Stubborn as a Mule Page 5

  Suddenly, I’m feeling a little bit hot under the collar over the mere thought of this woman and me tangled on that mattress together. While Mely may be one of the most gorgeous and sexy women I’ve ever known, she should really stay off limits. She’s here to destroy my family home. Even though there’s no way I can stop it, it does not make for a good bedfellow.

  Giving a cough to clear my throat, I change subjects to appropriate conversation. “What would you like for me to do this morning?”

  Mely twists her wrist and looks down at her watch before looking back up to me. “I actually have to get out of here as I’m catching a flight to New York in a few hours. I’m going to be gone for a couple of days. I was hoping I could have you work on the kitchen while I’m gone.”

  “Just tell me what you want done,” I say easily, wondering why she’s going to New York. I’ll be darned if I’ll ask her, but I am curious.

  “I’d really love the paint fixed if the weather is good enough, but the forecast looks like rain over the next few days. You could work indoors for a while. I had some of the linoleum in the kitchen peeled back, and it looks like the hardwood underneath is in decent shape,” Mely says as she turns to grab her purse that’s hooked over the end of the banister. It’s then I notice she has a small rolling suitcase sitting there as well. “If you could pull up all the linoleum, I can get someone in to look at restoring the finish.”

  “I can have the linoleum up by the end of the day today. Do you want me to work on restoring the hardwood?”

  Mely looks at her watch again and then back to me as she shakes her head. “I don’t feel comfortable with that.”

  Immediately, my hackles rise and I snap, “My work is impeccable. Contrary to what you believe, I don’t just refinish outhouses.”

  Mely brings up a hand in self-defense and says, “No, that’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that restoring the hardwood is a huge project, and I didn’t want to take advantage of your time. Seeing as how you can only spare a few hours here and there, I thought I would just have you do smaller projects. And of course, once the weather turns dry, I’d really like the paint fixed.”

  Well, crap. That makes sense. Now I feel guilty for snapping at her.

  “Listen, I really need to get going,” she says as she picks up her suitcase. I immediately step forward and take it from her; I do this only because I’m a southern boy and my mama raised me right.

  “Thank you,” she murmurs as she walks to the door. I follow her out and down the front steps where she stops on the sidewalk before turning to me. Reaching into her purse, she pulls out a set of keys and hands them to me. “Here are the keys. You can come and go as you please. Just make sure everything is locked up.”

  Since I have a cup of coffee in one hand and a suitcase in the other, I can’t take the keys that she’s offering. I make a fumbling move to raise the suitcase up so I could potentially rest the cup in the crook of my arm to free up a hand, but before I know what’s happening, Mely’s reaching forward and tucking the keys into the front pocket of my jeans.

  And whoa boy… her hand near my pocket is not a good thing because it makes me think of things I ought not be thinking about this woman. I breathe a sigh of relief when she pulls away, but I don’t miss the sparkle of mischief in her eyes.

  Mely walks past me to the driveway that runs along the side of the house where her rental car is parked. I follow along and put her suitcase in the backseat.

  “When are you returning?” I ask casually. “Because like I said, that linoleum won’t take long to get up.”

  “I’ll only be gone a few days,” she says vaguely. “If you want something to do so you can start knocking out the hours that are owed, I intend to take all the wallpaper off the walls from the bedrooms upstairs so you could do that.”

  “You intend to do what?” My voice is acidic, and Mely blinks at me in surprise.

  “I’m going to remove the wallpaper,” she says with deliberate purpose and a touch of ice in her voice that lets me know this is her house and she’s going to do as she pleases.

  “You know that wallpaper represents history,” I grit out.

  Her eyes narrow at me. “That wallpaper is turning yellow and peeling.”

  “Have you no appreciation whatsoever for the historical significance of this dwelling?” I ask her hotly.

  Mely stares at me hard as if she’s trying to determine the best tact to take, but before she gets the satisfaction of once again reminding me this is her house and no longer represents anything at all to do with my family, I decide to back away from this conversation.

