Lost Perfect Kiss: A Crown Creek Novel

by Theresa Leigh

  I involuntarily gagged. “I won’t be a moment.”

  The nog-gods must have smiled on my mother, because as I waited at the end of her drive, a plow went by, allowing me to jump right behind it and enjoy clear roads straight into town. Nice and Easy Mart actually had another car in the lot besides mine, which surprised me, and as I parked, I caught a glimpse of a really fancy looking car pulling in. Must be one of the vacationers, I thought. Coming in to spend the holiday at their lodge.

  No one from Reckless Falls would have a car like that, that was for certain.

  The flakes were falling thick and fast and everything was so silent and muffled I felt like I had cotton balls in my ears. I puffed my way to the door and pushed into the overheated warmth, immediately unwinding my scarf and unzipping my parka.

  “Hey Mr. Foster!” I called out to the sad-looking old man behind the counter. “Thanks for staying open.”

  “Hardly worth the effort,” he grumbled. “It’s just a few flakes, but people act like it’s a blizzard. I’ll tell you, back when I was a kid...”

  “I know, right?” I said cheerily, breezing my way to the refrigerated back wall. “It’s terrible.” The jingle of the bell over the door made me sigh in relief that someone else was in here to absorb Joe Foster’s complaints. I just wanted to grab these eggs and get back....

  “Autumn.”

  At the sound of his voice, my heart skipped and I dropped the eggs. They splattered across the floor in front of me like a Jackson Pollack painting, but I didn’t even care because goosebumps had broken out over the whole of my body just hearing his voice again. Did I really just hear Cole?

  I looked up and saw him standing there. Yes, my brain registered dully. That is Cole. He is here.

  There was no emotion connected to this thought. Just a clinical observation of the facts.

  Cole smiled his smile, the one I still saw when I closed my eyes. He stepped forward...

  Wow, his shoes are really nice, I noted nonsensically. Then suddenly I stiffened as instinct took over. “Wait!” I waved him off.

  But he didn’t listen to me. Like usual. He moved towards me... and stepped directly into the goopy, shattered egg yolks at my feet.

  “Oh.” He looked down. “Yeah.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah.”

  “You dropped your eggs.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I feel like I should be making an egg joke here.”

  I swallowed back my irritation. How in the hell is Cole Granger back from the fucking dead and standing in front of me trying to make egg jokes? Is this really happening?

  “Please don’t.”

  His eyes flicked up from his shoe. Goddamn. Those lashes. Goddamn. “Like maybe ask you how you like them in the morning?”

  “Stop, Cole.”

  “But I know that already. How you like your eggs. Fried over easy in an obscene amount of butter.”

  Anger flashed in my veins. “You need to stop,” I said evenly, gritting my teeth.

  His eyes softened. “Sorry, Autumn. I’m just... I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “It’s Christmas, Cole.”

  “Yeah. Uh, Merry Christmas.”

  I waited for a beat. “I’m Jewish now. I converted.”

  He looked mortified. Good. “Oh, shit, sorry. Happy Hanukkah.”

  I could only hold out for a second before my lip twitched. “No I didn’t. I’m just messing with you.”

  “Oh, so you can give me shit, but I can’t give you shit?” he challenged me, eyes twinkling. God, I always loved that dimple. It was only a certain smile that showed it, so when it appeared it always felt like a secret he kept, just for me.

  Stop it, Autumn. Just fucking stop it. I lifted my chin.

  “That’s right.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because you deserve to have shit given to you.”

  It came out meaner than I wanted it to, and I could see that my words hit him like a blow. The cocky tilt of his head slumped forward and he kind of deflated. That wasn’t what I wanted to see, no matter how badly he’d hurt me. I took a deep breath. “Look, I didn’t mean...”

  “No,” he exhaled through his teeth with a slight whistling sound. There were still snowflakes trapped in his hair, even in the extreme over-warmth of the store. I wanted to brush them out of his hair for him, but that would mean touching him and I wasn’t sure I could do that without wrapping my hands around his throat. He licked his lips, making them shine wetly, kiss-ably. “I deserved that.”

