And Then He Kissed Me (23 page)

“All I’m trying to do,” Casey was saying, “is help you out a bit. Can you understand that?”

Audrey blinked. Casey had been talking for a while now, but she hadn’t really been listening. “Uh, of course,” she answered blindly.

“Good. Then let’s meet on Saturday for lunch.”

“Saturday is the pageant. I have to be onstage by one.”

“It will still work. Especially if we meet at the Paul Bunyan Diner by noon. Sound okay?”

“All right,” Audrey agreed, her mind as swirled as the marbled patterns at her feet. She hung up the phone, and pushed Casey out of her brain as she strode to the county desk to file her pageant paperwork.

When Arvid Faltskog looked up from his post at the county desk and harrumphed a hello, she took it as a good sign.

*  *  *

He’d lost her.

Kieran let the cold mist batter his face as he raced his bike over rolling farmland, knowing he’d shown his hand and gambled with his terrible cards—and it was no surprise the pot wasn’t his. Audrey Tanner wanted nothing to do with his sad sob story, and he couldn’t blame her one bit.

Wind threaded through his hair and he savored the feeling. His helmet was locked in the saddlebags on the back, and for once he didn’t mind. He let the clean Minnesota air rush over him fully, thinking that soon he’d be in a different state, helping another dealership.

He wouldn’t try to stay in White Pine. He wouldn’t try to make his position here permanent. No, he’d move on and let Audrey be free of him, and that would be that.

Except that he felt like a coward—like a loser, honestly—for giving up so easily. Had he really conquered so many demons in his life only to lose Audrey before he could even tell her the truth?

His stomach knotted for the hundredth time at the unfortunate reality that he’d thrown her on her back on the riverbed and released the tension between them for a few glorious moments. But she still didn’t know what had really happened five years ago.

And, very likely, he’d made things worse by not being able to keep his dick in his pants. He grimaced, thinking of how carnal their sex had been. He’d lost himself totally in her, unable to resist, taking her with a force that had surprised him. And she’d responded passionately and eagerly. So much so that the moment they’d finished, he’d wanted to take her again. But he knew he couldn’t until he confessed, and he’d never gotten the chance.

The truth of it all left him feeling hollowed out and a little bit rotted, too. Like a pumpkin that’s sat on the porch for too many weeks after Halloween.

He slowed the bike, pulling over to the side of the road. Distant green fields were covered in cottony mist. He could hear cows mooing, but couldn’t see them. They were lost in the haze.

Kieran set his jaw.
The truth will set you free.
Wasn’t that the expression? It had been his intent on Sunday to tell Audrey what had really happened five years ago, to tell her what a mistake he’d made and how he’d turned his life around, but he’d only gotten as far as banging her, then wanting something from her. Wanting a future with her, specifically.

That much, he’d said. It was bad timing. It was idiotic, and if this were a test, he would have failed.

He pondered the worst card a gambler could hold. A deuce? A mismatched face card? No. The worst card he could hold would be a joker. Not even a card at all.

Still, he had to put the joker down on the table. Somehow, he had to get her to hear the truth.

He clutched the handlebars. He had such a ruinous tale to tell, but in ruin there was always redemption. His and Casey’s both, perhaps.

And if Audrey didn’t see it, well, she could walk away from him.
Then
she could hate him.

But he had to try again.

He revved his engine and pulled back out onto the damp road. It was madness, pursuing Audrey like this. He was risking her heart as well as his own, since this story involved her sister. It involved family. But she needed to know.

He would ask her once more to hear his story.

He wasn’t sure what she’d say, but, come hell or high water, he would attempt it.

If there was anyone out there who could know the worst about him, and dare to love him anyway, it was her.

Whatever happened, he would show her that joker.

*  *  *

On Thursday, Audrey was rushing down the sidewalk to Knots and Bolts, clutching a Mexican hot dish to her chest, when a dark figure slid to her side and began to keep pace with her.

“Hi, Ms. Tanner.”

