She walked toward him as he sat at the front desk, watching some TV show on his laptop as usual, his thin shoulders hunched over and his mouth open like he was in a trance. “Here you go, Gerrall!” she said. He spun around at the sound of her voice and jumped to his feet.
“I knew my girl wouldn’t forget me,” he said, a huge smile breaking out on his pimply face. “My girl is the kind who keeps her word, isn’t she?”
Candy offered the plate to him and he snatched it, plopping back in his chair. Did he just call her “his girl”? What the hell?
Gerrall began digging in. He leaned back and let his head drop back as he savored the bite. “Oh, my God,” he mumbled, chewing. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. You’re amazing, Candy!”
Since that was the second time he’d called her “amazing,” he’d now racked up two “amazings” and two “my girls” in the course of a single day. Candy took a step back, feeling a little sick to her stomach.
“You enjoy now,” she said, suddenly worried that she’d somehow led Gerrall on. But how? She’d been kind but distant. She’d returned his gifts. Maybe he was just the kind of guy with so little game that he couldn’t tell the difference between sociable and sexual. He wouldn’t be the first man she’d encountered with that problem.
Candy gestured toward the dining room as she continued to step away. “I should probably be getting back to the bridge club. Please remember to put the fork and plate in the kitchen—I don’t want Mr. Miller on my case for anything else. Have a good evening.”
“Speaking of which…” Gerrall set the half-eaten cake on the desk and winked at her. “Tonight will be our little secret, so don’t worry about it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know. Tonight—the bridge club. I know you were back there playing cards even after Miller told you not to, but I assure you that your secret is safe with me. I’ll never tell.”
Candy cocked her head to the side and gave Gerrall a look she hoped could not be misinterpreted.
His face fell. His smile collapsed. “Are you mad at me?” he asked, his voice deflated. “Did I say something wrong? I’m only trying to help you, let you know that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Candy. Nothing.”
She stood frozen for an instant, feeling so awkward that all she wanted to do was run. It suddenly occurred to her that this Gerrall Spivey kid was more than just odd—he was off. There was something wrong with him. Yet again, she felt a hint of a threat in the way he spoke to her. She didn’t like it.
“You know your two weeks will be up soon,” he said. “Miller mentioned it today. I’m worried about you, Candy. Where are you going to go? Do you have a plan?”
“Of course I do,” she fibbed.
“Do you need some help moving?”
“No, thank you. I better get back.” She produced a smile and told him good night as she moved toward the dining room.
Gerrall was right, of course. She had exactly three days until Miller was going to kick her ass out of there, and she faced a dilemma. She wouldn’t get her paycheck until the following Monday, and she had no way of knowing what she’d be bringing home after taxes. She’d been glancing at the Bugle’s classified section nearly every day, and saw that it might be possible for her to rent a room or a studio apartment in town for about $350 a month. But every place required a security deposit and first month’s rent, which she knew she couldn’t swing with a single paycheck. Once again, she was going to have to brainstorm her way out of a tight spot.
The bridge club welcomed her back with smiles and cheers. Even her mother grinned at her with what Candy swore was a hint of pride. She was pretty sure she’d never seen that in Jacinta’s expression before.
Candy knew she’d find a way out of this latest jam. She always did. And as she stood in the formal dining room turned card lounge, she squeezed her thighs together for an instant, comforted by Sophie’s sapphire and diamond awesomeness, the promise of all that was still possible in her life.
* * *
“Candace?”
She jerked awake, for an instant unsure where she was and who was speaking. That was the one problem with being a rolling stone—sometimes it took a minute for her to remember where she’d last rolled off to.
“I’m up. I’m up.” Candy threw off the blanket and started to rise from the couch, ready to start the day, but felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, urging her to stay prone.
“Oh, it’s not morning yet. You only just lay down half an hour ago. I didn’t realize you were already asleep.”
Candy rubbed her face with her hands and tried to focus. Jacinta’s tone of voice sounded alien, almost tender. “Is something wrong?”
“I think maybe there is.”
Candy watched her mother flip on the floor lamp near the set of plush swivel chairs and make herself comfortable in one. Jacinta’s bouffant was restrained in a hairnet. Her face was coated in a clear sheen of nighttime skin product Candy had to admit was doing the trick. Her mother was in her mid-sixties but looked at least a decade younger. Maybe it was simply the lack of Florida sun damage she’d grown accustomed to seeing on older women’s faces. Candy smiled to herself at the thought—she’d finally stumbled upon something good to be said about spending your life in the North Cack-a-lacky hills! An abundance of shade!
“I was thinking,” Jacinta said.
Candy pulled the covers up around her and sat cross-legged on the sofa, letting her eyes adjust to the light. “Yeah?”
“It has been good to see you.”
Candy made a quick check for video cameras mounted around the room—because this had to be a joke. “Okay,” she said.
“I’ve enjoyed your visit. I’ve enjoyed seeing you again and the two weeks have gone by quite fast.”
Ah. So that was it. “You’re kicking me out.”
