He looked down and then at me. “You okay?”
“I’m awesome,” I said, flashing a smile that felt about as genuine as most of the boobs in this room.
“Did you completely miss the Wonder Woman comment?” he asked.
I blinked up at him. Yeah, I kinda had.
Still.
“Come on. Lois needs a cookie.”
He sighed heavily and walked to the cookie tray that four other people had already descended upon, ignoring the brightly colored fruit, and scooped up four. Pressing a chocolate chip cookie into my hand, he shoved a snickerdoodle one into my mouth.
“Let’s sit down before we get trampled,” he said, heading to a fold-out chair.
Nothing makes you feel hotter than being left standing there with a cookie hanging out of your mouth. I bit it off and held the rest as I followed him, slowing my steps. Irritation sat on my skin like something sour, and that front door still called to me. Hot Guy sat, leaning forward on his knees, eating a cookie absently as if his mind was already somewhere else. I could walk right out that door before he even had a chance to get up and stop me. If he even really cared to.
It was now or never.
CHAPTER TWO
“So, you stayed?”
My sister, Drew, and my best friend and business partner, Micah Roman, were in the shop with me, as we pored over seed catalogs for the spring inventory and watched the clock crawl. January wasn’t a happening month for florists, as a general rule. Parties, business events, and funerals were pretty much the only bread and butter during the winter months. Now, however, after two months of excavation, aerating, fertilizing, and churning high nutrition and minerals into the new wildflower field Micah and I had started down the pond in a joint venture business called Wild Things with her family’s flower farm, even trying some winter seeding to see what would populate, we had a whole new outlook on potential profits.
Or I was trying to have a new outlook on potential profits. One mention of the group meeting I might go to that night—that I’d sort of gone to last week, however, had turned them into squirrels that would not let it go until I told them details. Especially about Hot Guy, aka Clark Kent.
I rolled my neck and stood up straight to stretch. Hazel eyes smiled at me in my head for the hundredth time, but it was completely different bringing him to life out loud. Suddenly, his voice was in my ears and those eyes had my stomach doing twitchy things. It had to just be my guilty conscience. Which was ridiculous. I owed him nothing, and it was dumb to still be giving any head space to a guy who had only pissed me off.
“Hell, no,” I said. “I was halfway down the street before he probably even realized I’d never sat down.”
“Did you take the cookies?” Drew asked.
“Of course.”
“Oh my God, it’s like you stood him up!” Micah said, standing upright.
I squinted at her. “From the cookie tray to the chair? That’s not a date.”
“But that was a blow off,” Drew said. “Damn, you’re heartless.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
They probably were, but truth be known, I’d felt like a friggin’ shrew ever since.
Why? Why? Why?
And why did I want to go back tonight? When I was driving away, I swore to never set foot in there again. To never try anything new again. What did I need new for? I had the town of Charmed and its insanity to keep me entertained for the next millennium. I didn’t have a particular need to go hear all those women wax on about their horrible exes. I had one of my own. I also didn’t feel compelled to tell the world that mine didn’t want me anymore. That he’d traded me in for a younger, less flawed model. That was never a fun fact.
Okay, maybe Cher had a small point about needing a boost.
So, what was with this crazy urge I had ever since I woke up this morning, a week later, knowing it was Thursday? I refused to think it was because of Hot Guy…aka Clark Kent…aka Superman. Because—just because. Besides, if I were him and I’d been stood up between the cookie tray and the chair, I’d never show my face in there again, so he shouldn’t even be a consideration.
“Whatever,” I said, giving a hand flip to show just how okay I was with it. And I was. Totally. I wasn’t feeling guilty anymore. “All’s good.”
“Uh-huh,” Micah said, peering back at the catalog like the snakeroot seeds were too fascinating to pass up.
“What was that, Obi-wan?” I asked.
“Just saying,” Micah said, not looking up from the intrigue that was now Texas Thistle.
“Saying what?” I asked.
She looked up at me and snickered. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m off men,” I said defensively.
“Not off sex.”
“I can’t have sex with a guy from group,” I said.
“Yeah, that would be kinda—” Drew began, making a face.
“Cliché,” I finished.
“I was about to say sad,” she said with a head tilt.
“Really? And who have you hooked up with recently?” I asked.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Drew said, reaching under the counter for a bag of Oreos.
The chick could eat her weight and mine in cookies and never gain an ounce. It wasn’t right. She got our dad’s good hair (when he had hair) and his metabolism.
“You don’t do anything and tell,” I said, grabbing a cookie out of the pack after Micah snatched two. “You didn’t even tell Mom and Dad you sold your house.”
“Wasn’t about them,” she said simply.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Micah said. “Most people want to move out of a trailer park. You went there on purpose.”
Drew could not only eat everything and have the good silky dark hair, she also had the unheard of confidence to do whatever she wanted, and follow whatever whim drifted in front of her. To a point, anyway. She’d bought a house a few years ago, decided it was too grounding for her, and sold it to live in a trailer on the other side of town. So she could pull up roots and leave, I suspected, although the shop kept us both pretty rooted.
