by Box Set
“Do you ever listen?” Mom reached over and cuffed me upside the head. “She. Is. Not. Married.” Her pitch rose and ended on a frustrated screech. “She has a little boy that Annie never stops talking about. I’d like some grandchildren too, by the way.” She downed her cocoa like it was a stiff shot of brandy. “She’s back in Bell Mountain for the holidays, and if Annie gets her way, she’ll be here to stay.” Mom looked triumphant in her declaration.
Her words were like a wrecking ball to the side of my head. Mandy was back in Bell Mountain. I was back in Bell Mountain. This could be really good, or it could be really bad.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What are you and Annie up to?” It was obvious they were in cahoots. Those two were peas from the same pod.
“We aren’t up to anything.” Mom picked up the empty cups and dismissed me with a wave. “So what if you find yourself at the Sweet Shop tomorrow. So what if Mandy’s there, and she’s as beautiful and smart as the day you left. So what if you find yourself in love with her again.”
Yep, those two were trouble. “So what, huh?” I stood up to follow her.
“Yes, Beau, so what?”
“I hate to break it to you, but nothing is going to happen between Mandy and me.”
“Stop being a douchebag, Beau. Pull your head from ass and start living.” Mom stomped into the kitchen and dumped the cups into the sink before she marched off to bed.
Once I picked my jaw up from the floor, I walked to the front window and stared at the little house across the street. Everything seemed the same, only it wasn’t. My mom had adopted a potty mouth, and Mandy Sawyer was back home. Could she ever forgive me?
Chapter 3
Mandy
The dripping of the faucet kept me awake all night, but it was necessary so the pipes didn’t burst when the weather dropped below freezing. After a fitful night of sleep, I woke up late for my first day at the shop. With my hair pulled into a ponytail, I ran down the stairs buttoning up my shirt. Tommy and Mom were already in the kitchen.
“Not too many sweets, and if he starts getting cranky, make him lay down for a bit.” I rushed around the kitchen like a strung-out caffeine addict trying to get her next fix.
“It’s under control. I raised you, and you survived.” She pulled the pancake mix from the cupboard and started to whip up Tommy’s breakfast.
“Barely.” I stuck my tongue out at her like a juvenile. She grabbed a spatula from the chipped jar and chased me to the back door. The whole time, Tommy watched and giggled. I ducked under her arm and hid behind my son so I could kiss him goodbye. “Bring him by the shop later?”
“Will do, now get.” She waved the spatula through the air like it was Harry Potter’s wand. By the way Tommy squealed, I expected an incantation and a puff of smoke to burst from the end before I disappeared.
It was impossible not to glance at the Tinsel house on my way out the door. A silver SUV had appeared overnight, and I knew it was Beau. I felt his presence. Maybe it was my imagination, but the air seemed to contain more energy when he was near. Maybe it only happened when we were together. All I knew was I’d spent most of my life loving Beau Tinsel or pining for him. Maybe it was good he was back. At twenty-eight, I had to move on and bury the past, and I couldn’t do that without one final word to Beau, but the lone word that came to mind right now was asshole.
The Jeep didn’t turn over as easily this morning, but it could be because I left it out all night long. At three below zero, not much wanted to start up and go, including me. I backed out of the driveway and headed to work. Nothing much had changed. As I drove through town staring at the same old buildings, I realized I changed more than Bell Mountain.
“Hey, Misty,” I called from the door. Misty Lerner worked at the shop for as long as I could remember. It started out as an after school job for her and turned into a career.
She dropped the scoop, wiped her hands on her apron and pulled me in for a quick hug.
“So, your mom got you to come back.” She looked me up and down and smiled her gap-toothed smile. Her parents offered to close the space with braces in high school, but Misty read somewhere that luck flowed through the space, and she didn’t want to jinx herself. I wonder if her life had indeed been lucky.
“Manipulated me back home, you mean.” I pulled an apron from a hook by the door and wrapped it around my waist.
“It’s been a long time.” She gripped my hand and twirled me in a circle. “Was your hair always this blonde? And when did you grow boobs?”
