Charmed at First Sight

by Sharla Lovelace

  She laid a warm hand on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” she said. “Just breathe. Everything happens for a reason. I’m a firm believer in that, so take it one step at a time. I’m Lanie, by the way.”

  I nodded. “I’m Micah.”

  Lanie nodded with me. “Okay, Micah. Don’t worry. People may buzz a little about a mysterious bride in here, but I’m not saying a word and it’ll die down tomorrow.”

  As if on cue, a toilet flushed in one of the three stalls.

  Fuck me. I never thought to look for feet.

  We both looked toward the door, as a tall redhead with boobs the size of basketballs exited the stall.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said, flashing a perfectly lined smile, flitting a hand carelessly as she all but shoved Lanie aside to step between us and wash her hands. “But I couldn’t help but overhear. If you do decide to jump back on the wedding train, I can help you out.” She reached into a wristlet wallet and pulled out a card. “Katrina Bowman, event management.”

  “Event what?” Lanie said. “Last month you were making jewelry out of your garage.”

  “I am a certified event planner,” Katrina said, wheeling on Lanie like a ticked-off dog with a too-tight collar. “So don’t stand there in that dime-store dress getting all high and mighty with me.”

  For about two seconds, I forgot about my plight. I froze in my reach toward my hair, zeroing in on Lanie’s face in the mirror.

  “Katrina—” she began slowly, drawing out the syllables calmly.

  “What, you gonna pull out your boobs again?” Katrina said. “No thanks. I’m a business woman and I’m working here.”

  Lanie looked like she was counting in her head. Then she lifted two fingers in mock surrender. “I stand corrected. Plan away.”

  “Anyway,” Katrina-the-event-planner said, turning back to me with an emphatic snub to Lanie. “Call me or visit my website. It’s right there on the card in pink.”

  It sure was. Neon pink.

  “I’m not getting married,” I said.

  Sweet Jesus, that was the most liberating sentence I’d uttered in months.

  “Oh, I don’t just do weddings,” Katrina said, tossing that red hair of hers. “I’ll do anything. If any of your friends have an event or a party to—”

  “I don’t know anyone here,” I interjected. “And I don’t have friends anymore.”

  That was both the saddest and most honest statement I’d ever allowed into my headspace. But it was true. The one quick scan I’d had of the wedding invitation list told me that. It was all Jeremy’s friends. Even our common friends we’d hung out with for years originated with Jeremy. In an apocalypse or divorce, I always knew which side they’d land on. The only contacts on that list who weren’t directly touching the Blankenship family in some way were the business clients Thatcher had provided.

  All my old friends had fallen off the grid little by little. I met my own gaze in the mirror. I’d let that happen. I had let them disappear.

  I let me disappear.

  I sucked in a shaky breath as my eyes filled with unexpected tears, blinking them back quickly.

  “Thank you, though,” I called after Katrina-the-event-planner as she sashayed out of the bathroom. I pulled the last pins from my hair and shook the stiff, hair-sprayed locks free with my fingers. “God help me,” I muttered under my breath.

  “That ‘keeping things on the down-low’ plan?” Lanie said, making a chopping motion with her hand at neck level. “That’s history, now.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that,” I said. “There’s a boob story?”

  Lanie winked. “Another day. I’ve promised my husband to try to be less reactive and hotheaded over things I can’t control, so I’m not going to let her stir me up.”

  I chuckled in spite of things. “I hear you. We have one of those in Cherrydale, too.”

  “Prepare yourself,” Lanie said. “People you’ve never met will suddenly know all. Probably even know some things you don’t.”

  “I need to do more than that,” I said, speeding up the hasty finger-combing. I stopped, backed up, and took inventory. Good Lord, I looked like a themed Halloween costume. “I need to go find a phone and prepare my brother.”

  Lanie held hers out to me. “Knock yourself out.”

  This woman was too good. She was the kind of person I wanted to be when I grew up, and I couldn’t let her put herself in the line of fire.

