Southern Desire (Southern Heart 2)

“You’re in luck. We have one ready to go. The couple left, said it was taking too long. We’ve been slammed tonight.”

I survey the room, and every table is full; there is a line waiting to be seated and the phone is ringing off the hook. “I’ll take it.”

“That was fast,” Whitney says when I open her door and hand her the pizza and the pile of napkins I grabbed.

“Someone walked out. They just happened to order what I did. Tonight is our lucky night.” I wink and shut her door, then climb into my seat. “Dive in.” I point to the box.

“So we just drive around?”

“Yep, no destination. Just a back road and some music.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I know that, Whit. But what you don’t know is that seeing you sad, the tears in your eyes, it fucking guts me. I don’t know how to fix it, so I’m giving you a night to forget. To be free to get slobbering-ass drunk and know that you are safe.” I stop at a stop sign and look over at her. Her beautiful blue eyes are once again brimming with tears. I caress her check. “Always safe with me.”

She nods her acceptance, and that’s good enough for me. I head toward the outskirts of town.

“You want a piece?” she asks, lifting the pizza box.

“Yeah.” She places a piece on a napkin and hands it to me.

“You’re going to need something to drink.”

“I picked up a couple of bottles of water. They’re in the cooler.”

“You thought of everything.”

“This is not my first rodeo, darlin.’ Evan and I have done this more times than I can count for one reason or another. From boredom to broken hearts to lost games, you name it.”

“Tell me,” she says, finally taking a bite.

“Tell you what?”

“Broken hearts,” she mumbles around her pizza.

I chuckle. “Nothing too scandalous. I dated a girl all senior year. I was pretty taken with her. She broke it off when she left for college. She wanted the city, I wanted the country.”

“Your first love?”

I shrug. “I don’t know what I felt for Brooke was love, but at the time, it sucked ass.”

That causes her to laugh. “And Evan?”

“He’s been where you are too”—I motion toward where she’s sitting—“but that’s his story to tell.” I almost told her about his dad, about the cancer and them moving, Evan staying behind, but thankfully I caught myself. That conversation will not help her forget the pain.

“What about you? Let me guess, you were the one leaving a string of broken hearts?”

She finishes off her piece of pizza, hands me another, and grabs one for herself. “Not hardly. I dated, but no long-lost love. Then my junior year, Mom got sick. I spent as much time with her as possible. Suddenly, hanging out didn’t seem that important when the only parent in your life is fighting for hers.”

Shit. “That must have been hard.”

“Yeah,” she says, her voice so soft I can barely hear her.

“It’s getting warm,” I say, pointing to the wine cooler in the cupholder. With a sad smile that guts me, she picks it up and takes a long pull. “Radio’s yours. That’s how this works. You get to drink and listen to some good tunes, and I drive. You can talk, cry, scream, whatever you want.”

She takes another long pull, draining the bottle. “I need another.” She starts to take her seat belt off, but I place my hand over hers, stopping her.

“Let me pull over.” We’re already on a back country road with very little traffic. I pull over and hop out, grabbing the cooler and bringing it up front with us. “You done?” I hold up the pizza box.

“Yeah.”

I lay it in the backseat on the floorboard. “All right, back at it. Hand me a water, please?”

Reaching into the cooler, she grabs a water and the bottle of Boone’s Farm. “This good?”

“It’s fruity.” I chuckle. “McKinley loves it, so I thought it would be worth a shot. Besides, you’re not really living until you’ve driven a back country road at night and drained a bottle of Boone’s Farm.”

“Right.” She laughs. “I think I need to verify your claim with McKinley.”

“Go ahead, she’ll own it.”

“Here goes.” She twists off the cap and places the bottle next to her lips. “That’s really good.” She laughs.

“Told you.” I stick my tongue out at her, causing her to laugh again.

She fiddles with the radio until she finds the local country station and turns it down low. “It was a little over a year ago. Actually, the week I moved here was the one-year anniversary of her death.” She takes another long swig.

Reaching over, I rest my hand on her knee. She traces my knuckles. “I’m sorry for your loss, Whit.”

“Cancer. Fucking breast cancer.” She takes another swig from the bottle. “She fought so damn hard for so many years. She was in remission twice, but when we would go back for more scans, it would be back. In the end, she ended up with lung cancer. Her body just couldn’t fight it off. No matter how much of that fucking poison they would pump into her, she just couldn’t fight it anymore.” Her voice cracks.

I don’t say anything for fear that mine will as well. I can feel her pain and it breaks me.

“Did you know she was all I had, I mean my only family?”

“What about Mike and Olivia and their parents?”

“Yeah, I mean in Chicago. Gram died, and I never knew my father. He ran off before I was even born. I moved here to be with all that I have left.” She takes another sip. “Wait, don’t tell Jamie that. She’ll rip me out. She’s my best friend, has been since kindergarten. I love her like family, but blood family, that list is short.”

I want to pull the truck to the side of the road, pull her into my arms, and just hold her. I want to tell her that I’ll be her family, that she can share mine, that she’s not alone, that she will never be alone. I want to ease the pain in her eyes, but it’s deep, so deep I don’t know if I can reach it.

“Can we go back to the lake?”

The lake? “The pond at my place?”

“Lake, pond, whatever. Can we go there?”