The Suit (2 page)

I stare at him blankly, the skin on my hand prickling from where his lips just touched it.

“Is there a problem here, Edie?” Earl asks as he slides my pitcher of beer across the bar to me.

I finally tear my gaze away from the incredibly sexy man in front of me and answer, “No, Earl. Just a friendly conversation that’s now over. Have a lovely evening, Mr. Wilson.” With a cheeky smile, I take the pitcher and head back to my table. The skin on my hand where his lips brushed burns, but in a good way—or a really bad way, depending on how you look at it.

“Who was that?” Nikki asks, staring at the suit as I slide into my seat.

“He knew Daddy Bud,” I whisper.

“That’s a fine piece of man.” Nikki nods approvingly.

“Stop looking at him! You’re being obvious,” I hiss at her.

“He wouldn’t notice,” Dierk adds. “He’s too busy staring at you, Edie.”

With that, I glance back to the suit and our eyes lock. Heat covers my face and I jerk my eyes away.

“Looks kind of prissy to me,” Joey snorts.

“If by ‘prissy’ you mean could fuck any girl in this bar if he chose to do so, then yes, he looks prissy,” Nikki teases, her blue eyes still honing on the suit.

“That’s exactly what I meant,” Joey says dryly. “That guy looks so fuckable,” he says in mock falsetto.

We all laugh as I fill my pint glass with more beer from the pitcher and quickly begin to chug it down. There are already so many things I want to forget about today. I want to forget the loss of Daddy Bud, his funeral, the fact I have no idea what I will do now, and to top it off, a sexy stranger that somehow got under my skin after barely speaking to him. I need to drink myself into obliteration.

“I’m going to drive you two home tonight,” Dierk volunteers as I continue to chug my beer down.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Nikki nods.

And that’s the last thing I remember.

Pounding
.
Why is my head pounding? It feels like something is beating my brain with a bat. 

“Stop!” I shout to myself as I roll out of my bed and hit my hardwood floor with a thud. My head is going to crack open in two any second. As I push myself up, the pounding continues. What the hell is…
the door.
Someone is pounding on my front door.

“I’m coming!” I shout angrily. I crawl to my bedroom door,
yes, crawl I tell you
. That’s the condition I’m in. When I reach it, I open it and stare down the hallway. “Somebody is going to die when I reach that front door,” I grumble to myself. I finally stand up and stomp down the hall.

As I whip the front door open after fighting the lock, biting my tongue to keep from cursing every profanity in the English language at it, I start to shout, “Who the—”

“Good morning, sunshine.” A cocky grin greets me, stunning me silent.
The suit
. At the sight of me, his grin fades and his head bows so that his aviator sunglasses slide down the bridge of his nose as his eyes run up and down my form. He pushes a brown paper bag at me and a Styrofoam cup with a lid, all while his eyes continue dancing up and down my body. “Figured you’d be feeling rough today so I thought I’d come prepared. We have a lot to discuss.” He clears his throat.

My mouth hangs open.
Shut your mouth, Edie
. I quickly snap my mouth shut and stare at the suit like an idiot. Why is he here and how does he know where I live?
Shit. How the hell does he know where I live?
Stalker! “How…?” I stumble back, never accepting the bag and coffee he’s offering.

He chuckles softly.
“I can explain all of that in a moment. Maybe after you get dressed?” His eyes scan me again before meeting my perplexed gaze. Following his line of sight, I glance down at myself and quickly cross my arms over my chest as if that would matter now. I’m still drunk. I have to be because how the hell did I roll out of bed and open the front door without realizing I’m wearing nothing but a pair of lacy, cheeky panties and a too-tight, white T-shirt with no bra?

