His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) Read online

  His mission now was to get her to trust him back, because there was still a mess of baggage she was hauling around. If she’d let him, Spencer was ready and willing to help lighten her load.

  “And I appreciate your efforts,” Lorelei was saying, as the pair returned to the table.

  “It was my pleasure.” Cooper snagged his longneck off the table and held the cold bottle to his sweat-covered forehead.

  “Did you come back with all your toes intact?” he asked Lorelei, gaining an irritated glare from Cooper.

  She took a drink of her own beer before answering. “Yes, I did,” she answered. “Not everyone can be a twinkle toes like you.”

  Cooper did a spit take, then offered Lorelei a fist bump, which she accepted. “I also thanked him for keeping Beluga running all these years. As much as I hated that old boat, it’s nice to have something to drive that isn’t going to leave me stranded on the side of the road.”

  “That’s why you should always make friendly with your mechanic,” Cooper chimed in, adding a brow wiggle for emphasis.

  “Is that Haleigh Rae over there?” Spencer said, leaning over Cooper’s shoulder.

  “Where?” the big guy said, jerking around so fast he nearly knocked Lorelei over.

  “Whoa, there!” she cried, trying not to spill beer down the front of her dress. Cooper continued to search the crowd, and a hint of guilt settled in Spencer’s chest.

  “I was kidding, dude. She isn’t here.”

  When Cooper turned back around, he looked as if he’d been punched. His guilt got stronger.

  “That’s not cool, man.”

  “What am I missing here?” Lorelei asked.

  Spencer hadn’t intended to be mean. He’d had a gut reaction to Cooper flirting with Lorelei and lashed out in a way he knew would get the man’s attention.

  “We have to be talking about Haleigh Rae Mitchner. Is she still in town?”

  “Nah.” Cooper shook his head. “She moved to Memphis.”

  “Then why would you think she was in the bar?” Lorelei asked.

  “She comes home every year for the Main Street Festival,” Spencer answered, sparing Cooper the need to explain. Though Lorelei could probably guess how their friend felt about the former schoolmate by his reaction seconds earlier.

  With a slow nod, she said, “Oh.” There was more enthusiasm in her voice when she said, “Then she’ll be home soon. Maybe we can all hang out?”

  Lorelei didn’t have a lot of female friends in high school, but as Haleigh wasn’t a cheerleader or one of Becky’s followers, they’d spent some time together. Not best friends doing the slumber party thing, but they shared some classes and hung out at a bonfire or two. The fact that Lorelei was trying to find a way for Cooper to spend time with Haleigh took Spencer by surprise.

  “That’s a good idea,” he said.

  “Haleigh Rae is a doctor now. She won’t be interested in hanging with a grease monkey.” Cooper took a swig of Bud Light and kept his eyes on the swirling dancers passing by.

  “You make her sound like a snob,” Lorelei said, tapping him on the arm. “I don’t remember Haleigh being that way at all.”

  Instead of responding to Lorelei, Cooper rose on his toes to peer at something across the room. Spinning around, he said, “Farmer. Five o’clock.”

  Not what Spencer wanted to hear.

  “Did he say there’s a farmer at five o’clock?” Lorelei asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Not a farmer,” Cooper clarified. “Patch Farmer. The asshole who took Spence’s wife.”

  And that was not how Spencer would have preferred to answer her question.

  “He took your wife?” Lorelei’s voice rose an octave on the last word. “Like, kidnapped her?”

  “No,” Spencer said through clenched teeth. “She went willingly.”

  “The rat bastard,” Cooper growled.

  Spencer appreciated his friend’s support, but this wasn’t a subject he wanted to discuss, nor was he interested in making a scene.

  “Do you want to leave?” Lorelei asked, her hand suddenly in his. “I don’t mind.”

  With a shake of his head, Spencer said, “This place is big enough for the both of us. It’s been five years. We’ve run into each other before.”

  Cooper tapped his nearly empty bottle on the table. “I don’t know how you’ve never knocked his head off.”

