by Susan Meier
“Come on. This is boring. At least liven it up by telling me about your two fiancés.”
“No.”
“Ah. She does speak.”
She said nothing.
“Just not about her fiancés.”
“I’ve embarrassed them enough already.”
“So you feel bad?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Even as she said the words, Cade could see her suddenly remembering that he actually had left someone at the altar—her friend. But, hey, what the hell? Maybe it was time they talked about this.
“No. I didn’t feel bad at all.”
“You’re disgusting!”
“Nope. I had a good reason for leaving Lonnie.” And the fact that Piper didn’t seem to know that caused him to wonder if Devon wasn’t correct. Maybe Lonnie hadn’t told her Hunter wasn’t his son? He glanced around, didn’t see many customers and could see Jen at her register, too far away to hear, but somehow he knew this wasn’t the place or time to suggest her friend might be a big, fat liar. “How about your reasons?”
She flushed again. “Just scrub.”
“No. I wanna hear.”
“If this is so boring for you that you have to talk about things that are none of your business, maybe you should handle it yourself.”
He caught her arm when it looked like she would turn to go. “But it is my business. The rumor is you left your grooms because you don’t want to be hurt like Lonnie. If I’m taking the blame I want to hear the story.”
She gaped at him. “That’s what people say?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I just figured they thought I was crazy.”
He grinned. “Oh, darlin’, they think that too.”
Her spine stiffened. “Great.”
“Ah, sweet cheeks, you’ve gotta get a sense of humor.”
“The entire town laughs at me!”
“Who cares? I certainly don’t.” But at least now he knew what drove her, what he could use as leverage if they ever got into a serious disagreement. “You’re a hard worker, a good partner. That’s what counts.”
“You like working with me?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” But he did like her. Sort of. She wasn’t anything that he’d imagined she’d be. Still, that was irrelevant considering he had no intention of spending an entire year here. He grinned at her. “Though I will admit to liking that little lust thing we have going on.”
With a sigh of disgust, she turned to go, but he stopped her again.
“Oh, no. You’re not stomping away and leaving this whole cooler clean-up to me. If I’m up to my elbows in soapy water, so are you. In fact, maybe you should scrub this section and I’ll dry?”
He tossed the sponge at her. Because she wasn’t ready, it thumped against her breasts then bounced to the floor. Horrified, she glanced down at the wet spot on her T-shirt, then up to his face.
He couldn’t help it. The combination of her horrified look and the wet spot on her T-shirt just did him in, and he laughed.
She swooped down and grabbed the sponge. As she dipped it in the soapy water, he assumed she was taking him up on the suggestion that she scrub this time, so it surprised him when she lobbed it at his chest. It bumped against him and fell to the floor.
“Do not ask me about things that are none of your business and then throw a sponge at me!”
He gaped at his shirt and burst out laughing. Before she had a chance to realize what he was doing, he grabbed the sponge, dipped it, and tossed it at her chest again. But this time her reflexes kicked in and she caught it, dipped it, and threw it at him.
“What was it you said about me needing a sense of humor?”
Staring at his now sopping shirt, he said, “I said sense of humor, not vindictive water battle.”
“What’s the matter? Can’t handle getting a little wet?”
He chuckled evilly. “Oh, it is so on.”
He expected her to run. Instead, she ripped off a hunk of paper towels, dipped them in the soapy water, and threw the blob at him.
“Hey!”
She grabbed for more paper towels. “You said it was on. You said I needed a sense of humor. Let’s settle this once and for all.”
He leaned out of the way of her next glob of wet paper towels. Before she could grab more, he soaked the sponge and pitched it at her. The force of his throw caused it to land with a splat. A big, wet splat that threw water in all directions, soaked her shirt, and sent her glasses flying.
She bounced back. Her shirt dripping. Her jeans wet. Her glasses gone.
Laughing, she lunged for the sponge, but before she could reach it, he did. He dipped it and threw it at her again. She sputtered a gasp as she tried to back away and ended up slamming into a row of canned goods.
“Not quite as good at a water battle as you think?”
“I’m blind without my glasses! But I can still beat you!” She scurried back, groped for the paper towels, ripped off a bunch, and went for the bucket. But she slipped on the wet floor and landed face first.
He laughed.
She didn’t. “Damn it! I hurt my foot!”
At the mention that she was hurt, all the fun zapped out of their game. “Oh.” He glanced around for the black frames and saw a small crowd had gathered. The older women grinned. The mom in the group appeared confused. Two men leaned around the women, trying to get a closer look.
“All right.” Ah, Harmony Hills, your people just can’t step away from anything that might turn into gossip. “Since everybody’s here anyway, let’s find Piper’s glasses.”
Without leaving their spots, everybody peered around.
He sighed. “That’s not looking! Spread out!” He pointed at the two men. “You and you, check the next aisle over. Jen, how about looking under those shelves?”
The group fanned out and within seconds Jen found them. “They must have slid on the wet floor.”
“No. They flew.”
“No. They hit the floor then slid.”