“Oh my God,” I groan and spin around, so embarrassed I leave my front door wide open as I run down the hall, giving the suit a great view of my ass. With great haste, I throw on the jeans that I wore last night, which lay crumpled on the floor smelling of horses and stale beer, and pull a sweatshirt from a hanger in my closet. When I head back to the front door, it’s closed and I discover the suit sitting at the end of my dining room table, his briefcase open in front of him as he sorts through some papers. He’s removed his jacket and it’s draped over the back of the chair he sits
in. His sleeves are rolled up exposing his muscular forearms and the top two buttons at his collar are undone. He looks all
GQ
sitting in my dining room. The coffee he offered me when I first opened the door sits next to a giant croissant on a napkin in the space next to him.

When he finally notices me, he stands.
“Please, Edie, have a seat.” He gestures toward a chair and I scowl at him.

“Thank you for offering me a seat at my own dining room table. What the heck are you doing? You just walked into my home uninvited.” I cross my arms and remain in the doorway. Good-looking or not, you don’t just roll up in someone else’s house.

Casually, he slides both hands into the pockets of his pants. “You left the door open,” he reminds me. “I assumed you were telling me it was okay to enter.”

“Well you assumed wrong. And you know what they say about people who assume?” I counter.

His mouth curves to one side as he cuts me a quick sideways glance. “Sit. We have much to discuss.”

Just as I open my mouth to
put him in his place, the suit’s eyes go dark and his jaw tenses, his gaze seeming to pass right over me. When I spin around, I find Dierk standing behind me in nothing but a towel. Beads of water still sit on his tight skin and his shaggy hair drips droplets on his shoulders. I’m staring at him like an idiot. I’m not sure if it’s from shock or from the massive appreciation for his body. Seriously, it should be illegal for two men this good-looking to be so close to one woman at the same time.

“Dierk,” his name comes out in a whispery breath.
What the hell, Edie? You’ve known this guy all of your life, stop acting like one of his groupies.

“Morning, beautiful,” he smiles and grazes his knuckles over my cheek. I am literally stunned i
nto silence. What is happening? Dierk sidesteps around me and heads toward the suit who has apparently been staring at us. “I’m Dierk.” He extends a hand to the suit. The suit, John, looks at his hand as if he’s debating taking it or not. But after a moment he takes it and shakes Dierk’s hand. “John Wilson,” he says, but it doesn’t sound friendly.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Dierk asks, and my mouth flies open in shock. What the—

“No. There isn’t,” the suit states simply. “My business is with Edie.”

Turning back to me, Dierk
cocks his head to one side. “You need me to stay, gorgeous?”

Yep. I’m dreaming
or
having a nightmare. I’m not sure which. Someone roofied me last night. That’s it! I’m drugged. How else could the suit be here looking like sex on a stick and Dierk, the hottest guy in town, standing in nothing but a towel, with those damn drops of water all over him most girls would die to sop up with their tongues. This is a wet dream. I’m having the female equivalent of a wet dream.

Okay, so I’m not dreaming.
This
is real. “I’m fine. Thanks, D.” I nod as I clear my throat.

“I’ll get dressed then. Holler if you need me.” Dierk passes by me and his hand brushes mine as he exits.

The suit clears his throat and sits back down. His demeanor seemed moderately friendly before, but now he seems like he doesn’t even want to look at me. “I’d like to get down to business if that’s okay, Ms. James. We haven’t got much time.”
Ms. James?
Has he called me that before?

I take the seat next to him as I pick up the tasty looking croissant. The more time I spend with him, the less I like him and he already started with a disadvantage, so as unfriendly as I might be, and believe me I’m committing a Southern faux pas here, I ask, “Might you share what it is we haven’t much time for, suit?”

His gaze meets mine and he arches a questioning brow. “Suit?”

“Yeah.” I shrug casually. Calling him suit is rude, by any fine Southerner’s standards, but I’m not in the mood to be particularly polite today. “You look like one of those guys who never takes it off. Like it’s a second skin.” I chuckle at my witty observation.

He leans back in his seat, his gaze never leaving mine. “Well, I’d say that’s a first impression and maybe one shouldn’t be so quick to judge based on a first impression. After all, your boyfriend spent most of the evening flirting with your friend at your table last night, but somehow ended up coming home with you. Wonder what kind of cute nickname I could conjure from that observation?” My mouth, full of croissant, drops open and heat washes over my face.

