Cupcake Club 04 - Honey Pie (20 page)

She grinned at that. “Yeah, I'm not buying the unassuming part anymore, either, just so you know. On any count. You forget who was almost taking my blouse off not that long ago.” She gestured around her. “Not exactly the most romantic spot, so . . . you're not without skill.”

“I'm not sure if my ego just got a bump, or took a hit.”

She simply smiled at him. “You have your skills, I have mine. So, tell me honestly, did you have dreams of expanding the garage one day?”

He shook his head. “Expanding means growing the business, which means taking on other types of work, not to mention more employees. I've got no interest in that. I like what I've got, it suits me just right, and provides enough to meet my needs.”

He let the smile come out again. “And once I have a paying tenant next door, I'll be making more money without any of the overhead or the headaches. That's more than I could have hoped for.”

“It might take a long time,” she warned, “a very long time, in fact, before I'm operating in the black, given the much bigger starting size of the shop. And the farm might never sell. What if—”

“Darlin', we'll deal with the
what if
when it happens. I'm not goin' anywhere. I'm right next door. Unless you get a vision in your head tellin' me it's going to burn down or blow away, I plan to still be there when I'm too old to wheel myself under a car.” A smile teased the corners of his mouth. “And if you play your cards right, having good neighbors might net you some free labor now and again from me or Dell when we have the spare time.”

“Oh, I wouldn't expect—”

“Shhh. For once, just say thank you. If you plan to stay in the South, you'll have to get used to folks helpin' folks. You'll get plenty of chances to pay it forward.”

She smiled again. “Thank you.”

He grinned. “That mean we're in business?”

She brought her hand up to cover her still smiling mouth, then pushed up her glasses, then covered her mouth again.

“You want it, darlin', don't you?”

She lowered her hand. “More than I've ever wanted anything,” she blurted in a fervent whisper that tugged at his heart. “It's perfect.”

He'd purposefully ignored thinking about how it was going to affect him, so it was not the time to be thinking about what it might feel like to hear her say those same words while she was looking straight at him with that same anticipation and excitement banked in those eyes of hers . . . and not talking about an empty, musty building space.

“Then it's a done deal,” he said, before either of them could change their mind.

Her eyes went wide over the fist she'd pressed against her mouth and she did a nervous little dance-in-place maneuver that had him chuckling.

He spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Honey's Next Life Adventure.”

He was still grinning at her little two-step victory dance, so was completely unprepared when she impulsively launched herself right into his open arms. He caught her against his chest even as his eyes went wide with stunned surprise. He spun her around to keep from stumbling back as she whooped and laughed, which made him laugh and want to whoop right along with her. He gave her another spin and she wrapped her legs around his waist and locked her hands behind his neck as their gazes met again.

“Thank you,” she said, eyes shining with emotion. “Thank you, thank you. I'll pay you back. Every penny. I'm a good bet, too, Dylan Ross.”

I know you are, sugar,
he thought.
I know you are.

He was still reeling from having her wrapped around him, having her hands freely and willfully on him for the first time when she took what was left of his breath away by leaning in and kissing him soundly on the mouth. What might have been meant as a fast, hard kiss to seal the deal, quickly turned into something heated and far more intimate. She moaned first . . . or maybe he did. He was thinking about finding the nearest wall and picking up where they'd left off earlier . . . when she went oddly stiff and made a strangling noise in her throat.

“Aw, shit,” he murmured.

Then he held on for dear life. Hers . . . and his.

D
ammit, dammit, no! No!
But it was too late, she was already spinning away. The way he'd looked at her, encouraged her—dared her, almost—to reach out and grab what she wanted had made her feel invincible.

She should have known better.

She could still feel Dylan's arms around her holding her tightly, and he was murmuring something she couldn't make out, over and over. Surprisingly, the steadiness of his voice, the constancy of it, along with his hold on her, calmed her, and the panic she always felt at that first existential jerk sideways subsided a little.

Then things began to shift more fully into the vision and other thoughts took over. She braced herself to deal with the acrid smell of smoke, the pounding pulse, and racing heart that would soon follow. But . . . she wasn't in the burning garage, nor was she watching him race toward one. She wasn't anywhere around anything like that. She was . . . rocking. Slowly, gently. Swaying. There was a gentle pitch, then a slow dip, then another easy climb again.

A boat!

She was . . . on a boat. Oh no!
No, no, no!
Was she on the fishing trawler? Did that mean it was going to be Dylan instead of Mr. Hughes taking the gash in the leg? Or worse? Why would he take Frank's place on the fishing boat? She had to warn him not to go. But . . . wouldn't the boat be pitching wildly in the storm? She squinted, trying to make the rest of the vision come into focus, but it was just sensory, nothing visual yet. She could smell the salt water, the sting of it in the air. It was warm, humid . . . but there was heat, too. The sun! Not the storm she'd seen earlier. It was sunny, bright, hot. Oh, thank God.

