Sweet Talking Man Page 3

  He’d loved that about her.

  At one time.

  Abigail’s head wagged between him and Birdie.

  Leif shrugged. “You know, it really is good cake.”

  The too put-together woman’s mouth opened slightly and she stared at him as though he’d grown devil horns…rather than having just gotten cake in the face from a drunken woman wearing a bridal gown.

  Birdie shimmied down the driveway, craning her neck to catch a final glimpse of the sports car. As the vehicle roared onto the highway, she spun toward them, a fantastical smile invading her face. “That was awesome.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Leif stepped from the shower and shook his hair, causing droplets to fly and speckle the mirror spanning his bathroom wall. No more buttercream frosting, thank God. Only the lavender and mint of the organic shampoo his friend in Colorado made by hand. The scent comforted him, reminding him who he was, where he came from.

  Damn, Marcie.

  What kind of woman did something like what she’d just done? So over-the-top. Thank goodness he’d realized what his life would be like with the drama queen of Saint Charles Avenue and gotten the hell out of town. Of course, he probably should have broken things off before she had ordered the cake, but by that time Marcie had turned into a locomotive, bearing down on the planned wedding date full force. Once he’d agreed they should get hitched—a proposal extracted in the middle of some raunchy sex—Marcie had taken the reins and dragged him behind her on her way to New Orleans’s wedding of the century.

  Before he could say “maybe this isn’t a good idea,” wedding rings were ordered. Looking at the excitement on Marcie’s face and checking out the emerging crow’s-feet around his eyes, he’d decided marrying the daughter of old New Orleans money wasn’t a bad way to spend the rest of his life. She was good in the sack and pretty as a buttercup. So while Marcie spent the next few months booking reception halls, ordering invitations and analyzing bridesmaids’ dresses, Leif tried to envision a life of…chains.

  Because eventually that’s what his impending marriage started to feel like. Prison. His casual proposal spoken in the heat of the moment had turned into a nightmare.

  And then his mother passed away, leaving him a cryptic piece of the puzzle to her past, to a life he’d never known existed.

  He’d returned to New Orleans a week after the funeral, telling himself that finding out the truth about his past wouldn’t change his future with Marcie. But he’d awoken the next morning beside his future wife and couldn’t breathe. Not literally, but almost. His heart galloped, a crushing weight sat on his chest and his clammy palms curved around the edge of the bed, holding on for dear life.

  He just couldn’t do it.

  Marcie was a nice girl, but not his soul mate, not the woman he wanted to wake up next to each morning, not the woman he wanted to sit beside in a rocking chair, watching the sun sink over the marshlands of Louisiana. He had never wanted to live in Louisiana. He craved the mountains, thin air and people who appreciated good tofu.

  So Leif had broken the engagement three weeks before the first wedding shower. This time he’d not written a Dear John letter and bolted. He’d learned his lesson at the hands of his second former fiancée’s brother and found the balls to pull Marcie out of a gown fitting to tell her he wasn’t going to marry her.

  She’d thrown a trash can at him.

  That particular action had scared the hell out of the coffee-shop patrons sitting outside enjoying a sweltering day on Magazine Street. The trash can had spilled nasty old coffee on his new trainers, but he hadn’t had time to worry about that. Marcie picked up the nearest plate and hurled it at him, screaming “asshole” over and over. The poor man who didn’t get to finish the bagel that rolled into the street didn’t shout in outrage—he just slunk in the opposite direction.

  Leif couldn’t blame him.

  He also couldn’t make Marcie listen to reason. She was like a wounded rhino—nothing but a tranquilizer dart would calm her down. She had to burn herself out, and Leif didn’t intend to stick around for the show. Eventually, Marcie would figure out that his ending their relationship would save her greater heartache down the road.

  Guess she hadn’t internalized the last words he’d spoken—someday you’ll thank me.

  Unless the cake was a belated thank-you gift.

