“But Mom, I’m starving! Please!” Trevor begged.
“I want gummies!” Charlotte cried and started kicking her legs against the seat. “I can’t get my buckle off.”
“Just wait. I’ll help you.” Sara opened her door, but before she made it back, she heard more screaming.
“No, don’t touch me!”
“I was helping!” Trevor yelled.
“Mommy’s helping me!”
Sara closed her eyes for a moment and reminded herself that once her kids got out, stretched their legs, and got some real food in their bellies, they’d be back to being her angels. Well, maybe angels was pushing it, but at least they’d be back to their normal semi-angelic selves.
She opened the back passenger-side door and reached in to unlatch Charlotte’s booster-seat buckle as Trevor continued to tug at her seatbelt.
“Stop,” Sara barked, then inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth and tried to soothe the sting of her harshness. “Thank you for trying to help, Trev. I’ve got it.”
“Fine!” He huffed as he opened his door and slammed it shut.
Sara flinched at the loud sound as she helped her daughter out of her seat. When she’d gotten out of the SUV to get Charlotte, she’d noticed a sandwich shop across the street. Mentally, she made a list of next moves for the day. Sara lived her life by lists and rules. She always had a game plan. Which was why this spur-of-the-moment trip was so out of character for her.
Bathroom. Food. Lodging. Lake. Dinner. Showers. And then finally…bed. Her shoulders relaxed the way they always did when she had a solid game plan. Things had been a little hectic during the road trip, and schedules had been a joke, but now she could get things back on track. She took a deep breath when she heard her son’s voice going a mile a minute.
“My dad has that tattoo, but his letters are different. His say U.S.A.F. He doesn’t live with me. He’s going to have a new wife. She’s not going to be my real mom, though. I have a mom. I don’t know the lady yet, but she’s going to be my stair mom—”
Stepmom, Sara mentally corrected her son.
“Trevor Paul!” She called out his first and middle name, hoping to get his attention as she rushed to pick her daughter and purse up and stop her son from spilling their entire life story to some unsuspecting passerby, which had happened more times than she could count. Trevor had come out of the womb friendly and outgoing. As much as she tried to drill into him the concept of stranger danger, he still spoke to almost everyone he came in contact with.
It didn’t surprise her that her full-name warning went unheeded, and she heard her son explaining, “That’s my real mom! She’s getting my baby sister ’cause she’s cranky. We’ve been in the car forever. We’re going to have lunch so we can’t get snacks.”
“Trevo…” Sara’s voice trailed off as she rounded the back of the SUV and saw her son pointing to a tattoo of hanging dog tags with the letters U.S.M.C. beside them. The tattoo was on a muscular arm that belonged to a very tall, very sexy Marine.
Being rendered speechless was not something Sara Kellan experienced often, or ever. But that was exactly what was happening now. When her gaze traveled up the sculpted forearm and biceps and along the chiseled chest, she worked to form a cohesive thought but was unable to. As her eyes continued north over the sprinkle of scruff along the strong jaw of the man that had sent her into the unfamiliar state of muted lust, and her gaze met an emerald green stare surrounded by a thick bed of inky lashes—a jolt of awareness shot through her.
Yep. This stranger was definitely danger…to her.
CHAPTER 2
Austin Stone blinked as he raised his head from the kid that was all kinds of entertaining. When he opened his eyes, his entire world stopped spinning. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the only sound he could hear was the thud, thud, thud of his heartbeat. Everything around him faded away, and his existence shrunk to a laser-point focus on the stunning blue-eyed, brunette beauty standing in front of him, holding a toddler on her hip.
In every person’s life there were defining moments. Moments that happened in the blink of an eye. Moments where, in one split second, everything changed.
In Austin’s life, he’d experienced four such moments.
The first time had been when he was called in to the principal’s office at the end of his senior year in high school and told his mom had been killed by a drunk driver.
The second was when he’d signed his name at the recruiter’s office and become property of the United States Marine Corps.
The third was the first time his finger had pulled the trigger and that action ended a life.
And the fourth was right now.
He stood, mesmerized. The sun reflected off the glossy waves of her chestnut hair, which was haphazardly pulled up on top of her head with stray strands framing her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were deep-ocean blue. Her full, cherry-red lips reminded him of the sweet fruit and made his mouth water.
“Hi.” Austin finally managed to address the most breathtakingly beautiful, and frazzled, woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Hi,” she repeated back to him, looking just as affected as Austin felt.
“Mom, he has the same tattoo as Dad.” The little boy’s voice rose in excitement.
“I see that.” The woman nodded and glanced down at his arm.
Austin immediately missed the connection of her stare.
“I told him I’m going to have a new stair mom.”
“Stepmom,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly as she reached toward the cute kid who’d just been telling Austin his life story. Then she cleared her throat before breathlessly stammering, “I’m sorry…that um…he that…we…that…to bother you. Come on, bud.”
“But, Mom, I want—” The kid moved his hand away so she couldn’t hold it.
