by P. Jameson
Malcom narrowed his gaze.
Or did she really need him. Was she offering him a job because she truly needed help during the holiday season? Because if his woman needed help, he’d fucking help her. He’d sniff roses and tie ribbons for as long as she needed.
Anything for her.
“Or…” She swallowed so hard, he could hear the gulp. “If this is totally out of line, just say so, and we’ll forget it. I can always call the temp agency if I get in too big a jam.”
Perhaps the job offer was a little of both. She needed his help, but he needed hers too. A mutually beneficial agreement.
“Say something,” she petered out. “Please.”
Malcom jammed his hands in his pockets and stared out the front window. The one he was usually behind.
Outside, not in.
But he was inside now, and he needed to make something of it.
“I… I don’t know nothing about flowers,” he mumbled. “Might make more work instead of helping. But I could ask around for you. I know a lady from the shelter who likes flowers. She picks ‘em out of the beds along the sidewalk to keep. Before the frost came.”
But old Philly was half crazy. The delightful kind of crazy that forced you to smile, but still… crazy. He wasn’t sure if he should put Francesca on her radar.
“Or…”
Silence filled the space between them while he got up the nerve to face Francesca again.
“Or?” she prodded.
He met her gaze and it seemed so hopeful. Why did she always look that way?
“You could teach me.”
Her face broke out into a wide smile that showed her teeth.
Another one. He was going to keep count.
“I bet you’d learn quickly. We could start now. Do you have anywhere you need to be?”
Malcom shook his head, dazed by her grin and the prospect of spending the entire day with her. “As long as I check in at the shelter on time.”
Francesca clapped her hands together, clearly happy with the arrangement. “Let’s get started then, Malcom. Welcome to the Brightwoods family.”
Family. Damn. If she kept talking like that, he was going to want everything from her. A future. Her heart. Forever.
Yes, the voice inside him purred. Her, forever.
Chapter Five
Francesca watched as Malcom attempted to make a bow… for the fifth time. His thick fingers weren’t nimble with the wire and his loops were all mismatched, but he wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t a quitter. And something about that made her giddy inside.
He also wasn’t jonesing for a hit. She could see that now. He was nervous and probably tired from not getting a good night’s sleep. But he was no druggie.
“Yeah, like that,” she encouraged. “Now just wrap the wire around the center. Make sure it’s tight.”
She looked at the other four bows lining the counter. Each one was a fraction better than the one before it. None of them were usable. But it didn’t matter. She was having fun. Normally her days were spent working alone except for the part time hours Brenda was around or the few minutes she helped Bill, her delivery guy, load the van.
The idea she concocted to spend time with him was chancy, but she’d wanted something and had decided last night to make a move. She’d had enough sitting around, being sad about her circumstances. She missed her brother and sister, her mom and dad, Julie. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t find someone new to fill her days. And her heart. Did it?
Training Malcom was new. And really, they weren’t making any headway. Unless you counted the fact that he wasn’t out in the cold, and she wasn’t by herself in the shop.
As if he’d read her mind he muttered, “I think this is hopeless, Bright Spot. My damn hands aren’t used to being warm. Not working like they should.”
Did he call her Bright Spot?
He twisted the wire and snipped the end, holding up his finished bow for her inspection.
“You got any boxes that need liftin’? Heavy duty shit like that, I could handle. This dainty stuff isn’t my specialty.”
Truth. He felt wild, like an animal that needed taming. Or… not. Because he made her feel a little wild too, and she liked it.
She pursed her lips considering bow number five. Maybe he’d do better with the arrangements.
“I promise, it’s not as hopeless as you think. But let’s take a break from the ribbons. Move on to the flowers. What do you say?”
Malcom gave a skeptical nod, and she went to the cooler for a bucket of stems.
When she returned, she showed him how to use snips to trim the ends, how to add the preservative to the water, how to fill in the vase with greenery, and wire and tape the stems. He watched raptly, trying hard to learn what she’d come to know over the course of her childhood and young adult years.
“Now you try,” she said, and stepped back to let him have the table.
He stared at the utensils and flowers lining the counter, with deep concentration. In fact, he glowered. Like he was threatening them with his gaze to obey and produce a suitable arrangement… or else.
Francesca pressed her lips together to hide a grin.
Malcom drew in a deep breath and shook his shoulders out. He carefully rolled up each flannel sleeve until his tattooed forearms flexed. Then, nodding to himself, he dove in, trying to imitate what she’d shown him.
He steadied the vase, slamming it too hard against the countertop and making Francesca flinch. Then he filled it with water, splashing it over the top and getting the floral tape wet.
The next few minutes were filled with muttered curses as he kept at it, trying to wrangle the arrangement into shape. Hacking at the stems. Trying to force the wires to do his bidding. Cajoling the unsticky tape to stick. There was growling and snarling that fell in time with the Christmas music playing in the background. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas never sounded so wrong. Several stems snapped when he tried to shove them into the vase, and she even thought she saw a crack develop in the glass where his grip was.
Malcom was too strong. Too brutal. And all his careful patience had been used up on the bows.
He was some kind of storm, and the poor flowers weren’t going to survive it.
