Chapter Thirteen
Pippa kept her distance as Jo blew into Bella’s bristling with antagonism.
Bella took it all in her stride. Sweet, lovely, and an instant panacea to whatever bug Jo had up her ass. Probably a bug that strongly resembled Matt Evans. The damn man had that way with him. A little charm, a little good ol’ boy, a smidgen of helpless and they were all putty in his hands.
“Hi, Jo.” Time to get the meet and greet over with. If Jo didn’t want to do this, coffee was always an option. Coffee and cake. Lots and lots of cake, with calories oozing off the plate and into her mouth. Ray said she was packing on the pounds anyway.
Jo had changed in the years since Pippa had seen her. Gone was the pretty princess in her frilly pink dresses. Jo sported a biker grunge look, complete with a beautiful scrolling of ink up her arm. The eyebrow piercing—not so much.
“You’re back.” Jo packed a whole lot of attitude into two and a half words.
“Matt said you weren’t happy with your dress.” Bella charged straight in there, candy-coated balls to the wall.
“Which means Matt isn’t happy with my dress.” Jo stuck her lip out.
Her second year on the show, Pippa had dealt with a woman named Carly. Carly didn’t think she needed a makeover, and resented the fact that her mother did. It took Pippa three long weeks to come to the inevitable conclusion, you could lead a horse to water . . . “Okay.” She shrugged and smiled. “If you’re happy with your dress, that’s all that counts. It’s your day, after all.”
Jo blinked at her. “Yeah.”
“Do you have this in red?” She turned back to Bella.
Bella’s gaze flitted between her and Jo. “No. Red is not a big seller around here.”
“I don’t know why he wasted everyone’s time.” Jo clumped her big-ass boots farther into the shop. “Why didn’t he say he hated it when he was here?”
“You know men.” Bella fluttered her hand and turned back to Pippa. “I do have it in the most awesome midnight blue. It would go great with your complexion.”
“Do you hate the dress?” Jo fiddled with the edge of her eyebrow piercing.
Bella gave her a gentle smile. “I think you could wear a garbage bag and look beautiful, Jo. But, it really doesn’t matter what I think, or even Pippa. It only matters what you think.”
Damn, Pippa had underestimated Bella all these years. It was too easy to look at Bella and see pretty and harmless. If she was staying in Ghost Falls, getting to know Bella better would be top of her list. Friends, at least good ones, had been thin on the ground in LA. “She’s right.” Pippa kept her shrug light. “Midnight blue?”
“It’s not one of the most requested colors, but I think it really brings the fabric to life.” Bella flipped through the hangers with a practiced flick of her wrists.
“I hate blue,” Jo said.
“Really?” Pippa stole a smile from Bella’s arsenal. “Because you could probably wear most shades of it, with your skin tones.”
Jo shifted her weight onto one hip. “I like black, it goes with everything.”
“It sure does.” Bella produced the shirt. “Here we go.”
Pippa examined it. Bella was right on the money. The deep, almost purple hue gave the fabric a rich, luxurious quality. “I am so trying this on as well.”
“And I have a great pencil skirt that would look fabulous with that.” Bella bustled over to another rack.
Jo edged closer. She really was a beautiful girl with her mother’s delicate bone structure and porcelain skin. You didn’t have to like Cressy to acknowledge she was a very lovely woman.
“What’s so special about it?” Jo pointed at the shirt.
“The cut.” Pippa laid the shirt on top of a row of hangers. “You see these darts here. They taper the shirt in underneath the bust. It gives you a narrow waist and draws the eyes away from the widest part of me. In my case, my hips.”
Jo glanced down at Pippa’s hips. “They don’t look wide to me.”
“Then I’ve got the right outfit on.” Talking clothes was her crack and Pippa smiled. “Also, years of television will keep you on a diet.”
Jo had a killer body to go with that face. All long legs and sleek lines. God, she’d love to get the girl into a long tube of ivory satin. Nothing elaborate, nothing too overwrought. A perfect simple foil for Jo’s looks. “You don’t have my problem,” she said. “You have near perfect proportions.”
Jo blushed. “I have a fat ass.”
“You most certainly do not.” Bella appeared with a gorgeous gray pencil skirt in her hand.
Pippa itched to get her hands on it.
Bella turned and stuck her booty out. “I have a curvy ass because I’m an hourglass.” She swiveled back with a grin. “But I’ve got a rack to balance it.”
“Gimme.” Pippa nearly snatched the hanger from Bella.
“Maybe, I could . . . like, try the dress on for you.” Jo shrugged and tugged at her eyebrow ring.