  “Maybe you did at the time, but it’s been years.” I straightened my shoulders, proud of my diplomatic tone.

  “I know. Too long.”

  My diplomacy instantly wavered. “No,” I spat. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  He deflated a bit more and a perverse part of me liked that I was hurting him. It was shitty and totally against the Christmas spirit, but fuck it. Cole Granger was an asshole and he’d broken my heart.

  “You’re here for Christmas?” he asked, deftly changing the subject away from our whirlwind, doomed romance.

  I nodded. It was too complicated to get into it much more than that. “Christmas and family stuff. But I live just outside of town now.”

  “Really?” The shock of this revelation was evident in his voice. I guess he figured I was serious when I told him I was joining the Peace Corps.

  I nodded. “Sometimes you just need to be by the people who love you.”

  He winced again, and even though I hadn’t been trying to hurt him, I was glad I’d scored an unexpected point.

  “So you’re like, a local again?”

  “As local as you can get. I’m a teacher now.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  "Just like you wanted?"

  "Just like I wanted," I said, folding my arms across my chest. Maybe my plans about marrying him had crashed and burned but that didn't mean I was going to let the rest of my life get screwed up too.

  “What do you teach?” he asked, even though I could tell by the look in his eye that he knew the answer.

  I nodded. “That's right. Sharing with occasional crowd control. I’m a kindergarten teacher. Just like I said I'd be.”

  He blinked as he processed this new information. Was there sadness there, if only for a second? Fuck him. He didn't get to be sad about me moving on. He swallowed a little. "So Mrs. Hope retired. Finally. Good god, how old was she?”

  “She was only sixty-five when she retired, Cole. She just seemed old because you were a kid.”

  “She was ancient. Older than the dinosaurs.”

  “And damned good at her job too. When she retired, they hired two of us to replace her.”

  “Wow, really?”

  “Me and Brynn Reese.”

  This time when he winced I had no idea why. “There are that many kids in the school? Wow.”

  “Town’s changing, Cole.”

  “I noticed on the drive in. Not sure I like it that much.”

  I had to laugh and I hated how he was still his charming self. It was impossible to stay mad at him and that was the problem. “It hasn’t changed that much. The core of it is still the same. Lots of people either stayed or are realizing that they missed home too much and are coming back.”

  This time I had no idea what the look in his eyes meant. It seemed almost wistful, though I knew that Cole Granger had never been wistful in his life. Being wistful would mean he had to admit he missed something... and that he’d been wrong to leave....

  Shit. Don’t think these thoughts. He knows you too well, he can...

  “You thinking maybe I’m one of those people, Red?”

  I’d forgotten how much I loved when he called me that. Loved and then hated it. I lifted my chin higher. “Well, you’re here at Christmas time. That’s a pretty good indication that you miss it here.”

  I expected him to protest, but he just smiled his crooked smile. “Winter is t
he best season here.”

  I nodded. “The frozen falls.”

  “The smell of wood smoke from a far off chimney.”

  “Ah, so poetic.”

  “Oh, you like that? Is it turning you on?”

  You know what turns me on, I didn’t say. I took a deliberate step back. Away from his maddening nearness. Being so close to him was doing strange things to my body. I felt like I’d lost my bearings, my internal compass needle spinning wildly, around and around. “Keep talking poetry at me, Slick.”

  He grinned at the old nickname. The guy knew he could charm the pants off a scarecrow. It might be his only saving grace. “I also like fires when you’re inside too. The heat on your naked skin when you make love in front of a wood stove...”

  “Jesus, Cole.”

  “What? I’m telling you what I like about winter.”

  My cheeks were flaming. “Well, stop.” Too many memories.

  He leaned in, deftly stepping around the egg. “Sorry, Red.” I could smell the heat, the wet wool of his gorgeous peacoat, and him. He smelled the same as he did in my memories. “It was good to see you.”

  “Good to see you too.” I bit my lip, trying to stop talking, to stem the tide of words, but my tongue just kept moving without my brain. “Where are you staying?”

