Page 14 of Lemon Crush

“You’re right.” I got to my feet again. “I have to get all the details before coming to any conclusions.”

I walked back into the garage. “Hey Dalton, I need the Honda on the tow truck. I’m taking it back myself.”

The eyes over his impressive beard widened. “You don’t want me to call and have them pick it up?”

“Friend of the family,” I barked. Then I sighed. It wasn’t his fault I wanted to get on the road yesterday, if not sooner. “Never mind, I’ve got it.”

“Right, boss.”

“Wade, wait a minute,” Kingston said, trailing after me as I ducked into the office for the keys to both vehicles and then headed out back again.

I ignored him because I didn’t want to wait. She’d put it online yesterday, early afternoon. She could have offers by now. Hell, her address was right there for anyone to see. She could have unwanted visitors, looking to beat out the competition for an early viewing.

Had she thought any of this through? I looked down at my phone again. She was asking for a deposit but not renter’s insurance. She didn’t have a pet deposit listed, but she hadn’t said no to pets. That apartment was literally in her backyard. Did she realize she wouldn’t be able to let the dog out or go for a swim without her renter knowing about it? Was she ready for that kind of invasion?

“Wade.”

“What?” I growled, turning to look at him before realizing I’d overreacted. Again. “Thanks for breakfast, but I think I need to go take care of this.”

“Take care of what?” Kingston asked, looking bewildered. “She’s a woman in her forties renting an apartment on her own property. And she’s Morgan’s sister, not yours. This doesn’t seem like it’s any of our business. I’m not sure why you’re getting worked up about it.”

I was very aware that she wasn’t my sister, but instead of responding, I climbed into the truck, rolled down the windows to cool it off and cranked the engine. After using the remote to unfold and lower the boom, I backed over in front of August’s car, extending it carefully until it met the front tires. Then I locked the claws and raised the CRV’s front end off the ground.

When I got out and put on my gloves to strap the front wheels down, Kingston walked over to stand by the car. He was watching me with his head tilted to one side, as though trying to see things from another angle. It was a habit I hated, since he usually saw way too much.

“No way,” he finally said, crossing his arms. “No fucking way. That was years ago, Wade. You were rebounding from your ex and drinking that night. Hell, evenInoticed how good August looked in that dress, and she’s never been my type.”

He was talking about Morgan’s wedding, I thought as I hooked the D-ring into the claw and looped the strap behind the wheel.The wedding, and my drunken confession to my old friend when it was over. What he didn’t know was that it had really started years earlier at Sam’s.

Write it on my tombstone.Those fucking Retta weddings were this man’s downfall.

Sam’s “late to the party” wedding trip to Cancun was the first and only time I’d ever been on a cruise. She was married on the beach when we hit port, with her daughters handing out kazoos to friends and family to serenade the fifty-somethings up the sandy aisle.

That day, August’s curls were loose and wild, and she’d really worked her toy instrument as my sister sang an Otis Redding song about being made for each other. She was so vibrantly alive, I couldn’t stop staring at her. I’d even captured the moment with one of the disposable cameras they’d passed out along with the kazoos—which was uncomfortable, since I’d recently decided to have a quiet civil ceremony with the woman I was dating back home. I’d told myself it was only because, for the first time in years, I was seeing Gus in person instead of as a grainy image in one of her mother’s newsletters. That what I was feeling was simple nostalgia for the little bookworm who used to follow me around.

Morgan and Gene’s wedding a few years later had blown that theory out of the water.

I was the Bride’s Man and she was the Maid of Honor at the backyard gathering. It might sound like a line, but as soon as I saw August walking toward me in her silky wraparound dress, I swear fucking bells started clanging in my head.

Gone forever was the gawky pre-teen. In her place was a ripe, luscious beauty in her late twenties that I barely knew, with breasts that almost made this southern man cry. She was focused on her sister, but all I could see was her.

Of course, the timing was off again. Not only was I taking time off from dating while recovering from the shame of divorcingafter less than a year of marriage, but August had a new boyfriend who Morgan thought might be “the one.”

So that was that. She wasn’t local or available, and I wasn’t the type to force a square peg into a round hole.

“You never did anything about it though, right?” Kingston asked curiously when I moved around to strap down the passenger side wheel. “You and she never…?”

“No. We never did.” I regretted it more often than I wanted to admit.

For years after that, I hadn’t seen her for longer than a family dinner on her rare weekend visits, though she’d come more often when Gene was recovering from his surgery and going through chemo. When she moved back here four years ago this summer, my desire had come roaring back with her, as if it had been waiting for her to make a more permanent appearance. But she’d been nursing wounds from a bad breakup. Sam and Morgan hadn’t told me much, only that the long-term relationship had ended badly, and that it might be a while before she was ready for another.

More of our shitty fucking timing.

For a while there, it pissed me off. Wanting something I couldn’t have was never my style. I told myself she wouldn’t last a year before leaving again, not when six months in, she was already traveling to do publicity for her latest book and visiting her friends in California.

Her life was too big for the ordinary one I lived. She would move on eventually, and I would still be here. What I felt about her, what I thought we could have together, wouldn’t change that outcome. And because I couldn’t avoid her until she disappeared again, I’d done the only thing I could think of to maintain my sanity.

I’d been a dick.

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