Sugar on Top (Sugar, Georgia Book 2) Page 16

  Abort now, while you can, her brain screamed because he was the kind of man she could easily fall for and then spend her life trying to prove she deserved. Cal McGraw was the kind of man she wasn’t sure she could live up to even on her best day, let alone when he wasn’t open to exploring more than a friends-with-benefits arrangement.

  “You don’t do serious,” she said quietly, reaching behind her to open the passenger door. “And I promised myself that I’d never be someone’s secret again.”

  Chapter 12

  Five minutes, Payton, and then I turn off the hot water,” Cal said, giving a warning rap to the door.

  It was Monday morning, he was still in yesterday’s stubble and boxers, and he had a meeting with the planning department in one hour. Payton had barricaded herself inside the bathroom over forty minutes ago, after a teary meltdown about how her life was officially over. He wanted to ask, since her life was already over, if he could use the shower first, but knew that it would be a waste of time.

  “I still have to use my face scrub.”

  “Five minutes,” he said, ignoring her dramatic plea about the great pimple of Pompeii, and headed straight for the kitchen—and the smell of bacon frying on the griddle. He needed a hearty breakfast and a cup of caffeine if he was going to make it through this morning.

  Hattie stood at the stove, flipping a fresh batch of flapjacks. She wore a bright yellow track suit with matching visor and an apron tied around her waist. She also had enough bacon stacked on the platter to feed a family of five.

  God bless her.

  “Morning.” He kissed her on the cheek and snatched a strip of bacon.

  “Don’t you ‘morning’ me.” Hattie snatched it back and swatted his hand away. “I heard you’re going to announce at the meeting today that Kitty Duncan and the Prowler are cleared to race.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Not that he had to ask. This was Sugar after all, and gossip traveled faster here than news of a gold strike in Alaska.

  “Same place I heard you’re dating Jelly Lou’s girl.”

  Cal gave up on the bacon and went for the coffee, filling his mug to the brim. “Yes, Kitty is cleared to race, and no, Glory and I aren’t dating.”

  “You sure about that, son?”

  At this point he wasn’t sure about anything—except he’d gone in for the kiss and she’d shut him down. “We are co-commissioners for the Harvest Fest, that’s all.”

  She raised a brow. “Last time a man took me to the Falcon’s Nest, he expected me to put out.”

  Cal choked on his coffee. “I hope that was with Grandpa.”

  “Falcon’s Nest wasn’t around when your grandpa was alive. And we all know what a man thinks when they take a lady there.”

  Breakfast over and appetite gone, Cal tried not to gag at the idea of his grandmother having sex, and failed. He knew that Hattie dated from time to time, but always told himself that dating in her world meant dance cards and bingo. Not fancy dinners and night caps.

  “We were scouting out a new location for the pageant and Sugar Pull, which we found, and you’re welcome.” He gave her a stern look to end the discussion. “Nothing more to report.”

  Hattie leveled him with an even sterner look that made him shift a little in his boots. When he refused to comment further, she pulled her phone out of her apron pocket. A few thumb swipes to the screen later, she held up a Facebook photo of Cal and Glory at the Falcon’s Nest, looking mighty cozy and 100 percent date-like at their secluded table for two with the sunset as a backdrop.

  “Christ,” Cal said, noticing there were more comments than there were people in town. “Who the hell posted this?”

  “Mable from the market. She was celebrating her fiftieth wedding anniversary when she saw, what she reported as”—Hattie read from the screen—“a steamy, secret tryst between the town’s wild child and Sugar’s sexiest bachelor. It says here at the bottom that you’re only the sexiest by default. Brett would have won but he’s married and Southern women don’t publically admit to coveting another woman’s husband—even if she is a Yankee.”

  To say that Joie and Hattie hadn’t started on the best of terms would be the biggest understatement in the history of women. But over the past year, they’d worked out their differences, mainly that Hattie was a busybody and Joie was a Yankee. Neither could change a thing about that, but they’d come to accept their differences.

  “Is that true?”