That, my friends…was a low blow.

Okay, so I happened to open the door practically naked when the suit showed up. And Dierk happened to interrupt us in the dining room practically naked, but that kind of stuff happens all the time. Right? How could anyone assume we hooked up? I’m not that kind of girl. I’d like to tell him who I am, I’m Edie James. Sweet as apple pie and granddaughter to Bud James. Where are my fellow townsmen praising my untarnished reputation when I need them? But something tells me that wouldn’t matter to him.

Instead, I say lacking eloquence, “That…we didn’t…it’s not…”
What can I say? I’m a regular wordsmith over here.

“What was it you said to me before your boyfriend interrupted? Something about…people who assume?”

Okay, he’s good.

He’s got to be a lawyer or something. He totally just threw my words back in my face. My cheeks flame as I flounder for something clever to say. I’ve got nothing. So I roll out the best defense, “He’s not my boyfriend.” Until the words leave my mouth, it doesn’t occur to me that makes it sound like I just hooked up with some random guy.

“Even better.” The suit snorts and starts rifling through his papers again.

“I mean, we didn’t hook up. He’s a friend. He drove me home last night.” My worthless attempts at protecting the reputation of my virtue seem to fall on deaf ears.

“It’s none of my business, Ms. James,” he states simply as he closes his black leather briefcase. I want to defend myself more, but he’s right. It’s
not
any of his business. Who cares what he thinks? I sure don’t.

“All right, suit,” I reply snidely. If he wants to assume the worst about me, I’ll assume it about him as well. “Do tell me why you are gracing me with your presence.”

“I’m a Juris Doctor in Raleigh.”

“A what?”

“That means I’m a graduate of law school.”

Yep, I nailed that one.

“Your grandfather met with me a few months ago to help him set up a will. He completed the will there in Raleigh with an attorney I worked as a summer associate for. I’m here to discuss his wishes for you and the property.”

I sit up abruptly and narrow my eyes at him. “He has an attorney here in town. Mr. Wayward. We’ve already been through his will. He left me everyt
hing.” Suspicion curls in my stomach. Who is this man? Is he some kind of hustler, scam artist?

He slides a small pile of papers toward me and I pick them up. “This will, as it is his most recent, would trump the one he made with Mr. Wayward. Your grandfather had some stipulations regarding what you must do to inherit the farm on a permanent basis.”

My heart drops with his words. What could Daddy Bud have been worried about? That I’d squander his money and land away? I was always frugal, I never indulged in expensive things, even though I could have. I was a hard worker, always helping on the farm. I took care of him. It hurts to think he worried about me being irresponsible after he was gone. “I don’t understand.”

The suit leans back in his chair again and stares at me. “He left you with everything and from the looks of it you could sell all of this off and never have to work a day in your life.” I can tell by the glare he’s giving me during his suggestion of what I
could
do, he thinks maybe I intend to do just that.

“I would never do that,” I spat at him with anger. “I love this farm. This is my home. He raised me here.” Before I realize
it’s happening, tears well up in my eyes. The suit regards me with narrowed eyes after my declaration, giving me a moment to collect myself.

“I guess he must’ve believed somewhere deep down you would need an escape plan from this new ownership.” He slides an envelope toward me with
Edie
written across the front. I know it’s from my grandfather because I recognize his chicken scratch handwriting. My breath hitches at the sight of it.

“You see, Ms. James, I’m sure you’ve already received notices from clients who intend to take their horses elsewhere for training.”

My stomach churns with his words. Mostly because I have received five notices in the four days since Daddy Bud died. Apparently, these clients don’t believe a twenty-three-year-old woman can train racehorses, but believed an ill, eighty-five-year-old man could. It’s been me, with the help of a few people we keep on staff, that’s been running this farm and training their horses.