“If you tell me everything I’ll buy half the store. But I want to hear everything. Don’t leave out a single detail.”
Cherri dumped the dress she had picked out for Melina on top of her and shut the door. She raked her fingers through her hair, hoping that just this once she didn’t look like she had stuck her finger in a socket.
Calm down, dummy. It’s just Colin. He doesn’t care what your hair looks like.
“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Hey,” he responded. “The stool. You never finished it.” He seemed as unsure of himself in that moment as she did. “I think your work is good. I need to see it completed.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected him to say that, and for some reason she was a little disappointed hearing it. “I thought that the stool was just something you gave me to keep me out of your hair while you fixed Baba’s music box. Giving me paint is like giving a kid a new toy.” She had been all out of sorts since she’d left his shop that day. She had gone to him expecting him just to fix her grandmother’s broken music box but what she got was different. She got a glimpse of who Colin really was. She had always thought of him like an expensive painting, beautiful and untouchable.
But now … Things had changed.
“Can you come by and finish it?”
“Yeah. Of course. I told you I would. We had a deal. If you bring it by the house, I can work on it after I leave here. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” He looked a little disappointed, and she wasn’t sure why. “It’s perfect. You forgot this at my shop.” He took the scarf from his neck and wound it around hers. She hadn’t noticed that he was wearing it when he came in and now she wished he hadn’t. It smelled like him, like warm skin and spicy man.
“Thank you.”
His hands lightly gripped the scarf, the heat of them seeping through the fabric and warming her chest. He was looking at her, studying her, and she felt self-conscious. That was new for her. When she’d first met him, she had thought him beautiful, a player and so far out of her league he might as well be in the stars; there was no reason to be or to feel anything less than her normal self. But today she couldn’t meet his eyes. Today her feelings were jumbled, and again she wished she could be different. Smaller, graceful, beautiful. Maybe he would see her differently if she were.
She hated herself for thinking that way. For wishing she were different. If he couldn’t appreciate her for who she was, then screw him!
She only wished he had the courage to say that, or raise her eyes to meet his. So she looked at the floor instead, then at his chin, and then past him through the shop window instead of looking him in the eye. “I wondered where I left this.”
“Cherri … You aren’t upset with me, for saying you were like my baby sister?”
“Of course not,” she lied, because it did bother her. Of course it did.
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
She attempted to drag her gaze back to him, but an older woman caught her attention. It was mid-December and bitterly cold and the woman wore only a sleeveless blue housedress, her long white hair flowing around her shoulders.
Cherri’s heart lodged in her throat.
“Baba!” She was out the door, barely hearing Colin as he shouted her name.
“Baba?” She ran after her grandmother down the street. “Baba, stop!” She did, and when she turned around her eyes were glassy and unfocused. “Baba, it’s me.” Cherri touched her face, ran her hands down her icy arms, checking to see if she was okay.
“Cherri?” She blinked. “What are you doing here?”
“Baba, you’re on St. Lucy Street without your coat. What are you doing here? Are you okay?”
Her eyes refocused and she looked around her, finally snapping out of her spell. “I—I was hot. I wanted to take a walk.”
“A walk? But Baba, the house is so far away.” Cherri paused, lost for words.
“Cherri, honey.” She felt a touch on her shoulder and turned to see Colin and Belinda standing behind her. Their faces wore identical expressions of concern. “Let’s get her inside,” Belinda said.
They ushered her inside to Ellis’s small office. Baba sat quietly with a blanket draped around her. Cherri’s hands shook but she held on to her grandmother, kissing her frozen forehead. She couldn’t stop the what-ifs from entering her mind, and the fear made her nauseous.
“Stop slobbering on me, pixie! I’m fine. You know my blood pressure medication makes me hot. Stop freaking up.”
“It’s freaking out, Baba! And don’t tell me not to freak out. You were in the middle of town half dressed. What am I supposed to do?” She never got angry with Baba, but this time things were different.
“You’re a good girl.” Baba patted her cheek. “But take a chill aspirin.”
“It’s take a chill pill and I will not. I was worried about you!” How could she be so cavalier about this? Didn’t she realize what could have happened? The last shred of Cherri’s fragile patience snapped and she laid into her grandmother.
“You’re speaking Russian?” Baba raised a graying brow. “Your grandfather only spoke it when he was angry with me, too. He must have been pissed off a lot judging by how well you speak it.”
“That’s because you’re a stubborn old mule and somebody should have spanked you a long time ago.”
Baba only grinned at her.
“Why are you smiling? You’re not supposed to be smiling! I’m yelling at you.”
“You speak Ukrainian flawlessly, too. Much better than your mother. I’m so proud of you.”
She let out a frustrated growl and left the room. The storeroom was the closest and Cherri found herself there, with her hands braced on the counter to prevent her from trembling. She tried to breathe in but choked, her lungs and throat burning with frustration and paralyzing fear.
She couldn’t leave Baba alone anymore. If she did, every moment would be filled with worry. But she had to go to work. They had bills to pay. The house was falling apart around them and Baba’s Social Security check wasn’t enough to support them. Cherri needed to do something. She needed help.
