*
Brooke puttered around the house most of the morning, doing multiple loads of laundry, cleaning and disinfecting the bathroom, dumping the clothes Farrah had left on the floor into a grocery bag, and helping Henry put together one of his puzzles. He’d begged to go to the park, but by mid-morning it was broiling out, the temperature already hovering around ninety with sauna-level humidity, so she’d compromised by letting him watch an hour of cartoons on her laptop. Did that make her a terrible mother? Maybe, but she didn’t care.
At eleven, she put her son down for a nap and decided to color her hair. Like Marie’s, Brooke’s hair had begun going gray when she was in her midtwenties. In the past, Genevieve, the stylist at her trendy Savannah salon, had colored her hair, but these days, rather than spend $175 a pop every six weeks, she colored her own hair with the stuff that came in a box from the drugstore.
It took thirty minutes to apply the grape gravy–colored goop to her wet hair. She was still barefoot in a ratty terry cloth bathrobe when the doorbell rang. Probably Farrah returning to reclaim her clothes, she thought as she went to open the door.
Gabe Wynant stood on the doorstep with a huge bouquet of pink peonies in one hand and a large Harris Teeter paper sack in the other. “Hi,” he said, eyeing her uneasily. “Um, maybe I should have called first?”
Brooke’s hands flew to her hair. “Oh, shit.” She must have looked like something from a bad seventies sitcom.
“I just wanted to apologize for last night,” he said, thrusting the flowers at her. “I was a jerk and an unforgiveable ass.”
“You really were,” Brooke agreed, sniffing the flowers.
He held the paper sack in both hands now, looking like a penitent first grader. “I brought you a peace offering. Coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice, croissants…”
“Come on in, then,” Brooke said, opening the door wider. She gestured toward the small, shabby living room, grateful that she’d picked up all the toys and preschooler detritus that usually littered the room. “Sit there and pour yourself some coffee. I have to deal with this.” She pointed toward her head.
*
Thirty minutes later, she emerged from her bedroom dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, her hair freshly blown dry and styled. She’d even applied a little lipstick.
“Hi,” Gabe said, standing when she walked into the living room. He’d found a vase for the peonies and arranged a buffet on the coffee table; a bowl of raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries, a carafe of orange juice, a plate of croissants, plates, napkins, silverware, even a miniature jar of marmalade, and two steaming mugs of coffee.
Brooke nodded and sat down on the sofa. “I’m sort of amazed you didn’t head for the hills just now, after you saw me in my natural habitat.”
“It takes a lot more than that to scare me off,” Gabe said, smiling. “And I’m the one who’s amazed—that you didn’t tell me to take a hike when I showed up here uninvited.”
She fixed herself a plate of fruit and buttered a croissant. “The least I can do is listen to your apology. Anyway, I didn’t have any breakfast this morning.”
Gabe looked around the room. “I see the house is still standing. So, I guess everything was okay when you got home last night?”
“Farrah and her boyfriend were drunk, passed out on the sofa,” Brooke said, biting into the croissant.
“Christ! Where was your kid? Was he all right?”
“Henry was sound asleep in his bed,” Brooke said, taking another bite of the croissant, ignoring the shards of pastry showering onto her shirt. “Crisis averted, narrowly.”
“I hope you fired the girl,” he said.
“Nope. Farrah’s a good kid. She made a really dumb decision. I’m giving her a second chance.”
He gave her a winning smile. “So … how about me? Do I get a second chance? I don’t know what came over me last night. I could blame the martinis. I should have stopped after two.”
“You really should have,” Brooke said. “Nobody likes a mean drunk. And that’s what you were last night, Gabe. You were mean. First when you went off on that poor valet kid, threatening to get him fired, and then to me. You were mean and rude.”
“I know.” He shook his head. “So no excuses. I want you to know I went back over to the Cloister this morning. I left the kid a note of apology and a big tip.”
She sipped her coffee and waited for what would come next. Did she even want to hear it?
He ran his fingers through his hair, which was uncharacteristically messy. Come to think of it, Gabe was uncharacteristically messy this morning. Gray stubble, dark bags under his eyes, and he wore beltless khaki slacks that needed ironing, a faded gray T-shirt, and scuffed up Topsiders.
“Look,” he said, his dark eyes pleading. “I’m not a kid anymore. I haven’t courted a woman in … well, a long time, and I’m not sure I was good at it back in my twenties. I’m in foreign waters here, you know?”
He took Brooke’s hand and pressed it between his. “I wish you could forget the ugly turn the evening took last night. Because I want to. I’ll never forget how it felt, holding you in my arms, watching every other man in the room watching you and envying me, because I was the lucky guy you were with.”
He brushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. “I had so many plans for us last night. A walk on the beach, a kiss in the moonlight. And when you called to say you were leaving, I guess I lost it. I lashed out, and the moment those words were out of my mouth, I hated myself.” Gabe leaned forward and kissed her lightly. “Can you forgive me?”
“Honestly? I don’t think this is about forgiveness,” Brooke said, drawing away. “It’s about understanding. What you said last night—about me pulling a disappearing act? It showed you don’t really know me, even after all this time. I left Harris Strayhorn because, ultimately, I wasn’t ready to be married. I’ve admitted that was wrong. I don’t regret canceling the wedding, but I do regret the careless way I did that and how deeply I hurt both our families. But I’ve changed. I have a child now, and he has to be my first priority. If you can’t understand that, there’s no future for us.”
Gabe nodded solemnly. “I get it. Really, I do. That’s part of what attracts me to you. Your fierceness. And your intelligence. Can we start over? Can I have that second chance?”
“Mama? Where Fawwah go?”
They both turned. Henry stood in the doorway, naked from the waist down, clutching his stuffed Ninja Turtle. “I pooped,” he said solemnly.
“This is my life now, Gabe,” Brooke said. “Are you really sure this is what you want?”
58
Brooke walked Gabe out to his car, blinking in the white-hot sunlight. “Any news on probating Josephine’s estate?”
“I’ve filed all the paperwork, and I’m still tracking down all the assets,” he said. “It’s still amazing to me that she allowed the house to deteriorate to the extent it has, even though she had millions in cash and stocks.”
“I think she wanted time to stand still after Preiss died. She only allowed Shug to do the barest minimum maintenance.”
“Crazy old bat,” he said, shaking his head. He turned the key in the ignition. “So … are we good? Can I call you again? I need to head back to Savannah this afternoon, but maybe I could take you to dinner when I’m down here next time on estate business?”
“Let’s take it a day at a time,” Brooke said. “Lizzie and Felicia and I are worried about C. D. Nobody’s seen or heard from him in several days.”
“He called me just this morning, demanding to know when he can get his inheritance,” Gabe said.
“Did he say where he was calling from? I meant to tell you, we checked his cottage at Shellhaven, and it looks like he hasn’t been there in a while. It looked like he’d left in a hurry.”