“Trevor Paul.” Her voice came out as strong as a drill sergeant.
The kid’s shoulders sagged as he begrudgingly lifted his hand and placed it in hers.
The adorable, cherubic girl with a head full of blonde curls who’d been shyly peeking up at Austin with her head laid against the woman’s shoulder began kicking her feet. “I want to walk.”
“Sorry, again.” Barely sparing Austin a quick glance before setting the toddler down, she herded the adorable kids toward the glass door of the convenience store.
As he watched the trio head into the mart, he remembered that when the SUV had pulled in beside his truck, he’d noticed the tire pressure on the back wheels was low. Dangerously low.
“Your back tires are low,” Austin called out, in arguably the most unsuave move of his life.
The woman stopped, swiveled back around, tilted her head to the side and stared at him with confusion clouding her baby blues. “What?”
Austin pointed to the offending rubber at the rear of the vehicle. “The pressure on your back tires. It’s low.”
Wow. Real smooth, Casanova.
She let go of the boy’s hand and brought her hand up to her forehead to block the sun and the corners of her eyes crinkled as she squinted, looking at the back of her SUV. When she dropped her arm, her perfect red lips turned up in an all-too-brief grin that hit Austin square in the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.”
Completely unaware of the TKO punch her smile packed, she turned back, grabbed Trevor’s hand and disappeared with her kids behind the double glass doors.
Austin stood motionless, trying to regain his bearings. He stared at the spot she’d just vacated for what felt like just a moment but could’ve easily been several full minutes. During his years in the service, he’d gone into shock several times, so he recognized the symptoms. He was definitely in shock. Lust shock. As his senses began slowly returning to him and he was able to inhale and exhale, he rolled his shoulders back and tried to shake off the effect of the encounter.
He needed to get out of there.
Just drive away.
That’s what he knew he should do. The only problem was every impulse in his body was telling him to fill up the tires with air. Which was ridiculous. He didn’t know this woman or her children.
Well, that wasn’t totally true. He knew she had an ex who had most likely served in the Air Force. And that the man was either bat-shit crazy or a fucking idiot. Those were the only two logical explanations of how any man could not only walk away from two of the cutest kids on the planet, but also that woman.
Austin was having a hard time just driving away from the three of them.
Sitting in his truck, he tried to reason with himself. He’d told her about the issues with the back tires. She was aware, and he was sure she would take care of it. Austin had always trusted his instincts and his ability to read people and situations. Those instincts had saved lives—his included—more times than he could count. The woman he just met was intelligent and more than capable of taking care of the tires. That was what he knew logically. Emotionally was an entirely different story.
“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath in frustration as he grabbed his tire pressure gauge from behind the seat, got out of the truck, and walked to the air pump.
He dropped fifty cents into the machine and snatched the hose up. As he attached the nozzle to the valve on the side of the tire, he knew his behavior was insane. He had no right to be messing with this woman’s vehicle. Still, he couldn’t leave knowing if she drove out of this parking lot there was a very good chance the tire would blow out and she and her children could be in danger.
Austin had never been an impulsive person. All of his life, he’d made measured decisions based on logic, not emotion. This was a glaring exception.
He rounded the back to fill up the tire on the passenger side of the SUV. Questions were filling his mind faster than the air was filling the tire.
Why was he doing this?
Was it illegal?
What in the hell was he thinking?
He’d been in the city limits of Whisper Lake for less than ten minutes, and he was already behaving in ways that were seriously out of character for him. Growing up, he’d spent every summer visiting his grandparents here, but he hadn’t been back in over a decade. During that time, he’d lost both his grandparents. First, his grandpa, who’d had a heart attack, and then his grandma, who’d suffered from complications with pneumonia just three months after her husband’s death.
He’d been serving at the time, unable to return to the States when his grandparents had passed. A year ago, he’d been medically discharged after receiving a Purple Heart. He’d returned home to find that his fiancée was six months pregnant with his best friend’s baby. After that, he’d headed down to Texas to spend some time with the only family he had left—his uncle, aunt, and nine cousins.
The plan had been for him to stay in Wishing Well for a few weeks, but he’d ended up staying for months. Part of it was just because he’d missed his family and wanted to get his head on straight. But the true reason was he’d been putting off coming up here and dealing with his grandparents’ estate. Austin knew that when he arrived, he would be faced with the reality that they were truly gone. And that was too much to handle.
With both the tires filled, Austin returned the hose to the pump. He’d almost made it back to his truck when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the glass door open. Turning his head, he watched as the woman stepped into the sunlight, her son and daughter in tow.
Damn.
Only minutes had passed since he’d seen her, but her beauty struck him again like a bolt of lightning. She was really beautiful. It was the kind of beauty people wrote songs and poems about. That men waged war over. It was a timeless beauty he was sure had left a trail of broken hearts in its wake. His entire body ached just looking at her.
Get in the truck, the same inner voice that had told him to drive away piped up again. And again, Austin ignored it.
