“Probably not the best choice of words,” Erika said, “but he realized he wants you in his life and that he messed up.”
“You okay, Lettie?” Amy asked.
Was she? Why did this monumental morsel of information blurted from Bill’s niece make her feel so nervous? So . . . scared?
“God help me,” she mumbled, easing into a chair at the table.
“He probably will,” Cassie said, then placed her half-eaten piece of cake in front of Lettie. “But eat this, anyway. Cake never hurts. Besides, I’m not all that hungry.”
“
You’re
not hungry?” Amy asked.
“Nope,” Cassie said, grinning, then added, “I’ll tell you all about him later.”
Unable to argue with the hunk of sugar in front of her, Lettie picked up the fork and chomped a big bite. Oddly enough, it did help. “Erika?” she questioned between chews.
“Yeah?”
“He hasn’t called—hasn’t tried to see me—in two weeks. Why now? And why are you telling me, instead of Bill?”
“He didn’t want to talk to you over the phone, and since Amy, Cass and I have been meeting every night to try to figure out how we could help things along, we thought we should help you handle this the right way. I mean, since he’s willing to go out on a limb for you, you should do the same.”
Lettie took another big bite of cake and decided to start at the beginning of Erika’s information dump. “You three have been meeting every night? About me . . . and Bill?”
“At Cowboys,” Amy said.
“Don’t you just love Cowboys?” Cassie asked, cutting another slice of cake, then licking the icing from her fingers. “Slay is taking me there again tonight. I swear, I didn’t realize line dancing could be so much fun.”
Amy’s mouth fell open. “Slay? As in Slay Silverstone? You’re seeing him now?”
“Oh, he and the girlfriend were just together for sex,” Cass informed. “And don’t worry, he can still test your products. Matter of fact, I think we’re scheduled to come in for a visit to your lab on Tuesday. By the way, I’ve found out all the juicy details about his O-time factor. Lord help me, that man’s amazing.”
“Cassie!” Lettie exclaimed.
Cass merely shrugged. And grinned. “Damn, Lettie, he melts vibrators. How’s a girl supposed to resist that?”
“Wow,” Erika whispered on a breathy sigh.
“Uh-uh. I got dibs,” Cassie said, pointing an icing-coated finger at the younger girl.
“He melts them?” Erika asked again, her big dark eyes even wider.
Lettie dropped her head in her hands. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”
“You’re right,” Amy said. “We were talking about you and Bill. And the fact that the two people we care about most”—she pointed to Erika—“want each other. And he’s finally ready to do something about it.”
“But we think it’ll mean plenty to him, tell him how committed you are as well, if you do something first,” Erika said.
“What do you mean he’s ready to do something?” Lettie asked.
“Talk to you, tell you how he feels,” Erika said matter-of-factly.
“Then why hasn’t he called?”
“I told you, he didn’t want to talk over the phone,” Erika said, as though Lettie obviously hadn’t been paying attention.
“But he did call, to see when you’d be home,” Amy said. “I told him you weren’t here and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow morning, that you needed to get away for a while.”
“You
lied
to him?” Lettie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Not really. I wasn’t
positive
you were coming home. And you did get away, for your interview.”
“I fibbed to him too, a little,” Erika said, giving Amy a crooked smile. “I told him I was going out with Lindsay.”
“You did what?” Lettie asked, shocked.
Erika merely shrugged. “I am going out with her later, so it wasn’t a total lie. I just didn’t tell him where I was going first.”
Lettie frowned, and felt sick.
“We wanted you to get a chance to do something first, to show him how much you care,” Amy said, repeating Erika’s earlier comment.
“What do you mean—do something?”
Amy took a bite of Lettie’s cake. “Erika said he thought you would call or come see him to try to straighten things out,” she informed. “He’s been waiting for you to make a move for the past two weeks.”
Lettie shook her head. “He told me not to.”
“He thought he meant enough to you that you would anyway,” Erika enlightened.
“I was trying to give him what he wants.”
“Exactly. But what he wants—” Erika began, but Cassie held up a hand and blinked through a man-size bite of cake.
