“Jake?”

“Jake Spear.”

This was another mistake and I knew it even before he sat back in his own chair and his eyes got wide right before his lips curved into a sneer.

I knew it because we might be one town over from Magdalene but Magdalene was tiny and anyone would need to go further afield for a variety of things. Therefore, anyone who had lived in that area for very long could be known further afield.

However, I’d had an unusual day that wasn’t entirely pleasant. This encounter was most definitely not pleasant. The day before was the most unpleasant of my life, save the day two days before that when I’d learned Gran had passed away. I wasn’t my normal self.

But his reaction was strange.

“You’re seeing Jake Spear?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. Instead, I took that opportunity to mentally kick myself for being foolish.

“You?” he pressed.

I continued to be silent.

He stared at me before he asked, “Did you used to dance for him?”

What an odd thing to ask.

Odd and disturbing.

Also offensive.

Therefore, I snapped, “Of course not.”

He continued to stare at me as he crassly remarked, “Class piece, Jake’s finally learned to trade up.”

That wasn’t odd even if it was disturbing and highly offensive.

Therefore, when I spoke, it was again in a snap. “I beg your pardon?”

“Sweetheart, you’re aiming to be the fourth Mrs. Jake Spear, let me just tell you, he might make a fortune from that strip club so that’ll keep you in lobster bisque for a while. But in case no one else has warned you, I will. He goes through women like water and you’ll be out before it’s time for him to trade up his truck, something he does every other year.”

The fourth Mrs. Jake Spear?

Good God.

And strip club?

My goodness!

Regardless of how shocking I found this information, this man was loathsome and therefore I retorted, “You seem to know a good deal about Jake.”

“Lived in this county all my life and doing that, it’s hard not to know pretty much everything about the truck.”

He said his last two very confusing words with not a small amount of derision then he stood.

“Do me a favor and don’t let Jake know I tried to buy you a drink. Seeing as you’re how you are, he might actually like you and want to keep you and I don’t want to know how the truck would react if he knew I’d offered.”

Yes.

Most loathsome.

“Please, then, before you leave, share your name so we can see,” I returned.

He continued to stare at me for a moment before he shook his head and sauntered back into the restaurant.

I watched him go, not pleased in the slightest that that encounter made me feel even more uneasy.

However, just in case he remained at the restaurant to hit on another woman, instead of doing what I wished to do, get up and go straight to Lavender House, in order to communicate how little I thought of our disagreeable encounter, I simply looked back to the view and sipped my Chambord like it didn’t happen.

Unfortunately, it did happen.

Therefore, my eyes were to the view and my lips often tasted the deep headiness of the liqueur.

But my mind was on three previous Mrs. Jake Spears, a strip club and wondering what on earth was “the truck.”

* * * * *

I became aware of the sunlight hitting my eyelids moments before I opened them and rolled in the big iron bed with its high comfortable mattresses, flowery sheets, vast array of downy pillows and fluffy duvet.

My eyes went to the view of sparkling sea and bright sky out the big diamond-paned window across the room.

Then they went to the alarm clock by the bed.

Seven thirty.

Early for me but then again, I was still on LA time.

As ever, no matter what time it was when I woke up, I needed coffee.

I threw back the covers and then threw my legs over the side of the bed, gaining my feet.

When I did, my dusty pink nightie fell over my bottom.

The nightie had a hem that covered my lower hips and upper thighs that was a four-inch swathe of dusty pink pleats edged top and bottom in a trim of cream lace. The straps were thin and the bodice ran straight, exposing very little cleavage, but it had another one-inch wide section of trimmed pleats.

It was girlie, but alluring, and not obvious, thus not vulgar, and this was the reason I bought it.

It was also quite comfortable.

A plus.

I walked to the overstuffed chintz chair in the corner and grabbed my cream satin robe. I didn’t bother cinching the belt. I was alone in the house so there was no need. However, even alone, it was unseemly to wander around wearing nothing but a thin, short nightie.

I grabbed a ponytail holder before I padded out of the room and secured my hair in a messy knot at the back of my head as I moved down the hall and two flights of stairs.

I did this not taking anything in.

Usually, when I was at Lavender House, I consumed every inch, recommitting every vision, every smell, even the feel to memory to hold close until I returned.

This time, I didn’t do that and it wasn’t because I was still half-asleep.

I made it to the kitchen and I especially didn’t take any of that in.

This was because, outside the light room, the kitchen was where Gran spent most of her time. It was a fabulous kitchen and she was a fabulous cook. I couldn’t count the number of mouth-watering smells I’d smelled in that kitchen or the number of delightful tastes I’d experienced with what Gran created in that room.

Gran had cooked for me in that kitchen.

She’d also taught me to cook in that kitchen.

And like every memory with her in it, those I knew even before she passed would be some of the ones I would hold most dear.

Therefore, I moved directly through to the coffeepot, which I’d prepared for brewing the night before and I did it still not taking anything in.

I lifted a finger to hit the on button and saw it already lit.

I stared at the pot.

It was programmable but I didn’t program it because I didn’t know how, and to learn, I’d have to find the instructions which meant looking around, something I wasn’t going to do. In fact, the little button with its little light that would light up if it was programmed was not lit.