So . . . where was the urgency, she wondered. Why had she been pulled in so abruptly? Usually when she was jerked in like that, it meant something big . . . something bad. Oftentimes, really bad.

She tried to focus, tried, for once, to tap in more deeply to the vision instead of backing away from it. If something was going to happen to Dylan, she wanted to know about it. But she just kept feeling the sway, the dip and roll of the water beneath . . . beneath a sailboat! Dylan's sailboat! Was something going to happen to his boat? After all his hard work, was he destined to lose it somehow? Seemed unfair for a man who'd suffered so much loss, but Honey knew all about life not being fair.

That kind of ominous vibration wasn't in the moment. Quite the opposite, actually. If she allowed herself to relax into it, she could be lulled into a very peaceful place. At least, that's how it felt.

Her breath began to steady now that the initial onslaught was over, and she let herself relax into it more. She could feel the heat on her skin, and enjoyed the motion of the gentle swell and the slow slide down again. It felt . . . good. She tried to keep some part of herself braced for the inevitable, but the longer she stayed in the moment, the more challenging that became.

The vision formed like mists parting. Although she felt the movement of the sailboat, she was sort of watching as the scene came into focus. Out on the open water, a gorgeous, bright, sunny day, his back was to her as he manned the wheel. A beautifully restored, vintage wooden wheel—or whatever they were called. He wore white khaki board shorts that hung low on his hips, showcasing his backside and tanned, muscular calves. His stance was solid, his hips steady as he easily rode the pitch and roll.

He wore a faded, sky blue T-shirt and the breeze had molded the soft fabric to his torso. Strong forearms, with those wide palms she already knew so intimately, gripped the wheel. His hair was longer, sun streaked, the ends dancing in the wind as he kept watch over the waters ahead. Something else was different about him. His shoulders were relaxed, she realized. Everything about him was relaxed. The man she knew had an intensity about him, a sort of banked energy that emanated from him at all times, as if he was always braced for something. But the man on the sailboat had not a care in the world.

Laughter was a bright punctuation to the beautiful day. It was a rich giggle in the way that only . . . it was a child's laughter! She didn't see a child, but she definitely heard one. Maybe it was some kind of echo of Dylan's past, that he was finally able to reach back and recapture the youth he should have had? Except her visions weren't usually as metaphysical as all that. Dylan's laughter blended with the child's rolling giggles. Rich, deep, and completely, utterly free. She'd heard him chuckle, heard him laugh . . . but she'd never heard him sound like that.

He glanced over his shoulder, and there was this deep sense of . . . connectivity. She knew that face so well. Every scar, every line, better than she knew her own. Her fingertips tingled with the urge to trace every one of them, as if they had so many, many times before. Crinkles formed at the corners of his gray eyes made almost blue by the shirt he was wearing as he aimed that sexy, devil-may-care grin straight at . . . her?

“Honey?”

“I'm right here,” she responded, wanting to get up and go to him. Run to him. She knew his arms would open for her.

“Honey!”

She blinked her eyes open, and she was in the dusty, musty bookstore again, still in Dylan's arms, though her feet were touching the floor now.

“That's it,” he was saying softly, almost crooning the words. “Come on back, darlin'. I'm right here.”

She blinked again, and the sailboat was gone, the heat of the sun . . . the giggling child, and that knowing smile. So was the sense that she'd been looking into that same face, those same eyes, for a very long time.

“I'm sorry,” she said automatically.

“What for?”

“I shouldn't have jumped you. I should have . . . I should have known. It was just, we've taken so many risks and it hasn't happened and I was just so excited and—”

He captured her face in his hands, held them there when she tried to pull away, and brought her gaze to his. She braced momentarily, expecting to go right back into the vision again, but nothing wavered, nothing tugged. At least not like that. She was feeling a tug of an entirely different kind as vestiges of feelings from the vision still mingled with the real feelings she was having.

“Sugar, don't ever apologize for jumping me.”

That surprised a snort of laughter from her, making him smile instantly and shoot her a wink. She felt suddenly shaky, but not in a bad way. For the first time ever, she wanted to go back into the vision, to keep feeling what she'd been feeling. But she was liking where she was right now pretty damn well, too. It was so confusing. Normally visions didn't involve her so personally, but normally she didn't have visions about people she cared about, or people who were otherwise involved in her life.

“You okay? Want to talk about it?”

Yes,
she thought.
I do.

All of it, she realized. So much had happened to her since coming to Sugarberry, after years of nothing ever happening. Being around people was a huge thing, but suddenly she had people chatting with her and asking her to bake cupcakes, and . . . and . . . a man who was holding her, kissing her, seducing her. All completely normal things . . . for anybody but her. It was all happening so fast she should be completely freaking out, except the very speed of the unfolding events didn't allow time for that. The truth was . . . she didn't want it to slow down, didn't want it to stop. It was everything she wanted.

She just wanted to catch up.

“I'm fine,” she said, not entirely truthful, but fine in the way he meant. “It wasn't bad. In fact . . . it was about you and your sailboat. You had it out on the water. And you were . . . you were really happy.” She didn't elaborate further. She wanted time to think about what she'd experienced. There was nothing else really to tell him, anyway.