  “That I’m the default McGraw?” It was. Cal had held his own with women before Tawny. But Brett had the female population locked down by middle school and that was one area he didn’t mind letting his kid brother dominate.

  Hattie wacked her thigh with the spatula. “That you were having a secret date with Glo.”

  “It wasn’t a secret.” Hell, it wasn’t even discreet. “And it wasn’t a date.” Although the picture said differently. He could call it whatever he wanted, but one look at that snapshot and—his chest tightened and heart gave a hard, frustrated bump.

  God, this was bad.

  Glory was leaning in, her eyes twinkling with excitement—she had been telling him about her proposal for the new pediatric ward, and even though Glory in a miniskirt or sundress got him going, the image of her in scrubs working with kids melted something deep inside him that had no business melting.

  Then there was his smile. It was as big and stupid as a smile could get—and Cal wondered when was the last time he’d smiled and laughed like that with a woman.

  Sophomore year of college. He’d met this wild and sexy Savannah socialite at a party, bought her a drink, and asked her to dance. A two-step around the room was enough to seal his fate and Cal had fallen hard. He thought she’d felt the same, until a year later his parents died, and Tawny, not wanting to do the long-distance thing, broke it off.

  Four months later, she’d shown up in Sugar, panicked and pregnant, and Cal, not wanting to miss out on a second chance with the love of his life, proposed. They were married and parents by the end of the year. Tawny had checked out emotionally by Payton’s third birthday, physically by her fifth, and two long and painful years later she’d packed up and moved back to Savannah.

  Cal never figured out what he’d done to lose her or why he hadn’t been enough to make her happy. He’d watched his parents together, witnessed the incredible love they shared, really believed he’d had that with Tawny. But he’d been wrong. So incredibly wrong.

  Cal had given Tawny everything—his heart, his name, every ounce of his love—and she’d walked. Not just on him, but on Payton. That was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

  It was his job, his role as a parent, to model for Payton what a healthy relationship was, but when it came to women, Cal had learned he couldn’t trust his judgment, which was why going in that deep with a woman wasn’t an option.

  “Yup, we’re just friends.” And he meant it.

  But that picture. Christ.

  Payton burst into the room, backpack slung over her shoulder, cell phone attached to her fingers as she texted at supersonic speeds. She wore cowgirl boots, painted-on jeans, and a skimpy top that didn’t even qualify as clothing. Her hair was styled so that she was a good three inches closer to God and her lips were shimmery.

  Her phone chirped. She swiped, read, and squealed in a way that had Cal wanting to peek over her shoulder. It was the kind of noise teen girls made when conversing with or about a boy. Either way, he wasn’t having it.

  “Is that Kendal?” he asked, referring to Payton’s BFF since the second grade.

  “Nope. Mom,” Payton said, her heart right there in her eyes for everyone to see. Problem was, the only one who didn’t seem to notice was his ex-wife. “Coach e-mailed us that the newspaper is sending out a photographer to the game to take a picture of the team. The cheer team. For the front page! Can you imagine?”

  He could and he was damn proud of her. He wasn’t thrilled about her cheering for seniors, but she’d worked hard to earn
her place on the team.

  “I called Mom and she freaked, and then she called Bless Her Hair and made us appointments. She’s going to get a mani and I am going to get bangs and a blowout. She said she’d drive me to the game, since all the girls’ moms meet in the locker room to do hair and makeup.” Payton grabbed a strip of bacon and took a bite. “Oh, and she wants to have dinner after, the three of us. To talk.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Cal hoped he sounded genuine. He didn’t know how he felt about Payton wearing makeup or not driving her to her first game. But what had every one of his warning bells going off was that Tawny wanted to talk. Knowing his ex, it was something that would make his life more difficult. But Payton was excited and happy—two things he hadn’t seen from her since the Pep-Luck from hell—so he needed to man up and go with it.

