by Vicki Essex
You’re being pissy, she told herself. Just because Stephanie had been popular, didn’t mean she was cruel. “Sure,” she finally answered.
She was making way too many piecrust promises. Easily made, easily broken. But surely, no one would miss her once she was gone, so what could it hurt?
“Is Georgette around?” Chris asked. “I have a special order to pick up.”
“She’s working in the back with Aaron. Hang on. I’ll let her know you’re here.”
Georgette Caruthers looked almost exactly as she had when Tiffany had last seen her. Her hair was silver with a few darker streaks of gunmetal-gray, but she’d maintained that slender almost ballerina-esque frame. How she stayed so slim while working with butter and sugar all day, Tiffany wanted to know.
“Hello, Chris.” The woman came out from behind the counter and hugged him. She was still as graceful as ever, though she moved much more slowly. “You’re here for your cake, I take it?”
“Is it ready?”
“I have it boxed up for you in the back.” Her smiling eyes canted toward Tiffany. “Hello. You must be the special lady Chris had me make this for. You’re a local, aren’t you?”
“No. I mean, yes,” she corrected, “but I haven’t lived here in a while.”
Georgette closed her eyes briefly, lids fluttering. “Pecan tart and orange soda. Saturdays or Sundays.” She opened her eyes. “That’s when you’d come in. You used to wear glasses. And there was usually paint on your jeans.” She cocked her head to the side. “You won the blue ribbon one year for that gorgeous watercolor of Silver Lake.”
“You remember all that?”
“I remember everyone who comes in, especially a pretty face like yours.”
A tall man with neatly clipped brown hair and gray eyes brought out a small cake box tied with gold ribbons. Georgette introduced them, and Aaron Caruthers nodded to Chris and acknowledged Tiffany with a smile before heading to the bookshop portion of the store where a few customers lingered.
“I’m so glad he’s come home,” Georgette said. “So many of my grandkids left. I don’t see much of my family anymore. But I guess that’s how life is. I wish people would see how things are changing here and move back.” Her eyes moved to Tiffany. She had the strangest sensation of a trap closing in around her.
Before they left, Georgette called, “Wait.” She went behind the counter and put a pecan tart into a paper bag, pressing it into Tiffany’s hands. “For you. For old times’ sake.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly...”
The woman insisted. “Half the reason I keep this place going is to make people smile, and I think you have not done enough of that. And don’t you dare try to pay me. Just promise you’ll come back and visit again soon, won’t you, dear?”
The wistful, forlorn note in her voice made Tiffany think of Poh-poh. She thanked Georgette as she clutched the bag.
The sweet scent of pastries clung to them as they climbed into the truck. Tiffany stuck her nose in the bag and inhaled deeply.
“That’s a sound I’d like to hear more of,” Chris murmured.
“Sorry?”
He froze. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?” He chuckled nervously. “You were humming. Hmm-mmm-mmm,” he mimicked her soft sigh, then cast her a grin. “I liked the way it sounded.”
“You have to smell this. It must be fresh from the oven.” She pushed the bag and he leaned over and sniffed, repeating her hmm-mmm-mmm. She didn’t realize how sensual it’d sounded until he’d said it in those low, sultry tones. It made her very aware of their proximity and the fact she could no longer deny this was a date.
They swung east in the truck, heading back to town. Tiffany had driven these roads herself years ago while finding scenes to paint, though they looked different now. In places, the road had been widened, and previously unpaved or gravel roads now sported new black asphalt.
“Me and the guys used to race our bikes along this stretch, back when it was still mostly gravel,” Chris said. “I took plenty of ugly spills on this road.”
“Whatever happened to your motorcycle anyway?”
He shrugged. “Had to sell it when Simon was born. Turns out diapers cost money.” His eyes grew distant. “I still remember the last time I rode the bike out to Merchant’s Grove. A bunch of us got together and lit this bonfire that was so big, it melted the beer bottles we threw in. I think the glass is still there.”
