by Zoë Archer
An hour later he pulled into a parking space in front of The Garden of Eden and grimaced. Shards of window glass littered the sidewalk and planter boxes. The wind had twisted a Plexiglas store sign as if it were nothing more than a flexible drinking straw.
He stepped from the truck’s cab and took a closer look at the roof. On second thought, he should have brought more plywood and tarps and a longer extension ladder.
As he pushed the front door open and stepped inside he was greeted by the jingle of door chimes and a blast of warm, humid air. Within moments, the aroma of soured sheetrock and wood, as well as the fragrance of a thousand different animals assaulted his senses.
Then he saw her—a red haired siren—sweeping spilled aquarium gravel into a pile. She looked up, her gaze meeting his across the way.
“Oh, hello.” She set the broom aside and brushed the palms of her hands on the front of her skirt. “You must be Zach Barron, the contractor.”
Zach picked his way through the wreckage in the direction, over the maze of damp, spilled animal food and broken shelving units. “That would be me.”
She cocked her head and eyed him curiously. “You look familiar? Have we met before?”
She also looked familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her. “It’s possible.”
Glossed with a sheen of fine perspiration, her flawless, porcelain skin glowed without the benefit of makeup. Her large, expressive eyes were the color of rich chocolate and she had exactly three pale freckles across her nose. Wait. Now he knew where he’d seen her before.
“Alexis? Is that you?”
She blinked. “Oh no.”
It was her! “Alexis Fanning. Spring break. South Padre Island. Ten years ago.”
She gave a sheepish grin. “And you’re Charleton Wordsworth III? On the phone you said your name was Zach Barron.”
Zach swallowed hard. He’d forgotten about that embarrassing part of his past—how he’d pretended to be the son of a shipping magnate on spring break his first year of college. “My name isn’t Charleton Wordsworth, Alexis. It’s Zach Barron.”
She bit down on her lower lip and hesitated. “Um, I have a confession, too. Alexis isn’t my real name either.”
He lifted a brow. “You appear to have lost your British accent.”
She nodded.
Memories of the magical time they’d spent together flooded back. They were two kids, miles away from home on their first college spring break. He’d been gawky, still wearing braces and had been sitting in a nightclub bar drinking lemon-lime soda when she walked in. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. They’d danced, told wild tales long into the night and spent the next two days together, playing volleyball on the beach by day and dancing in the clubs at night. On their last night together, they made love in the moonlight beneath a palm tree on a deserted stretch of beach.
A few days after they’d parted ways, he’d tried to phone her and discovered the number she’d given him wasn’t valid. He might have been angry, except for the fact that he’d done the same thing. He hadn’t wanted her to contact him, fearing his lie would be discovered.
Besides, he hadn’t been much to look at then—tall and lanky, all legs and arms. He couldn’t believe a gorgeous, cosmopolitan girl like her would have ever fallen for a geek like him.
She offered her hand. “I’m Eden Summers—and that is my real name.”
Zach stared at her hand like an idiot, then accepted it. As soft as he remembered.
“Zach Barron.”
She gave a slight squeeze, then released. “It suits you much better than stuffy old Charleton Wordsworth any day. Come this way,” she said with a smile and then turned, indicating for him to follow. He resisted the urge to watch the gentle sway of her slender hips beneath her skirt, but failed miserably. She hadn’t changed much in ten years, except that she’d filled out nicely in all the right places. A certain part of his anatomy was also filling out in all the right places, too.
“Before you begin working on the shop, I need to transport the animals to my home. Can you build cages?” she asked, pausing to look over her shoulder.
“I can build anything you want.” Right now he was building a hell of a tent in his pants.
“Good, because I need a small aviary,” she continued, “and about four kennels for puppies and kittens. I’ll also need a sturdy, but temporary fenced outdoor area for my baby gators until the wildlife preserve corps comes to transport them in about two weeks to a sanctuary. Until then I’m going to take them home and keep them in my bathtub. That will give you time to build the other enclosures.”
Zach quickly surveyed the damaged building, his eyes coming to rest on a beefy, red-faced deputy sheriff who was moving stealthily toward them.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Eden,” the deputy drawled, “but I can’t allow you to do that. Alligators are a protected species in Arkansas and it’s illegal to keep ‘em in a bathtub.”
Zach watched her brown eyes darken. “Well, Bubba—Deputy Smith—here’s a newsflash for you. What I put in my bathtub in the privacy of my own home is none of your business. Besides, I’m working with a conservation program here in Arkansas. We’re acquiring healthy alligators from neighboring states to be released back into the wild.”
“But you can’t keep them in your bathtub.”
She put a hand on her hip. “Bubba Smith, I can keep anything I want in my bathtub.”
The deputy’s cheeks puffed up and Zach noted the bulging vein on the man’s forehead.
“Are you saying you would intentionally break the law?”
“My animals need a place to live until my shop can be repaired, Bubba. If I’m breaking ‘Arkansas law,’ as you put it, temporarily housing reptiles in my bathtub until the conservation crew arrives, then so be it. Besides,” she added, “I’m working with the state on this project so you have no jurisdiction. You’re local authority.”