Instead of hitting the on button, I moved my hand close to the stainless steel carafe.

It was warm.

“What on—?” I started to say but ended this in a stifled scream while whirling when a deep voice came at me from behind.

“Not a big fan of gettin’ stood up.”

After my whirl, I went completely still as I stared at James Spear sitting in the sun pouring in the multi-paned glass that surrounded the nook where Gran had her beaten wood kitchen table.

He had a cup of coffee on the table in front of him.

“Wha-wha-what are you doing here?” I stammered.

He didn’t move, except his mouth. But when he moved that mouth, he didn’t answer my question.

“Pain in my ass, gettin’ Amber to look after her brother. First, she charges a shitload, fuckin’ twenty dollars an hour. And since she had plans with some of her friends last night and I needed her to change them, she upped that shit. Drove a hard bargain. That bein’ her gettin’ an hour added to her curfew on Saturday night and fuck knows, Amber and an hour on a Saturday night could mean anything. A visit to a bondsman or a different kind of visit in a few months to Babies ‘R’ Us.”

It was clear he was there because he was angry I didn’t join him for dinner so I didn’t need to repeat my question, thus I asked another one.

“How did you get in here?”

He shoved his hand in his jeans pocket and lifted it. I saw a key dangling from a thin ring looped on his long forefinger before he dropped his hand, shoving it back in his pocket then he pulled it out to rest it again on the table.

“Looked after Lydie and sometimes Lydie looked after Ethan after school. Me and all the kids got keys.”

“I, uh…well, I’ll have to ask for all those to be returned,” I told him.

“Are you fuckin’ serious?” he asked, his dark brows rising.

“Well, yes,” I answered and I saw his dark brows snap together.

“Jesus Christ, Josie, you stood me up.”

“I can obviously see that you’d see it that way but since I didn’t actually wish to go to dinner with you in the first place, I don’t see it the same way.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” he murmured.

“And really,” I foolishly went on, “your language is quite—”

“Do not fuckin’ tell me what my language is,” he cut me off to bite out. “And do not stand across Lydie’s fuckin’ kitchen and give me your bullshit,” he ordered and I blinked.

Then my back snapped straight. “Pardon me?”

“You’re standin’ in Lydie’s kitchen knowin’ what she wanted for you, and what that was is me.”

He jerked his thumb to himself on his last word but he wasn’t done speaking.

“You jacked me around last night, made my daughter change her plans and she was lookin’ forward to that shit. Made me sit in a restaurant by my-fuckin’-self for forty-five fuckin’ minutes waitin’ on your ass, when not a lot of people have forty-five minutes of their lives to piss away and I’m one of them. You’re a no show and you give me this bullshit?”

Unfortunately, this made me uncomfortable. This was because he was right. His daughter changed her plans (though I couldn’t know that was needed, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t). And he’d had to bargain with her to do that. Not to mention, he’d settled on a bargain he wasn’t comfortable with and, by the sounds of it, it was indeed an uncomfortable bargain. And while I was enjoying lobster bisque (well, some time before, but still), he’d been sitting alone at a restaurant waiting for me to arrive and I didn’t.

If that had happened to me, I would have found it supremely annoying.

And I’d done it to him.

I stared across the kitchen into his angry eyes and I did what I had to do.

I apologized.

“That was rude,” I said quietly. “I have no excuse. I should have explained more firmly how I felt about the dinner without wasting your time or involving your family.”

“Damn straight,” he returned.

“Well, I apologize.”

“And you should,” he shot back.

I closed my mouth.

He didn’t.

“So, babe, where do we go from here?”

Babe?

I’d never been called “babe” and the angry way he did it, I didn’t like very much.

I ignored that and stayed focused.

“Where we go from here, Mr. Spear, is—”

I stopped speaking because he’d been sitting and mostly not moving but when I called him Mr. Spear, he stood.

And when he stood, the force of him invaded the entirety of the kitchen and this was no small feat. Gran’s kitchen was enormous.

“My name, Josie,” he started slowly, “is Jake.”

“All right,” I whispered.

“And I shouldn’t have asked you about where we’re goin’ from here because I don’t give a fuck about where you think we’re goin’.”

I said nothing to that.

He didn’t need me to. He kept speaking.

“You know her. You know that bullshit you pulled last night would piss her off.”

I detested this because he was right. It was clear Gran cared deeply for this man and if she knew I’d done what I’d done, she’d be angry.

Therefore, I admitted, “Yes.”

“And like I said, you know her. She said it straight up in that letter yesterday. The woman had a lot of love to give and she gave it freely. But the one person on this fuckin’ planet who had the most of that love, who she treasured above anyone, is you. And there is no way in fuck Lydie would feel that way about you and steer you wrong about me.”

It was then, I was again foolish.

And I was foolish by asking, “Did she know you own a strip club?”

The force of his presence expanded and heated to the point I felt it press against my flesh and burn in my lungs.

I retreated a step but it was only a step because I hit counter.

His voice was vibrating with anger when he shared, “Yeah, Josie, she did seein’ as she loaned me the money to buy it.”

I blinked. “She did?”

“Yeah, she fuckin’ did. I paid her back but she put it up so I could keep my gym and keep my kids in clothes and food and for once have the cake to give them a decent life.”