Simple Gone South (Crimson Romance) Read Online Free PDF

feel the heat of his leg against hers.
    “So how did you come to be Mr. Sambora instead of Mr. Bon Jovi?”
    He was kidding, right? Missy be anything less than the star attraction? “Well, Missy is blonde and I am dark. And I’ve been singing backup all my life.”
    “There’s nothing backup about you.” He set a plastic Publix bag between them.
    “You didn’t have to bring food,” Lucy said. “I think they’re having crab dip.”
    “Yeah.” He looked toward the buffet. “Chicken fingers, pickled shrimp, meatballs. The menu never changes.” He opened the bag. “That’s how I knew they wouldn’t have any of this.” He reached into the bag and set in front of her a rich glossy chocolate cake decorated with chocolate curls, strawberries, and nuts.
    “It’s a cake,” she said.
More brilliance
. Why had Brantley Kincaid brought a cake to the Merritt Country Club? Was Rita May here after all? Was it her birthday? Though Rita May had probably never had a bite of cake in her life—at least that’s how she’d looked in the last music video Lucy had seen her in.
    “Indeed.” He winked and turned to look around the room. He waved and called to one of the club staff. “Miss Mavis!”
    A woman of about sixty with a blazer and clipboard instead of an apron and a water pitcher smiled and moved toward them. “Brantley Kincaid. You just never know when trouble’s going to turn up, do you?”
    He rose, gave her a hug, and turned to Lucy. “Lucy Mead, Miss Mavis saved me from myself more than once during the summers my dad made me caddy here to pay my car insurance.”
    “Hardly hit a lick at a snake the whole time.”
    “Miss Mavis, you wound me! But I want to ask you a little favor.”
    “Didn’t you always?”
    “Does the club still have that set of silver knives and forks that old Mrs. Rogers left in her will?”
    “Unless somebody stole it since I polished it last week.”
    “I need a fork.”
    Miss Mavis shook her head. “There are forks on the buffet.”
    “Yes,” Brantley said. “I can see that. There are. But they are stainless steel forks—not nearly good enough for Lucy Mead.” He laid his hand on Lucy’s cheek. She wanted to jerk away but she was paralyzed for so many reasons that she couldn’t even work out which was chief among them. “You see, Miss Mavis, Lucy put on a performance tonight that all of Merritt will remember. She needs to eat this cake with a silver fork. I want her to have it.”
    Cake! He had brought the cake for her. She couldn’t eat cake!
    “Brantley,” Miss Mavis said, “you know we only use that silver for small parties in the executive dining room. Even if there was enough of it, it would not come out for big parties like this.”
    “I know. And I understand why. The top dogs in this town need to feel like they, and only they, get to use it.” The rich cultured tone of his voice did not match his chosen quirky vernacular, but it was natural sounding and charming, like it had always been. “But I submit to you, Miss Mavis, that unless it is you, there is no one more elite than Lucy Mead. And I don’t need it all. I just need one fork. One. Little. Fork. One.” He leaned toward the older woman and smiled a little wider with each word. Lucy felt like she was in some crazy surreal dream. Had she gone to sleep and dreamed that Brantley turned up with a cake and started demanding silver forks? Or fork. One. All he needed was one.
    Miss Mavis gave a huge sigh. “You’ll get it back to me?”
    “In better condition that it ever was, for having graced the lips of Lucy Mead.”
    As she sighed again and trotted off, Brantley sat down again.
    “You brought this cake for me?” Lucy asked.
    “For you. All for you. Don’t let anyone else have any.”
    “Not Missy?”
    “Especially not Missy. She’s already gotten to be front man and denied you cake today.”
    They were silent, Lucy because she was in utter shock and Brantley because he was busy looking at her