  Thirty minutes, and a ten-point explanation on how all teen girls wear makeup, later, Cal dropped Payton off at school and stopped by the Gravy Train for his morning latte and a few minutes’ peace. He stepped out of the restaurant, to-go breakfast in hand, and found an empty park bench across the street. He leaned back, pulled out one of his breakfast eggrolls—he was starved so he’d ordered two—and took a big bite, washing it down with a sip of latte while savoring the blessed quiet.

  It was as close to peace as he’d come in weeks.

  “You going to eat all of that?” Brett asked, taking a seat next to Cal, the crinkling paper bag cutting through his quiet.

  Brett was in khaki shorts and a polo, and his face was way too sweaty for the time of morning, which meant he’d just come from the driving range.

  “You going to warn me when your wife tries to set me up next time?”

  Brett grinned. “Yeah.”

  “Great.” Cal stuffed the rest of the eggroll in his mouth, licking the hoisin sauce off his fingers. “Then next time I’ll get you one.”

  “Most guys would have been thanking me,” Brett said. “What’s wrong with spending some time with a sweet and seriously hot woman?”

  “Nothing.” Unless that time was shared with a sweet and seriously hot nurse with whom he’d talked himself right into friend territory.

  Brett was quiet for a moment. “Nothing, huh? I mean, it’s been a long time since Tawny left and if you’ve forgotten how to—”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything.” Except how much he hated talking about this kind of shit with his brother.

  “Whoa.” Brett laughed and put his hands up. “I was going to say date, but then I guess you’ve got that handled, too, right?”

  Cal slid his brother a glance and blew out a breath. “Shit, you saw Facebook.”

  “The whole town saw Facebook, including Joie. So I don’t think you have to worry about any blind dates from her for a while.”

  “It wasn’t a date.” Jesus, how many times would he have to say it? “So before you go warning me off, telling me it’s a bad idea, we’re just friends.”

  “Why would I do that? Glory’s great. Sweet, funny, real,” Brett said with so much confidence Cal had to check himself. “But if you say you’re just friends, then you’re just friends.”

  “You believe me?” Cal asked, not sure why Brett’s belief in him rubbed him the wrong way. Why him not pointing out what everyone else already knew—that he and Glory were a train wreck waiting to happen—didn’t make him feel any better.

  Maybe it was because his brother was investing his blind trust in a guy who was playing it off as harmless flirting while secretly hoping that their co-chairing time together would lead to, well, time together.

  Naked and panting.

  Brett stared at him a little too long. “You’re the most stand-up guy I know and right about now Glory could use a friend like you.”

  And didn’t that make him a million different kinds of bastard.

  Cal felt a red-hot rush of guilt because Brett was right. Sure, he wanted Glory, but he was also starting to like her. A lot. And just because that was all he was capable of offering didn’t mean she didn’t deserve more.

  “Just remember that when it comes to her and this town, people talk. Between her grandma’s health, that job at the hospital, and this BS about being commissioner, she already has a lot on her plate, so try to make sure that your friendship makes her life easier right now, not harder.”

  Cal wanted to ask how the hell he was supposed to accomplish that, since nothing between him and Glory was easy, but Brett was already walking down Maple Street—with Cal’s breakfast eggroll in hand.

  Glory made it a point to arrive early to the Harvest Council meeting. She wanted the firing squad to come to her, not the other way around, plus the town hall had air-conditioning, high-speed Wi-Fi, and free coffee—three things that her apartment did not. And after a long, restless night thinking about her annoyingly sexy co-commissioner, she needed caffeine and a concrete understanding of Excel if she was to make any kind of progress on her proposal.

  That had been the hope, at least.

  “Stupid piece of shit,” Glory mumbled, hitting Cancel on the “circular reference error.”

  An hour and three different YouTube tutorials later, Glory was looking at the same error warning, but she had composed a task list that spanned sixteen items long, which seemed like plenty. Except the sample proposal Charlotte gave her listed over a hundred carefully laid out steps, all with dependent timelines and a color-coded key to specify which department within the hospital it depended on—legal, corporate, human resources, administration, or medical staff—and what the estimated turnaround time was for each of the respective departments.

