Anything But Sweet (13 page)

“I’m not your client.”

“Yet.”

“Ever,” he insisted. “What’s it going to take to get it through your pretty head that
I’m not interested in partaking of the insanity you and your crew are forcing on this
town?”

“Stop patronizing me.” She smirked. “And what’s it going to take to get it through
your thick skull that you are the only one in this town who doesn’t want this change?”

“Dynamite.”

She laughed. “I’m sure I can pick up a bundle at the nearby hardware store. They have
everything there from hacksaws to satin ribbon.”

A smile he couldn’t stop lifted his mouth. “Stop insulting my store.”

She leaned forward, and her breasts came in danger of smushing into the barbecue sauce
on her plate. He wondered if he’d be allowed to lick that off too.

“Then make it a real hardware and feed store,” she argued in an amused tone. “Not
Wilder’s
five and dime.
”

“For your information,” he pointed his fork for emphasis, “yesterday I sold two plaid
shirts
and
a bunch of those silk flowers you keep making fun of.”

“Wow.” Her eyes danced with laughter as she dug into another fry. Off
his
plate. “You’d better hurry up and put that in the bank. Can’t have money like that
lying around.”

A charge of electricity snapped up his spine. Damn. He hadn’t had this much fun in
a long time. Fancy Pants might be a huge pain in the ass, but she could definitely
give as good as she got.

He liked that in a woman.

“Fancy seeing you two here. Together.”

Reno looked up to find Aiden and Paige standing beside the table, arm in arm, like
a solid force nothing could divide.

“Hi,” Charli said in a way-too-perky voice for someone who moments ago was going
head-to-head with him. “Did you guys try that lamp trick I told you about for your
foyer?”

“Lamp trick?” Reno smirked. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“We did,” Paige replied, then turned to him to explain. “Charli showed us this really
cool way to turn the old cranberry jug we had sitting by the door into a neat little
lamp for the hall table. Aiden is a genius with tools.” She looked up at the man by
her side, and no one needed to guess how much she loved him. If Reno weren’t so damned
happy for the two of them, he might be jealous.

“What are you guys doing here?” Reno asked. “Thought you’d be over at the Ashfords’
playing poker.”

“Nope. We’re celebrating.” Aiden looked at Paige and smiled. “Our
official
engagement.”

“He
officially
asked me last night,” Paige gushed. “By the creek. On bended knee.”

“Oh, how romantic.” Charli’s face lit up as Paige dangled her hand and flashed her
solitaire ring. “And how beautiful.”

The dinner in Reno’s stomach turned over as he remembered the night he’d asked Diana
to marry him.

It hadn’t been a glitzy affair. She’d been a quiet girl, and his proposal had followed
suit. But he could still remember the exhilaration that had run through his veins
when she’d said yes. He’d planned to spend the rest of his life with her. But fate
and a twenty-thousand-pound truck had other plans. So here he was, sitting with
a woman who couldn’t be more different, and doing her best to turn his nice, quiet
existence upside down.

Ironically, at the moment, he had to admit to enjoying it.

“Congratulations.” Reno shook Aiden’s hand, truly happy that Paige had never given
up on him, even when Aiden had given up on himself.

“When’s the big day?” Charli asked Paige.

“Well, we’d like to get married in Town Square because that’s where everything fell
into place after Aiden came home,” Paige said. “So we thought maybe a couple of weeks
from today. But we know you have the square scheduled as one of your redesigns, and
we wouldn’t want to interfere.”

“Interfere?” Charli’s head went back like that was the most preposterous thing she’d
ever heard. “If you can put together a wedding in two weeks, I can finish the project
by then.”

Reno watched as Charli calculated everything in her head so fast, he could almost
hear the bell ring when she came up with the solution. Without her saying a single
word, he knew exactly where her mind had gone. Her smile slipped—just a hint. Then
it came back so bright, he thought he’d need sunglasses.

“I’ll make it happen,” she finally said. “I just have one favor to ask.”

“Anything,” Paige replied.

“Can I be invited?”

