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“Don’t start with me,” Carlene warned. “I don’t need no damn lecture from you.”
“I wasn’t going to lecture you.” Lexi silently counted to ten. “However, you really do need to take better care of yourself, Ma. Your doctor’s right. You’re playing Russian roulette with your life by smoking the way you do.”
Carlene took a long, defiant drag on her cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke right into Lexi’s face. Though her eyes stung, she refused to flinch. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction.
The strategy worked.
Scowling, Carlene stubbed out her cigarette with short, angry jabs punctuated with muttered expletives. “I’m getting sick and tired of you telling me what to do in my own goddamn house.”
Technically, the house belonged as much to Lexi as it did to Carlene. She’d helped her mother purchase the property by cosigning the mortgage loan and supplying the closing funds. If her cookbook sold well—and by all early indications it would—she intended to buy her mother some badly needed new furniture, which she’d been unable to do at the time because she’d nearly depleted her savings account.
“You never answered my question,” Carlene said sourly. “How was Paris?”
“It was great,” Lexi replied. “But we didn’t actually stay in Paris. Asha has an amazing château in the countryside.”
“A château?” Carlene’s voice dripped with scorn. “Well, well, well. Look at you, Miss Thang. Moving up in the world.”
Lexi tensed, mentally kicking herself for forgetting one of her cardinal rules: Always downplay your good fortune to avoid rubbing salt into the wound of your mother’s broken dreams.
“I have something for you.” Hoping to placate Carlene, Lexi reached inside a bag under the table and withdrew one of the bottles of wine she’d brought back from Burgundy.
Carlene took the bottle, her dark eyes narrowing on the gold leaf label.
“Pinot noir,” Lexi volunteered. “It’s a red wine. Very rich.”
“I bet. It looks expensive. How much did it cost?”
“I meant rich in flavor. Full-bodied. And it didn’t cost me anything.” Lexi hesitated. “It’s a gift from Asha. From her vineyard.”
She half expected her mother to hurl the bottle across the room. Instead Carlene arched a surprised brow. “She grows wine, too? On top of running a fashion company? Good Lord, what doesn’t that woman have her hands all over?”
Lexi shrugged. “She considers herself a connoisseur. Er, she enjoys good wine,” she quickly amended, lest she be accused of throwing around fancy words. “When she bought the château several years ago, she didn’t want the surrounding vineyards to go to waste. So she decided to go into the winemaking business. But she’s pretty much hands-off. Her employees run the whole operation.”
“While she gets richer,” Carlene said, her voice laced with jealousy. “Must be nice.”
Lexi said nothing. She would not be baited into a petty argument over Asha Dubois. God knows she and her mother had quarreled enough when she’d told her that she was spending New Year’s at Asha’s second home in France. Carlene had accused her of preferring the company of strangers over her own family, even though Lexi had just spent Christmas with her—unlike her brother and sister, who’d wisely opted to stay in New York for the holidays.
How many times had Lexi questioned her sanity for remaining in Atlanta all these years? After graduating from the French Culinary Institute in New York, she could have easily justified putting down roots there. But she’d come back home, compelled by forces she couldn’t explain. Her siblings called her a glutton for punishment. Maybe they were right.
“Thanks for the wine,” Carlene said. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.”
Encouraged by the uncharacteristically gracious words, Lexi smiled. “Maybe you and I could go there together next time.”
“Where? To France?” Her mother snorted. “Why would I wanna go there? They hate Americans.”
“Not all of them. I met some very warm, friendly French people.”
“Sorry, baby. Not interested.”
Of course, Lexi mused. What was she thinking? Her mother had never stepped foot outside of Georgia, let alone traveled to another country.
“How’s Michael doing?” Carlene asked.
“Great. He and Reese are so excited about the baby. They’ve got the nursery set up in their new house, and they’ve been eagerly counting down to the due date.”
“That’s nice.” Carlene heaved a lamenting sigh. “Shame you couldn’t snatch him up before she did. All those years of friendship. Seems like such a waste.”
Here we go again, Lexi thought with a sigh. She and her mother had covered this territory so many times, she already knew what was coming next.
“Maybe if you hadn’t spent so much time trying to be one of the boys, Michael would have seen you more as a woman he could love.”