Cass swallowed hard. “What he wants is you, Lettie.”
“And we’ve got the perfect way for you to give him exactly what he wants,” Amy added.
Lettie laughed. She couldn’t help it. What had they done? And what were they planning for her to do?
“God help me.”
“I already told you,” Cassie said, catching a dab of icing from the corner of her mouth with her tongue, “He will. And we will too.”
“Okay. I’m game. What do you have in mind?”
Before they could answer Lettie’s question, a four-legged, caramel-colored and pointy-eared creature bounded in the room, yapping loud enough to wake the entire building.
“What in the world is that?” Lettie asked, her eyes bulging almost as much as the dog’s.
“Uhm, today’s surprise from Landon?” Amy lifted the teeny dog and let it lick her cheek. “It’s a Chihuahua.”
“I could see that much. And it’s yours? As in, for good? To live here? With us?” Lettie asked.
“Pretty much.”
Cassie laughed loudly, shaking her head and eagerly watching Lettie for her reaction to her new roommate.
“He’s adorable!” Erika exclaimed, reaching for him, then pulling her hands back when he growled like a Doberman.
“Wheelie, calm down,” Amy commanded.
“Wheelie?” Lettie asked.
“It’s a sentimental thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Obviously,” Cassie answered.
“Say he’s housebroken,” Lettie said, eyeing the little dog suspiciously.
“He is,” Amy said, smiling with pride. “Aren’t ya, Wheelie?”
And at that moment, the dog decided to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Amy wasn’t so great at lying.
“Oh my!” she yelled, holding him away from the big wet spot on her shirt. “Well, he’s just getting used to the place, and to me. That’s all. He really is house-trained, Lettie.”
“Sure, he is.”
“I’m keeping him,” Amy informed. She brought Wheelie back to her chest, then giggled when he started a thorough licking of her neck.
“As if I could talk you out of it,” Lettie said while her sister went to the bedroom to change her shirt.
“Okay,” Cass said when Amy returned. “You need to show Bill you’re everything he’s looking for. That you want to be honest with him from now on.”
Lettie nodded.
“You do love him, right?” Erika queried.
Despite feeling odd revealing that privileged information to a girl she’d just met, Lettie answered. “More than life.”
“Perfect,” Erika said. “Then this should work.”
“What should work?”
“Our plan.” Amy wrapped an arm around her sister as Wheelie growled at the items on the table.
“Yeah,” Erika agreed. “We’re calling it ‘Operation Seduce My Uncle.’”
“I never agreed to that name,” Cass grumbled, taking Wheelie as Amy switched to infomercial mode, describing the unique props. And while Lettie set her sights on winning Bill Brannon’s heart.
B
ill hadn’t stopped thinking about Lettie since his conversation with Erika last night. His niece had been right. He should have let go of his pride and made the first move. And Amy’s enlightenment that Lettie had “needed to get away for awhile” didn’t help. Where had she gone? And why had he waited so long before trying to get in touch with her?
Had he waited too long?
He picked up his office phone, then promptly dropped it back on the cradle. He would not call again. She’d obviously received his messages, and she hadn’t responded. That gave him his answer, didn’t it?
But damn it, it wasn’t the answer he wanted.
He logged off his computer, picked up his briefcase and decided to call it a day. He’d put in three extra hours and hadn’t even noticed, with his attention focused on Lettie instead of his new campaign.
All day, he’d left variations of the same message, apologizing. Saying he should have let her explain, that he really did want to get to know her better and that he was sorry for being an ass. That pretty much summed it up, didn’t it? But she hadn’t returned his calls.
Not one.
Driving home, he replayed the events of the last two weeks, then backtracked over the past nearly two decades, since the first day he’d seen the blond beauty when she’d marched into fifth grade.
Bill had spent most of his life wanting Lettie Campbell, not merely physically, but emotionally as well. Then, when she’d given him her body and expressed the desire to give him more, he’d thrown it all away over one mistake.
He jerked the wheel to enter his driveway. Erika’s car was MIA, as usual. Probably out with her friends, and she probably told him where she was going, but he couldn’t recall.
