Once a Charmer

by Sharla Lovelace

  Focus. Perspective.

  “It’s just steps,” I said softly. “It’s solid.”

  There were handles that went over the top, much like I imagined the last ladder should have had. Then I was topping it, and suddenly up went down.

  “No,” I cried, a choked sound down in my throat.

  “Focus, Allie,” I heard Bash say behind me, and the sound propelled me one more step. Then one more. And—

  “Holy shit,” I said, standing at the top like a deer in the headlights.

  “Okay, come down,” Kia was saying. Vonda was a few feet further, nodding.

  Walk down. Don’t fall. You can do this.

  Then there he was. Running to his spot up front so that I could see him. Holding out his hand and waiting for me. Looking up with those eyes that said I’ve got you.

  I was halfway down before I knew I was moving, and my hand was in his a second later. His expression beamed with relief and pride and things I felt too emotional to attempt to name. So I did the next best thing. I flung my arms around his neck.

  He caught me, laughing; his arms coming up around me in a tight embrace.

  “You did it,” he said against my ear.

  “I did!” I chuckled.

  “I’m proud of you, Al,” he said, putting me down slowly and keeping his hands in place. His eyes were dancing. Like they used to, except there was more.

  “Um, are we missing something?” Vonda asked, coming forward.

  My hands were still on his chest, and I reached up to touch his cheek.

  “No, but we were.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I sat on the edge of the pavilion, drinking a water and absorbing the peace of the light chatting and laughter in the background with the crickets chirping nearby. Home wasn’t that peaceful. I’d either have snarky and rude Angel back (I held no delusions that the girl who helped dress me two hours earlier would still be hanging around), or I would end up in my kitchen reliving that kiss, or in my laundry room staring inside my dryer and hyperventilating.

  I chose crickets for the moment. Because whatever was eating at Angel tonight could wait a minute. I’d had enough of that. Kiss-obsessing was ridiculous at my age, and plus it felt like we’d gained some of our old ground back tonight. And hyperventilating wasn’t just about the money, but now the holy fuckedness of how I’d lost an entire afternoon talking to Mr. Bailey, when I distinctly remembered every word. Sully told me to let it go, but—

  He didn’t understand. He didn’t get growing up with something kind of off-color in your house. Something you deny so much that you start to believe your own protests.

  My dad was a gambler, and that was bad enough. It was embarrassing enough to lose everything and the whole school know that you’re poor enough to be on the charity list for holiday food drives. I couldn’t handle the extra talk like Lanie Barrett had to deal with. Her Aunt Ruby was always rumored about with her eccentric ways and hints at premonitions. I could never have shouldered my dad’s wacked-out dream life making the circuit along with everything else. Not like that. And now—I mean, I knew they were friends, but to find out that they were evidently a special little trio—and they found enough money back then to still be making a difference today.

  Lanie inherited eight hundred thousand dollars that no one knew the origin of. So my dad had at least that much at one time. I had to shut that thought out. My fingers curled into fists at the swirls of things that swam through my head if I didn’t. The things we’d lost. The things we had to fight for, because he “never had enough” to cover his debts. And now the diner…

  I closed my eyes. “Crickets, damn it.”

  “What was that?”

  My eyes popped open to see Bash strolling up, shirt untucked, hair looking as if he’d rifled through it a few too many times. A lazy smile on his face.

  Basically, even in the dark after the main lights were shut off, he looked good enough to eat and come back for dessert, and my entire body reacted accordingly.

  “Sorry, I was trying to drive out all the outside noise from my head and let the crickets have their way with me,” I said.

  He stopped about two feet away and tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. He didn’t speak for a while and neither did I. It was bizarrely okay, and us, and not us, and normal, and not normal and sexy as hell to do that.

  He pointed to the spot next to me. “Can I sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  Bash’s height allowed him a simple shift to slide up next to me. His leg was a whole three inches from mine. I calculated it immediately. He knocked his ankle against mine playfully and I did it back.

  “Didn’t you have poker tonight?” I asked. “I saw Sully earlier.”

  “Also had this,” he said. “Told them to find someone else. You look—” He stopped and gestured up and down at me as I sat next to him. “I don’t see you like this very often.”

  “Nice save.”

  “Caught that, did you?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, this doesn’t really work well with grease fryers and mayonnaise stains. Not to mention I’d be ready to take one of these shoes off and stab someone with it by noon.”

  Bash laughed. “I can imagine. I’m glad I don’t have to wear them.”

  “Yeah, they wouldn’t really go.”

  He pretended to look down at himself. “You don’t think they’d up my ranking?”

  “I think you’re doing just fine,” I said.

  He looked at me sideways. “Fine? Is that the new nice? You know, the old Allie would tell me I was smokin’.”

  I nearly choked on a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never used that word. Ever. In my life.”

  “Or something close.”

  “Okay, how about—” So many words came to mind. Fuckable was first, delicate flower that I am. “Delicious.”

  Stepping. Way. Out. There.

  The look on his face, even in the dark, said he was having the very same reaction.