Hard arms wrapped around her waist just as she was about to sink into panic. Warm skin. Spicy male. Colin. Her mind shut off and her body took over. She turned into his embrace and leaned on him. She couldn’t remember the last time she had somebody to lean on.
“I’m scared,” she admitted aloud for the first time.
“You’d be a fool if you weren’t, lass.” He kissed her cheek, and she let her eyes drift shut as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Take her to the doctor. This happened to my gran and it was her medications. They don’t always interact with each other well. It made her a bit off. Maybe that’s your Baba’s problem, too.”
She hadn’t taken Baba to the doctor yet. She should have months ago but she was afraid of what he might say. Part of her would rather live in denial than have to look the truth in the face.
His hands slid up her back and tangled into her loose hair. “Will you do that, love?”
She nodded. “Tomorrow.”
“Look at me, lass.”
For the first time that day she fully met his gaze. There was nothing but concern for her there, and she remembered why she considered him a friend in the first place. “It’s going to be all right. You have to believe that.”
“You have no way of knowing that, but thank you for trying.”
He smiled softly, his lips brushing hers and lingering for a moment. It was the sweetest of kisses. It was one of those kisses that was too long and too short at the same time and it left her head even more muddled than before.
“Oh, excuse me!” They turned to see Ellis frozen in the doorway with the most curious expression on her face. “Uh, Cherri? Baba’s calling you. Oh and Colin, Mike’s back. He wants to know if you can help him next door.”
“I’ll be there in a second,” she said, expecting Ellis to walk out the door, but she didn’t. Cherri turned her
attention back to Colin but felt Ellis’s gaze on her back. “Thank you.” She quickly hugged him. “I’ll let you know what happens.”
He kissed her cheek. “Call me if you need anything—a ride to the doctor, a lap dance, anything.”
Her lips twitched at his stupid joke and she broke away feeling slightly calmer.
She followed Ellis out the door, but instead of heading directly back into her office Ellis stopped right outside. “Is there something going on with you and Colin?”
“No. Why?”
“Cherri, he kissed you.”
Ah, the kiss. She didn’t want to think about it too much. She didn’t want to read into it. She still felt the warmth from his lips on hers. It was all she could do not to touch her mouth to seal the feeling in. “It was innocent.” She believed that. Colin didn’t see her that way. Colin was like that with every woman.
“Oh, I—” She shook her head.
“What?”
“It was just the way he was looking at … Never mind. See to your grandmother. Belinda is in there with her. I’m going to man the front of the store.”
She left, and Cherri walked back into Ellis’s office to see her grandmother braiding Belinda’s hair. Fifteen minutes ago she had given her the scare of her life and now she was playing beauty parlor with Belinda. What the hell was she going to do with her?
“Red hair is beautiful, no?” Baba glanced at Cherri. “Back in the old country children with red hair were locked in the basement and thought to be evil.”
Belinda looked frightened. “That’s not true, is it?”
“No,” Baba answered. “We were too poor to have basements. Where is my sexy Irish boy? I like looking at him.”
“Baba!”
She was unconcerned by Cherri’s scold. “You keep your legs closed around him. You hear?”
Her face flushed slightly. Could the old lady read her mind?
“He’s the one who fixed your music box,” she said in a lame attempt to change the subject.
“I know who he is, dumb-dumb. I didn’t say I had to keep my legs closed around him.”
Cherri slapped her hands over her ears. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I’m a widow. We can be friends with insurance.”
“That’s friends with benefits, Baba!”
Cherri smiled despite all the other emotions churning inside her. Baba had a way about her that Cherri couldn’t stay mad at.
CHAPTER 6
Us against the world …
I shouldn’t have kissed her, Colin thought grimly as he made the short journey to see Mike. The kiss didn’t mean anything, he reassured himself. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything anyway. He had only meant to offer comfort to a scared girl. But things didn’t work out that way. She made him feel things he wasn’t used to.
“Hey,” Mike greeted him as he entered. “Is Cherri okay? Elle said she was pretty shaken up.”
“She was. She probably still is, but I think she’ll be fine.”
“That’s good,” he said, returning his attention to the blank wall he was studying. “I’m glad you stopped by. I need your help hanging these mirrors. I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
He wasn’t expecting to see his oldest friend, either. He hadn’t even expected to leave his shop that morning, but restlessness drove him out. And Cherri’s sugar-scented scarf. He had stared at the scarf for two whole days. Its soft scent filled his workshop, overpowering the paint fumes and oil. It served as a constant reminder of her, distracting him from his duties. And like a fool he watched the door waiting for her to stop by and finish the stool he should have never offered her in the first place.
But she never came. He had hurt her feelings the other day. Lord knew he hadn’t meant to.
It was just that she drove him batshit crazy and he wasn’t used to that. With all the other women in his life he had been in control, or at least he thought he was.
You should have stayed away today.
He saw a new side of her when she was caring for her grandmother. It made him think: What would it feel like to have someone love him like that? It made him realize how alone he was. His father was busy with his women. He hadn’t seen his half sister in a decade. He never knew his mother. He didn’t have a family. He wasn’t getting any younger. Maybe it was time for him to change.
