Page 26 of Beneath Southern Stars

“Pepper is what everyone calls her.”

Laney nods and follows me into the main part of the house. “I wasn’t sure if Pepper would be awake and thought she’d get a kick out of them.”

“Wine? That spot of tea?”

She laughs. “Water is fine.”

While I get us two glasses of water, Laney moves around the space, looking at the décor and finally settling on the sectional. She looks at the fireplace that’s more decorative than functional and smiles.

“Here you go.”

She takes the glass from me and lifts it to her lips, taking a small sip. I take the seat next to her and lean back into the cushions, my arm resting on the back. My hand is close enough I could touch her with a slight movement. She leans forward and sets her glass on the coffee table.

When she moves back to her spot, she buries her face in her hands. “I’m nervous.”

Thank goodness I’m not the only one. “Me too.”

Her eyes lift to peek through her fingers. “Really?”

I nod and stretch over to place my glass next to hers. I watch as she moves her hands to her lap, fingers twisting. Her unease is evident, and I hate that she may feel uncomfortable.

Gently, I shift closer, closing the space between us and placing my hand over hers. I watch as her shoulders drop. Our eyes meet and my thumb traces circles along her soft skin.

“Yeah, really. There’s something happening here that scares the shit out of me. I came to Magnolia Grove to get some space from all that we lost, I never expected to meet someone like you.”

Laney sinks into the cushion and sighs. “Ryan, we hardly know one another.”

She has a point but still, something is there. Not much can come of it. We live in two different states and my life is a cluster, to say the least.

“That doesn’t mean there isn’t chemistry. You’re a scientist, you understand chemistry.”

An eyeroll and then a smack on my arm cuts through any of the awkward tension that was lingering. We laugh and talk about the Jubilee and the anxiety she felt being on stage. Slowly we find ourselves closer, her legs are stretched over mine and my finger plays with the loops of her sweater.

“I need to know how a Violet gets the nickname Pepper. By the way, I love the name Violet. It’s timeless.”

“Can’t take the credit, Katie, Pepper’s mom, picked it out. Actually, when she was about ten years old, she decided her daughter would be Violet and her son, should she have one, would be named after her father.”

“What’s his name?”

I cringe a little and say, “Steve.”

Laney snorts out a laugh and covers her mouth. “You can’t be serious.”

When I don’t answer, she laughs some more. Finally, she settles down and smiles at me, causing my heart to flip. “You almost had a kid with the same name as my dog. That’s hilarious.”

I lift a brow, and she lifts a hand to playfully smack my arm but I capture it in mine and shift so her legs slide from where they rest on mine. With a swift motion, I tug her forward, but she catches herself from tumbling with her hands on my chest. My hands slip around her waist and her eyes stay on mine as I position us so she’s moved to my lap, a leg on either side of me.

“Do you want the story or not?”

She smirks and nods her head. “When Katie was pregnant, she was reading every baby book available. She found one that used different peppers to represent the size of the baby. So, we started calling the baby Pepper. Then when she hit her second trimester, all she wanted was spicy food. So, Pepper stuck.”

“That might be the cutest thing ever. I have a distant cousin called Peanut. I think I’d rather be a Pepper. Plus, he’s like fifty-five and still Peanut. Come to think of it, I don’t think I know his actual name. Huh.”

I lift my hand, thumb tracing the bottom of her lip. “You are meeting a different version of my daughter, but she is a spicy little thing, full of sass. Pepper is more fitting than Violet these days.”

It’s slow but we’ve moved closer to one another. “I know you said we don’t know one another but I want to know you, Laney.”

“Langston.”

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