by Lori Wilde
“No, of course no.” He paused. “It’s just that…”
“What?”
“Calloway’s up to no good. He’s trying to get even with me.”
“Get even with you?” Flynn canted her head. “For what?”
“Umm, for my father arresting him and sending him to prison.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Try telling Calloway that. He’s jealous of me. He’s always been jealous of me, and he knows being friendly with you sets my blood boiling.”
“Well, it shouldn’t set your blood boiling, Beau. The man is simply trying to put his life back together.” Was he? Or was Beau right? “He’s been to prison. He’s paid his debt to society. He’s allowed to make a living. Find some Christian charity in your heart and forgive the man.”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Beau grumbled.
“A lot of men look at me that way, Beau. Haven’t you been to Froggy’s on Saturday night?”
“It’s not the same,” he mumbled.
“I’m engaged to you, Beau. You know I’m not the kind of woman who cheats. Even though we weren’t officially together when you were in Iraq, I didn’t date anyone else. Not to mention, the sheriff’s office is right across the frickin’ street from the theater. You could pop in and check up on me at any time. If you want this wedding to happen, then just let me rent the damn space and get on with it.”
Beau swallowed, licked his lips. He looked at once both vulnerable and hopeful. Flynn suddenly felt extraordinarily sad and she had no idea why. “If I say yes will you set a date?”
Compromise.
Her heart felt leaden. “I’ll set a date.”
“Christmas?”
“That’s only six months away!”
“Christmas?” he persisted, his eyes glistening darkly.
She could feel his controlled emotions simmering just below the surface. He was hurt and scared and looking for reassurance. But she was scared too. She didn’t know what was happening to her. To them.
Compromise.
“It’s cutting things close,” she mumbled.
“There’s plenty of time. My mother will pull strings. She can help you get everything organized.”
“Christmas,” she confirmed, and the tightness inside her chest loosened a little.
His shoulders relaxed, and a smile replaced the dark expression marring his features. “All right then.”
“So I can tell Jesse that I’ll take the space?”
The smile vanished at her mention of Jesse’s name and the muscle at his temple pulsed. “Yeah.”
“Okay, then.”
“Fine, great,” Beau said, “I’ll call my mother and tell her the good news.”
They were both breathing heavily, eyeing each other like adversaries, spilled tea pooling at their feet. Flynn felt like she’d just won a gigantic battle, but yet something niggled at her, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It wasn’t just the look in Beau’s eyes or the defiant way he lifted his chin. She had the strangest feeling he was crossing his fingers behind his back, telling a lie but making it okay with the rationalization. But that was a ridiculous thought because his hands were on his hips. Whatever it was, she didn’t trust the victory.
Because she had a feeling that this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Wrong. This was all wrong. Flynn building the Yarn Barn above Calloway’s motorcycle shop.
Beau furrowed his brow, pressed his lips into a hard thin line, and paced the confines of his office. He could feel Flynn slipping away from him and he had no idea what to do about it. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. He’d invested ten years into their relationship and he wasn’t about to let her go without a fight.
Calm down. Be cool. Don’t let your anger get the best of you. She agreed to set a date. That’s progress. It’s a step forward. You crowd her, you lose her.
He couldn’t lose her. Not after all they’d been through. He’d just have to find some way to get rid of Calloway. Shouldn’t be hard. He was a parolee. Wouldn’t take much to send him back to Huntsville. It was up to him to protect Flynn. He’d failed with Jodi, but he wasn’t going to make that mistake twice.
“Sheriff,” Madge’s voice came over the intercom. “Dr. Cheek is here. He’d like to speak with you.”
Beau blew out his breath. “Send him in.”
Madge buzzed the outer door, and a minute later Sam was standing in front of him, his dark brown eyes looking troubled. “We need to talk.”
Beau motioned to the chair opposite his desk.
Sam shook his head.
“What’s this about?’ Beau asked, both annoyed and relieved for the interruption from his emotional turmoil. Sam wasn’t a complainer. If he had something on his mind, he was serious about it.
“The old Twilight Bridge.”
“What about it?” Beau crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against his desk.
“My boy got hurt on it taking a shortcut home from school. He fell through a hole in the runners, scraped up his leg pretty good. Termites are eating away the wood. It should come down or be rebuilt.”
“You’re right,” Beau said. This was a cause he could get behind. He’d hated that damn bridge ever since the night he’d seen Flynn up there with Jesse. The memory—and the old anger—rushed through him, but he quickly squelched it.
“It’s a hazard,” Sam said. “You’re lucky it was my kid and I’m not the kind of guy to bring a frivolous lawsuit against the town, but next time we might not be so lucky.”
“Thanks for bringing this to my attention,” Beau said, and clasped Sam on the shoulder. “I’ll see what I can do.”
For the rest of the weekend, Jesse worked on gutting the bottom level of the aged theater, pulling out all the old wooden seats, ripping down the screen, piling the debris into the back corner of the lot until he could haul it away later. Determined not to think about Flynn and what had happened—or not happened—on the river on Friday night. He was confused by his behavior, uncertain of why he’d taken her out in the boat. It had been stupid. He could have blown everything.