When did I become so fucking maudlin?
“Hey, O’Connell! If I knew you were going to stand around like a goddamn bump on a log I would have gotten somebody else to help me.”
“I was thinking,” he said, pulling himself from his deep thoughts. “And maybe you should have.” He snatched the tape measure from Mike and quickly measured the glass. “I think you’re taking advantage of my plethora of skills and my pleasing personality. Your cheap arse should hire somebody like every other bloke in this town.”
“Why should I?” Mike bent down to make a pencil mark on the wall. “I moved back to Durant so I could exploit your labor.”
“And here I thought it was because you wanted to be near me. I was beginning to think you fancied me.”
“Nah, I like my men with tighter asses.”
Colin grinned at that parting shot as they hoisted the heavy mirror on the wall and secured it in place. It was easy to work with Mike. The two of them had been flat mates in college and caused so much trouble that they should have been kicked out. But they made it through, and somehow over the four years Mike had become his family, taking him home for holidays and long summer breaks. Mike’s mother and three sisters gave him a glimpse of what a real family could be like. It made him think it was possible for him to have one.
“You think you want kids, Edwards?”
Mike paused and looked at him thoughtfully. “Yeah. I didn’t think so before. Ellis and I agreed we weren’t going to but lately … I don’t know. I’ve been having this urge to see my wife pregnant, and I see the way she looks at babies. I think she might want to have some, too.”
“You going to talk to her about it?”
He nodded. “But not for a few months. We need to open the bridal salon before we think about having a baby.”
Colin chuckled. His best friend the former badass detective had quit his job to spend his days working in a dress shop.
“What the hell are you laughing at?”
“You. If somebody told me that you would have traded in your gun for a handbag I would have called them a liar.”
Mike shrugged. “I fell in love. Didn’t expect that to happen, either, but since I did, nothing else seems to matter to me but her happiness.”
Colin had never thought Mike was capable of that kind of love—the change-who-you-are kind of love—but apparently he was. He gave up his life to make a woman happy and in return he found happiness that Colin had never seen before. While thoughts of starting a life and a family filled his mind, he wasn’t sure he could ever have what his friends had.
Once upon a time he thought he was in love. He thought he would be married by now, but Serena had shattered that dream when she betrayed him. When he found out about her deception it knocked him on his ass. But when he was finished licking his wounds he realized that he’d never loved her the way Mike loved his wife. He wasn’t willing to change his life for her. He wasn’t sure there was a woman out there he was prepared to do that for.
“Aww, lad.” He smirked, pulling himself away from his thoughts again. “You should trade in your bollocks right now. I think you’re becoming a woman.”
He shrugged. “Who cares? Have you seen my wife? Who’s been warming up your sheets lately?”
“Nobody,” he said with a grimace.
“What the hell happened to you?” Mike said teasingly. “Ever since I’ve known you, you haven’t gone more than two weeks between women. You must be losing your touch.”
“Fuck you,” he said without heat. His friend had a point. He was the guy who always had a woman, a girlfriend, somebody to fill his nights. But when he hit thirty
he realized he was turning into his father. His didn’t want to be Magnus. He didn’t want to be over fifty and still chasing tail. “I’ve just become more selective now that I’m mature.”
“Mature? Don’t you mean old?”
“We’re the same age for fuck’s sake!”
“Yeah, but I’ve been married for a year and you’re still scratching your ass.”
“You’re a cocky arsehole when you’re getting laid,” he said, but part of him envied his friend. Maybe it was time he got serious about settling down.
* * *
At thirty-three degrees it was the warmest day of the week.
“Take Rufus for a long walk, pixie. He’s been inside for too long. That’s why he tries to escape.” She scratched behind Rufus’s ears. “You’ve been sad, yes? You are upset with Cherri because she has been taking you on those shitty five-minute walks. She doesn’t mean to make you miserable, but she is an American. Americans cannot take the cold like Ukrainians. We have much thicker blood. She wouldn’t last five minutes in my homeland.”
Cherri looked at her grandmother as she insulted her and shook her head. Baba was right. She had been taking Rufus on short walks and it had nothing to do with the cold. She didn’t like leaving Baba alone in the house since she’d found her walking past Size Me Up. And for the past week a rotating cast of Baba’s friends had been taking turns staying with her when Cherri had to work.
“Come with me. We can go to the park with the big lake in it. You like it there. The doctor said it would be good for you to get some exercise.”
“Bah.” She waved her hand. “I’m not going to the park, it’s too cold. Walk the dog.”
Cherri shut her eyes for a moment, trying to pull strength from somewhere. Baba had been fine since her doctor adjusted her medication. No traces of forgetfulness, no disorientation. In fact, she had been sharper than ever, but Cherri still didn’t want to go.
“Please, Baba.” She opened her eyes. “I’ll buy you a cupcake when we’re finished walking.”
“Buy me a cupcake anyway. A chocolate one. I’m fine, pixie, stop being such a worry mole.”
“Worrywart, Baba. Worrywart.”
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