Tiffany nodded along. She didn’t want to admit how alien Chris’s youth was to her. Even if she’d been invited, her parents would never have allowed her to go to some clandestine party in the woods where people smoked and drank and broke laws.
They cut through the center of town, passing all the monuments to Everville’s beginnings.
“To the left, you’ll see the plaque commemorating the first settlers in Everville,” Chris quipped in an overcheerful tour guide’s voice. “To the right is Everville’s oldest building, now the site of the Everville Tavern. Their menu’s as old as the building, and the food smells that way, too.” He smiled wryly. “Calvin’s probably going to sell soon, though. He’s getting too old to run the place.”
“It’d be the perfect spot for a Starbucks,” Tiffany said automatically. When her comment was met with silence, she looked over to see Chris’s mouth pursed tightly. “Any café,” she amended hastily. “Any new development is good, right?”
He pointed to the statue of the town’s founder, Bernard Howlings Everett, and told her how he and two of his buddies had TP’d it one night and had been caught by the local sheriff. He gestured at a row of vacant storehouses and a dilapidated cinema that sat between a residential neighborhood and an old heavy machinery depot, and described some of the town’s efforts at revitalizing the area. There was talk of turning the space into a farmers’ market to draw more weekenders in, but rumor had it a condo developer was sniffing around the properties. Tiffany had a hard time picturing a monolithic condo tower in Everville.
At a roadside chip wagon, Chris ordered a massive pile of hand-cut fries and gravy. There, they bumped into a couple of high school classmates who’d married, settled down and had two young girls. Tiffany vaguely knew them. They greeted her warmly.
“It must be nice to come home after all this time,” the woman, Annabelle, said. “Joe and I lived in the city for a while, too, but we couldn’t take it. All the noise and pollution and crime...”
“It’s not all that bad.” Tiffany was compelled to defend the place she called home. Her real home.
“Well, sure, but it’s no place to raise kids. When we heard how things were changing back here, we thought, heck, Joe can be an optometrist anywhere, so we decided to pick up and move. Anyhow, the housing prices in the city were ridiculous. It didn’t make sense for us to be paying what we were in rent for a two-bedroom apartment when we could own a four-bedroom house and land out here for the same amount.”
“As long as you’re okay mowing farm-size lawns and shoveling snow off a runway-size driveway,” she murmured.
Annabelle laughed. “Oh, it’s worth it, believe me. There’s nothing like coming home.” She glanced between her and Chris speculatively. “You’ll see, as soon as you start thinking about the future, you’ll want the extra space to grow.”
They parted ways shortly thereafter, and Tiffany was once again invited to share a coffee with a high school acquaintance she barely knew.
“You look confused,” Chris remarked. “Are you starting to get overwhelmed?”
“I don’t understand....” She trailed off, trying to articulate her thoughts without coming off as a complete loser. “I don’t know any of these people. Stephanie was just some girl in my class. I know next to nothing about her. And all I remember about Annabelle was that she’s been dating Joe forever. I never talked to her. Why would either of them want to have coffee with me?”
“You act like it never happens.”
She shrugged. “I just don’t see the point.”
&nb
sp; “They’re being friendly. They’re taking a genuine interest. They want to reconnect with their youth and find out where their classmates got to. Aren’t you even a little curious about their lives?”
Tiffany honestly couldn’t say she was, and for reasons she didn’t fully understand, that fact made her feel bad. Frankly, part of her remained suspicious. Maybe those women were looking for fodder for the gossip mill. Maybe they wanted to find out what the smartest girl in school was doing with her life after her fall from grace....
Or maybe you’re completely paranoid and simply never learned how to make friends.
She frowned. She didn’t like this negative woman who constantly sought the backhanded insult behind an innocent remark. Growing up with her parents’ philosophy of never praising their children meant she didn’t trust any compliment.
