The BFF Bride Page 5

  She hid her delight and called out another cheerful “Good morning.”

  She’d just gotten them situated with menus and drinks when Bubba called out that an order was up, and she went back to grab Justin’s plate. Which also had a side of biscuits and gravy.

  Bubba figured he knew Justin pretty well, too, obviously.

  Tabby set his plate in front of him, and Justin eyed the fat, fluffy biscuit that was mounded over with golden-brown gravy studded with chunks of sausage. She reached below the counter and came up with a bottle of hot sauce. She was tempted to hold it out of his reach, but she set it in front of him. “Anything else I can get for you?” She lifted her eyebrows, waiting. “More coffee?”

  “No coffee. But there is something else.” He hesitated a moment, then suddenly dumped the biscuit and gravy on top of the eggs, completely hiding them, and grabbed the hot sauce.

  She hid a smile as she pivoted on her heel to grab an order that Bubba set on the pass-through. “More gravy?”

  “The key to the empty unit you’ve still got at the triplex,” he said. “I want to rent it.”

  Chapter Four

  Tabby turned and was staring at him as if he’d started speaking Swahili. “What’s that?”

  “You still have an empty unit at your triplex, don’t you? Erik told me last night—”

  “Yes,” she said, looking consternated. “I haven’t managed to rent out the third unit yet, but—”

  “Well, now you have,” he said, content to do his own share of interrupting. “At least for six weeks or so.”

  Her lips parted, and he knew she wanted to tell him no. He knew it. Just as he knew there was no way that she could. Their families were too close. Their moms were best friends. Her brother was married to one of his cousins.

  She managed the diner he and his brother owned.

  “I’ll pay twice what you were planning to charge,” he said in a low tone. “Just say okay, Tab, and neither one of us’ll have to go around explaining why we’re the only ones who don’t think it’s such a great idea. My family suggested it last night after you cut and ran.”

  “I didn’t cut and run.” Her lips twisted, and she looked away. The bell over the door jingled twice more in rapid succession. “Fine,” she said abruptly. “Meet me over there at two this afternoon. I’ll give you the key.” Then she snatched two slick, laminated menus out of the slot next to the cash register and smiled almost maniacally at the newcomers. “Good morning!”

  Justin wondered if he was the only one who heard the wealth of false cheer that had entered her voice.

  He wished to hell he’d never admitted to Erik the night before that he wasn’t exactly anxious to move back home for the next several weeks.

  Not because he didn’t love his folks. He did. But he’d been out on his own for a long time, and he was used to having his own space. One where his mother didn’t figure she ought to make up his bed every morning.

  If he hadn’t made that admission to Erik, then Izzy wouldn’t have overheard, and then his mom wouldn’t have come in on the conversation. Hope hadn’t been insulted at all, either. In fact, she’d been the one to toss out ideas for places he might rent temporarily. Erik, though, had been the one to remember Tabby’s place.

  And wasn’t that just the perfect solution?

  Everyone knew Justin and Tabby were friends. Always had been. Thick as thieves. That’s how his mom had put it as she’d reminisced.

  He wasn’t about to tell them those days were over. That Tabby would just as soon kick him to the edge of town than agree to rent one of her triplex units to him. And he definitely wasn’t about to tell them the reason why.

  He dumped more hot sauce on the sausage gravy.

  And when he was finished, it was one of the waitresses—a girl he didn’t know named Paulette—who took away his half-empty plate.

  * * *

  Tabby spotted the dusty black pickup truck parked in front of her triplex the second she rounded the corner of her street.

  She wanted to turn on her heel and go back to the safety of the diner. Justin might be half owner, but at least there she figured she was safe from him showing up again that day.

  Huffing out a breath, she tucked her chin inside the turned-up collar of her coat and trudged forward. When she got closer, she saw that he was sitting on her front porch. He’d changed into jeans and a light gray hoodie.

  The cigarette dangling between his fingers wasn’t such a welcome sight. He stubbed it out when he spotted her and rubbed his hands down his thighs as he stood, waiting for her to walk closer. But the faint smell of smoke lingered.

  “When’d you start smoking again?” He’d smoked for a few years in grad school. Never around his folks. And rarely around her. And she knew he’d worked like a dog to give up the habit. Because what good was a guy researching cancer cures who died of it himself?

  He frowned. “I haven’t started up again.”

  She pointedly pushed the toe of her boot against the cigarette butt sitting on the edge of her cement porch.

  “I’ve been working on the same pack for weeks.”

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye as she passed him to unlock the front door of her unit. “Question is why you have a pack of cigarettes at all.”

  “I know. Disgusting habit. Unhealthy as hell.”

  All of which was true.

  So why, darn it, had there been something so stupidly sexy about him sitting there with one?

  It was insane.

  Maybe it went along with that whole bad-boy appeal thing.

  Not that Justin had ever been a bad boy.

  He’d just been the boy who got away.

  She pushed open the door. “You coming in or going to stand there and wait while I find the key for the empty unit?” It was pretty much an excuse. She knew where the key was. She just wasn’t all that anxious to hand it over to him.