  “Forget I said anything,” I say gruffly as I spin on my heel and head toward the house. Turning my head slightly, I tell her over my shoulder, “I’ll get the linoleum and wallpaper done before you get back.”

  “Lowe,” Mely calls out.

  I don’t stop. As I trot up her porch steps, I call back, “Have a nice trip.”

  I don’t look at her as I walk into the house that no longer should mean anything to me but still very much does.

  CHAPTER 6

  Melinda

  “Oh. My. Goddess,” Morris D—Morri to me—says in a combination of awe and horror as I drive into Whynot and the courthouse square comes into view.

  I personally find the tiny town to be utterly charming, which is one of the reasons I just had to have the Mainer House, but Morri is New York down to his bone marrow. I doubt he’s ever been in the “country” a day in his life.

  “Isn’t it cute?” I ask, knowing he hates the word “cute” and would die before he would ever use it.

  “Honestly, Mely,” he says, his voice pitched slightly higher than normal, telling me he’s really freaked out. “How do you survive here?”

  I roll my eyes and turn left on Wilmington Street. “Stop being a drama queen. It’s not like we got dumped in the middle of the Serengeti with no food or water.”

  “Please, girl.” Morri waves at me in dismissal as he looks out the passenger window. “You told me the restaurants here having nothing but biscuits and fatback. I don’t even want to know what that is, but I’d rather take the Serengeti, I’m sure.”

  I snort because he might be right. The heavy southern food has not been easy to get used to, but thank God, they’ve heard of salads down here or else I’d be going up a size or two in my pants.

  Not that I’ve even seen a cop since I’ve been here, but I still dutifully put on my turn signal to turn into the driveway. This gets bestie’s attention, and he turns his head to look up at the three-story structure.

  When he lets out a noticeable breath of wonder, I know I made a good decision to buy this house.

  “It’s magnificent,” he murmurs, his hand hovering over his chest while he looks up at my new home through the windshield.

  “Think you can suffer to stay here a while?” I ask him.

  His neck twists so he can look at me, and my heart clenches when I see the tears in his chocolate-colored eyes.

  “Oh, honey,” I coo at him and open my arms. He tries to lean across his seat to me, but he gets caught by his seat belt.

  This flusters him, which is typical of my best friend in the entire world, and he proceeds to have a meltdown as he struggles to unlatch the belt. “Stupid damn seat belt. Why won’t it open? I know why; it won’t open because I’m a failure and I’m ugly and fat and stupid, and it’s no wonder why Stephan left me. I mean, look at me… I’m an absolute mess. Totally unlovable, and I’m going to die alone. A pitiful hag with forty cats that all hate me, and I’ll know this because they’ll cough up hairballs in my bed, and—”

  “Okay, dial it down, Albert,” I say dryly as I reach over and unhook the seat belt. The “Albert” being a nod to our favorite movie The Birdcage. The scene reference is where Nathan Lane’s character, Albert, has a complete meltdown before he goes on stage and is given “Pirin” tablets to calm him down, which are nothing but Aspirin with the A and S scratched off.

&nb
sp; It’s adorable, but I’d never tell him that, particularly not now when he’s got a broken heart. It’s why I dropped everything and went back to New York when he called me three days ago, completely crushed that his partner of the last eleven months, Stephan, had left him.

  Now, personally, I wasn’t all that sad about it because Stephan was a pig and a narcissist. He was far too dominant a personality for my sweet Morris D, the most sensitive gay man in the entire world. Besides, he was just downright mean to my Morri.

  And because I was lonely down here and missing my bestie, I suggested he take a break from the city and come relax with me in my new southern historical home.

  I haven’t told him yet that I don’t have any furniture, but I’ll worry about that in a few minutes.

  Morri collapses into my arms, and I hug him hard while he boo-hoos on my shoulder. “Let it out, D. Just let it out.”