  Immediately after the trash-can throwing, Leif had resigned from the art department at Delgado Community College and packed up the small garage apartment he’d rented in the Garden District. Then he’d left New Orleans much the same way he’d entered it—running from a woman.

  Yeah, he’d made a bad habit of getting engaged to girls who, on the surface, seemed perfect but underneath weren’t what he needed. The broken engagement prior to Marcie had occurred three weeks before the wedding. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Jenna—she was as sweet as the buttercream frosting he’d just washed off. Her father and brother, however, weren’t as nice. Leif felt lucky to still be walking after they’d caught up with him in Beaumont.

  So Leif had regrets…lots of them. He’d escaped the wedding noose three times and regretted hurting the bystanders. But most of all, he hated that his fear of commitment had dragged three innocent women through the mire with him. Hadn’t been fair to them, but he comforted himself with the thought he’d done the right thing.

  Leif’s feet couldn’t be nailed down. He wasn’t the kind of guy who stuck…and stayed. Even though he wanted to be someone who belonged somewhere…and to someone.

  Arriving in Magnolia Bend had been an accident of fate, but even if he hadn’t gotten lucky with the position as art teacher at St. George’s, he would have come to the town that held the answer to the biggest mystery in his life.

  So the time to uncover his past was here. This place held the secrets about why his mother had run…and it held the secret of who Leif’s father was.

  Here he began, and here he would hopefully find the answer to the questions that had pricked at him for years. Then maybe he could stop avoiding the ties that bound and find a good spot to settle down.

  The doorbell sounded and he grabbed a linen drying towel and hurriedly scrubbed the remaining moisture from his body. Sliding on the hatachigi pants he’d abandoned on the bathroom floor, Leif hurried toward the foyer. The darkening sky had thrown his living area into gloom. Flicking the porch light switch, he opened the door to find Birdie standing on the stoop. Cool air swooshed in, so he grabbed the Patagonia pullover from the nearby hook and tugged it on.

  “Birdie,” he said, peering out to see Abigail standing once again at the mailbox. Obviously the two had given him some recovery time before resuming whatever mission they were on. Something about drawing. Maybe Abigail wanted her daughter to have private lessons.

  “Hey,” the girl said, shifting nervously in her Converse high-tops. “Mom made me come back to apologize.”

  “For…?”

  “Uh, two things. First…” She glanced at her mother. Abigail gave her an encouraging nod. “I shouldn’t have said that woman smushing cake in your face was awesome.”

  Leif couldn’t stop the laugh. Right after Birdie had declared the awesomeness of Marcie’s actions, Abigail had hustled her daughter away with a quick farewell. She’d nearly dragged Birdie toward the adjacent access walk to the Laurel Woods Bed-and-Breakfast. “Well, it wasn’t awesome for me, but I can understand from your vantage point.”

  “Yeah. She was pretty mad at you.”

  Leif lifted a shoulder. “Eh, I deserved it.”

  “You did?”

  From her post Abigail cleared her throat. Loudly.

  Annoyance shadowed Birdie’s eyes. “And the second thing I’m sorry for is spying on you.”

  “Huh?”

  Birdie turned and called to her mother. “There. I told him. Are you happy?”

  Abigail gave her daughter the “watch it, missy” look mothers had been giving from the beginning of time.


  Leif braced his hands on the door frame, drawing Birdie’s attention. “You’ve been spying on me? Why?”

  Birdie swallowed, shifting restlessly before tilting herself closer to him. “It was last month. I accidently spied on you when I climbed a tree…for, uh, some sketching.” She inclined her head toward her mother and dropped her voice to a whisper. “That’s how I get away from her. She stresses me out.”

  He could see that. His observation of the buttoned-up Abigail had given him the impression someone needed to release a pressure valve inside the woman. Glancing at her now in her navy sweater, her mouth pressed into a serious line, he figured it was tough to have a mom who carried a label maker and a thick accordion binder of forms, calendars and sanitizing wipes. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

  The girl leaned even closer, so that he could smell the apple scent of her shampoo. Her gaze pleaded with him. “I didn’t tell my mom you were naked. Please don’t tell her.”

