Burned

by Nikki Duncan

  Only she and Hauk knew she flicked her tongue over the corner of his lips.

  Only she knew her belly quivered and goose pimples ran down her back. How had she not known they would be so combustive?

  “I love being with you too much.” He sighed, kissed her back with the briefest shift of his lips.

  Then, grumbling about stubborn women and meddling old men and questioning daughters, Hauk returned to his wood and nail gun that waited on the other side of the gazebo. Vic smiled as she climbed the ladder and began painting and plotting.

  Hauk was falling for her even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. His bad mood was passing and he was losing the ability to resist her, and if she got really lucky, he would lose the desire to. As quietly as the insight into Hauk came to her, another realization dawned. She would win him over. He would be able to move past his losses for the sake of love.

  All the things she had told Byron she didn’t want, the things she dreamed of, she wanted with Hauk. She only needed to find a way to show him there was nothing he could do to change his past. Just as there was nothing that would change the way she felt for him. The way she had felt for him for years.

  Leaning on the top rung of the ladder, she pulled her phone from her pocket.

  She had expected voicemail, but Josie answered on the second ring. She almost didn’t hear her friend over the screams and laughs of her class in the background. “Hey, Vic. Tell me you’re doing something great and fun while I am watching a group of kindergarteners destroy my room.”

  “I am standing on a ladder painting the new stage.” She would have to pitch her voice high for Hauk to hear over the nail gun, but she spoke low to make sure she wasn’t overheard.

  “I was hoping for something a little hotter.”

  “I am watching a sexy man who knows the perfect blend of touches to make my body sing.”

  “Stephen, don’t climb on that. No, you can’t be Superman inside. Vic, are you saying what I think you are?”

  “Yes.” Only Josie could wrangle a room of kids and keep track of a man-centric conversation at the same time. “And it is my reason for calling. Can I get your help this afternoon?”

  “You’re plotting something. Stephen, this is your last warning. Jonas, let go of Mindy’s braid. Tell me when and where.”

  “The salon. After school. Good luck with Superman.”

  “Thanks. See you then.”

  A couple more calls later and her plan was falling more fully into place. The one thing Hauk had wanted for years would finally be his, and she was going to have a blast surprising him with it.

  She would show Hauk it was okay to release the past.

  It was okay to stop fighting love.

  Chapter Eight

  Hauk was grinning when he opened the door to Vic’s salon to let Sophie enter before him.

  “Whisper to one. Whisper to all. Your secrets are safe within my walls.” Vic’s sultry voice greeting them from the non-traditional door chime stretched his grin wider. It was the same voice she spoke in during sex, or when she was tired from staying up all night, even though she was as reluctant as him to break the moments they stole together.

  “Is Vic here?” Sophie was practically bouncing as she asked Carmen for Vic. “I have to tell her something.”

  “She is in the back. Hang—”

  Sophie was off before Carmen could say anything more. Hauk moved to follow, but Carmen stepped away from Byron’s wife, Ruth, and blocked him.

  “Excuse me.”

  “I can’t let you back there.”

  “I can’t count the times I’ve been back there.” The idea of being cut off from sharing Sophie’s moment with Vic was like a shattered beer bottle to the heart. It was messy, smelly and painful.

  “Vic! What are you—” Sophie’s excited voice quieted instantly, which wasn’t an easy task. Once she got on a roll, even if it only existed in her head, there was no shutting her down. Something was up.

  “That may be true,” Carmen continued, “but she isn’t alone.”

  “Really?” Smiling tightly, he stepped around Carmen and headed for the back room. Secrets may be safe within her walls, but he’d been played enough lately. It had him on edge.