Maybe just a little taming…
Reaching forward, she laid her hand over his and magically the storm went calm. Malcom froze. Even his breath stalled. Everything in the shop, all the energy, it just went still. Slowly, he swung his gaze around to hers, locking on like she’d snared him somehow. This close, she could see every glint of expression in his eyes. A million threads, questions and revelations and wishes and hurts and frustrations, all of them looping together to form one tangled emotion she couldn’t interpret.
Except for… she felt them too. Messy things brought on by her touch.
What made her do it? What made her say what she said next?
“Gentle,” she whispered. “Easy. Pretend… pretend it’s a lady. How would you touch her? Softly, right? Carefully.”
He nodded, his eyes burning her with their intensity until she had to look away.
“Like this.” She brought his scarred up hand to the rose he’d mangled. She helped him ease it from the vase and curved his fingers gently around the bud. “She’s delicate, see? She bruises easily. Soft. She bends, sure, but go too far, and she also breaks.”
Francesca’s throat tightened. What she described sounded too much like herself. She was fragile. And maybe she hated being so. Damn it.
“I don’t want to break her,” Malcom rumbled. It felt like he hadn’t looked away, like his eyes were still on Francesca. Like he could see right through to the part of her that felt too soft.
“It’s okay.” She nodded, forcing her voice to be normal even if her heart couldn’t steady. “We can fix her. Here, straighten her out and use the wire to support her. I’ll get the tape ready. Show me what you can do, Mal.”
She stepped back, putting some distance between them and avo
ided his gaze.
Slowly, carefully, he lined the broken stems along the counter, straightening each one before attaching a wire to the bud and taping it securely. He was slow this time. Gentle. His touch impossibly soft. Like he was actually imagining what she’d described. His lady. Something delicate.
The Beast with Belle. Learning how to be soft.
Francesca swallowed hard. How would Malcom be as a lover? Careful or fierce. She’d seen both sides of him today. And both sent butterflies around her stomach.
“It’s good,” she said when he’d carefully arranged the repaired stems in the vase. “Lovely.”
Silence fell between them as they both stared at his creation. Now that he’d taken care with it, the arrangement was decent. Maybe he’d used a little too much filler, but Francesca loved it.
Reaching forward, he carefully brushed one rough thumb across a silken petal and Francesca could swear she’d felt his touch on her own cheek.
She cleared her throat. This comparison between her and the flower was getting silly.
Malcom turned his head to look at her. "Not used to this,” he murmured. “I never worked with anything so beautiful.” He seemed to be trying to convey something. He stared so deeply at her she felt naked.
“Practice makes perfect,” she quipped, her nerves finally getting the best of her.
Malcom nodded. “Practice. I like the idea of that.”
Francesca grinned at his dedication. She started collecting tools and tossing the cuttings in the garbage.
“I only ever worked with trash.”
She frowned. "Are we being literal or figurative?"
"Both. I worked for a waste management company from the time I was old enough to do manual labor. Mostly construction site clean-up. Was good at it. But... the company was... trash. The people I worked with were bad."
"Bad how?"
His brow furrowed in a deep frown and his eyes took on a haunted glint. "Just... the worst you can imagine. But they were also my family. The only family I ever knew."
So he had family baggage as well. They matched.
She passed over the trash can and he swept the mangled ribbon into it.
“You ever talk to them?”
“No. Done with them. They hurt me too bad.”
“It’s Christmas though. The season of forgiveness and new beginnings. Maybe hurts can be mended.” She didn’t like the idea of him being alone. His family wasn’t gone like hers was. They were just separated by wrongs. Not by death.
“No,” he snapped, and then seemed to catch himself. “No. Some things can never be forgiven. And shouldn’t be. There is only licking your wounds and moving on. And maybe finding something that makes you forget. Makes you want to live again. But there is no forgiving.”
Francesca’s heart hurt for him. Whatever had happened to Malcom cut deep. But she refused to believe there was no hope. Because if she believed that about Malcom’s past, she’d have to believe it about hers. And if there was no way to heal from the past, then the future looked dim.
“What about you?” Malcom’s tone went gruff again. The way it was when he’d entered the shop this morning “You talk to your family?”
She pressed her lips together, letting the familiar sting wash over her. Loss. Aching deep and hard. No amount of time seemed to lessen it.
“My brother sometimes. But not much. He’s off at grad school. Gonna be a doctor.” A smile curved her lips in spite of how much she missed him. She was damn proud of Kyle. He’d worked hard to get where he was. He hadn’t let their tragedy derail him. His dedication was to be admired. She just wished he’d come home sometimes. Or… even once.
“Your parents?”
Her hint of a smile faded and she blinked hard to make the tears stay where they belonged. Behind her eyelids.
“They… well, they’re gone.” She nearly choked on the word even though so many years had passed. Nearly eight to be exact.
She twisted so Malcom wouldn’t see the guilt that still plagued her. Instead, she busied herself by straightening their workspace.
No. It wasn’t your fault.
It truly wasn’t and she knew that. But they were dead and she was alive and she couldn’t help what that made her feel.
“Gone?”
