Patience.
His own breathing grew shallow. As much as he wanted her this second, he resisted. Barely.
She raked her hand through his hair and arched against him, her back pressed to him, her eyes fluttering closed. She tried to turn her body toward him, but he stopped her, holding her firm.
“Not yet,” he said. She could make all the lists she wanted and think she was in charge, but right now, he wanted her to let go. But damn it if she didn’t try to take control. She moved against him, grabbing his head and trying to turn again.
A veil of fog slipped over him, but he managed to say, “Not yet,” and this time, he held her by pressing his hand against her lower abdomen. Christ, he didn’t know how long he could resist having all of her. If she tried to turn around again, he’d let her, and then he’d throw her on the bed and take her, body and soul.
With half-mast eyes, he slid his gaze up her reflection, slowly and deliberately. This was a moment with Storie he never thought would happen. His eyes traveled across her browned stomach, her supple breasts, nipples half-exposed. Christ almighty, she moved her hips, the pressure against him driving him wild.
Patience, he told himself for the third time. Aloud he managed to growl, “Stop.”
She opened her eyes, the heat in them scorching him.
He dropped his hands, breaking the connection. “I told you we could have some fun,” he said, grinning. Truthfully, raising one corner of his mouth was all he could muster.
She leaned back against him again, her breath labored. “This isn’t fun,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Of course it is.” He had to touch her again. He wanted to hear her moan. To say his name. He met her bleary gaze. “We can’t close the gap on eight years so fast.”
She straightened and tried to turn around again. She wanted to move past the slow burn he was raising in her, and he tried to resist, but he simply couldn’t. This time he was going to let her.
“Reid.”
The voice was far away, coming to him through a fog of desire.
“Reid.”
Oh God. The person calling him wasn’t Storie.
A woman’s voice called him again, his name drifting up the stairs. Goddammit. Jules.
Storie pulled away, her gaze still locked with his in the mirror.
Quick footsteps thundered in his ears as someone mounted the stairs. He stepped back and his head dropped. Lacing his fingers behind his neck, he muttered a string of curses under his breath. By the time he looked up, Storie had yanked her dress down to cover her body again. Jules stood at the doorway.
“There you are,” she said, waltzing in as if she’d been in Storie’s loft a million times.
Storie started to speak, but Reid moved toward Jules. “What the hell are you doing here?” he ground out, barely controlling his frustration.
“Looking for you, of course.” Jules dragged in a deep breath, tilting her head back and looking around. “God, it smells good in here. Like cinnamon and fall.”
Storie’s hands twisted in front of her. She hesitated, her lips pursed, but she finally pointed to the bucket of dried flowers. “They’re astrids. Very fragrant.”
“Nice.” Jules turned back to him. “Your dad’s been looking for you—”
As if something suddenly dawned on her, she stopped, looking from him to Storie, and back. Her expression changed, her lips pulling into a pronounced frown, her brows knitting together, and her hands opened and closed nervously. She knew exactly what had just gone on between them. Or what had almost gone on.
Reid’s spine stiffened, his heart stopping for a beat. “Is he all right?
“Yeah. Sure. He thought you’d be back at the bar by now, is all. I said I’d come on over and find you.”
He breathed out, relieved.
She scanned the room, her gaze hitching on the discarded dresses on the bed before she turned her attention to Storie. Flipping back a loose strand of her bottle-blond hair, Jules gave Storie a good once-over. “Are you Harper or Storie?” she asked through a tight smile.
“Storie Bell. Harper’s gone home for the night with her daughters. This is my apartment you’re in,” she said, her voice terse.
“Huh.” Jules seemed oblivious to the anger emanating from Storie, but Reid felt it circulate in the air like a dark cloud. “That’s a killer dress,” she said, looking her up and down. “Isn’t that a killer dress, Reid? Not sure about the boots, though.”
“It’s a killer dress,” he said. He only wished he could get Storie all the way out of that dress. They’d been so close.
But thanks to Jules, that wasn’t going to happen right now. He took her by the arm and headed for the door, but she slipped out of his grip and turned back around.
“Reid sure does love a girl in boots,” she said, trailing her own booted foot in a half-circle on the floor.
Storie’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”
Jules touched his hand again, grinning up at him before turning a hundred-watt smile at Storie. “Sure is. He’s a cowboy, after all. A wanderer. His mind’s always on some dusty road to somewhere else. He’s only here till he can find more of what your dad gave Jiggs to make his whiskey so tasty.”
“Jules,” he said sharply. Christ. What the hell was she doing?
Storie looked up sharply. Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
He flashed a death look at Jules, then turned it inward on himself for continuing the deception with Storie. It was his fault for lying, but now there was no way to come clean. She wouldn’t believe him either way. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Jules’s lips formed an innocent circle. “You didn’t tell her what you’ve been looking for?”
“No.” Storie’s cheeks tinged red, the blotchy color spreading to her chest. “No, he neglected to mention that.”
“That’s enough, Jules,” he ground out. He took her arm and directed her to the door. “I’ll be back over to the bar in a minute.”
“Sure thing.” She raked her eyes over Storie again, a smug, satisfied expression on her face. “Great to meet you, Storie.”
