by Natalie Ann
He said, “Sure,” before he could stop himself.
***
Piper wanted to pat herself on the back for what she’d just accomplished. She didn’t think it’d work. Nor did she know she had it in her to throw out just a little bit of information without expanding. That had taken a lot of willpower. But dang it all, it worked. And it felt great!
It was exactly what she needed. As she’d gotten closer to home from her jog, she’d felt this odd sensation. Like eyes staring at her…all around her. Surrounding her and sucking her in. Making her feel tiny. She’d looked everywhere and saw nothing. But the feeling wouldn’t go away. It only got worse. Bad enough that she sprinted the rest of the way home until she was out of breath.
By then, the feeling was gone and she figured it was her imagination playing tricks on her. Again. Probably from hearing Karl’s voice the week before.
So she needed a distraction like she always did to get all those past thoughts out of her head, and there in front of her was the perfect subject to occupy her mind.
Now Vin Steele was in her apartment. Imagine that. She’d just met him today. Just found out his name. And now he was in her apartment. The urge to dance a little jig was huge, but she held back. Barely.
And she was hot and sweaty and probably stinky. Smooth move, Piper, she thought.
“So,” he said. “Your childhood?”
Ah, he was a protector. She knew it. “Nothing major. I mean, nothing that I’m sure people haven’t heard before. I’ve been in the foster care system my whole life. You learn to look over your shoulder a lot. You learn to move fast and pick up when you need to. To not rely on anyone. I used to be really skittish.”
“Used to be?” he asked, following her to the kitchen. She opened up the fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. He probably thought she’d meant alcohol when she offered the drink, but she didn’t have any in the place.
“Once I turned eighteen and moved out on my own, I stopped looking over my shoulder so much.”
At that point, she’d done what she needed to do. She learned to survive just fine. It wasn’t always right, but it got her through. That was all she wanted back then. No need to give too many details for their first real conversation. She didn’t want him to think she was some nutcase with drama unfolding all around her.
“I would have thought once you were on your own, you’d do it more,” he said, opening the water bottle and taking a drink.
She waited until he was done, watching his face. A nice few days’ growth of beard, his hair short and a tad bit messy. His expression saying, “I don’t know why I’m here and I wish I could leave, but something is telling me not to just yet.” Or at least she was hoping. Wishful thinking on her part.
“I had my freedom then. I could be on my own and I was. I was with a good family before that and they wanted me to stay. I don’t like to be dependent on anyone, though. I still talk with them often. Share holidays with the family as a whole. They have a son and daughter, a few years older than me, and I see them often too, but I didn’t belong and still don’t. I belong to myself,” she said, smiling.
She’d perfected that smile all her life. Piper learned she was left alone if she pretended to be happy rather than a troubled kid. And if there was trouble in the house she was at, she learned to just hide, if not escape. She was good at finding the best way to act to get through.
“How can you make what most people would think of as a depressing life into something so casual?”
“Because others had it worse. I moved around. I had some good homes and some bad. I ended with a good one, and now my life is even better. What’s not to love about that?” Practice makes perfect, as the saying went.
“So that is why you looked over your shoulder often back then? Some of those bad homes?”
“Always be aware. I learned that early in life,” she said. “You know, I didn’t think you’d be this gabby. How about some cookies?”
“Don’t go out of your way,” he said.
“It’s not out of my way. I have sweets in my house nonstop. I’m always experimenting with things, bringing stuff home and making plates for others.”
“For those that aren’t so special,” he said, and actually cracked a grin. Wow, she was really proud of herself now. And boy was he downright handsome. A little mysterious, a little dangerous. A whole heck of a lot of heat was filling her body right now.
She opened the fridge and pulled out a plate. “We are all special in our own way if you really think about it. What are you in the mood for?”
He looked over the plate of assorted cookies and brownies, muffins and pastries. Then he reached for a big thick brownie with peanut butter frosting on it. Nothing dainty there, and now she had a better idea of what would suit him. It was always a test of sorts with her. She could judge people by the dessert they picked.
“Aren’t you going to have one?” he asked after he bit right in. Didn’t even break a piece off like most people. Even better.
“Do you know how many of these things I sample on a daily basis? I’m good.”
His eyes roamed over her body. She was skinny, she knew, but not through dieting by any means. She never sat still, and like she said, she sampled so many of her creations that she learned to just take a nibble of each. Nothing more. The rest of the time, she stuck to a pretty healthy diet.
She pulled a stool out and sat at the little counter, nodded her head to him, but he chose to stand. Guess he wasn’t going to get as comfortable as she would have liked, but she was thrilled with what she’d accomplished so far.
“So what about you?” she asked. “You know about my childhood, want to tell me about yours?”
“Nope,” he said around a mouthful.
Her jaw dropped, and he reached over and lifted it back in place. Then he winked at her, but still didn’t say a word. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope,” he said again, taking the last bite of the brownie, and walked toward her door. “Lock up behind me.” Then he was out of sight, just like that.
