"I notice you're working up front behind the counter instead of in the back of the store." Opal counts change for a customer and hands her a box of baked goods. "Have a nice day, honey."
I turn around, ready to wait on the next customer and ignore Opal, but there are no more customers in line. When I glance over at Caveman again, he's behind his newspaper. As much as I’m irritated that he’s here again, when I look at him I can still feel his lips on mine, and my breath quickens the same way it did when he stormed in here and kissed me.
6
Killian
"What are you doing here?"
I look over the edge of my newspaper when I hear her voice. "Enjoying a relaxing morning with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. You?"
She narrows her blue-grey eyes and her nostrils flare again. I think that might be the most seductive expression I've ever seen on a woman. Or I'm just hard up and it's been too long since I've gotten laid. Probably the latter. "I'm working. At my job. I know you're not here because you like the coffee."
I fold the newspaper and lay it on the table. "You really shouldn't sell yourself short. Your coffee is good.”
Lily raises one eyebrow and crosses her arms over her chest. “That is not my coffee,” she says, eyeballing the tall glass on the table.
“It’s your brew. I just doctored it up my way.”
“Don’t you have someplace to be?” she asks. “Other than here, I mean?”
“Nope.” I decide to push my luck. I don’t know why this girl makes me want to push my luck with her but there you have it. “Besides, I like the scenery here.”
My eyes stay fixed on her as a faint tinge of pink rises to her cheeks. “Do you usually stalk girls you kiss?”
“That was hardly a kiss.”
She coughs out a laugh. “I guess our definitions of that word are totally different.”
“I can show you what a real kiss is, if you'd like." I'm joking, just egging her on, except with the way she looks standing here in front of me with her lush lips slightly parted, there's nothing more I'd like to do right now than feel those sweet lips on mine again.
She raises her eyebrows. “You’re so generous.”
“What can I say? I’m a giver.”
“You’re something,” she agrees, tossing me a look over her shoulder as she walks back toward the front counter. I watch her walk away, although walk away isn’t the right term for it. She practically sashays, her hips swing seductively as she takes long strides. I’m far too fixated on the way her ass looks in those jeans for my own good.
Cupcakes and Cappuccinos is comfortable, a decent place to have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper. That was what I told myself when I got into the truck this morning and drove thirty minutes into town for a cup of coffee. Total bullshit, of course. The view of her walking away just now made it worth the drive.
I open the newspaper back up to the sports section, because if I stare at her from over here any more, she’ll be justified in thinking I’m a stalker.
Not more than ten minutes later, she’s back and standing in front of my table. “Here. Try this.” She sets down a glass of iced coffee on the table.
I peer into the liquid. “Coffee ice cubes?”
“And espresso. So it’s not watered down. You said you needed caffeine.”
I take a sip of the coffee drink. “You’re alright, cupcake. This is good shit.”
“Enough with the names.”
“Sure thing, muffin.”
She glares at me. “Never mind. I take back the coffee.”
“Too late, bear claw.”
She shakes her head slowly, one hand on her hip, her lips pursed.
I shrug. "You’re right. Bear claw wasn't very good. I'm pretty much out of pastry names, unless you want me to call you doughnut. Or cream puff? Wait. Hang on – what are the long ones with the cream inside?"
She narrows her eyes at me. “Is that a crude innuendo?”
“It wasn’t, but I like where your mind is at.” I remember the pastry name. “Éclair.”
Lily rolls her eyes. “I’ll get you a to-go cup for that coffee, then.”
“Nah, I’m just fine here, sugar,” I call to her retreating back as she passes the counter, the kitchen doors swinging behind her.
I don’t know if it’s the coffee or seeing her, but there’s an extra spring in my step when I leave the coffee shop. Halfway down the block, I run into Luke.
“Am I losing my mind or did you just walk out of a bakery?” Luke asks. “A cupcake bakery with a pink sign over the door?”
“Shut up.”
Luke laughs. “Tell me you went in for one of the froufrou coffee drinks in there.”
I shrug. “So what if I did, little brother?” I ask, wrapping my arm around his neck and putting him in a headlock. “Maybe I like little froufrou drinks.”
