“Candace, what’s wrong?” he demanded.
Oh, God, and he looked…
She shook her head desperately. Brian took off his wraparound shades and settled them on the bill of his black baseball cap, hitting her with the full force of his dark blue eyes. Out here in the blinding sun, she could see herself reflected in their depths.
“I didn’t follow you here,” she snapped. “I was out of coffee.”
For a moment he looked puzzled, then he chuckled. “Sweetie, that never even entered my mind. But you can follow me any damn place you please, all right?”
She was struggling to contain the impulse to throw herself onto his white sleeveless tee right there in the middle of the busy parking lot. Why did he have to bust out the tattoos today, of all days? They were visible from shoulders to wrists. Beautiful. She wanted those arms around her. She wanted that voice telling her not to worry. But he and his friend appeared to have plans of some sort, and she didn’t want to keep him from them. He deserved to go and live his carefree life without worrying about her baggage.
“In fact…follow me now,” he said. “Come with us. You look like you could use a getaway.”
Her heart stuttered. “W-where?”
“The bunch of us are going to Dallas for a rock festival. I have friends up there we’re crashing with. You’d love it, Candace. I know you’ve never been to anything like that before.”
He was the serpent standing there holding out the forbidden fruit to her. Escape. Safety. And dare she even think it? Fun.
“And I also know you’re mad at me, so look, I won’t—”
“I’m not mad at you, Brian.”
“Well…there are issues, then. How’s that? So this could be just us hanging out for the weekend. No pressure, no worries. I think it would do you some good.”
She did too. A world of good. She could be with him, even if she wasn’t with him. And that actually made sense to her short-circuited brain.
But she had a commitment. She had to be at the church at two. Two p.m., rather. Couldn’t forget that. He must have forgotten, but then again, she didn’t recall telling him when the wedding was. She doubted he kept up with the Lifestyle section of the newspaper.
And not only did she have to be there at two p.m.—in the afternoon, lest she get confused—she had to walk down the aisle with her would-be date rapist. Couldn’t forget that, either. But she had decided that no matter what machinations her mother devised, she was not going to the lake house for the fun, old-fashioned family get-together. It wasn’t happening. She wasn’t waking up in the middle of the night to find that freak crawling into her bed. The very thought made her nauseous.
Brian’s thumb gently stroked the back of her hand. “Come on. We can get you a ticket, no problem. Come with us.”
Her mouth opened. No words would come out. They were too conflicted, jumbling together as her heart and her brain warred back and forth.
“Go home, get your stuff together, and we’ll pick you up in twenty minutes or so. Wear something comfortable for today. Once we get there, you’ll be on your feet all day long.”
He looked so eager and excited for her to go with them. She imagined how her mother and Deanne were going to sneer at her when she walked into the dressing room this afternoon. She imagined Michelle wearing the same cool expression toward her she’d worn last night after her revelation, all traces of warmth gone.
Deanne hadn’t wanted her there in the first place. She knew it. Now no one wanted her there at all.
I’ll take five minutes with him over a lifetime with them any day.
She’d meant it with all her heart when she’d said it to Michelle. But the next quiet word that came out of her mouth would truly put it to the test.
“Okay.”
Riding in Brian’s truck toward Dallas when she was supposed to be getting ready to go to the church was probably the most surreal experience of Candace’s life. She’d left her cell phone sitting on her kitchen counter, thrown a bag of clothes together so fast she’d probably neglected necessities. And she couldn’t stop shaking. At times it was all she could do not to tell Brian to turn around and take her home.
It was too late for that. She was crammed in the backseat of his truck with Starla and Janelle because Ghost had called shotgun and apparently that was a binding resolution. She really didn’t mind. This wasn’t a date, as Brian had said, just hanging out. Sitting pressed against him for three hours straight might decimate her already frazzled mind. Plus, the girls had wanted her in the back with them. Starla had patted the seat next to her with a big grin and said, “Come on back here with us, sexy.”
Ghost had gotten all kinds of excited about the prospects of some girl-on-girl action happening in the backseat, and offered the use of his cell phone to record it. Brian had shaken his head, laughing.
The conversation hadn’t stalled since, and she found herself struggling to keep up. It was like wandering into a roomful of strangers who were speaking a foreign language, trying to decipher their gossip and inside jokes. They were probably all the more hilarious for their mystery to her.
“Dude,” Ghost proclaimed after about an hour and a half on the road. He dug deep into the duffel bag he’d brought and produced a CD, which he handed to Brian. “Play this.”
Brian took it and held it up in front of his face to examine it, but it looked blank from where she was sitting. “The fuck is this, man,” he muttered around the sucker in this mouth. She had to giggle at the way he often made questions sound like statements.
“Just play it. You’ll like it.”
“I’d better or you’re walking the rest of the way.” He glanced back at Candace. “Ghost favors some unusual shit.”
“Very,” Starla agreed, passing Candace the bag of chips that had been circulating the cab.
As Brian fiddled with the CD, Ghost surprised Candace by turning all the way around in his seat so he could look directly at her. “What’s up with your girl?”
