He started the engine, proud of himself for not gunning it. Small triumph, but at the moment, he’d take any edge he could get. He didn’t pull away from the curb, though. “I met up with a guy who found some parts for your car from one of his salvage yards.”
That roused her attention, which he realized was exactly why he’d said it. One step forward . . . one step back. He was busy watching her expression, so he’d have to kick himself later.
She turned and looked at him, her eyes a little brighter.
Naturally, since he was telling her she could leave Sugarberry sooner.
“Really?” She sounded a little more like the Honey he’d gotten to know and less like the Honey who’d shown up on the doorstep of his garage two days ago, looking like a nervous, wounded bird. “That is good news.” Her shoulders softened a little, and she pushed up her glasses.
He wondered if she realized that she wouldn’t have to do that so much if she didn’t keep her gaze half averted all the time.
“It’ll cut the estimate I gave you by a third, maybe more,” he said a little gruffly still, but trying harder not to sound like such a dick—despite knowing he was acting like one. “It’ll cut the time frame down, too.” He wished he didn’t care so much what her reaction was to that little piece of news, but he was holding his breath as he waited for her response.
She didn’t smile in relief as he’d half expected her to. In fact, she went right back to looking torn and pensive again.
“I really appreciate all the trouble you’re going to,” she said, looking down at the fingers she’d twisted together in her lap. “Both with the car and with . . . the other—”
“It’s fine,” he said, cutting her off in a tone that clearly said it was anything but.
She looked at him, her expression unreadable. “Is something else wrong?”
“I wish to hell I knew,” he retorted, raking a hand through his hair and swearing again because he’d meant to get it cut that day. It was easier to be frustrated by his long hair than it was by the woman seated next to him, who shouldn’t have that much power over how his day went. Any power, for that matter.
“Is it the truck?” she asked, apparently assuming as much since he hadn’t pulled out onto the road yet.
“No, it’s not the truck.” He took a moment to get a grip, then turned to look at her. “It’s the people in the truck.”
“People in the—me?” Her eyes went wide. “What did I do? I mean, I know what I did, but I apologized that Barbara asked you to play taxi driver, and I can talk to Mr. Hughes about the boat trip—”
“Just . . . stop, will you? Stop apologizing, stop thinking you know me, or know what pisses me off. That’s what pisses me off, okay?”
She sat back and folded her arms over her middle. “Okay. Not a problem.”
His breath whistled out through his teeth. He’d pissed her off, too. Finally. He shouldn’t be happy about that, but the fact was, she was sharper when she was riled up, more direct with him, more honest with him. Not so damn controlled. And not so damn absent. And not so damn . . . raw.
“You know what? I can get a ride back. I’ve troubled you enough for one day.” She gathered the small piece of luggage she regarded as a purse and reached for the door handle.
“See? You’re doing it again.”
She whirled back to him. “Doing what? Trying to be considerate?”
“Trying to smooth everything out, like that will make everything okay. Everything’s not okay. I meet you and suddenly I’m worried about accidentally touching you so you don’t go headlong to some tortured place. I get roped into playing shuttle driver, and having to make sure Frank Hughes doesn’t lose his damn leg or worse. I’m spending time I don’t have tracking down salvage parts for a car that’s already nothing more than a welded pile of salvage parts to begin with, pissing off the blonde at the co-op—”
Her jaw dropped at the last one. “How is that my fault?”
He just glared at her and she raised her hands, palms out. “Fine, fine. Continue with your rant.”
“I’m not ranting, I’m—” At her lifted brow, he blew out another breath and swore under the next one. “I don’t know what the hell I am.”
“You’re frustrated because you’ve been dragged, kicking and screaming, into a world full of living, breathing people, and you’re not real happy about it. I get it. Trust me, I get it. I want to be in a world filled with living, breathing people, only I can’t be unless I want to spend every second of every day worrying about being shot off into Never Never Land at the slightest incidental contact, and I’m not real happy about that. Am I the only one who sees the irony here? Though I still don’t know what I did to piss off the co-op chick.”