  “Derek’s.”

  “How’s your brother doing?”

  “Same. Chip on his shoulder the size of the rock of Gibraltar, so everything’s normal in Derek-land.”

  I grinned. “Tell him I said hey.”

  “I will.”

  My tongue was moving again. “Cole?”

  “Yes, Red?”

  I grinned reflexively. “A couple of us are getting together at Reese’s pub tonight. I’m sure everyone would love to see you.”

  The way he looked at me sent my heart racing. I could feel the blush spreading across my cheeks, even before he asked me, “Are you going to be there, Autumn?”

  “I am.” My voice was remarkably composed, given the storm that raged inside of me.

  He nodded once, as decisive as could be. “Then I’ll be there.”

  “Okay,” I squeaked. My composure was cracking. “See you.”

  I waited, staring at his broad back as he walked back up the aisle, grabbed something off the shelf and went over to the counter. I ducked behind an end-cap, listening to the rumbling, creaky sounds of Old Joe’s bitching. Then I waited some more, taking deep steadying breaths.

  When the bell over the door jingled, I took a deep breath and began counting. When I reached sixty, I rushed blindly to the front and pushed the door open, hurtling into my car where I slammed the door shut behind me and sped off, my heart racing the whole way home.

  It wasn’t until I was back in my mom’s driveway that I realized I had forgotten the eggs.

  Cole

  My brother Derek was only two years older than me, but he wore those years like a funeral shroud, wrapping himself in his cares to the point where he was almost stooped over.

  When I saw him standing there, on the porch outside of the secluded rented carriage house he'd sequestered himself in, I felt a small pit open up in my stomach.

  With it came the hollow feeling of regret. I should be here. Helping him. It wasn't exactly fair that he got stuck caring for our parents' place now that they'd fucked on out of here and into a Florida condo. It was just sort of how things worked out, proximity wise. And he was older too. So, that was sort of his job.

  Or at least that's how I rationalized it to myself back in New York. But now that I was here, I wondered what kind of toll it was taking on him. Derek’s depression seemed to be on an uptick, or at least that’s what he’d been telling me whenever I bothered to call him up to check.

  But his depression and alcoholism went hand-in-hand. And though he had quit the bottle — seemingly forever — two years back, I still worried to see the lines on his face. Something had happened. Something he refused to tell me about, and really could I blame him? The only contact we had these days was when I blew into town in my fancy hired car to judge the life he led up here and then left again a few days later. He didn't owe me the reason he'd stopped drinking, although I damn well wished he'd tell me anyway so I could stop worrying. Because with that worry came guilt. Would I always have to be suspicious of him? Was I always going to be left to wonder if he was off the wagon again?

  And how would I even know? How would I even have the nerve to ask him, when I hadn’t seen him in so long?

  "There's my little brother, the suit!" Derek called across the drive.

  He was still an asshole. Guess I didn't need to be worrying so much about him after all.

  "There's my big brother, the hick!" I snapped back smartly, grabbing my suitcase with my bare hand. I shoved my other hand in the pocket of my peacoat, cursing the fact that I’d forgotten my gloves back at my penthouse. I was risking frostbite out here. But where the fuck was I going to find gloves in Reckless Falls on Christmas Eve? Unless I maybe borrowed a pair from Derek.

  But I had to give him more shit before then. “Hey, you got a couple coon dogs lying under the porch here, Derek?” I asked as I took the stairs up the front porch two at a time. “When did you go full-backwoods on me? This place is like something out of the movie Deliverance." It was actually really nice in a Reckless Falls sort of way. A rehabbed carriage house like this, located on the estate of some wealthy old guy, it was the kind of property I'd snap up and add to my portfolio in a heartbeat. Cole Granger, Director of Upstate Opportunity knew all about diamonds in the rough.

  But I wasn't going to tell him that.

  Derek narrowed his eyes, but the corner of his mouth worked upward. "Glad to see you’re still an asshole,” he growled, pulling me in for a manly one armed hug, slapping me so hard on the back that I had to stifle a cough. "I was afraid New York would have changed you."