So much for thinking she had the upper hand.
Pretty Sweet
What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just walk away from her? Why did he get pulled in like a sucker that he never was?
Because deep down, he’d watched her reaction outside. The sudden movement, the fear leaping into her eyes but not fading away, even when she laughed, like it was some joke.
But it wasn’t. Fear like that never is.
He really hoped she wasn’t just brushing it off like it was nothing more than her imagination. Nothing more than some remnants from her childhood. Because reactions like that aren’t imaginary by any means.
As if the whole thing wasn’t bad enough, he followed her into the house like a lost little puppy being led to the best handmade bone ever shown. Well, her cookies were damn fine, and her brownie even more so. Still, he was losing his mind. He had to be.
Except he wasn’t. Not even when he found himself flirting with her. Teasing her. Getting her to smile, then watching her jaw drop. Yeah, that was pretty awesome, if he did say so himself.
A little payback for the weakness he found in himself for being led right into her place.
Even talking about her childhood…yeah, that was odd. Was it possible that she was that good-natured? That she was that laid back about being in foster care?
Nah. She was not laid back at all. She was antsy and hyper and bubbly and…happy. He couldn’t remember ever being that happy, but he was sure he was at some point in his life. He wasn’t always this much of a loner or a grouch or all the other words spoken about him by his family over the past two years.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. What he cared about was just surviving. To do that he had to leave. He had to be alone. He had to start over. That’s what he was doing.
It was working. Or so he thought. He laughed today. He flirted. He actually enjoyed it. So yeah…it was working.
He walked over to the little desk that was serving as his home office and booted up his laptop. Time to look into Ms. Piper Fielding some more. Something wasn’t adding up. She was hiding something, he was positive. Since he knew his current life didn’t add up to anyone who knew the real him or his past, he could spot something off a mile away.
***
Two days later, he woke up from a dead sleep, reached for his gun, but stopped. Waited a second and listened again. Nothing. No one. Only his mind playing tricks.
Just in case, he got up, though. First thing he did was walk to the front door and open it. That he didn’t go with his gun was a step in the right direction.
There on the floor, a plate with a card on top. He picked it up and brought it to the kitchen, flipped on the light, and opened it. Thanks for caring enough to listen to me. Even if it made me look silly.
But it hadn’t made her look silly because he was smart enough to know real fear from an attention ploy. She had the real thing. Or her reaction to a real fear. Then it was gone, after she all but forced a change in the conversation.
And in the past two days, he’d seen nothing in any background check he could access for him to think that there was something going on in her life other than what she’d said.
No father’s name listed on a birth certificate; her mother was young when she had her. Tried to hold on but couldn’t. Got in trouble with drugs and the law and Piper ended up in foster care. She was bounced around from family to family, nothing new there. He couldn’t see anything that stood out too much.
She had a clean driver’s license…a clean record, period. No red flags. Nothing. Yet the fear was there.
He pulled the bow off the plate to see what she’d left for him this time. A big thick brownie with some kind of marshmallow topping, a muffin that smelled like peanut butter to him, and a few chocolate chip cookies. She had his card. Nothing frilly or froufrou like he’d seen on the plate she’d pulled out of her fridge the other night.
He covered everything up again, glanced at the clock, and saw it was barely four a.m. He needed a few more hours of sleep, then he’d take the next step.
Several hours later, the next step brought him to Sweet Eats. He’d waited long enough to avoid what he’d assumed would be a morning rush. There were a few people at the counter, one person waiting on them. Another handful sitting at tables scattered about, on laptops or their phones.
He walked forward. “Hi, what can I get you?” the young woman said from behind the counter. She had long blonde hair, pulled back, and a little bit too much makeup on, like she was trying to be older than she was.
“Large coffee, black, and a cinnamon bun.” He was going to have to spend more time at the gym soon if he continued to eat like this.
He walked over to a table in the corner, set his laptop down, and opened it up. He shook his head over her open Wi-Fi, not stupid enough to grab ahold of it. He signed into his own secure hot spot and started to pop around. There were people using the Wi-Fi now, nothing suspicious going on.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Or why he was even here. This was crazy. But crazy or not, he wasn’t leaving just yet. Might as well finish his sugary bun and coffee.
Shifting his eyes up when he took a sip, he took inventory of the customers. Two women gossiping away with each other. He dismissed them. Another young woman sitting by herself on her phone that was hooked into the Wi-Fi. She was shopping and being stupid about it. Good way to get her credit cards scammed. A middle-aged man was sitting in the center of the room on his laptop. Looked to be reading the news. Then closer to the counter, a young pimple-faced millennial. He was on the Wi-Fi and looked to be scanning some devices in the store. Or fishing around himself.
Vin was smart enough to block what he was doing on his own computer, but the acne-covered man wasn’t. Vin typed in a few more things, and didn’t have a hard time finding that there wasn’t much going on other than the guy just being nosy. Not really hacking, but more like playing. Still, he’d play with him for a minute, just for the entertainment factor.