She raised a hand to stall his rebuttal. “And, you know what? I’m sorry. For all of it. Utterly, sincerely, abjectly sorry. I don’t know what else I can say to you. I, better than anyone, understand the desire to stay out of the loop, out of everyone’s business, and just mind my own. I didn’t come here to wreak havoc or upset anyone’s life but my own, but, clearly, that’s not the way it’s turned out.”
She took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter, but she wasn’t in that controlled, safe place she’d been before.
And damn it if he didn’t already feel better. Much better.
“I just want to get my aunt’s estate sorted out so things are square and being handled correctly and legally moving forward. Then I’ll get in my salvage-yard piece-of-crap car and drive, push, or have it towed all the way back to Oregon so we can both go back to our respective caves and leave the world to its business, okay?”
“That’s just it,” he told her, leaving his controlled, safe place, too. Fair was fair, after all. “I don’t know if that’s okay or not.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He shifted in his seat, and met her gaze directly. It rocked him a little, every time he stared directly into those eyes of hers. Partly because he knew they saw far more than anyone else did or could . . . even when she wasn’t having one of her little events. And partly because he was getting better at seeing her inside of them, too. What he saw tugged at him—much as he wished it wouldn’t. On impulse, he reached over and slid her glasses off, careful to touch only the rims and not make contact with her.
“What are you—”
“Can you see without these things?”
She frowned again and looked confused. But she didn’t demand he hand them back. “Let’s just say the edges of the world get a lot softer without them.”
“Ever wear contacts?”
“Now you’re judging my appearance?”
He actually felt his mouth twitch and knew he was well and truly screwed. No matter how foul a mood he managed to put himself into, she managed to flip the switch. And damn if he didn’t like it when she got out of that self-imposed cave of hers, let her guard down, and was simply herself—smart mouth and all. Maybe especially that part. He turned the glasses around and looked through them. “Damn, sugar. You’re blind.”
“It’s not like I asked to be.”
He looked up at her, and felt his heart beat that strange tattoo again. He wished he was better equipped to handle that part. “Doesn’t matter anyway, as it turns out.”
“What doesn’t matter?” she asked, sounding a little grumpy.
Perversely, that made his lips curve despite himself. “My opinion on your glasses shouldn’t, for one. But I was thinking maybe if those eyes of yours weren’t so magnified, they wouldn’t have such a strong impact on me every time I looked at them.” He waited until she lifted her gaze to his again. Yep. Thump, skip, thump. It was enough to make a grown man nervous. “Turns out, glasses or no glasses, it doesn’t matter.”
Her frown had faded as he’d spoken, and her mouth dropped open a little.
It had the unfortunate effect of drawing his attention there, and led to him noticing how her throat worked a bit as she tried to swallow.
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Suddenly it seemed like the temperature inside the cab of the truck had gone up a few dozen degrees. And it wasn’t the heat of the sun doing it.
He leaned forward, feeling like that proverbial moth drawn to the flame, knowing damn well he was facing the same risk, but not caring much at the moment. He was going to get burned either way.
Her eyes widened. “Dylan—”
“Shh.”
She started to shrink back.
Mostly out of habit, he thought. Her eyes were telling him a different story. They were big and wide, allowing him to clearly see the desire as it punched into her pupils. He stopped her by lifting his hands and carefully sliding her glasses back on. “I’m not going to touch you, sugar.”
But he stayed in her personal space, looking into those magnified, unearthly, beautiful eyes. And let a slow, lazy smile curve his lips as the last of his self-directed anger and most of his frustration dissolved away . . . replaced by a different kind of frustration all together.
Oddly, he was having no problem feeling the urge to flirt and seduce. “Don’t let this go to your head,” he said, the grit still there in his voice, along with heat and drawl, “but I think those glasses are sort of sexy . . . in a hot-for-schoolmarm kind of way.”
