by C. M. Albert
“Whoa! Celeste,” I said, setting the flowers onto the kitchen counter, “are you sure you aren’t having this baby tonight?”
She flushed, tucking a strand of long, auburn hair behind her ear. “I better not! I have a full house of guests for our last retreat before this sweet little angel comes. And my friend Dez is here for the holidays. We’d like to get through Christmas first, but it’s not in my hands. When the baby’s meant to come into this world, she’ll come.”
“So you finally let the doctor tell you the baby’s gender? I thought Egan wanted to wait.” I took the vase Celeste handed me and filled it with water.
“Oh, we are. Just call it a hunch,” Celeste said, beaming. “I can’t wait to introduce you to my friend Dez. I can’t believe y’all haven’t met yet, with the number of times she’s been here to help teach the Manifest Your Miracle course this year.” A dreamy look filled her pretty brown eyes, amber kissing the irises as they glowed with excitement. “I can’t believe it’s only been a year and a half, and look at all that’s changed. Tranquility is up and running, Egan and I are married, my book is a best seller, and now . . . ” She rubbed her round belly and laughed. “And now this little peanut is about to make her way into the world. Some days I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s all real.”
“It’s all real, Celeste, and I couldn’t be happier for you and Egan. Speaking of Egan,” I said, helping myself to a beer from the fridge, “where is the stud? I need to grab his ear before everyone else gets here. Run something by him.”
“He’s in the barn, working on some Christmas surprise. He won’t let me down there at all. Hmph!”
“I’m sure he has a very good reason,” I said, knowing full well what it was. I lifted my beer in salute and headed toward the patio. “I won’t keep him long.”
“Please drag him up in a few minutes, okay? He tends to lose track of time when he’s in the workshop. But I need a little extra help tonight.” Celeste’s hands supported her lower back as she sank into the sofa and propped up her feet. It didn’t look like she’d ever be able to get up again, I thought with a chuckle.
I sauntered down the stairs and across the lawn to the converted barn where Egan and Celeste had a workshop. Celeste used it for the ornate wooden angel wing sculptures she hand-carved from time to time for charity, but Egan had mostly taken it over these past few months for all of his various honey-do projects. As I slid open the barn doors and saw the hurricane that seemed to have rolled through their work space, my guess was that Egan was up to his eyeballs in projects to get done before the baby made her debut. If there was one thing I trusted, it was Celeste’s intuition.
“What the hell happened in here? Can’t this poor barn catch a break?” I asked, stepping through the wide double doors. I still had the memory of Celeste’s ex-boyfriend and the ugly altercation that happened here during her grand opening party. Somehow, Rhys had made his way through security and cornered Celeste in this very barn. The energy from the violent attack had been cleared, but I still couldn’t erase the image of Celeste in very real danger from my mind. If I hadn’t come in when I had and distracted Rhys, Egan might not have had that chance to catch him off guard and take him out with the barn’s intricate pulley system. I shuddered to think about how badly the night could have turned out, with Rhys being armed and more than just a little obsessed with his ex. But Celeste believed her angels were with her that night. If I believed in angels, I would’ve agreed. The timing of my own arrival onto the scene had been too perfect. I don’t even know what drew me to go down there in the middle of a party that night. But something compelled me to leave the gorgeous blonde I’d been dancing with to go find Egan and thank him once again for his generous donation to the youth center.
All’s well that ends well, I guess. I looked at Egan, who was busy with a sander and hadn’t heard me enter. I walked over and pulled the plug from the wall. He looked up from his project, sawdust everywhere, a pissed look crossing his dark features before relaxing into a grin. His hazel eyes warmed when he saw me. We’d quickly become best friends since his arrival in Arden’s Glen, and I was glad to see him tonight. “Hey, man! I see you’ve still managed to keep this a surprise from Celeste. It’s coming along nicely.” I set my beer down on the workbench and ran my hand along the smooth side of the baby bassinet that Egan had been sanding.
“Completely in the dark. I can’t wait to see her face on Christmas morning when she finds it under the tree. She’s going to flip out.”
Egan was so proud of the refurbishing job he was doing on the bassinet. I noticed a look of satisfaction wash over him as he eyed his work in progress. It had been in Celeste’s family for generations, having been her bassinet when she was just a baby. Now their own baby would be sleeping in it too. I got a little choked up thinking about it and I didn’t even really like babies. I mean, who wanted to change another human being’s poopy diapers? I shuddered, then lifted my beer back to my lips. It was something I was more comfortable with.
“She’s going to love it,” I agreed. “She did tell me to hurry you along though. Said she needs a little extra help tonight. She looks like she’s about to pop!”
“Yeah, just don’t say it like that to her if you want to stay on her good side.” Egan laughed. “Celeste is normally pretty calm, but man . . . these last few months she’s been running around like a mad woman, making over the Reiki room into a nursery and overseeing the construction of the new healing lodge near the outdoor chapel. It’ll make more sense to have it over there anyway. That way the whole bottom floor of the house can be just for our family.”
“Is that where Dez is staying?” I asked, not really sure why she popped into my mind again.
