Now that summer was over, the citizens of Chandler could turn their full attention to the business of getting ready for the Autumn Festival. In a town that depended on tourists for survival, you had to come up with lots of different celebrations that could take you through the year. Summer—hell, it was summer. But still, there was the big Fourth of July blowout. The end of September meant Fall Festival, when local artisans set up shop in the meadow for the arts and crafts fair. And soon tour buses would be rolling through, taking people on day trips to see the foliage that would be dotting the countryside with brilliant splashes of scarlet and gold.
Winter meant Victorian Christmas—with street stalls selling everything from hot apple cider to meat pies and roasted chestnuts. Then in spring there would be Flower Fantasy, when the farmers for miles around ran the flower market, selling cut flowers, plants, seeds, and bulbs.
Stevie smiled to herself. True, things around Chandler were pretty predictable … but ruts weren’t always a bad thing. There was comfort in knowing that her roots ran deep here. That she had friends. And a family … of sorts.
Her brain flashed to the Candellanos, which brought up thoughts of last night’s dinner—and Nick, showing up at her door. Irritation raced through her like a bad fever. Nick. Assuming she’d be waiting for him with open arms … despite the fact that they hadn’t been together in more than two years.
And Paul. What was he up to? Had he encouraged Nick to come by? Did he know about it? Was he just going to step aside and say, “Go for it, Nick. I’ve had her, now I give her back to you”?
The seeds of irritation blossomed into a brilliant ball of rage that settled in the pit of her stomach. Was she some sort of prize, to be handed off to whichever Candellano brother was interested at the time? Oh, she knew damn well that she’d been Nick’s “fallback” girl. If things got rough, go see Stevie. She’d make you feel better. And in all honesty, she had to admit that that was her fault as much as Nick’s. She probably should have broken up with him years before she finally did. For both their sakes.
But Paul. What was she to him? Up until recently, she’d known exactly where she stood with Paul. He’d been her friend. The one person besides Carla whom she could talk to about … anything. But now, all of that had changed. They weren’t just friends anymore. And they weren’t lovers—not when they were both making promises to never do that again.
So what did that leave? What exactly was she to him? A quick roll in a rumpled bed? Was he living out a little fantasy? Or was she a chance for Paul to finally get one-up on Nick?
Scruffy leaned into the backs of her legs, and even through the red mist of anger coloring her vision, Stevie felt the little dog shivering in the cold, damp wind. Instantly Stevie pushed thoughts of the Candellano twins out of her mind and stooped down to pick the dog up. “Aw, it’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered. “Never mind about those guys. We’ll go in now, okay?”
Fall was in the air and the wind had enough bite to it that she knew her shop would soon be bustling. Lifting her gaze, Stevie watched as storm clouds gathered out over the ocean. Black and dangerous-looking, the clouds hunched together, roiling in a wind too high for her to feel. And she knew the storm was parked out there, over the water, waiting to gather strength before lurching toward shore to slash thunder, lightning, and rain at Chandler and the cliffs below.
It seemed, she thought as she turned for the shop, that she was being besieged by storms … physical and emotional.
And she was getting a little sick of it.
CHAPTER NINE
STEVIE KEPT THOUGHTS OF the Candellanos from crowding her mind by concentrating instead on business as usual. She determinedly lost herself in the daily rituals that she’d always enjoyed. Until recently, at least. Until thoughts of Paul’s eyes had replaced thoughts of ordering a new blend of tea. Until remembering the exact touch of Paul’s hands on her skin had swept away any interest in refining that lemon/raspberry scone she’d been working on.
This really wasn’t fair. She wasn’t even enjoying her business anymore.
Leaving the unopened mail in her office, she forgot about the bills and postponed reading whatever it was her mother had to say. She’d learned long ago that Joanna’s letters to her only daughter were prompted solely by whatever her own needs were at the time. There’d never been any mother-daughter bond there. Of course, how could there be? Joanna had always been more interested in finding her next former husband than she was in paying attention to a daughter who was a living testament to the passing of the years. Every time Joanna looked at her daughter, she saw herself getting older. And it wasn’t easy pretending to be thirty-nine when faced with a twenty-seven-year-old “little girl.”