  “I can’t use your cell phone,” I said, touching her arm. “Thank you. But my fiancé—or my ex-fiancé—is not one to take this without a showdown. I don’t know where I’ll be when he comes to find me, but I don’t want him showing up at your door when he checks phone records.” Those words bounced around on repeat in my head. I gripped the counter as a fresh wave of despair washed over me. I stared at myself in the mirror again, fresh-faced, no makeup, questionable hair tumbling down in dark waves around my shoulders. I looked more like me again, but what version? There used to only be one, and now there were all these fragments. “How did this get to be my life?”

  Lanie sighed. “I was saying the very same thing last year, girl. It’ll pass.” She held out her phone again. “I’m not afraid of any man.”

  I shook my head, remembering what Leo said about having to fight a fight that wasn’t his, just because Jeremy would be spoiling for one. “Your husband wouldn’t like it. Can you maybe ask the owner here if I can use the landline?”

  “Mmm, Allie—” Lanie pulled a cringing face.

  “She’s at my wedding, too, isn’t she?” I said, the words barely a whisper.

  “With Bash,” she said. “They’re engaged.”

  “Of course.”

  “But my husband is the chef and he’s in charge while she’s gone so I’m pulling spouse rank, bringing you back there myself,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Let’s go.”

  I let her pull me like a ragdoll, suddenly feeling just about as useless, dragging me into the chattering chaos of the diner, between the tables of curious onlookers, approaching the register touting a sign with a picture of a gorgeous blue-eyed man.

  Sweeten the deal!

  Vote our fabulous HONEY KING

  Sebastian Anderson

  for

  Mayor of Charmed!

  Of course.

  Leo loomed at the end of the counter like a dark-haired Thor surveying his underlings. He didn’t see me yet, and I had the wildest urge to keep it that way. To just stand there invisibly and rest my eyes on him all day. I’d spent worse days.

  If only I could be invisible.

  Our progress halted as a woman with light brown hair strode up to the register, a cell phone to her ear.

  “Stop. Calling. Me,” she said through gritted teeth as the girl behind the register looked on patiently. “Leave me alo—oh, believe me, I’d like nothing better than to never see you again, but now you get some of the misery.”

  She slammed the phone down on the counter with satisfaction, taking a deep breath with closed eyes before opening them and smiling tightly at the girl.

  “Sorry,” she said softly. “Call-in order for Graham’s Florist. Apple pie and cake balls. Throw in a jar of that honey, too,” she added, gesturing to the pyramid stack of honey jars sporting the Anderson’s Apiary logo.

  The girl nodded on her way to the back, and my new friend Lanie reached out to the cell phone woman.

  “You all right, Gabi?” she asked, making the woman start.

  “Peachy,” she said, lifting the hem of an oversized T-shirt to shove the phone into the pocket of jean capris. She did a double-take on me. “Oh—wow, that’s a beautiful dress.” She glanced around as if trying to match me up with some equally decked-out man. “Congratulations.”

  It wasn’t worth going through it all again.

  “Thanks.”

/>   “So, cake balls from here?” Lanie asked, clearly changing tack. “Not the bakery?”

  Gabi lifted her eyebrows. “I’m doing an edible bouquet, and Nick’s balls are the best anywhere.” Her jaw dropped as Lanie laughed. “I mean—”

  “Oh, I agree,” Lanie said, still laughing as Gabi’s face went scarlet. “Cake balls included. And the pie?”

  “Something to keep me sane,” she said. “If lemon meringue was on the board today, I’d buy that, too.”

  Lanie and I both nodded. I didn’t know about her, but it sounded like a fabulous plan to me. If I thought I had a place to eat a pie that wasn’t on the curb, or didn’t have to sell my body to pay for one, I’d totally copy this chick’s plan.

  “You’ve probably heard about me and Bart,” Gabi said, blinking away.

  Lanie gave a little shrug. “Just a little.”

  “Well, in addition to that, my parents have now added landlording to their endeavors,” she said. “Being florists isn’t enough for them. They turned the space above the shop into two rentable rooms, and I swear if I hear one more thing about communal bathrooms or feng shui I’m going to lose my shit.”

