Sugar and Gold

by Brea Viragh

  His head went down with a nod, but his eyes stayed locked with mine. “Hello, Essie.”

  “Uh...”

  “It’s been a long time,” he said, his voice sending currents of energy through my veins like strong fresh-brewed coffee on a winter day. Dark, rich. It was enough to burn me from the inside out.

  “Eh...?”

  “Too long.”

  “Isaac?” I backed away slowly, chin tilted to the side to avoid eye contact but watching warily. “Wh-what are you doing here? I’m w-warning you, whatever you plan to do to me, whatever nefarious reason you have for c-coming here, forget it.” The threat lost any meaning when my voice shook.

  “Why, Miss Townsend, why would I have a nefarious reason for coming to your little bake shop?” Isaac pushed away from the wall and straightened to his full height, the top of his head nearly brushing the doorframe. He’d grown taller since the last time I saw him. “Nice setup you have here. Looks like you’ve put in a lot of work. A lot of time.”

  As he drew closer, I recognized his body language and felt my knees begin to quake. This was wrong, all wrong.

  Oy.

  I shook the corner of the flour bag I’d destroyed. “Stay away from me.” My sneakers made streaky paths on the floor, slipping easily on the powdery whiteness.

  Isaac held his hands out wide in a classic gesture. If bedtime stories taught me anything, it was not to trust wolves even when they looked like sheep. “I’m taking a look at your establishment. After all, a newly reformed man needs some form of employment to help with the bills. Why not here? Unless you discriminate against anyone with a felony conviction on their record.”

  Each sentence had him creeping closer, and me moving back until I hit the mixer. I kept my legs strong and held myself upright. If one knee buckled I’d be down, with Isaac swooping in for the kill.

  He looked the same, I decided in a flash. His boyish features had matured during his absence, and there was a hard glint to his gaze which hadn’t been there before, but it was still Isaac. A ruggedly handsome Isaac who looked like he was in the mood to devour a raven-haired bakery owner rather than enjoy his newfound freedom.

  He took another step forward and reached for me. His face could have been photographed for magazines, all bold lines and pouty lips. The wild good looks were untamed and complimented by the tattered blue jeans and t-shirt. His hair was as thick as a bear hide, dusky gold and wavy. Pale skin pulled taut over strong bones. The new, small scar at the left corner of his lips added intrigue, rugged contrast to the perfect symmetry of his features.

  I ducked out of range.

  Isaac’s eyes—a rich hazel that flashed amber in the light—held mine. His mouth was a tight line. I remembered how when he smiled, the gesture was full of fire and allure. Once upon a time, I’d wondered how that mouth would feel against mine. Woke up sweating in the middle of the night from hazy images of those lips working their way down my—

  A twanging sound rang out when my heart thumped twice against my ribs. Hard.

  “I-I...” I sputtered for lack of a response.

  In the first few weeks after Isaac’s arrest, I’d settled my nerves by dreaming up loquacious apologies. The first order of business at bedtime, after washing my face and brushing my teeth, was to think of the many and varied ways to say I’m sorry to the boy who took the fall for me. All the things I wanted to say to him, every bit of guilt distilled into a single, perfect sentence that would have him forgiving me in an instant.

  Maybe he would run to me, a glint in his eye, and we’d share a scene-stealing kiss...

  Now, I looked into those eyes, unforgiving ice chips cold enough to freeze my feet to the workroom floor, and forgot how to speak. I grabbed a spoon from a nearby shelf and brandished it, ready for a preemptive strike should he decide to attack. The flour bag dropped between us.

  “Don’t come any closer!” I waved the spoon threateningly.

  Sure, the man had a good hundred pounds and six inches on me. But who was counting? Through the thin material of his t-shirt, I saw clearly the acres of muscle he’d built during his stint behind bars.

  I was outgunned.

  I was cornered.

  I was...aroused?

  Sure enough, heat pooled low in my gut, with enough fear and anger and excitement thrown in the mix to confuse me.

