“I saw the kiss,” Ali said. “I just happened to be outside, on the front sidewalk, talking to Olivia, who runs that very lovely vintage clothing store down the street. And bee-tee-dub, that was no ‘just a kiss’ kiss,” she said. “That was a…wow kiss. I went home and jumped Luke’s bones.”
Aubrey had to laugh. Ali was right: It had been a wow kiss. But it’d also been a fluke. “It’s not happening again,” she insisted, and faced both their doubt and her own. “It can’t.”
A few minutes later, Aubrey was back inside the Book & Bean. She unlocked the door, turned on all the lights, and flipped over her OPEN sign.
Gus, asleep in his bed beneath the stairs, cracked open one eye and meowed at her. The nocturnal creature was annoyed by daylight.
Aubrey went to stand in what would soon be her little service niche. Ben had cleaned up after the demolition, but she went over it, sweeping and dusting to keep the store spotless. When she was done, she stood looking at the place where Ben had pressed her up against his long, leanly muscled, warm body.
At just the thought, her lips tingled in memory of their kiss. And if she was being honest, other parts tingled, too. In the bright light of day, she couldn’t imagine what the hell she’d been thinking to slide her hands up his chest and into his silky hair and pull his head down to hers for more.
Okay, so she hadn’t been thinking…
It’d been a mistake, albeit a delicious one, and she needed to move on. She was good at that—moving on. And she’d proven it with the first success on her list. Smiling just thinking about it, she pulled the notebook from her purse, then took out a pen.
And then, with a smile she couldn’t contain if she’d tried, she very carefully, very purposefully, crossed off number three.
Melissa.
Back in high school, the two of them had been rivals who’d gotten off on one-upping each other. Melissa had been pretty and funny and incredibly charismatic, and whenever she’d set her mind on a guy, she’d gotten him.
Even when Aubrey had wanted him.
Aubrey’d had the fattest crush on one guy in particular. Ben, of course. It didn’t matter that he had a longtime high school sweetheart; she’d still yearned and burned for him. Secretly, of course. She hated to remember those days, when she’d been a lowly freshman, garnering a lot of unwanted attention from the junior and senior boys because of her looks. This had, in turn, made her a target for the popular girls, of course. Hannah being one of them. One time Aubrey had been in the school parking lot, surrounded by a couple of aggressive, obnoxious boys. Ben had chased them off, and Hannah had been with him.
“She asks for that attention, Ben,” Hannah had said when a grateful Aubrey had started to walk away.
The humiliation of that had burned deep, but it was chased away by Ben’s defense of her.
“No girl asks for that, Hannah,” he’d said.
Aubrey had never forgotten it. It’d been the start of her terribly painful crush, that one moment of kindness, and she’d hated, hated, that he’d been with Hannah.
In any case, Melissa had sensed Aubrey’s crush and loved to torment her about it. One summer night Melissa had a bonfire on the hidden beach past the pier, a spot only teenagers and the homeless ever bothered to hike to. Melissa had brought some alcohol that she’d pilfered from her parents and had plied Hannah with it until she’d fallen asleep by the fire. Melissa had then sat down next to Ben and pulled out every trick in Aubrey’s own arsenal. The I’m-so-cold accidental snuggle. The scared-of-the-dark accidental snuggle. The wow-you’re-really-strong accidental snuggle. By the time Melissa had moved on to the there’s-a-big-bug! accidental snuggle, Ben was cranky from fending Melissa off, and Aubrey was cranky knowing she wasn’t going to get a shot at Ben herself.
So she’d one-upped Melissa.
She’d dared everyone to go rock climbing on the cliffs and jump into the water—a stupid, dangerous stunt. She’d been neck and neck with Melissa all the way up to the top. They’d been neck and neck at the jump into the water, too. Aubrey had landed safely.
Not Melissa. A wave had slammed her up against a rock, and she’d broken her arm. They’d dumped her at the hospital and deserted her, not wanting to get in trouble for the illegal bonfire, the alcohol, or the cliff jumping.