“If you like,” Pippa tossed over her shoulder as she headed for the fitting room.
Bella followed her halfway and stopped beside Jo. “I have your dress in the back. I haven’t made the alterations yet, so I could pin it for you.”
“Okay.” Jo stomped into the fitting room beside Pippa and yanked the curtains across.
Bella danced over and gave Pippa a quick high-five. How had she missed out on Bella all these years?
Pippa did love the skirt and she hurried into her fitting room to try it on. It fit like a glove. Bella had guessed her size perfectly. The woman had mad skills. In her previous life, she would have found a way to steal those kinds of skills for her show.
Curtain rings clattered as Bella entered the fitting room next door. Fabric rustled as she pinned Jo into the dress.
Pippa pulled her clothes back on, kept the skirt firmly by her side, and went to sit on one of the pink velveteen divans.
With Bella’s impeccable taste in clothing, it seemed odd the decor had survived. It still looked like an eighties music video in here. Then again, Bella senior was stuck like glue in her ways.
Bella opened the curtains and Jo stepped out.
Dear God in Heaven.
Pippa schooled her features into neutral lines. It had to be the ugliest dress in creation. Ice white, so bright it hurt the eyes to look at the thing. It exploded around Jo in a myriad of ruffles and bows and goofy things that Pippa didn’t even have a name for. A great wad of fabric obscured the line of her waist completely. Huge capped sleeves ballooned out from her shoulders to her wrists and ended in more of those marshmallow puffs.
“What do you think?” Jo stuck her hands on her hips. Her biker boots poked out from the bottom of the dress.
Pippa thought the designer should be shot. She made a business of studying Jo. “Are you happy with your dress?”
“It’s a dress.” Jo shrugged.
Warning tingles shot up Pippa’s spine. A wedding dress should never be just a dress. Even the most low-key bride wanted to look good on her wedding day. Damn, Matt owed her lobster and Moët & Chandon for this. She raised her eyebrows in question. “You want my honest opinion?”
Jo hesitated, and nodded.
“I think you could do better.”
“Why?” Jo’s face clouded over with a brewing storm.
Make that lobster and Moët for the rest of her natural life. “That’s a lot of dress.” More dress than mortal man could stand. “And you’re getting lost in it.”
What had Bella been thinking, ordering that thing? Pippa threw her a quick glance.
Bella shrugged apologetically. “Jo picked it out of a magazine and we ordered it for her.”
“You hate it, don’t you?” Jo crossed her arms over her chest, obscuring her face with the sleeves.
There wasn’t a nice way to say this. “Yes.”
“And you?” Jo whirled on Bella.
“I think it’s the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen,” Bella said. “On the most beautiful girl in Ghost Falls, and that makes me mad as hell.”
“Well, damn.” Jo glowered down at her boots. “You could have said something before.”
Bella stared at her and Jo had the grace to blush. “Okay, maybe not.” Her head whipped around to Pippa again. “But I bought it, so now what do I do?”
The magic question, and it brought joy to Pippa’s day. “You let me give you a couple of dresses to try on.”
“I have the perfect dress.” Bella flat-out ran across the store to the formal dresses. Pippa would bet her head Bella did.
Three dresses later, Pippa’s warning tingle had grown into a yell.
Jo didn’t like the satin on one dress, lace was “old lady” on another. Jo glared at her reflection in dress three, working hard to find something she didn’t like. Good luck to her, because she looked incredible. Long and elegant, the dress molded Jo’s curves in rich, ivory silk. The designer would have wept for joy to see Jo wearing his dress. It was a perfect synergy of girl and gown. Nothing elaborate, no distraction from the lovely girl wearing it. Pippa had even gotten a bit teary-eyed when Jo first emerged in it.
She and Bella exchanged a glance, having their very own Say Yes to the Dress moment. Jo—not so much.
Matt, the arch manipulator, knew all along the problem had nothing to do with the dress. Son of a bitch was going to hear from her, in minute detail, what she thought of his clever little ploys. “Jo?” She moved to stand behind Jo in the mirror. “You look amazing.”
Jo pulled a face at herself.
“And I think you know you do.”
Jo’s hazel eyes met hers in the mirror. She glanced away again and back.
Tell me. Pippa clamped her teeth down on the shout.
“The dress is okay.”
“The dress is beautiful.” Bella eased over on silent feet. “And you look beautiful in it.”
Jo studied the toe of the neutral-color pump Bella had put on her feet.
Bella clapped her hands together and Jo jumped.
