the room and she couldn’t say what she wanted to say. It was a shame, though. She had so much she wanted to say.

“Does Daddy know you’re here?”

“No, I’m surprising him, too.”

“But you came to my store first?” Belinda narrowed her eyes at the woman.

“I wanted to speak with you, but now that I see my beautiful grandchild is here, our conversation can wait.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But I thought we was going to go shopping,” Ruby said. “Grandma can come with us.”

“Yes.” Bernadette kissed her granddaughter’s cheek. “I would love to go shopping with you and Belinda. She’s always had such
interesting
taste.” She looked into Belinda’s eyes. “I do have to compliment you on this store, Brenda. It’s more elegant than I imagined. Not a stripper pole in sight.”

CHAPTER 22

Nobody does it better …

Carter pulled into his driveway to find an unfamiliar car parked next to Belinda’s. He didn’t think much of it. It was probably Ellis or Cherri, there for a visit. He was glad Belinda felt comfortable enough to invite her friends over. He knew that they had to start over, build a home together, but for a little while he had hoped they could stay here. He didn’t want to move Ruby again so soon after they had come here. He wanted to keep her life as consistent as possible. It was a conversation that he should have with Belinda. He kept meaning to talk about what their future plans were going to be but the time never seemed right.

He opened his door, greeted by the smell of cookies and the sound of female voices.

“Yes, dear, the cookies are indeed delicious, but do try not to eat anymore. They’ll go right to your backside and frankly you already look as if you are walking around with two hams strapped to your behind.”

It was his mother’s voice. She had come to Durant. He should have known she wasn’t going to accept them getting back together, but he was glad she was here. He had a hell of a lot to say to her.

“Well, Bernie, I’d rather have these here hams than that flat thing you got back there. How do you even sit down comfortably? It’s like you’re sitting on bone all day. Do be careful or you’ll have to carry around one of those unfortunate hemorrhoid doughnuts with you, and I don’t think they make those in very many colors. They’ll clash with your ensembles horribly. But I’m sure you can avoid that fate with a trip to the plastic surgeon. He fixed those nasty bags under your eyes; I’m sure he can stick some fat in your butt,” Carter heard Belinda say as he walked into the kitchen.

It was a beautiful, perfectly mean setdown and for a moment he just watched as the two women who were sitting side by side stared at each other. His mother then did something he never expected. She threw back her head, opened her mouth, and laughed.

Belinda laughed, too. They laughed together. Carter did not know how to handle this scene.

“Daddy!” Ruby jumped off her chair and ran to him. He picked her up and kissed her hello.

“Hi, baby.”

“Grandma’s here,” she whispered. “She surprised me.”

“I see.”

“She and Belinda are being weird.”

“I can see that, too.”

“They’re confusing me.”

“I feel the same way, Ruby.” He put her down and cautiously approached the two women, not sure what the hell was going on.

“Hello, son!” His mother stood up and hugged him. A full-on motherly hug. It was unusual for her. He had always been greeted with a dry peck on the cheek.

“Hello, Mother. What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you. Marimba and I took Ruby shopping and then we made cookies together. Can you believe that she bakes? And all this time I thought she only had one talent. I guessed they trained her well on that bunny ranch.”

“Mother,” he hissed.

“What? That was a compliment!”

“I need to speak to you outside.”

“It’s okay, Carter.” Belinda wrapped both her arms around his mother and squeezed the slender woman. “Bernie and I have been getting to know each other,” she said loudly. “It’s important for a woman of her advanced age to spend time with loved ones. I want to make this time count before her memory starts to slip away.” She looked at his mother, her voice going even louder. “Don’t worry, Bernie. I’ll make sure we put you in a decent home. We’ll even visit you once or twice a year.”

“What a kind girl you are, Belladonna.” She patted Belinda’s hand. “And to think just six short months ago you were still on the streets picking up men.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two?”

His mother actually looked … Relaxed. Happy even. This is not the woman he’d last seen in San Francisco.

“It really is okay, Carter,” Belinda said softly as her arms came around him. “We’re getting along. We had fun today.”

He shook his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. His mother had tried to pay Belinda to leave him. She was cruel to her. She told him that she didn’t want them together, and now suddenly everything was fine.

Bullshit.

“Outside, Mother. Now.”

“Carter. Not now. Please,” Belinda appealed to him.

“If not now, when? She cannot get away with what she did.”

“It’s okay, Belinda.” Bernadette squeezed her arm. “He’s right.” She looked at Carter as he led the way.

He took her outside, to the back of the house far away from the open kitchen windows.

“This is a lovely little town, Carter,” she said before he could start. “I see why you like it so much here. Your neighborhood is adorable, all these little cottages. I feel like I’m in another era.”

He stared at his mother, dumbfounded. Nothing was ever good enough. Not his college major, not his choice in friends, or clothes, or wife. And especially not this place, where all the things she hated converged.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you here?”

“I just wanted to see Ruby.”

“That’s complete bullshit and you know it!”

She seemed startled by his profanity but for once he didn’t care. “The last time you spoke to Belinda you told her she wasn’t good enough for me and that our marriage wasn’t going to last. And then you show up here. Where do you get off telling my wife that she’s not good enough for me? How dare you hurt her like that! If you came here to try to interfere or pull us apart, you’ve got another think coming. I’ll cut you out of my life. I won’t let you see Ruby again.”