I twisted my fingers through my ponytail and looked down at my chest. “Yep, always blonde, but these,” I cupped my ample breasts, “are courtesy of motherhood.”
“I hate you.” She looked down at her flat chest. “I breastfed both of mine, and they sucked the life out of the girls.”
“I didn’t breastfeed Tommy. I was single parenting it, and I couldn’t stop work every two hours to pump, but he seems to have survived, despite my neglect.” Thoughts of Tommy always made me feel light and airy. “How’s your family?”
“Divorced two years ago. I caught him banging Michelle Steele on my dining room table.”
“Oh. My. God. Michelle? Really?” Michelle was one of the many M names so popular in my generation. My graduating class of one hundred and ten kids had twenty-two girls whose names began with an M, but I’d never have guessed that Michelle could have been so bold. She was the preacher’s daughter—a mouse of a girl.
“Your mom sent me home at lunchtime because I wasn’t feeling well. It was quite a homecoming to arrive and find Michelle looking after my husbands needs, and I’m not talking about his spiritual needs. To this day, she swears I was possessed by a demon. I hit Dan with the same rolling pin I tried to shove up that girl’s ass. I’m told he sported a shiner for a week, and Michelle spent the next few days on her knees, only this time in the front pew of her daddy’s church.”
Maybe Misty should have closed that gap in her teeth after all. While she talked, I set up the large mixer and poured in the ingredients for sugar cookies. Mom had a large order of blue bells for the ski resort up the road.
“What did Dan have to say for himself?” Dan had always been a player. Most of the jocks were. That’s why I’d loved Beau so much. He was loyal to a fault. One day, Theresa Platt, the town whore, had stepped in front of him in the parking lot at school and flashed her enormous boobs in his face. He walked past her like he’d never seen them, and then he wrapped his arms around me as if I was the only girl to exist in his world.
I knew he’d gotten an eyeful. In fact, I was pretty sure he was almost blinded by an eraser-hard nipple, but Beau never reacted. Later in the day, he told me boobs followed a grading scale. Her size C cups were average and my A cups were top of the grading chart. If I were graded by the same scale today, I’d score a low D or a high C, at best.
“What could he say? I caught him with his pants down playing bury the wiener. I didn’t know what to do, so I called my daddy. He came over and helped Dan pack. He didn’t take much, just his clothes and a stack of bills.” She shrugged as if she were talking about a faulty item she’d returned. “Dan lives in a trailer park on the other side of the mountain. He works in the mines now. You can’t be a police officer when people question your moral compass.” Misty’s dad was Sheriff Lerner, and I was pretty sure he had shoved Dan’s moral compass straight up his ass.
We talked as if ten years hadn’t passed. At seven o’clock, we opened the doors and let the old timers in. Some of them had been coming since I was in diapers. They welcomed me back home and took their favorite seats to sip coffee and gossip.
A few times over the next several hours, I overheard my name and Beau’s, but I tried to ignore the whispers and stares. It was old news. However, the problem was, small town residents could breathe new life into old news, and make it fresh again.
Misty iced the cooled sugar cookies. “I hear Beau is back in town. Have you seen him?”
“Nope.�
� I pulled out a warming plate, a non-stick pan, and a bag of chocolate.
“Just nope? I need more than that.” She sprinkled the bells with iridescent, blue candy sprinkles. “What happened with you guys?”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“But you’re going to see him, right?”
“It’s not in my plans.” I stirred the chocolate and grabbed the caramel squares. “Listen, Misty, Beau and I were kids. That was a long time ago.”
“I just thought…” She looked up when the bell above the door rang.
“You thought what?” I focused on dipping caramel squares into milk chocolate.
“I think you’re going to have to change your plans,” was all she said before she snapped her mouth shut. In fact, the entire Sweet Shop went mute. Walking in the door was none other than Beau Tinsel and he looked amazing. When had he grown so tall? Was he always so muscular? And that beard, it was the perfect amount of scruff to rosy up a girl’s cheeks or possibly her inner thighs. Oh, I was in big trouble.
“Oh, look, it’s time for my break.” Misty tore off her apron and tossed it on the counter. “See you in thirty.” She dashed out the door like her ass was on fire.