  He was two strides away when Sophie and Vic came out. Sophie’s already hyper grin had grown. Still wearing the overalls that had kept him drooling even after they had left the stage site, Vic had her hair pulled into a messy ponytail that barely captured the strands of dark brown, red and blonde. Her smile was a little pinched, the way it got when something worried her. She had looked more put together walking out of the storage shed by the stage after a round of quick and rowdy sex. Whatever Sophie had walked in on, Vic wished she hadn’t. But it also seemed to excite Sophie.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, desperately fighting back the urge to drag Vic into the back room to make her explain whatever was going on, Hauk recalled the smile Sophie had inspired when she ran into the bar screaming about having won. Any lingering anger had vanished in a blink of her happiness.

  “Okay, Sophie. We have Vic. Now will you tell me what you won?”

  Vic’s smile became one of genuine excitement. “You won? That’s fabulous!”

  How had he missed something about his kid that Vic knew about? Or had he been so tangled up in stealing sleepless nights with his best friend that he had forgotten something?

  Rather than answer either of them, Sophie grabbed Vic’s hand and led her to Hauk’s side. Vic’s shoulder brushed his arm, and even through the barrier of his T-shirt he felt her heat as vibrantly as when they were naked. And just like when he saw her naked, his cock responded with eager readiness. The woman was driving him crazy and making him want the right to touch her anytime. The more he was with her the more he wanted to always be with her.

  “You know that paper I had to write for school?” Sophie started. “The one about the town and the festival.” With Vic’s body so near his, he was struggling to remember if he knew about the contest, but it did nothing to detract from the pride he felt in his daughter.

  “Yes,” he and Vic answered in unison.

  “Well, the judges decided it was the winning essay.” She bounced from foot to foot as she pulled a folded paper from her back pocket. “I am going to read it onstage before the night entertainment begins on opening day of the festival.”

  “Baby, that is awesome,” Hauk exclaimed. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Thanks. So I want to practice reading it in front of people, and I want you guys to be my first audience.”

  “We would be honored,” Vic answered for them both.

  With no more encouragement needed, Sophie unfolded the paper and began reading to her audience of four.

  “Whispering Cove. From its rocky shores and up the cobbled streets, past the colorful buildings and vibrant people, it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s home.”

  Suddenly it seemed okay that he had never followed his dream of packing Sophie up and moving away to a different life. He was content, but Sophie loved her life. That was all the assurance he needed that he’d made the right choices.

  “I think it’s as impossible to come to Whispering Cove and not fall in love as it is to not take a piece of it with you when you leave. I guess that’s not right. You can resist falling in love with Whispering Cove, but you still take something with you when you go. At least that’s what I’ve heard Dad say. And that we’ll always have our family.”

  His throat tightened. He had said that once when he had been talking about her mother. He hadn’t told her everything, but neither had he kept the truth from her. She had never again asked about the woman who left them both, tried to muddy his name and then died.

  “I’m lucky. My family is bigger than me, Dad and my grandparents. My family is Mr. Mitchell who makes me laugh when I’m sad. My family is Dr. Dani who helps me feel better when I’m sick. My family is Mrs. Wilson who bakes my birthday cakes when Dad burns them.”

  He smiled a
bout the ruined cakes. A baker, he was not.

  “My family is Vic who cuts my hair and tells me I’m pretty and helps me with my homework when Dad works late, and says she loves me.”

  The tightness in his throat became a stinging force that jumped to his eyes. His heart trembled. Vic hooked an arm through his and leaned against him. It was a simple gesture of support, the kind they’d shared in middle school when her mom passed. He couldn’t decide if the closeness and her instinct that he’d be hurting made him feel better or worse.

  “My family is everyone who works together every year to breathe life into the Fall Festival, and my family is even the tourists who visit and stay to play games during the festival.”

  Sophie paused for a breath. Vic seemed to be holding hers. He knew he was.

  “The Fall Festival. It’s important to the town, I know, but it’s always fun. And it always has me making the same wish. A wish for a bigger family.”

  Vic tightened her hold. Her fingers rubbed soothingly across his arm. She had to know what was coming.

  “In a way, I think the Fall Festival is a member of the family. It brings us together for fun, games, dancing and food. We stay out late and eat too many sweets and our parents let us ignore our chores.”