Cade tossed his hands in the air. “What the hell difference does it make whether they slid or flew?” He shook his head. “Show’s over. Go back to shopping.” He gave Piper her glasses then reached down to offer her a hand up.
She slid her glasses onto her face but didn’t take his hand.
“Truce?”
“Truce, hell! I beat you!”
“Just how do you get that?”
She laughed and peeked up at him. “First, I got you to stop throwing water at me. Second, I got you to find my glasses for me.” She grinned. “I am the queen.”
He gaped at her. “That whole foot thing was an act?”
She sniffed a breath. “I like to think of it more as a tactic.”
“You know, I could pick up the sponge right now and throw it at you.”
“I can be off this floor in ten seconds and have a wet paper towel in my hand in another five. So, give it your best shot, sweet cheeks.”
He burst out laughing, really laughing, really enjoying her, and that very thought made him stop. Part of him wanted to lunge for the sponge, keep the game going to just enjoy her, and that brought him up short. Which caused the other part of him to decide he’d better retreat and think some of this through. In their thirty seconds of real conversation, he’d learned she wasn’t just sensitive, she had every right to be. She hated being a laughing stock. She couldn’t even talk about her two prospective grooms. And, most importantly, she might not know he wasn’t Hunter Simmons’s father.
When he didn’t answer, she said, “We’re not done cleaning the coolers.”
He wiggled his hand at her, insisting she take it. Recognizing he needed some time alone, he said, “I’ll finish.” She took the hand he’d extended, and he helped her to stand. When she was on her feet, they were suddenly only a few inches apart. Her pretty green eyes searched his darker ones, and something really odd floated through his veins. A feeling so weird he couldn’t name it. With her T
-shirt vacuum-sealed to her breasts, all he should have felt was the glorious arousal that overtook his common sense. But he felt something more. Something that went beyond their red-hot attraction and somehow made it more intense.
“I’d like to go home.”
He sighed. And it seemed grouchy Piper was back. “Really? Because the water battle embarrassed you or because you don’t like this little thing between us?”
“How about because even my underwear is soaked?”
Again, her unexpected answer made him laugh. In that second, he got a mental picture of the sedate white panties and bra she undoubtedly wore. Though that should have calmed him down, it only revved his engines. So he took a step back.
“We can’t have you running around in wet undies all day, can we?”
She bobbed her head as if in agreement before she started down the aisle, but only two steps away she stopped suddenly and faced him. “Not everything that happens at the store between you and me is about our hideous attraction.”
“Sorry, sugar.” He grinned at her. “I think you’re wrong. I also think if we’d do a little something about the hideous attraction, it might just go away.”
“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll never know.”
But he did. And he finally figured out that maybe she didn’t. Maybe those engagements of hers weren’t as much fun as a few good flings? Maybe she’d never really had a good fling?
And maybe that was why she always acted so confused? She’d never had a good old-fashioned, no-strings-attached screwing, where they licked and touched and did it until they were so tired they collapsed…
He groaned. He really had to stop speculating about her.
Chapter Ten
Piper left the store, sort-of-dirty soapy water dripping from her shirt. She should have been fuming, but the way Cade had helped her up had taken the angry wind out of her sails…
No. That wasn’t right. And it also wasn’t right to lie to herself. She wasn’t upset over the water battle… She’d loved goofing around because the stupid thing had been fun.
He was fun. Damn it.
And he shouldn’t be.
She thought of what Bunny Farmer had said the day before. That everyone was beginning to think about why he’d left Lonnie at the altar, and righteous anger with him filled her again. It seemed that all she had to do was remember Lonnie, and how she’d had to leave town to escape the embarrassing gossip, and she could mentally distance herself from Cade.
But she suddenly pictured his brown eyes laughing when he tossed a wet sponge at her, and her brain sizzled with confusion. Her thoughts jumped back to when they were kids. Two years ahead of her in high school, he’d been a sad loner. How’d he get so funny? So happy? It couldn’t have been in the Marines… So it had to be the ranch. Were ranches funny?
How the hell would she know? She’d never been out of Harmony Hills except for Ocean City vacations and shopping.
Almost at her apartment, she tried to force her thoughts away from his childhood, away from pondering his life and how he’d gotten so happy, especially considering that he’d been beaten, but she couldn’t get herself to stop thinking about him. So as she climbed the rickety stairs to her apartment, she pulled out her phone and speed-dialed Lonnie’s number.
“Hey, Piper. What’s up?”
She unlocked her door. “Nothing. I just wanted to chat.”
“Working the afternoon shift today?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. She was scheduled for the afternoon shift. And maybe she should just stay home until it really was her turn to go into work. Maybe that would solve her thinking-about-him problem…
Except it wouldn’t nudge him out of the store. And that really was the long-term goal.
“Bored?”
“More like confused.”
Oh, yikes! Had she said that out loud?
“Working with Cade getting to you?”
“Actually, I kind of have a confession…” Now that she’d opened the door, she might as well use it. “Or maybe something I need to talk out with you.”
“Confession?”
“Two nights ago, my mom suggested that maybe I should try to nudge Cade out.”
“Nudge Cade out?”