“Yeah. In Celeste’s office. That’s where I stayed, too, when I came for my unexpected visit. Man, that trip sure changed everything,” Egan said, laughing. “If I’d only known when I walked into this place how different my life was going to end up being—”
“You would’ve walked right in anyway,” I said. “I don’t believe in love at first sight, but you two sure seemed to have it. Glad you did, too!” I raised my beer in his direction. “Otherwise, who would’ve started the most epic poker league in Arden’s Glen?”
Egan snorted. “You mean all four of us?”
“Hell yeah. Best poker table in western North Carolina!”
“Speaking of poker players,” Egan said, lifting a brow, “have you met Dez yet?”
I groaned. “Are you telling me she plays poker?” I felt myself tighten. There was nothing sexier than a hot woman who knew her way around a handful of cards. There was something about the skill needed to bluff another person so confidently that made a woman even hotter when she knew how to outsmart you. The strategy and game of it all. “What does she look like?” I asked, trying to take my mind off the fantasy I was creating in my head of a hot woman, a handful of cards, and naked bodies pressed together against my round wooden poker table back at home.
“Between you and me, she’s a knockout. Not as hot as Celeste, of course, but I wouldn’t even admit Dez was pretty around her right now, she’s so hormonal these days. The littlest of things seems to set her off,” Egan admitted, laughing. “I wouldn’t change it for the world though. Oh, and did you know pregnant women get even hornier than—”
“Whoa!” I said, lifting my hand in Egan’s direction. “TMI, dude. Do not need the details of your sex life with Celeste.”
“You say that now, but if you knew how animalistic a woman gets when her hormones are all kicked into high gear . . . it might just make you want to go out and knock someone up.”
“Dude. You’re talking about your wife while sanding your baby’s crib. Reel it in,” I groaned. Sex was the last thing I needed to be thinking about—even though I would be using the poker table fantasy I’d just created in my head to take my own edge off at the end of the night. Sex used to be all I thought about, and look where it got me. No thanks. Solo sex was much safer, and no one
got pregnant that way. “I’m not even ready for a girlfriend. I’m definitely not ready for a baby,” I muttered, backing out of the barn. “And, dude, you need to take a minute before coming back to the house. Maybe go take a cold shower, if you catch my drift.”
Egan looked down and burst into laughter. He shrugged. “What can I say? I have a freaking hot wife.”
“Who’s going to be pissed if you don’t go take a shower, get that sawdust off of you, and go up and help her with this shindig. I’m telling you, she looks extra tired tonight.”
Egan rolled the cord around his sander and put it in the cabinet along with the work goggles he’d been wearing. As we cleaned up the hurricane-level destruction in the barn, I tossed out my idea for the app for at-risk kids. I was glad when Egan’s excitement level rose, and I could tell immediately that he understood my vision and the benefits for the kids. We decided to talk later in the week to flesh out the idea more, and that was a good enough start for me.
As we walked up to the house, I noticed a nice crowd had already started to gather. From our vantage point below, we could see the partygoers mingling in the living room. Fairy lights lined the outdoor patio and wrapped around the inside of the screened-in porch that was connected to it. As I admired Egan’s handiwork, I noticed a woman who was standing there alone, away from the crowd. Her back rested against the railing of the porch, and she seemed to be staring into a fire that blazed in the cool night air. Her long dark brown hair hung in loose waves down her back, drawing my eyes to her curvaceous bottom. I swallowed hard.
I’d forgotten all about Egan until his hand clapped me firmly on the back, a chuckle bubbling from his mouth. He leaned in and whispered, “That, my friend, is Dez. I think it’s time you go introduce yourself.”
I FELT HIS presence before I saw him. A masculine energy washed over me while I stood there on the patio, daydreaming as I gazed into the dancing flames of orange and yellow that licked the wall of the fire pit.
“You must be the infamous Dez.”
I held my breath for a moment, on the precipice of knowing and not knowing. Afraid to face the curl of sexual energy tugging me in his direction. I heard his weight shift as he climbed the last step and joined me on the patio.
I turned to face him, a practiced, sexual smile curving on my lips before I could stop it. My eyes slammed into familiar, dark, piercing ones and the smile slipped from my mouth, crashing to the weathered floorboards beneath our feet. “Newman,” I hissed out. For some reason, the old Jerry Seinfeld reference tumbled from my lips with an ease I found disturbing.
His mouth turned up at the corner, amusement reaching his dark brown eyes. “Jerry,” he bantered, laughing. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t run me off the porch first, since you’re so good at it.” I crossed my arms over my body, the chill of the night settling in my bones as I stood there, not sure what to make of this gorgeous man who was now staring me down.
“Wow.” He nodded his head, running his hand through his thick, brown hair before turning away. He gazed out at the woods, the lake nearly impossible to see under the blanket of darkness. He turned to face me. “This is awkward,” he said. “Can we start over? For our friends’ sake?”
I looked him up and down, my eyes caressing the jeans he was filling out nicely and the black sweater that hugged his chest with precision. He was even better looking over firelight than he’d been earlier in the day, but it wasn’t enough to sway my first impression of him. “I don’t know. It’s not every day I nearly get run off the road, plowed into at the market, and then almost made into roadkill all at the hands of the same man. I’m not sure I want to start over again,” I said with sincerity.