It only took a few keystrokes and he had this guy’s computer disabled from the Wi-Fi. It didn’t take long for him to get it up and going again, but this time Vin locked him up for a minute, waiting to see the guy’s next move.
There wasn’t a chance for more before Piper came out, saw him sitting there, smiled that huge grin of hers, and made her way over. “Vin,” she said. “This is a surprise.”
“Morning,” he said. What was he supposed to say? He figured he’d see her. “Just thought I’d check your shop out since you’ve been leaving me goodies.”
“Coming to see what you might be missing?” she asked, grinning at him, her hand landing on his shoulder. She looked down. “Cinnamon bun, huh? I made you for a pretty simple guy. Won’t be trying any of my cardamom scones, huh?”
He snorted. “Not quite.”
She pulled a rag out of her apron pocket and started to clean off the empty table next to him. “So what really brought you by?” she asked.
“Just wanted to check out your storefront.” It wasn’t a complete lie.
“And do you like what you see?” she asked.
There was a double meaning there. He knew it. She knew he knew it. “Maybe.” That was as close as he was getting to admitting that right now.
“Well, you let me know when you make up your mind.”
Then she walked away to finish cleaning up the tables. He hadn’t missed her glance down at his computer to see what he was working on, but he’d brought up a news page before she made her way over.
She stopped and talked to everyone else while she cleaned up, just like she had him.
When she stopped at the young man he’d been messing with online, he noticed the top of the laptop go down. After Piper was done talking, he’d packed up and left, grabbing a little napkin he’d been doodling on too. Almost as if he was waiting for Piper to visit before he could leave. And he hadn’t missed how the guy watched Piper talking to everyone, then frowned when she put her hand on his shoulder. Something she only did to him this morning. Interesting. And something for him to look into.
Mixed Company
“Who was that?” Sam asked, coming to a halt after she swung the kitchen door open.
“Who?” Piper asked, watching Sam’s blonde ponytail swish about and land over her shoulder. She always moved so fast her hair swung everywhere. “And did you leave the storefront unmanned?”
“No, Nicole is restocking again. Mr. Large Black Coffee and Sticky Bun. Speaking of buns…yummy on him too.”
Sam always called them sticky buns instead of cinnamon buns and Piper stopped trying to correct her. “You need to be more specific. A lot of people order that.”
“Don’t play with me. The hunky man. You were running your fingertips over his shoulder. The one that was watching you when you walked out and when you walked around talking to everyone before and after him. The one you winked at.”
“Oh, him,” Piper said. “That’s Vin. Vin Steele. My neighbor.”
“You talked to him? You’ve got his name? You never told me any of that,” Sam accused, putting her hands on her hips.
“It just happened and I’ve been busy. It kind of slipped my mind.”
Sam snorted. “I call stinky pants and you don’t lie well. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because she wanted to avoid this type of conversation. There wasn’t much to say and Piper always kept things close to her chest when it came to men. Which was funny because she was a nosy person who didn’t keep much to her chest about life in general. But in this case, something told her that Vin might not like his name spoken in mixed company.
“There isn’t much to say. His mail was delivered to my house by mistake and I knocked on his door. Then I ran into him when I came back from a jog and gave him some more cookies.”
She wasn’t going to tell Sam that Vin was in her apartment. That would cause more questions that she didn�
��t want to answer. Not when she was still trying to make sense of it herself.
“And he just decided to come to the shop and eat more?” Sam asked, not really buying it, she could see. “Sample some of your cookies. Hmm, I like that. That might be a new code for me.”
Piper shook her head. “You just saw what I did.”
“Look who is here,” Nicole said, opening the door, then nodding her head at Sam to leave.
“Hi,” Piper said, a big smile on her face as she walked over to the last set of foster parents she’d had. Jane and Chris Shaffer. She’d started out calling them Mr. and Mrs. Shaffer, then moved to their first names. In that last year, they’d wanted her to call them Mom and Dad, but she didn’t. She decided to never personally address them at all if she could avoid it so she wouldn’t hurt their feelings. So far it was working for her.
“I hope we aren’t bothering you or interrupting?” Jane asked. “But we were in the mood for cookies and thought we’d stop in to say hi.” Jane looked around the kitchen, proudly. “You look really busy. We are so happy to see you thriving like this.”
“Thanks,” Piper said, then stopped when Skip walked in the door followed by his fiancée, Kaylee. Skip was really Chris Jr., the Shaffer’s son, but somewhere, someone nicknamed him Skip. He was three years older than Piper and out of the house for the most part when Piper moved in. Just back between college semesters and that was enough. More than enough.
“Hi,” she said, before Skip walked over and gave her a huge hug, lifting her off her feet and kissing her on the cheek. He always did that too, and it always made her flinch. She didn’t like being touched by him. By anyone when she was in foster care.
“You’re an engaged man now,” Kaylee said, her smile forced, like it always was in Piper’s presence. She often wondered how they ended up together, as they seemed so different from each other. “You shouldn’t be touching other women, right, Jane?”