Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale) (9 page)

“We sure will, Joe.”

“’Cause why, son?”

“’Cause we take care of things in Camelot, sir.”

“Hoo-wee!” exclaimed Joe, patting Ryan on the back. “Yes, son. We surely do.”

Verity’s hand reached up, flattening over her heart as tears burned the backs of her eyes. Every time, without exception, kindness made her cry faster than meanness, and watching Joe take a patient interest in Ryan just about leveled her to a blubbering mess on the stable floor.

“Can I tell you somethin’, Joe?” asked her brother.

“You can tell me whatever you like.”

“You’re my bestest friend in the whole world.”

Joe turned to look at Ryan’s profile, smiling at her brother. “Well, now, I like the sound of that, Ryan. How about you be my best friend too?”

So focused on her brother’s conversation with Joe, Verity didn’t hear Colton sidle up beside her, leaning against the stable wall next to her. She didn’t know he was there until he took her free hand and laced his fingers through hers, squeezing gently as their palms fused together.

Turning to him, she felt the wetness on her cheeks and realized she was crying, but she let the tears stay where they fell as she looked up into his gray eyes with all the gratitude and tenderness she felt for him.

“At the risk of sounding like a broken record . . .,” she started, her voice trailing off as more tears wound down her face.

“You’re welcome,” he said softly, squeezing her hand again.

***

They detoured through the McDonald’s drive-through for Ryan’s dinner on the way home, picking up a Big Mac and fries as he told them about how the Gaelic Knight’s horse, Killarney, had colic and how Shawn had to use the backup mare, Sheelagh, for tonight’s show.

Verity asked her brother questions and chuckled in all the right places, but Colt could barely follow Ryan’s story. He was totally distracted by Verity sitting beside him, unable to think about anything but their date tonight and the fact that he’d have her all to himself for a few precious hours.

It’s true she lived at his house. But it was also true that she and Ryan kept to themselves to some extent. She’d gotten into the habit of making them breakfast every morning, and Colt drove them to and from the castle on the days they worked the same shift, so they spent that time together. But once they were home, Verity and Ryan often turned in early, staying upstairs, quiet as mice, as though anxious not to bother or inconvenience him, when the truth was, he would have welcomed their company on the nights he was home. Verity’s especially.

It was almost seven when he turned into his driveway and shut off the engine. He watched Verity as Ryan gathered up his garbage in the backseat and jumped out of the car.

“See you at eight?”

A smile played at the corners of her lips. “Are you picking me up at the foot of the stairs?”

He shook his head. “Meet me on the back patio.”

Her smile burst forth as she scanned his face with curious eyes. “What do you have planned?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said, opening his door and heading into the house.

That morning, while she was at work, he had driven to Target to do a little shopping: a barbecue grill and a white fabric tablecloth and napkins. Aunt Jane had collected plenty of vases that she’d left under the sink, but he stopped at a local florist and bought a dozen light pink roses. When he got home, he’d set the picnic table on the patio with the new linens and Aunt Jane’s pink china. He put the flowers in one of her vases and placed it in the center of the table. Standing back, it occurred to him that he’d be missing candlelight as evening turned to night, so he went back inside and scoured the house for candles but found none. What he did find on a basement shelf were white Christmas tree lights in four or five tangled strings. After spending an hour untangling them, he found an old flagpole in the garage and pounded it into the grass at the edge of the patio, then roped the lights from the house to the pole in five lines that made a cheerful triangle of white twinkle lights over the picnic table.

Once he felt the patio was ready, he drove to the grocery store, where he bought two steaks, two cobs of corn, and two biscuits from the bakery section. He remembered how Aunt Jane would slather the cobs in butter, roll them in foil, and place them on the grill, and he figured they could cook while he grilled the steaks. He didn’t know for sure if Verity liked steak or not, but she ate bacon for breakfast, so she wasn’t a vegetarian. Next to the biscuits, he’d seen a tiny five-layer cake, just enough for two, and on a whim, he’d thrown that in his basket too.

He didn’t know much about wine, but he knew that you were supposed to drink red wine with steak, so he picked up a bottle of Merlot. Now he looked at the bottle sitting on the table and realized that he had no idea if Verity was a drinker. There was so much he didn’t know about her. Really, he barely knew her at all.

Though he had forbidden himself to fall for her, it astonished him how attached he’d gotten to her in such a short time. Melody had moved out six years ago, and Aunt Jane died six months later. Since then, he hadn’t made a lot of friends, preferring to keep to himself. Frankly he’d never even realized how lonely he was . . . until Verity came along.

He uncorked the bottle and left it on the table, then poured some charcoal into the grill, dousing it with lighter fluid and throwing a match into the pile. It lit up immediately, and he covered it with a vented top before heading back inside. He had enough time to roll up the corn and season the steaks before she came downstairs.

As he worked, he thought about her question from earlier today—the one that had gotten her so quiet:
Have you dated a lot of women here? You know, coworkers?
He should have just answered her because the truth was that, while he occasionally engaged in a fan fuck, the only person he’d ever dated at work was Sandy.

He’d dated Sandy for a few months on and off, but their relationship had been eighty percent physical and twenty percent watching movies and eating. When their movie was over or they ran out of things to talk about—which happened all the time—they’d fuck. So they ended up fucking a lot, which made the relationship pleasurable but monumentally shallow.

Not that he hadn’t missed Sandy when she left Atlanta to take a job at Tournament of Kings in Vegas. He did. At least she’d been company, even if that company consisted mostly of cold pizza and booty calls. More than anything else, he’d missed watching movies with someone. He’d missed that for months after she left.