  “What’s done is done.” He could have let pride win out, but in the end, Patch had done Spencer a favor. If Carrie hadn’t slept with the factory worker, it would have been someone else. Spencer was better off without her.

  Lorelei squeezed his hand. “Are you sure?”

  Giving her a reassuring smile, he said, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay then. I think Cooper needs another beer, and I need to visit the little girls’ room.”

  The overpowering urge to keep her with him shot down Spencer’s spine. He pushed the weakness away. “Go on then. Do you want another beer, too?”

  She yawned before answering. “I better switch to Coke or I’ll be asleep on a barstool soon.” Staring hard as if to reassure herself he was okay, she hesitated before turning toward the bathrooms. “I’ll be right back.”

  Yes, she would. And maybe by the time she got back, Spencer would have tamped down the urge to ask her never to leave him. He hadn’t even won her back yet and already the thought of losing her again made him sick to his stomach. This was a stupid side effect of knowing Patch was around. Of having history thrown in his face. Screw history, Spencer thought. It was time to focus on the future.

  A future with Lorelei.

  Lorelei couldn’t believe that Granny never told her Spencer’s wife had cheated on him. How stupid could a woman be? And who in her right mind would leave Spencer?

  That stopped Lorelei in her tracks a few feet from the ladies’ room entrance. You did, you idiot. Right. Still. Lorelei would never cheat on anyone.

  And that stopped her again, this time less than a foot inside the bathroom. She hadn’t cheated on anyone, but she had been an accessory to the crime. So to speak. How would Spencer feel if he ever learned what she’d done? That she’d been the other woman once upon a time? Would he believe her when she said she hadn’t known the man was married? Would that even matter?

  “You’re Lorelei, aren’t you?” The question sounded more like an accusation, and Lorelei looked around to see who had spoken the words. The only other person in the bathroom was a slip of a woman with dishwater-brown hair, who looked as if she needed a cheeseburger and a makeup tutorial. The pink lip shade was totally wrong for her skin tone.

  “Yes, I’m Lorelei,” she answered. “Do I know you?”

  “Not personally. I was a couple years behind you in school.”

  Lorelei hadn’t made much time for underclassman. “Right. Go Wildcats.”

  “I’m also Spencer’s ex-wife,” she said. “I’m Carrie.”

  “So you’re the one.” This wasn’t the girl she would have imagined for Spencer. Meek. Soft-spoken. Her opposite in every visible way. But then again, maybe that made sense. “I understand your Farmer dude is out there somewhere. You should probably go join him.”

  “I guess Spencer hasn’t said very nice things about me.”

  “Spencer doesn’t talk about you at all,” Lorelei said. Spencer may not be willing to confront the man who’d slept with his wife, but that didn’t mean Lorelei would make friendly with the woman who’d hurt him.

  “Funny,” Carrie said. “He talked about you all the time.”

  Stepping toward the stalls, Lorelei said, “I doubt he spoke highly of me back then.”

  Carrie stepped with her. “On the contrary. He couldn’t speak highly enough.”

  Lorelei didn’t believe for one minute that Spencer spent his married years talking about the girl who’d gotten away. That wasn’t his style. The woman had to be lying.

  “Do you know what it’s like to lay next to a man, all the while kn
owing he wished you were someone else?”

  “You’re the one who cheated,” Lorelei said, stepping close enough to see the bruise her adversary had tried to cover with makeup. “If you were dumb enough to trade Spencer Boyd for the man who put that mark on your face, that’s on you, not me.”

  “You were always there,” she said, a tear sliding down her cheek. “I couldn’t compete with the ghost of Lorelei.”

  “You couldn’t compete with a woman who was two thousand miles away? You had him,” she said. “He was right there next to you, and you threw him away. For what?”

  The younger woman turned away. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  “I didn’t start this conversation, Carrie. Don’t dump your laundry in my lap, accuse me of breaking up your marriage, and then act like I’m accosting you.” Lorelei stepped into a stall and slammed the door. Fading footsteps indicated the woman was leaving, but then they stopped.