“Of the store. If he leaves, the whole business becomes mine.”
“Oh. Well…I mean, if your mom thinks that’s okay—”
“Of course my mom thinks that’s okay! All she sees is that the store would be ours again. And justice would be served.”
“If Richard Hyatt cheated your father, then maybe she’s right.”
“But it doesn’t feel right.”
“Because?”
“Because technically we’re not taking the store from Richard. We’re taking it from Cade.”
There. She’d said it. The elephant in the room—the thing that kept her up at night—wasn’t that the store belonged back in O’Riley hands. It was that they were punishing Cade for something Richard had done. And Lonnie would tell her that was okay. If only because Cade wasn’t an innocent.
Walking to her bedroom, Piper put her phone on speaker and set it on the bed as she whipped off her wet shirt and bra. Silence followed her around the room as she grabbed another bra and shirt. After a full minute, she realized Lonnie probably wasn’t going to say anything.
Since when did Lonnie let a chance go by to Cade-bash? “You’re awfully quiet about this.”
“If you and your mom think this is the right thing to do, then do it.”
“It’s just not as easy as I thought it would be.”
Lonnie laughed. “Nothing ever is.”
“No thoughts on how I could do it?”
“Nope.”
Piper sniffed a laugh as she pulled a clean T-shirt over her head. “Here I thought you’d be a big cheerleader for the let’s-ruin-Cade camp.”
“You’re the one who’s there. I’m all the way over in Cincinnati. Besides, I don’t know how to run a grocery store. I don’t know what you can do.”
“Well, I made him stock veggies and salad dressing and clean the cooler.” She frowned. “He wasn’t too thrilled to be out on the sales floor.” Her frown deepened. “But the customers loved him.”
“Thought you weren’t getting customers.”
“We had a day of no one, but the little old ladies are now coming in in droves in the hope that he’ll bend over when he shelves.”
“People are starting to like him?”
Thinking it through, Piper frowned. “Not like him like him…just maybe accept him is a better way to put it.”
“They’re not talking about me, are they?”
“No.” She winced at the lie. Bunny Farmer had indeed talked about her.
“So maybe people no longer connect us.”
“Oh, honey. That might be stretching it.”
“We shouldn’t matter anymore! It’s been twelve years! Will that town never stop gossiping?”
“Hey, Lonnie. It’s okay. People aren’t talking as much as you think.”
“Piper, you are the one person in the world who cannot possibly defend the gossip in that town. They crucify you regularly!”
She stared at the phone. When had the discussion gone from Cade to Lonnie fighting Harmony Hills’s gossip? “I’m not. I just don’t want you worried over something that’s not really happening. Bunny Farmer and Alice Lenosky said something about Hunter, but everybody else seems to be leaving it alone. You’re fine.”
“I just don’t want to screw this up for you.”
“You’re not.”
No one was. People were accepting Cade. Shoppers were coming in. Work was getting done.
The only thing that was off—wrong—was her feelings for Cade.
And Lonnie. The woman who should be waving pom-poms of support for nudging Cade back to Montana barely mentioned Cade and only worried that people were talking about her.
…
By the time Piper returned in clean clothes, Cade was done wiping o
ut the coolers. As the doors swished open, he stood by the coffee and doughnut stand, sipping coffee, eating a cruller. Just looking at her brought back all the emotions of watching her in a wet T-shirt and took his thoughts down tempting paths they had no right to travel.
He shoved away from the stand. “I think I earned an hour in the office.”
“Sure.”
But she followed him to the cashier’s cage and through the office door. The little hairs on the back of his neck prickled. After just having had a fun water battle, and seeing how upset she was to be the runaway bride, he was experiencing feelings he didn’t want. This was not the time to be alone with her. Pretending he didn’t know she was behind him, he walked to the desk, sat at the chair, and got busy.
She cleared her throat.
He pasted a smiled on his face and glanced up at her. “Something I can help you with?”
“I was just thinking about when you told me you wanted to buy the ranch where you worked.”
He leaned back. “I still work there.”
“But you’re here.”
“They’re keeping my seat warm.”
She chuckled.
That weird feeling surged in his blood again. This time he recognized it. Maybe because they’d laughed together that morning, maybe because she was being civil now…whatever the reason, he didn’t just “like” her. They were becoming friends.
“Do you really want to buy that ranch?”
He lounged back in the tall-back chair. “That ranch is my home.”
“So why are you here? Why’re you staying?”
“Same reason you are. My grandfather’s will.” When she said nothing, he sighed. “You really want me to go, don’t you?”
“It would make my life easier.”
“Trust me. It would make my life easier too.”
“But even though you know you don’t belong here, you’re still staying.”
“I have to.” That he could say with absolute certainty, if only because he did not want his dad getting one cent of his grandfather’s money. “But trust me, I won’t stay a minute longer than I have to.”
She pondered that, but he didn’t add one word to what he’d already said. If she was digging for information, he wasn’t providing it. Eventually, she glanced at the door. “I guess I’ll go take a peek at our personal hygiene section. Seeing how it compares to Health Aid. Maybe we can give them a run for their money.”