Striving for patience, Lexi said evenly, “I know this is still hard for you to believe, Ma, but I’ve never been romantically interested in Michael. And I’m glad he never saw me as more than just a friend. He and Reese are absolutely perfect for each other. I’m happy for them, and I wish you could be, too.”
Carlene sniffed disdainfully. “I never said I wasn’t happy for them. I’m just pointing out that you’ve known Michael longer than Reese has. So if anyone should have clipped his bachelor wings, it should’ve been you.”
Lexi shook her head at her mother’s warped logic. “I’ve been friends with Quentin just as long,” she challenged, “and I don’t hear you saying the same thing about him.”
“Quentin?” Carlene scoffed with a laugh. “Oh, baby, that one’s a lost cause. A rascal through and through. Even his own mama knows he’s never going to settle down and give her grandbabies.”
“Things change,” Lexi heard herself saying. “People change.”
Her mother snorted. “Not Quentin Reddick. Even if you were his type—”
Lexi bristled. “Quentin doesn’t have a ‘type.’ He’s an equal-opportunity womanizer.”
Carlene’s brows shot up. “Why are you getting so huffy? It’s not like you’re interested in Quentin.”
“Of course not,” Lexi snapped irritably. “But when you say things like that to me, you make me feel like I’m not even attractive enough to catch the eye of someone like Quentin.”
“Of course you are. But all the good looks in the world can’t keep a man who’s hardwired to stray.” A nasty, satisfied gleam lit Carlene’s eyes. “You know that as well as I do.”
Lexi flinched as the verbal dagger struck home. She should have been immune by now to her mother’s penchant for cruelty, but she wasn’t. After years of railing bitterly against unfaithful men, Carlene had felt vindicated when Lexi caught her husband cheating on her. Since the divorce, Carlene had never missed an opportunity to remind her daughter that they were more alike than Lexi wanted to believe.
“Just once,” she said in a low, strained voice, “could you at least pretend to be sorry that my marriage only lasted two years?”
Carlene sputtered, taking umbrage. “Why would you say something like that to me? I did feel bad for you!”
“You sure have a funny way of showing it.”
“Don’t put this back on me,” her mother snapped. “I told you Adam McNamara was no good, but you insisted on marrying him anyway! If you’d just listened—”
Lexi threw up a trembling hand. “Can we not talk about this tonight? It’s bad enough that the date of my wedding anniversary is coming up next week.”
Carlene faltered, something like pity softening her features. “I forgot.”
Lexi’s mouth twisted sardonically. “I wish I could.”
In the ensuing silence, her mother removed a pack of Newport cigarettes from the pocket of her robe. She toyed with it for a moment, then reluctantly set it aside. In a more conciliatory tone, she said to Lexi, “You haven’t finished telling me about your trip.”
Lexi hesitated, then admitted, “It was wonderful.”
“Really? What was so wonderful about it?”
“Everything. The food, the wine, the scenery.” She smiled faintly. “The balloon ride was definitely one of the highlights.”
“Come again?”
At her mother’s dumbfounded look, Lexi laughed. “Quentin convinced me to go on a hot-air balloon ride with him. Can you believe it? Me, the woman who’s so afraid of heights I have to take sedatives before getting on a plane. Shocking, right?”
“Not that shocking,” Carlene drawled in amusement. “That rascal can talk a woman into doing anything—and probably has.”
Lexi smiled distractedly. For the first time in days, she had something other than Quentin’s powers of persuasion on her mind. “You know, Ma, I’ve always wondered why I’m so terrified of heights.”
Carlene hesitated. “Some people have phobias. That’s always been yours.”
“I know. But it’s so damn paralyzing. It’s almost like…I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
There was a small silence.
Carlene was suddenly eyeing her pack of cigarettes like a junkie craving a fix.
Lexi smiled wryly. “If I didn’t know better, I would think something happened to me when I was a baby. Maybe one of the nurses dropped me, or—”
Her mother’s gaze swung sharply to hers. “Or what? What are you asking me?”
Taken aback by her reaction, Lexi stammered, “N-nothing. I’m just—”
“What the hell’s gotten into you tonight? First you accuse me of not being sympathetic enough about your divorce. Now you’re accusing me of, what, child abuse?”
Lexi frowned. “Of course not.”
“You’ve never forgiven me for what happened that night,” Carlene fumed bitterly. “No matter how many times I’ve apologized for what I did, you’re still holding it against me!”