Audrey stopped cold. In the dim afternoon light, with the mist swirling, she faced Hunter Haglund, trying not to show her surprise.

“Hunter,” she said, taking in his clean, pressed clothes and polished shoes. She caught a whiff of cologne in the air.

Hunter stepped in closer, and Audrey looked down the sidewalk toward Knots and Bolts, just a hundred feet away. Golden light poured out of the large window at the front, glittering onto the wet street. It looked warm and inviting—and impossibly out of reach at that very second.

“Do you have to go somewhere?” Hunter asked. His dark eyes searched hers; strands of his sandy hair swayed in the wind.

Audrey straightened her spine. “What do you want?” she asked, ignoring his question.

She thought Hunter would smile creepily, maybe say something menacing, but he surprised her by dropping his gaze to the sidewalk. “I wanted to say, the school talked to me, and my parents talked to me, too. I didn’t mean to freak you out the other day. You or Alexis. I guess I just wanted to say sorry, and it won’t happen again.”

Audrey studied the boy. Alexis had been texting her about Hunter earlier in the week, so she knew the school had gotten involved. She knew Hunter’s parents had been told about the boy’s behavior. What she hadn’t known was that Hunter would be so easily altered. She narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t sure she believed it.

He backed away slightly. “I’m sorry if I startled you. I just wanted to apologize. For the incident on the road.” His mouth was pulled into a contrite line.

Audrey wasn’t sure what to say. She certainly hoped the school and his parents had knocked some sense into him.

“I’m glad you understand the situation,” she said after a moment. “That’s a good first step. From now on, respecting Alexis’s boundaries is not a request, it’s a rule.” She didn’t want him thinking that he was off the hook because he was sorry. What he needed to do was totally and completely stop pursuing the poor girl.

Hunter nodded. “That won’t be a problem.”

“Good.” Audrey shifted the Mexican hot dish in her arms. At this rate, it was going to be frigid by the time she got to Knots and Bolts. Hunter just watched her, which made her skin prickle with unease. The kid really, really needed to pick up on more social cues. “All right, then. I need to go. Good night, Hunter.”

She began walking away. Hunter didn’t move. “Good night, Ms. Tanner,” she heard him say to her retreating back.

She would have given him a wave, but both her hands were wrapped around her hot dish. She supposed it was just as well.

C
HAPTER
SEVENTEEN

T
he dreary afternoon was forgotten the minute Audrey stepped inside Knots and Bolts. The back room’s bright red table was adorned with a large crystal vase filled with cheerful spring flowers—grape hyacinths, soft-petaled irises, bold tulips, butter-yellow daffodils, and bluebells. Their colors were a perfect match for the tones in the room’s homey, braided rug. Best of all, Audrey’s friends were already gathered in the cozy space, sipping coffee or tea or wine, and murmuring at the warm, spicy smell wafting in from the kitchenette. It was Betty’s tortilla soup, the perfect complement to Audrey’s Mexican hot dish.

“Good thing you’re here,” Betty said, wiping her hands on her apron as Audrey shrugged out of her coat. “I was worried you’d gotten stuck on a motorcycle again and couldn’t get off.”

Audrey blushed. She seriously had to stop telling them everything that happened at the Harley dealership or she’d never hear the end of it.

“Aw, now, I’m just teasing,” Betty said, eyeing Audrey’s pink cheeks. “Come on in and let me heat up that hot dish for you. We’d better serve it soon, or Pregzilla is going to chew through the walls.”

“I am
not
Pregzilla,” Willa protested as Betty took the hot dish from Audrey. “I’m just tired. And hungry. Good Lord, being with child takes it out of you.” She was sitting at the table with her feet up, sipping some kind of sparkling juice. Audrey laughed, happy that Willa had told everyone her wonderful news.

“For crying out loud, you’re still in the first trimester,” Stephanie said. “Just wait until the third.” She shook her head, no doubt reliving the memory of carrying her twins.

“Don’t I know it. Barely a few months in, and I’m already such a mess. Burk is going to ship me out of state. I swear it.”