  We remain locked together for a while until his sobs end in tiny hiccups. I pull a tissue out of my bag and let him mop up his face. When he lets out a watery sigh and nods at me, I pull at my door handle and step out.

  Morri gets out on the other side and looks at Mainer House, giving it a closer perusal. It’s really one of the most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen. It’s second empire frame dwelling is two and a half stories with a concave mansard roof done in charcoal gray slate. The thin tongue-and-groove wood siding is cream colored and the dormered windows are done in cranberry. Well, neon pink, but that will soon be fixed. I’d prepared Morris D for that little temporary color alteration. Ornamental lattice frames the outside of the window in a slate blue color, with matching balustrades along the front porch that runs the entire width of the house. Finally, and the most beautiful part in my opinion, is the rectangular tower that sits center atop the mansard roof with blue and cranberry colored lattice work and balustrades. It has a large, round window trimmed in cranberry that was apparently too high and risky for Lowe to paint pink, so Morri can get an idea of how good the color scheme works when it’s done properly.

  “Okay,” he says with a nod of his head as he turns to walk to the rear of the car. When I meet him there, he admits, “I can totally see why you went nuts over this house.”

  “It’s not just the house,” I remind him as I open the trunk. “It’s the town, the love story, and—”

  Morri laughs. “I know, I know. It’s everything to you.”

  “It really is,” I say with a responding chuckle as I reach for a suitcase. Because this house and all it represents, along with this tiny town, has become my anchor.

  I’m stopped when Morri puts his hand on my shoulder. I straighten and turn to look at him with curiosity. His voice is tender when he says, “I don’t even need to go inside to know you made the right decision in coming here.”

  “Really?” I ask hopefully, because Morri has done nothing but give me hell for doing it. In a teasing way of course, and not in the coldly disapproving way my mother has, but still… I know he didn’t get it.

  Until now.

  Reaching back in, I grab one of the three—yes, three full-size suitcases—that Morri insisted on bringing even though he said he was only going to stay through the weekend.

  “Honestly,” I chastise him as I pull the first one out and let it hit the driveway with a thud. “Why did you bring three suitcases?”

  “I brought all my drag gear,” he says simply as he pulls another piece of luggage out. Morris may be gay, sensitive, highly effeminate, and have prettier eyelashes than I do, but the man is strong. He’s nearly as tall as Lowe and while not as muscular, he’s extremely fit.

  Oh, and he’s a drag queen.

  “You do understand that you cannot wear this around town?” I tell him as he pulls the next piece of luggage out.

  Morri stands and shoots me an admonishing glare. “Do I wear my stuff around New York just for the hell of it?”

  I shake my head, duly chastised, and reach in the trunk for my little rolling case. Morris D is an entertainer. A drag entertainer. He’s quite successful at it. But when he’s not on stage in the evening, he dresses like a normal person.

  Okay, let me qualify that.

  He dresses like a normal gay man in New York, which means he’s stylish and outlandish at the same time. For example, his travel wear today includes a pair of dark designer jeans, an electric blue button-up shirt, and an orange-and-charcoal gray plaid suit jacket. To complement the attire, he’s sporting a cream fedora with an electric-blue band and cream suede loafers.

  He looks utterly fantastic, but I know that outfit alone will cause Floyd to probably think we’ve been invaded by something more insidious than coyotes.

  “Maybe you should just wear your most casual wear while you’re here,” I suggest hesitantly as I sit my case down and shut my trunk.

  “Casual wear?” he repeats, not understanding my suggestion at all. “This is about as casual as I get.”

  True enough, so I expound. “Maybe concentrate on more sedate colors.”

  One of Morri’s perfectly waxed brows arches up.

  “I’m just saying,” I tell him quietly as I try to explain Whynot. “This is the South.”

  “Yes, it’s infernally hot,” he agrees, yet he’s not even sweating. That’s how into fashion and looking good he is… he’s trained his body not to even sweat.

  “I’m not talking about the temperature,” I tell him evenly.