  But then, she wasn’t all that anxious to have him inside her home, either. As it was, she thought about him often enough without him ever having stepped foot inside.

  He bent over and retrieved the crumpled cigarette butt and stepped through her doorway, pushing the door closed behind him. “Trash?”

  She gestured to the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by only a bat-wing-shaped breakfast bar. “Under the sink.” She chewed the inside of her cheek, watching him cross the room. “The empty unit is on the other end. Floor plan’s just like mine. Two bedrooms. Fireplace. One bath. Furnished, which I assume you heard. Minimally, though, so don’t expect all the comforts you’re used to. You’ve got a utility room, but no washer and dryer.” And she’d be hanged if she would offer the use of hers. He had plenty of family around Weaver he could ask, and if not them, then there was a brand-new Laundromat out on the other side of town by Shop-World.

  “I don’t care what the floor plan is or whether there’s a washer and dryer. I don’t know what luxuries you figure I’ve got in Boston. I don’t have a washer and dryer there, either. Long as it has running water and electricity, I’m good. What prompted you to buy this place?”

  She raised her shoulders, a little thrown by the abrupt question. “I don’t know.”

  He gave her a look.

  She pressed her lips together. “Fine. With all the new building going on at the other end of town, some of these old places are starting to go vacant. The original owner—do you remember Mr. Samuelson? He had that bait-and-tackle shack—” She made herself stop rambling. “Anyway, he died. Had no family. There was talk about an investor who wanted to buy this lot and the house next door, but only to raze them and put up a convenience store.”

  He grimaced.

  “Right. That was my reaction, too. Plenty of new building going on at the other end of town. But downtown he
re? It’s charming just the way it is. Anyway,” she hurried on, skipping the rest of her reasons, “it’s close enough to work that I can usually walk.”

  “Like you did today.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Even though when you walk to work, it’s early. And pitch-dark.”

  “So?”

  He sighed. “Christ, Tabby. That’s practically the middle of the night. You shouldn’t be out walking—”

  “—the three very short blocks in this town where nothing ever happens?”

  “Why didn’t you charge Sloan McCray this morning for his coffee and roll? It’s not because he works for the sheriff’s department. You charged that blonde lady deputy for hers.”

  Tabby clamped her lips shut. The fact that he’d asked told her that he already knew.

  “He busted a guy who was trying to rob the diner, that’s why.” Justin pressed his hands flat on the granite-topped breakfast bar and stared at her. “Yeah, I asked and heard all about it. He busted in. While you were there. Alone before hours. With the damned door unlocked.”

  “And for a year after it happened, I kept the door locked,” she snapped. “Until I got tired of having to stop what I was doing and go unlock it every time I turned around, because half this town knows I’m there long before six when the place officially opens and stops by, anyway!”

  “You need to be more careful.”

  “I locked my house door, didn’t I?” She realized she was yelling and let out a long breath. “I’ll get your key,” she muttered and hurried down the hall.

  She used the spare room as a studio and office. She found the key in the bottom of an empty coffee can that also held her clean paintbrushes and returned to the living room.

  He was still standing in the kitchen, and she set the key on the granite. “There you go. Rent’s due in advance.” She blamed the devil for prompting her to make that up right then and there.

  He spread his hands. “Not exactly packing a checkbook here, Tab.”

  “The bank’s open until five. But you’ll have to park a few blocks away because of the traffic in town for the pool tournament.”

  He sighed a little and pocketed the key. “Who lives in the middle unit?”

  “Mrs. Wachowski. She used to teach history at the high school—”

  “I remember her. She was ancient when we were in school. Surprised she’s still around. She must be a hundred and twenty by now.”

  Tabby didn’t want to feel amusement over anything he said, but the retired teacher had seemed ancient when they were teenagers. And she would have been totally displaced, just like Mr. Rowe, who was seventy and lived in the house next door, if someone hadn’t purchased the triplex. “She’s eighty-five. And she’s very nice, but she’s a light sleeper. So if you’re still prone to blasting old Van Halen when you can’t sleep, be aware.”

  “I played it when I studied,” he corrected her. “And it was AC/DC. Not Van Halen.”

  “Whatever.” She was blithely dismissive. As if she didn’t remember very well what it had actually been. She went to the door and opened it. “Don’t forget the bank.”

  He crossed the room and stopped in front of her, so close she could see the faint lines radiating from his violet eyes. “I don’t forget anything.”

  Her palm felt slippery clenched around the doorknob. “You forgot we were friends,” she said huskily.

  “I didn’t forget that, either.”

  Her throat went tight, and she damned the sudden burning she could feel behind her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.” She just wanted him to go.

  “Tabby—”

  She clenched her jaw.

  He sighed. Shook his head slightly. “I’ll bring you the rent money later.”

  She nodded stoically.

  He sighed again and stepped through the door. She barely waited for him to get through before she pushed it closed after him.

  Then she leaned back against it and let out a shaking breath.

  He remembered her name now.