Melissa had been treated and then cited for public intoxication and reckless endangerment.
Aubrey had gotten off scot-free.
She’d have written it off as a silly, juvenile stunt, but Melissa had been on course to play softball at a junior college. But with her arm requiring two surgeries, she’d been dropped from the team.
She’d never gone to college.
Aubrey’s path had crossed Melissa’s a few times here and there. After all, Tammy worked at the same salon. But Aubrey and Melissa had never talked about that night, which had changed Melissa’s life forever. But this morning, Aubrey had driven by the salon and got lucky, finding Melissa there early working on stock, and she brought up the past for the first time in all these years.
Melissa had told Aubrey that not too long after she’d broken her arm, her parents had cut her off because of her partying ways. It’d been a wake-up call. She’d gotten herself together, gone to beauty school, and was now running her own hair salon. She swore up and down that she was actually grateful for the path she’d ended up on. And happy.
Happy…
Aubrey shook her head in marvel. But Melissa had been sincere. She’d hugged Aubrey and told her to come in for a cut sometime and they’d talk about old times.
“Wow, she smiles.”
Aubrey stifled her startled shriek. Ben stood in the doorway, propping up the doorjamb with a broad shoulder, arms crossed over his chest. A casual pose.
But there was nothing casual about the assessing look he was giving her. “I smile plenty,” she said, irritated at herself. Just the sight of him used to remind her of her mistakes. Now the sight of him reminded her that he’d kissed her.
And he kissed amazingly…
That knowledge was damned distracting. She needed to find a way to get rid of it, but she couldn’t. She thought about it every waking moment. And also during her sleeping moments, what few there’d been.
Meow.
Gus had gotten up for Ben. He never got up for Aubrey, but there he was, on all four legs, rubbing up against Ben as though he were catnip.
She was beginning to see how it was that Ben might have gotten cat hair on his pants.
Ben crouched low and gave the cat an allover body rub that had Gus rolling in ecstasy on the floor, the low, loud rumble of his rarely heard purr filling the room.
She rolled her eyes and then realized Ben was looking at her, really looking at her, and she went on guard. “We going to talk about it?” he finally asked, straightening.
“No.” Hell, no.
He gave an almost smile, as if that had been the answer he’d expected, and yet there was a flash of something else as well. She dismissed it, because there could be no way he wanted to talk about it, either.
Another man came up behind Ben in the doorway. “Knock, knock,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the doorjamb. “Am I interrupting?”
“Pastor Mike.” Aubrey immediately looked around herself guiltily, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. She stopped herself and added a mental head slap. Good Lord, woman, get a grip. “No, you’re not interrupting anything. How can I help you? Do you need a book?”
“No, I don’t need a book,” he said. “But thank you.”
Aubrey didn’t know what to make of this. People came here for books. Or, in Ben’s case, to drive her crazy.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Pastor Mike said, his smile casual. Easy.
“I’m…” She didn’t dare look at Ben. “Good. Thank you.” She had no idea why he was really here. Were there AA rules she didn’t know about? She hadn’t signed up for anything. She’d been careful not to make any commitments that night. She hadn’t wanted anyone getting into her business.
And she especially didn’t want Ben getting into her business.
Mike looked at Ben and held out a hand. “Good to see you home safe. There were lots of candles lit for you. Your aunt Dee lit one every week.”
Ben shook Mike’s hand. “She likes to hedge all her bets.”
The pastor smiled. “It worked. Heard you were sticking around this time. You helping our girl out?”
Ben’s mouth quirked at the “our girl.” “Yeah. So you and Aubrey are close?” he asked Pastor Mike.
Aubrey jumped in before Pastor Mike could give her secret away, on purpose or otherwise. “Yeah, we’re close,” she said, moving toward Ben. “We’re…buddies.” She tried to nudge him out the door—to no avail, of course. The big lug couldn’t be budged.