Luke makes a faux strangling noise and I let him go. “What are you doing in town?” he asks. “I thought you were all about shunning us and staying up in your cabin. Are you coming down from on high to grant us with your presence?”
“I had to retreat to my cabin to get away from you and Autumn and all your lovey-dovey bullshit. I think the two of you might be worse than the twins and their girls.”
“Hell no. Worse than Elias and Silas? Now you’re being insulting.”
I'm just ragging on him. No one is as annoying as Elias and Silas are with the women in their lives. Elias hooked up with River, this big Hollywood movie star. He keeps trying to get me to come over and hang out with them, but what the hell do I have in common with a movie star? Silas is with Tempest, who’s a con artist, which is actually pretty okay, I guess.
“Alright. All three of you are equally disgusting.”
Luke laughs. “You’ll meet some girl and be as disgusting as we are, eventually.”
I stop walking and give him a raised eyebrow. “You going to keep saying dumb shit like that?”
“I’m screwing around with you, man,” Luke says, laughing. “God, the look on your face. Shit, no. I can’t see you being all gaga over some girl.”
I grunt in response. I’m not going gaga over some girl ever. Period. Just because I drove thirty minutes into town for a cup of coffee doesn’t remotely mean I’m gaga over that girl in the bakery, either.
“So why did you come out of hiding?” Luke asks. “You’ve been up there since you got back."
I shrug. “Just taking care of some business in town.”
Total lie. I have no business in town to take care of. But hell if I’m going to admit that to Luke.
“You alright, man?” Luke asks, stopping at the end of the sidewalk. “You’re not sitting up there in the woods crying and shit, are you?”
“Shut the fuck up, Luke.” I shake my head at him as I unlock the truck.
“Autumn wants you to come down tomorrow for dinner,” he says.
“I don’t know." I groan. “I ”
“Don’t give me grief, Killian. You know Autumn. If she wants you at dinner, you’re going to have to be at dinner. Besides, I’m making ribs. I'm glazing them with Autumn’s newest brew.”
I groan reluctantly, but Luke knows it’s a fake protest. I like Autumn just fine. “Tell Autumn I’ll be there.”
I sit outside under the stars beside the pile of planks that will eventually become the front porch I'm going to add to this cabin. I bought this place because I wanted solitude, and solitude is definitely what I got up here. The long winding road stretches for miles up the side of the mountain before turning into a one-lane dirt road, all switchbacks and steep ascents. The cabin sits on a ten-acre piece of land, the nearest neighbor a mile down the road. Cell phones don’t work up here and I’m sure the roads will be impassible for most of the winter. The owner was just glad to get rid of it. Calling it a fixer-upper would be an understatement. Making the cabin livable has been a full-time job the past few months.
I sit out here smoking a cigar and rocking on the chair that was Jac
k's. Jack Finley is the reason I was in Texas instead of here helping my brothers. He was the closest thing to a father I'd ever had, a weathered old man who worked the oil rigs most of his life and took me under his wing when I first got to West Texas.
As soon as I turned eighteen, I ran headlong away from this town at breakneck speed. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't have a plan because I was just a stupid kid back then who was angry at the world and thought he was invincible. I hitchhiked my way south and wound up in Texas right in the middle of oil rigging country. That's where I met Jack.
My brothers didn't expect me to come back to West Bend permanently, and I'm not sure I even know quite why I came back here myself. I just know that sometimes the places you think you'd never return to are the very same places you come back to as a touchstone. Elias and Silas are still pissed off at me for leaving right in the middle of investigating our mother's death. They think I'm a disloyal brother for leaving when I did.
The truth is that I left in the middle of things here in West Bend because Jack was dying. He'd been dying for a while – lung cancer – but he was a tough son-of-a-bitch and the cancer was a long time in taking him. I thought there was plenty of time, but I didn't make it back to Texas from West Bend before Jack died. I was the only family he had and he left me everything. Everything apparently meant a fortune, including his old rocking chair, which is better than all of the money. But he died alone. I was his only family, and he died alone. The kind of guilt that comes with that has gnawed at my stomach the past few months, casting a shadow over everything I do. The run-ins with Lily at the general store and then at the bakery are the first times I haven't felt that since I got back to West Bend.
7
Lily
"Back again?"
