by Jan Gordon
It was just before six and there were no customers, so I’d decided to get started on my closing routine. I was concentrating on entering that day’s earnings in a ledger, thinking for the thousandth time that I really should get a computerized system installed, when the bell over the front door rang.
I pasted my best ‘welcome’ smile on my face and looked up to greet the newcomer. As soon as I saw who my customer was, the smile froze on my face and my heart leaped into my throat making speech impossible. It was my rescuer from the gas station.
He was tall, I guessed close to six foot. The previous evening I’d been so distracted and scared that I hadn’t registered just how tall he was or how gorgeous. His face looked like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors, tanned with little crease lines at the corners of his eyes. And those eyes! A cool, clear green. Not the kind of green that looked blue in some lights but a real green. His hair was the color of night, inky black and cut fairly short but long enough at the back that it brushed his collar. He was dressed in worn jeans, black T-shirt and a leather biker jacket.
I realized I was staring and swallowed then coughed to clear my throat. “You!” Oh great, I thought, not only was I staring like a star-struck teenager but I was talking like one too. “I mean, it was you, last night, it was you who tried to hide me from the gunman.”
“Yeah, that was me.” He held out his hand to me. “Steven Colburn.”
Colburn, wasn’t that the name I’d heard in connection with the old Wicks’ place? I tentatively took his hand, “Victoria Hudson.”
He nodded as if he already knew my name. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. No ill affects from all the excitement last night?”
“Umm... er... no, I’m good.” I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his eyes, they were so beautiful. “Thank you, Mr. Colburn, for wanting to check up on me and for last night. But I’m afraid your efforts were wasted. I saw his face. The gunman, I mean. I saw his face. He saw me and he knows that I saw him.” My words tumbled over themselves in their rush to escape my idiot mouth.
“That’s not good.” he frowned. “Do the police know that he saw you?”
“Yeah. But at the moment they don’t think he’ll come after me.”
“Are you closing up for the day?”
His sudden change of subject caught me off guard – but then his very appearance in my store had surprised me. “Yes, just finishing up.”
“May I buy you a coffee?”
Now he was the one who seemed nervous. A tall gorgeous hunk was nervous about asking me out for coffee; what was wrong with that picture? Opportunities like this don’t drop out of the sky every day. I made a snap decision, I’d probably regret it later, but for now I intended to do something unpredictable.
“Yes, I’d like that. Give me five minutes, will you?”
He nodded and turned away to look at the shelves of books, then he wandered over to the window to gaze through the glass. I wasn’t sure what he was looking at, perhaps he was just being polite and giving me some space to finish up my closing routine.
Hurriedly, I put the earnings in a bag to drop off at the bank and went to the little room at the back that I use as an office. Almost automatically I checked my hair in the tiny mirror hanging on the wall, smoothing my hair back down into its ponytail. What was happening to me? First I witness a robbery and then I accept an invitation for coffee from a complete stranger?
It’s only coffee, Vic, I told myself. What could happen in a public place?
On an impulse I changed my mind about the ponytail and pulled the scrunchie off, allowing my hair to fall down to frame my face and rest on my shoulders. I couldn’t help but wonder why he wanted to take me out for coffee. Good manners? Or could it be something more. Well, I told myself, I’d better get back out there before he changed his mind, regardless of his reason for asking me in the first place.
He turned to face me as I came out of the back room. “Ready?”
“Yes.” I took my keys out of my purse and he opened the front door, holding it for me as I flicked the alarm switch to on before walking out. He held the door for me until I was out on the street then followed me out, stepping out of the way to allow me to turn and lock the door behind us.
“I haven’t seen you around town before last night. Just passing through?” Brilliant, that was nearly as bad as ‘do you come here often?’
“I’ve just moved into the area. I bought an old farmhouse just outside of town.”
“The old Wicks’ place?” Seeing his answering nod, I continued, “that’s going to take some fixing up. It’s been empty for almost a decade.” So he’s the guy from the city who’d bought that old relic. Dilapidated it may be, but it must still have cost a pretty penny.
“Yeah, there’s a bit of work to do. Should keep me busy for a while.”
“I guess you’ll be spending most of your spare time on repairing it. Weekends and the like, when you’re not at work.” Although that hadn’t been a question, he’d taken it as such.
“No, I’ll be working on it pretty much full time. I’m er... between jobs right now.”
I noticed his hesitation and pressed further. “Oh?” My tone was definitely questioning, but it didn’t seem like he was going to answer.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I thought you’d invited me for coffee not the other way round.” Was I flirting? I never flirt!
“I did, but I don’t know the area yet, so I was just following you.”
Good distraction, fella, you neatly turned the conversation away from your lack of gainful employment.
Since, Farmingdale doesn’t aspire to a Starbucks, the closest we have to a coffee bar is the new espresso machine that’d been installed in Dolly’s Diner. “The place we’re heading for, Dolly’s, is just up the street; a few stores past the bank.”