  Isaac kept his hands open and his arms spread to show me he meant no harm. Yeah, right. A voracious cannibal would mean less harm. He angled closer because he knew I was flustered. He enjoyed it. “Sugar, you’re being stupid. Put down the spoon so we can have ourselves a nice chat. I ain’t gonna hurt you. I may be angry, but not angry enough to...”

  He trailed off and I gulped. True, he was angry because I hadn’t spoken up about what really happened in that trailer. But it was his decision to take the fall for me, so why was he still filled with rage? So hell-bent on scaring me? That was his aim, if nothing else. Scare me into admitting my guilt.

  Flour finished falling from the heavens and littered the area around us, seeping into my lungs until I stifled a cough. Isaac somehow managed to escape the mess, dirty-blond hair pristine and his face scruffy with day-old whiskers.

  “I should have known your first move would be to hunt me down,” I moaned. Fear had my stomach rolling in kaleidoscopic waves and heartburn tearing a path up my throat. Why hadn’t I locked the door?

  Isaac scoffed. “Actually, the first order of business was to hug my mother and tell her I love her. Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

  I slowly lowered the spoon, though his body crowded closer. Trapped between my mixer and certain death, I wondered when Isaac would decide to make his move.

  “You smell the same. Did you know that?” He bent down to inhale, and I turned into a statue. His whiskers brushed against the top of my head, goose bumps instantly erupting down the length of my body, covering every exposed surface. “Yes, sugar and spice and everything nice. I spent too many nights remembering, and wishing for this day to come. Counting down the years.”

  I trembled. “Oh, God.”

  “Do you know what I thought about in my cell?” he whispered, close enough to have the heat of his exhalation ruffle my hair. “When I didn’t feel the sun on my skin for days at a time? When I had nothing to fill my waking hours?”

  I hated to ask. “My...smell?”

  “You.”

  Yup, I was afraid he’d say that. “Please, don’t...” I shivered, inches from touching him, my fingers clenched around the spoon hard enough to splinter the shaft.

  Isaac glanced down and grabbed my wrist just before I jerked back. My shoulder knocked into the mixer painfully. “Let me tell you something,” he said, almost nose to nose. “I thought about every moment of that night at Brad’s trailer in the woods, pretending like you didn’t know what was going on. Pretending you were ready to rock and roll with the best of them.” His large hands pried my fingers from the spoon one knuckle at a time. Scared to move, I let him. “You had an itch and thought I could protect you when the scratch started to hurt.”

  “Y-you told me you were already going to be there.”

  “I thought about your unrelenting need to impress the bad boys, your rebellious streak I took on my own shoulders like an ignorant asshole. And how you never showed up at any of the court hearings. How you never opened your mouth to tell the truth. How you let me rot in jail for years while you and the rest of them went free.”

  The spoon clattered to the floor, my fingers grasping air. Isaac tightened his hold around my hand and I gasped against the sudden discomfort.

  “Isaac—” Breath caught in my throat. I stared up, up, up into frigid eyes. The flash of heat let me know the extent of my body’s betrayal. Despite the chill, maybe because of it, I was...what? Intrigued? Interested? “I don’t know what to say,” I managed. “None of that was supposed to happen.”

  “I’m sorry too, Essie.”

  He released me so suddenly I staggered, elbow knocking
into the mixer and sending a searing wave of pain through my arm and across my sternum.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your evening. It seems like you have a great operation going here.” He gestured around at the kitchen with an inscrutable expression. His biceps strained against the thin material of his t-shirt, attesting to the strength there. “You’ve had time to make something of yourself.”

  Why didn’t the compliment comfort me? Oh, wait. The insincerity may have had something to do with it. The wealth of meaning behind each word.

  I’d built a business on his stolen years.

  I swallowed over the Mount Everest-sized lump in my throat, gaze slipping along the lines of his shoulders. Wide. Powerful. Capable of snapping me in two. “Feel free to stop in for a cupcake when you...have the time.”

  Ugh, why had I said that? Now he’d think I was mocking him. Or worse, making light of his prison stint. Either one was as good as a signature at the bottom of my death sentence.

