Page 4 of Daddy's Little Liar
“Hey, Kace,” he heard the familiar voice of his mom’s best friend. “I just dropped a lady in distress on your doorstep.”
He smiled and fished both his cell phone and wallet out of his top desk drawer. “Thanks, Margo. I’ve got her. Ladies in distress are my specialty.”
She scoffed. “That’s why I’m calling. Keep your distance with this one.”
He blinked, a little taken aback and not sure if he ought to be offended.
“I’m sorry?”
“No, I mean be nice but aloof. She’s hurt.”
“Her ankle,” he said. “I saw. Still, I’m a professional. I know how to treat my customers. You should know that.”
“I do. I also know she’s every bit your type, and if you’re not careful, you’ll knight in shining armor yourself into another bad relationship, then I’ll be sorry I ever gave her a ride. Be nice,” she repeated yet again. “But guard yourself.”
He almost rolled his eyes. “Got it,” he said. Agreeing with someone like Margo was always easier than trying to correct her. “I’m just going to fix her car and send her on her way.”
“That’s what everyone thinks with best intentions. The next thing you know, you’ll be going on dates, then… heartbreak. Just like…”
He rubbed his eyes. “Don’t say it, Margo, please.”
“Iris.”
She said it.
No longer smiling, Kace frowned. “Margo…”
“I always felt bad about hooking you with my daughter, Kace. I knew she wasn’t ready for a solid relationship. She’s a lot better for it now that she’s grown up some.”
“I know where this is going,” he warned. “No. Just no.”
“I saw it then, and I’m seeing it now, is all I mean,” the older woman protested. “Certain girls, they’ve got a look about them. The town’s too small. People like her get itchy for bigger and what they think’s a better place.”
He stifled a heavy sigh. “She just wants me to fix her car.”
“That’s what she says now. Just wait until she’s had a chance to look at you for a while. You need a girl vetted to small towns. One who knows what she wants already, who likes the fact we ain’t got big town amenities, like museums and zoos and such. One who doesn’t care we ain’t got more’n a bar to spend our downtime in, and yet who won’t want to live there.”
Here we go again. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Someone like the woman Iris is now.”
Bingo.
“All right, look,” he cut in firmly. “Iris and I had—”
“An unfortunate situation, but you know she’s ready to forgive you. You just got to find it in your heart to forgive her, too. Nobody blames you for what you did. Hell, I’m her mama, and I don’t blame you. T’were pure provocation to step out on you the way she did.”
And everyone in town knew it, which had been the problem now for most of the two years since his marriage of seven months fell apart.
“She didn’t step out on me, Margo,” he said flatly. “She slept with our neighbor. She had, in fact, been sleeping with him practically from the moment we married. She lied to me, to my face, I can’t even guess how many times.”
“And God got her back for it. She got pregnant, and your neighbor’s a skunk.”
“He’s not my neighbor anymore. He moved to Utah.”
“Serves him right. The point is, you gave her a lot to think about when you… you know… did what you did.”
“I spanked her ass,” he reminded her. Sure as hell, no one else in town was about to forget that part. It had been anything but his proudest moment.