She was walking straight toward him with purposeful strides. Or maybe that was just his imagination. Maybe he was having a Fast Times at Ridgemont High fantasy moment; like the one Judge Reinhold had when he saw Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool.
“Did you put air in my back tires?” she asked pointedly, standing firm in front of him, her tone and face unreadable.
Okay, so probably not a fantasy.
“Yes,” he answered, bracing himself to get his ass handed to him. Not that he would blame her, his behavior had been creepy at best, illegal at worst.
Instead of getting angry, or even upset, she just narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
Shit.
Not knowing what else to say, he answered honestly, “I couldn’t drive away knowing they needed to be filled.”
He watched her carefully, studying her expression as she considered his answer. When he saw tears filling her bottom lids, he didn’t know what had caused it—but he was pretty sure he was going to be explaining his story to the police.
“Mommy, I’m hungry.” The little girl with the blonde ringlets pulled on her mom’s arm.
“Okay, we’re going, baby girl.” The woman wiped the moisture away and sniffed before her eyes met Austin’s. “Thank you,” she said with a soul-deep sincerity that shattered his heart.
All Austin could do was nod.
The following seconds flew by in a blur and, the next thing he knew, the three were packed into the silver SUV and headed out of the parking lot.
Damn. He didn’t even know her name, but after the way she’d just responded to his good deed, he did know she didn’t have anyone taking care of her. For some reason, every cell in his body was raising its hand and screaming for him to volunteer for the job.
CHAPTER 3
“Wow!” Charlotte’s eyes grew as big as saucers as the trio entered Bite Me.
Sara couldn’t say exactly what she’d expected from the sandwich shop, but this wasn’t it. Every wall was painted with scenes from Alice in Wonderland. All of the characters were depicted in various scenes from the movie. The tables were all themed featuring one of the characters. There was a Queen of Hearts table, Mad Hatter table, Cheshire Cat table, Blue Caterpillar, White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and of course an Alice table.
“Sit anywhere ya’ like!” A woman that looked like the spitting image of Flo from the television show Alice called out from behind a glass case that held desserts and sandwiches.
“Mama!” Charlotte tugged on her arm. “I wanna sit there!”
Sara glanced over to where Charlotte was pulling her and saw that there was a table that was set up like the tea party. She had a feeling that the high backed pink chair was what had caught her daughter’s eye.
“Okay.”
As they walked to the table, Sara noticed that at the top of the glass case there was a large tag that read: Eat Me. Beside it there was a refrigerator that held juices, bottled waters, and sodas with a large tag that read: Drink Me.
This place was next-level adorable and Sara was already writing a post in her head to include in her favorites.
The three of them had just settled into their seats and were looking over the menus when the waitress that hand to God looked like she’d been plucked straight out of Mel’s Diner set three tumblers filled with water on the table. Sara looked up, half expecting the woman to be cracking her gum and telling her to kiss her grits.
“So are y’all here for the summer festival?” The woman whose nametag read Deb asked.
“Um, no. We’re just…” Sara had no idea how to explain what they
were just doing. We’re just here because I found an old picture of my grandmother and I wanted to come see where the photo was taken, so I threw my kids in the car and drove for three days on a whim, sounded crazy. She settled on, “Here on vacation.”
“Oh well, you picked the right time!” Deb enthused.
“What’s a festival?” Trevor’s curiosity could rival twenty cats.
“Well, it’s kind of like a party that goes on for a week,” the waitress answered. “It kicks off tomorrow, so you’re just in time.”
Her son’s eyes widened. “Whoa, cool!”
The woman continued, “There’s going to be a parade. Fireworks. Musical acts. A boat show. And even a kissing booth.”
Trev’s face scrunched up. “A what?”
“A booth where people pay money for a kiss,” Sara explained.
“Ewww, gross.” Trevor’s reaction was not unlike when he’d seen his sister’s tongue filled with remnants of her Goldfish crackers. “Who would do that?”
“Well, now. It’s not your typical kissing booth. You see our booth is manned by dogs.”
“By dogs?” Sara smiled as her forehead scrunched.
“That’s right. People line up for a smackaroo from a pooch.” Deb added with a wink.
Charlotte and Trevor looked at one another before simultaneously cracking up.
The corners of Deb’s eyes crinkled as she grinned at the kid’s enthusiasm.
“That’s amazing.” Sara shook her head slightly. This town was seriously overflowing with quaintness.
“Yes, it is.” Deb agreed as a few more customers walked into the sandwich shop. They were immediately greeted by name from Deb and the other patrons in the eatery as they took their seats, just like Norm from Cheers.
It seemed as if everyone knew everyone here. While she and the kiddos were waiting in line for the bathroom at the gas station, the cashier had called each customer by name. On the short walk from the car to the sandwich shop, Sara had witnessed not one but two encounters where people she passed were shouted out by name from passing cars.
Whisper of Temptation (Whisper Lake Book 4) Page 2