“I didn’t need all that space,” Drew said. “It was too domestic for me. And it wasn’t a secret, I just didn’t want to hear all the drama.”
“Only you can get away with that,” I said, shaking my head.
“That’s because I’m the oldest and they gave up on expecting things from me a long time ago,” she said with a smirk. “Your life has been much more interesting.”
There was a sadness in that statement, whether she meant it or not. Drew was always the one with the most talent, and the worst choices. In life, in school, in men. She was a straight A student, and skipped her graduation. Blew off her free ride to college to hit the road with the love of her life, only to return six months later, alone and sullen, unwilling to talk about it. My gorgeous older sister was now thirty-six and never married, dated no one long enough for family to meet, and completely marched to her own drum. Things still managed to fall into place just fine for her.
I, on the other hand, did everything in the right order. College, boyfriend, husband, respectable house in a nice neighborhood, tried for family—tried to make all the right choices—and everything was crumbling around me.
“Yay, me.”
“So, you were going to bang this guy?” Micah asked, bringing us back.
“No, I said I can’t hook up with guys from group,” I said.
“And then got defensive when Drew said it was sad,” Micah said.
I closed my eyes. “Y’all make me tired.”
“Oh, what would it hurt?” Drew said. “You said yourself they use fake names, and if you never want to see him again afterwards, stop going.”
It sounded so simple. “Is that what you do, dear sister?” I asked. “Stalk unsuspecting men in organized group
s and use them till you can sneak off like a spy in the night?”
Drew smirked, her hair falling forward as she pretended to study the catalog with us. She couldn’t care less about seeds, or flowers, or anything floral-related in general. It was her legacy to take on our parents’ business as the older sister, but one she wore more as a weighted chain than—well—a wreath of roses.
“If I tell my secrets, they aren’t secrets, now are they?” she said. “Hey speaking of mysteries, did you see the big commotion going on across the pond?”
“No, what?” I asked.
“Looks like something maybe around the Dartwell property,” she said, glancing my way apologetically. “Looks like they’re building something, and there’s a big-ass party boat trailered with a friggin’ semi over there.”
Awesome.
Dixie Dartwell was the aforementioned blonde and perky toddler who stole my husband with her perky hoo-hah. My ex-husband. Well, all the self-help books I’d been poring over said that no one could steal a person who wasn’t open to be taken. Still.
“Good for them,” I said. “Bart always liked a party.”
“Okay, back to you again,” Micah said with a wink.
“That wasn’t about me?”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said, nudging me. “Bart and whatever or whoever he does now has nothing to do with you. Nice diversion, but you can’t beat the master. Are you going back tonight?”
I sighed. Originally, I wasn’t planning to go back to group. I’d been prodded to go by my mother, then I’d gone and done that disappearing act, making it doubly hard to go back now, feeling all kinds of stupid that didn’t make sense. Not that anyone would probably remember me.
Of course, no one remembers the new boring-looking frumpy girl who came in with the new hot guy, and then bolted from the building like her ass was on fire. I mean, why would they?
“I don’t know,” I said, absently tapping on the ever-popular blue violets to flag for the spring order. “When I first got there, I thought it was so dumb, but I’m so tired of feeling angry about Bart and Dixie, and maybe venting about it with other angry people is the ticket. Maybe I should give it another shot. Especially since Hot Guy probably won’t be there distracting me with his backwards insults.”
“And his sexy eyes that crinkle when he laughs,” Drew said.
I jerked my head up. “Did I say that out loud?”
“You did,” Micah and Drew said in unison.
I sighed and shook my head. “Whatever. My point is I highly doubt he’ll be there.”
“Of course he won’t,” Drew said. “He’s curled up in a ball of humiliation somewhere.”
Micah laughed and gave her a fist bump.
“I’m so glad you two are enjoying this,” I said.
“Hey, I have to get my jollies someplace,” Micah said. “I’m either helping on the New Blue construction, watching TV alone while Leo’s at work, or listening to my brothers bicker or bitch about the other. Your drama is a welcome change of pace.”
Micah’s younger brother, Jackson, had shown up on big brother Thatcher’s porch, their childhood home, at two in the morning last week, unannounced and unexpected. He was still there.
“How long is Jackson staying?” I asked.
“I don’t think he knows,” Micah said.
Jackson Roman lived down in the southern part of Texas on the Gulf of Mexico, in a town called Jolly Beach. He’d gotten away from the Roman family flower farm legacy, bought a large rambling old beach house and fixed it up himself, while running an offshore fishing and boat tour business with an old friend from the Keys. He didn’t come home that often, according to Micah. In fact, when he’d come in for her wedding that she skipped out on eight months ago, climbing on a motorcycle with then stranger Leo McKane and hightailing it to Charmed, it had been the first time in years. He hadn’t been back again till now.
Hell, I wouldn’t either. We lived near a pond and a theme park. Micah’s hometown of Cherrydale had an antique trade mart.
Yeah. I’d take the beach.
“Seems that he and his business buddy had a falling out,” Micah said, shrugging. “I think it was over a woman—I don’t know. I think they generally butt heads anyway though, because Jackson is—well, he kind of flies by his ass while his partner is probably very structured. Essentially, he’s me, and the other guy is Thatcher. So, he took some time off to get away from one organization junkie, just to come to another.”
