Just Kiss Me Read online

  Henry set the kettle back on the stove and he combed his damp hair from his forehead. Rainwater soaked the shoulders of his shirt and he lowered his hand to flick a glob of mud from his chest. Mud smeared his forearms and he had a muddy handprint on his shoulder. He probably had mud on other places he couldn’t see. There had been a time in his life when he would have suspected that Vivien got him muddy on purpose. A time when her lips would have said “sorry” but her eyes would have spoken of unapologetic glee.

  He fit the little lid on the pot and moved to the pantry. What he recalled most about Vivien was that she’d always been a little actress. He’d never met anyone in his life, and he’d known some shady characters, who’d managed to look so damn innocent while lying her ass off. She could get caught with chocolate on her face and her hand still in the cookie jar and convince everyone that she’d been set up, wronged, and wasn’t the least bit guilty.

  A set of pink cups and saucers sat on a shelf next to empty canisters in the bare pantry. Henry was a coffee man himself, but he’d have to move north in shame if he didn’t know how to make hot tea. Which was a good thing, because Ms. Macy Jane hadn’t filled any of her cupboards with much at all. A few dishes and loose tea where about it, but then Macy Jane hadn’t lived in this house.

  He carried a cup and saucer across the eat-in kitchen to a small table beneath a window that looked out into the garden. Vivien had a lot of fans here in Charleston. The hometown girl turned big Hollywood movie star. Macy Jane had been her biggest fan and had never even tried to contain her pride. Not that she’d ever tried to contain any emotion. She’d been so proud of her only child. She had Vivien’s pictures everywhere and starlight seemed to beam around her whenever she talked about her “sweet girl.” Yet Vivien had rarely come to see her momma.

  If the town knew Vivien Rochet was in Charleston, the mayor would likely throw a parade and her fans would dress up in various Raffle costumes. They’d squeeze themselves into neon pleather and stiletto boots, black togas and metal bikinis. They’d line up to pay homage to Zahara West, but Henry wouldn’t be among them. First, he didn’t dress up in any sort of costume for anyone, and two, he was not a fan of Vivien Rochet.

  There had been a time in his life when he’d dated models and heiresses and debutants. When he’d lived at breakneck speed and had gone through his share of beautiful and smart women. Hell, he’d even dated an actress or two. Vivien’s fame and beautiful face did not impress him. He didn’t care if she appeared on coffee mugs and movie posters; he just wasn’t impressed by a woman who seemingly cared so little about anyone but herself.

  The heels of his work boots stirred up some dust as he returned to the stove. One of the last times he’d laid eyes on Vivien in person, she’d been snooping through his chest of drawers. He couldn’t remember her age, but it was the summer before he’d entered Princeton. At the time, she’d still been a chunky kid with a smart mouth and sticky fingers. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see her counting his condoms, but he actually had been surprised to catch her in the act. He’d been so pissed off, he’d tried to scare and intimidate her so that she’d think twice about entering his room ever again. She’d been anything but scared or intimidated. Her green gaze had held his and she’d had the balls to throw Tracy Lynn Fortner’s name in his face. No one had even known about Tracy Lynn, but Vivien had found out. He could guess how the little snoop learned of his old girlfriend and the secret that neither of them wanted anyone to discover. Not her family and certainly not his mother. The Whitley-Shulers already had a closet stuffed with scandals and the last thing he wanted was to add one of his making. Teen Mom might be popular on MTV, but teen pregnancy wasn’t done in families like the Fortners or Whitley-Shulers. While the rest of the world may have relaxed views on children born outside of marriage, the rules in his world had not changed. It was just as scandalous and disgraceful in his generation as it had been in his mother’s. Like his mother, he and Tracy Lynn had had two choices, but unlike Nonnie, they’d made a different decision.