“Enlightening to meet you, too.”
Once they were alone, he turned to face her. Damn Jules. Damn Jiggs for chewing the fat with her about the moonshine. And damn himself for not being straight with Storie in the first place.
“Jules was out of line,” he said. “Storie, I—”
“Stop.” Storie’s face tensed and she squared her shoulders. “She just told the truth.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“To what, Reid? Didn’t mean to manipulate your way in here so you could search for something belonging to my father? Didn’t mean to get caught? Didn’t mean to try to seduce me so you’d have access upstairs? All of the above?”
He closed the gap between them. “Didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’d have to care to be hurt,” she said coolly, “and I don’t.” She walked past him, stopping at the doorway, holding it open, and waving him through. “Thanks for stopping by.”
He stared. “Straight denial, then? What, we can’t talk about this? Yes, your father gave Jiggs something that he put in his damn moonshine, and now it’s gone and I came here to see if I could find more—”
Her eyes turned cold. “That’s what you’ve been after this whole time?”
Crap. Scarlett’s question about whether he was a prince or a bandit came back to him. There was no way for him to come out of this looking like anything but a bandit.
Her hands fisted, her wrists circling. The moonlight shining in from the windows faded, the sky outside darkening. A crack of thunder broke the silence of the night, a streak of lightning following.
“So that turnip still? That thing in the secret room behind the shelves downstairs… That thing isn’t just an old relic? It actually belongs to your dad and he uses it and you really have been helping him?”
He started to move toward her, but she held
up her hand. Heavy pressure against his chest stopped him, as if she held an invisible weight up to him. “Darlin’, you’re blowing this way out of proportion.”
“I should have known.” She shook her head, turned on her heel, then whipped back around to face him. “My mother warned me. She was right.”
This was a losing battle. He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to stay calm. “She warned you about what?”
“That you wanted something, and that I better be careful.”
“First Kathy Newcastle, now your mother. They’re both right, Storie,” he said. “I started out looking for something, but you’ve been in my head for years and I want you, not some magical ingredient for my dad’s moonshine.”
“I’m not that girl anymore—”
“No, you’re not—”
“So that fantasy of yours can just shrivel up and die,” she said, making a small movement with her hand.
He stepped backward toward the door, his feet moving without him thinking about it. What the hell was happening? How had everything gone to shit so quickly?
“Storie,” he said, the pressure against his chest closing in on him until he felt like he would explode. “You have this all wrong.”
She moved toward him, and for a second he thought maybe he’d gotten through to her. Her face softened, but she gave him a sad smile. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, grabbing hold of the door. “My mother was right. I don’t belong here anyway.”
What the hell did that mean? But before he could say another word, she closed the door.
Chapter 13
The first day of the rest of her life, that’s what today was. She’d tossed and turned the night before, her encounter with Reid making her alternately cringe with embarrassment and ache for him. The whole thing had shaken Storie to the core. She was not the kind of woman to have a one-night stand with a man she hardly knew. And she’d come so close to crossing that line. How, when she knew he’d been using her all along? God, she was a fool.
Her skin pricked, a rush of cold dancing over it. He’d been upstairs, not to see her, but to search the apartment. She’d stepped out of the bathroom to find him moving boxes and poking at the floorboards. And she’d ignored the rush of suspicion she’d had, burying it when he’d looked at her with unabashed desire.
She’d taken him at face value, believing that he was just filling in for Buddy Garland, but he had to have paid Buddy off to get him to leave the job and insinuate himself in the role.
And, oh God, she’d let him watch her in the mirror as he’d nearly brought her to climax! Hell, she’d tried to help him. Thank God Jules had shown up when she did.
What was wrong with her? “What’s it mean?” she asked, her voice soft and sleepy.
She shuddered, trying to push it all aside and focus instead on what she needed to do to finish getting the shop in order. Outside the front door, the little stray terrier cried. She grabbed a bowl from the kitchen, tore up some chicken Harper had left in the fridge, and set it outside for the dog. The flowers she’d conjured were wilting in the summer heat. Raising her hand, she started to give a quick flit of her wrist, but stopped. She needed all her energy today, and that meant no magic, even if the grand opening suffered for it. It was too draining.
No. It was just her imagination. Her mother was lying, just as Reid had been, but the dizziness and fatigue after she used her powers kept growing. Millicent had said her brother and sister were losing their powers and she felt hers slipping away, too. She was losing everything, and she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
The dog barked her thanks, lapping up the treat. She bent down and scratched her head. “I guess you can stay,” she said. “Harper’ll need a good watchdog.”
She barked again, and it almost looked like she was shaking her head. Gloom surrounded Storie. The feeling was becoming too familiar, and she didn’t know if it was her doubt creeping in over the idea that she was leaving, Reid’s betrayal, or something else entirely.
The dog finished eating and looked up at her sweetly, the expression on her face reminding Storie of Blake Shelton’s smiles. That’s what she’d call her. “Shelton. Goes with Miranda, the kitty, so I guess that’ll work, even if you are a girl and Blake and Miranda aren’t together anymore.”