  His eyes round with mock surprise. “Oh, you’re talking about the fact I’m a gay man in the conservative, rural South, otherwise known as the Bible Belt, where they possibly might mean to stone me to death if they figure out what I really am?”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re being an Albert again. And there are plenty in the South who are just fine with you the way you are.”

  “But?”

  “But there may be some who aren’t, and I don’t want to see you get hurt,” I say quietly. “This isn’t New York.”

  “Thanks, love,” Morri says with an appreciative but exasperated smile. “I know you got my back always, but I can fight my own battles.”

  “I know,” I admit reluctantly. “I just don’t want you to have to fight any battles at all.”

  “Understood. But to put your mind at ease, I only brought this stuff in case we wanted to go out this weekend in Raleigh. I actually did some research, and they have a pretty good drag club there.”

  “Really?” I ask in shock. Raleigh is the capital city, but I still figured drag was outlawed in the state or something.

  “Really,” he says with a sharp nod and a smile as he picks up two of the suitcases. “Now, we can talk about that later. I’m ready for the grand tour.”

  ♦

  “I cannot believe you don’t have any furniture,” Morri complains in a slightly slurred voice as he takes an uncouth glug from his glass of wine.

  “I have a mattress,” I point out as I pat it. I’m sitting cross-legged on it across from Morris. We’re in our pajamas and doing what we do best… drinking wine and gossiping.

  “You know I wouldn’t have come if I knew this was the only thing to sit on,” he says haughtily.

  “You can lay on it, too,” I tell him, hoping to endear him to the situation.

  “Tomorrow, we’re going out and getting me some furniture,” he demands.

  “Nope,” I say resolutely, waving my wineglass in a circle. “This is all I need.”

  “Oh, my goddess,” Morri says with a laugh. “You’ve actually turned into a country bumpkin.”

  “No,” I disagree with a long drawl to the word. “If I was a country bumpkin, I’d only have a sleeping bag. And you’ve got to give me credit—these are excellent sheets and I have high-quality towels in the bathroom.”

  “That is indeed a good point,” he admits, then finishes off his glass before handing it over to me. “More please.”

  “Sorry,” I say glumly as I take it from him and set the glass carefully on the floor. “That was the last of it.”

&nb
sp; “Then let’s go get more,” he says as he attempts to gracefully roll off the mattress, but falls the six inches to the wooden floor. I laugh at him, and he glares back at me.

  “No more wine for you,” I say still chuckling. “We have an early day tomorrow.”

  “Why?” he asks as he crawls back onto the mattress, looking very dapper in his bronze-colored satin pajamas.

  “Because my worker will here by seven if I’m estimating correctly,” I say, thinking of Lowe for not the first time in the past few days I’ve been gone.

  I’ve been thinking about him quite a lot actually, and how could I not?

  Not after he kissed me, the jerk.

  Morri rolls onto his back, but tips his head to look at me. “I know I’ve been mired in my own pain and misery and we haven’t talked much about you, but how’s that going? Has this feud settled down since your last foray into court?”

  I shrug as I look down at my glass, considering perhaps a run to Miller’s Gas Station and Wine Shop. While I can tell Morri anything about my life, with or without wine, it’s definitely more fun with wine. But I decide against it because I don’t feel like explaining to him why a gas station carries such a good selection of wine, nor do I feel like the headache that would come from imbibing too much.

  Not when Lowe texted me that he’d see me bright and early tomorrow.

  And how in the hell did he even get my phone number?

  I was beyond surprised to get a message from him over the weekend inquiring as to when I might return—his polite words, not mine—as he’d finished the linoleum and wallpaper, and wanted to start the next indoor project since it was still raining.

  The only problem was that I didn’t know what to have him do next. My plan had been to contract most of this stuff out. I wasn’t sure how to fit Lowe in and what I should have him do with the limited time he could give me each day.

  I merely suggested he meet me when I got back to discuss it all.

  “Girlfriend, that silence is very telling,” Morri says and I cut my eyes from my wineglass to him. “You’ve got some serious broody face going.”