  “Delicious?”

  “I’m trying new things,” I said. “In light of our—” I gestured in a circle with my hands. “Our new normal.”

  He gave me a long look. “I like it.”

  I chuckled and leaned sideways to bump shoulders. We sat quietly for a moment, and it was nice. Not formal and crappy kind of nice, but really and truly awesome.

  “So, tell me what’s been going on,” he said finally.

  “Tell me what’s going on with you and Lange.”

  He gave me a funny look. “You first.”

  I gave him the rundown from the time Lange made his big announcement, to finding the money in my dad’s drawer, to the conversation at Bailey’s house earlier. Minus the time warp. When I was done, he pushed off the stage and walked off a few steps, staring into space.

  “I’m going to talk to Lange tomorrow,” I said. “Tell him I have the money to pay him off and ask him to tear up the deed paperwork.”

  “He’s out of town till day after tomorrow,” Bash said. “And I doubt he’ll care.”

  “What?” I said. “Why?”

  He turned back and covered the few feet between us, crossing his arms.

  “Because he has money. He doesn’t need it,” he said. “He’s more about collecting businesses and putting his name on them than in anything financial.”

  I frowned. “He wants to change our name and I told him hell no, I didn’t care how much his percentage was. Did he do the same to you?”

  “He’s trying. He doesn’t have any ownership, but he wants controlling power of some of the products. He’s held up deliveries because I won’t agree,” Bash said. “That’s why there was no delivery this week.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “I wondered.” Actually, I assumed he was avoiding me, but I’d go with his version.

  “He
’s even messing with the hives now,” he said.

  “When does he have time for that?” I asked. “He never leaves the damn diner.”

  “Not physically,” Bash said. “He’s communicating with my customers about their rentals.” He ran a hand over his face. “Cherrydale Flower Farm and Kaison Orchards suffered serious setbacks when Dean screwed me over last summer. I couldn’t get them all the bees they needed, and I’ve kissed some major ass to keep them working with me. Now Lange is emailing them about paying higher rental fees for fewer hives? Shit, he’s gonna put me out of business.”

  “Are they local?” I asked. “Can he go schmooze with them? Because he would.”

  Bash took a deep breath and let it go. “Kaison’s a half day’s drive. It’s on the other side of Austin. But Cherrydale is just an hour away.”

  “We could kill him,” I suggested.

  “Poison his coffee?”

  “Get some killer bees and put them in his man purse,” I said.

  Bash laughed. “Oh, if I only had the time.”

  I nudged him. “How’s the new shop? I suck as a friend, I keep forgetting to ask you that.”

  “You do suck, but I’ll let you slide,” he said, the hint of a grin pulling at his lips. “It’s okay. Doing better than I hoped. I think having a location out here was a good step.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  He looked at me for a moment.

  “I miss you, Allie,” he said finally.

  Didn’t see that switch-up coming. My belly did a tumble on the words, and it was everything I could do not to jump off that pavilion and wrap myself around him.

  “I miss you, too.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been acting like a jerk lately,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “I haven’t known what to do with—things.”

  I narrowed my eyes. I was pretty sure I knew what those things were, but I wasn’t about to assume it.

  “And this conversation just proves that we have to figure out how to handle distraction better, or—”

  “Or don’t let ourselves go there,” I said.

  His eyes were shiny in the dark.

  “That’s getting harder,” he said softly.

  I nodded. “I know,” I whispered, the words barely making sound.

  “I lied,” he said.

  I frowned. “About?”

  “It being nothing.”

  I shouldn’t have had any earthly idea what that meant. As it was, I knew exactly what he was talking about, and the breath I had to stop and take was proof of that.

  “You’re my best friend,” he said.

  I nodded in lieu of words, even though he probably couldn’t see it. I couldn’t trust words right then.

  “You’re the one I can’t wait to tell things, the one that knows everything—the good and the crap—and doesn’t care,” he said, moving forward and stopping short like there was a wall there.

  “You’re that for me, too,” I said.

  “And yeah, maybe back in the day, there was that thirty second drunken blink of a moment—”

  “Was it a whole thirty seconds?” I asked.

  “Come on, you gotta give me at least that,” he said, laughing. “I did my best for being barely coherent.”

  We laughed and then the quiet returned. An easier quiet, but troubling at the same time. There was always something else hovering now. Something I couldn’t quite decide on the good or badness of.

  “The thing was, I knew even then what was more important,” he said. “I’d lay in my bunk in San Diego thinking, God, I want to do that again, and then, Fuck, I hope I didn’t mess us up in the very next breath.”

  I chuckled. “I know what you mean.”

  “I don’t have family, Al,” he said. “Y’all are it. I can’t afford to fuck that up.”

  Ah. So we were on the same really back-assward, twisted, unfair, and jacked up page. That was good. So why did it not feel good?

  “I know,” I said. “Me either. I mess up every relationship I have.”

  “I don’t do relationships,” Bash said. “I don’t even do overnights. No one sleeps in my bed but me.”