  Maybe if he’d remembered it that night they’d slept together, she wouldn’t feel the way she did now.

  But no. That night four years ago, after he’d peeled off her clothing as if he’d been unwrapping something exquisitely precious and pulled her into his arms, taking her virginity and her heart in one fell swoop, he hadn’t remembered her name at all.

  It hadn’t been Tabby’s name he’d whispered against her skin.

  It had been Gillian’s.

  * * *

  That night, Justin stuck the rent check in an envelope and shoved it through the mail slot in Tabby’s front door.

  Call him a coward, but he didn’t think he had the stomach to go another round with her.

  Instead, he’d killed the evening at Colbys, the bar and grill owned by his cousin Casey’s new wife, Jane. It had been crowded as hell there, what with the tournament going strong. But since several of the participants were relatives of his, he’d managed to slide his way in. During a break in the play, he’d thrown darts with Caleb and April. He’d tilted beers with JD and argued politics with Jake.

  He’d also spent nearly an hour on the phone with Charles, convincing his boss that helping to fill the hospital’s shortfall in funds for their lab expansion was an investment worth making if CNJ wanted Justin to successfully bring the results of their latest research project in on time.

  It hadn’t been Justin’s project in the first place. It wasn’t even in his usual area of research, which was cancer treatments. Though even before this latest issue, Justin seemed to keep getting pulled farther and farther from the lab.

  But Charles had dumped the matter in his lap only a week ago, when the guy who had been in charge of it had been arrested on drug charges. Not only was Charles trying to minimize the scandal of that, but he needed the final report on the project to be ready for presentation at a conference in Europe right after New Year’s. CNJ was small potatoes in the pharma world. But with this report, Justin’s boss expected major results.

  If the report was completed on time.

  If the results of the project were even accurate. Which was what Justin had yet to prove, considering the situation.

  Five weeks to accomplish something that usually took five months. Sometimes five years.

  Was it any wonder he’d wanted to get away from Boston and the pressure of his own responsibilities in the lab there? Much less the pain in the butt Gillian had been making of herself.

  Key in hand, he walked along the sidewalk fronting all three of the connected units to the door at the opposite end. It was dark, but there was a porch light on, so he had no trouble fitting the key in the lock, and the door swung open with only a slight creak of the hinges.

  He stepped inside and felt around for a light switch on the wall but couldn’t find one. Swearing under his breath, he pushed the door wider so that the light from the porch could extend inside and felt his way into the pitch-dark interior.

  His knee connected with something hard and solid, and he swore loudly, reaching out to feel his way around it.

  A couch. Which hopefully led to a side table and a lamp.

  Why the hell hadn’t he checked the place out while it was still daylight?

  Tabby was why.

  He reached the end of the couch and cautiously felt around for a side table. He nearly knocked the lamp over when he found it, but finally, he felt the switch and turned it.

  The resulting light nearly scorched his eyeballs.

  He blinked and looked away, going back to the door to close it. It was cold outside and nearly as cold inside the apartment. He looked over the living area. It was definitely a twin to Tabby’s place. At least in layout.

  The furnishings were a lot sparer. The couch looked like standard-issue hotel
stuff, making him wonder where she’d gotten it. The simple side table and the lamp were straight out of the ’80s. Not that he cared. He didn’t plan to spend a lot of time here, anyway.

  He just hoped the bed was big enough to stretch out on and comfortable enough to allow him a night’s sleep.

  He found the thermostat on the wall in the hallway and turned on the heat, then checked out the two bedrooms. They were identical except one was outfitted with twin beds—which was never gonna work, since he was six foot four—and the other had a queen-size bed. Not perfect, but doable.

  Only thing it was missing was the bed linens.

  He looked in the closets, which were all empty except for little cedar blocks that hung from hanger poles. He found nothing in the dresser drawers, either.

  Evidently, the term furnished only went so far.

  He went out to the truck he’d borrowed from the Double-C for the duration of his stay and retrieved the suitcase holding his clothes. He left the other two suitcases containing the research materials locked inside the cab of the truck. Tomorrow he’d take them to the hospital, where his aunt had promised him some dedicated lab and office space that, truthfully, she hadn’t had to agree to. He was glad that she had, though, even though it would cost CNJ a nice chunk of change.

  Maybe he was glad because it would cost CNJ a nice chunk of change. It made up, just a little, for the chaos his life had become there.

  CNJ had millions to throw around. The Weaver Hospital—which served this entire region of Wyoming—didn’t.

  It didn’t take him long to unpack. There wasn’t any need here for the suits and ties he typically wore to work in Boston on those days he wasn’t suited up in scrubs. He also hadn’t bothered bringing his heavy coat, just a few sweatshirts and his leather jacket. He figured if he needed something heavier, he’d borrow it from Erik or his dad.

  And if he was honest with himself, it had felt good leaving that stuff behind. Stuff that Gillian had always had a hand in choosing, only because he’d never been interested in it himself.

  The contents of his suitcase took up a third of the bedroom closet and one of the dresser drawers. He dumped his shaving kit on the bathroom counter.