Sighing to herself, Stevie pushed thoughts of her mother to one side. Actually, into the tiny dark corner of her heart where wishes still lived. Where she sometimes indulged in a fantasy of what it might have been like to have a real mother. The kind who noticed your existence. The kind who made cookies. And went to PTA meetings. And took you shopping for your first bra—instead of sending you out with a maid who didn’t speak English and insisted on measuring you in front of God and everybody.
Okay, enough. Slamming a mental door against any more memories, Stevie focused on wiping down the shop’s highly polished oak countertop. “’Morning, Jessie,” she said, and smiled as the other woman merely grunted in response. The new kindergarten teacher, Jessie was a fanatic jogger and never missed a morning’s run—rain or shine—or the steaming cup of coffee that followed it. The woman didn’t talk much; like most of the early-morning crowd, she preferred silence. Which today, suited Stevie perfectly.
She had company, but no reason to be chatty on a day when she wasn’t even good company for herself. Shifting a look at the others in the room, she picked up a coffeepot and headed out on her rounds. Cups needed to be refilled, whether she was in a good mood or not.
“’Morning, Harry,” she said, and poured just a half-cup into the mug on the table.
“C’mon, Stevie,” Harry whined. “Top me off, will ya?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, Harry. Ellen told me to cut back on your caffeine.”
“Aw, what the wife don’t know…”
Stevie winked at him. At sixty-five, Harry was fighting his wife’s new health food kick with everything he had. “The wife always knows.”
He grumbled, but picked up his mug to at least savor the scent of the rich brew.
Stevie kept walking, pausing as she made her rounds to smile or chat as the customers wanted. Her early-morning people usually liked to keep to themselves. But a few were always more than willing to talk. People like Hannah Jefferson, sitting in the corner, hunched over her morning cup of tea. The lonely ones. The ones without families.
Like her.
Thoughts of Paul and that unopened letter from her mother had naturally opened up old avenues of regrets. Stevie liked to think of the Candellanos as her family, but the plain truth was … she didn’t have anyone she really belonged to.
There were no cousins or aunts or grandmothers. And since her father’s death a few years ago, she’d felt that loss even more than she had as a kid. Carla might complain about her brothers or whine that her mother was interfering … but at least Carla had people to whine about.
What did she have?
Stevie half-turned to glance through the partially opened office door behind her. Scruffy’s raggedy little face looked back at her. Stoic. Silent. She sighed again. She had a tiny dog that no one else wanted. She had strays. Animals and people who had no one and nowhere else to go.
And just what did that say about her? No husband. No kids. No boyfriend—Paul’s face flashed across her brain, but that was just a knee-jerk reaction. He was no more hers than Nick was. Not that she wanted Nick anymore. Heck, did she even want Paul? Outside the bedroom, that is.
“Stevie?” a voice called out. “Cinnamon muffin and save my life?”
She shot a glance at
Dave Jenkins, the football coach at Chandler High School. Smiling, she said, “Coming up, Coach.”
She reached into the display case, pulled out a cinnamon muffin, and slipped it onto a paper-doily-covered blue ceramic plate. As she carried it across the room she thought about Paul again. Stupid, she told herself as anger flicked at the corners of her mind. Paul. She still couldn’t believe how he’d pulled away from her last night. For all of his teasing fingers under the table, he sure as heck disappeared fast. And then Nick shows up at the shop. Had Paul known Nick was coming over? Had he graciously stepped aside, giving his twin a free road to Stevie? And if he had, who the hell had told him he could do that? What made him think he had any say at all in what happened in her life?
“Sugar-free?” the coach asked as a matter of course.
