Feuding Hearts Read online

  Table of Contents

  Feuding Hearts

  Copyright

  Praise forNatasha Deen

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  A word about the author...

  Other Titles by the Author

  Thank you for purchasing this Wild Rose Press publication.

  Feuding Hearts

  by

  Natasha Deen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Feuding Hearts

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Natasha Deen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Sweetheart Rose Edition, 2012

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise forNatasha Deen

  WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

  “This romantic comedy is a quick and hilarious romp. I finished this book in about two hours and I could not put it down. Binda’s issues with dealing with stressful situations just make this book and the interactions with the characters.”

  ~Misty Rayburn

  ~*~

  Writing as Bronwyn Storm...

  I LOVE YOU A LATTE

  “An enjoyable and absorbing read.”

  ~Night Owl Romance

  ~*~

  SHOE-IN FOR LOVE

  “SHOE-IN FOR LOVE is a whirlwind ride through the fashionable 1980s. The writing is can't-catch-my-breath fast and very, very witty. I couldn't get enough of the to-the-death knock-’em-downs between the two women. They are viscous and funny. SHOE-IN FOR LOVE is a dinner burner. You'll not want to put it down.”

  ~Kimber, Fallen Angel Reviews

  Dedication

  To the Edmonton Writers Group.

  Every author should have crit-partners like you—

  and that's not just the momentary elephant in the room.

  Chapter One

  Saturday morning found me with my head in the oven.

  I’m not suicidal. Although, living in Miami with an eighty-three-year-old woman who still thinks she needs childproof latches on the cupboards to protect me sometimes makes me yearn for the Great Beyond. I was elbow-deep in cleaning solution, remnants of fried chicken, and burned corn pone when I heard the back door slam and the sharp heel taps of my seriously ticked off Nana.

  Scrunching my nose against the scent of chemical cleaner and not bothering to lift my gaze from a stubborn clump of charred dough fused to the side of the oven, I asked, “What did he do, now?” The abrupt cessation of her steps signaled my grandmother’s surprise.

  “How did you know he did something?”

  I smiled at her cotton-candy voice, pulled my head out of the oven, and wiped away the last of the suds. “Because I’m exceedingly clever. Because we are so close, our bond is almost psychic. Because you’re walking like you want to stomp on his face.” I turned and looked at her—big blond hair teased and sprayed, ready to withstand a category-four hurricane, and enough mascara to keep the cosmetic company in the black for the next year. The tinder of fury smoldered in her eyes, waiting for a spark to ignite it into a blaze.

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips compressed into a tight, straight line. “Women born and raised in the great state of Georgia do not stomp, Angel, though we may step with passionate force.”

  Nana’s gaze lost focus, leaving the reality of wood and glass cabinets and slate countertops. I stifled a groan. The last time I’d seen that look, a police cruiser, a fireman, and a clown had been involved. Thanks to my fast talking and a sympathetic judge, I’d managed to keep both Nana and myself out of trouble. Still, we’d been banned from the Georgia Peach parade for the next ten years. “Nana, I don’t know what you’re thinking—”

  “If I were a stomper…”

  Her internal tinder sparked and brought quick flashes of light to her blue irises.

  “…I’d want to mash in his face—even if it ruined my pumps.” She paused and blinked. “My beautiful pumps.”

  Her mouth crumpled, a rosebud crushed by the callous disregard of our neighbor. My grandmother’s back straightened, her thin chest pushed out into military-worthy lines. Pride edged out my long-suffering caution. The woman was a handful and the reason behind a great number of my prayers to the good Lord, but she was a spit-fire and I tried to emulate her take-charge attitude.

  “They’d have to be sacrificed because of him—that—” She sputtered, her hands peddling the air.

  No doubt, she was thinking of a properly scathing retort.

  “—that rude man.”

  “Whoa, Nana. Language. I have virgin ears.” Not really, but some things she never needed to know. I pulled off the yellow rubber gloves and tossed them in the sink.

  “Don’t you sass me, Angelica Tiffany Montgomery Baxter.”

  I batted my eyes. “Me, sass you? Neveh.” I added the extra Southern drawl because I knew it always got her and grinned. “I need a break, anyway. Let’s have a coffee and you can pour out your heart.”

  “What I’d really like is to pour his medication down the sink,” she said as she moved to the pot. “Only, that’s not environmentally friendly.”

  “Not neighbor friendly, either.”

  She snorted.

  Of course, since she was Nana of the Southern Belles, the sound had all the refinement and breeding that had won her three consecutive Dairy Princess titles back in the ’40s.

  “I don’t care. He weeded my garden.”

  I heaved myself from off my knees, using the ceramic tiles to push myself to a stand. My cramped leg muscles protested the new position with sharp pulses of pain. I stretched, arching my back and letting the tension drain. After rinsing my hands at the sink, I took a seat at the wood block kitchen table.

  The sunlight streaming in from the May morning just about blinded me. I stood, intending to change seats. Through the window, a flash of movement caught my vision. My eyebrows pulled together. I moved to the pane, peered through the slits of the rose-colored slats. My heart rate kicked into over-drive and my skin tingled as though I’d been zapped by electricity.

