Dirty Little Secrets

by Elise Noble

  In short, I liked working there, except when Darla asked questions I didn’t know how to answer.

  “Vega hurt his leg yesterday, and I had to take him to the veterinarian in Coos Bay for surgery. Is it okay if I go to get him this afternoon? I’ll make up the hours.”

  “Of course it’s okay. I’ll see if Paulo can come in, but if not, I’ll manage. Could you do me a favour and pick up a package of worming tablets for Pickle while you’re there?”

  Pickle had shown up on the store’s doorstep six months ago—no, seven months now—a skinny waif of a cat, hopping with fleas. When nobody claimed her, Darla had decided that we should take her in, which meant getting her spayed and health-checked and feeding her twice a day. Oh, sure, Darla claimed she wasn’t a cat person, but now Pickle had three beds, a scratching post in the break area, and a never-ending supply of organic kitty treats. Plus an Instagram page, courtesy of Paulo.

  So I’d known it wouldn’t be a problem for me to take some personal time to pick up Vega, but I was still grateful that Darla made things so easy. That was the best part of my job at the Craft Cabin—the people. Sometimes we had to work evenings if we had a lot of online orders, but Darla would buy cakes and put on music, and Paulo was a demon with packaging. Yes, I’d sure lucked out with my colleagues.

  “Absolutely. The same tablets as last time?”

  “Maybe ask the veterinarian what he recommends?”

  “She,” I said automatically, thinking of the flirty redhead and the way she’d spent half of the appointment gazing at Luca. “Her name’s Carly.”

  Darla raised a pencilled-in eyebrow. “You don’t like her?”

  Uh-oh, was it that obvious?

  “I’m sure she’s a nice person, but she spent more time checking out the guy who gave me a ride to Coos Bay than my dog.”

  Wrong thing to say. Now Darla’s other eyebrow zinged up to meet her hairline. “You went with a guy?”

  “Nothing to get excited over—Luca’s just a friend of my brother’s who’s in town for a few days. Aaron sent him to rescue me because he had to go to court.”

  “It’s good that you had help.”

  That was another thing I liked about Darla—she was interested in my life, but not nosy. She cared, but not to the point of pushiness. Unlike Paulo. If he found out I’d been within ten yards of a guy, he’d be planning my wedding, from the dress to the guest list to the party favours. Even Addy had been hinting lately that I should try dating again. She didn’t know the whole story of what had happened a year ago, though, just that I’d made a horrible mistake with a guy. I’d only told one person the truth.

  Sammi had been the other executive assistant at Harding and Lucas, the accounting firm I’d worked for in Coos Bay. The hours were long, but there’d been a “work hard, play hard” culture that I’d tried so hard to fit into. With hindsight, it had been like squeezing into a pair of jeans half a size too small—it looked good, but it was never quite comfortable. It was Sammi who’d found me crying in the bathroom late on Monday morning, still groggy and hung-over and trying to process what had happened to me. I’d confessed my mistakes—the blackout, the feeling that I’d done something with a man but I wasn’t entirely sure what, the way I felt dirty and sick inside.

  And her reaction? Welcome to the club.

  Everybody drank too much at some point in their lives, she said. Everyone made mistakes with guys. It was practically a rite of passage. Sammi was trying to be kind, to comfort me, but her words left me feeling stupid as well as icky. And was that really surprising? I’d heard what people said about other women.

  She’d been drinking.

  She wore a slutty dress.

  She was asking for it.

  The part they never mentioned?

  The shame.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of people saying those things about me. Whispering behind my back. That the event had happened was painful enough, without society telling me it was my fault and if I’d just acted differently that night, everything would have been fine.

  And when I’d decided not to report the matter, I’d been too embarrassed to tell Addy the details either. Plus she’d been miserable herself. Her latest boyfriend had broken up with her three days before the party, so I just nodded along with her “all men are assholes” rants and kept my mouth shut about my own problems.

  At the time, it had seemed like the sensible approach, but now?