It didn’t take long to get anywhere on Main Street and a minute or two after dropping off the earnings from my store in the bank’s night deposit drop, we arrived at the diner. Once again he opened the door for me, holding it until I’d entered. The man was full of old world charm despite his modern biker demeanor. I slid into the seat of a booth near the window, after all this man was a stranger and I wanted to be as visible as possible.
“Hey Mouse.”
I cringed inwardly at the nickname. The speaker was Mindy and she had come over to our table, ready to take our order. She and I had gone to high school together and ‘Mouse’ was the name most of my classmates had called me. Mostly because of the color of my hair, but also because I’d been so dreadfully shy that whenever a boy had been kind enough to talk to me all I could do was squeak in reply. Mindy had blue eyes, blond hair, big boobs and a tiny waist. She made me feel totally inadequate and I felt like I was back in high school. I mumbled a ‘hi’ back and looked down at my hands which were buried in my lap.
I vaguely heard Mr. Colburn ask for two coffees and I kept my eyes downcast as Mindy moved away to fill the order. I sat quietly waiting for her to come back with the coffees, wondering, in the somewhat awkward silence, why I’d agreed to this. When Mindy returned with the cups I glanced up at her and noticed she’d opened an extra button or two on her blouse and was now showing a considerable amount of cleavage. My ‘date’ however, didn’t pay any attention to the display as she leaned over to place the coffee in front of him. I couldn’t resist smiling a little as she flounced away from our table, her disappointment at the lack of reaction to her charms evident in every sway of hips.
With Mindy gone we should have felt free to talk, but we didn’t. I floundered around in my head trying to think of something to say. Everything that I came up with sounded forced. As the silence stretched, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I blurted out, “Mr. Colburn, why did you ask me for coffee if you’re just going to sit there and not say anything? A... are you regretting asking me?”
He looked up at me then with those beautiful eyes. I noticed he had long thick black lashes that should be
illegal on a man. “First it’s ‘Cole’ not Mr. Colburn, and second, no I’m definitely not regretting inviting you.”
“So why are you sitting in silence? I mean this is the first time you’ve even looked at me since we sat down.”
He smiled at me and I almost swooned, not only should those eyelashes be illegal, a smile like that should be as well. His smile did things to my insides that I didn’t even want to think about. “I have been looking at you. You just don’t know it because you’ve been studying your hands all this time. Look, Victoria,” he lowered his voice. “About last night, I feel I need to explain.”
I interrupted him. There was no way anybody I was going to let anybody use that antiquated name. “It’s either Miss Hudson or Vic, please never ‘Victoria’, only my parents’ generation or those even older call me Victoria.”
“Not ‘Mouse’? Isn’t that what the waitress called you?”
“No, definitely not ‘Mouse’. That was a nasty nickname the girls and even some of the boys, called me in high school.”
“Mice are gray, like your eyes, or a soft brown, like your hair. They are also clever, quick-witted and cute.” His eyes were twinkling now.
“Cute? Mice are cute? You gotta be kidding me.”
“I like them. But I’ll call you ‘Vic’ if you prefer... for now.” The teasing look in his eyes changed to something more serious.
My stomach did a little flip flop at that ‘for now’. Did that mean he was interested and... No I wasn’t even going to think about what that might’ve meant. I took a deep breath to kill the butterflies that were fluttering inside me. Lowering my eyes, I took a sip of my coffee to cover my inner feelings. But I couldn’t keep my eyes lowered; I raised them again to feast on his handsome face. “You were going to explain about last night?”
He cocked an eyebrow and his eyes were twinkling at me as if he knew the effect he’d had on me. “Hmm? Yes. I told you that I’m new in town, and I really didn’t want to get involved with the police before I’d even settled in.”
That seemed like a pretty lame excuse to me but I was willing to accept it at face value, for the time being. “Where did you go?”
“What?”
“Where did you go, when the gunman was inside the shop? One minute you were behind me then you weren’t. When you came back you were sweating and breathing heavy.” I doubted he would answer me, but I thought it was at least worth a try.
His eyes widened slightly, with what I thought was surprise, before quickly looking down at his coffee cup. “Oh, I went to the back door; I thought I could get in that way and maybe get a jump on the guy. Then I heard a noise on the other side of the door and ran back to you. I thought he was coming out the back way and didn’t want to be the one to get jumped.”
He was hiding something. I just knew it. There was no way he’d only gone to the back door in that amount of time. Besides why would he have been sweating and breathing heavily if that had been all he’d done? No one could look as good as he did and be for real. I decided to err on the side of caution. I sighed and picked up my purse. “Thanks for the coffee, but I really should be getting home.”
He reached out and put his hand on mine. “Wait. I’d like to see you again.”
I pulled my hand away and slid out of the booth. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
He stood up and moved close to me. “Did I do or say something wrong?” He asked quietly.
“Yes, I mean, no. Look, I don’t know you. For all I know you might be in cahoots with the gunman from the gas station last night, and you were there to help him escape. Or maybe you are exactly who you say you are. I don’t know.” I smiled at him, trying to soften my words. “Even if you are one of the good guys, you’re hiding something, and I’m not sure I want to find out what that ‘something’ is.”
