“Before I tell you about Zyah, I’m going to let you know right up front, she’s nothing like me. I don’t in any way deserve her. I don’t. I never will. Still, she’s the one, the only one for me, and I’ll work every damn day of my life to make her happy. It’s just that, if you’re going to try to work out whether you think I’m a good man, I’ll tell you I try to be. That I have a code I live by, but I fail more than I win.”
She poured coffee into a mug. “That’s refreshing to hear. The truth. You must really love this woman.”
“I don’t know what love is. I never had it. I want to know. When I’m with her, I feel things I don’t feel for anyone else. I’d do anything for her. Anything. She’s magic. She can take away demons with her laughter. Her smile. She doesn’t judge people. She’s like her grandmother in that way. She just accepts others. That doesn’t make her a pushover. If that were the case, I wouldn’t be in trouble.” He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering why he was blurting out things to this woman he wouldn’t say so readily to a stranger. In fact, he wouldn’t be talking like this to a stranger. He took a sip of the coffee. It was excellent. More than excellent.
Those blue eyes moved over his face. She had feminine eyes, not at all like Czar’s eyes, yet Player felt she saw in the same way he did, beyond skin and bones into one’s black soul.
“You do carry demons, Player. They sit very heavy on your shoulders. I’m glad she takes them off for you. What did you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He’d been afraid she would. He took a deep breath. This was the part he knew he’d have to man up for. He looked around the store. It would definitely appeal to women—and evidently did to Preacher as well. He had gathered up several items and taken them to the counter, where he was smelling them and putting them aside only to pick up others to do the same thing. Some he tore the packaging off, demanding to know the ingredients from the horrified clerk.
Player suppressed a groan. Preacher was going to get them kicked out of the shop before he could get what he needed, because he had the feeling Hannah could give him exactly the right gift to help him win back Zyah.
“I was overtired, too long without sleep. I wasn’t doing well. I’d just met her and thought she was a dream. The best kind of a dream, but still a dream.” He shook his head. “The things I said to her were insulting. Very insulting. I apologized, and she accepted. She’s like that. But then . . .” He sighed. “We were so connected and she saw things about me I didn’t want her to see. I was too embarrassed. It shouldn’t have mattered. I just kept pushing her away. I can spend a lifetime apologizing, but actions speak much louder than words. I want to be that man of action, but I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to relationships. Neither do my friends. We’re sort of winging it. I can’t afford to do that with her. I don’t want to make any more mistakes. I really hurt her. She fuckin’ cried.”
He forced himself to drink the coffee so he wouldn’t make more of a fool of himself.
Hannah nodded. “I see. Tell me more about her. Anything at all. That will help me.”
“She manages the grocery store in Caspar, and she has a great work ethic. I wanted to close the store down for the weekend, but she refused, even though she’s exhausted, because she said people counted on the store being open on the weekends. Our club has always worked when we felt like it. We don’t think about things like that. She’s teaching me that we’re responsible to others for those things.”
Hannah nodded, sipping at her tea. Both pretended to ignore the growing heated exchange between the clerk and Preacher.
“She totally loves her grandmother. Zyah gave up an amazing, great-paying job to come here and take care of her after she was robbed and beaten.”
Hannah gasped. “I read about those robberies. How terrible. Her grandmother was one of the victims?”
Player nodded. “Yeah. Zyah quit a lucrative job with an international food chain and came straight home to take care of her grandmother. She’s that kind of woman. No regrets. She smells like this exotic combination of very subtle but definite jasmine, with a distinctive cinnamic-honey background.” He looked up at her. “It’s not perfume. I’m not kidding. It’s her skin. I know I sound like an idiot, but we learned all this stuff from Alena, all the different types of herbs and spices. The citruses. When I get close to her or . . .” He trailed off. He wasn’t about to start talking sex with Hannah.
“Is there more to her scent?”
He didn’t want to sound like an idiot. He looked around the shop and dropped his voice almost to a whisper because unless you were a chef, you didn’t talk like this. “Sort of a cassis-raspberry facet blending with rich green floral mimosa. All those scents blend together very subtly. I’ve got a really heightened sense of smell.”
“And it isn’t perfume?”
He shook his head.
“And she’s on her feet all day?”
“She’s a dancer. She likes to be barefoot. She has an affinity with the earth. A gift. She feels things when she’s barefoot. And she can heal when she’s dancing.”
“So, on top of everything else, she’s gifted. She really is special, which means you are as well or you wouldn’t have recognized that in her,” Hannah murmured aloud. Her mind was already moving away from him and around her shop, clearly looking at the various things she had on her shelves.
Player hadn’t meant to reveal anything about himself, and yet he’d given away quite a bit. He turned his attention to Preacher, who was usually one of the most easygoing of all the Torpedo Ink members. At least on the surface he seemed so. Right now, he seemed so furious, Player feared the shop might explode, blowing the walls from the inside out.
“I told you to stop tearing off the packaging. The ingredients are clearly marked on the outside of the packages,” the clerk enunciated.