  Isaac chuckled. “Rest assured, you’ll see a lot of me.” His eyes raked me from top to toe and everywhere in between. “I have great plans for the future.”

  My stomach clenched.

  He had to be here for some other reason besides harassing me. Maybe he thought to terrorize me with psychological threats. He was good at getting people to do what he wanted, after all. Isaac had the sort of charisma that made others sit up and listen to what he had to say. An inherent magnetism.

  If only it had worked at his trial.

  I refused to let him know how intimidated I was. “I’m sorry, Isaac. Truly sorry.”

  “Too little too late.” He flecked a speck of flour from his shirt, unconcerned with my discomfort. Prolonging every awkward instant for sheer spite. “I have years to make up for with you. Remember, Es...I’m back in town to stay. I’m not going anywhere.”

  My heart beat against my ribs until I was sure they’d crack. I tried to concentrate on calming my nerves, breathing deep and focusing on the room at large. Instead all I saw was Isaac and his unnerving proximity.

  “You look good, sugar.” He took in the dark hair I’d let grow to my shoulders, the skinny jeans and light layer of mascara. He leaned in closer. “Good enough to eat.”

  And then he left me quivering as he strode toward the rear door without even a look over his shoulder. The moment I heard the wood door slam shut I sagged, my knees giving way and my ass hitting the floor. I sat there until I steadied and the sky outside darkened.

  Two words:

  Holy. Crap.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I spent a restless night, with the covers pulled to my chin, thinking about everything we’d both said. Everything we’d left unsaid. Any more lost hours of sleep and I could be hired for a part on a TV show about zombies. I already looked worse than a three-day moldy chicken left to rot in the sun. Probably smelled like it, too. I was afraid to go in the shower alone. Pretty stupid, I knew, but fear doesn’t recognize the boundaries of logic.

  Each stray noise—and let me say, the country is full of them—had me ready to duck beneath the blankets. When nature called, I tripped to the bathroom like the house was on fire before scurrying back to bed.

  A baseball bat leaned against the nightstand, out of place with the white furniture and old floral prints hanging on the wall. The bat, which I’d decided to call Bill, stuck to my side while we prepared for the worst.

  Isaac was here.

  Isaac was angry.

  Isaac wasn’t about to accept my apology.

  If I couldn’t fight fear, the ravenous beast on my back, at least Bill and I would be prepared for whatever. It was too warm to keep the windows closed, but I needed the guarantee. The locks thrown. The inside of my house safe. Imagine, just imagine, waking up to find a man in the room. Uninvited.

  I remembered the night at the trailer with startling clarity. It was supposed to be a party. The “cool guys,” the everyone-wants-to-date-them guys, high school royalty, star players on the football team. When they extended the invitation to me, I jumped at the chance. A little booze, a lot of laughter, and maybe some stolen kisses if I were lucky. Isaac had told me he was coming too, a sort of nonchalant agreement that he would be there, and there was no way I’d back out of the party then. Experimenting with drugs hadn’t been part of the plan. My grandmother was dead and my father had lost himself to work. My mother had decided the best she could do was take in a handful of foster children and ignore her real daughter for the last few years of high school and beyond.

  After graduation, I’d just wanted to let loose some steam and shrug off the burden of my youth. I was eighteen now. I could do what I wanted, with whomever I wanted. Teenage rebellion seemed pretty ridiculous by this point. I was an adult and had a real future ahead of me. I had plans. I had ambitions. I was no longer a child. A child who wouldn’t know how to let loose if someone held a gun to her head.

  It was worse than a gun.

  I hadn’t realized what I’d voluntarily walked into until I got there and found I was the only girl at the party. Trying meth hadn’t been part of the deal. I hadn’t comprehended what was taking place until the bag of white powder was in front of my face. But Isaac had. And he’d taken great pains to keep me from being connected to Brad and his messes.

  And what had I done to repay him? Kept my admission of guilt to myself because I was afraid to put my dreams on hold. I was stupid and naïve and every kind of selfish.