  A man who had to be in line for Sexiest Gardener Alive pushed a wheelbarrow across Mr. Garret’s back lawn. He turned.

  I leaned closer to get a better look, smacked my nose on the window pane, and set the Venetian blinds rattling.

  The man’s biceps pulsed as he heaved a bag of dirt off the wheelbarrow and on to the ground. A lock of dark hair fell across his tanned forehead. His sigh made his chest puff out.

  I sighed right along with him.

  He squinted upwards.

  Looking for a cloud in the too-blue sky? Hoping for rain? I didn’t know…I didn’t care. The column of his neck captivated me; the sexy bump of his Adam’s apple had me licking my lips. When he reached down and pulled off his T-shirt, I lost feeling in my legs. Miles of taut abs, and a chest so hard I could break wood on it.

  “Angel, are you listening to me, girl?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, not really listening at all, my breath fogging the
pane.

  “What are you looking at?”

  She came my way and I stepped back. “Assessing the damage on our lawn.”

  “Oh.” She walked to the table and sat.

  I followed suit. “Weeding your garden sounds like a lovely thing to do.”

  A sigh puffed past her lips.

  No doubt, she figured I was the dullest grandbaby God ever made but she loved me anyway.

  “Harrison Garret is eighty-five, half-blind, and completely arthritic. He wouldn’t know a weed if it had a sign next to it. That…man pulled up all of my lovely azaleas.” Her voice hitched.

  “Oh.” Maybe in another year, the mention of azaleas wouldn’t make my throat clog or my heart weep, but right now, it still hurt. “I am sorry, sugar.” My fingers slid along the smooth tabletop, reaching for hers. “He couldn’t have known they were granddaddy’s favorite flower.” I smiled and blinked back the tears for the man who’d been the only father I’d known. “Would you like to go to the store and pick up some new ones?”

  “No.”

  She handed me a mug of steaming coffee, the sleeve of her fuchsia blouse brushed my bare arm with its silky caress. The bouquet of her perfume—magnolia, lychee, and ginger—curled in lazy tendrils, and glided past my nose.

  I took the cup and tried not to compare her perfectly manicured coral-pink nails to my short, naked and desperately-in-need-of-a-mani ones. “Come on. We’ll have lunch at the rib place you love so much.”

  Her mouth compressed into a hard, compact line, her jaw tightened to tooth-breaking tautness.

  Once before, she’d given me that glare, when she’d tried to make me sign up for Dairy Princess. This was before we’d discovered I was lactose intolerant. We’d realized that fact at the Dairy Princess Meet and Greet. I had two ice-cream cones and threw up on the judges. Chin held high, she’d whisked me away and declared we’d never again buy milk products from those suppliers on account of their obvious disregard for expiry dates. That was Nana. That was family—even when it was our fault, even when we were wrong, we stood by each other.

  “What I want,” she paused, “is for you to sue him.” She leaned back, and one eyebrow arched in challenge.

  My throat constricted and black coffee tried to exit my nose at the same time the liquid tried to slide down my esophagus. I coughed and reached for a rose-printed paper napkin. “Sue him? Sue nice, sweet, old Mr. Garret? When’s the last time you ate—are you going into hypoglycemic shock, sugar?”

  “Don’t ‘sugar’ me.” Her bracelets jangled as she rapped her knuckles on the table. The gold bangles bumped against the table top. “I am tired of broken bird houses—”

  “He thought a raccoon had invaded it—”

  “And water baths full of fruit juice—”

  “He’d heard birds did well on cranberry juice.”

  “And potatoes in my flower beds.”

  “Don’t they repel ants?” She stared at me hard, which despite her five-foot frame and my five-foot-eleven-inches height, still had the power to make me quake.

  “Why are you siding with that…Yankee scum?”

  My eyebrows went up and my heart dropped. Baxter women only resorted to the use of “Yankee” when they were seriously perturbed. Still, I tried to appeal to her softer side. “We’ve been here for three months and it’s about time you two got on.”

  “You are defending this miscreant—”

  Oh, Lord. Three-syllable insults. That meant she’d gone from perturbed to vexed.

  “—and not protecting your nana!”

  I knew what was coming: a lecture on family values, taking care of kin, and the trials of raising a grand-baby of three months of age when she was already fifty-five. “Your family,” I muttered as I took another sip of coffee.

  “Your family,” she said.

  As usual—she’d not heard a word I’d said. Your only family, I silently added. I buried my nose in the cup, and let the heady aroma of deep roasted coffee beans take me to a calm place.

  “Your only family,” she continued.

  I raised my gaze heavenward and brushed the sweaty strands of hair off my temple.

  “We Baxters are an honorable bunch—”

  Was nine o’clock in the morning too early to spike my coffee with Southern Comfort?

  “Family, that’s what matters—”

  I tuned her out—I’d been hearing this same lecture since I was in the cradle. Thirty years later, and I knew the diatribe better than she. I looked out the window, mentally compiling all the chores for the yard. If I asked nicely, would the sexy gardener show me all the ways he could turn my topsoil?

  When I heard Nana mention colic, my ears twitched. The lecture was on its closing spiel so I tuned back in.