“And I told you, if you had the IQ of more than a donkey and could actually listen, that I would pay for all of these products, so it doesn’t matter if I take off the packaging, that you haven’t listed the amounts. I need the exact amounts. I know the ingredients you’ve put in. Well, not you. Clearly, you had nothing whatsoever to do with making these products because you can’t tell me anything at all about them.”
“If you tear off the packaging on one more item, I’m calling the sheriff.”
“You already called the sheriff the moment we walked into the store because we’re wearing Torpedo Ink jackets and you’re a fucking coward.”
Player sighed. Preacher rarely swore. Most of them did, but he hadn’t wanted to swear around Lana, and he had never really gotten into the habit. Player was going to have to defuse the situation before it really got out of hand.
“Don’t you dare call me a coward. You can’t possibly know I called the sheriff when you walked in. And give me that bath bomb right this minute.”
There was a little scuffle. Preacher won, yanking the package. “I told you, I’m buying these things. You can’t deny a paying customer. Go find something to do until the cops get here. You’re annoying the holy hell out of me, and you’re worthless as far as being a salesman.”
“Probably because I’m a woman and not a man, you moron. Can’t you tell the difference? A woman, for your information, has breasts and a vagina. A man has a penis.”
Player nearly spewed coffee across the table. He was very thankful that Hannah had gone into the back room.
“Well, thank you very much for that enlightening information,” Preacher said. “I’m glad you have an education in something. I should have known it would be in sex.”
The clerk rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t sex, you moron, that was anatomy. Get it right. And if you keep smelling that bath bomb, you perv, touching it with your nose, which, by the way, is now covered in a nice shade of shimmery purple, I’ll have to charge you extra.”
“Why would you have to charge me extra?”
>
“Makeup costs far more than bath products,” the clerk answered smugly.
Hannah returned with a basket as Player was drinking the last of his coffee. The clerk was more than keeping up with Preacher. He had the feeling the woman was a stick of dynamite and if Preacher tore off any more packaging, she might really throw him out of the store. That would really be a show. Lana and Alena would never let Preacher hear the end of it.
“I put together a few things I think Zyah would really like, Player,” Hannah said. “She’s on her feet all day. You said she’s a dancer and has an affinity with the earth. This particular lotion will appeal to her, the scent, the way it will feel on her skin and blend in with nature. In a way, it will amplify her awareness of the earth’s call to her without her straining her talent. You massage it into her feet, ankles and calves very slowly, using a circular technique.”
For a moment, Hannah looked uncomfortable. Her fingers went to her wedding ring and twisted it back and forth. “I would like to show you the technique. I’d need to touch your arm, if you wouldn’t mind.”
He shook his head and extended his arm to her, laying it across the high tabletop. “Of course not.”
She took a deep breath. “You want to massage in a circular motion like this at first with a firm touch.” She applied pressure. “Do you feel that? You don’t want it to be too hard, but it has to penetrate in order for her to get relief and also to reach where her gift connects with yours. You always want to start out with this kind of pressure and the circular massage. I’ve written the instructions out for you and drawn a map of the foot, ankle and calf for you to follow, working your way up her leg. You want the lotion to absorb into her skin. That will bring tremendous relief to her.”
Player nodded, shocked that Hannah had gone into so much detail for him. Her features were very intent. Serious. Clearly, she believed in what she was saying, and he believed it too. Just the fact that she said the lotion had to penetrate in order for Zyah to get relief but also for their gifts to connect. He’d never said a word to her about their connection. Not one word, yet she’d known.
“You want to work in a circular motion counterclockwise over the soles of her feet and then around her feet, just like in the diagram. Over the tops and then around her ankles and up her calves. Once you’ve done that, you switch from the lotion to this cream I put in the basket.”
Hannah reached into the basket and brought out a large jar, holding it up for him. “I didn’t have time to pretty up the packaging. If you want to come back, I can do that for you, make everything look really nice. I put all sorts of things in here for you, but the most important are the lotion and cream for her feet.”
Player shook his head. “I’m just grateful you thought of something I could do for her.”
“When you apply the cream, you use a completely different technique . . .”
Preacher nearly knocked over Player’s chair, coming up behind him fast, his arms full of several items, which he immediately dumped on the table. Behind him, the clerk, looking like a furious little witch about to do incantations, rushed after him.
“Sorry, Player, but this is important.” Preacher inserted his body between Player’s high-backed chair and Hannah’s. “You’re the one who actually put all these together, right? You made these lotions and bath products.”
“I’ll throw him out for you, Hannah,” the clerk declared. The declaration seemed ludicrous given she was half Preacher’s size, but she looked more than determined.
Preacher put his hand on top of the clerk’s head and held her at arm’s length, ignoring her wild struggle to reach the items rolling off the table. Player went to catch them, but Hannah held up her hand, and they just seemed to stop in midroll. He blinked, a little shocked, uncertain of what had just happened.
“Pipe down,” Preacher said to the clerk, not looking at her. “You are, right? You made this stuff. All of it. The ingredients are on the packaging but not the amounts. I have to know the amounts. You’re amazing. You know that, right? Only a few people in the world can produce these kinds of products.”
Hannah arched an eyebrow. “You haven’t tried them yet.”
“I can smell them. Taste them.”