  The “florists” mention made my radar go up, and I searched my inner database for the local flower shops we worked with. Would she know me if I dropped my name? The last name, maybe. I wasn’t the person on the phone or the e-mails or the invoices. I was the one outside with my hands in the dirt, talking to things that couldn’t talk back. Or to Roarke, my helper, who didn’t talk back much either.

  “You might should have gone for two pies,” Lanie said, squeezing her arm as she resumed our journey.

  Gabi gave a small smile. “Nothing says I won’t be back.”

  We continued on, pausing as we passed Leo, who Katrina-the-event-planner was touching repeatedly while laughing and tossing her red hair. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest like a club bouncer, an almost lazy amusement pulling at that amazing mouth, contrasting with the wary sharpness his eyes had taken on. The fact that he seemed more amused than turned on by her somehow made me happy. That thought did not.

  Lanie turned as she passed him, nearly walking backward at one point as she peered at his profile. I’d never fault her for that. Married woman or not, Leo was hard to miss and impossible to ignore. But it was my turn to pause as his gaze locked in on me, completely tuning Katrina out.

  His expression, his eyes, they were almost anxious as they took in everything. This place, the people, every conversation in hearing distance, body language.

  Me.

  God, the way he soaked me in made my skin go flush from my scalp to my toes. For one second, I missed the mask of the heavy makeup and fancy hair. I felt very naked as his gaze slid over my face.

  “The real me,” I said on a nervous chuckle.

  “Better,” he said just above a whisper.

  Sweet Jesus.

  “What the hell?”

  A man’s voice from behind the bar made me spin around, jerking free of Lanie’s hand in automatic reaction as my heart slammed against my chest. My first thought had been Jeremy. I knew it wasn’t; it wasn’t his voice, but my reaction was the same.

  “Babe?” Lanie said. My head swung back to see the befuddlement on her face that then morphed into something else. A knowing, a dawning of something crossed her features as she glanced back at Leo. “Oh, shit, I thought so,” she said under her breath, adding something about “Barrett intuition” as she headed around the bar toward him. “Nick.”

  So that was the husband. As I looked back at him I noticed he wasn’t actually talking to Lanie or even looking at her. He was staring hot fiery bullet holes at—Leo. With the same eyes.

  Same everything, but more polished. Like a slightly younger, more GQ version of Leo. Something told me this wasn’t about a job.

  Leo, on the other hand, hadn’t moved a muscle, a finger, or even an eyelash. He stood there like a mountain of bristling calm, his eyes gone softer as he looked at Nick.

  “Hey, little brother.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Little brother?

  Well, well. I had to admit, it was nice to get those hot spotlights off of me for half a minute. They were getting a bit warm.

  “What are you doing here?” Nick said under his breath, pulling off a black leather apron in one tug as he glanced around at his patrons, moving to the end of the bar opposite Leo, his jaw tight with something fierce that wasn’t just anger. No, that look ran deeper. Like the kind of deep wound only family can inflict.

  Lanie had reached his side and had a hand on one arm like she was going to single-handedly hold him back.

  Leo finally dropped his arms, resting his hands on the counter.

  “Work,” he said. “I got a job here.”

  “Here where?” Nick said.

  “Bartending at a restaurant, for one,” Leo said.

  “In Charmed?” Nick asked, his eyes narrowing. “Why?”

  Leo blew out a breath, holding on to the counter as if it might keep his answers levelheaded.

  “Don’t you dare say me,” Nick continued, leaning in slightly. “After eighteen years—” He shook his head. “No. I didn’t even know if you were alive, and now you want to drop out of the sky and be all Hey, little brother with me? Fuck, no. You walked away from being my brother. You don’t get to come play this card with me now.” He tied the apron back on with a yank. “I’m busy. I’m working. Go—be you somewhere else.”

  Somehow, he’d managed to miss me until that very moment, and now his gaze bounced from Leo to me.