  No one but he and Tracy Lynn knew what had happened that summer. No one but he and Tracy Lynn—and Vivien. He’d never known how much Vivien had discovered, but she’d known Tracy Lynn’s name, so he’d assumed she knew everything. He’d spent the first two years at Princeton living in fear of her dropping the bomb on him. She’d obviously never told anyone, and he’d always wondered why she’d never used her knowledge against him. Shocking really, given her penchant for snooping and bad manners, and her disagreeable character in general.

  He glanced up as Vivien walked into the kitchen with her dark hair messed up as if towel dried. She held a brush in one hand and her cell phone in the other. She’d changed out of her muddy dress and into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that matched her deep green eyes.

  “Are you warmed up, Ms. Vivien?”

  “No. I’m freezing and wish I’d packed a sweater or a jacket.” She looked a lot like her momma. A contrast of dark hair and white skin and eyes like shamrocks on the Hill of Tara. Vivien’s lips were more lush than her mother’s, though. Redder and fuller, like she’d been kissed all night. “I looked for a blanket, but didn’t find one,” she said as she walked across the kitchen toward the window overlooking the courtyard. Light from the converted chandelier slipped through the tangled length of her damp hair. The T-shirt fit loose across her small breasts, but not loose enough to hide her hard nipples raking the soft cotton. “Not even on Momma’s bed.”

  Henry glanced at his watch and then grabbed the lid off the pot. She hadn’t been kidding. She was freezing. “I have a jacket in my truck. I can run and get it for you.” She didn’t politely insist that he not trouble himself on her account, like any good Southern woman would do, and he was forced to run back out into the pelting rain and grab his hunting jacket from the truck box in the back of his Chevy. The ribbed cuffs were frayed and the quilted lining worn thin in places. A three-corner tear split the camo weeds on the left elbow, and there was probably a few twelve-gage loads in one of the pockets. It had definitely seen better days, but he never hunted without his lucky Carhartt. When he returned, he found Vivien sitting at the small kitchen table. She held her face in her hands in grief, and he felt a little bad for thinking she had a disagreeable character. Maybe that had been a little harsh. “This is old but will warm you up,” he said as he draped the jacket across the back of her shoulders.

  “Thank you.” She looked up through teary green eyes.

  Now he felt more than a little bad. “My pleasure.” Maybe she wasn’t so bad. Maybe her manners had improved, too. He moved to the stove and breathed in the steam rising from the rich brown tea.

  “This coat smells like swamp water.”

  Then again, maybe not. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Probably. Last time I wore it, I was knee deep in the Little Pee Dee.” Her nose wrinkled and he added, “You’ll likely find some bird guts on it, too.” He expected her to shrug herself out of the jacket he’d just run through the rain to retrieve for her, but she didn’t. Her need for warmth must have been greater than her objection to his “swampy” jacket. He chuckled and turned back to the stove. “When did you get in?” He pulled the strainer from the water and placed it in the sink.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “Did you travel by yourself?” He grabbed the teapot by the handle and carried it to the table. His lucky hunting jacket was so big on her, she looked like she’d been swallowed up in weeds. Stinky weeds, apparently.

  “No. My assistant is down the street at the Harbor View.”

  He was surprised Vivien wasn’t with her assistant, kicked back in the top-floor suite, sipping chardonnay instead of in the dusty row house. “What were you doing in the mud?”

  “Looking for something important,” she answered, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “I’m surprised to find you here.” Soaking wet and digging in the dirt, drops of water falling from her lashes as she looked up at him through the rain with raw an
guish in her eyes. She should have looked a mess. She was a mess. A hot mess.

  “Why?” Damp strands of hair clung to the side of her neck as she dragged the brush through the back of her hair. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

  Henry pulled his gaze from Vivien’s smooth throat and poured tea into the pink cups. “Because the place is in the middle of a renovation.”

  “I can see that. Momma never mentioned a renovation.” Her voice trailed off and she added as if she was talking more to herself, “I don’t understand why she never said anything.”