The deputy’s nostrils flared. “You’re pushin’ your luck, darlin’.”
She held her ground. “You’ve been pushing yours all morning.”
The porcine man drew himself up to his full height of about five feet four inches. Even in flats, Zach noted that Eden stood at least three inches taller.
“I don’t care if them gators are from Louisiana, Arkansas, or Kalamazoo,” the deputy rattled on, wagging a finger at her. “If you transport them out of this here shop and I find out you put them in the bathtub at your home, Eden, I’ll cite you for…for…”
She laughed. “Cite me for what? Keeping an alligator in my bathtub?” She folded her arms across her chest. “I dare you Bubba Smith.”
“You…you what?” the flustered deputy sputtered.
“I dare you to cite me for keeping baby alligators in my bathtub.”
The deputy’s face turned crimson, his cheeks puffing up. “Eden, you’re messin’ with the law.”
“And you’re messin’ with me, Bubba Smith.”
Zach chuckled and the deputy flashed him a warning look before turning his attention back to Eden.
“Feisty lil’ gal, ain’t you?” Bubba winked at her. “I rather like my women with a little fire in their spirit. How’s about I pick you up later, say ‘bout seven, and you and me go for a little drive up to Shady Hill and park for a while. I’ll show you what you’ve been missin’ all these years.” He plucked at his shirt collar. “The women ‘round Mayhaw don’t call me the Bubba-nator for nothin’.”
Eden made a sour face.
“Aw, come on, sugar,” he said, reaching up to fondle a strand of her hair. “I might even be persuaded to look the other way regarding your gator situation if certain conditions are met.”
When he moved closer to Eden, Zach bristled. The man was clearly bullying her.
“Is that right?” Zach asked, drawing the deputy’s attention away from Eden. “How about I give you a piece of advice,” he said, punctuating the last word. “If you don’t take a step away from Miss Summers right now,
I might not be persuaded to forget that you’re harassing her.”
The deputy rested his hand on the butt of his gun. “I don’t like your attitude, boy. If I was you, I’d watch my step.”
“That advice goes both ways.”
The deputy lifted a brow. “You threatenin’ me—an officer of the law?”
Eden squeezed between the two men and implored Zach with her eyes. “Ignore him, Zach, and help me get these animals to safety.”
Zach didn’t back down, even as the deputy’s eyes narrowed on him, as his finger twitched on the revolver.
“I don’t believe I know you, boy. You’re new in town. Better let me see your ID so I can run a check on it.”
Zach pulled his wallet from his hip pocket, flipped it open and yanked the license out. “Check all you want,” he said, thrusting the license past Eden. “I have a spotless record.”
The deputy grunted and headed to the door. “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. I’ll be back just as soon as I call this in to headquarters.”
“You do that,” Zach replied.
“Not a wise idea to tangle with Bubba,” Eden said once he’d gone.
“Not a wise idea to tangle with me, either. The jerk was coming on to you.”
“True, but he’s also a gun-toting jerk. That makes him doubly dangerous.”
“Does he do that a lot…throw his weight around with you?”
A smile split her face and Zach chuckled at his own joke. “What I meant is, does he harass you like this often?”
“Only since high school.”
So she and Bubba went to high school together. A pang of jealousy stabbed at him. “Please tell me he’s not an old boyfriend?”
She made a face. “The pickings in this town might have been slim, Zach, but I was never that desperate.”
“Well, he sure seems to like you a lot.”
“Bubba’s a notorious womanizer—sexually frustrated. I was practically the only girl in high school he didn’t nail, but then, there were only five females in Mayhaw’s senior class. He hasn’t gotten over the fact that I turned him down a hundred times.”
Awkward silence stretched between them as he remembered how they’d made love on the beach their last night together, how they’d watched the sunrise together before he’d walked her back to her hotel room.
“I tried to call you a few days after you’d left Padre Island,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t a working number.”
“I’m sorry about that. Truly I am, but I really didn’t think you’d ever call.”
“Why? Did you think I’d sleep with you and then dump you like a lot of other guys would?”
She shook her head. “No. I knew you weren’t like that, but you were rich—or so I thought. I believed you’d only been nice to me because I was a foreigner in a strange land. Actually I was terrified you’d discover the truth, that I was really a poor country bumpkin from Arkansas pretending to be someone I wasn’t.”
He laughed. “Guess we both fooled one another big time, didn’t we?”
She shrugged. “It was just one of those things, Zach…one of those wild times in a young person’s life.”
His hand lifted and he touched her shoulder lightly. “No, it wasn’t just one of those things, Eden. We weren’t kids just out looking for a good time. We really enjoyed one another’s company, and when we made love, it only confirmed how I felt about you.”
Questioning eyes held his. “What do you mean?”
“I knew then that you were the one for me, only I’d screwed up everything with the whole Charleton Wordsworth lie. I didn’t know if you’d forgive me. I felt like an idiot. A day hasn’t passed when I haven’t wondered what would have happened if we’d stayed in contact.”
She lowered her eyes. “Don’t think about it. We can’t go back in time and change the past. I really cared about you, if that makes any difference now.”