“What are you doing?” he asked, effortlessly resisting her efforts.
“You’ve. Got. To. Go.”
“Do I?”
“Yes!” She flashed a we’re-all-family-here smile over her shoulder to Mike. “He was just saying he had to go,” she told the pastor. “He’s a big sinner, you know. Maybe you should go with him. Keep him from sinning further today.”
Pastor Mike laughed. Why he was laughing Aubrey had no idea, because this wasn’t funny.
“I don’t have to go,” Ben said. “I’ve got all day.”
Great. He had all day. “No, really. You’re a busy guy, so—”
“I’m all yours,” he said easily.
Oh, for God’s sake.
“Aubrey,” Mike said gently.
“Just a minute, Pastor.” She gave up trying to shove Ben out the door and went hands on hips, blowing a strand of hair from her face. She gave him a dirty look before turning back to Mike.
“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “I can’t stay. I really did just want to see how you were doing, or if you needed anything.”
Oh. Well, that was a little sweet, she could admit. “I don’t. I’m fine, thank you.”
Mike looked as though he knew better than to believe that, but he didn’t argue with her. He simply nodded. “You know where to find me if you need anything.”
And with that, he was gone.
“So,” Ben said into the silence. “You and Pastor Mike. You’re…buddies.”
“Yep.”
“From…?” he asked.
She gave him a look. “Maybe I go to church every Sunday.”
He flashed a heart-stopping grin, and she sighed. “Yeah, that was probably a stretch, believing I’m actually good enough to go to church.”
His smile faded as his gaze touched over her features. “Good’s way overrated,” he said. “But you’re doing okay, I’d say.”
The combination of that and the way he was looking at her had her heart squeezing uncomfortably, so she took a few steps back. “What are you even doing here?”
“I work here,” he reminded her.
She sighed. “And thanks for that, by the way. It’s really amazing how much you got done last night. It looks good.”
He nodded in acceptance. “My turn to ask a question now,” he said, and pushed off the wall, closing the distance between them.
“Uh…okay. But maybe we should set limits—”
“No limits. Here’s my question. When are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”
Oh, boy. “That’s a pretty widely scoped question.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Let me narrow it down for you. Start with the list, and why you’re going around town talking to people. Did you become a Jehovah’s Witness or something?”
That startled a laugh out of her. “I think that’s two questions.”
His eyes warmed a little. “And?”
“And…no. I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness.”
Chapter 9
Ben laughed, and when he did, Aubrey took another step back—right into the wall. She frowned at him as though it were his fault, which made him want to laugh again. Instead he studied her, a little surprised to realize that she was truly flustered by him.
This was fascinating. He knew it wasn’t often that she allowed her feelings to show. Hell, he’d have said it wasn’t often that she actually felt anything. She was one tough, smooth cookie. She always had been, all through school, even when she faced off against the mean girls or the stupid guys who thought she’d put out just because of how she looked.
She’d gotten even tougher. Inscrutable.
But then he’d kissed her. He’d had her in his arms, and he knew damn well she’d been feeling plenty.
So had he.
But today it was more than lust. He was making her nervous, and he decided he liked that, too, much more than he should.
Mostly because she made him a whole hell of a lot of things, including—of all the ridiculous possibilities—jealous of a happily married pastor. He had to wonder what the connection was between Mike and Aubrey. The list?
And why did he care so much? The answer to that was unsettling, to say the least. She was getting under his skin—big-time.
He shouldn’t have kissed her.
She was wearing a pretty dress, some silky forest green wraparound thing that hugged her curves and brought out her eyes.
And Christ, how it was that he was noticing such shit, he had no idea. She was a job to him right now, nothing more, nothing less.
Which didn’t explain why he couldn’t take his eyes off her mile-long legs when she turned and put some distance between them. She walked to the open space between the last row of bookshelves and the closet he’d removed and then squatted down and began to set out a bunch of squares.