  Someone had called in the tip, to make sure the police raided exactly when they had. Maybe Isaac had known about the timing. Maybe he hadn’t. Yet there I’d stood, ridiculously shocked. Debating whether my need to be “bad” was bigger than my desire to not do drugs. My grandmother would have been furious with me. I was furious with me.

  Trent told me yes, go on and give it a try. Isaac told me no.

  Who’d made the call to tip off the cops? I’d probably never know.

  After that traumatizing incident, I’d gone on with my life and ended up dating Trent for a few months before focusing on my education and ending our romantic ties. There was college to think about. Work soon after. Plans for my own business. But not a day went by that I didn’t wonder about Isaac and how he was doing.

  I tried to console myself by admitting he would never do me physical harm. I knew this, from the bottom of my heart. Then I remembered how mad he was and my mind raced. My thoughts attacked each other like feral animals trapped in a single cage.

  Isaac had blindsided me the moment I let down my guard. I’d been preparing for his arrival all day, but the second he slipped from my mind, boom. There he was. Like some kind of homing pigeon able to sense female weakness and zoom in within seconds. Of course, it was hours later that I thought of the perfect phrase to have him out the door and on his butt:

  I’ll call the police!

  Okay, maybe that still needed some work.

  Tears wanted to take over, from the frustration and pain and humiliation. Guilt came stabbing back at me when I refused to acknowledge its bedfellows. Tears wouldn’t help me get back my confidence. Or soothe my bruised arm. Or get Isaac out of town again. I stayed in bed, shivering.

  Telling myself not to dwell and then doing it were two entirely different things. Instead I tossed and turned, sleep refusing to come. My pillow was like granite beneath my head. No matter how I punched, those lumps remained to torment me. In the rare moments of unconsciousness, I dreamed of looming shadows, and piercing eyes with green rings around the irises, chilling me to the bone.

  I rose before the sun and stood by the window to watch the world come alive. Dazzling rays of orange, pink, red, and yellow illuminated acres of pine trees below the front lawn. One benefit of country living. From my perch at the top of a slope, I saw the land spread out around me like a small kingdom.

  I’d carved out a niche for myself, purchasing a home complete with mortgage payments. My inheritance from my grandmother would last a bit longer if I was careful. That small windfall had helped
put me through college and then open my own business. I wrote the check for the loan payments every month and kept a tight fist around my finances.

  Isaac and his intimidating resentment should not, could not, would not change the scope of my life.

  Still, I jumped at the knock on my door despite the promptness of the hour. Six-thirty on the dot. Which meant Shari was over for her Monday round of chitchat and coffee. We were different in many ways, yet we both agreed: Routine was key. Routine was the glue keeping us from the psych ward. I thrived best with continuity.

  I slipped the lock and cracked the door. “Hey you.”

  “Better make room. I’m on my zero-th cup of coffee and feeling withdrawals. You know how hard it was to resist on the way over? Somewhere between ridiculously and outrageously.” Shari pushed past me with the ease of a strong breeze, her hands full of our favorite brews. Sunlight made her dark wealth of curls look like melted chocolate. “So,” she began, shuffling out of her scarf and jacket, “tell me what happened.”

  I slammed the door shut behind her, leaning against it and feigning ignorance. “What happened? What happened with what?” The one topic of conversation I wanted to avoid like the plague. Figures she’d bring it up first.

  “With who, you mean.” She set the cups down on the counter and whirled on me, her finger poised for a good shaking. “Don’t try to blow smoke up my ass, Essie. I know Isaac came to visit you last night. I saw his pickup truck parked downtown as I was on my way to my sister’s house.”

  “He’s driving the same old beat-up Ford?” I padded across the hardwood into my galley kitchen, snatching one of the cups and shooting her an innocent, wide-eyed stare. “Just because he was there doesn’t mean we talked.” I scoffed. “We didn’t talk. In a manner of speaking. More like he talked and I cowered in the corner like a chump.”

  “I highly doubt you cowered. You? Please.” Shari put her coffee cup down. Picked it up. Took a sip. “Tell me what happened. Then I can decide if I need to be worried or not.”