  Now, I had nobody to tell about the “Happy Anniversary” card the sick beast had sent me, printed with the same skinny block capitals that he’d used to leave his parting note that awful night. Even the thought of the words he’d written inside made me shudder.

  DO YOU REMEMBER ME? BECAUSE I REMEMBER YOU.

  And when I’d arrived home last night and found his gift—a dozen white lilies ordered from an online florist with a note telling me that he missed me—all I’d been able to do was sit at home alone with the horrible knowledge that he was thinking about me the same as I was thinking about him.

  And worse, he had my address.

  Cupid wasn’t done with me yet.

  Did tormenting me from afar turn him on? Give him a sick thrill? The note had been printed in a card with a cupid’s heart on the front, which was one of the store’s standard options. I’d checked. A banner ad on the website offered customers the choice of typing their message into a box or uploading a scanned version “for that personal touch.” The lilies had set the asshole back forty bucks. Why spend that amount of money? Was he jerking off to my fear? And why lilies? Everyone knew they were funeral flowers. Did he want to scare me twofold or simply remind me of my own mortality?

  Either way, it worked.

  I hadn’t slept. I’d sat on the couch all night with the lights on, jumping at every tiny sound outside, my finger poised over my phone’s keypad. I’d longed to call Aaron, but I knew how hurt he’d be that I’d kept my secret from him for so long. Even though I’d made the decision for his benefit, he wouldn’t understand. My big brother didn’t always think rationally.

  That was my job.

  I couldn’t afford not to keep my feelings in check. If I’d let my emotions overwhelm me after our parents died, after Luca’s rejection, through all of Nonna’s health problems, I’d have cried myself into an early grave. But no, I’d kept my head. Kept my head so Aaron could finish the law degree he’d already spent years working toward. We were a team—that was the pact we’d made when we lost Mom and Dad. Whatever shit got thrown at us, we’d get through it together.

  “Luca said he’d give me a ride to the veterinarian again today,” I told Darla. “We need to pick up a crate for Vega on the way, and I think it might be heavy.”

  “He has to go in a crate? The poor thing.”

  “I’ll have to let him out at lunchtimes. Do you think if I come in early, I could take an extra break in the mornings?”

  “Does he like cats?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Because if he won’t bark at Pickle, you could put the crate in the break room instead. That way he’d have company for more of the day.”

  “Really?”

  Darla had always said she wasn’t a dog person either.

  She shrugged. “It just seems easier, that’s all.”

  It would be. It definitely would be, not least because there weren’t any stairs into the store. Far easier for Vega to do his business in the parking lot twice a day than for me to schlep him in and out of my apartment. Or worse, have to ask Luca for more help I didn’t want.

  Darla might just have saved my back as well as my sanity.

  Carly called at half past two, and although she was polite, friendly even, the sound of her voice set off a tension headache. If I could have fit the giant crate into my Honda compact, then I’d have bypassed Luca and driven to Coos Bay myself.

  But the gods weren’t smiling down, so I sent him a text message.

  Me: Vega’s surgery went well. I can pick him up no
w.

  Spending a half-day with Luca had let me see how he’d changed in the eight years he’d been gone, and not just physically. Yes, he was bulkier in the shoulders and leaner in the waist, but he also carried a tension with him that hadn’t been there before. A twitchiness. In the old days, he’d never been able to truly relax—how could he with what he’d had to deal with at home?—but now it looked as if he carried a heavier weight on those broad shoulders. Probably he did. When he was working, he was responsible for people’s lives and, if his concentration lapsed, their deaths.

  And what about his sister? Had she gotten into any more trouble? I’d heard rumours over the years, and one time, Aaron had taken a cab across New York in the middle of the night to rescue her from a party after a panicked call from Luca. She’d gone to rehab after that. Luca probably thought I didn’t know about Romi’s meltdown, but I’d been staying with my brother that weekend, and I’d ended up watching a Broadway show alone while he dealt with the fallout from her mess.

  But was it any wonder she had issues after the way her father had treated her? Luca had suffered too, physically as well as mentally. That was something else I wasn’t meant to know, but I hadn’t been blind. I’d seen the bruises they’d both tried to hide.