He scrutinized me for a moment, his brow crinkling in the glow of the flames. And damn if his thoughtful glare didn’t about melt my panties off.
“Look, first of all, you pulled out in front of me at the Vega Farm. I was driving down the street minding my own business when this”—he waved his hand in the air, grappling for the right word—“tourist, not familiar with our roads, pulls out in front of me and nearly made me swerve off the road.”
“Did you just call me a tourist?” I stepped closer to him and poked him on the chest. Not a good idea. It was a solid wall of muscle. I tempered my libido and steeled myself against his Superman good looks. “I did not pull out in front of you. You were speeding,” I huffed. “I was the one who almost landed in the ditch.”
He rolled his eyes. “You know I was only going about twenty, right?”
“You are so infuriating,” I seethed.
“And you are adorable when you’re acting all righteous,” he said.
“So, I see you two have finally met,” Celeste said as she waddled out the back door onto the patio, Egan in tow with his hand on her lower back. “Dez, this is Mitch Michaelson, the former owner of this property. Mitch, Dez Wright, my friend and fellow teacher. She helps my students with manifesting and is an amazing photographer.”
Mitch eyed me, one eyebrow arched.
I swallowed hard, wishing I’d just heard Celeste wrong. This man—the mysterious stranger who had an affinity for trying to run me down—was their good friend Mitch? Shit.
Egan cleared his throat. “Mitch works at the youth center here in town. He manages the daily operations and the big brother/big sister program. He has this amazing new idea for an online tool where kids can call or log in and speak with a counselor completely anonymously, but their location is tracked by the program itself using GPS. So, if there’s an emergency situation, the counselor can press a code red button and police and medic will be dispatched to the caller’s location, or the location where the device is being used.”
“Wouldn’t that be a breach of trust?” I asked, still flustered and trying to reconcile that their friend Mitch was my dark stranger, even as a million questions swirled in my head about the implementation of such a tool.
“We would make it clear up front that the failsafe is in place. But the trained counselor who answers the call will never know who the person is or have any way of tracking them. That way, the kids will feel a hundred percent safe to be as honest as possible.”
“Hmm,” I said, still mulling it over. “That could be really helpful, if they believe that the tool is really anonymous despite the GPS capability. Do you have a big need for something like that in such a small town?” I asked, tempering the indignation I was feeling only moments ago for the sake of our friends.
“Arden’s Glen is a small community, but there are other counties all around us that don’t have a youth center, and that have lower socioeconomic conditions, which puts many of the kids at home alone while both parents have to work. The more research we do, the more we’re discovering the problems this creates and the kids who are at the highest risk,” Mitch explained.
I glanced over at him, a new appreciation bubbling to the surface and slowly eroding the asshat impression that I’d carried around all day about the man.
“I’m hoping to implement the app in western North Carolina to start, and then expand to the entire state in phase two. If it’s successful, I want to expand to other states and eventually make it a national tool. We’d need trained counselors before then, of course, but we could put a lot of good people to work in these underserved communities, so it’d be a win-win scenario. Of course, funding’s going to be an issue.”
I nodded in agreement, an idea already forming in my brain. “Well, what if I could help get you a little exposure?” I asked.
“And by exposure, you mean?” Mitch looked nervously from me to Celeste. She shrugged, but she knew exactly where I was going with this.
“Well, I’m in the process of creating a coffee table book called Angels in Action. It’s getting a lot of national attention, thanks to a few key participants and backers in the art community. Do you know Macy and Nash, Celeste’s friends?” When he nodded, I continued. “Well, my proceeds are all going to the charities o
f choice of the people I’ll be photographing. Between the youth center and the app you’re trying to kick-start, maybe I can help?”
“What would I have to do?” he asked, a weariness in his tone. “Do you want to take pictures of the youth center or something? The kids? That might be hard getting releases signed from all the parents.”
I shook my head. “That’s not exactly what I have in mind, though that’s not a bad idea.”
“Oh yeah? Then what exactly do you have in mind?”
“You,” I said. Images were already taking shape in my mind as my eyes grazed over his body. He would look delicious in black and white. “I’m willing to overlook your homicidal vehicular tendencies. I want you in my book.”
The look of pure terror that crossed his face amused me. Oh yeah. This will be fun.
He narrowed his eyes at me and grumbled under his breath, “Newman . . .”
EGAN MET ME at the youth center the next morning while the girls were conducting some sort of woo-woo manifesting class. “So, explain to me again what they’re doing,” I said as Egan finished hammering in the last shelf for the new bookcases he was installing in Inez and Bridgette’s office.
He stood and stretched, slipping his hammer in his work belt as he did. “I’m not really sure what they do in there to be honest. Dez brings a bunch of pictures and paper, and you know Celeste. She does a little energy work and asks the participants to set their intentions for whatever they want to bring into their lives.”
“Huh,” I said, still not really sure exactly what that meant. “So, it’s kind of the theory that ‘if you build it, they will come’? That kind of thing?” That was the closest I could come up with to relate to what the women were doing.