When he fantasized about Verity, which he did near constantly since meeting her, there were a surprising number of daydreams he had about sitting next to her on his bed and watching a movie. Not even fooling around—though he got hard at the thought of getting physical with her—just sitting together: her warm, small body next to his, holding hands, as they watched a movie.

With the corn rolled up and the steaks covered with a layer of salt and pepper, he checked the time: 7:55.

Hustling outside, he put the corn on the hot grill and the steaks, which were on a covered plate, on one end of the table. He’d wait a little bit before starting them. He plugged in the Christmas lights and took the little box from his back pocket and placed it on her plate. Some guys got their dates flowers or chocolates. He’d gotten Verity a Yggdrasil necklace. He hoped she didn’t mind.

With everything ready, he picked up his phone from the table to choose some music, but he froze, his brows furrowing at the number of message alerts he found there. Scrolling down, he counted three, four, five, six different missed calls from the same familiar number.

Fuuuuuuck!

Shit, shit, shit!

He stared at the phone, and for just a split second he considered ignoring the messages. It occurred to him to just pretend he hadn’t seen them, because he wanted tonight to be about him and Verity. The quick onslaught of shame was sharp and harrowing and made him hang his head with self-disgust. Walking away from the house, out onto the lawn, he hit the callback button.

***

Verity didn’t have too many pretty things, but one dress she’d always loved was a simple skater-style dress she’d ordered from Forever 21 last year. A simple white eyelet bodice with a sweetheart neckline and spaghetti straps gathered into a short, flared white skirt with a coral belt around her waist. It was sweet but still sexy, making her waist look tiny and her breasts look bigger than they were, and she felt extra confident the few times she’d worn it. She paired it with some white wedge sandals bought on sale at Walmart, added a sterling silver bracelet her mother had given her for her sixteenth birthday, then headed downstairs with flutters in her stomach.

At the foot of the stairs she took a look at her face in the mirror by the front door.

Verity and her best friend, Elaine, had always taken their makeup seriously, practicing looks they found in magazines and watching tutorials on YouTube, but she had to admit that even Elaine would have been impressed with the job she’d done tonight. She’d evened her base and tanned her face with bronzer, then given herself smoky eyes and lips the exact color of her belt. She’d washed and blow-dried her long blonde hair until it lay shiny, straight, and long down her back. Not that she’d ever left Georgia, but she felt confident that she’d captured a genuine California-girl look: blonde, tan, sexy, and breezy. And she hoped that she looked a little less girl next door and a little more sex kitten because she really, really wanted Colton to make a move on her tonight.

She walked through the living room, into the kitchen, tilting her head to look out the back door, which led down three steps to the patio. Her eyes widened, and she smiled with wonder. Were those twinkle lights roped over the picnic table? Since when did the back patio have twinkle lights?
Crossing the kitchen, she opened the storm door and stepped out onto the landing, gasping softly as she looked up at the white lights over her head and the beautiful, elegant table waiting below.

The table was crisp and white, set with the pink-flowered plates she used for breakfast every morning, and shiny wineglasses she’d never seen before. There was a vase of fresh flowers between the plates in the same powder pink as the flower crown she’d looked at in the gift shop earlier today. And by her plate was the little black box that held the Yggdrasil necklace. The information card inside the little box identified the tree as the crossroad of heaven and earth in Norse mythology—the tree was bound to the earth through its roots and stretched into the heavens through its branches.

She sighed softly, her breath catching at how carefully he’d arranged everything for her, and she felt her crush slip away a little because, in that moment, it started changing from something superficial into something more substantial. From something merely wishful into something . . .
possible
.

She raised her eyes to the lawn, looking for Colton, and found him with his back to her, one hand rubbing his forehead in what appeared to be consternation, the other holding his phone up to his ear.

Although she wasn’t positive, she thought he looked upset, and his choice to take the call on the grass with his back to the patio indicated that it was probably a private conversation. The right thing to do would be to go back in the house and wait for him to finish the call, then come outside like she’d never seen him talking.

But her curiosity got the best of her. Walking to the edge of the patio, she stood a few feet behind him, straining her neck to catch snippets of his conversation:

“Tell her I love her, tell her I’m sorry, tell her—”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“But I
can
come now. I can drop everything
right now
and be there in twenty minutes.
Please
, just—”

There was a long pause as he listened to whatever the other person was saying.

“Right,” he said, his voice softer and defeated. “Yeah, I know.”

“No,” he said. “Don’t do that. I just . . . I’m so fucking sorry I—”

He inhaled and sighed, nodding at whatever the other person was saying.

“Okay. Yeah.” He paused for just a moment, starting to lower the phone, then pressed it back to his ear. “Hey! Wait! If she wakes up, tell her I’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll leave here at dawn and slip into her bedroom and be the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes, okay? Yeah. Bye.”

And suddenly Verity wished that she
hadn’t
been listening.

She had no idea who “she” was, but she obviously meant a lot to Colton. Not only had he offered to “drop everything” and run to her side, but he planned to go and see her first thing in the morning. No, not just see her, but “slip into her bedroom.”

Who was she? And why did Verity feel like busting into tears?

“Fuck,” muttered Colton, turning around to find Verity standing behind him on the patio.

She raised her hand limply in greeting. “Hi.”

His eyes combed her body, but he didn’t smile, as she’d imagined he would. He took a deep breath and exhaled on a huff, shoving his phone into his back pocket. “Hi.”

She glanced at the table. “Everything looks really . . . beautiful.”