Liars (Licking Thicket 2)

Beau pressed a kiss to Marigold’s dark curls, ruffled my hair like I was twelve, and clomped out the door.

“Are you really okay with this?” I asked Diesel as we waved Beau off from the porch. “Because if you’re not, you just have to tell me. Beau means well, but I don’t want you to feel forced into anything.”

“Nah. ’Course not.” Diesel ran a hand over his jaw. His whole body radiated tension, and his eyes didn’t meet mine. “I’m grateful to your uncle. And to you.”

“Okay. If you’re sure,” I asked, biting my lip uncertainly.

Diesel looked at me, and his shoulders dropped. “I’m positive, Parrish. It’s fine. Honestly.” He drew me in and pressed a lingering kiss to the side of my mouth. When he pulled back and smiled, it looked nearly like his usual sweet smile. “Are you okay? I don’t know why I blurted out our engagement in the first place. Now that Beau knows, he’s gonna tell Mal, and you know Mal’s gonna tell Ava Siegel, and by tomorrow evening, Ava and the Beautification Corps will make sure every Tibetan yak herder knows.”

He didn’t sound upset, only wry and maybe resigned. He liked Ava a lot, especially after all the Beautification Corps had done to get his house fixed up, and I knew he liked Mal already.

I gave him a half-smile. “I told you before, I already informed Gil that I had a hot fiancé.” I shrugged. “And I’m pretty sure Tucker already knew there wasn’t gonna be a repeat of last weekend, but now he’ll know for sure.”

Diesel’s arm tightened around me slightly. “That’ll be handy, at least,” he grumbled.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, baby.” He reached for Marigold, and I handed her over. “But I’m thinking we should both get to work while we can, because once the Thicket knows about our engagement, it’s gonna be…”

“Madness,” we said together, and Marigold clapped her hands in agreement.

12

Diesel

Running the salvage yard wasn’t quite as easy with Marigold strapped to my chest as it had been before, but it was definitely more fun in some ways. I’d never seen so many hardened men turn to complete mush when they caught sight of her dark curls.

“Oh, who’s this?” they’d ask in unusually high-pitched voices. There was something about a fat-cheeked, smiling baby that brought out the sweetness in almost everyone.

But not Chuck Stanley. He was a Grade A asshole, but he was a Grade A asshole with a very successful mechanic shop the next town over and came to me fairly frequently looking for parts. Stanley’s garage helped keep me in business, and I wasn’t about to fuck up my relationship just because I was in a bad mood.

“What the fuck is taking so long?” he snapped while I tried to drive the forklift without Marigold getting a good grip on the wheel.

“Earmuffs, baby,” I whispered to her. As if she could cover her ears against the man’s bad language. “Almost got it,” I said louder to the man flinging cigarette ash into a nearby Chevy sedan chassis.

When I finally got the engine block loaded onto the back of his truck and had the cash in hand, I grunted a thanks and made my way back into the house to put the money in my safe. It was time for Marigold’s bottle and afternoon nap anyway, so hopefully no one else would stop by needing anything until I could get her down.

My head had been spinning all day with thoughts of Parrish and the situation we now found ourselves in. Watching him lie to his uncle was very uncomfortable because I knew that his family meant everything to him. And now he was possibly alienating them. For me.

I fumbled the baby bottle and accidentally punted it across the kitchen floor. Cursing under my breath, I reached down to grab it and threw the whole thing in the sink in order to start over with a clean bottle. When we finally, finally settled into my favorite chair with the bottle, I was pretty sure we both heaved a sigh of relief.

Two seconds later the doorbell rang, startling us both.

“Dammit,” I said under my breath. Marigold was half-asleep in my arms, so I stood up carefully in hopes of keeping her that way.

I answered the door to see Mal and Brooks standing on the porch with a casserole pan. Mal’s grin was mischievous enough to scare me a little.

“We heard congratulations are in order,” he said in a singsong voice. “Cindy Ann couldn’t wait to tell Brooks what she heard up at the Jazzercise studio from Becky Lynn, who heard it from Winter Munsen, who ran into Beau at the coffee shop a little while ago. And you know Brooks’s mama when she hears big news… casserole city. Pretty sure she makes up a pallet of these suckers in advance just in case.”