  “You’re a lawyer,” she said, reclining in the high-backed chair. “One of the best, if the price of your education is anything to go by.”

  “Not in Florida.” I corrected her with a shake of my head. “Until the paperwork goes through and I’m licensed, I’m not allowed to practice. And I can’t go suing people willy-nilly.”

  “You could do something in civil court.” Her nostrils flared “Let’s take his house—or his yard. Maybe both.”

  She gave me a predatory smile—all teeth and no humor. Wariness crawled up my spine on insect legs. I stood, wincing as my back reminded me of the two hours spent hunched over the oven. Bowed and shuffling, I walked the cup to the sink. “We’re not taking anything from that old man—”

  “He’s not old! He’s the same age as me.”

  I set the mug into the steel basin and refrained from pointing out the obvious. She may have been an octogenarian, but she remained agile, swift. To be honest, I had no desire to find out if she could still wield a wooden spoon like a policeman’s baton. “How about if I go and talk to Mr. Garret? Maybe I can clear up the misunderstandings.”

  Before she had a chance to object, I hobbled down the hall, past the framed pictures of our life together, and dived—as much as I could with a sore back—into the bathroom. A few moments later, steam fogged the mirror and my body wash turned the room tangy with the scent of mandarins and spice. I soaped up and debated my options. When the topic was negotiating between those crazy seniors of mine, I did my best to channel the gumption of Mister Jimmy Carter—a good ol’ boy of the South, and a man who’d won a Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to bring peace to fractured nations.

  Of course, compared to what lay before me, mediating talks between Israel and Egypt seemed as easy as getting a cat to purr. I toweled off, wrapped myself in a terry robe, and headed to my room. Tossing my clothing on the lavender bedspread, I opened the closet doors and grabbed a white floral dress with a small, pink rose pattern.

  I finished my grooming—lotion, skivvies, and a quick spritz of perfume—before pulling on the garment. The skirt flared around my calves. I knew Mr. Garret loved legs, and I knew he had a soft spot for a lady in a dress. Besides, if I was really lucky, he’d be offering his gardener a tall glass of ice-tea when I arrived. After giving my too-thick blond hair a quick brush and hoping the Miami humidity wouldn’t make me look more like Buckwheat than a transplanted so-called Southern beauty, I pulled on a pair of pumps and headed out the door.

  The moist air licked my skin with its damp tongue. Lawnmowers, their metal teeth hungry, droned and buzzed as they ate the emerald grass. Over the noise, the hum of cars and trucks rumbling along Two-Sixteenth Street was almost inaudible.

  I crossed the lawn and stepped onto Mr. Garret’s property. Like us, Harrison Garret lived in a ranch-style bungalow. Unlike us, he’d opted for palm trees over cacti. I climbed the steps to the front door and rang the bell. A few seconds later, it opened.

  Standing before me was the gardener—still half-naked—and the proximity of testosterone and bulging muscles evaporated the moisture off my skin. Yanking my gaze from the dark curls that covered his chest, I smiled and pulled my focus from his bronze flesh which shone with the burnished she
en of exertion. “I’m sorry,” I said, not feeling sorry for the heaven-sent-up-close-view of a fallen angel. “I was looking for Mr. Garret.” The heels of my shoes gave me enough height to peer over his shoulder, and I let my peripheral vision take in the hunk of masculinity standing before me. He smelled of earth and grass, sun and heat, and I wanted to roll all over him. The man grinned, and his white teeth set off blue eyes framed by dark, swooningly long eyelashes.

  “Grandpa? Sure. Come on in.”

  Grandpa? Please Lord that this man was moving in to help out his kin the same as I’d done for Nana. I stepped into the house. The air-conditioning overhead kissed my skin with a cool caress. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

  “Harrison Junior, Harry to my friends.”

  I smiled and did a coy-meet-his-gaze-drop-mine-bat-my-eyelashes look that would have made all the Southern belles back home raise their mint juleps and cheer. Sadly, there my femme-fatal moves ended, but maybe the smoldering gaze was enough. “I do hope we can become friends. I’m Angel.” His smile almost melted my shoes.

  “You sure are.”

  Mmm. A shiver ran over my skin. The Southern Belles would be eatin’ their hearts out if they saw this.

  I know I was.

  Chapter Two

  Harry led me to the formal sitting room.

  Blue walls surrounded white couches imprinted with abstract squares and hexagons. The air conditioning took the heat from the area, and gave a cheerful air to the sunlight streaming in from the bay window.

  “Did you just pop by for a visit, or—” I let the question hang in the air. Nana’s ability to coax information from people was legendary. I, on the other hand, had all the subtle flair of a drunken chef wielding a boning knife.

  “A visit.”

  Concern made his eyes cloud over, turning from ocean-blue to stormy grey.

  “Although, I wanted to check up on him. He’s been having some issues with a neighbor—”

  “Oh, dear.” My shoulders slumped and my optimism at wooing Mr. Harrison Garret Junior sank faster than a brick dropped in water. I collapsed onto the Queen Anne chair. “That’s my nana.” I lifted my hand in supplication. “I do apologize.”