  Hauk chuckled. Sophie didn’t have a lot of chores, but she loved skipping the ones she did. She said it was like Christmas came early.

  “I think my favorite part of the Fall Festival though is the dancing. When the music is playing we get to forget for a little while about what we wish we had. We get to live in the joy of the moment. We kids get to watch the parents take their turn on the dance floor.” She looked up with a small, sad smile.

  Vic moved her arm so she instead had it around his waist. Her other hand moved to rest on his biceps.

  “Of course, most kids tell their parents they think they’re gross and embarrassing. Personally, I would like to see my dad dance. I think if he did it would mean he heard my wishes, but more, it would mean his heart healed.”

  The tears pressing against his eyes spilled over. Suddenly, Vic’s support made all the difference. Without her taking his weight, he would have collapsed with the grief of the hurt his daughter never mentioned. He’d known she needed a mom, just as he’d known he couldn’t give her one. His hope that he’d be enough, though, was eroding.

  Sophie sniffled a little, but continued. “The festival is coming soon, and I am already wishing the same wish. I wish Dad would grow our family. I wish Dad would find a mom to dance with.”

  With a long sigh, Sophie folded up the paper and tucked it back into her pocket. Mrs. Mitchell and Carmen sniffled as they went on a search for tissues. Hauk stepped away from Vic, avoiding her gaze for fear of what he might see there, and dropped to his knees before Sophie. “Honey, I had no idea you felt quite that way.”

  “It’s just something I think about every once in a while.” She wiped the tears off his cheeks and shrugged. “It doesn’t make you mad, does it?”

  “No. It doesn’t make me mad.” He would have preferred to have this talk with her in private, but he wasn’t going to put her off until they could walk home. And at least he wasn’t hearing her essay for the first time in front of a large crowd. That would have turned him into a complete mess.

  Vic locked the front door and quietly ushered Carmen and Ruth into the back room. Rather than stay in the back room or even hover close enough to listen to him and Sophie, she moved to the counter by the front door where she would no doubt wave away anyone stopping by.

  “Does it make you sad?”

  “A little.” He settled on the floor with his legs crossed and waited for Sophie to join him.

  When she did, she sat close enough that her knees brushed his and her hands rested on his legs. It was how they used to sit to play patty cake or go fish or have the kinds of serious talks a dad and a five-year-old have. They hadn’t sat like that in a long time, but it thrilled him to know she hadn’t outgrown the closeness.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “Never apologize for your feelings or how they make me feel. You are entitled to them.”

  “Okay.”

  “I am only sad because I didn’t know how much you were thinking about all that.” And that I haven’t been able to give you the things you want. He wanted to. He simply didn’t know how anymore.

  “Do you think there is ever a chance of you and me getting what I wish for?”

  “I don’t know. It would take a super-special woman to mean enough that I could let her near you.” Hauk looked across the room to where Vic worked on the computer.

  If she overheard them, she wasn’t letting on. Then, stronger than the fumes of hair coloring, it hit him. He wanted to try to grant Sophie’s wishes. He wanted to do it with Vic.

  Chapter Nine

  Vic looked at everyone who’d gathered to help her. Katy, Andie and Dani, who were there strictly for light work and food runs. Josie and Tabby who’d jumped in the day before in the salon’s back room with their creativity bursting. Aimee and the rest of Hauk’s staff were ready to handle anything that would impact operations. Carmen and Sophie were putting finishing touches on zombies, corpses and ghosts. Even Hauk’s parents, Stian and Marilyn, were on hand.

  His mom would work with the women to string lights, place decorations, set up the fog machine and arrange the spider webs. His bartender would set up the door chime Vic had brought over from the salon. His dad would help her hang the bodies.

  “Okay, people.” Vic checked her watch before settling her hands on her hips. “Does everyone know their role? We only have a few hours before Hauk gets back.”

  “You bet,” they all answered in unison.

  “Braydon is going to text me when they hit the shore,” Dani promised.