“That’s not true!” Lexi burst out in angry disbelief. “If I still blamed you, would I be here? You treat me like crap, Ma, but guess what? I’m. Still. Here.”
Resentment darkened her mother’s face. “I know what this is about. You spent the weekend with that bourgeois woman and decided she was a better mother than me because she’s rich and sophisticated and drinks fine wine. Well, let me tell you something. I did everything for you and your siblings when you were growing up. Everything! I have nothing to—”
Lexi shoved her chair back from the table and stood on trembling legs. She’d had enough of her mother’s diatribes for one night. “I can’t do this. I need to go.”
Carlene said nothing as she stalked out of the room to retrieve her coat from the hall closet. She jammed her arms into the sleeves, struggling to get her emotions under control before she got behind the wheel to drive home.
When it became apparent that her mother wasn’t going to see her to the door or even say good night, she sighed harshly and strode back into the kitchen.
Carlene was already lighting up another cigarette.
“Good night, Ma,” Lexi said tersely.
Sucking in a lungful of smoke, her mother gave her a dismissive wave. The same way she’d greeted her when she arrived.
As Lexi slammed out of the house, she wondered, for the millionth time, what the hell was keeping her in Atlanta.
Chapter 5
On the other side of town, Quentin sat alone at the end of a long mahogany bar in Wolf’s Soul, a popular Atlanta restaurant owned by his best friend, Michael. Quentin was hunched over a bottle of beer he’d been nursing for the past half hour.
Taking a long sip, he looked up at the plasma television mounted above the counter. A rerun of Michael’s Emmy-winning show, Howlin’ Good, was on the air. It was one of the “macho man” themed episodes, which featured no-frills recipes geared toward “manly” appetites. Michael hosted one of these shows every season as an opportunity to invite his father’s old police comrades to fill the studio audience. The men stomped, hollered and cheered their way through the whole taping. And viewers loved every rowdy minute of it.
Quentin watched in brooding silence, his eyes glazing over the familiar images.
“Whose funeral was today?”
He glanced around as Michael plopped down on the stool beside him, dressed in his white chef’s jacket and black pants.
“What’s up, man?” he greeted Quentin, clapping him on the back.
Quentin grunted in response.
A bottle of beer materialized before Michael. “On the house, boss,” the bartender said with a wink and a grin.
Michael grinned back, raising his bottle in a mock toast.
The man hitched his chin toward Quentin. “Can I get you another cold one, Counselor?”
“Naw, I’m good. Thanks.”
As the bartender moved off to tend to another customer, Michael took a swig of beer and eyed Quentin’s brooding profile. “Seriously, man. Did someone die?”
“No,” Quentin murmured. “I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Of course.” Michael nodded. “The trial starts tomorrow. That’s all Marcus has been talking about for weeks.”
Last year, Marcus Wolf’s prominent law firm had been renamed Wolf & Reddick, LLP to reflect Quentin’s changed status as joint owner. One of his first moves had been to file a lawsuit on behalf of an employee who’d been wrongfully terminated by a health-insurance company after he spoke out against his employer’s fraudulent claim-denial practices. As lead counsel, Quentin would argue the case before the Georgia Court of Appeals.
The upcoming trial should have been uppermost on his mind tonight. The pure adrenaline rush of preparing for a big case, the anticipation of going up against a formidable adversary. This was what he lived for.
So why were his thoughts dominated by a woman he couldn’t have—and had no business wanting?
Michael was talking, his deep voice blending into the other background noise that filled the busy restaurant. “…says you’re the best litigator to take on those health-insurance sharks. He says you’ve been salivating at the opportunity to make mincemeat of them in court.”
Quentin took a long pull on his beer, humming the appropriate “mmm-hmm” to let Michael know he was listening. Even though he wasn’t.
There was a pause.
“On second thought,” Michael continued, “what Marcus really said is that you’re gonna totally blow the case. He thinks you’re gonna be outmatched and outmaneuvered by the defense team’s high-powered lawyers.”
“Uh-huh,” Quentin murmured, his mind drifting thousands of miles away to Burgundy, and the balloon ride with Lexi. He remembered the way she’d gazed out across the stunning landscape, her face aglow with wonder and exhilaration. After a while, he’d found himself watching her more than the view. Because as amazing as the sights were, he knew the experience wouldn’t have been the same without her by his side.
“…planning a surprise baby shower. And Lexi says she’s going to—”