Shelton yapped again. Good, she liked the name. Storie went back to the kitchen and added dog food to the grocery list.
A minute later the bell at the front door dinged. Surely Shelton couldn’t…
No. She peered through the serving window between the kitchen and the shop. Millicent.
She had a tendency to just appear, which rattled Storie. Was this what it was like in the magical world—wherever that was? Witches and wizards just showed up, unannounced, whenever and wherever they wanted to? She’d have to get used to that.
A few seconds later, she appeared in the kitchen. “You’re having second thoughts,” Millie said.
“They’ll pass.”
But Millie didn’t look so sure. Her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
The silver lining to what had happened with Reid was that she was wary. Yes, this was her mother, but Storie wasn’t ready to reveal her every thought. “Nothing,” she said, offering a circumspect smile. “I thought I was going to settle here. I didn’t expect to leave so soon.”
“Things don’t always work out how you plan them. Declan and Astrid need you.”
“Their powers?”
“Fading fast,” Millie said. “As are yours.”
The flowers. She looked at the back of her hands, flipping them to study her palms. Maybe it wasn’t that she was distracted and sad at leaving Whiskey Creek. Maybe it was that she was being drained of her magic because she needed her siblings as much as they needed her.
“Declan and Astrid.” She let the names roll off her tongue. Her brother and sister. They sounded foreign. Unnatural. Not like Harper, Scarlett, and Piper. And Reid.
“Well, Millie—er, Mother,” she said, wishing she could stall for more time, but at the same time feeling as if she needed to cut her losses. “I’ll be ready after the grand opening.”
Her mother’s eyes, a mixture of onyx and cobalt, swirled, the colors mixing like the waters of a churning ocean. “Eleven o’clock at the lake. We’ll go when the moon is full.”
One more day hardly seemed like enough time to get everything in order and say good-bye to her life, but she’d made her choice. Last night with Reid, she’d felt a glimmer of hope that maybe he was her Prince Charming, and that The Storiebook Café really did hold the key to her happily ever after. He’d made her feel like no man had ever done, and for a blessed chunk of time, she let go and gave in to the pleasure.
But it had been an illusion. There was no Prince Charming or happily ever after. Life, after all, was not a storybook.
“Eleven o’clock,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
Chapter 14
Storie met Harper at the curb an hour later, and handed her the revised grocery list. Piper and Scarlett popped out of the car. “I’ll be back in an hour,” Harper called through the open window.
Storie followed Piper and Scarlett inside—and nearly ran them over. They’d spent a few days with their dad, and now they stood with their feet rooted to the ground, taking in the transformed café.
“Guess you found your everlovin’ mind!” Scarlett exclaimed, a dramatic hand over her heart. Scarlett O’Hara had nothing on Harper’s little girl. Storie felt sorry for the men she’d eventually manipulate with her theatrics, but as long as she kept her gumption and her confidence, like her namesake, Storie knew she’d be happy. “It’s like a fairy-tale shop smack in the middle of Texas!”
Scarlett unstuck her feet and raced to the crazy-quilt patterned overstuffed love seat and flopped onto it, her white eyelet-edged denim skirt settling around her little legs until just her red boots showed. “It’s lov-ally,” she said, shifting from being a six-year-old Katie Scarlett to being a cockney-accented Eliza Doo
little.
Storie caught Reid’s eye through the pass-through window between the book room and the kitchen. What was he doing here?
He’d shown up the day before and she’d steered clear of him, letting Harper handle the last of the repairs. She knew he was still looking for some magical thing her dad had supplied to Jiggs, and she didn’t care. She had too much to do to get things in order for Harper.
She did not want to face him. Did not want to remind him of what they’d done in front of the mirror, and did not want to remind herself of how he’d used her.
But seeing him now, her blood boiled. He had some nerve.
With the girls here, though, she was forced to focus on them. “It is lovely,” she said, heat from being in the same room with Reid overwhelming her. Feeling his gaze on her had almost the same effect as the touch of his hands, as much as she fought it.
He sidled out from the kitchen and sat down next to Scarlett, bouncing the single cushion—and Scarlett with it—from the unbalanced weight. Acting like nothing had happened between them. Anger swelled in her, but he appeared unfazed.
“What do you think, Piper?” he asked. “Do you think it’s lovely, too?”
Piper’s gaze darted from one area of the room to another. She studied the front counter with books displayed on shelves beneath the wood top and clusters of orchids in small terra-cotta pots. She slowly walked the perimeter of a tile cutout defining the seating area of the café, one careful step at a time. Gingerly, she trailed her fingers along row after row after row of the books Storie had sorted and organized on the floor-to-ceiling shelves. She climbed three steps of the sliding ladder, before finally turning around, her eyes glazed. “It’s a fairy tale,” she said, one side of her mouth lifting into a crooked smile. “Most definitely.”
Tears pooled in Storie’s eyes, but she felt Reid watching her and quickly blinked them away. This would be her legacy. She had just a few hours left to make sure it was perfect before she left this little family she’d worked so hard to create. She fought the emotions welling in her. Leaving would be the hardest thing she’d ever done.
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