  “No way,” I said, feeling the tips of my ears burning. “I’m bigger and better than any city."

  "So I guess, uh, Merry Christmas or whatever?" Derek asked, unceremoniously lifting my luggage without straining in the least.

  "Yeah sure, Merry fucking Christmas and all that." I followed him into his kitchen. "I see you've decorated recently,” I said sarcastically, turning in a circle to take in the sparsely furnished house. There wasn’t a garland or a string of lights hung anywhere.

  Derek shrugged. "Didn't really see the point. It's just you and me after all, right?”

  I ran my tongue across the top of my bottom teeth. "Just you and me, yeah," I nodded.

  "It's not like I thought they should stay here forever," Derek muttered, staring at his shoes with an expression of intense ferocity. "It's just more that they..."

  "Didn’t even tell you?” I seethed. Anger flared like a match in my belly, heating up the blood that started thudding in my ears. Our parents, my parents, just up and leaving like that, what the fuck?

  But Derek’s anger seemed to have settled into a slow burning simmer. ”Oh no, they told me,” he drawled, shoving his hands in his pockets like he used to do when he was resisting the urge to punch something. Maybe that was still what he was doing. “Just like how they told me I would be the one who needed to take care of the house for them. Mom put it pretty fucking bluntly. ‘Just because you insist on wasting your life, Derek, it doesn’t mean we need to be wasting ours alongside you. We’ll even pay you a wage, although, it’d be pretty ungrateful for you to accept it...’”

  The sound that came out of my mouth was halfway between a bark and a laugh, but Derek was still looking at his feet and not paying attention to my impotent rage in the slightest. “So that was that. I’m officially a caretaker of our family home. I gotta keep it nice for renters and more importantly for Mom and Dad. You know... just in case they decide to come back."

  I swallowed down the lump that was forming in my throat. “You think they will?"

  Derek looked up from his feet. "Honestly? Who cares?”

  That pit that
had been forming in my stomach widened and deepened. "Harsh, dude, they’re our parents."

  "They’re selfish and always have been." He looked me up and down. "I guess the apple didn't fall too far from the tree."

  I blinked. ”And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  "It means exactly what I just said."

  "You're saying I’m selfish?"

  "Well, who cut and run first, huh?”

  "Cut and run? Is that what you think I did?” Instantly the simmering anger I’d been feeling on his behalf flipped into a defensive rage. “I went to college, Derek. I got a job. A fucking good job. I'm at the top of my fucking field, dude. Do you even understand how well I'm doing?” Do you see how expensive my watch is? I didn't ask. Do you see how nice my shoes are, getting all scuffed up with snow melt? Aren't you proud of me? Don't you see how far I've come?

  I clamped my mouth shut to keep the words inside, unwilling to open up that Pandora's box.

  Derek was waiting for me to finish. ”Yeah,” he exhaled in a sharp rush, “you went to college. Mom and Dad let you go because they knew they still had another son who’d stay here and take care of things for them.”

  "Well don't put that guilt on me! You don't have to give in to this. Staying around, waiting for the call, sending reports on how well their investment property is doing?” I choked on the word. “Investment property? We grew up there! That's our house!”

  “I’m not putting any guilt on you," Derek said, his voice slightly softer now. "You're the baby brother, you’re spoiled, that's the way these things work."

  “Spoiled?” I laughed grimly. “That’s what you call it? Because I worked my ass off and managed to get a scholarship, that makes me spoiled? Mom and Dad didn't send me to school, I sent myself."

  Derek shrugged. And I had to keep talking just to keep myself from punching him right in the face.

  "I saw Autumn Melton today," I said, somehow unable to keep my big mouth shut. "And she was happy to see me, you know? Even invited me to a little shindig at Reese's pub with her and her coworkers.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against his ugly-ass wood paneled cupboards. “So if there're no hard feelings there, maybe you'd better get over whatever the hell chip you’re even carrying around on your shoulder."