She had to let go of these feelings of mistrust. She glanced over at Chris. She’d never mistrusted him. Well, she had when he’d first asked her to tutor him—she’d seen Carrie, after all, and hadn’t wanted a bucket of pig’s blood dumped on her. But once they’d started working together, she’d been...comfortable, sure of herself. She’d known where they stood, and she’d known he would never hurt her.
Mostly because she would never allow him to.
“Hey, why so quiet all of a sudden?” Chris prompted.
She yanked her gaze away from the scenery rushing past. “Just thinking.”
A few minutes later, they pulled onto a familiar turnoff and drove down the short, gravel road that wound through the woods and ended in a currently unoccupied clearing that served as a parking lot. Chris cut the engine, and they got out. He grabbed the cooler and backpack while Tiff carried the cake and fries.
“I know a great spot,” Chris began. “But it’s a ten-minute hike from here and there’s no path. Are you up to it?”
“Sure.” She already had an idea of where he wanted to go.
Not many people knew about the spot. People who came to Silver Lake’s shores were more likely to picnic or swim along one of the more accessible beaches on the north side. Tiffany had only found the swimming hole because she’d wanted a more interesting view of the lake for her paintings and to avoid curious onlookers.
She followed him through the underbrush. Luckily for them both, poison ivy didn’t grow out here, and Chris was courteous enough to hold back any larger branches in their path. She was slightly sweaty by the time they exited the forest, but the view was worth the trek. The egg-shaped cove was ringed by smooth, flat rocks, and pinched off from the rest of the lake by a short spit of land and hidden by tall, thick pines. A sandbar farther out kept the water in the cove calm, and it was deep enough to dive from the embankment.
Chris spread out a blanket on a flat, grassy spot in the shade of a willow and invited her to sit. The sun had that syrupy gold quality, and burned through the swaying branches of the willow. A sweet breeze carried the scent of pine to Tiffany’s nose.
She couldn’t help but glance over to the far edge of the cove to the spot where she’d once spent a whole weekend painting. It had been from that vantage point that she’d captured the magical spot, winning the five-hundred-dollar prize and a blue ribbon at the county fair that fall. Her eyes slid to Chris, crouched by the cooler as he unloaded it, and she allowed herself a private smile.
He glanced at her. “What?” The corners of his mouth turned up.
“Hmm?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s been a nice day,” she said, unable to meet his eyes.
“You’re a really bad liar, you know that, right?”
“What? It has been a nice day.”
“C’mon. I don’t hear you sigh like that often, so it must be something. You can be honest with me.”
Not with this she couldn’t. But as his gaze lingered like a coaxing caress, she blurted, “I was thinking about how I once saw you naked here.”
Omigod, did I say that out loud?
His jaw swung open, but he didn’t look offended. “When was this, exactly?” he asked slowly, disbelieving laughter tugging at his question.
Tiffany cleared her throat, looked back toward the shaded spot on the far side as if she could run there and escape. Instead, she replied by calmly pointing. “I was over on that ledge there, painting one afternoon when I was sixteen. I wanted to paint the lake—it was for the fall fair contest, and it took me almost an hour to find the right vantage point. It was really hot out. I planned to stay the whole day until I had my notes and sketches done.... And then you showed up and started stripping.” Her memory fired as she pictured his long, lean form glistening in the heat.
Chris’s dark blond eyebrows climbed up his forehead to escape the fire flaming in his cheeks. He laughed, pushed his hand through his hair. “I take it this was that one time I didn’t have my swim trunks on me and decided it was safe to go skinny-dipping.”
Tiffany held back a giggle. “That would be the day.”
“I thought I was alone.”
“You were.” She leaned back on her elbows on the blanket. “At least, you didn’t act like you were with anyone worth being shy around.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to say anything?”
She slid him an innocent look. “After spending all that time looking for the perfect vantage point, I wasn’t going to leave.” Besides, the show had been terrific. She flashed back to that day, watching Chris’s sinewy, golden body diving into the water like an arrow and resurfacing with equal grace. She’d been too far to see any details clearly, but what she had seen had been enough to make her want to strip down and dive in after him.