Caught with a mouthful of BBQ Ruffles, she struggled to swallow before she spoke. “Huh?”
“Your girl. The one you came in with the other night.”
“Oh, Macy? What about her?”
“She have a dude?” His dark eyes were intent, almost unnervingly so. He normally seemed so nonchalant. But then, she’d only been in his presence a couple of times.
“Um…not at the moment.”
“Gimme her number.”
She laughed, looking at him incredulously. “I can’t just give you my friend’s number.”
“Why not? She’s your friend, ain’t she?”
“Yeah, that’s why I can’t hand her number out without her permission.”
“What I’m saying is, if she’s your friend, she’ll forgive you. But she doesn’t even have to know where I got it from. I won’t tell her.”
“Who else could you have gotten it from?”
“I’ll say you left your phone sitting in your seat or something and I swiped it and got her number out of it.”
“I didn’t even bring it.”
“Well, she doesn’t know that!”
Brian and the girls were laughing. Starla reached up and grabbed Ghost’s shoulder. “Down, boy, turn around now. Stop harassing her.”
Ghost ignored her. “She’s kind of prim and proper, huh.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh, shit,” Brian muttered, as if he knew what was coming next. “Dude, turn around. Eyes front.”
“Daaaamn, I love girls like that. I love getting them dirrrty.”
Candace giggled. “Good luck with that. Look up ‘dirty’ in the dictionary and it’ll say ‘Not Macy’.”
Starla yelped with laughter, but Ghost only looked pained. “Ah! You’re killing me here.”
He shook his head and turned back around, grumbling. “I still think you should give me her number.”
She was tempted to do it just to get a good laugh out of the situation. This poor
guy didn’t know what he’d be getting himself into.
Every time Brian had glanced into the backseat on the drive, she’d been smiling. She looked better already, and he had to congratulate himself. But then, his friends could always be counted on to keep the mood festive. Starla and Janelle had made sure she felt welcome without him even having to ask it of them. He’d been afraid Starla’s opinion of her had changed after last week. Apparently, that wasn’t the case at all.
By the time they pulled up to the curb outside Marco and Kara’s house in the suburbs of Dallas, every line of tension in her face had smoothed out. Their plan had been not to call this a date, but God, he wanted to. He wanted to run straight to her side, wrap his arm around her shoulders and introduce her to his friends as his. His date, his woman, his girlfriend…hell, whatever title she would allow him to put on her.
He couldn’t do that, but there was no denying the magnetism that pulled him toward her as soon as his feet hit the ground. She smiled at him as he came up beside her, and gestured to the sucker stick still in his mouth as she stretched her muscles after the long drive. “New habit?”
“Yeah. Rot my teeth instead of my lungs.”
“Ew!”
He laughed, flicking the stick in the back of his truck. Normally he would’ve thrown it in the gutter, but he didn’t want her thinking he was a litterbug.
“When I first saw you pull up at my apartment, I caught that flash of white in your mouth and I was so afraid you were smoking again.”
“I’m doing okay,” he murmured as they all walked across the neat green lawn toward the house. “Haven’t slipped up yet. Don’t worry.”
“So, how do you know these people whose house I’m staying at?” She gave a nervous laugh. “I hope they won’t mind me tagging along.”
“Not at all, they’re totally cool. You’ll see. They own a parlor here in Dallas. When I want ink, I go to these guys. Marco is my mentor. I did my apprenticeship under him.”
“Oh! So they’ve done all your work?”
“I’m pretty much a showcase for them.”
Ghost had overheard. “Yeah, the bastard won’t let me touch him.”
“Because I can only imagine what you’d put on me,” Brian fired back.
The front door to the house opened and Marco’s wife flew out, squealing. Janelle and Starla made similar sounds of excitement and rushed forward, crushing her in a hug.
“That’s Kara,” Brian said at Candace’s ear. “I’ll introduce you. You’ll like her.”
The three danced around in a silly merry-go-round hug and finally broke apart, laughing. Kara evaded Ghost’s groping as best she could before moving on to Brian and then Candace, surprising him by grabbing her in a hug, too. Candace returned it, beaming.
“Candace, meet Kara.” Brian laughed. “Who is not shy in the least.”
“I’ve never met you before,” Kara said to her, “but if you’re with him then you’re all right by me.”
“Oh, I’m…” Candace looked at him in alarm, and he gave a little shake of his head to say it was okay. They didn’t need to explain themselves to anyone. “It’s nice to meet you. I hope you don’t mind me coming along.”
“Of course not. You guys might be crowded tonight, but we are fully equipped for this sort of thing, trust me. The more the merrier.”
“That’s if we sleep at all,” Ghost said happily.
Kara was still scrutinizing Candace. “Brian, she’s adorable! Look at that face. You take good care of him, Candace. Ever since he was a starry-eyed eighteen-year-old kid hanging around our parlor, he’s been one of my favorite people.”
“Just one of them?” he teased, and she winked at him.
“I’ll do my best,” Candace assured her, looking overwhelmed.
Kara gave her arm a squeeze and turned to the rest of them. “Marco left with Connor and Tay. Beer run. I’m watching the grill out back, so you guys had better come on in before I burn something down.”