Paige’s face lit up even more if that were even possible. “Are you kidding? Of course
you’re invited.”

Charli slid two fingers across her frilly little handkerchief blouse. “Then I cross
my heart. Town Square will be done in time for you two to get married.”

Paige squealed and scooched onto the bench beside Charli. Before Reno got caught up
in all the dresses and flowers and froufrou talk, he looked up at his perplexed friend.
“I think they’re going to be busy here for a while. Want to join me for a beer?”

“Yeah.” Aiden ran a hand through his hair and chuckled. “Guess I won’t be needed again
till the wedding day.”

Reno stood, slapped a hand on his friend’s back, and guided him toward the bar. “Nope.
All you gotta do is show up, tell her she’s beautiful, and say I do.”

“That’s easy,” Aiden said. “Paige is the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. I
can’t wait to be married to her.”

The bartender slid two bottles of Shiner Bock in front of them. Aiden lifted one and
took a drink. “I wasted too much time thinking all the wrong things.”

“Like?”

Aiden shrugged. “Like I didn’t deserve to be happy. Like I was supposed to live my
life under a rock because I hadn’t stopped my best friends from dying on that Afghani
mountainside. Like I had to stop living and let the world go on without me.”

Reno swallowed down his beer hard. He understood those thoughts. He
lived
those thoughts. But could he ever step outside his comfort zone as Aiden had? He
didn’t know.

“Thought you didn’t want anything to do with all this changing-the-town stuff,”
Aiden said, changing the subject. “So what are you doing here with Charlotte Brooks?”

“Good question, my friend.”

Reno turned his back to the bar, propped the heel of his boot against the rail, and
watched Charli laugh and express herself to Paige with smiles and hand gestures.

He didn’t know exactly what had made him bring Charli here tonight other than he could
tell she’d been hungry. He only knew that the more time he spent with her, the more
he liked her.

The changes she’d made to the senior center had been good. Unlike what he’d expected,
she hadn’t torn the place apart. She’d made it a better, happier, livelier gathering
place. She’d brought smiles to the faces of those who spent time within those walls.
The group had been so pleased, they’d made her an honorary member.

She was actually quite an incredible woman.

Aside from all his grumbling, Reno realized he had to be honest with himself. He liked
her. But in five weeks, she would be gone. She’d pick up her measuring tape and her
staple gun and head back to her real life. He didn’t know what she had waiting for
her there; he only knew he couldn’t picture her anywhere but here in Sweet.

If he let himself get too close, he knew he’d get involved.

If he got involved, he’d get attached.

If he got attached, he could very well lose his heart—and lose her too.

And with all he’d already gone through, that might be a pain he’d never survive.

B
y the time they left Sweet Pickens, it was late. But Reno had promised Charli they’d
go back to the store and look for her ceiling tiles. So here he was rummaging through
boxes and scanning labels while she sat perched up on his desktop, legs swinging,
and keeping up a conversation that distracted him at every turn.

“I think I’m going to put a lucky horseshoe up at the top of the entry to the new
gazebo,” she said.

Reno pushed aside a carton of paint rollers and looked up. “What constitutes its being
a
lucky
horseshoe?”

“You know, I’m really not sure.” She grinned. Bit her lip in deep thought. “I guess
I’ll have to Google it.”

“Or you could just ask a horse.”

“Ooooh. Did you just make a funny?” She laughed. “I like it.” She lifted her hand
to brush her hair back from her face. “Maybe I could just ask a certain aging bowlegged
cowboy. He’s been dying to get me alone.”

Reno hated to admit it, but he’d like to get her alone too. But then, that’s exactly
what he had right now, wasn’t it? And what was
he
doing while they were alone, and she sat there looking so kissable? Searching for
boxes.

Total waste of time.

“Chester has a reputation, you know.” He moved a case of smoke detectors, thinking
it was a good thing they weren’t active. Because every time he looked at Charli, he
felt like he might spontaneously combust.

It wasn’t anything in particular she did or said. And it didn’t help that he’d had
several talks with himself about keeping his distance. Something about the woman just
turned his head. Flipped his switch. And tempted him to ignore all the warning bells
clanging like a three-alarm fire. “I hear when Chester was younger, he had the ladies
lined up,” he said.

