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  Vance looked after him. I swear to God I am gonna figure that guy out sooner or later. And then his gaze shifted to his grandmother who was stretched out like Greta Garbo on a lounge chair. Her Hollywood wide-brimmed hat and bathing attire had lured Harry and other males in all afternoon. The woman was an unconscionable flirt at the age of seventy-eight, and the fact that Grace Devine’s rough-and-tumble spy guy was the one sitting on the edge of her chaise now had Vance shaking his head. Shaking his head and wondering how he could incite some kind of argument between spy guy Leo, and black belt Pinks so Vance wouldn’t be the only stooge who got tossed in the pool. Of course, the FBI big shot probably had his own black belt.

  Yeah, Vance thought, better to save the preppy ninja bit for another day. Though it sure would make for some entertaining action.

  Action.

  The word had his gaze swinging over to Pinks and the Jail Bait Bikini Team. Vance’s eyes shot wide as he took in Pinks with his shirt off. The guy had stripped down to his lime green shorts to get in the pool a while back and was now sporting a heavily muscled chest and sculpted arms as he continued to play host to the lithesome bodies surrounding him. Vance wondered if Pinks even knew Lolly was there. It certainly looked as if Pinks had taken Harry’s “freed up to look elsewhere” motto to heart.

  He sighed deeply, thinking maybe he should “look elsewhere” as well. Because standing here among the people he was closest to—his best friends and his family—he could feel that insidious and painfully familiar feeling of utter loneliness creep back into existence. And he hated it. It made him do stupid things he noted as he licked his lips, eyeing the swell of Titty Titty’s voluptuous display.

  Hell, he’d been living like a monk for the past two months trying to break himself of the habit of having to drag a woman home to bed. Because like a fucking girl, he had started waking up and hating himself for it in the morning. So he’d begged Lolly to help him find another way—a better way—to relate to women. And Lolly had worked her magic, because once they started interacting he wanted to be a better man. He wanted to be whole. He wanted to leave the needy kid in him behind and be the kind of man a woman like Lolly could love.

  “Jesus,” he swore under his breath. “Lewis,” Vance yelled, calling his buddy away from a conversation with his parents and Tess Devine, Henderson’s one and only Broadway star. “How ‘bout playin’ me in that new video game KampsApps just put out? Maybe you can throw me a bone to help maneuver through the Banshee Bandits and get to the next level.”

  Lewis pushed his glasses up higher on his nose and said, “Finally, somebody here is speaking my language. Those Banshee Bandits are systematically….”

  Vance smiled and patted Lewis on the back, letting him go on and on with all that techno speak Vance didn’t give a shit about. As they headed toward the pool house, Vance took one long last look at Titty Titty and assured himself he’d be happier playing video games with Lewis—at least come the morning.

  Vance didn’t understand half of what Lewis was telling him about how the levels of the video game weren’t just stacked vertically, but horizontally and diagonally as well. He was just happy to get lost in the game and stop the downward spiral of his thoughts for a time. Stop the emotional deluge that wanted to spew like a volcano from the depths of his soul. Because somehow, by being friends with Lolly, the wall holding back his emotions had started dismantling itself brick by fucking brick. Until that one insidious emotion called Hope slithered through the wall and scattered its ugly cravings disguised as glorious sunshine throughout his mind, heart, and soul.

  Hope—the bane of his childhood.

  He had held vigil with Hope. Sat and held Hope’s hand while waiting for his mother to come back. Wished the same goddamn wish that she would return on every set of birthday candles. Hope had sat up nights with him, graduated to the next grade with him, played fucking third base with him right up until he won the State Championship. And that’s when he realized something.

  Hope sucked.

  Hope was like the Banshee Bandits. You had to get over it, go through it, or maneuver around it in order to get to the next level—which he had. He’d finally gotten over Hope, and then he had manhandled Longing, shoving those two emotions, along with their nonexistent pal, Joy, into the depths of his being and bricked them up good.