“Carter!” She looked horrified.

“I’m serious. I won’t allow her to be around somebody who can be cruel to somebody she loves. I don’t want her to learn that it’s okay to hurt people just to get your way. She loves Belinda—”

“I know that! I know she loves her.” Tears flashed in her eyes. “I saw them together today. I came here to warn her away from you, but then I saw how she was with Ruby. They’re—they’re connected. And if I didn’t know that Ruby had come from Bethany I would have mistaken her for Belinda’s daughter. She’s not the same child who left San Francisco. She’s not only happy, she’s loved. I could never interfere with that. I could never hurt Ruby that way. I’m just going to go back and tell your father that I approve, and we should just leave things alone.”

“Father sent you?” He hadn’t spoken to his father in months, not because they weren’t speaking but simply because they had nothing to say to each other. Most of his life they had spent communicating through Bernadette.

“Well, yes, but I wanted to see how Ruby was anyway. I missed her terribly. And you, too, Carter. Being with Ruby and Belinda today made me realize that I’ve been so focused on trying to mold you into the perfect Lancaster man that I never really got to know you. We aren’t close, and I don’t want to die and regret not knowing my only child.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t expecting to hear that from her. “I love her, Mother.”

“I know, and now I see why you do. She’s vibrant. You need that in your life.”

“Grandma! Daddy! Belinda said that you two need to stop fighting because she’s hungry and somebody needs to take her out for dinner.”

“Oh, dear!” Bernadette turned to her granddaughter. “We mustn’t keep her waiting much longer. We don’t want her chewing on the furniture.”

*   *   *

Belinda watched Carter for a moment as he sat on his couch watching TV. She knew he wasn’t paying attention to what was going on because his mind was elsewhere. Probably on his mother, who had shown up out of nowhere and taken Ruby for the night.

She went to him, resting her head in his lap so that she could look up at him. He had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. His five o’clock shadow had made an appearance. His eyes were sleepy and thoughtful looking. She could stare up at him like this all night.

“What are you looking at?” He ran his fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp and causing her to moan.

“You’re cute. I think I’m going to write about you in my journal when I go home.”

“You’re pretty cute yourself.” He ran his fingertips over the skin just above her breasts. Tingles ran through her limbs at his touch. “Especially in this little dress. Do you sell this in your store?”

“Why, you thinking about buying one for yourself?”

“No. For my other wife. What the hell was going on with you and my mother today?”

“Nothing. We were getting along. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“How could you even attempt to be nice to her after what she did to you?”

“First of all, I wasn’t nice, thank you very much. And second, she’s your mother and the grandmother of your child, whom she happens to love very much. I can’t hold on to that. It’s not good for Ruby.”

“No,” he agreed as he dropped a kiss on her lips. “It wouldn’t be good for her, but you are.” He kissed her again, slower this time, and she shut her eyes to savor it. “And you’re very good for me. Thank you for today.”

“Don’t thank me. I actually had fun with her today. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still a total bitch, but she’s witty as hell and has a wicked sense of style. You should have seen the shoes she picked out today to go with her cocktail dress. Black with a four-inch silver heel.” She moaned again. “Shoe porn. You’d better be glad you weren’t there. I would have jumped your bones right in that store.”

“Is that all it takes to get you going? Remind me to take you to a shoe store soon.”

“I’m free tomorrow. How are you feeling, Champ? You missing your baby already?”

“Get out of my head.” He tweaked her nose.

“She’ll be fine, you know. It’s just overnight.”

“I wanted to say no so bad.”

“That would have killed Ruby.”

“I know. My father sent her here to handle me. Like our relationship is some kind of dirty work to be disposed of.”

“I just don’t understand why he hates me so much. The way he looked at me when you first introduced us … He didn’t even have to say anything, I just knew I wasn’t good enough.”

“It’s not you. It’s me. When things fell apart with Bethany, both of our parents were extremely upset and embarrassed. Bethany’s father said it was my fault, that I chased her away and he threatened to back out of the deal, because he thought my family couldn’t be trusted. To this day I’m not sure what my father did to make the merger go through. But he was mad that I strained things almost irrevocably with the Spencers. Even after that I think he thought he could shape me into his clone. And then a year later I come home with you, whom he hadn’t met and vetted and approved of. He was mad because for the first time in my life I made a decision without any kind of input from him.”

“But you became an architect. You didn’t go to his alma mater.”

“I really wanted to be an artist and I went to a school he approved of.”

“Who could be disappointed in an Ivy League graduate?” Belinda nodded. “I didn’t know you wanted to be an artist.”

“I did. I liked to draw, but thankfully it was just a phase. I love what I do, especially now. I get to see people enjoy the places I create.”

“I learn something new about you every day.”

“I learn something about you, too. You need to call your mother.”

“I should, but I don’t wanna.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just not ready. My relationship with my parents is so weird, they went from never being there to always being there and smothering me. I don’t know how to handle them. But at least my father kind of gets me. My mother never did. She’s mad that I keep stuff from her, but I just never knew how to talk to her.”

“In her defense I don’t get you, either, but here I am.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s true. So what she doesn’t get you? So what she calls you Pudge? She loves you. That’s clear. You two have a hell of a lot better relationship than my mother and I.”

“I think she wants to fix it. I saw the way she looked at you tonight. She does love you.”