“I tell you what,” Bella said. “I think we need coffee and we need cheesecake with it. I’m going over to Mugged to get both. Why don’t you get out of that dress, and I’ll be back.”
Jo met both their gazes in the mirror. Indecision teetered precariously on her face, and then she nodded.
Pippa let out the breath she’d been holding. Now they were getting somewhere. While Jo changed back into her normal clothes, Pippa texted Matt. You owe me big. Let him chew on that for the rest of the day.
Her Twitter app showed fifty-six notifications.
Jo reappeared and clumped over to the divan to tie her boots.
Pippa backed off and waited. She got the feeling you couldn’t rush Jo.
Bella got back with the girl talk supplies. She arranged them on the table in front of the divan before popping over to the door and flipping the sign to CLOSED.
Jo sipped her coffee and ate half her cheesecake before she was ready to spill her guts. “I don’t feel like a bride.”
“How does a bride feel?” Pippa sipped her latte. Rachel and her café, Mugged, were new in town. Another great discovery that bore further investigation.
Jo shrugged. “Giddy. Excited. Happy.” Holy crap. Alarming, but not entirely a surprise. “The thing is”—Jo sat back in her chair as she grabbed a deep breath—“I’m not sure I want to get married.”
“Is it nerves?” Pippa had seen her share of brides, done a few shows on them too. Not her first rodeo, so there was more to this than wedding jitters.
Jo shook her head. Long hair fell over her cheek and obscured her face. “I don’t love him.”
It wasn’t the first time Pippa had heard that, either.
Bella’s eyes were huge in her face. She made an oh-shit face at Pippa.
“Then you shouldn’t marry him,” Pippa said.
Bella sucked in her breath and hid behind her large, cream topped coffee.
Jo turned to glare at her. “Just like that.”
“We’re talking about the rest of your life here. So, if you don’t love someone, it seems a long time to commit.”
“I could get a divorce if it didn’t work out.” Jo gave her coffee a belligerent slurp.
Pippa let Jo’s own words sink into her brain. Sometimes you had to know when to keep your mouth shut.
Jo leaped out of her chair on a strangled noise. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But I said I would and he’s all excited about the wedding.” She stopped and pulled a face. “That’s a lie. He couldn’t give a fuck about the wedding. He hasn’t asked me one thing about the plans. It’s just that . . .” Jo struggled in silence for a while, and paced. “Matt didn’t want me to marry him, but I fought him until he gave in. And my mother.” Jo let out another of her wounded animal noises. “I’ll never hear the end of it from her.”
Pippa would bet money on it. “Those are going to be difficult things to handle,” she said. “But not good enough reasons to get married.”
Jo threw herself back in the divan. She turned her head and gave Bella a small smile. “Why didn’t I talk to you before?”
Bella shrugged. “I was here.”
“And you?” Jo turned to Pippa. “How could you have said those things to that woman and be so nice to me?”
Pippa had to laugh. “Jo, people are never what they seem. I’m learning that more and more every day.”
* * *
Matt gave the bolt a vicious twist and tried not to picture Isaac’s neck as he did it. Day three and the plumber was still not back on-site. The owners were starting to give him are-you-going-to-be-done-in-time faces. At least the wife was; the husband did everything except roll his eyes and mutter “contractors.”
He really hated the assumptions that came with his job. The contractor tells you this date, add three weeks or a month. The contractor gives you a price, tack on another thirty percent for unwanted surprises.
This business that he’d clawed out of the gutter had been built on meeting his price and hitting his target dates. You might not get the cheapest price from Evans Construction, but you got one you could take to the bank and you moved into your house when they said you would.
And Isaac was missing. He’d packed his car late yesterday and not been seen since. The brief text early this morning to say he was fine had sent Mom into a fucking frenzy.
Matt had to leave the office and go around and calm her down. Of course, yesterday with Jo and Pippa and the dress had come up five minutes after he walked in the door. He loved his mom, he really did, but the best thing he did was move out of that house as soon as he could.
He’d tried to call Isaac eight times and the call always went to voice mail. So, he concentrated on what he could fix: the lack of a foreman at the Barrowitz house. A call into the plumber got that asshole moving at least, but he would need to find someone to oversee this job until Isaac got back from his little walkabout. Isaac hadn’t even called him to say he would be missing. Mind you, if Isaac had called, Matt would have taken a chunk out of his ass and told him to get the rest of it on-site.
Footsteps crunched over the sand and Eric popped his head around the doorframe. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself.” Matt got back to his plumbing. He needed to get these pipes in the wall so the drywallers could get started.
Eric crouched down beside him and watched him work for a while. “Got a spare wrench?”
