Chapter Six
Susan had quickly gathered her jacket and her purse as Bethany drug her from the house.
“Tell me where you’re going and I’ll meet you there,” she said as she noticed Eric getting into his truck. “There isn’t room for three of you in that truck let alone four of us.”
The man who had been waiting in the truck stepped out. She recognized him from the funeral and the reception at the house. He wasn’t near as tall as Eric, but they had similar features. He too was handsome, but with a more forlorn look.
“Susan, this is Dane,” Bethany said as he stepped out of the truck.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she said with a gracious smile. “So where are we going?”
“The Rookery,” Eric said flatly.
“On Cherry?”
He gave her a nod. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Dane, go with her. I can’t tell her how to get there. I don’t even know where I’m at,” Bethany added as she climbed into the truck.
Did he wince? Susan was sure that was what he’d done. How was this going to be a fun night?
Bethany shut the door to Eric’s truck and they pulled away from the curb.
“He’s short tempered, isn’t he?” she asked as she walked toward her car in the driveway.
“He likes his space. He hasn’t had much of that the past few days. Now he’s in town going out for dinner. Not much his style.”
As she opened the door to the car and eased in behind the wheel, she decided that Dane wasn’t as dull as he’d appeared to be. This was a man with a lot on his mind.
“He’s just a hermit, huh?”
Dane shrugged. “He’s the protector, I suppose. You know, the one who makes sure everyone gets where they’re supposed to.”
“But at his own cost.”
“Maybe. He’s lived on the ranch his whole life. Lost his mom at eight. My mom loves him as her own, but it’s always different. And now…” He turned his head toward her as she pulled onto the street. “Maybe he doesn’t want anyone outside the family to know what’s going on.”
“I’m not put out. I was just the caterer.”
Dane nodded. “I’ll bet you pick up a lot of information just hanging out in the kitchen.”
She grinned. “I always thought it would be interesting to be a mail carrier or even a trash collector. Can you even imagine what they know?”
“Society’s silent observers?”
“Exactly,” she said on a laugh and Dane relaxed into the seat.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be as dull as she thought he might be.
Eric drove without a word, but he could feel Bethany’s eyes on him.
Finally, he shifted a glance her way. “What?”
“I’m just trying to figure you out. You’re a mystery to me.”
“Likewise.”
Tossing her mane of curls behind her shoulder, she looked out the window. “I used to dream about you. Did I ever tell you that?”
“That sounds a bit incestuous.”
“No, no,” she laughed as she turned back toward him. “I used to dream that you were my brother. In fact, when I was much younger, I would tell my friends that I had a brother who lived in Georgia.”
“Why would you do that?” he asked as he turned down Cherry Street.
“The few times I’d been around you…I mattered.”
Eric shifted in his seat. He wasn’t one for deep, family talks and it looked as though this was where she was going.
“Of course you matter.”
“Not to my father.” Her voice softened. “My brothers and sisters don’t know me very well. I’m sure there are a lot of harsh feelings there. But you were always nice to me.”
“I’m old enough to be your father. I wasn’t going to be mean to you.”
She was still smiling. “Let’s just say I appreciate it. I hope that now that I’m here the others will learn to accept me.”
He wanted to assure her that they would, but he didn’t. He wasn’t sure if it would be a lie or not.
Eric pulled into the parking lot and was surprised to find Dane and Susan standing by her car waiting.
“Did you fly here?” he quipped as he opened his door and climbed from the truck.
“You must have taken the long way. She knew a short cut.” Dane chuckled.
“I’m a city girl,” Susan said with a shrug. “I learn my way around fairly quickly. And…I’ve been here for nine months. This isn’t my first meal here.”
Eric nodded as they walked toward the building. “You still drink unsweetened tea, don’t you?”
She laughed easily and touched his arm. “I don’t eat meat either. Truly not a Southern girl.”
“You have a pair of Birkenstocks in your closet?”
She nudged him now and his blood grew hot in his veins with her flirtatious laugh.