Wasn’t that befitting? He’d botched the one relationship he wanted, might as well fail at his parental skills too.
With his head pounding and his body itching for a strong drink and a hot shower, he entered his house. And inhaled the distinct scent of flowers.
Candles flickered around the room, reminding him of the Landmarks Lounge. Yet the intimate lighting within his home provided an even more vivid semblance of romance. Even more because he suspected, hoped, he knew who had decorated.
Please
.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but they did, and what he saw took his breath away. Roses. Everywhere. More than he could count. Roses in vases, roses on the countertops, and petals on every piece of furniture, making the room resemble an elegant mosaic composed of solid . . . pink.
“Lettie?”
“Hi.” She stepped from the bedroom, the candlelight shimmering behind her forming a curvy silhouette that made his mouth go dry. “I got your messages.”
Swallow. Salivate. Speak.
“You did?”
“Yeah. And one of them caught me off-guard.”
Bill struggled to remember each apology he’d left on her machine. He’d wanted to talk to her so urgently he’d rambled.
What the hell had he said?
“You confessed,” she supplied, stepping closer. “Said you lied too.”
“I did.”
“Did confess? Or did lie?” Another step forward, and her shiny gloss caught the light, made her lips even fuller. More tempting.
“Both.”
She laughed, a seductive, sexy sound. “You said you really aren’t the wild and wicked guy I met this past week. That you were really more the friend I trusted more than anyone else way back when.”
He didn’t speak, merely watched her hand fiddle with the highest button of her blouse. She wore the same sleeveless white top she’d had on the last time she’d come to his home, the same fitted black pants and heels.
Was she trying to remind him of when he’d messed up? Because he really didn’t need any reminders. All he had to do was look at her and he knew. He’d messed up. And he wanted another chance.
Was she giving him one?
“I kind of liked that wild guy.”
Well, hell.
“And I’m not convinced that he isn’t part of you. Maybe not something you show to everyone. Maybe . . . he’s just for me?”
Bingo. “Definitely.”
“Good.” She stood in front of him, still teasing him with her fingertips on that button. “Because I’m not always a wild girl either.”
“No?”
“No. And maybe, the wild girl is reserved for one person.” She took her finger from the button and placed it on his cheek, tenderly tracing it down his jaw. “Maybe she’s just for you.”
“I should’ve let you explain,” Bill said. “You were trying to tell me you were sorry, but I didn’t listen. That won’t happen again.”
It was the truth, if only she’d believe it.
She tilted her head. “I brought something to help us figure all this out.”
“Figure what out?”
“Us. You. And me.”
“Okay.”
Her hips swayed as she crossed the room. She paused and looked over her shoulder at Bill, giving him a soft smile. Then she ran her palm over an item on the dining table, and a blanket of pink petals fell to the floor. “Come here.”
Bill followed her command; he’d follow any command from Lettie Campbell.
“Sit down.”
He sat without regard to the flower petals on the chair.
“We’re going to play a game.” She moved two additional candles to the sides of the table, then pointed to the name on the outside of the box.
“Truth or Bare?” Bill asked, his heart rate quickening at the possibilities.
“It’s Amy’s latest creation, and it’ll serve our needs.”
“Amy’s latest creation?”
“I never told you what she designs, did I?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Sex toys.”
He didn’t respond, simply grinned. Were the Campbell girls always filled with surprises?
Lettie smiled, and it washed over his body like warm rain, covering him completely.
The gold flecks of her eyes caught the light of the candles, and he saw much more than mere color in their depths. He saw desire, and unless he was sadly mistaken, he saw more.
“When you gave me those pink roses in high school, then again at my apartment, you said you wanted to get to know me better, right?”
“Right.”
“You meant it?” she asked.
“You know I did.”
“Well, tonight, I gave you pink roses.”
He swallowed. “You want to get to know me better, Lettie?”
“Yes.” Her voice was deliciously sexy. Excited. Anxious.
“And this game will help?” he asked.
“That’s the idea.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Sliding her hand from his, Lettie opened the box and withdrew two pieces of white paper and two red pens. She handed one set to Bill, then kept the other. “Can you see the questions, or do you need more light?”