  Glory didn’t have a clue as to how long it would take legal to create a Liability Waiver for the volunteers or if the hospital already had one she could modify. And if they did have an existing one she could use, would she have to modify it or would they? Which led to another three questions and, ultimately, another three steps.

  Her other list, however, was going swimmingly. The one she’d started last night appropriately titled PROJECT GRANNY PANTIES: ACM—as in Avoiding Cal McGraw, or rather, abstaining from, she corrected, because that was hard work, especially when his lips were a millimeter from hers the other night.

  She flipped the page on her legal pad and, wow, look at that, fifty-seven clear reasons to keep her distance from Cal. The most recent being that she didn’t want to keep her distance from Cal.

  “Still winning friends and influencing people, I see.”

  The low, gravelly voice had her adding, DANGER TO HEALTH: CREATES IRREGULAR AND ANNOYING HEARTBEATS WHEN NEAR.

  Glory made a big deal of flipping the page back and scribbling FINISH TASK LIST to the bottom of her other task list and then hit Save on her spreadsheet before she looked up, even though she hadn’t added anything useful since the last press of the button.

  She took him in—all six foot two of chiseled muscle and messy male. “Busy day at the office?”

  Cal looked down and shrugged, as though he’d had worse. His work boots were splattered in concrete, his jeans weren’t much better, and his T-shirt clung to his body, defining every one of his ridges. He looked a little sweaty, a little dirty, and a whole lot like the guy in her dream last night—only in her dream he had on a tool belt and nothing else.

  He strode over with all the grace and strength of a man who walked across steel beams while balancing two-by-fours for a living and took the seat next to her, setting a red tin lunchbox on the table. He glanced at her legal pad and smiled. “How’s the project coming along?”

  “Great,” she said in her confident authority tone that worked on just about everyone she’d ever met. Except, of course, Cal, who reached over and touched the keypad.

  Her laptop sprang to life and a dancing paperclip wearing bright yellow shoes and matching scarf appeared on her screen. Cal’s finger hovered over the Play button.

  “Don’t.”

  But he did and the paperclip pulled out a cane and top hat, while belting out a catchy little
show tune about how with perseverance and proper planning, and a bunch of other P words that Glory hadn’t managed to master yet, the can’t would disappear right out of her Gantt.

  Cal shot her an amused look, only on him, amused came off as sexy. Hell, anything came off as sexy on Cal McGraw. All it took was those intense blue eyes to fall her way, combined with the slight tilting of those lips, and it was as though the temperature in the room had shot up fifteen degrees.

  “According to Professor Paperclip, all I need to do is enter all of these steps into a spreadsheet,” she said primly.

  “Professor Paperclip, huh?” Cal opened his lunchbox and pulled out a sandwich, setting it on a folded napkin. Something spicy and hearty filled the air. Next came a bag of BBQ potato chips—her absolute favorite—followed by a chocolate chip cookie and ice-cold can of diet cola. Glory eyed the condensation dripping down the can and felt her mouth water.

  Cradling half the sandwich between his big hands, he brought it to his mouth and was about to take a bite when her stomach, picking up on what she’d bet her best boots was meatloaf, growled.

  His gaze meet hers over the crust of the bread, and she saw his eyes crinkle and knew that he was smiling—at her. He took a bite and made a huge deal over moaning and savoring the sandwich—the big jerk.

  “You want half?” he mumbled, pushing the napkin toward her.

  She waved it off. “I have an energy bar.” Which would taste as good as the napkin his sandwich lay on. Actually, the napkin would taste better since little bits of grease and hot mustard had dripped down the side of the bread.

  “Take a bite. Just one,” he said with so much authority that she reached out to grab it before even realizing her hand was moving.

  She paused. “Did Payton make it?”

  “No, it came from the Gravy Train so you’re safe.”

  Unable to turn down Skeeter’s meatloaf, Glory picked it up, gave it a quick smell, and took a big bite. Sweet baby Jesus, it was the perfect balance of spice, tang, and mouthwatering grease that was like a party in her mouth.