  He didn’t remember what the ultimate catalyst had been, because life had been good for a while there. His college years had been fun and angst-free. He’d felt normal for the first time in his life. But then—something happened. Something had happened that snapped him in two. Because out of the blue, he became addicted to running, and it wasn’t long after that he became addicted to sex. Whatever it was had gone down about five years ago. But apparently he’d bricked that up as well.

  Aaaaand just when he’d gotten his head back into the video game, in walked Trouble with her long, lean legs.

  “What does it say about a party when the host slinks off to play video games?” Lolly asked, catching Lewis and Vance red-handed.

  “That KampsApps makes epic games,” Vance said, killing off the Banshee with the golden crossbow. “Besides,” he said, focused on the ensuing riot around his avatar, “while Lewis is in town, I need to wrestle all the tricks from him I can.”

  “Lewis, sweetheart,” Darcy cooed from behind Lolly, “drive me out to the lake and remind me why I’ve agreed to be your bride.”

  With a few quick toggle maneuvers and a couple of quick button combinations by Lewis, Vance’s avatar and team of sidekicks exploded into glittering debris, while the remaining characters on the screen knelt on one knee and bowed to Lewis’ avatar. Lewis turned to Darcy and smiled, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Gladly.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I slipped you and your men an imploding device about three levels ago.”

  “How the hell did you do that?” Vance cried. He looked at Lewis and then back to the screen. “That was so fucking cool. You have got to show me that move.”

  “Later,” Lewis said, standing and walking Darcy out the door.

  “Did you see that?” he asked Lolly.

  She nodded, smiling. “Pretty cool,” she agreed. “Seems Lewis has his own version of bad cop moves.”

  Vance grinned, turning off the game system and the flat screen TV. “He does at that,” he agreed. “Where’s Brooks?”

  “He’s smoking a cigar with Duncan and Davis.”

  Vance stood, turned, saw the arms crossed over her chest and the set to her jaw and realized he had not discussed Davis the intern—or anything else for that matter with Lolly.

  “You mad?” he asked. “Because I’ll let him go. The kid is smart, has nothing to do all summer, and can probably help my dad and me out in a zillion ways getting our business shit together, but you just say the word and I’ll run his lacrosse-playing ass out of Henderson.”

  Lolly cocked her head and sighed. Then she turned on her heels, throwing over her shoulder, “My momma and your daddy requested a moment with you and me. Probably about the wedding.”

  “Wait.” Vance caught up to her and grabbed a wrist, turning her around. He pulled her close and held her chin between his thumb and index finger so he could look into her eyes. He searched their depths before asking, “You and Brooks. Are you all right? Did he…treat you okay?”

  Lolly’s tongue flicked out to wet her upper lip as she nodded her head.

  “Because if he didn’t, I’ll take care of things. You got me?”

  Lolly smiled, embarrassed. “He was worth the wait,” she admitted. “Everything was just….” She shook her head loose of his hold. “You don’t have to worry. Not about Brooks and me.”

  “All right, then,” he sighed, happy for the one woman in the world who had endeavored to become his friend.

  “And I told Brooks you and I were not giving up the King and Queen Golf Tournament at the Club. We’ve won three matches already, two of them hard fought and won in extra holes. We aren’t
throwing that away.”

  “Lolly—playing golf takes a lot of time. Time you should be spending with Brooks.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Seriously? After the tennis nightmare, our continuing to play golf will make Brooks cranky. And frankly, I can’t afford to have the man cranky right now. I want him happy and thinking he’s invincible. I want him focused on running for mayor.”

  Lolly tilted her head and gave Vance an indulgent smile. “Trust me. I will do whatever I need to do to keep the man from becoming…cranky. And his feeling of invincibility will be an inevitable byproduct,” she promised.

  Vance rubbed his hands through his hair. “See,” he said, shaking his finger at her, “that kind of stuff—that shit—has got to stop. Because this thing between us,” he said, waving his finger between the two of them, “this friendship we’ve developed? It’s got me feeling like an overprotective big brother who wants to insist you have a chaperone and a curfew.”

  “A chaperone? And a curfew? Are you insane?”