He's sitting in the same spot he was yesterday, wearing work boots and jeans with a weathered green t-shirt this time and no flannel shirt, leaving his large biceps visible underneath the sleeves that stretch tightly across his muscles.
Shit, I'm staring.
His eyes meet mine and I realize he knows I'm staring. Heat floods my cheeks and I clear my throat in a futile attempt to cover my embarrassment.
"Don't pretend like you're not glad to see me." The corners of his mouth turn up under his beard.
"It's the highlight of my day," I say sarcastically. Except I'm not sure how sarcastic I meant that statement to be.
Opal brings out a tray of blueberry muffins from the back. I set my bag behind the counter and take the tray from her, setting them inside the display case. When I look up, Opal gives me a bemused look. "You look nice today. Are you wearing makeup?"
"What? Do I normally look that bad?" So I wore a little eye shadow today. And lipstick. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the guy in the work boots.
Opal sidesteps my question. "That boy wanted to wait for his coffee."
"What boy?" I ask, even though I know full well who she's talking about.
"The good-looking one. Don't pretend like you don't see him over there, either."
"I see him just fine." I tamp down ground coffee in the portafilter and slide it into the espresso machine, then turn to fill a glass with coffee ice cubes. I toss a long spoon inside so the glass doesn't crack when I pour the espresso over the ice. "What?"
Opal is giving me a look. "Fine is exactly what I was thinking."
"You're a dirty old woman," I say, my voice hushed. I dispose of the grounds and make another double shot of espresso. "And I have no idea what you're talking about."
Opal shakes her head and tsks me. "Sure you don't."
"He's a customer," I hiss, finishing up the coffee and grabbing a bowl of sweetener and a little metal carafe of cream. I set them onto a tray.
"He seems to be hoping for more than the coffee." Opal raises her eyebrows. "Might be good for you to go over there and see what else he's interested in."
I can feel my face color without even seeing my reflection in a mirror. "I'm not concerned about what anyone is interested in, and definitely not him."
"Sure you're not."
I huff away with the tray in my hand, and when I get to his table, I set the glass down harder than I intended, irritated by Opal's insinuation. "I assume this is what you were waiting for?"
He looks up at me, amusement in his eyes. "Okay. Let's go with that."
"Opal is capable of making you a cup of coffee, you know."
He counts out five packets of sugar and tears the tops off the packets before dumping them into the glass. "But that would deprive me of these special moments, Lily."
"Are we using names now? Do I get yours or should I just keep calling you Caveman?"
"Caveman works."
I narrow my eyes, watching him suck down half his coffee in a few gulps, entirely too distracted by his lips. "Jackass might be more accurate."
"Probably true." He sucks down the other half of his coffee. "It's Killian."
"Killian." I speak his name aloud and that same image from my fantasy the other night flashes in my mind. Killian fucking me hard against the wall. My name rolling off his tongue.
Me breathing his name when I come.
I push the image out of my head, averting my eyes as heat surges through my body. What I thought just then has to be written all over my face.
Killian rises from his seat, standing far too close to me to be appropriate. My legs refuse to move. I'm planted right there with my feet in the ground and my heart beating furiously in my chest, and suddenly it's like there's only two of us in the room. I think I stop breathing for a minute, feeling that same inextricable pull between us that I felt when he kissed me before.
When he looks down at me, his eyes are dark. The intensity of his expression sends a shiver through me. He's standing so close to me that all he would have to do is lean down and kiss me the way he did the other day.
I can show you a real kiss, if you'd like.
"Say it again." His voice is rough, more gravely than before, and the words are an order, not a suggestion. They make me think about what else he'd order me to do, and arousal floods my body, settling between my legs.
"Killian," I whisper.
He makes a sound under his breath, low in his throat, and I swear it sounds like a growl. He leans toward me, his lips near my ear. His breath is hot against my skin, and he's so close that if I turned my face just slightly toward him my lips would be on his. "I want to hear you moan it."
My breath hitches in my throat. The logical reasonable part of me knows I should be appalled by the sheer arrogance of the Caveman's statement. I should be embarrassed by the way that statement made me wet.
That logical reasonable part of me forces disgust into my tone. "Not likely." I barely choke the words out, and they sound just as lame and insincere as they are.