“He’s wearing them on his nose,” the clerk accused. “And he opened all the packaging. I told him not to, but he didn’t listen at all.”
Player looked at Preacher’s face. He was wearing an expression he’d never seen before, almost fanatical, definitely passionate, and sure enough, the clerk was right, the end of his nose was a shade of purple that shimmered in the light. Player pulled out his cell phone and took a quick shot of Preacher’s nose. Preacher didn’t even notice. His total concentration was on Hannah.
“You’re freaking her out, bro,” Player said, putting his phone away. “He’s harmless, Hannah. He’s really into this kind of thing, and no one understands a word he says, so coming in here, he’s probably in seventh heaven. You’re some kind of goddess to him.”
“Not some kind of goddess,” Preacher denied. “The goddess. There’s only a handful of people in the world that could do this without a company surrounding them, and I don’t see a company around you. You do this solo, don’t you? You grow everything, and you handpick your ingredients and then you make the lotion up or the cream or the candle for your store or your client.”
The clerk relaxed, but Preacher seemed to forget he had his hand on her head. He remained, his arm outstretched, holding her in place while he stared at Hannah with admiration.
“Actually, Mr. . . .”
“Preacher. Call me Preacher.”
The clerk made a rude noise, drawing Preacher’s attention. “Of course you’re called Preacher. I’ll bet you preach to everyone.”
Hannah took the opportunity to put her hands on Player’s arm to show him the penetrating technique she wanted him to use with the cream. Not a circular motion this time but more of a deep tissue massage.
“Again, start with the soles of the feet. You might have to work up to a deeper massage if it’s too painful at first. I doubt that it will be. She has an affinity with the earth, so the aches are always going to be there. This will help with that tremendously. It will also establish an intimacy between the two of you if you can get her to allow you to do this for her after she’s been working all day.”
Preacher glared at the clerk, his fist closing even tighter in the thick wealth of black hair. “Someone needs to preach to you from the good book of manners. I’m trying to get some answers here—important ones, which you wouldn’t know a thing about. Why you’re working in this shop, I have no idea. You’d be better suited to the toy store down the street.”
The clerk tried to kick him just as the door was flung open and Jonas burst in, gun drawn, a look of fury on his face. His blue gaze took in everything, including his wife’s hands massaging Player’s arm, the clerk kicking at Preacher and Preacher’s hand buried deep in the clerk’s hair. Player could imagine what it looked like with so many of the bath bombs, soaps, lotions and creams strewn across the table, along with the large basket. He shook his head and resigned himself to going to jail at the very least. The worst was, Jonas might really shoot him, since his wife had her hands all over him.
“What the hell is going on here?” Jonas demanded.
“Go away, Jonas,” Preacher said. “I mean it. The last thing I need is for you to come in here and make this more difficult. And take this horrid little fairy creature with you. If you don’t, I’m going to have to tie her up and put her in the back room with a gag on her.”
“Preacher, I swear I’m going to shoot you,” Jonas said. “Let go of Sabelia right now, and Hannah, it would be best if you stop massaging Player’s arm.”
“Put the gun away,” Hannah said.
“Go away,” Preacher repeated simultaneously with Hannah.
Hannah burst out laughing, the
sound filling the shop with genuine merriment. At once the mood seemed to change dramatically. The sun seemed to shine brighter.
“I’m not putting the gun away, Hannah, until you stop massaging Player’s arm.”
“I’m working,” she clarified. “What are you doing here?”
Player would have liked to pull his arm out from under Hannah’s hands. That gun hadn’t wavered, not one inch, steady as a rock, and it wasn’t pointed at Preacher, which technically wasn’t in the least bit fair. He was the one with his fist locked in the clerk, Sabelia’s, hair. That should have gotten him the gun.
“Just what kind of work are you doing, Hannah?” Jonas demanded.
“Jonas,” Preacher hissed through gritted teeth. “Leave now and take this . . . this person with you. You may not be aware, but your wife just happens to be a genius. A true genius. A fuckin’ goddess. I need to talk to her without interruption. Take Player with you, even if you have to remove him at gunpoint. Take everyone, but just leave.”
“He’s crazy, Jonas,” Sabelia informed Jonas in a haughty tone. She rubbed her scalp when Preacher released her. “Certifiably insane. Arrest him and put him in jail.”
“For what?”
She wiggled her fingers. “For not recognizing the difference between sex education and anatomy, for one. And he thinks I’m the moron. He should be jailed for that alone.”
Jonas holstered his gun, which Player thought was a good idea since the man was beginning to look harassed, not that he could blame him. He wanted to ask if it was always like that around his wife’s shop. Hannah’s blue eyes sparkled at her husband.
“What the hell are you talking about, Sabelia?” Jonas demanded and then held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Hannah.” He stopped. Shook his head. Turned and walked out.
Sabelia smothered a laugh with her fingertips over her mouth.
“Sex education and anatomy, Sabelia?” Hannah asked.
“Apparently, Preacher isn’t aware of the difference, so I was trying to educate him,” Sabelia said, reaching around Preacher’s body to try to collect the packaging that was strewn all over the table.
Reckless Road Page 29