  Anyhow, Luca had changed, but in many ways, he was also the same. The bossiness, the assholic tendencies, the cloud of pheromones that seeped from his pores and made women roll out their tongues like tiny red carpets… Those hadn’t changed.

  Plus he was still punctual. Ten minutes after I messaged him, he pulled up outside my apartment in Deck’s pickup. Was it possible for a man to get hotter overnight? He hadn’t shaved, but his hair was still wet from the shower. His faded blue T-shirt might have been painted on. When he got out to open my door, I felt the intensity of his gaze, but his eyes stayed hidden behind a pair of mirrored aviators.

  “Morning.”

  “It’s the afternoon.”

  He glanced at his watch, a chunky digital thing with buttons all over the place. “So it is. Where to first?”

  “Can we pick up the crate and take it to the Craft Cabin? Vega’s gonna come to work with me each day. And I also need to stop at the pharmacy and get Mr. Bertrand’s medication.”

  “He still lives next door to the Crowes?”

  “Yes, and his daughter moved away, so I help out with errands when I can.”

  “Bet you help out half the damn neighbourhood.”

  More like a quarter. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “No, no problem. And sure, we can drop by the pharmacy.”

  Luca didn’t ask where the Craft Cabin was, so I assumed that somebody had filled him in on at least some of the changes to Baldwin’s Shore since he left. When we got there, Darla had moved the chairs around to make space in the break room, and I noticed she gave Luca the once-over as he wrestled the crate into place and set it up. Just a quick appraisal, but her eyes lingered on his ass for a second, and I honestly couldn’t blame her for that.

  “Does your brother have any more friends?” she whispered.

  “Uh, maybe? Luca’s—” I’d been about to say that Luca was single, but then I realised I didn’t know that. Aaron had never mentioned a girlfriend, and neither had Luca, but what if he was seeing someone? Plus Carly had given him her number—did he think I hadn’t noticed that? “Luca’s only in town temporarily. He’s between jobs at the moment.”

  “Ah.”

  “He does contract work. Security stuff.”

  “Like a mall cop?”

  The thought of Luca riding around the mall in Coos Bay on a Segway made me smile for the first time all day, but when I swallowed my giggle, I ended up choking and he looked at me funny.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay.” I lowered my voice and leaned closer to Darla. “No, overseas security stuff. He was an Army Ranger.”

  Darla glanced in Luca’s direction again, just as he bent over to clip one of the crate’s panels into place.

  “Figures.”

  How did it figure? Because of his ass? It really was a very nice ass. Now that time had dulled the sting of his brush-off, I could look at these things objectively. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “I should put blankets in the crate. Or a cushion.” Except I didn’t have a cushion. “I’ll bring something from home tomorrow.”

  “An old quilt? I have an old quilt you can use.”

  “Really? That’d be great.”

  Pickle stalked in, peered into the crate, and gave Darla a questioning look. Please, let her get along with Vega. I didn’t think Vega would chase her because when squirrels came into the yard at home, he’d make one half-hearted attempt to run after them, then sit at the bottom of the steps and bark as they dug up the lawn, much to Mrs. Crowe’s disappointment. Rodent patrol just seemed like too much hard work.

  Luca paused what he was doing for a second to gift Darla one of his toothpaste-ad smiles, all teeth and dimples.

  “Thanks for accommodating the dog. Brooke worries about him.”

  “My pleasure. You two want a coffee before you go?”

  We didn’t have time. “No, it’s—”

  “OMG!” Paulo appeared at the back door, frantically smoothing down his hair. It was thick and lush and, this week, blond with purple tips. Taming it was his biggest challenge. Today, he’d sprayed it with silver glitter that floated to the ground like overachieving snowflakes. “Nobody told me we were having a visitor. What’s the cage for? Are we gonna be running YouTube BDSM sessions now? You know, branching out?”