Hondo came by and pitched in for a while before starting a twenty-four-hour shift at the fire station. Jesse pushed himself hard, sleeping only four or five hours, going back at it again. Reveling in the punishing ache assailing his muscles.
Then at eight o’clock on Monday morning, after he’d already been working for two hours, he looked up from where he was pulling up the threadbare carpeting to see Flynn standing in the doorway. The sight of her caused his heart to skip a beat. She was here. In his shop.
Flynn was dressed in an oversized, loose-fitting pale blue T-shirt, faded blue jeans, and sneakers. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail that made her look sixteen again. She held a sack in her hands from the Twilight Bakery.
“I come bearing breakfast croissants and hot coffee,” she said, and her tentative smile swept over him like a gentle caress.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he asked, dusting his hands against his pants.
“I came to talk to you about the offer you made on Friday night,” she said, digging around in her purse with her free hand. “Here you go.” She tossed him a package of premoistened towelettes.
“What a little Girl Scout you are,” he said, tearing open the package and cleaning his hands with the damp wipe.
“Hey, don’t get smart. You want food or not?”
“Gimme.” He reached for the sack. “How did you know I haven’t had any breakfast?”
“You possess a lean and hungry look.”
“Cassius from Julius Caesar.”
Flynn looked surprised. “You did pay attention in Mrs. Martin’s English lit class.”
“I’m far more than just a pretty face.”
She smiled vaguely and from the sack pulled an egg and sausage croissant wrapped in wax paper. It smelled like heaven. She handed it to him along with a cup of black coffee. “Cream? Suga
r?”
“Straight up works for me.”
“Where can we sit?” She glanced around the empty, dusty room.
“The stairs?”
“Um…sure, that’ll do.”
They perched on the second step of the stairs, their thighs almost touching. Hot, horny images flashed in his head. He saw her sitting there completely naked, her knees primly pressed together. He took a bite of croissant and closed his eyes.
Stop torturing yourself.
“You okay?” Flynn asked. “Did you swallow wrong?”
“Yeah,” Jesse lied, his voice coming out all hoarse and husky. She smelled so good. Like sunshine and orange juice and happiness. “I swallowed wrong.”
“Ooh,” she said, “you’re about to…um…lose your sausage.”
Flynn must have realized how that sounded at exactly the same moment Jesse realized the sausage patty was sliding out the pastry’s buttery folds, because she audibly sucked in her breath.
Jesse jerked his hand back just as Flynn reached out and caught his meat before it could hit the step. Their eyes met over the sausage. She held it clasped delicately between the tips of her thumb and forefinger.
Blood pooled in his lower abdomen and he felt himself harden. Dammit.
“You want it back?” she whispered, her voice seductive as hell. Or was it his perverted imagination? Her hazel eyes were rounded wide and completely guileless.
He sucked a deep breath into his lungs and split apart the two sides of the croissant. “Load it on for me.”
She nestled his sausage between the flaky buns. But he wasn’t looking at his breakfast. Rather his gaze was glued on her. A few tendrils of dark hair had escaped her ponytail and were curling softly against her shoulders. Sunshine slanted in through the open window, bathing her creamy skin in a heated glow.
“There you go,” she murmured. “Good as new.”
Good as new, hell. What about the erection straining against his zipper? Good thing he had the wrapper in his lap for camouflage.
“How did you get out of prison early?” she asked.
It was the last question he expected, and it did the trick of deflating his arousal.
He shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it. Especially with her. “I was a good boy.”
“Exactly how good?”
“Why are you asking?”
“I heard a rumor,” she said, “that you did something heroic. The details were shaky. It’s why I’m asking.”
He snorted. “Where did you hear that?”
“I overheard customers talking at Froggy’s. So there’s no truth to it?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Big enough to get you released two years early.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Are you embarrassed about being a hero?” she prodded.
Just satisfy her curiosity, get it over with. “Look, there was an eighteen-year-old kid who came into lockup. He was terrified, made a bad deal with the wrong guys, found himself caught in between a turf war. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.” Jesse gritted his teeth.
“I can tell this bothers you. You don’t have to go into detail.” She was acting all demure. Lowering her eyes, keeping those knees pressed tightly together. But he could tell the danger intrigued her. He saw the way her breath quickened, how the pulse at the hollow of her throat leaped with each pump of her heart.
“I was lucky in prison. I stayed of people’s way, flew under the radar, and for the most part I got by unscathed; I’d already seen the worst the world has to offer. Prison was really no different than living on the streets or in some of the foster homes I’d been in. The worst part was the confinement. But this kid…” He paused. “He didn’t know how to keep his nose clean. They were gonna kill him if someone didn’t step in, and in all likelihood it would have erupted in a prison riot between two warring factions.”
“You stepped in,” she whispered.
“Lone Ranger to the rescue,” he said, poking fun at himself.
“Did you get hurt?”
He fisted his right hand, held it out so she could see the flayed cut wounds across his knuckles. “Pretty minor, considering.”