  “As if that’s news to you,” he retorted. “And guess what?” He stepped right into her personal space. “In no time at all I am going to be your older and wiser step-brother, so you may as well get used to it.”

  “You are so not my brother.”

  “I will be soon.”

  “Okay,” Brooks said, clapping his hands together and interrupting the scene. “Usually I’d say let’s kiss and make up, but I’m not interested in living through that again. So why don’t the two of you go back to your corners and let me play referee. Lolly?”

  “Vance thinks I need a chaperone and a curfew.”

  Brooks ran a hand down his face, clearly trying to compose himself. He looked over at Vance. “Care to enlighten me?”

  “I don’t know,” Vance said throwing up his arms. “I’m starting to feel like I’m her goddamn big brother or something. I want to…you know, make sure she’s all right.”

  “I’m fine.” Lolly insisted.

  “I know you’re fine,” Vance shouted around Brooks who now stood in the middle of it.

  “I don’t need a big brother—I need a friend. My friend Vance. The friend I have painstakingly cultivated for two long months,” she said, peering around Brooks to Vance. “The same two long months it took me to get an invitation into your house.” She turned on Brooks. “Here is what I need. I need my friend Vance and my boyfriend Brooks, just like it’s always been. And I swear to God, if the two of you mess this up for me, I’m leaving Henderson and taking House of DuVal with me.”

  The sound of applause had all three heads spinning toward the door. Hale Evans stood at the entrance to the pool house, his face beaming like it was the best damn day of his life. “Dynamite, that was brilliant. Almost as good as the first time we met.”

  Lolly turned red and huffed, stomping around him to get out the door.

  Hale eyed the two men left in her wake. “Gentlemen, I assume that little explosion has settled whatever awkwardness may have remained between the two of you?”

  “Absolutely,” Brooks said, clasping Vance around his shoulders. “When it comes to loving Lolly, I just realized I need all the reinforcements I can get.”

  While Brooks begged off to help Harry and his crew clean up, Hale ushered Vance into his library where Lolly and her mother were already seated together on the plush, down-filled sofa. Lolly shot Vance a look as he walked in, clearly not over the big-brother fiasco.

  Well, tough. She was the one who got him feeling again, and right now he felt like her big brother. Deal with it.

  He felt his brow furrow as he sat down in an armchair across the inlaid wood coffee table from the women. Genevra looked a little nervous. Smiling, but biting her lip. Eyes bright, he noticed, but wringing her hands in her lap. Setting a date couldn’t be that big of a deal could it? What the hell else could they have possibly brought them in here to discuss? He crossed an ankle over a knee and sat back, wondering what was about to go down.

  Hale cleared his throat, standing at the foot of the coffee table. He’d changed into a pair of dress slacks and a casual shirt. His hands were in his pockets until he started to speak. Then one hand came out and gestured along with his words.

  “Genevra and I have some…rather exciting and, uh…unexpected news. We wanted to share it with the two of you right away, and since we are all here together….” His father’s voice trailed off.

  Vance started to smile. Exciting? Unexpected? He knew it like he knew Brooks was going to be mayor. His father had knocked up Genevra DuVal. They were about to announce that the two of them—at the ages of forty-three and fifty-two—were going to have a baby. His eyes shot to Lolly at the same time his hand came up to cover his smile. This was going to be priceless.

  Lolly, who looked rather bored and still miffed, finally turned her head and looked at Hale once his silence had gone on too long. “Lolly,” Hale said in a very quiet, understated tone, like he was trying to put kid gloves on a sleeping tiger, “your mother and I are going to have a baby.”

  Vance watched it. He watched the words register and sink in. He watched the lack of comprehension, the disbelief, and then the dawning of the truth. Yep, there it was. The fuse was lit and about to blow. Lolly opened her mouth, staring at Hale. Then she clapped her mouth shut and turned an accusing eye toward her mother, who blinked nervously and let out a short laugh under her grown daughter’s scrutiny.

  “How is this possible?” Lolly said.

  It was like watching an implosion in slow motion.