  The instant Vic had asked Braydon for help, he’d jumped at the chance and wished her luck in twisting his pal’s life onto a new path. He’d worked quickly to move the poker game they’d been planning for later in the night to the boat during the day. Hauk hadn’t wanted to take the day away from Sophie, but his parents had stepped in with an invitation for a weekend of sleepovers.

  “If we get this done before my boy gets back,” Mr. Michaelsen added as he leaned on a crutch—he’d broken his leg a couple weeks earlier when he tripped over their dog, “I’ll give each of you a hundred bucks.”

  Everyone hustled into action, leaving Vic to admire the way the man motivated volunteers. She kissed him on the cheek. “You’re why Hauk is so great.”

  “And you’re going to push him past this nonsense of holding out on love.” He dropped an arm around her shoulder and led her to the ladder he’d set up. “Now get up there so we can hang some bodies. These pulleys are going to take some time.”

  Vic smiled as she climbed the ladder and eased onto one of the three beams that spanned the length of the pub’s open-style ceiling. Crossbeams intersected every few feet. After growing up on boats and climbing the riggings, she didn’t mind the height or the narrow beam. She’d mostly wondered how she was going to hang the bodies so they could be pulled up out of the way during the day. When Sophie had caught her in the salon’s back room, she’d mentioned the pulleys her granddad had designed.

  After two hours of carefully following Mr. Michaelsen’s instructions for the installation of the hidden pulleys, her muscles cringed with each new move she made. It was paying off though. Pulley and bodies had been installed and hung on two of the three beams, with only one more beam to go. Checking her watch, she worried they may not finish in time.

  Below her, the growing crowd was making fast work of decorating. A few more people in town had heard what was going on and had shown up to help. As a result, the decorations she’d gathered and everything Hauk had collected over the years had been pulled out and mostly set up. With the bulk of the work below done, the crowd began thinning out so only a few of them remained.

  No one had been kind enough, or maybe crazy enough, to shimmy along the rafters
with her to hang bodies. Oddly, it didn’t bother her in the least. There was a sense of pride in knowing she’d done a large part of the work herself.

  “Come take a break, Vic,” Mrs. Michaelsen urged with an iced Dr. Pepper in hand.

  It was Vic’s favorite but she shook her head. “Bring it up and I’ll take a drink, but I don’t want to climb up here more than absolutely necessary.”

  She’d already traversed the length of two beams and rigged the stuffed zombie bodies, skeletons and gauze ghosts on those. Comfortable with heights or not, even she was reaching her limit after nearly three hours.

  “You’re a stubborn woman,” Mrs. Michaelsen grumbled sweetly as she climbed the ladder with the drink in one hand. “It’s what gives us hope this will work.”

  Vic smiled her thanks as she took the drink. She didn’t think decorating the bar would be enough to convince Hauk she was a safe bet for life, but she hoped it would help him see how his sacrifices in life had paid off. He’d known tragedy, but the community loved him and nothing would be right if he had gone away.

  Another forty-five minutes later, with only Hauk’s parents, Sophie, Dani and Andie remaining, Vic shimmied across the beam running the length of the pub and reached out a hand in time to catch the end of the noose Mr. Michaelsen tossed up. While she raised the zombie dummy so its feet dangled inches off the ground, Sophie, Dani, Andie and Mrs. Michaelsen set up a haunted poker table in one corner.

  Light bulbs had been changed to spooky colors. Some even flickered. The fog machine had been hidden in a giant tarantula that could make JK Rowling proud, and the candles in the table votives had been swapped for LED lit eyeballs.

  “This our last one?” she called down as Mr. Michaelsen hugged the zombie one-handed to keep it from swinging too much.

  “Yep. Just need to rig the last pulley for its feet.”

  “Excellent,” she muttered as she fought the rope into a firm enough knot. Her fingers were getting sore from all the tying and gripping. And from using the powered screwdriver, which she’d never been very good at. “Anything down there still need done?”