“It’s a painful story. You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do.” His rough tone brought her gaze back around. He stared at her, his face curious and fierce. “I want to know everything about you. But not if it hurts.”
Oh. How did he do that? How did he catch her off guard with is honest words and make her stomach flip and flop. The butterflies were going crazy. And they were vicious, chomping away at her guilt until she could hardly feel it anymore.
She drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Maybe she needed this. To tell another soul her story. Maybe she was right about him, that he’d understand.
“Do you know Antonio Destacio? Of the Destacios. The real estate investors?”
Malcom frowned, shaking his head.
“They were a wealthy family. Had their hand in a lot of pots. Antonio was a powerful man… and he killed my family.”
Chapter Six
Malcom’s blood ran cold at Francesca’s announcement. He stared, his skin buzzing with fury, as his female struggled for words. Inside, he was already making plans to avenge her. He’d vowed never to harm another living thing—he’d done too much of that already. But this was different. Someone had wronged what was his. Hurt her badly. Taken away her family. He couldn’t let it stand. Not after today. Not after she’d been so patient with him and trusted him with her past.
His fists clenched tight, and he felt the thing inside him vibrate against his sternum, helpless. The broken, broken thing. The thing he was trying to fix. The thing he needed to if he was every going to find this Antonio Destacio and make him pay.
“He should die.” The rasped words were in the air before he could contain them, and Francesca’s eyes went wide.
Shit. He’d scared her.
“Oh, he did,” she let out on a breath. And it stopped Malcom’s rage cold. Took all the air out of his sails. The man was already dead?
Someone else had avenged her.
“Listen, I need some coffee if I’m going to go there. It’s my kind of liquid courage. You want some?”
Malcom managed a nod.
His eyes never left her as she crossed the small space and went to work brewing them each a cup. He didn’t miss how her hands shook when she passed him a steaming paper cup and settled back on the stool beside his.
She took a deep breath and her eyes flipped to him. They were cautious. Like she was tiptoeing through a bed of coals.
“I’ve never told this story to anyone. People know. Plenty of people know what happened, but I’ve never had to… say it. Explain it. You know?”
Malcom nodded, needing her to continue.
She stared into her black coffee as she let the story unfold.
“I was three days away from turning eighteen. I’d waited to get my driver’s license because until that year, I’d always had Kyle to drive me around. My brother, he’s a year older than me, and he’d just started his second semester at the university. Anyway, daddy had taken me to get my permit. It was a busy season for the shop and so I had to get my driving practice in while making deliveries.” She shrugged, her lips quirking at the memory. “I didn’t mind. I got one-on-one time with my daddy, and got paid for it. It was a win-win. Few weeks later… we went out to celebrate. Me, my mom and dad, and my baby sister. My birthday was around the corner and I was taking my driver’s test the next morning. But…”
Her voice faded out and her face went solemn. Malcom felt the bad parts coming. Could taste it in the air like bitter diesel fumes.
“I was driving,” she said, shaking her head and squinting like she was seeing through fog. “The light had just turned green. I was pulling through the intersection and next thing I know, there was a terrible boom a
nd I was thrown sideways. It felt slow to me, but I know it all happened very fast. When we stopped moving, I… I looked up and… I saw the sky instead of the roof where my dad was sitting in the passenger seat.”
Malcom couldn’t catch his breath. He was hanging on to every word of his female’s story, feeling her pain in his own chest, vicious and stabbing.
“So, I turned my head to see my dad and… and he wasn’t there. Only blood. So much blood. It coated the seat and the door. What was left of it. And I heard the baby screaming in the back seat. Hannah. She was so many years younger than me and Kyle. An accident but my parents never called her that. Mom called her a surprise instead. But I couldn’t make myself look away from the blood in the passenger seat.”
She went quiet, her eyes staring so hard into her coffee cup. Malcom wanted to reach out and put his hand on her back. Comfort her somehow. Anchor her. Like she did him when he was seconds away from ruining the pretty flowers she worked with. Instead, he kept his fists clenched tight and waited for her to finish.
“Eventually her cries were drown out by sirens. The police came. The ambulance. My leg was pinned under the steering wheel, but when they got me out, I was fine. Not even a broken bone. Everyone else however…”
She swallowed hard, shaking her head and finally looking up from her cup. Liquid pain rimmed her lids, but not a drop fell.
Strong female.
“No one else made it out of that accident. Not from my car, and not from the car that hit us. Antonio Destacio was twelve shades to the wind and decided to drive anyway. He missed the red light. Didn’t even brake. T-boned us. And paid with his life.”
Paid with his life. The way she said it caused chills to run his spine.
“Three lives in his car. Three lives in mine. It was an even trade. Except… plenty of times I’ve wondered why fate didn’t take me and leave one of them. Hannah. Or mom or dad.”
Malcom knew the answer to that. It was easy. Fate didn’t take Francesca because she was still needed here.
She had a gift of making people smile. Making them feel human and worthy. He knew because she made him feel that way, and he was the farthest thing from it. She made pretty things that helped brighten people’s day and had a heart free of judgement. She was good to the bone, and the world needed more goodness.