“Sweet,” Ghost said. “I’m starving.”
“Con and Tay made it here already?” Brian asked. “They made good time.” His other two workers had ridden separately.
“They said they set the cruise at ninety.” Kara rolled her eyes as she led them into the foyer of the house. Brian’s hand sought out Candace’s and he gave her fingers a squeeze. He really couldn’t imagine how she was feeling right now, thrown into the mix with a bunch of strangers the likes of which she’d probably never hung out with before. Kara had sleeves as solid and dense as his own, a nose ring and angelbites. Not to mention everything you couldn’t see. She was brash and opinionated and, much like him, didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. A far cry from the Andrews family, not to mention his own.
Candace probably felt about as comfortable as he did when forced to hang out with his own straight-laced relatives, except she seemed to be having a lot more fun than he did in those situations. Kara grabbed all the girls and headed into the kitchen with them to make drinks. Candace tagged along, complimenting her on the house.
She was just too sweet, too polite. He’d never imagined falling for someone like her, not in a million years, but if he was honest with himself, he knew that was only because he couldn’t have imagined a girl like her falling for him.
Chapter Fourteen
Kara was very pretty and even more intimidating. Not that she was unfriendly. She was too cool and too likeable. Surrounded by girls who knew one another and seemed to be best friends, Candace felt she was struggling to keep from blending into the background. She didn’t want to let Brian down by not meshing with his friends, but it wasn’t just for him. She needed this for herself. To prove to herself that she could function when she wasn’t under the protective shadow of her freakishly tyrannical family.
She met Kara’s husband and Brian’s other two employees when they got back from the liquor store. Marco was tall with long black hair and, as expected, lots of tattoos. He and Brian greeted each other with guy hugs and good-natured insults, but there was no question he was someone Brian had a lot of respect for. The guys headed out into the backyard to take over grilling duties while the girls gathered around the kitchen table.
Candace accepted the beer she was offered, feeling it would’ve been rude not to do so, but she barely sipped it. Kara wasn’t drinking, because apparently she and Marco were trying to get pregnant. The conversation flew fast and furious, skipping from catching up to work to music to Kara’s endeavors to conceive.
“So how is the baby-making sex?” Janelle was inquiring. “You would think it would be kind of boring and mechanical, like, ‘I’m ovulating! Give it to me now!’”
Kara shook her head, laughing. “It’s actually not. To me it’s even more exciting, to wonder in the middle of it if this could be the one. And, girl, it’s never boring. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of him.” Her lips curled as she stared out the window, where the guys were gathered around the grill.
“How long have you been married?” Candace asked.
“Seven years. But we’ve been together for fifteen. Met in high school.”
“Wow.”
Kara’s attention turned back to her. “How long have you and Brian been dating? It must be a new development because he never mentioned you until he called earlier today to say you were coming.”
“Oh, um…actually, we’re not really dating. I mean, I wish I could say we were, to be honest, but…it’s complicated.”
A chorus of voices spoke up at once:
“Girl, he’s crazy about you.”
“You could totally be with him if you want to be.”
“Complicated sucks. Simplify things and go for it.”
They all laughed. Candace shrugged and kept her gaze trained on her beer, turning the bottle around and around with her fingers. She was heading in the wrong direction. Things weren’t getting simpler; they were only getting more complicated, thanks to her actions today.
It was getting close to one o’
clock. Every time she thought about it, a flock of butterflies went wild in her stomach and her heart did a sick flip-flop. What were they going to do when they couldn’t find her? This was so against the grain for her. And there was always the possibility that Brian would be angry when he found out what she’d done. What if he hated her for only making things worse? What if it totally ruined the weekend for him? What if he would be disgusted when he learned she was a spineless little mouse who had to run and hide from her problems?
What had she done?
She looked around Kara’s neat, prettily decorated kitchen and wished she could have something like this. Freedom. A home that was hers. The man she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“You’ve got it bad for him too,” Starla observed. She cleared her throat and straightened in her chair. “He probably said something already, but I wanted to tell you myself that I’m sorry I roped him into taking me to the bar the night you were there. It was nothing. He’s been helping me through a rough spot with my man. Brian’s a great friend, and the whole time we were there, all he did was pine for you, really.”
“He did?”
“He was in a funk all night at work. I’m telling you, the man is strung out over you.” Starla gave her a look then that led Candace to believe she knew more than she was letting on. “Don’t play with his head, okay?” she finished gently.
“That’s the last thing I want to do. I… There are some things I’m having to work through right now.”
“Let him help,” Kara offered. “Don’t shut him out.”
“I feel like he deserves someone who isn’t this soul-sucking emotional burden on him.”
“Honey, all he deserves is someone who loves him for who he is. If there’s a soul-sucking emotional burden to bear, then so be it. Bear it together.”
The three pairs of eyes watching her were kind but inquisitive, as if they were trying to decipher her true intentions with their friend. She could understand. It warmed her heart that he had people who cared about him so much. She’d always considered him sort of a loner type, only to find he had a greater support network than she did.