  “You got married.”

  It was more of an accusation than a question, and Leo’s eyes dropped to me like he’d forgotten I was there. I wished everyone else could do that. There were two young guys eyeing me like fresh bacon, an old man shaking his head like I’d disappointed him, and Katrina-the-event-planner whispering to three other women while smiling at me.

  I didn’t care how much this thing cost Jeremy’s mother; I was burning it. Okay, maybe I wasn’t burning it; maybe I was just dumping it in a corner for a few days before having it cleaned and shipped to her, but in my head there was a bonfire from hell.

  “No—this is—Anastasia,” Leo said, as if that explained it.

  I shook my head, eyes closed. “I’m not Anastasia.”

  “She needed a ride,” Leo said, dismissively.

  “From her own—” Nick began, glancing at his wife. “Same wedding Allie went to?”

  Good God, didn’t anyone else get married around here, ever?

  “Yes,” I said. “I bailed.” I held my arms up and turned in a circle. “Everyone who is curious,” I called out, “I bailed on my wedding. I was that girl. Judge at will. Now enjoy your lunch!” I turned back to Nick. “He saw I needed help and gave me a ride. That was nice. Can I use your phone?”

  I’m pretty sure I’d hit the bottom that’s under the bottom. Nick chuckled humorlessly, turning to go back to the kitchen.

  “I’m sure he did,” he said on his way. “He recognized a kindred spirit.”

  “Nick—” Leo began.

  “Walk away, Leo,” he said, his back to us as he turned the corner. “You’re familiar with that. Whatever your name is, ma’am, I’d keep going if he’s staying here.”

  * * * *

  It was like a bomb had gone off, leaving us in the aftershocks.

  Lanie said she’d be back and quick-stepped it to check on her husband. I stood awkwardly behind a sullen Leo, not knowing what to do. I needed to call my brother, like fifteen minutes ago, but I also felt a weird obligation to help this guy. At least be on his side. With the exception of Gabi, still waiting on her order and subtly giving us the side-eye, the other patrons had smartly either left or moved down to the other end of the bar during the drama, giving us a wide berth. Leo stared at the cou
ntertop as if he could climb into it. I could feel the heat coming off of him and I wasn’t even touching him.

  And why did I want to?

  Because he’d helped me. And, arrogant or not, now this big rock of a man who’d just told me how to kill someone with my shoe looked like his insides had been rearranged.

  “Are—are you okay?” I asked finally, crossing my arms before they did something ridiculous.

  “I’m fine,” he snapped, his voice growly as he pulled a phone from his pocket. “Go do—whatever it is you’re doing.”

  My hackles went up.

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Just because he dismissed you like a jerk doesn’t make it okay to pay it forward.” He turned a look on me that said What the fuck in about a hundred ways, so I just held up my hands. “You know what? You did something for me. I was just trying to be nice back, but I have no dog in this hunt and as you pointed out earlier, we have our own shit to deal with. Have a nice life.”

  I turned on my heel, nearly busting it, forgetting that said heel was nothing but an ice pick. One strong hand wrapped around my arm like a vise.

  “Careful,” he said in my ear, closer than I expected. “I told you those things were dangerous.”

  Shit. I yanked my arm free, glaring up at him. “You’re just lucky I got rid of all the bobby pins.”

  There was almost the hint of a tug of a smirk there in that stupid sexy mouth of his. Just enough to piss me off. Then his eyes—they went softer. That kind of soft that dark eyes can do that makes people buy puppies.

  No! No puppies!

  Lanie poked her head around the corner and waved at me to come. I saluted him.

  “Like I said,” I threw over my shoulder as I hightailed it around the bar.

  God, what was with me and irritatingly sexy asshole alpha males? What was the attraction? Knuckle dragging? It didn’t matter. I didn’t have time or enough energy left in my body to worry about Leo. Our weird little journey had ended. I had to figure out where the next one began.

  “Here’s Allie’s desk,” Lanie said, pointing when we turned through a short hall into an office. “Help yourself to the phone.”