“Out of state?” Audrey asked, shaking her head. “No way. Pregzilla is Japanese. You’re going to have to go
overseas
.”

“Oh, she’s not going anywhere,” Anna said. “I see how my brother looks at her. If Burk thought Willa was beautiful before, Willa pregnant is doing him in. He can hardly speak around her. It’s disgusting. And adorable.”

“Come on, Sam must have looked at you that way,” Stephanie said, pulling her bright red hair into a quick, messy bun. “He must have been over the moon when you were pregnant with Juniper.”

Anna’s dark blue eyes crinkled with a happiness that swelled Audrey’s heart. Was it really possible to be adored so thoroughly? That even when pregnancy made you fat and gassy and swollen, a man could love you more than anything? She suddenly had a hard time swallowing, wondering if anyone would ever love her that much.

“Sam liked it, I guess,” Anna said evasively, taking a sip of wine.

“Oh, I’m sure he more than liked it,” Stephanie said. “I bet he had your pregnant self every which way he could get it.”

“Steph!” Anna cried, laughing. “You sound like Betty!”

“Sometimes Betty says things that need saying,” Audrey chimed, quoting Willa from the other night at the Wheelhouse. Her friend winked at her, and Audrey grinned.

“I do what now?” Betty asked, stepping out from the kitchenette, where she’d been reheating Audrey’s hot dish.

“You just tell it like it is,” Willa said, “and that’s why we love you.”

Betty huffed. “Damn straight I do.”

Minutes later, forks were clinking on mismatched plates and spoons were scraping bowls as they ate and talked together. Anna told them that Juniper’s drum lessons had her banging her and Sam awake each day, whacking them both out of bed with wooden spoons. Betty said her pastor husband had become addicted to a reality show about drag queens and thought there were good life lessons in the program that he should preach from the pulpit, though he wasn’t sure how the congregation would feel about the show as a metaphor. And Stephanie regaled them with a story about how one of her twins had dumped all of her expensive packets of chocolate protein powder into the tub and then mixed in enough water so he could take “a mud bath.”

Audrey laughed and ate and listened, but inside was wondering at what point she should jump in and talk about Kieran—or if she should at all.

Kieran and I had sex.

He told me he has feelings for me, but I don’t trust him.

Sometimes, in spite of everything, I fantasize about the two of us being together.

I don’t know everything that happened five years ago.

But I’m not sure I want to know now.

It all sounded so ridiculous. Betty would probably tell her to stop giving it any thought at all—that Kieran Callaghan could fuck her eight ways until Sunday, tell her he was a prince with a flying carpet, and it wouldn’t matter one whit.

Except it didn’t feel that way. She was working so hard to tell herself not to pay attention to Kieran, not to let him affect her, that it was exhausting. Her head hurt and large swaths of her ached.

“You okay over there?” Willa asked, elbowing her gently.

Audrey lifted her eyes from her hot dish and forced a smile. “Fine. Just thinking about the Asparagus Festival. I submitted my paperwork for Asparagus Queen today. I guess I’m just nervous.”

“You don’t say!” Betty cried, her blonde hair bouncing. “Good for you!”

“Audrey, that’s perfect!” Stephanie said. “You’re coming out of your shell in spades. How wonderful!”

“I’m thinking of using the prize money to pay for some personal training certifications. To maybe start my own business here in town. That is, if I win.”

“How fabulous! I’ll be your first client,” Willa said. “You can help me lose my baby weight.”

“Even if you don’t win, I suppose you could work and save for a while to get the certifications that way,” Betty said.

Audrey wasn’t sure how to tell them that she’d eventually have to find a job that wasn’t at the dealership because of how complicated things had become with Kieran. She’d called in sick every day since Sunday. It was irresponsible and gutless, and if she kept it up, Kieran would surely have to fire her. She would have to go in tomorrow, no matter what, just to ensure she wouldn’t get canned until she had something else lined up. The thought steeled her resolve for her new line of business.