  In the past year and a half, he’d gotten to know Macy Jane better than he had the entire first thirty or so years of his life, but there were a lot of things about the woman that were a mystery to him. He pushed the cup across the table, next to Vivien’s brush and cell phone. “I didn’t see any sugar in the pantry, and I think it goes without saying that there isn’t milk in the refrigerator.”

  “I gave up milk and sugar in favor of Truvia.”

  “In these parts, that’s as blasphemous as giving up religion.”

  She wrapped her hands around the hot cup and warmed her palms. “That, too.” Her gaze swept across his face, studying him as if looking for changes since that last time they’d been in the same room.

  He sat in the chair across from her and combed his hair back from his forehead. He’d changed a lot, and not just physically. “Did you choose sin over the Episcopalians?”

  “I chose sleeping in on Sundays.”

  Choices. Vivien had been raised with a diversity of choices. The choice to sit among the Episcopalians or sleep in. She’d been given the freedom to eat ice cream until she got sick or run off to Hollywood to become an actress. Growing up, Henry’s life had been very different. He’d always known that there were limited career options open to him. Males in his position had three choices: doctor, lawyer, or banker. If one of those three choices morphed into politics, even better. He’d never questioned his options. Never contemplated a different future. He’d taken up finance and the world of finance had taken up him.

  As if suddenly recalling her manners, Vivien asked, “How’s your momma?”

  “Mother is healthy as always.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Henry was fairly certain that was a lie. He looked into her gaze, and if he’d forgotten exactly why he was in Ms. Macy Jane’s kitchen with Vivien, her eyes, red from crying, reminded him.

  “Momma mentioned you’d moved back to Charleston. A little over two years now.” He wondered what else her momma had mentioned. Had she told Vivien why he’d moved back? Had she mentioned that he’d run full tilt into the turbulence of Wall Street? That he’d been one of the youngest traders at New York Securities and by the age of thirty-three, he’d had a big desk and was on track for a corner office? No. He doubted Macy Jane knew much about that life. “Nonnie must love having you at home again.”

  Not really.

  “I don’t live with my mother.” If Vivien wanted to distract herself with idle conversation, he’d oblige her. Unless she went on too long. He’d planned just make a quick stop by the row house to make sure it was locked up. He hadn’t planned tea and chitchat. He had a new life and work that needed him. Work that had nothing to do with a corner office at 200 West. Nothing to do with making millions and the traps that came with that kind of money. He’d fallen victim to his enormous ego and the allure of power and sex. Then everything crashed. A crash that had nothing to do with the stock market and everything to do with a heart attack at the age of thirty-three. A heart attack that had made him take a hard look at his life and at the power that was easier lost than gained. His inflated ego that had almost killed him, and for what? Money that had become as meaningless as sex?

  She studied him for several more seconds before she hooked one thin finger through the cup handle. “I know why I’m at my momma’s house, but the question is, why are you here, Henry?”

  He’d known her his entire life, but he could not recall a time that she’d ever said his name. Just his name. Not Scary Henry or Butt Head Henry. She raised a brow and pursed her lips to blow a steady breath into the tea.

  “I was just making sure the place was locked up tight.” Two years ago, he’d been given two choices. Slow down or die. He might have chosen the former, but he wasn’t so slow that he didn’t notice red lips pressed like a kiss against pink porcelain. “I don’t think I got the chance to tell you how truly sorry I am for your loss. Your momma was a nice lady.”

  “I can’t believe she’s really gone. It just doesn’t seem real.” Vivien lowered the cup without taking a drink. “I keep thinking she’s going to walk through the door, but she’s not. I have to keep reminding myself that she’s never going to walk through the door again.” She swallowed hard and turned her attention to the garden beyond the window. She looked sad and tired and so very small in his old coat. “I keep thinking of her dying all alone,” she said just above a whisper.

  “She wasn’t alone. My mother was with her.”

  “What?” Her gaze returned to his. “Nonnie was here?”