“No!” Jacinta shook her head so violently the hairnet slipped. She put it back in place. “In fact, I was thinking that it would be nice if you could stay a little longer. I’ve liked having the company, and it’s reminded me that you and I were never as close as I would have liked. I bet that comes as a shock to hear.”
Candy blinked a few times. “Uh, which part—the part about how we weren’t close or the part about how you would have liked it to have been different?”
“That second part,” Jacinta said. “I think I owe you an apology, Candace. And an explanation.”
This conversation was so unexpected and so far beyond the norm that Candy didn’t know what to say. Her mother had never spoken to her like this—directly and honestly, adult to adult—and it felt dreamlike. “What’s the apology for, exactly?”
Jacinta shrugged. “Oh, you know, I always felt as if you didn’t like me much, and I can’t say that I blame you. I wasn’t the most involved mother in town, I realize, and I was always glad you had Cheri’s mama and then after she was gone you had Viv Newberry. I knew that you were getting that warm and fuzzy stuff from someone.”
Candy frowned. What a damn strange way to apologize.
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I did the best I could, considering what I had to offer you at the time.” Jacinta turned her face away, and for a split second, Candy swore her mother was going to cry. Never, ever, no matter how bad things got with her father, had Candy seen Jacinta Carmichael shed a tear.
“Mother? Are you all right?”
“Of course I am!” She waved her hand through the air, then flicked off the light and rose from the chair. “Sleep tight. See you in the morning. Tomorrow’s Saturday, in case you’ve forgotten, so I will be needing my privacy in the evening, of course.”
“Right,” Candy said, watching her mother leave the room. “Hey! Wait! You said you wanted to explain something!”
Jacinta looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “That’s enough for one night. We’ll talk some other time.” And she was gone. Candy heard the sound of her door shut and her TV come on.
She sat
there in the dark for what had to have been fifteen minutes, not moving, breathing slowly, letting her mind wander and her heart crack open. She couldn’t wait to tell Cheri about this monumental occasion. Her mother actually spoke to her about something real! Her mother acknowledged that she’d let her daughter down! It was a miracle! So what if it was awkward? Her mother had actually made an attempt to connect with her! She felt like laughing out loud!
Candy’s thoughts immediately went to Turner. She thought of the weight of everything he carried in the deepest part of his heart. His loss. His grief. His loneliness. She wondered how he’d survived it. She wondered if his life here in Bigler made him happy. She felt herself tremble at the memory of his lips against hers, his hands all over her body, the heat and solid strength of all he was.
Candy smiled sadly in the dark. She missed that man something awful.
Chapter 11
“Counter order up!”
“You have a nice day now,” Candy said, handing Mr. Creswell his sixty-one cents in change and shutting the register drawer. “Come back and see us tomorrow, all right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” the old man said, reaching for her hand and putting the change right back in her palm. “That’s for you, sweetheart.”
“Oh, gosh. Thank you!” Candy tossed the coins in the front pocket of her apron and smiled at him. As far as tips went in this place, sixty-one cents on a four-ninety-nine senior citizen lunch platter (plus tax) wasn’t all that bad, especially since Mr. Creswell was a counter regular, and most of the customers who ate at the counter figured they didn’t need to tip because it took only three steps to deliver food instead of the fifteen required for a booth or table. Besides, it all added up, Candy knew, and she was proud to say that with tips alone she’d been able to pay back Lenny every dime he’d given her for gas, fill the tank on her own once, plus sock away over thirteen dollars! And today was payday!
Life was definitely getting better.
Candy spun around to retrieve the plates Lenny had just set out.
“How’s it goin’ out there today?” he asked Candy, not looking up from his work as he spoke.
“Pretty smooth,” she said. “Are you managing to keep up back here?”
Lenny laughed and shook his head as he assembled three BLT sandwich platters so quickly his fingers were a blur. “Good Lord, girl, I could do this with a hand tied behind my back, both eyes swole shut, and a dog humping my leg.”
Candy laughed, turned around to serve her customers, and nearly dropped everything on the floor.
Turner was seated at the counter. He was smiling at her—one of those bright, white, big, sexy smiles.
It took her a couple seconds to recover from the shock, then she managed to nod in his direction, deliver the food orders, and ring up a departing customer at the register. That gave her enough time to develop a plan of action—and her plan was to be cool as a cucumber—and run down a mental inventory of what she might look like to him at that particular moment. Stained apron. Small silver hoop earrings. Hair pulled back in a ponytail. A single coat of mascara and not a trace of eyeliner or lip gloss.
Your basic hillbilly diner employee.
She completed the register transaction and reminded herself that it didn’t matter. So what if she didn’t look particularly alluring? She wasn’t interested in luring Turner in any form or fashion. He was her friend. He was a paying customer. And the man had obviously come here for lunch and nothing else, because when she glanced at him he was studying the single-page laminated menu, not her.
“Hey, Turner. Nice to see you.” Candy stood on the other side of the counter from him, poised to take his order. “Anything look good to you today?”