“Natch,” Stevie assured him. Despite the fact that she was firmly convinced of sugar’s health benefits, she always kept a sugar-free stash around for customers such as the coach. Leaving him to it, she headed back to the counter and noticed that one of the coffeepots was nearly empty. On automatic pilot, she made a fresh pot while her brain kept on truckin’.
Despite Mama’s so obvious hints, Stevie wouldn’t be swayed. She didn’t want a husband. Not really. Not even when faced with the lonely silences that closed in on her when she was alone in her apartment. Hell, she’d watched her mother—whose picture should be in Webster’s dictionary under the word flighty—go through five perfectly good husbands. Joanna was on her sixth marriage now, and only God knew how long that one would last. So Stevie’d seen firsthand just how “eternal” wedding vows could be. And though a part of her longed for what Mama and Papa Candellano had had … the realist in her knew that the chances of that happening were about as good as—well, getting struck by lightning while she stood inside the Leaf and Bean.
She tensed briefly, half-expecting a thunderbolt to blast through the roof and roast her to a crisp—Fate’s little way of reminding her just who was in charge around here. When it didn’t happen, she shook her head, pushed the coffeepot under the filter, and slapped the button. In seconds, the machine hissed and burped and steam lifted from the top, twisting and dancing in the moving air as yet another early-morning type pushed open the front door.
Bells jangled in welcome, and Stevie turned with a smile to greet the newbie.
The smile slipped the minute her gaze collided with Paul’s.
The impact of his level stare slammed into her hard, and Stevie almost swayed with it. His hair was sweat-dampened; his running shorts showed off his tanned, muscular legs. Stevie’s mouth went dry. His T-shirt, with the phrase Scientists Do It With Knowledge, fit him like a sweaty second skin. Plus, she had reason to know that his T-shirt wasn’t false advertising.
Back that thought up, she ordered silently. No sense in torturing herself. Besides, she wasn’t horny at the moment.
She was mad.
He could get coffee anywhere.
But the only place he could get a look at her and find out what had happened the night before between her and Nick was here. At the Leaf and Bean.
The bells on the door clanged again as the door closed behind him. He continued to study Stevie. Her wide blue eyes suddenly looked as deep and stormy as the ocean, pounding relentlessly against the shore just a few hundred feet away. He wondered what she was thinking. Wondered why her smile had disappeared the moment she saw him. And wondered what the hell he was doing here.
He shouldn’t have come.
Hell, he was a damn genius. He knew he shouldn’t be here. He should have gone home, showered, changed, and gone to work. He should be putting thoughts of Stevie out of his head completely. Hadn’t that been the plan all along? To get over whatever feelings he was still carrying around for her?
Yeah, right. That had worked out real well.
Well, he had two choices here. He could turn around and bolt. Pretend he’d never stepped into the Leaf and Bean. Or … he could brave the less than welcoming glare she was giving him and find out the answers to his questions.
It was humiliating to admit—even to himself—that he much preferred the idea of not facing Stevie’s anger. But because the temptation to leave was so strong, he forced himself to walk farther into the shop. He lifted a hand to the coach, smiled at Harry, and continued on. His long legs carried him across the floor in a few easy strides. Stevie’s eyes didn’t look any warmer close up.
“Hi.” Good. Clever, he told himself. Real smooth. This from a man who thought nothing of giving speeches in front of hundreds of colleagues?
“Why are you here?”
“Ouch.” He drew his head back and looked down at her. Her eyes seemed to ice over while she was looking at him. Not a good sign. “Nice greeting for a paying customer.”
One blond eyebrow lifted. “Customer? That’s it? You’re here for coffee?”
He shifted position, a little uneasy with her tight smile and clipped voice. “Isn’t that why most people come in here?”
“Fine.” She nodded, whirled around, poured him a cup so quickly, the hot liquid sloshed over the rim and splashed onto her hand. If she even felt the stinging heat, she gave no sign of it. Slapping the cup down in front of him, she ignored the small lake of coffee staining her counter, held out one hand, and said, “That’ll be two-fifty.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “What crawled up your ass and died?”