  “If I could have kept him, I would have,” she said. “But he was never mine.” Carrie’s voice wavered. “He was always yours.”

  Lorelei tried to block out the bitterness and hurt laced through Carrie’s words. She tried not to think about what it would be like to be with a man who wanted someone else. To have him look at you but see another woman in your place. Whatever had happened between Spencer and his wife had nothing to do with her. Or so she kept repeating over and over in her mind. A marriage was between two people, not three. Though she certainly had experience being the third wheel.

  Had Maxwell thought of her when he was with his wife? Or worse, pictured his wife when he was having sex with Lorelei? Just thinking about either scenario made her shiver with distaste. And feel like even more of a moron for not realizing he was married before the truth came knocking.

  “Dammit,” she muttered, saying the word aloud unintentionally.

  “What is it?” Spencer asked.

  She’d requested he drive her home shortly after the encounter with Carrie in the bathroom. At first, Lorelei intended to tell him about the run-in with his ex-wife, hoping he’d clear her conscience by declaring the demise of his marriage had nothing to do with her. But fear that he’d admit Carrie was right kept Lorelei silent. Part of her didn’t want to know. There were only so many marriages a woman could shatter before ignorance could no longer be an excuse.

  “Did you forget something at the bar?” he asked when she failed to answer the first question. “We can go back.”

  “No.” The last thing Lorelei wanted was to go back. “I was thinking about something else. It’s nothing.”

  Spencer gave her knee a squeeze. “You aren’t still worried about the festival stuff, are you?”

  The fund-raiser was as good an excuse as any. “It’s a big job. Wouldn’t take much to screw it up.”

  “I told you.” He patted her knee this time. “You won’t have to do it all alone. We’ll create a festival committee and split up the duties.”

  Lorelei shook his hand off her knee. “That’s a good idea. Maybe you should give the presentation.” Hours ago she’d wanted this win for her own. Now she wanted to drive to the nearest bus terminal and buy a ticket for someplace far away.

  “You’re not getting out of it that easy.” He chuckled. “Your plan. Your presentation.”

  “Right.” She fell silent, desperate to be home. There were too many voices in her head. Too many demons ready to throw accusations and insults her way.

  Humming along with the tune on the radio, Spencer let the subject drop. But not for long. “Are you sure there isn’t something else bothering you? You’ve been acting strange since before we left the bar.”

  “Were you happy?” Lorelei asked, the words coming out without thought.

  “Was I happy when?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “At any point in the last twelve years.”

  He fell silent, but his grip tightened on the wheel. The change was so slight, Lorelei would have missed it if she hadn’t been staring at his hands to keep from looking at his face. She was afraid of what she’d see there. She was afraid of how he would answer.

  Which would be worse? If he said yes, or no?

  “There were moments,” he said, the carefree tone gone. “Some good moments.”

  “Life should be more than that, don’t you think?” Lorelei really wanted an answer. Her whole existence felt like a futile attempt to reach some happy destination, and no matter what she did, it either remained out of reach or slipped through her fingers before she could enjoy it.

  Or worse yet, she’d messed up someone else’s happiness.

  Instead of answering her, Spencer said, “What about you? Were you happy in the last twelve years?”

  Possible answers swirled in her mind, blending and melting together, each contradicting the next.

  “Does it count if you believe you’re happy, but nothing going on in your life is what you think it is?”

  They passed two mile markers without a response from Spencer. She didn’t blame him. It was a crazy question. Was anything in life ever what you really thought it was? This was why it sucked to be the kind of person who could never live in the moment. Lorelei was always too busy looking ahead, anticipating some far-off windfall, to pay attention to what was going on around her at any given second. When she’d finally felt as if that windfall had come, her life had ended up being one giant illusion.

  “Yeah,” he said, startling Lorelei out of her pity party. “It counts. Happiness is like the rainbows of life.”