“I cared about you, too.”
Awkward silence stretched between them.
Zach shoved his hands deep into his pockets to keep from touching her, from pulling her into his arms and kissing her. “Okay, so tell me what you need for me to do and I’ll start loading animals in my truck,” he said, changing subjects.” I have a tarp to cover the cages.”
“We didn’t discuss your fees.”
“Don’t worry about fees yet. Parts of this building are structurally unsound at the moment. I can’t even begin to assess the damages until the animals are out. I’ll need to take measurements and order materials. We’ll get squared away once we relocate your animals to a safer place.”
“Still, I can’t ask you to move my animals for free. At least let me pay you for your time.”
“Okay. Have dinner with me tonight. The pleasure of your company will be payment enough.”
She smiled. “All right. Dinner it is.”
~~~
Zach moved animals from the store to her house for four steady hours. Dogs, cats and birds were all moved into portable kennels and placed in one of her spare bedrooms. He spent another three hours building sturdy, temporary shelving to hold aquariums for lizards, spiders, scorpions, hamsters and the few remaining fish and assembled those in the living room. In the guest bathtub she placed the twelve baby alligators, the warming lamp and plenty of large flat gravel. Bags and boxes of salvaged food and pet supplies were stored in the garage. All the creatures made the transition safely except Harry, the tarantula, who’d somehow escaped during transfer.
After Zach left, Eden retreated to her oversized garden tub for a much-needed relaxing soak in lavender bath salts. How miserable this day had begun, yet how wonderful it would end with a date with an intelligent, handsome man—one who wasn’t from Mayhaw. She slipped deeper into the fragrant, steamy tub, closed her eyes, and relived that sensual night with Zach on the beach of Padre Island.
~~~
Zach arrived at six p.m. sharp, a bottle of expensive white burgundy in one hand and a bouquet of fresh summer flowers in the other.
Eden invited him in.
“So where are we going for dinner?” she asked as she placed the wine in an ice bucket on the bar. She rounded the corner and retrieved a crystal vase from one of the lower shelves and filled it halfway with tap water.
He leaned on the jamb of the kitchen doorway. “Chef Henri in Rockville.”
Chef Henri? A place you take someone special. Eden opened the bouquet’s wrapper and separated the flowers. “That’s at least an hour and a half drive from Mayhaw.” She cut her eyes at him. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay in and have dinner here? I have a pool in the backyard and lovely patio made for evening dining.” While she arranged the flowers in the vase, she realized he was staring at her. “What?” She touched her hair, thinking she might have forgotten to style it.
“You have a palm tree in your backyard, Eden. I noticed it when I built cages this afternoon. Do you remember what we did under that palm tree on Padre?”
Oh, yeah she remembered. While she’d relaxed in the tub that afternoon she’d relived that special night over and over in her mind. Would his kisses and caresses be the same she wondered? Or would they be better now? She licked her lips nervously and finished with the floral arrangement, aware he was still watching her every move.
Feeling awkward, she stood back and eyed her handiwork. “The flowers are beautiful, Zach. Thank you.”
“They’re not as beautiful as you.”
After an uneasy moment, she gestured to the wine rack. “Care for a drink before we go?”
Zach moved past and lifted two goblets, then turned, his gaze fixing on the refrigerator door. Eden gasped. No! The photograph! She’d meant to remove it before he returned but with all the day’s excitement, she’d forgotten.
Hoping to distract him, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, my goodness, Zach! Look at the time. We’d better get to Chef Henri. Don’t want to lose our reservation.”
But it was too late. He’d seen the picture. He
lifted the small black and white photo from beneath the Betty Boop refrigerator magnet and nodded.
“This is the picture we had taken in the photo booth on Padre. I can’t believe you still have it.”
Eden swallowed hard as the room grew warm. She watched as he removed his wallet and flipped it open.
“I still have mine, too.” He held it out for her to see. “I’ve kept it with me ever since.”
This was too much to absorb. All these years she’d thought he’d forgotten about her, about the magical days and nights they’d spent together. Yet he’d kept their photo in his wallet? That didn’t sound like a guy who’d thought of her as a one-time fling.
She dimmed the wall light switch as she slipped past him, but his gentle hand on her forearm caused her to turn back.
“Why do you keep the picture on your refrigerator?” he asked.
Her heart beat wildly in her chest. She’d kept it because those few days with Zach had been the happiest of her life. Should she risk telling him, or…
“I was your first lover, wasn’t I, Eden?”
She bit down on her lip and nodded. Actually, he’d been her only lover.
He moved in closer, took her by the shoulders. “Eden, honey, I have a confession to make. It was my first time, too.”
“Oh?” She’d had no idea. He’d seemed so confident, so…skilled.
He lowered his head so that his lips hovered within an inch of hers. “I hope you don’t think I’m being forward, but I’ve thought of nothing else all day except kissing you.”
She’d been fantasizing pretty much the same thing, only at times her daydreams had taken her in an erotic direction. He took her hands in his and drew her body close. Eden melted against him as his lips came down upon hers.