Her eyes were big, her pupils wide, and he knew she was thinking about the kisses they’d shared, maybe wanting another one. Or two. He sure as hell did. So, it surprised him when she barked out a laugh at his comment.
“Well, that’s certainly a first,” she said dryly, but a most becoming blush rose to her cheeks.
One thing was for sure, he’d never have to worry about his ego getting too big around her. For some reason, that only served to deepen his smile. “Given you don’t spend a whole lot of time with anyone, that’s not sayin’ all that much.”
She smiled then, too. “Too true. Of course, maybe it’s because you happily spend most of your time with your head under the hood of a car that you could possibly find these attractive to begin with. Maybe we both need to get out more.”
Or stay in, he thought, and his mind went straight back to what it would be like to have her completely stripped bare, literally and figuratively. What would she be like as a lover? Would the tentative, self-conscious, worried side take over? Or would the part of her that didn’t give a rat’s ass dominate and allow her to take what she wanted, how she wanted?
Of course, all of that was pretty much moot, given the whole crazy vision thing. Talk about a mood killer.
He realized he was staring at her mouth again when she swallowed, hard, and wet her lips.
“Aw, sugar, don’t go temptin’—”
“I—” She had to clear her throat. “Trust me, I’m not trying to.” She tried for a laugh. “I mean, it’s not usually a problem I have. Oddly, men aren’t generally lining up to get in my personal space. You’re the only one who actually seems turned on by the Magoo glasses.”
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
She glanced up at him, her lips still twisted in a dry smile, but with a genuine twinkle of friendliness in her eyes. “And you’ve been sucking down too much car exhaust.”
He chuckled at that. She really was just the damndest thing. “You may have a point, but that doesn’t change things, here and now, does it.” He said it as more statement than question, but her gaze shifted away again, breaking eye contact completely.
“I . . . don’t know what I want, to be honest.” She kept her gaze in her lap, where she was back to twisting her fingers together. “I know what I wanted when I came here, but nothing has gone like I thought it would. Not a single thing.”
The wry humor was gone, replaced by a quiet sincerity. She was no longer the wary, reclusive cave girl, but wasn’t the bold, say-it-like-it-is girl, either. This was a new side of her, maybe more vulnerable . . . but definitely honest. He’d wanted that trust from her earlier, had been miffed that she didn’t just offer it up to him. Now that she was . . . he didn’t know how he felt.
More disconcerted than he thought he’d be, for one. He knew this wasn’t the kind of thing she did often, if ever . . . and he didn’t want to do anything, say anything, to abuse or ruin the trust she was placing in him. But he had no idea what to say . . . or, possibly more important, what not to say. So he did the one thing he knew how to do . . . he listened.
“I didn’t expect to be homeless,” she said without a trace of self-pity, but rather bluntly . . . baldly.
That tugged on him far more strongly than any woe-is-me story would have.
“I didn’t count on losing my business before I even got it started, didn’t count on being trapped with no mode of transportation. I’ve been truly terrified of letting the visions come back, of making direct contact with anyone, and then folks here didn’t seem to be all that freaked out by the idea. Apparently, Bea had been giving them the benefit of her second sight all along.
“Except they have no idea how different mine is from hers. I don’t know what to make of the fact that the first vision I had was far stronger and more detailed than any I’ve had before, or why it affected me so deeply, so . . . personally.” She paused for a long moment before finally lifting her gaze to his. “And I definitely don’t know what to make of you. Any part of you.”
“Well, that makes us even, Honey Pie.”
Her lips quirked the tiniest bit at his use of her nickname, but her eyes were still so unguarded, and he wanted nothing more than to taste that mouth of hers one more time. Take away that uncertainty and replace it with . . . something stronger, something more stable, something just . . . more.