“I own two pairs and socks to go with them.”
Bethany spun around to look at her as she walked backward across the parking lot. “You don’t seriously wear that in public do you?”
“In the comfort of my own home.”
“Whew, I thought you were going to need a fashion intervention,” she said as she turned around and walked through the door, which Dane held open for her.
“I still might,” she joked, as she too walked through the door.
Dane shook his head as he and Eric walked in. “These two are going to get along just fine aren’t they?”
Eric nodded. They were a couple of Western misfits in a town of Southern gossip. Lord knew what people were already thinking.
Eric watched Susan nibble at a salad and drink a glass of water as if the meal didn’t matter to her. She engaged in conversation, laughed a lot, and her eyes always sparkled. Dane eased around her and he wasn’t usually that laid back.
Bethany certainly wouldn’t be as talkative or excitable if Susan wasn’t with them, he was sure of that.
He was on his second beer, his burger long eaten, listening to Susan talk about a catering job at the library—and he was enthralled. There was a dimple at the corner of her mouth on the right side. She had a tiny little beauty mark on the edge of her left eye. Her ears were pierced four times, but she only wore one set of delicate silver hoops.
Eric wasn’t a man to touch others. A fine woman who was willing, that was another story. But he wasn’t a hugger or a person toucher, but she was.
She’d touched his arm in the parking lot and his head had nearly blown off from his blood pressure spiking. In the course of her nibbling on her salad, she’d touched Bethany’s shoulder and Dane’s arm. It was safer to sit across from her and just observe.
“Why Georgia? Why Macon? Why not Atlanta?”
Bethany was perched with her elbows on the table, absolutely enthralled with the conversation she was having with her new roommate.
Susan shrugged. “Atlanta is too expensive. And I needed a total change of scenery.”
Her voice dropped when she said it. There was more to moving across the country than a change of scenery and he found himself needing to know why.
The conversation shifted quickly to Bethany and her move.
“When my mom died there was nothing left for me,” she said. “I’m not sure what is here for me…”
“Your family,” Eric finally spoke.
“You and Dane are the only two who have even acknowledged me. And your mother,” she said as if it were an afterthought.
Dane nodded. “Of course she did. You can count on her to get the rest of them to come around.”
Susan leaned in over the table. “How often did you see your dad?”
Bethany pushed a French fry around with another. “I’ve been here maybe ten times. I’ve heard my father was infatuated with my mother, but you would have thought he’d have made more effort if that was the case.”
Eric set his beer on the table. “There is little effort given when it comes to your father. Sorry,”
he added in case he’d hurt any feelings.
“I caught that today at your parents’ house. No one expects too much from him.”
“You pave a path for yourself. His has been paved with mistakes the entire family has had to pay for.”
“Including you.”
Eric winced when she mentioned it and he looked toward Susan, who had stopped mid drink to watch his reaction.
He wasn’t good conversation or company. “I’m going to find our waitress and settle the check.”
“Oh,” Susan said setting her drink down. “Here I need to give you money.”
“For what? Your garden and your water? I got it.”
“I wasn’t looking for a free dinner.”
“You owe me one,” he said and walked away from the table.
Bethany chuckled as she pushed her plate away. “He just asked you out on a date.”
“He did not,” Susan argued.
Dane nodded. “In his very horrible way…he did.”
“Trust me, the last thing I need is a man who is that short tempered. I have a lot on my plate right now and it sounds like he does too.”
She watched as Eric returned to the table and simply looked down at them all as if they knew that was their queue to stand.
Bethany and Dane both pushed back from the table and stood. Obviously he had control over his family. Even the members he didn’t seem to know too well.
When she looked up at him, she swore she saw panic in his eyes. What had they hit on over dinner? Something more had happened while she was fixing up trays of food for his family this afternoon.
The curious nature that had gotten her into more trouble as a child, and even as an adult, buzzed inside of her. Suddenly she wondered how he would feel if she showed up at his place tomorrow with lunch.