  Lorelei blinked. “I’m pretty sure speaking that sentence means you lose your man card.”

  “I’m serious.” Spencer removed his ball cap to run a hand through his hair. “Rainbows aren’t real. You can’t walk up and touch one. It’s a trick of the light. That doesn’t mean you’ve never seen one. And I bet every time it’s happened, you smiled.” Slipping the hat back on his head, he added, “So anytime you feel happy, it counts. Whether it’s five minutes or five years. You felt it and no one can say you didn’t.”

  She couldn’t have said why or how, but his answer made Lorelei feel better. Yes, Maxwell had lied to her. Yes, he’d humiliated her and turned her into something she never wanted to be. But for those few months, before she knew the truth, Lorelei was happy.

  And the first day she’d taken the cookies to Snow’s and they’d sold out. She’d been happy that day.

  And two nights ago, when Granny had made Lorelei’s favorite—peach cobbler—and they’d watched Casablanca together with the lights turned low and Ginger purring on the back of the couch behind them. That was two hours of happy.

  Maybe life wasn’t about some sustained level of bliss. What if all you had to do was enjoy the moments when the urge to smile outweighed the desire to scream or cry or curse at the wind? The concept sounded too simple to be right, but then again, Pops had always accused Lorelei of making things more complicated than they needed to be.

  “You still with me over there?” Spencer asked.

  “Yeah,” she answered, “I’m with you.”

  Taking her hand, Spencer dropped a kiss on her knuckles. “Good.”

  Instinct told her to pull away, but in the back of her mind, Lorelei imagined a rainbow hiding among the stars. So for once, she smiled and enjoyed the moment.

  Chapter 16

  Spencer woke Sunday morning to a text from his mother saying she needed to see him. There was only one reason Paula Boyd ever wanted to see her only child, and that was to hit him up for money. Another one of her temporary sugar daddies must have left her high and dry.

  Dry meaning without food, cigarettes, or booze.

  Thanks to an impromptu grandmother-granddaughter shopping trip to Goodlettsville the day before, Spencer hadn’t seen Lorelei since leaving her at the front door on Friday night. He’d hoped to crash the kitchen today, sneak some cookies, and keep the momentum of his charm offensive moving forward. Dealing with his mother had not been on his agenda.


  Unfortunately, if he ignored the message, his mother would hunt him down and likely make a scene when she found him. It was best to pay a visit to his boyhood home, hand over some twenties, and be on his way. If he knew his mother, she’d find a new man by the end of the month, and Spencer wouldn’t hear from her again until fall at the earliest.

  All of which was the reason he found himself staring at a dilapidated porch that leaned precariously against the front of a small, blue-and-white single-wide trailer he’d rather set fire to than ever enter again. Careful where he stepped, for fear of falling through the rotten wood, Spencer crept to the front door and knocked.

  “About damn time,” came a gravel-filled voice from inside before the dingy white door was yanked open. “I sent you that message two hours ago.”

  Refusing to argue, he ignored the greeting and stepped inside. The place was a disaster, as usual. The faded blue recliner looked to have a few new burn holes in it, while the ashtray beside it, a pedestal glass number that had been with his mother for as long as he could remember, overflowed with ash and butts. He could feel the stench of smoke already clinging to his clothes.

  “How much do you need?” he asked, more than ready to get this over with.

  “Who said I wanted anything?” she asked, talking around the cancer stick dangling out the side of her mouth.

  Spencer fought to hold on to his patience. “You did. In a text, remember?”

  She removed the Marlboro from her mouth and used it to point at him. “I said I needed to see you. That don’t automatically mean I want money.”

  “Really?” His mother always did have a selective memory. “Then why am I here?”

  “I got some news.” The woman who looked close to twice her age pulled a ratty robe closed over her threadbare nightgown. Her bloodshot eyes pinged around the room, looking anywhere but in Spencer’s direction. “Came in a letter from your aunt.”