The Homewreckers(128)

“Six thirty,” Lynn announced. “Time to lock up and go home.”

Hattie gave the shop owner a quick hug. “You’re a lifesaver. You know Zenobia, our office manager, right? Will you send her an inventory of all this stuff we’ve borrowed?”

“Thirty days, correct? I can’t afford to have this much inventory out for any longer than that, Hattie.”

“Hopefully, the house will be sold much quicker than that, but yeah, it all comes back here by the end of next month.”



* * *



The drive back to Tybee took nearly an hour. Hattie spent the time thinking about how wrong she’d been to fly off the handle at Mo the previous night. But as wrong as it was to assume he’d leaked the story about her father, she decided she was right to regret sleeping with him.

Whether or not the network picked up Homewreckers for a second season was immaterial. She wasn’t at all sure she should repeat the experience again. Sleeping with a business associate was always a bad idea. Even if the business associate was kind and funny and loyal and a great kisser. Especially if he was a great kisser, because then, who knew—you might be tempted to keep sleeping with him and making the same mistake over and over again.

Her phone was in the truck console. She considered calling Mo. She could admit that she’d been wrong to accuse him of talking out of turn. Much easier than telling him that to his face. Just as she reached for the phone, it rang.

Jinx. The caller was Mo.

She hesitated, then tapped accept.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey. Where are you?”

“Headed back to the house with the rest of the stuff Trae needs to finish up. Leetha and the crew are right behind me. Why? What’s going on?”

“Not much. I, uh, wanted to talk to you. About last night. But every time I looked up today, there were too many people around.”

Hattie looked in the rearview mirror and saw the van with Leetha and the crew was two cars back. “I’m alone now.”

“First off, I would never purposely do anything to hurt you.”

“I believe you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Mo, I’m sorry I jumped to such a stupid conclusion. I should have known better.”

“Well, yeah. Good. Glad we got that straight.”

“Anything else you wanted to tell me?” Hattie realized she was holding her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“It’d be better if I could tell you this face-to-face,” Mo said.

“I should be back at the house in fifteen minutes unless traffic gets worse.”

“Yeah, but I’m on my way to the airport. Rebecca decided to ‘surprise’ me by flying in tonight. She wants to be on hand for the reveal tomorrow.”

“Oh.” The word hung there.

“It’s kind of a command performance. Probably won’t be much time to talk privately tomorrow, and, uh, I just wanted to tell you that I don’t regret last night. I know you think it was a bad idea, and I’m sorry you think that, because I think it was pretty great. Even if it was just that one time, I don’t regret it. I think you and I could work.…”

“No,” Hattie interrupted. “We’re not Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. We’re too different. We want different things.”

“We’re not that different,” Mo insisted. “I’m passionate about my work. I’m stubborn as hell, but I’m loyal, and I’ll never lie to you.” He sighed loudly. “Look, we can’t resolve this over the phone. I’ll see you in the morning. In the meantime, think about what I said. Please?”

“I gotta go,” Hattie said. She disconnected before he could.





68

House Beautiful




As soon as the van pulled into the driveway behind the truck, Leetha jumped down from behind the wheel and directed the camera crew to start shooting. “The light’s great right now,” she enthused.

Trae had enlisted one of the finish carpenters to stay and help unload the truck and van, and he was obviously eager to critique all the things Hattie had borrowed.

“That rug is way too faded,” he sniped, as the helper unrolled it in the living room.

“That’s the Tybee look,” Hattie said. “Faded and worn but beautiful.”

“Like me,” Leetha quipped from off-camera.

Hattie picked up the blue-and-white ginger jar lamps and placed them on the console table at the far end of the room. “They’re obviously not old,” Trae said. “But it’s a good look.”

“Help me with this,” she ordered Trae, picking up one end of the huge Bert John abstract and propping it on the wall above the mantel.

“Okay, the paintings are great. This one especially. We’ll leave it leaning like this. More casual.” He grabbed a pair of large, seeded-glass hurricane lamps Hattie had unloaded and placed them on either side of the painting, then stepped back to admire the effect.

“All right,” he said. “Yeah. Now I’m seeing the vision. You done good, Hattie Mae.”

Hattie lifted an eyebrow. “Good?”

“Okay, great. Now let’s get this place styled up.”

“Where’s Cass?” Hattie asked.