  Whoa.

  Leif sucked in air. Dear God. He’d never considered that while swimming his daily laps, someone would see him clad in his birthday suit. His privacy fence topped out at eight feet and he usually did laps in the cloak of darkness. It had grown colder the past few weeks so he’d started swimming at the rec center, but last month he’d been in his pool. “Jeez, Birdie, that’s, uh, not cool.”

  The girl rocked back on her heels, tears sheening her eyes. “I didn’t mean to, okay? I didn’t really see anything. Much.”

  “Okay, don’t cry. The human body isn’t something to be ashamed of so let’s not make this something skeevy.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “No, but you need to tell your mom at some point. Keeping a secret like this isn’t a good idea.” He nearly choked on the last thought. He’d kept a big secret from everyone in the town. He was the son of Calliope—a woman they thought murdered someone. He was also the son of some guy who still lived in Magnolia Bend. He just needed to find out who that guy was.

  “She’ll make it into something bad.”

  Leif looked at Abigail, who had given up the aggravation and now appeared concerned about the quiet conversation her daughter was having with him. “Curiosity about the opposite sex is natural, Birdie. Not bad. It’s how we’re made. But the deal is I’m a teacher at your school. Things like this can get complicated.”

  Birdie squinted her eyes, obviously seeing it from his point of view for the first time. But then her expression grew pleading again. “It was an accident. I won’t do it again, and we don’t have to tell anyone you were naked. This is all my fault. Not yours. I’m the pervert.”

  “Is everything okay?” Abigail called.

  Leif raised a hand and gave her a flashbulb smile before directing his regard to her child. “Don’t say that. You did what any eleven-year-old would do.”

  “I’m twelve.”

  “Okay, but even so, you don’t have to be ashamed of being curious. I accept your apology, and I will make sure next time I pull on a suit, okay?”

  Birdie nodded, diamond teardrops clinging to her long lashes. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Okay. We’ve put this behind us. And you do realize that in some art classes, students sketch unclothed bodies. Artists see things differently, right?”

  “Of course,” Birdie said with a nod before easing off his porch. “Thank you, Mr. Lively.”

  Leif smiled, even while inside his gut clenched. He would have to tell Abigail about the “secret” he now shared with Birdie. But that would be hard. He could envision Abigail overreacting to her daughter acting on natural curiosity. She’d make it something it wasn’t. Abigail Orgeron wasn’t a helicopter mom—she was a tank who sat on her daughter. Poor kid. Birdie tried to escape someone who wanted control over every aspect of life.

  Shove a lump of coal up Abigail’s ass and he’d have a diamond in a week.

  But, damn, it was a nice ass. He’d noticed as she marched up and down the halls of St. George’s, outlined as it was in slim trousers that hung perfectly, the hem brushing sensible loafers…that he guessed she bought at Talbots. Abigail also had a nice rack and a slim waist. But most striking of all was the shiny black hair that fell just past her shoulders and held a single silver stripe that framed the right side of her face. The whole look was somehow sexy. The artist in him loved the contrast, the eruption of something so unexpected. It made him want to dig deeper, to know her better, to unwrap the fleeting vulnerability that shaded her eyes.

  He could see the sensuality in the curve of her bottom lip, the grace in the way she moved her elegant hands and the passion trapped beneath those ugly-ass sweaters.

  Leif had seen a lot of woman who needed a good screwing, but he’d never seen a woman who needed it more than Abigail.

  If she weren’t such a cactus with a lonely daughter, he would take up the challenge of giving her relief, but after the bad decisions he’d made with the last few women in his life, he would take a rain check.

  He’d come to Magnolia Bend for one reason, and one reason only—to clear up the past while finding out who his father was. After that, he would likely be off again. His papa wasn’t a rolling stone, but Leif was. When things got tough, he got out.