“But you and Thatcher get along, right?” I asked.
“Oh, Thatch and I are tight,” Micah said. “He’s always had patience with me, but with Jackson—mmm, not so much.”
“Well, maybe we can all go to dinner or something,” I said. “I’d love to meet baby brother, and seeing that I’m in business with the other one I should probably meet him face-to-face one of these days.”
“I know,” Micah said. “It’s crazy that y’all keep missing each other. Well, the whole two times he’s come here to see the field progress and the one time you’ve been to the farm with me.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’s such a homebody after work, it’s hard to get him out of there.”
“Let’s go there,” I said. “Like during the day, have a meeting like real business people do.”
“I’m going tomorrow morning after a quick coffee with Lanie,” she said.
“Oh, I saw Lanie yesterday,” Drew said, piping in as the bell over the door jingled. “She looks like that puppy’s about to fall out if she sneezes hard.”
“You calling my sweet baby a puppy?” said a voice following far behind the belly that preceeded it.
Micah laughed. “Lanie!”
“Aw,” said Drew. “I meant it only in the best way. I love puppies, you know.”
Lanie straddled a stool and lowered onto it, pursing her lips through an exhale.
“Don’t sweat it,” she said, sounding out of breath. “It’s better than most of the names I call it. Last night it was Little Alien Shit, when I had to sleep sitting up because it was kicking me with all eight legs.”
Lanie McKane was married to Nick, Micah’s hottie Leo’s brother—if that’s not confusing. Nick was a hottie, himself, and the chef at the Blue Banana Grille. Or he was before a psychopath burned it to the ground several months earlier. They’d gone through their own drama to be together, and losing the diner had been devastating, but they had a bundle of joy on the way. I had to think that made up for anything.
It would for me.
“I like how you keep calling it, It,” I said, walking around to give her a hug. “Wasn’t last week all about it being a boy?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Two weeks ago, Carmen’s mom felt up my belly and swore it was a girl, so we of course assumed it would be the opposite. Now, I don’t know.” She rubbed the big ball that looked like it was attached to her body with Velcro. “So, I figure I’ll keep it generic so he or she doesn’t get confused.”
“Oh!” came my mother’s voice from the back hall. “I hear a pregnant woman!”
My smile stayed pasted on my face, but I felt it wither a little inside me as my mother did everything short of vaulting the shop counter to get to Lanie. Lanie laughed as Wanda Graham squealed and ooh’d and aah’d and caressed her belly like it was a crystal ball. I backed up and watched her maternal joy ooze from every pore. She would be the most amazing grandma, but I couldn’t give her that. Drew would have to pony up on that one, and she couldn’t care less about kids. I licked my lips and shoved back the unfairness of it all. This moment wasn’t about me, it was about a friend of mine getting her fairy tale.
“When are you due?” my mom asked, shoving her glasses up on top of her head. “I know I probably asked you two weeks ago but my brain is tired.”
“Next week,” Lanie said. “If it decides to wait that long.” She winced and pushed down on the t
op of her belly. “Put your butt down, Little Shit.”
“And we still don’t know the sex?” Mom asked.
“Nope,” Lanie said. “We want the surprise. I’m secretly hoping for a boy for Nick since he has Addison, but we don’t care.”
“So, what brings you in?” I asked. “Are you hiding a pie somewhere in there?”
“Ooh, I do have some pie to bring you!” Lanie said, her eyes going wide and then closing as if she was savoring the taste right there. “Nick made the most amazing apple crumb something or other last night, oh my God. I’ll bring you some.”
I laughed. “I’ll be waiting.”
“But I do want to talk about landscaping,” she said then, all matter-of-fact.
Drew leaned on her elbows and tilted her head. “In January?”
“Nine months pregnant?” Micah added.
“I know,” Lanie said. “Suddenly I’m obsessed with redoing the flower beds in front of the house. I’m exhausted with building design. The Blue Banana being rebuilt as the New Blue has Nick talking about nothing else, and me seeing beams and sheetrock in my sleep. I need sunshine and dirt and pretty blooms, and I’ll be busy with the baby when it warms up so I need to make a plan now. Y’all do that, right?”
Drew looked at me, and I looked at Micah. Who looked at my mom. We did not do that. We were a florist, not a nursery.
“You know what, honey?” Mom said. “We can totally do that.” Well, hey, go Mom. “Can you come back after work this afternoon? We’ll sit down with the computer and see what we can work up.”
I caught Drew’s look again, and bit back a smile. Mom on the computer. No matter what we were doing, spreadsheets or surfing the internet, to her it was all the computer. But she wanted to help Lanie out in her last trimester nesting obsession, so that was awesome. I might text Lanie later to look up some things on her phone ahead of time, though.
“Will do,” she said. “Today’s actually my last day of work at the bank,” she said, grinning sheepishly as she pushed to her feet. “I can’t stay on my feet that long, anymore, and all the desk agent spots are full, so I’m starting maternity leave tomorrow and hoping this kid doesn’t come late.”
A Charm Like You Page 2