Page 2 of 40 and (Tired of) Faking It
“And that’s why I’m meeting with Lillian Easton first thing in the morning. We’ve got a fantastic plan; you know we do. With the town mayor for support, hopefully we can get this project moving.” JD could be very persuasive when he put his mind to it. The lady mayor, as they’d taken to calling Mayor Easton, didn’t stand a chance.
“I hope you’re right.” Doubt colored Linc’s words.
“Of course I’m right. They don’t call me Mr. Charming for nothing, you know. This is my job. I do know how to do my job.” He might not want to be doing it here, in the place he’d left behind thirty years ago, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. “I’ll have panties dropping with my first steps into town, promise.”
“Speaking of panties…”
The words brought a groan from deep in his chest. The afternoon light became gloomier as he drove farther into the foothills, and he slowed as he racked his brain for the memory of the turnoff toward his family’s land. “Linc…”
His friend, of course, ignored the warning. “So Carter said Alicia was going off on social media last night about men being assholes.”
Shit.Exactly why he hadn’t been scrolling during the long wait at the airport this morning.
“I take it she was referring to you.” Linc’s statement was flat, not a question.
JD grunted. He really didn’t want to talk about his ex or hear about how much of an asshole he was for breaking things off. She’d known from the get-go that he enjoyed her, but he had never misled her into thinking he was looking for anything permanent. His career was his passion, not the women he dated. “She’d have been bored as hell down here anyway.”
Linc’s silence screamed that he wasn’t buying that excuse. Since JD’s divorce in his twenties, when his career first started taking off, all his energy had been targeted toward work. Having a steady girlfriend made sex convenient, but he wasn’t going to invest long term and his friends knew it. He sure as hell made certain the women he dated knew it. A permanent family wasn’t for him. He had his brothers, and that was all he needed. Or wanted.
“Someday some woman is going to knock you off your feet, bro. You won’t be able to walk away then.”
“I’m a bit old for that to be happening, aren’t I?”
“Forty-eight isn’t too old to find someone you care about, for fuck’s sake.”
“It’s definitely too old to find someone. And to be a diehard romantic.” Which Linc was, gruff as he might seem. His tatted, buff-as-hell-despite-his-age friend was a widower, and losing his wife a few years ago hadn’t diminished his belief in love. JD couldn’t fathom having that much faith in anything. “I’ve yet to find a woman I couldn’t walk away from, and after this long, that’s the way it’ll probably stay.”
He slowed and put his blinker on—not that there was anyone else on the isolated highway—as he approached the winding road that went up the mountain the Lane family owned.
You mean,youown.
Exactly.
“You know what I can’t walk away from?” he asked Linc. “This project. Now get back to your kitchen and your bok choy and let me get up the mountain. I’ve got a lady mayor to impress tomorrow, and that means settling in and sleep. And shitty food.”
Linc’s laugh was lost as JD clicked off the phone.
Chapter Two
Lily Easton pushed open the door to Black Wolf’s Bluff’s only coffee shop, Wildwoods Brew, and winced when the sound of party horns blared from behind the counter. Every face in the shop turned to stare as she crossed the room to the counter where Claire, Maria, DeeDee, and several others stood cheering, and not because she’d shown up for her usual morning coffee run. No, they were making a big deal because today was her birthday. A big birthday.
Her fortieth birthday.
Not a day she wanted to shout from the rooftops. But she couldn’t stop a smile from curving her lips as her friends’ enthusiasm lifted her mood. In small towns like Black Wolf’s Bluff, everyone knew everyone else’s business, and though that hadn’t necessarily worked in her favor the past few years, today it made her feel loved.
No matter how old she was.
“Happy birthday!” her best friend, Claire, shouted as she reached the register. Her dark brown hair bounced above her shoulders in wild curls, echoing her enthusiasm as the staff continued to blow their brightly colored party horns.
“Thank you!” Lily shouted, matching Claire’s perky tone.
Claire stuck her tongue out like they were way back in elementary school, not mature women reaching birthdays with numbers they didn’t want to announce. “Hey, it’s my prerogative to make a big deal if I want to.”
“Right?” Maria added. The owner of the coffee shop hurried around the counter to grab Lily in a big hug. “We can celebrate if we want to. And you should celebrate too,pana.”
Lily returned her friend’s warm embrace, the scent of coffee and cream and mouthwatering pastries filling her lungs. “Thank you, Maria, really. Y’all have made my day special.”
“And it’s just the beginning,” Claire said, piling onto the hug. “Wait till you see what I’ve got for your present.”