Flynn’s face paled, and she made a low noise of sympathy and gently ran her fingertips over the jagged scars. “I’m so sorry for everything you had to go through.”
“Hey, it wasn’t your fault.” He was reluctant to admit it, but her touch was unraveling his control, loosening the spigot on his emotions. “So tit for tat. What’s happened with you while I was away? Other than getting engaged to Trainer?”
“My mom finally died last year,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, Aunt Patsy wrote and told me when it happened. She was pretty torn up about it.”
“Why didn’t you write me, Jesse?” she asked in a rush. “Why did you send back the letters I wrote you?”
Old feelings roused in him—sorrow, sadness, disappointment. “I couldn’t handle reading your letters.” He shook his head. “And I knew if I wrote you back you’d keep hanging on to that childhood crap, and there was no reason for that. You had your life, and I was in a place you could never be.”
“I would have come to see you.”
“I didn’t want you there,” he said harshly. “Don’t you get that? I didn’t want you to see me on the ground, broken and damaged.”
She drew in her breath. “I just wanted to help.”
“You can’t take care of everyone, Flynn.”
Silence fell. They looked down at their half-eaten breakfast sandwiches, at their cooling coffee.
“I came to tell you I’d like to rent your upstairs room for the Yarn Barn,” she said.
Jesse’s pursed his lips. “Trainer know about this?”
“Yes.”
“And he signed off on it?” Something smelled fishy in Denmark. He couldn’t believe things were falling into place so easily. Jesse had learned a long time ago not to trust anything that came easily.
“Beau doesn’t own me.”
“I think he would disagree with that. Trainer’s the possessive type.” Possessive enough to frame a man and send him to prison to eliminate him as a romantic rival. But Jesse didn’t tell her that. He knew she wouldn’t believe him. No one but Patsy and Hondo believed him about Trainer.
“You’re wrong about Beau. He’s a really good guy,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. A real prince. What did you have to agree to in return?”
She bristled, got up, moved off the stairs. “That’s none of your business.”
“Let me guess. He pressed you to set a wedding date for sooner rather than later.”
The look on her face told him he’d hit the bull’s-eye.
“Are you going to rent me the space or not?”
He raised his palms, stood up. “Sure, sure. When do you want to start renovations?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow it is,” he said, and stuck out his hand to seal the deal. “Welcome aboard.”
CHAPTER NINE
Jesse, I’ll never forget our rendezvous. You’re destined for big things. I just know it.
—Flynn MacGregor, yearbook entry, 1999
Okay, so the sizzle between them still burned hot as ever, but it didn’t have to mean anything. She would not act on it. She was no longer a teenager. She’d moved on, put the past behind her. She was engaged now.
Mentally girding herself for the onslaught of Jesse’s devastating grin, Flynn parked on the square and wandered around to the back entrance. She was surprised to see the progress he’d made on the place since the previous day. The bottom level had been completely gutted right down to the cement floor.
The man was a worker, she’d give him that.
“Hey, Dimples,” Jesse said, his voice echoing in the now cavernous room. He was ambling down the stairs, his arms loaded with junk he was apparently cleaning out from the upper level.
“Wow, I’m amazed.�
�� Flynn turned in a circle. “Did you stay up all night?”
“Not all night.”
“But most of it.”
“I’ve almost got the upper room cleaned out,” he said. “Do you have any idea what you want to do up there? Paint? Wallpaper?”
“Actually, my mother picked out the wallpaper years ago. She had me buy it in preparation for the right place. Mom was a big believer in visualization. See it, believe it. I don’t know why, it didn’t seem to work for her.”
“I think that’s where you’re wrong. Looks like her dreams are starting to come true.”
His words brought a lump of emotion to her throat. Flynn splayed a hand to her neck.
“I did some visualization of my own,” he went on. “Every night as I fell asleep in my cell, I’d imagine my own shop with a row of gleaming motorcycles that you could see through the display window.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“We could probably start the wallpapering, depending on how long you can stay,” Jesse said.
“I can stay as long as I want.”
“Sheriff got you on a long leash?”
Bite your tongue. Don’t rise to the bait. “Uh-huh.” She smiled sweetly.
By eleven, they’d finished clearing out the rubble, sweeping up the floor, and wiping down the walls of the large room that had once served as Pete Grissom’s office. Flynn went home and dug out the wallpaper she’d purchased years earlier and stored in her mother’s hope chest. It was adorable, knitting-themed paper decorated with colorful skeins, balls, and hanks. Amid the yarn, kittens frolicked—calicos, tabbies, Siamese.
“That looks like the cat that’s been hanging around out back,” Jesse said, nodding toward a gray tabby curled up in a pail of balled yarn. “I tried to chase it off two days running but she won’t leave.”
“Did you feed her?”
“Phttt.” He pulled a macho face. “I’m starting up a business here, can’t have a cat underfoot when you’re running motorcycles in and out of the place.”
Flynn noticed the tops of his ears turned red. “You fed her.”
“Yeah, I’m an idiot.”