Matt sat back on his haunches.
Eric traced the line of pipes with the tops of his fingers. “Why don’t I get started on this section while you work over there?”
“You still remember how?” Matt eyed the fancy shirt and designer jeans his brother sported.
Eric threw him a grin. “I still remember how.”
“Toolbox is over there.” Matt jerked his head to the center of what would one day be a kitchen. “Need to get these in so they can drywall. Cabinets are expected in a couple of days.”
Eric strolled over to the toolbox and bent to select a few tools. He stuffed a couple in the back of his jeans. The right ones, too. Matt didn’t mean to check on him, but Eric didn’t look like he knew an elbow from a coupling.
Eric glanced up and caught him staring. He shook his head and chuckled. “I still keep my hand in.”
“Oh, yeah?” Matt got back to his section of pipe, checking the angle of drainage before fitting another coupling.
Eric kneeled, not looking fussed about getting dirt on his fancy jeans. “Did I tell you about my house?”
“Nope.”
Eric lifted a section of pipe into place and clamped it. “I found this piece of land outside Denver. Beautiful place, right on the edge of a cliff.” He sat back and got a faraway look on his face. “When you stand there, it feels like you could see forever. No neighbor in sight.”
Matt could picture the spot, the kind of place he’d like to have. Maybe with a water cannon mounted on a deck that could shoot down any stray family member heading his way with a mind to complicate his life.
“Designed my own house.” Eric grunted as he gave the wrench a twist.
Matt sat back in surprise. Eric used to doodle as a kid, everything from Transformers to fruit in a bowl. “You designed your house?”
“Yup.” Eric stood and went over to fetch another section of hot water pipe. “Figured I’d built enough houses to know exactly what works and what I want.”
It made sense. Matt would like that, to sit down and design something from scratch. He’d have a big kitchen, big enough for a family. Except he was missing the wife part in this scenario. Like he had time for a wife. “Have you started construction?”
“Yup.” Eric crouched nearer to him. He really was quicker on the plumbing than Matt. The old competitive edge stirred and he got down to it. “But I’m doing it myself.”
“What?” Matt nearly pinched his finger in the joint.
“Myself.” Eric glanced at him quickly and back to his work. His face got a bit red. “I mean, everything I can do. I want to put myself in my house. Know what I mean?”
Matt did know what he meant. He just never thought Eric would have the same dream.
They worked in silence for a while. Eric manned the blowtorch, which pretty much meant the end of conversation. Eric flipped off the torch and pushed his goggles back on his head. “What’s next?”
“Bathroom.” Matt grabbed the toolbox and headed up the stairs.
Eric fell into step behind him.
“I’d like to see your house,” he said.
“Yeah?” Eric actually sounded surprised and Matt turned to stare at him.
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” Eric shrugged but a dumb little smile turned the corners of his mouth up. “Bring your tools.”
“I’d like that.”
“Me too.”
They were not much into big displays, he and Eric. This was nice, though. It felt right.
They got to the first bathroom and he showed Eric the blueprints. Eric nodded and got straight to work. It used to be like this in the days before their dad died. He and Eric trailing their dad onto site and chipping in. Shit, he’d been driving Bobcats before he had his license.
“You heard from Isaac?” Eric broke the silence.
“Nope. You?” Matt looked up from his drain to where Eric was putting in the ball joint for the shower.
“Nope.” Eric’s fancy pants were streaked with grit now. “But I never hear from Isaac anyway. No reason he would call me now.”
“Mom’s having a meltdown.”
Eric snorted and glanced his way. “Mom’s always having a meltdown.”
Something about Eric’s tone made Matt want to defend his mother. Never mind that he’d been thinking the same thing moments before his brother arrived. “She’s alone, Eric. She has a lot on her plate.”
“No, she’s not.” Eric tossed a wrench into the toolbox with a clatter. “She has you. She’s always had you to pick up where Dad left off.”
That sounded so wrong, and combined with the throwing of tools pissed him off enough to get him to his feet. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Come on, Matt.” Eric put his hands out in front of him. The same placating gesture he’d used the other day in Matt’s office. “All I’m saying is she leans on you. All the time. For everything.”
“She doesn’t have anyone else.”
“She’s a grown woman. You were a kid and that didn’t stop her from making you her little replacement husband.”
Eric should shut his fucking mouth now before Matt put his fist in it. His mother did not treat him like a surrogate husband; she needed him and she didn’t have anyone else. Who the hell else was going to step in and help her out? Not Eric, he’d been eighteen and heading for college. Nate was too busy tearing a strip through town and Isaac and Jo were too young. So, she’d turned to her oldest son. Her nineteen-year-old son.