“I’m not going away and I will ask you out again.” He reached out and ran a finger down my cheek. That slight touch set up a chain reaction of chills that headed south. “Will you talk to me if you see me again?”
“Oh yes, I’ll talk to you. If for no other reason than to make the Mindys of this town green with envy. After all, you are rather easy on the eyes.” And with that back-handed compliment, I walked out of the diner with only the slightest tinge of regret.
Chapter Three
I lay in bed that night staring up at the darkened ceiling for what seemed like hours. Every time I closed my eyes I would see a pair of green ones staring back at me. Had I done the right thing? Of course I’d done the right thing; I mean he could be a crazy axe murderer.
But then, if I’d met him in a bar or at some social gathering, I wouldn’t have known him either. You have to talk and spend time with a person before you get to know them. Perhaps I hadn’t done the right thing. I mean he could be a really nice person after all.
I tossed and turned trying to figure out what to do about Cole and it was at least two in the morning before sleep finally claimed me. But after a night full of half-remembered dreams, I knew what I wanted to do. If he asked me out again, I was going to say yes. After all, it really was the only way to get to know him. I’d just have to make sure we met in some public place and remained around people until such time as I felt safe with him.
But, oh God, he was gorgeous. And I was relishing the prospect of seeing the reaction of all the girls from school who’d made fun of me when I’d been an awkward teen.
It was at times like this that I wished I had a friend close to my age. Someone to talk to; someone to confide in. Ha. I was deluding myself; ‘times like this’, there haven’t been any times like this. Never in my entire life has a mysterious, handsome man ever asked me out on a date.
I’d dated at college, infrequently, but I’d had a few dates; none of which had gone past the first or second date. Except one. David. David had been an English major like me and he’d wanted to write. He’d had big dreams of writing great crime mysteries that would spend months on the New York Times best sellers list. He’d been a junior when I was a freshman and we’d met when I’d started working on the campus newspaper. I gave my heart to David and he’d broken it, giving it back to me in tiny pieces.
Since then not only had I not fallen in love again, I hadn’t even been tempted.
And I wasn’t going to be tempted now, either. Cole wasn’t my type. I wasn’t going to fall for him and I was one hundred percent certain that he wasn’t going to ask me out on a third date, if you counted coffee the previous evening as the first, and he carried out his threat to ask me out on a second.
Who was I kidding? Cole was just the type of guy I could fall for. Tall, dark and handsome beyond compare. And even if it didn’t go anywhere, I was determined to enjoy it while I could. I rolled over and pulled a pillow into a hug, trying to imagine it was Cole in my arms.
The next thing I knew it was nine o’clock and I was late. I took one of the quickest showers in history, skipped breakfast, fed Mister because he was more than insistent, and was out of the house by nine-thirty. Fifteen minutes later I was pulling into a parking spot near my store.
I normally open at nine-thirty and I hoped I hadn’t missed any customers. I glanced over at the front of my store as I got out of my vehicle; it didn’t look like I had hordes of customers waiting for me. I locked the car and walked toward the shop. A shadow separated itself from the doorway of my store. Cole. I hadn’t noticed him from the car; I guess he must have been standing perfectly still. Dressed all in black, he looked like he belonged on the cover of one of my paranormal romance books.
I needed my caffeine; I’d skipped my morning cup at home in favor of getting to the store a few minutes earlier and I was in no mood to deal with a would-be lothario. No, that was unfair, I had no idea if he was set on seducing me or not. But I still wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. I did try to ignore him; I tried to walk straight by him and unlock the door, but he wasn’t having any of that.
“Good morning, Mouse.”
I sto
pped and looked at him. I narrowed my eyes, he knew I didn’t like that name. But somehow, when he said it, it sounded like a caress. It was like there was an underlying purr in his voice. But still, I’d told him the previous evening, in no uncertain terms, that I didn’t want to be called by that name. Torn between liking the sound of his voice and hating the dreaded nickname, I chose to ignore both him and his greeting.
He moved agilely to one side when I pushed past to enter the store. After turning off the alarm, I went straight to my office to hang up my coat and lock my purse away, hoping that when I came back out into the main part of the shop, he’d be gone. But no such luck. There he was, leaning against the door frame propping the door open with his body. Continuing to ignore him I ducked behind the counter and sat down.
“Did you get out of the wrong side of bed this morning?” I jumped, I hadn’t heard him walk up to the counter; I was definitely still half asleep.
“It’s none of your business, but if you must know I didn’t sleep well and I didn’t have time for coffee before I left the house. Now go away, you’ll scare away the customers.” He wouldn’t scare them off of course, he might actually help business. If the women of Farmingdale knew what the town’s newest resident looked like and that he was hanging out in my store, they would all suddenly be in desperate need of a book to read. I busied myself with tidying up the area behind the counter, which, as it was already as neat as a pin, meant that I was just moving things around. I looked up when I heard the door bell. Wait hadn’t the door already been open? He’d left and shut the door behind him. It’d been the closing of the door that had rung the bell. Even though I’d been decidedly unwelcoming to the point of rudeness, I was unexpectedly hurt that he’d left without a word.