  “How could you possibly let this happen again? Once, when you were eighteen—oh well. But now? In this day and age? At your age?” Lolly accused, her voice starting to shake. “How did this happen?”

  Vance jumped up. “I don’t care how it happened, I’m just glad it did.” He grabbed his father’s hand and pulled him in for a hug. “I have always wanted a baby brother,” he exclaimed, his own elation shocking him a little bit. Really? He always wanted a little brother? He mentally shrugged. Guess so.

  He went over to Genevra, who stood and turned toward him, smiling. He embraced her in a bear hug. “I couldn’t be happier. For you or for me.” Then he whispered in her ear. “Lolly will come around. Be strong.”

  She nodded her gratitude as he released her, her eyes welling with tears. “Those are happy tears, right?” he asked, making sure that at least the expectant parents were on board with this new turn of events. Genevra nodded again, wiping the tears away.

  “Happy. Yes. Very happy,” she said, smiling over at his father.

  “Well, at the risk of raining all over your parade,” Lolly said, “do any of you understand the risks involved when the egg and sperm are ancient?”

  Genevra looked at her daughter and blinked. “Ancient?”

  “Mother. Acting like an irresponsible, hormonal teenager and looking like you are not a day over thirty does not make your eggs any younger. Face facts. Your eggs are old and Mr. Evans sperm has got to be iffy—”

  “Iffy?” Hale protested.

  “Which does not make this good news or exciting news, although I certainly will agree it’s unexpected. But you know what this really is? This is scary news. Because now you’ve gone and made Vance all happy, and Lord knows what’s gonna happen if this baby comes out with two heads and one long continuous unibrow.”

  “Ah, Sweetsie,” her mother cooed, pulling Lolly into her arms for a tight hug. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve already been to the doctor and things look really good so far. Hale and I are aware of the risks and we are going to take each day as it comes. We are going to do all the recommended tests, and the doctor has assured us that there is no reason not to expect a healthy baby.” She pulled away as Lolly wiped a few tears from her eyes. “Sweetsie, whatever is going to happen here, the four of us will get through it together.”

  Hale cleared his throat. “In the meantime, we are very, very hopeful there may still have been one shining star in the whole iffy b
unch.”

  Chapter Six

  One week later, Duncan James stood in a hallway just off the lobby of Raleigh's Wake County Justice Center. He was dressed for court, although he wasn’t scheduled. Beside him stood a bright-eyed Annabelle Devine in her signature white business attire, perfectly fit for court. Beside her was one very nervous Vance Evans. He was dressed in an unprecedented three-piece suit that even put his always impeccably dressed father to shame. The man was drawing looks from every female who walked by and a few of the men as well.

  The fact that Vance wasn’t returning any of those looks spoke plainly to the stress he was feeling. They were all here to meet Piper Beaumont, a woman Vance hadn’t laid eyes on since the fourth grade. A woman who was about to be ambushed as far as Duncan was concerned. His colleague, Matt Collins, was standing in the center of the lobby waiting for Ms. Beaumont to come out of the courtroom where she was defending a young client. Matt had assured Duncan that Ms. Beaumont would be able to handle the spontaneous introductions. He went on to say that Ms. Beaumont could handle anything.

  In short order, Matt gestured toward them, indicating that he had Ms. Beaumont in his sights. Duncan, Annabelle, and Vance all moved into the lobby to wait for Matt to announce their presence and bring Piper over for introductions. There was a lot of momentum coming from the courtroom. Duncan noticed what looked like a set of parents with their college-aged daughter moving swiftly toward the front doors of the building, followed closely by a herd of dark-suited males.

  And then came a bit of sunshine. No, not a bit of sunshine, but the whole ball of fire come to earth in the form of one petite, curvy, outlandishly dressed for court Piper Beaumont.

  Duncan knew it was Piper because Matt had stepped directly into her path and was talking to her, apparently explaining that he wanted to make an introduction. Piper, in her bright yellow garden party dress and three-inch yellow patent heels, handed her large, yellow tote to one of the three briefcase-toting male lawyers surrounding her. She turned her head to say something to all of them. They nodded and off they went at full stride.