  “Not here. They were at home.” He wondered how much she knew about her mother’s death. Judging by the V pulling her brows together, he’d guess not much. “In the carriage house.”

  “Momma moved out of the carriage house.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe she ever moved out.”

  “I bought her this house two years ago,” she spoke as if Henry was a bit slow. “We bought furniture. She had a party and served crab puffs and little weenies.” She pointed out the window to the muddy flowerbed where she’d been digging. “We drank Rose Imperial, and the cork flew into the impatiens. It was so hot, Marta Southerland lost her mind and showed up without her Spanx. Momma was horrified.”

  “Is that what you were doing in the mud? I thought maybe you were searching for lost Confederate treasure.”

  “It’s more valuable to me than lost treasure.” Vivien stared at the man across the table. The man with deep brown eyes and dark hair that he frequently pushed off his forehead. He bore a resemblance to the boy she’d once known, only this older version of Henry was bigger and better-looking than she remembered. Maybe he wasn’t as big a jerk as she recalled, either. He’d picked her up from the mud and practically carried her into the house. The younger Henry would have just folded his arms across his chest and frowned down at her like she was stealing his precious dirt.

  “All I do know is that since I’ve been back in Charleston, Macy Jane has lived in the carriage house.”

  He’d made her tea and given her his coat. The seemingly thoughtful man across from her was unlike the boy she’d known. Or perhaps he was just being nice out of respect for her mother. The reason didn’t matter. Vivien was grateful to be dry and warm. She’d arrived in Charleston without so much as a cardigan. She’d forgotten her underwear, too, and imagined they were still in a heap where she’d thrown them on her bed. At the moment, though, she had more important concerns than going commando or whether or not Henry had changed or was still a contemptuous jerk. She raised her hands from inside his big coat and rubbed her temples. “What was she doing in the carriage house with your mother?”

  “They were tweeting.”

  Vivien’s hands fell to the table and a few drops of tea sloshed over the side of the pink teacup. “Did you say they were tweeting?”

  “More like feuding, with the United Daughters of the Confederacy.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Something about a shrimp-and-grits recipe. I tried not to listen to either one of them.”

  “What? Daughters of the Confederacy?”

  “The Georgia chapter, I believe.”

  “Wait! My momma died from a twitter war? With the Georgia United Daughters of the Confederacy? Over shrimp and grits? In the carriage house with Nonnie?” The more he explained, the more baffling it all sounded. Like platform sneakers. Or twerking. Or algebra.

  “I don’t know precisely what they were doing when
Macy Jane passed. I wasn’t there. Mother called me right after she called the ambulance and I drove over.” His solemn eyes stared back at her and his voice lowered, “By the time I got to the carriage house, your momma was on her way to the hospital.”

  Vivien might not like Nonnie, but she was relieved and thankful that her mother hadn’t been alone.

  “We weren’t too far behind the ambulance, but Macy Jane was gone by the time we got to the emergency room.”

  Vivien hooked her finger through the cup handle and raised the tea to her lips. She took a sip and swallowed past the grief rising up her throat. “How did my momma die? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. Mother said they were sitting at the kitchen table and Macy Jane just fell from her chair.”

  Her hand shook as she lowered the cup and tears stung the backs of her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. Not now. Later when she was alone she would think about her momma falling from a chair. “The medical examiner is supposed to call me when . . .” she couldn’t finish her sentence. She covered her face with her hands and her voice trailed off. She could do this. Her momma needed Vivien to take care of her one last time. But it was hard. So hard. She counted backward from ten, like she’d been taught by her acting teacher. She imagined herself fading into character. Fading into the role of a strong woman who controlled her emotions. She tried to invasion Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A strangled sob escaped her lips and she sucked in a breath. Her momma was a good person. It wasn’t fair that she died and bad people lived. People like Charles Manson and the BTK killer and Nonnie Whitley-Shuler.