  Now he was staring at Luca’s ass, and unlike Darla, he didn’t try to hide it. And when Luca straightened and turned, Paulo stared at the rest of him too, unashamedly, including his package.

  “Where did you come from, hot stuff?”

  That was the first time I’d seen Luca look unsure about anything, and my lips twitched into another smile. Paulo could be a tiny bit full-on sometimes, but he was adorable. Or adazzleable, as he preferred to call himself.

  “Paulo, meet Luca. He’s a friend of my brother’s. Luca, this is Paulo, my other colleague.”

  Luca held out a hand, but Paulo crushed him in a hug instead.

  “Ooh, I’m very happy to meet you.” Paulo stood on tiptoes and mouthed at me over Luca’s shoulder. “Straight?”

  I nodded. Luca might have been straight, but I was struggling to keep my face that way.

  Somehow, Darla managed the feat. “I’m not sure BDSM’s allowed on YouTube, hun. Can you put Brooke’s friend down? We have thirty packages to ship out today, and a delivery of yarn just arrived too.”

  Paulo backed away, fanning himself, still not taking his eyes off Luca. “Sure, sure, I’ll get right on that.”

  Yes, I loved my colleagues. With them, what you saw was what you got, and their honesty sure beat the double-dealing and back-stabbing I’d come across in the corporate world.

  I’d done the right thing by moving back to Baldwin’s Shore.

  Hadn’t I?

  6

  Brooke

  “What just happened in there?” Luca asked when we climbed back into the truck.

  “Do you mean Paulo? Sometimes he can be a little…extra.”

  “Extra… Right. Do I have glitter on my shirt?”

  “Uh, yes?”

  And in his hair, and on his face, and on his pants.

  “Fuck.” He batted at the fabric with his hands, and then Deck’s truck was covered in glitter too. “Glad I kept my sunglasses on.”

  “How did that help with the glitter?”

  “It didn’t. But being in that room was like staring into the sun.”

  “Oh, you mean Darla’s outfit?”

  I’d gotten used to her fashion choices over the years. Her style tended toward voluminous. Think caftans, muumuus, and tent dresses, which until I met Darla, I’d thought were all the same thing. Apparently, they weren’t. Muumuus were yokeless dresses that hailed from Hawaii, often in floral patterns. Tent dr
esses hung from the shoulder to the hips or floor with no waistline whatsoever. And caftans, they were more exotic garments that originated in ancient Mesopotamia, narrower cut with long, flowing sleeves and a deep, open neck. Working at the Craft Cabin was nothing if not educational. I used to roll my eyes at her outfits, but then she’d made me a muumuu for Christmas and it changed my life. It was just so comfortable. Although I only wore it around the house, I was considering investing in a tent dress or two for the summer.

  Anyhow, back to Darla. Today, she’d teamed her sunshine-yellow muumuu with a matching hair turban and the hot-pink tasselled earrings she’d made last week for one of Paulo’s YouTube videos, plus hand-painted boots in forest green. And yes, I had to concede that she’d looked kind of bright.

  “Yeah, I mean her outfit,” Luca said. “I thought only grandmas wore caftans?”

  “It was a muumuu,” I said out of habit, and Luca just stared at me. Mental note: don’t let him see me in my own palm-print version. “Darla’s only thirty-four, but she says lounge dresses are very comfortable.”

  “There sure are some interesting people in Baldwin’s Shore now.”

  “You know how it goes—most people born here want to leave and see the world, and outsiders want to stay for the peace and quiet.”

  What a stupid thing to say. Yes, it was the truth, but it left the door wide open for Luca’s next question.

  “Why’d you come back, Brooke? When we were kids, you always wanted to travel. I mean, I know about your grandma, but… When you moved to Coos Bay, you didn’t want to stay there?”

  I cursed in my head. All the four-letter words I knew plus a bunch I made up. Then I did what any sensible girl would do when their former crush was one spadeful of dirt away from digging up their darkest, most rotten secret. I deflected.

  Poorly.

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “You already did, yesterday, and I told you the answer.”

  Why did my brain always malfunction around Luca Mendez?