“Mandy.” My name rolled off his tongue like thick molasses. He approached the display case with his hands tucked into the pockets of his pants. He looked me up and down. “Good to see you, candy girl.” I used to love when he called me his candy girl. Now, it sounded as fake as saccharin, and left a bitter taste in my mouth.
“I’m no longer your candy girl.” I swirled a caramel block into the chocolate and set it on wax paper to dry before I approached the counter.
His body language spoke volumes. Those hands in his pockets said, I’d rather be anywhere but here, or maybe he’d forgotten his gloves and his hands were cold. When it came to Beau, I was no longer an expert. One thing I was certain of—I didn’t know this Beau Tinsel. The man standing in front of me was large, and looming, and lethal.
A plethora of feelings raced through me—intense sadness, jubilation, relief, and rage. Equally fast, one word filtered through my head—Asshole. Asshole. Asshole. It was the only word I could process. I came back to Bell Mountain to help Mom. I didn’t want a walk down memory lane. It was inevitable that someday we’d run into one another, but why today?
I’d played out this exact scenario a thousand times. Well, not exactly, because in my dreams, I was ten pounds less and dressed to kill. My hair was styled, and my makeup applied with the skill of an artist. I’d come up with something charming or witty to say to him, but today, I was left with two syllables.
“Asshole,” I whispered.
“Excuse me?” He leaned forward like he was hard of hearing. Maybe he was, loud music could do that to a person. I could only be so lucky.
I put on a mask of indifference. Lord knows, I’d had a lot of practice in Paris. After I became pregnant with Tommy, I had to see his indifferent father daily. I simply pretended he didn’t exist. What I didn’t acknowledge couldn’t hurt me. Could I do the same with Beau? I’d have to try. “Welcome back, Beau. What can I get you?” I dusted off the already-spotless counter in front of me, anything to distract myself from looking into his sapphire blue eyes. I tugged and pulled at my T-shirt and jeans, hoping I didn’t look like the tired mom I’d become. I wanted Beau to see me as the one who got away. I wanted him to regret what he did to me. Sadly, after seeing me today, he’d probably thank his lucky stars.
“Coffee and a banana nut muffin, please.”
“Still take it with half a cow and a teaspoon of sugar?” His damn lips curled into a hint of a smile. Boy, even his lips had matured. Were they always that full? Raspberry red? Kissable?
“You remembered.” He reached up and plucked a chocolate-covered candy cane from the jar on the counter and gave me a knowing smile.
Those had been our brainchild. It happened on our first kiss. I’d just devoured a peppermint candy and Beau a handful of chocolate kisses when somehow our lips and tongues found each other. I wasn’t sure if it was the kiss or the candy that made it sweet and special, but we persuaded my mom to dip canes in chocolate and sell them at the store as a symbol of our love. Whenever I saw them, I thought of our first kiss. Asshole.
I did my best to ignore him while I punched his items into the register. It was another old relic from days long past. At one time, this store had been a mercantile that supplied the miners and their families with things like sugar, and flour, and bolts of fabric. My family had a long history with Bell Mountain. Great Grandpa Sawyer worked as a foreman for Old Man Grady. Grady never married, which was a shame because he had the second biggest house in town after the Tinsels. Every time I walked by the Grady house, I tossed a penny in the pond out front and wished someday it would be mine. That wish didn’t come true, either.
“Mandy?” His voice worked its way through the haze of my daydream.
I shook my head to clear the thoughts that addled my brain. “Sorry. That will be four dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
He handed me a five. “Can we sit down and talk sometime?” His tone was earnest—so much like the young boy I’d fallen in love with, but that boy had gone to California, and I didn’t know the man who had returned. He appeared to be the same, but how could he be? He was a superstar. His talent had earned him millions of dollars. No, I didn’t know this man, and I couldn’t afford to know him. He was dangerous to my heart and soul.
“Yeah, sure, but it will have to wait until after the holidays. Being a candy shop and bakery, you can imagine how busy we are right before Christmas.” I gave myself an internal high five. I’d pulled that right out of my patootie. I’d managed to sound indifferent and unfazed even though my throat was in my stomach, and my heart was at my feet.