Damn! He’d been a kid himself. Why exactly was he ready to smack Eric for something he’d thought a million times himself? He turned away and grabbed a trap to install for the bathtub. “She needed me.”
“And you were there for her.” Eric’s voice came from right behind him. A firm hand landed on his shoulder. “I’ve thought about this a lot, Matt. I’m not giving you shit about it. You did what you had to do, what Dad had raised you to do. But it’s seventeen years later and she’s still leaning on you.”
“Yeah.” What else could he say? It was the goddamned truth and there were days when the weight of his mother’s expectations hung around his neck like an anchor. An anchor keeping him here, stuck. The thought rattled his cage bad enough for him to shrug Eric off and stalk over to the window. The rough ground in front of the house needed leveling and landscaping before the owner moved in. Another job to add to the growing list. “Isaac should have called.”
“Yeah, he should have.” Eric got back to work, the soft clang of metal on metal sounding from behind Matt. “But I get why he didn’t.”
Jesus, what was Eric? Some kind of fucking Buddha or something? “Why?”
Eric laid down the showerhead and stood. “You’re gonna want to deck me for this as well. So, before I say anything, consider yourself warned.”
Matt braced for impact and jerked his chin for Eric to continue.
“It’s you, Matt. You’re so perfect all the time. It’s like you don’t have the normal shit the rest of us struggle through.”
“What?” Matt couldn’t believe he was hearing this crap. He had enough shit on his plate, only his eyeballs were still clear of it and they were clogging up fast.
“Something needs to be done and St. Mathew steps up. A problem comes up and St. Mathew whips on his white horse and fixes it.”
Damn, that stung enough to smack the breath from his lungs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Nothing ever gets to you, Matt.” Eric jammed his hands in his pockets. “Like now. You should be screaming a blue streak about the shit Isaac pulled. But no, you’re here, keeping the project on track, soothing Mom, being perfect.”
“I’m not perfect.” He would get mad, but this shit was too far out of left field to make any impact. “And what else can I do? The job has to get delivered. Mom is Mom.”
“You can do something for yourself.” Eric’s voice went low and intense. “You can call Isaac and tell him either he get his ass back here, or he’s fired. You can tell Mom to call one of that pack she hangs out with and cry on their shoulder. And you can tell me to fuck off.”
It surprised a laugh out of him. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Too late.” Eric flashed a quick grin. “I know what you gave up for us. I was there and I know you better than anyone. I saw you after you made the call to turn down your scholarship.”
The one and only time he’d gone out and gotten deliberately, messily, puke-his-guts-out drunk. He had a vague memory of Eric handing him a glass of water as he finished tossing his cookies.
“But this martyr shit is getting old now, and so are you.”
“I’m thirty-six.” Hardly out to pasture yet.
Eric took a wary step closer. “And if you don’t do something, next time we have this conversation you’ll be forty-six. Fuck, Matt, when was the last time you had a woman in your life who wasn’t your mother?”
“I have plenty of women in my life.”
“Real ones.” Eric pinned him with a hard look. “Women you give a shit about and not ones you bone and move on.”
Eric had a way with words. Matt shook his head to clear them out of his brain. Pippa’s laughing green eyes popped into his head. He was all big talk in front of her, but there was a woman a man could lose himself in. Except she had another life waiting for her that didn’t include him, so he was safe.
Safe? The word clattered around his brain. Why the hell did he need to be safe?
Eric’s eyes burned holes right through to the back of his brain, and left a smoking trail of nasty truth behind them. “You just want me to go into business with you.”
It was lame and half-assed and Eric snorted and pulled a face. He deserved the derision. “That’s bullshit,” Eric said. “And we both know it. I can get any contractor to work with me on this. I want you, because you’re my brother and I trust you. Most of all, Matt, I need to give you something back. You have no idea what it does to a man to know your entire life is built on someone else’s life-changing sacrifice.”
That sent him reeling. Matt had to grab hold of the wood framing to support his weight. “Everything you’ve built up, you did that, Eric.”
“Yeah.” Eric nodded. “Because you gave up your dreams, everything you ever wanted, to see the rest of us through.”
“I was glad to do it.” Did Eric not get how proud of him he was?
Eric looked at him, his eyes a little damp. “Always glad?”
Maybe not. Matt shrugged, his throat too thick for words. He didn’t do this feelings shit. It wasn’t him. Life got tough, he cracked a joke, threw down a little charm—and a beer—and eased on out of it.
Eric bent to pick up his wrench. “Let’s get this done.”