He tilted his head, still smiling broadly. “You won the blue ribbon prize with that painting. The Rotary Club sold it for charity.” He chuckled weakly. “Please tell me there wasn’t a little naked me in that picture.”
Her lips pursed, she admitted, “You’re in there. But you wouldn’t know it unless you knew what you were looking at.” It had been her secret, a special memory to commit to paper in watery shades of saffron and silvery blue, his body like a fish flashing in the dark water. Most people would have assumed it was a reflection.
He was giving her such an odd look now that her body heated up. Something pulsed between them, and the air grew thick. Determined, she met his eye unflinchingly, dared him to look away as she uncrossed her ankles and shimmied over to one side of the blanket. “There’s room here for two,” she invited, lowering her voice, her eyes and her defenses.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHRIS WAS STRUCK DUMB at the same time a goofy grin froze to his face.
The idea that she’d been watching him, studying him, painting him while he’d been so vulnerable should have outraged or embarrassed him. Instead, he was flattered, intrigued...and fully turned on.
Easy, boy, he scolded himself as he lowered his body gingerly onto the old king-size duvet he and Daphne had used when they’d shared a bed. It left them plenty of space to sit without touching. A queen-size marriage bed would have sufficed, but Daphne had insisted on the upgrade. Thoughts of his ex-wife stopped the southbound blood flow, and he let out a breath as he regained his vision.
Tiffany and Chris ate their sandwiches as birdsong and lapping water filled the comfortable silence. A breeze slid through her hair, lifting its delicate scent to his nostrils. When the sun burst through the sparse cloud cover, she turned her face to the sky, exposing her slender, pale neck. His blood resumed its southbound course. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. When had she become this lovely, sensual creature? When had the staid tutor in her buttoned-up shirts turned into this woman who made him think all these lurid thoughts?
He couldn’t help imagining what might have happened if he’d known she’d been watching him skinny-dipping all those years ago. Probably nothing—he would have hastily gathered his clothing and slunk away, mortified. They would never have been able to meet each other’s eyes again.
But this was not teenage Tif
fany. And he was not that Chris anymore.
She picked at the fries and delicately sucked gravy from her fingertips. Watching her, he became light-headed. She caught his look and smiled, lashes lowered.
“You want?” She held out a fry.
“I thought I’d get more than a taste since I was buying.”
And now he sounded like a douchebag. “Of the fries, I mean,” he said quickly.
She grinned. Thank God. But as he was about to take a nibble of that French fry and suck it right down to her fingertips, she grabbed a huge honking handful dripping with gravy and held it out in challenge.
He smirked, assessed the mess and angled his head, taking a large bite out of the many-tentacled fry monster waggling in her hand. They laughed as she tried to stuff it into his mouth, and he snagged her wrist, holding her still, eating the fries in a messy, slobbering way.
“There’s gravy running down my arm,” she yelped as he held her hand higher.
“Don’t worry.” He’d swallowed down the last of the greasy potatoes and only had her hand left. Holding her gaze, he set himself to licking the salty drippings on her fingers.
Her cheeks turned scarlet, and her lashes fluttered like moth wings, but she held perfectly still. He lapped up the gravy greedily then traced the thin trail that had run down her forearm past her elbow. He didn’t stop there. She tasted so sweet, and her skin was as soft as silk. He brushed kisses higher to her shoulder, her neck, heard the way she was whispering his name, half plea, half worship, as he pressed her down against the blanket. “Chris...”
His heart banged in his chest as he stared at her. Her long, dark hair flowed across the periwinkle-blue comforter.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, marveling at the softness of her dark eyes, her radiant complexion. Her wide, warm smile was all the invitation he needed to lean in and kiss her fully.
Dear God, why had he denied himself these past weeks? He took his time licking the salt from the fries off her lips. She clung to him, and her soft moans whispered through his blood.
