Page 60 of The Fall Back Plan
She glances over her shoulder at me. “No. She thought maybe I was trying to win Phillip back, so she wanted to be clear about a few things. She said I lacked breeding, and I wasn’t fit for their lifestyle. She said I had showed too much of my origins, from my accent to my table manners, and that while I had done an admirable job of trying to refine myself, in times of duress, like wedding planning and political campaigns, people’s roots show true, and that wasn’t the kind of liability Phillip needed.”
“I—what—she—ungh.” I’m too stunned by Phillip Freaking Horsley’s mother’s nerve to form a sentence. I try again. “This woman had the gall to come over and say all that to you?”
Jolie pulls out some plates, but she has to check a couple cabinets to find them, like she uses them so little that she doesn’t remember where she keeps them.
“Different words, but it’s what she meant.” Jolie slides eggs onto each plate. “I’ll hand it to her, it was the nicest way I’ve ever been called a hillbilly.”
She sets a plate of eggs with a fork down in front of me, then takes a stool across from me and pokes at her own eggs. “Maybe I should have been the kind of person who rose above it. Given her Phillip’s pathetic box, showed her the door, and then gone back to work and kicked butt to prove none of it bothered me. But I couldn’t. I was furious, but at the same time, part of me felt like she’d told the truth about the parts of my life I’d tried to leave behind.”
I scoop up a bite of scrambled eggs and chew. They’re fine. The kitchen clearly isn’t where Jolie is going to find her mojo. “So coming back here was . . . what? Confirming what she thought about you?”
“Yep. I knew I didn’t want to stay in Chicago, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. When I left for college, I was so happy to be leaving but also nervous because I’d never been more than a hundred miles from Harvest Hollow. Ry told me not to worry, that if I hated Durham and college, Harvest Hollow could always be my fall back plan.”
She eats a couple bites of her eggs, but I stay quiet, sensing she isn’t finished talking. “Never thought I’d need it, honestly. But when Priscilla Horsley pressed on all my bruises, I figured I’d show them how country I could be. So I handed in my notice, bought the place I hated most in this town, hired movers, and bought every country boy’s dream truck and drove it h . . . ere.”
I wonder if she’d been about to say “home.” “Has it been all bad? Coming back and living down to her judgments of you?” I hate that she thinks of being in Harvest Hollow that way, but I’m trying to be a friend, and I push my sense of offense aside.
“All? No.” She sighs. “Surprisingly.”
“But some?”
She nods. “Enough.”
This frustrates me, but I think about Wayne Oakley marching in with Sloane to accuse Jolie of some nonsense simply because they’ve had beef since high school. “I’d like to argue with you, but I can’t, having just spent an hour with you trying to clear your name of bogus charges.”
“The lack of deep-dish pizza is also a negative. And I got used to good shopping.” She smiles to show me she’s choosing things that don’t matter in an effort to downplay the hard parts of coming back. But it’s the kind of smile that squeezes my heart because she’s forcing it.
“I can think of one fully excellent, purely good thing you get here and not there,” I tell her.
She pauses with her fork halfway to her mouth. “If you say it’s you, I’m going to flick my last forkful of eggs at you.”
“Good thing I’m going to say Brooklyn.”
She smiles and takes her bite. “Fair.”
“So let’s figure out how to keep that purely good thing going, and then we’ll figure out the rest of it.”
“All right, Lucas Cole. Using Brooklyn is a cheat code, but it’s going to work every time.”
“Good,” I tell her. “But I’m not using Brooklyn. I’m using you.”
She gives me a sharp look.
“Look, if a gorgeous woman with a smarter brain than anyone I know wants to spend time with my kid, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to say no.”
She drops her fork to her plate with a loud clatter and jumps up from her stool. “That’s it, Lucas Cole. Come over here and get that hug right now.”
Jolieofferinga hug? Yeah. Don’t have to tell me twice.
We both round the island and meet at one end, and she steps into my arms, sliding hers around my waist. Her chin doesn’t quite reach my shoulder, so she rests her head against my chest while she squeezes.
I wrap my arms around her shoulders and hold her there, a soft laugh rumbling out of me. “All I have to do for hugs is call you gorgeous and smart?”
“No. I’m hugging you for working so hard to take care of Brooklyn.”
Well, dang. That almost makes my eyes water. I tighten the hug, wishing I knew the words to tell this prickly armful of woman how special she is in a way that she’ll believe me. She hugs me back harder too, and I decide that this is the definition of a perfect morning. Even with the crime stuff.
But it can’t last, because all too soon, more-than-friendly feelings build in my chest, and the pure femininity of this contrary woman has my attention.