  “True,” I said, keeping it light for sanity’s sake. “You are a man whore.”

  “Guilty,” he said, raising his hand. “And that usually works for me. No feelings. No complications.”

  “Usually?”

  He exhaled slowly and lowered his hand. “Usually.” He moved closer and went to lay his hands on my knees but then rested them on either side of me instead as if he and his hands were battling. “And then you kissed me.”

  He was close enough that I could feel the heat off his body. I could smell the uniquely delicious simple aroma of soap and man that was always Bash. I could pull him into my arms if I wanted to. Oh God, I wanted to. My heart was racing and the only thing I could think of was focus.

  Focus. Perspective. He’d just echoed every thought I’d had for months. We were talking again. Agreeing that we were fighting the same battle. We couldn’t afford to lose the very rare and precious thing we had. The thing we were so lucky to find all those years ago. We needed to not be this close!

  “This argument again?” I said, attempting light.

  “You kissed me,” he repeated. “And then I kissed you back. And for God knows how many months afterward—”

  “Three.”

  “I have not been able to think about anything else.”

  Oh, fuck, light was jumping in the pond and swimming away. What the hell were we talking about a few minutes ago? I had no idea. I wanted to touch him so badly. Don’t touch him. Focus. But he had me in this little arm cage of his, and…God help me.

  “Yeah,” I managed. “Me too.”

  “It’s turned me into a lunatic.”

  “Yes it has.”

  He grinned, and I wanted to pull that grin closer. Get to know it up close and—

  “And that little—”

  “Nothing?”

  He laughed and dropped his head, and it took all my power not to reach out.

  “That nothing was everything,” he said. “That one little kiss turned us inside out. What the hell would more do?”

  He lifted his head on the question, and his face was so close I forgot the question entirely.

  “Then,” I breathed, staring at his mouth. “My kitchen happened.”

  “That it did,” he whispered, leaning in, resting his head against mine. Touching. “And I’ve been totally fucked ever since.”

  I was totally fucked right now. Super magnets were tugging my mouth toward his, and I had no say in the matter. Not that I would have argued. I wanted to kiss Bash again more than breathing, more than friendship, more than any of those logical thoughts I’d had earlier.

  “You’re my best friend,” he said slowly, drawing the words out and diverting his mouth from its direct path to around by my ear. Sweet Jesus, that wasn’t any better, and my hands lost their battle. They moved up his chest to his face, his hair, pulling him closer as he brushed his lips against my ear. His breath quickened at my touch, making me heady. “We need to be able to talk.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Hands slid around to my ass and up my back, slowly squeezing me against him as his lips trailed down the side of my neck.

  “Fuck, this is such a bad idea,” he said against my skin, setting me on fire.

  “Worst,” I breathed. “In the history of bad ideas.”

  Focus?

  One hand came up in my hair to cradle my head and give him better access to my neck. Hot breath rippled over my skin as his lips kissed the sensitive spot under my ear.

  Focus left to hang out with light. Sensation took over and, oh God, he knew just how to touch me. My fingers fisted in his hair as I arched against him automatically.
r />   It was like a switch flipped for both of us. That switch that signals the train about to go flying off the rails. He pulled his head back just enough to be face to face, where we were both breathing raggedly.

  “This is why I can’t be trusted when I get near you,” he said. “All common sense takes off and—” He pressed a soft kiss to my lips and I closed my eyes, willing to stay like that for days.

  “It feels really good,” I whispered against his lips.

  “It feels so fucking good,” he said against mine.

  I kissed him once, twice…

  “We—we’ll never survive a dance,” I breathed.

  He claimed my mouth, enveloping me with a head to toe rush.

  It started softer, more intimate that time around. We just kissed in the dark. Slow. Sexy. Deep. It was hot and erotic and all sensation, but there was that something more again. Something foreign that hit my heart with every kiss.

  I felt every inch that he touched, his hands moving slowly on my body. Finding skin under my shirt and teasing close to the sensitive places. Moving deliberately slow down my legs and back again, as if imagining the feel of me under the denim.

  I knew the feeling. I wanted skin. His kisses and caresses had me trembling with need, and I craved more than my hands could feel through the heat of his shirt. I finally left his mouth, unable to restrain any longer. I trailed my kisses down over his jaw, down his neck. His breathing was as erratic as mine, his skin hot as fire against my mouth as I let my hands slide down his chest to his waist, letting my fingers travel up under his shirt, skimming along his abs to stop at the waistband of his jeans.

  A rumble of desire ran through his chest, and his fingertips dug in to my upper thighs, just inches from ground zero, while his thumbs continued to stroke in a dangerous tease. Bash finally backed up an inch or two, looking down at his hands as if they were acting on their own.

  “Bash,” I mouthed as my breath felt like it went away.

  He dragged his hands up along my ribcage, letting the backs of his fingers trail achingly slow up between my breasts to my neck, breathing in deep through his nose as I slid my fingertips just under the waistband along his abdomen. By the time his gaze met mine, and he cupped my face with his hands, we were both wild-eyed with need.