Her brows drew together. “His wife must not have appreciated that.”

“Probably not.” He chuckled. “Though it would be hard to figure out which wife that
would have been.”

“So Chester was a repeat offender?”

“Most folks lost track at six marriages. The last one anyone could remember was Loretta
La Fleur. Rumor was he met her in a Cajun bar in New Orleans. Of course, rumor also
hinted that old Chester had paid for her favors and liked them so much he married
her.”

“Whatever happened to her?”

Reno shrugged. “After she left, Chester kept pretty tight-lipped. But rumor has it
she’d never divorced her previous husband and went back to Louisiana.”

A smile tilted Charli’s mouth. Everything male in him responded.

“I know the story seems funny,” she said, “but I can’t help think how sad it must
be to marry so many times. I know some people go into marriage these days thinking
if they don’t like it, they can just get a divorce. But that’s like claiming defeat
before you even get the
I Do’s
over with.”

“Some would say that’s old-fashioned thinking,” he said though her thoughts echoed
his own.

“I know. But that’s okay with me. I’m not the type to change my opinions because of
peer pressure.”

She glanced down, then back up. Something in those amazing eyes reached into his chest
and wrapped his heart in warmth. He put down the box in his hands and stepped out
from the mire of cardboard containers.

“You’d probably be surprised to know I’m a lot more like you than you might think,”
she said.

“How’s that?” He took a step closer.

“I believe strongly in tradition. I believe in family and friends and doing what’s
necessary to keep it all together. And I believe that marriage is something sacred
and that people should work hard and fight to keep the love they shared in that exact
moment when they exchanged their vows.”

Her candid admission made him swallow.

“I was really young when my mother died,” she continued. “When I look at my father
today, I can’t imagine what she saw in him. But somewhere . . . in the back of my
memories . . . I remember hearing them together when Nick and I were supposed to be
asleep. I remember them talking to each other in loving voices. I remember their laughter.
And I know, regardless of my father’s frequent absences and his sometimes unpleasant
behavior, they truly loved each other. Neither of them would have given up on a marriage
I didn’t really understand.”

She gave a sad laugh and shook her head in a way that made her long, loose curls dance.

“I know my father’s a son of a bitch. But he loved my mother. He was never cruel—just
difficult. And it broke his heart the day she died.”

“What happened to her? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t mind. I like talking about her. It keeps her alive if you know what I mean.”

He nodded.

“She was wonderful. Whimsical. Completely the opposite of my father.”

She gave a little laugh. As she talked, Reno noted how her face lit up with the happy
memories. The kind that for him were the most difficult to remember amid the tragic
results.

“My father always said I reminded him too much of her. I never thought that was a
bad thing. But apparently
he
did. I was eight when she died. It was so . . . unexpected that it took a long time
to sink in and realize she was never coming home.”

Reno knew that feeling only too well.

She glanced away, then looked back at him again and sighed. “My father was coming
home after several long months in which Nick and I had both gotten the chicken pox,
then Nick broke his arm in a bicycle race. My mom had been doing double duty, taking
care of us and basically being shut in the house for a couple weeks. The cupboards
were bare. She’d gotten the lady next door to watch us for a few minutes while she
rushed off to the store to get the stuff to make my father’s favorite meat loaf. On
the way home, she was killed by a drunk driver.”

Her voice broke, and she paused. “Hard to imagine someone could be that inebriated
at four in the afternoon and rip away the life of someone who was so loved. The man
who killed her wasn’t even injured.”

“I’m so . . . sorry,” Reno said, knowing that the words were inadequate.

“Thank you.” She gave him a tentative smile. “It was horrible. But the tragedy can’t
erase all the wonderful things she did in her life. It can’t erase what a wonderful
mother she was. Or how lucky Nick and I were to have her. Even if it was only for
a short time.”

Emotion knotted in his chest, and he recognized that he too was lucky. His feet moved
before he could tell them to stop. In a blink, he was standing before her.