Sweet Southern Nights

Her censure surprised him.

“Maybe you don’t really know me,” he said, his words soft as the night descending around them. Eva’s face glowed in the light cast from above them. She looked so different with her hair down that he wanted to touch her.

Which freaked him the hell out.

This was Eva, his best bud. The person who complained about him using all the toothpaste and eating all the yogurt. The woman who left a nest of hair in the drain and beat him at Scrabble every single time they played at the station. This was the one woman he’d never let himself have the slightest attraction for.

So, yeah, freaked out.

Eva bit her bottom lip, and Jake found himself really looking at her lips for the first time. They were perfectly proportioned—not too big, but not thin. Pretty lips covered in a creamy lipstick the color of plums.

Weird.

“I’m not trying to be mean, Jake. You know I love ya, dude, but just give Jenny some space. She’d go home with you tonight, but she doesn’t need that right now. You know?”

“I wasn’t planning on taking her home. I was joking when I rubbed my hands together. You know what a joke is, right?” He sounded petulant. Like a kid who’d asked for dessert and got a big fat no.

Eva smiled then. A strained smile but a smile. “Sure, Jake. I’m acquainted with jokes. Just last week there was that snake in my bed. Ha-ha.”

“That snake was cute. Admit it,” he said.

“Only you would think a snake was cute.” She opened the door and slid inside Ray-Ray’s, leaving him outside contemplating the odd dynamics that had just occurred between them. Or maybe it wasn’t between them. Maybe it was him.

Something he couldn’t explain had ricocheted out of nowhere and popped him right in the face.

And he didn’t like it.

He wanted a take-back because he didn’t want to see Eva as anything other than what he’d always seen her as—his bud. Sure, he knew she was attractive. He hadn’t missed that. Pretty obvious. But from day one, he had shifted her into a sort of “family” slot.

But something had happened just a minute ago.

No. It was just a trick of the light or something—it had to be. Nothing had changed. Eva was Eva. And he was the same as he’d always been.

Mostly.

So he felt itchy in his skin and maybe dissatisfied with his life. That wasn’t new. He went through periods of melancholy...of dwelling on what if.

What if he’d gone to law school?

What if he hadn’t tried to avoid that deer?

What if Clint hadn’t ended up in a wheelchair?

What if Angela hadn’t died?

What if he didn’t live in this godforsaken town anymore?

Yeah, his life was a pile of what-ifs.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_bdd5e086-ba7c-53b0-8d6a-870b1da8204c)

EVA HANDED THE stack of trendy jeans to Fancy Beauchamp. “Here, Mrs. Beauchamp. These go on that table up front.”

Frances “Fancy” Beauchamp was the chairman of the Ladies Auxiliary Annual Rummage Sale to benefit the local women’s shelter. She had hair the color of rhubarb, a smile as wide as her son Jake’s and plenty of pluck to temper her image as the perfect pastor’s wife. “Thank you, darlin’,” she said, taking the jeans. “And if you keep calling me Mrs. Beauchamp, I’m going to go lookin’ for my mother-in-law. We don’t need that battle-ax around today.”

Eva reached deeper into the last black garbage bag councilwoman Hilda Brunet had dropped off at the church and pulled out a pair of heels she was certain cost the same as her new flat-screen TV. “Don’t let Jake hear you call his MeeMaw a battle-ax.”

“Ooooh,” Fancy said, forgetting about MeeMaw Mollie and snatching the shoes from Eva’s hand. She snuck a peek inside the shoe. “Manolo. I might buy these myself.”

“They look like they’d hurt your feet.”

Fancy laughed. “Well, honey, sometimes we must suffer to look a little taller and thinner. I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”

“You’re a preacher’s wife. Aren’t you supposed to be above lust?”

“I’m pretty sure Paul didn’t know the relationship between women and shoes when he talked about the sins of the flesh,” Fancy joked. Then she twisted her lips. “I’m teasing, you know. I don’t have to have Manolo shoes. I’m content with what I have. But they would look great with my black skirt and the sequined sweater I bought on sale at Chico’s.”

“Well, if they match, you should go for it. It is, after all, for charity.”

“Right!” Fancy snapped her fingers before giggling. “I knew you’d validate me, Eva.”

Eva smiled at Jake’s mom. Like her son, she kept things light and fun. Always joking, cajoling, fattening people up with her “special” recipes, which was code for “a lot of butter.” Fancy was the mother Eva never had.

“That’s me. Validator.”

Fancy motioned toward her daughter, Abigail. “Hey, Abi. Eva wants to be called Eva the Validator.”

Abigail pushed back dark hair with the cool swoosh of silver. Eva always thought Abigail looked dramatic...and a little like Cruella de Vil. “Why? Is she in charge of validating parking or something? I thought it was free.”

Fancy giggled at her joke. “No, she just validated my purchase of your cousin’s shoes. Look.”

She held them aloft and Abigail rolled her eyes. “Mom, you’ll break an ankle in those. I’m not ready to change your diaper yet.”

Fancy frowned. “As if I’d let you change my diaper. Jakey will take care of me, won’t you, honey?”

Jake had been walking by, carrying a large box filled with kitchen items. “Whatever you need, Mama.”

“See?” Fancy said to Abigail, propping a hand on her hip.

“She wants you to change her diaper,” Abigail called after him.

“I’m out,” Jake said.

“Wait a minute, I changed your diaper until you were nearly three. You owe me, buster.”

Jake set the box down and grinned, “I’ll get married and put that in the prenup. My wife will have to give me foot massages and learn how to make good cornbread, throw a baitcast reel and change my mother’s diaper.”

Abigail snorted. “Good luck with that, Neanderthal.”