“At first, I thought I was going back to the fishing boat, and that you were taking Frank's place, but it was all peaceful and good. It was your boat. It was . . . it was good.”

He grinned. “Well, that's a nice piece of news then. Now we can both celebrate.”

“Celebrate,” she repeated, then jerked her thoughts clean away from the vision and fully back to the moment. “Oh, right! The bookstore!”

He'd steadied her on her feet, and let his hands drop to his sides. “Your store.”

A shiver raced over her. Of excitement or terror or both. “Is it completely crazy to think I can do this? I mean, what if—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Remember rule number one: no what ifs. Only what's nexts.
If
things happen, then you'll figure out what to do about them.”

“So . . . what's next? I guess we need to figure out what the arrangement will be. When I talk to Morgan about Bea's place, I'll let him know we want him to draw up a lease agreement for this place, too.” She took a slow turn and looked at the interior, her mind's eye already seeing it as she'd want it to be. She turned back to find Dylan watching her. “What?”

He just smiled and shook his head. “You want to get on over to the bakery?”

“Oh. Right.” She took a deep breath. “I guess so.”

“You don't like to bake?”

“It's not that. I like Lani.” She smiled wryly. “And Alva. I just . . . it's been a really wild couple days.” She let out a short laugh. “I thought I was going to take it slowly, pace myself, ease in to things. Not so much, as it turns out.”

“Wading in can be more torture than just jumping in and getting used to the cold water all at once.”

“Maybe.”

“Is it the . . . thing?” he asked, knowing she understood what he meant.

“The vision? No. It was . . . nice. Surprisingly nice . . .” She trailed off, not wanting to think about all the things she'd felt while watching Dylan at the helm of his sailboat. She smiled, and despite the still, heavy air, she rubbed her arms. “It's just . . . I have so many other things to think about right now.”

“Why don't you go talk to Lani, get yourself introduced around. No one says you have to stay. Lolly and I'll go on next door and start matching up the parts I got for your car. Just come back across the alley when you're ready and I'll run you back to the B&B—”

“Oh no, I couldn't impose—”

He stopped her with a quelling look. “Rule number two: if I offer, I don't mind. Trust me. When I mind, sugar, you'll know. Besides, I have Frank's lawnmower part to drop off.”

“Okay. I don't know how long I'll be, but I guess I can always come back over here and start making What's Next lists while you're working.”

“There you go.” He closed the distance between them and fished the keys out of his jeans pocket. “And here you go.”

Honey looked at the keys, then up at him. “If this doesn't work—”

“Would you stop?” he said quietly. “Come here.” He bent his head and kissed her while simultaneously pressing the keys into her hand.

Her vision was unfocused and a bit glazed by the time he lifted his head, but it was all hormone induced. She wrapped her hands around the keys, focusing on the real, the solid, the thing she could reach out and touch. For all that she could reach out and touch Dylan Ross—and had—he still felt as intangible as her visions. She couldn't let herself buy into anything more than that. Much as she might like to.

It took supreme willpower and the sound of Dylan's rules echoing through her mind to keep from wondering what would happen if or when she was no longer putting her hands on her new landlord. Or, more to the point, when he no longer wanted to put them on her.

He leaned down until he caught her gaze and smiled. “Go bake something, all right?”

She grinned, laughed. “Okay, okay. I'll uh . . . why don't I lock the front door behind you, then let myself out the back to head across the alley to Cakes by the Cup. I didn't look in the back rooms yet, anyway.”

“Okay.” She thought he was going to dip his head and kiss her again. Instead, he reached up, gently bumped her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and sauntered to the front door. “Your lenses are fogged,” he called over his shoulder.

“You seem to have that effect on them.”

He turned and grinned. “You comin'?”

Not yet,
she thought.
But Lord knows I'd like to.

 

Honey poked around the storage room a bit on her way out the back and might have stayed longer, but the light was dimming as the late afternoon sun shifted to the front side of the building, casting the back room in shadows, despite the high windows and the door she'd left open to the front. Better to get on over to Lani's and have that conversation, then come back in the morning, bright and early, and start in on the mountain-sized laundry list of things she'd need to do to get to the point where she could have the rest of her things and her inventory shipped out.

She felt as if her brain was on speed, leaping off on a million different tangents as more and more ideas popped into her head of how to best utilize and lay out the space. She wanted to dive straight in, but first things first. Whether she stayed to bake or not, she did have to talk to Lani, get whatever documentation she'd put together, and, Honey supposed, make it official that she was going to take on the old bookstore space, thereby ending any conflict she and Lani might have had before it even started.

That was a huge relief. Honey needed the support of the islanders, her new neighbors and fellow business owners, if her new enterprise had a chance of succeeding.

She also couldn't deny that the very idea of making friends with some of the happy, chatty, laughing bakers she'd spied when she'd first arrived was . . . well, icing on the cupcake.