The Liar

Maybe she’d had nothing to do with it, after all. Maybe she didn’t know anything.

Or maybe she was smart enough to sit tight in Nowhere, Tennessee, until she thought the coast was clear. Considering what was at stake, he could give it a few more days.

For his cut of nearly thirty million, he could spare the time.

9

She had fun, grown-up fun, normal-night-out-with-people fun. She saw glimmers of her old friendship with Emma Kate break through, and it gave her hope that it would beam bright again.

Seeing a man, and he seemed like a good man, besotted—that was the word that came to her mind—over her friend made her glow a little.

She liked the way they looked together, easy and comfortable but with some sparks over the familiarity. She’d seen her friend in love before, but with the teenage angst and drama and wonder that flamed like a comet over a night sky, and was as quickly lost from view. What she saw here struck her as real and grounded, a good, sturdy sapling sinking roots.

If the lost years came home to her not only in the way Emma Kate fit with Matt, but the connection between her and Griff, the obvious brotherhood between him and Matt, she could be grateful they opened that very tight unit to include her for an evening.

Maybe she had to work some to stay relaxed sitting next to Griff—pretty much hip to hip in the little booth. It had been so long since she’d been in close proximity with a man, which explained the occasional belly flutters. But he made conversation easy—they all did. And God it felt good not to talk about herself and her problems for an hour.

She nursed her water to make it all last.

“I don’t think things have changed so much in the Ridge that it could’ve been easy to start up a new business, especially since you’re not . . . local.”

Matt grinned at Shelby across the table. “You mean for us Yankees.”

“That would be a factor. But you do have the cutest accent,” she said, and made him laugh.

“It helps we’re good, and I mean damn good. Then there’s the Emma Kate factor.” He gave her shaggy hair a tug. “Some people were curious enough about the Yankee their own Emma Kate hooked up with to hire us for some odd jobs.”

“Painting,” Griff commented. “I thought we’d never stop painting. Then Emma Kate’s father gave us a boost when a tree fell on the Hallister house. They called him in for the roof, and he nudged them to us for the rest. Their bad luck was our good.”

“That Hallister boy’s family?” Shelby wondered. “The one my cousin Lark’s glued to?”

“That’s the one,” Emma Kate confirmed. “And Granny gave them another lift.”

“Did she?”

“She hired Dewey Trake and his crew out of Maryville to do the Relaxation Room at the day spa, and finish off the little patio. Some this and that,” Emma Kate continued.

“What about Mr. Curtis? He always did her work.”

“He retired about two years back, and even Granny couldn’t coax him out to take this one on. So she hired Trake, but that didn’t last two weeks.”

“Shoddy work.” Griff tipped back his beer.

“Overpriced,” Matt added.

“Granny thought so, and fired him.”

“I happened to be in there at the time.” Griff picked up the story, that easy rhythm. “Man, she lit into him. He’d had about four days on the job and was already running behind, making noises about overruns and delays. A lot of bullshit, basically. She handed him his ass, and told him not to let the door hit it on the way out.”

“Sounds like Granny.”

“That’s when I fell for her.” Griff let out a sigh, ending it on what Shelby would term a dreamy smile. “Something about a woman who can hand somebody their ass just does it for me. Anyway, not to let an opportunity slide—”

“Dewey Trake’s bad luck being your good.”

“Exactly. I asked her if she’d let me take a look.”

“Griff’s our community liaison,” Matt said.

“And Matt handles the accounting. It works. I took a look, asked to see the plans, told her I could have an estimate for her by the next morning, but ballparked it for her on the spot.”

“You were eleven hundred off,” Matt reminded him.

“Ballpark, on the spot. She measured me up—you’ve probably been measured up by Miz Vi.”

“Countless times,” Shelby agreed.

“Fell a little deeper, but restrained myself from asking her to run away with me. Timing’s everything. She said something like: ‘Boy, I want this done before Christmas and I want it done right. You get me that estimate, written down proper, first thing in the morning, and if I like it, be prepared to start work then and there.’”

“I take it she liked it.”

“She did, and the rest is history,” Griff claimed. “Once you get the thumbs-up around here from Viola Donahue, you’re pretty well set.”

“It didn’t hurt that Griff went out and snapped up that old house, and its four overgrown, trash-strewn acres,” Matt put in. “It was just crying, ‘Buy me, Griff, come on! I’ve got tremendous potential.’”

“It really does,” Shelby agreed, and earned a quick, flashing grin from Griff that had those butterflies swarming again.