“I won’t be here after the holidays, so maybe you can try to fit me into your busy schedule.” He lifted his brows in question.
“Just like you did me?” He irked me, but I disappointed myself with my pettiness. I didn’t want to be the scorned girl he’d left behind. I’d grown up, hadn’t I? “I’m sorry. That just slipped.”
His smile never made it to his eyes. “I deserved that.” He picked up his coffee and muffin and walked to a corner table where he sat and stared at me until a gaggle of girls noticed him and began asking him for autographs and pictures. Then, it was my turn to watch.
He didn’t appear to relish the attention. He smiled and chatted, but there was no spark in his voice, and no light in his eyes. To the average person, he appeared friendly and engaged, but each time another girl showed up to his table, I could almost hear his sigh of defeat. To his credit though, he posed for pictures and kissed the cheeks of every teen who came to the shop. I was exhausted for him.
When he saw his chance to escape, he made his way toward the door, but not before calling over his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Mandy. You know where to find me.”
The bell above the door rang before Beau could exit. My son rushed in like an out of control storm. His arms were full of packages. Lego’s, crayons, and paper airplanes littered the ground in his wake.
Beau stepped back when Tommy ran at me, nearly toppling me with his show of robust affection. “Mommy, look at what Grandma bought me.”
I glanced over Tommy’s shoulder and gave my mom the stink eye. In a matter of days, my once polite, and charming son would be a spoiled brat if I didn’t rein her in. I mouthed the words, “no more,” then I turned toward my beautiful boy. “Wow, it looks like you had an early Christmas, buddy.” I tousled his dark hair.
Beau backed away from the door. His eyes narrowed as he approached and kneeled in front of Tommy. “Hi, I’m Beau, and who are you?”
“I know who you are. You’re that man that’s on my mommy’s CD’s. You sing that song that makes her cry.” Tommy scrunched his nose and pursed his lips.
“Tommy, where are your manners?” I was mortified that he’d spilled my secrets. How was I supposed to feign indifference wh
en he’d publicly outed me as a fan? A blubbering mess of a fan with a bunch of BT and the Bads CD’s. Beau didn’t need to know I was a step away from crazy stalker.
My head dropped in defeat. What could I expect from a six-year-old if not honesty. “This is Beau, and he is indeed the lead singer of BT and the Bads.”
Tommy held out his hand for a shake. “Nice to meet you, Beau. Are you really famous?”
Beau’s eyes skimmed Tommy from head to toe. His expression held a thousand questions. “I suppose I am, but to you, I’m just Beau, and we’re going to be friends. Okay?”
Tommy smiled a rainbow. “Are you my daddy?”
I sucked in my breath while my heart tumbled to the floor. Tommy had been asking about his dad a lot lately, and I’d told him his dad was famous and busy. I wasn’t ready to tell him his dad wanted nothing to do with him, so I embellished the truth. His dad was famous. In fact, he was one of the premiere chocolatiers in Europe, but he wasn’t interested in being a father, and I wasn’t interested in an abortion. We parted amicably.
To his credit, Beau didn’t blink an eye. “How old are you, son?” He glanced at me with accusation in his eyes. Tommy was tall for his age and could have easily passed for an older boy, but he wasn’t Beau’s.
“I’m six and a half. Come sit with me and Grandma, she promised me a cookie.” Tommy tugged Beau over to the table he’d just vacated. “Are you my daddy?” he repeated.
After doing the math, Beau had to know Tommy wasn’t his, but there was no relief in his expression. In fact, he almost seemed disappointed. “No, Tommy, I’m not your daddy, but if I were, I’d be so proud to call you my son.” In that moment, my iciness toward Beau thawed a bit.
The afternoon rush hit. Mom jumped in to run the register with her good hand while Misty and I helped the line of customers. In the corner, Tommy and Beau colored and assembled paper airplanes that often found their way flying over the counter. At four o’clock on the dot, Greg walked in. He was quick to take in the scene. He tossed his head toward the corner table where Beau and Tommy sat. I knew exactly what he was thinking. It was written all over his pretty boy face. You and Beau are back together?