  Birdie jogged down his steps and just before she reached her mother, turned. “I’m going to ask Fancy to give me the art lessons as a Christmas gift.”

  “Fancy?”

  “My grandmother. She hangs my art all over her house.”

  “Great. Thanks for apologizing, Birdie. Takes a big person to do that.”

  Abigail gave him a smile then. Not a big one, but one that expressed appreciation for his being gracious.

  If only the woman knew.

  But not yet. He’d speak to Abigail later because presently he had to get his midterm test typed up and follow up with the Magnolia Bend Chamber of Commerce president about the upcoming Laurel Woods Art Festival. The chairman of the festival, Hilda Brunet, had contacted him weeks ago and asked him to serve on the committee. Being an artist of slight renown had its pros and cons. This wasn’t necessarily a pro because he wasn’t the committee type. Yet having some of his work featured in a few galleries across the Southwest and being named an up-and-comer in Objet d’Art magazine apparently made him desirable as head of judging. The Golden Magnolia art prize once meant a great deal in the Southern artistic community. The town was hoping to resurrect the festival and the prestige of the award. Hilda had beamed at him when she asked him to be part of the team to put the Laurel Woods Art Festival back on the map. What could he say?

  Telling Hilda no didn’t seem to be an option.

  Yeah, he guessed he had a problem with telling women no.

  But surely saying yes to being on the committee wouldn’t land him a face full of buttercream frosting.

  “Good night, Mr. Lively.” Abigail waved, placing a hand on Birdie’s shoulder, which the girl immediately brushed away.

  “Night,” he called, turning to the house he’d leased four months ago. The clean lines and blank canvas of the cottage had appealed to him, and the lap pool in the backyard and nice stretch of zoysia grass for practicing tai chi had sold him. He closed the door and entered the living area he’d furnished with an overstuffed sofa and huge beanbag chairs. The soft carpet beneath his feet had come from his mother’s last residence. The walls were covered with huge canvases, some done by his mother and others by friends. The incense he’d lit after Marcie’s fit in order to clear the bad karma had burned away, leaving a pungent, earthy scent.

  He scooped up a crumb that he’d missed during cake cleanup.

  Not exactly the way he’d planned to spend Sunday evening, but then again, what in life came when expected?

  Certainly not a marauding drunken bride.

  Or an attractive neighbor with a disapproving stare.

  Or a twelve-year-old voyeur.

  Long ago Leif had learned to roll with the punches, a requirement for the son of a renowned artist, for a kid with no father, for a ma
n with no ties.

  Yes, he embraced the unexpected as the poetry of life.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Six weeks later

  ABIGAIL STOOD OUTSIDE the college classroom next to Birdie and read the sign next to the door. Introduction to Drawing. Leif Lively.

  What in the hell had she been thinking?

  She couldn’t draw a straight line. Or a circle. She’d never even mastered one of those stars everyone could draw, though she had managed to render the brick wall with Ziggy peeking over it. That image had graced every notebook cover in middle school.

  Birdie turned to her, excitement pirouetting in her eyes. “This is going to be perfect.”

  That, right there, was why.

  Birdie looking at her the same way she’d looked at her when she learned to ride her bike—that was the main reason she’d agreed to the mother-daughter art class.

  That, and the fact that the classes were a Christmas present from her mother, Fancy. Her mother had given her a talking-to as they took down the Beauchamp family Christmas tree several weeks ago.

  “Why the art lessons, Mom?” Abigail had asked.

  “Because you need to do something to connect with Birdie. And that means doing something she wants to do, not what you want to do. Organizing her closet with pink bins and polka-dotted shelf paper is not fun for Birdie.”

  “I can’t draw to save my life, Mom,” Abigail had complained while nestling antique glass ornaments in bubble wrap. She’d enjoyed organizing Birdie’s closet. She’d even downloaded current music for her iPad, docking it so they could rearrange to some new jams. Birdie had given her a look that could peel paint. So, yeah, she guessed it was safe to say her daughter hadn’t enjoyed the closet revamp dance party.