“Oh, that was charming.” She set the coffeepot down before glaring at him again. Lowering her voice, she whispered, “Did you learn that lovely phrase in rocket scientist school?”
“All right,” Paul said, wiping spilled coffee off the counter with a wadded-up napkin. “I can see this wasn’t a very good idea.”
“That’s what I like about you,” she said, snatching the soggy mess from him and wiping the counter with a clean dishcloth. “You’re a real quick study.”
His back teeth ground together. “Look, Stevie, I only came by to—”
“To what?” she interrupted quietly with a quick glance at Jessie, just a few feet away, to remind him that people were close enough to hear them. “Find out how it went between me and Nick last night?”
He actually winced. Either she was psychic or he was way more transparent than he’d always thought. And if it was the latter, he could only be grateful he’d turned down a college offer to join the CIA.
She read his expression and her own features went thunderous. “So you did know Nick was going to stop by here last night.” Stevie hissed in a breath and shook her head even as she leaned in close enough for him to catch a soul-shattering whiff of her perfume. “Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There wasn’t time,” he grumbled, glancing around to reassure himself that no one was paying attention. Nope. They were safe. The morning crowd were all sitting huddled over steaming cups of coffee or hidden behind opened newspapers. Small consolation.
“Right,” she said. “No time to call and say, ‘Look out, here comes Nick’?”
“He left Mama’s right after you did.”
“Uh-huh. But not you. No, not good ol’ Paul. What? Did you stay behind to help Mama plan the wedding?”
“What wedding?” Christ, he was just not awake enough to do battle with Stevie. When a man went to war with this particular woman, he needed all thrusters firing.
Stevie pushed away from the counter, clearly disgusted. “You’re unbelievable. I thought you—never mind.” Then she spoke up louder, so everyone could hear her. “I’ll be in the office, so if you need refills, just help yourselves.”
No one answered and Stevie turned around sharply, stepped into her tiny cubicle of an office, and closed the door firmly behind her.
Paul stared at the door for a long minute and felt his own temper snapping at his insides. For chrissakes. He hadn’t done a damn thing and he was the one being roasted. And suddenly he had plenty of sympathy for the people who’d faced Stevie’s temper in the past. In all the time they’d bee
n friends, he’d never experienced the full frontal assault of Stevie’s anger. But then, they’d never really been involved deeply enough to stir up that kind of passion, had they? Until now, that is.
Passion. Desire. Rage.
This was turning out to be a real thrill ride.
“Do an end run,” the coach offered.
“What?” Paul turned to look at the man who’d been Nick’s high school mentor.
“Son,” the man said slowly, “when a woman has her defensive line holding tight … you’ve got to do an end run. Outflank her.”
Great. Now he was getting romantic advice from a man who thought stadium lights made for atmosphere.
“She wants you to follow her,” Jessie pointed out quietly.
“Yeah?” Paul shot her a look.
“What’ve you got to lose?”
“Good point.” He’d worry later about the fact that too many people were paying attention to what was happening between him and Stevie. Right now, there were other considerations.
Thoughts of leaving and heading off to work were completely dismissed as he stepped around the edge of the counter and grabbed that doorknob. Hell. If she wanted a battle, then she could damn sure have one.
He opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him again. He didn’t mind a fight, but he didn’t want an audience.
Stevie didn’t even look up. “Get out.”
“No.” Paul folded his arms over his chest, planted his feet wide apart, and waited for her to look at him. It didn’t take long.
She shot him a dangerous glare from under her lashes, but Paul wasn’t about to be chased off. Not until he’d had his say. Sitting behind her incredibly small desk, she stared at her computer screen and did a great job of deliberately ignoring him. But Paul wasn’t fooled. He could almost feel tension radiating off her body.
Knowing You Page 11