“Part of me still wants what I came here for, a chance at a normal life, or as close to one as I can have.” She glanced away again, looking through the front windshield, though he doubted she saw anything beyond the dashboard. Her viewpoint was entirely internal now. “And then things happen, like what happened on the porch this morning, or I find out that my inheritance is quite legally leased out for the next three and a half years and out of my reach for at least that long.”
She was finger twisting in earnest now, her tone agitated as she spoke faster, like she had to get it all out before running out of time.
He was prepared to give her all the time she needed.
“Not that I’d kick the cupcake ladies out at this point, anyway. That would guarantee my own business would be a failure before it even started. Plus, I like them, or the ones I’ve met, anyway, and I’d like to think we might become friends. Lani even invited me to come bake cupcakes with their baking club, and, you know what . . . I’d like that. No, I’d love that.” She broke off, took a breath. “I know I’ve lived under the proverbial rock for far too long, and I’m willing to work—hard—to get the life I want, but that life doesn’t seem to want me back.”
She stopped then, seeming more pissed than sad or lost, and he thought she might swear at the injustice of it. He sure as hell would have. Instead, she got that resigned, squared shoulder look back, which made him want to swear at her.
“It would be easier,” she said evenly, flatly, and worse, unemotionally, “and definitely smarter, to just go back to what I know I can make work.”
“Only?” His question seemed to surprise her, jerking her gaze back to his.
She held it for such a long moment, he fully expected her to continue her retreat, scrambling rapidly back into her cave. So it surprised him when she answered truthfully, openly.
“Only I don’t want to go back.” She paused, blew out another breath. “Wow. Just saying it out loud makes it a lot more real. But it’s the honest truth. I don’t know what I could have here, but . . . I don’t want to go back.”
“Then make Sugarberry work.”
“How?”
He liked that she’d asked honestly, sincerely, with no sarcasm, no wry note. No whine or wail. If he’d doubted how much she wanted to find a way to make her plans work, that answered it for him. And he was smiling again. “Well, darlin’, you�
��re a pretty smart girl. You started up and have run a successful business, after all.”
That seemed to surprise her. “What do you know about my business?”
“You told me you ran a mail-order business, said you wanted a shop front. I assumed that means it’s a successful one.” He didn’t have to tell her that he’d done a little research on it—on her—the night before. Damn computers. He usually tied himself to one only when he was searching online for boat parts. Somehow he’d found himself typing in her name and up popped her website, complete with a note saying she was relocating and would post an update when she was up and running again. He’d wondered what it was costing her, suspending operations like that. From the list of happy customer quotes she had on the site, it looked like she was doing quite well.
She was also a very talented artist. He might not personally be in the market for her array of little fantasy woodland creatures and garden critters, but he’d been around enough wood carving while looking at boat pieces like his mermaid to know real quality and craftsmanship when he saw it.
“Thank you,” she said. “It is . . . or it has been. It was a huge risk, taking a hiatus in order to move lock, stock, and garden gnome across the country, but that was part of the budget in making this decision. It’s also why I have no wiggle room when it comes to spending money I don’t have to lease new property.”
“Your budget assumed you already had a location.”
“And the living quarters above it.”
“You do it all yourself? Making the products, shipping, all of it?”
She nodded. “A one woman show.”
“You plan on keeping it that way with a shop?”
“Well, my hope, I guess, when I allow myself to think that far ahead—dream that far ahead—is to get to know my customers, put a more personal face on both sides of the transaction. I want to be engaged in the world around me, and I want to engage my customers in my world at the same time. What I’d really like to do is to invite them to be part of the process, see the work, how I work. Maybe even teach wood carving and clay building and sculpting classes. I know the interaction would inspire my work as well.” She lifted a shoulder, looking a bit abashed now that she’d blurted out her most personal dream. “I don’t know. I figured I’d work my way into it. There was so much to overcome first, so . . .” She offered him a half smile, shrugged again. “Now there’s way more to overcome to even get to the original obstacles I was worried about.”
Cupcake Club 04 - Honey Pie Page 13