Oh, God. Oh, shee-it. That might have been her standard greeting to normal customers, but the instant those words escaped her lips she knew it would have an entirely different meaning with Turner, a man who couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her in public places. She swallowed hard. She waited for how he’d respond.
Ever so slowly, he looked up from the menu and pinned her down with those gorgeous hazel eyes. A barely visible smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. And then he whispered, “You, Candy. You look good enough to eat.”
She heard herself make a squeak of helplessness, which was embarrassing. She wanted to bolt out the kitchen door and into the alley, where she could hide behind the Dumpster.
But all she could do was stare at that mouth of his. Those lips were a work of art—masculine lines, soft curves, and supple berry-brown flesh. The fact that all this could be found on one man’s mouth just wasn’t fair. It was too much. She’d never known a man with a mouth that beautiful, a mouth that taunted you to lick it and nibble on it and pry it open with your wet—
“Counter order up!”
Candy jumped. She turned around to retrieve the food and found Lenny frowning at her. “You got a line at the register, girlie.”
“What?” Candy peered over her shoulder. How long had she been frozen where she stood like that, pen in hand, staring at Turner’s mouth? What the hell was wrong with her?
“You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Of course not.”
“You must be running from the law, then.”
“Huh? No!” It was then that Candy noticed Lenny laughing. “Oh, just mind your own business!”
It took her about three minutes to return, and she found Turner waiting patiently. That little smile was probably still on his lips but she would never know because she refused to look. Instead, she focused her attention on the restrooms at the opposite end of the diner, which she decided were fascinating.
“What’ll it be? Can I interest you in one of our specials?”
* * *
Turner bit his tongue. The special he was interested in wasn’t on the menu. The tension between them was so thick and the attraction so heavy that they should be laughing their asses off at how ridiculous it all was. But Candy stared off into the distance, looking at anything but him, and she seemed so skittish that he had to take pity on her.
So he wouldn’t answer the way he wanted to. He wouldn’t confess that the only thing that interested him was making his X-rated dreams a reality, that he was especially interested in seeing Candy nekkid on all fours, wiggling that perfect round ass as she begged him to ravish her.
“I’ll have the meat loaf,” he said, stifling a chuckle. Honestly, he felt like a junior high kid. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so lighthearted and goofy.
“Anything to drink?” Her big blue eyes continued to focus on anywhere that didn’t include him.
Lord have mercy. Yes, he wanted a drink. He wanted to put his mouth on her sex and lick and suck and slurp at her until she came all over his face, draining her sticky juices and getting her sweet pussy nice and ready for his dick.
“Mr. Pibb, no ice, please.”
“You got it.”
When she turned away and reached up to clip his order on the little metal wheel, he thought he’d choke. Her jeans looked like they’d been painted on her ass. Those two incredible globes of flesh were split right down the center by double-stitched goodness. He felt actual physical pain just looking at her, because he knew how that ass felt cradled in his palms, each half firm but soft, a luscious handful of perfection, and he ached for another shot at it.
Turner had to adjust himself on the diner stool.
“Here you go—Mr. Pibb, no ice,” she said, delivering his drink. Before she could take her hand away, Turner touched her wrist. She gasped. Her eyes widened.
“Thank you,” he said, just before he raised the pop to his lips and gazed over the rim of the glass and right into her baby blues.
Candy licked her lips.
Who were they kidding? It was obvious that given the right set of circumstances—such as no one else around and a room with a door—they’d eat each other alive.
She pulled her arm from his touch and walked away. For the next few
minutes, Turner observed Candy do her job. Her smile was genuine. She joked with the customers and had a special tenderness for the older folks. She even let the old men flirt a little without biting their heads off. Candy worked fast at clearing dishes and wiping off the counter and refilling waters and coffees. She really looked like she enjoyed what she was doing. For a moment, Turner couldn’t picture her in the kind of life she apparently had led down in Tampa. That kind of wheeling and dealing seemed too cold for a woman like her, a woman whose smile affected everyone around her, a woman so soft and sweet and real.
“Bon appétit,” she said, placing the meat loaf special in front of him.
“Hey, Candy?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow. She was trying so hard not to let him know she still craved him as much as he craved her. What if J.J. were right? What if the answer to this mess was finding a way to make her want to stay? How would he do it? What could he possibly offer a woman like Candy Carmichael that she couldn’t get anywhere else?
That’s when he remembered there was a reason he came to Lenny’s and it wasn’t necessarily to win Candy’s heart. It damn sure wasn’t for the meat loaf. It was to get a feel for whether she was safe around Gerrall Spivey.
“So you doing okay out at Cherokee Pines?”
She raised her chin. “Fine, thanks.”
“No problems with anyone out there?”
“Of course not. Everyone’s very nice—well, not everyone, but I’m enjoying my visit with Jacinta, surprisingly enough.”
“So nobody’s bothering you?”
She frowned at him. “Wainright Miller is a real horse’s ass. Why? You gonna arrest him for me?”
Turner chuckled. “That particular shortcoming doesn’t violate either county code or state law, which is a good thing, because I’d be hauling in about ninety-nine percent of the population of Cataloochee County if it did.”