Beautifully Decadent (Beautifully Damaged Book 3) (27 page)

“Bring a jacket, it gets cold on the pier. I’ll get Loki settled and then we’ll go.”

“Okay.” She turned toward the carriage house, but stopped and called back at me. “I’d help you bury the body.”

Before I could reply, she disappeared inside. Pulling a hand through my hair, I looked down at Loki who stared after Avery in longing. “Yeah, I like her too boy, a whole hell of a lot.”

I learned something else about Avery while we shopped at the nursery. She could be a pit bull when she wanted to be. We decided to do the landscaping in phases, the first being the front yard. For the plants, the fertilizer, the mulch and the delivery the cost was upwards of two grand, she was determined to get it for just over a grand. Avery, who could have smiled and batted her lashes at the nursery owner and gotten whatever she wanted, chose to go another route. Tigress was a good description, unrelenting, unyielding and the cub she sought to protect was my wallet. And there I stood with this five foot two slip of a woman, going toe-to-toe with a man who seemed to derive as much joy from haggling as Avery. I should have felt emasculated, but instead I couldn’t keep from grinning.

“You sell them to us, you won’t have to store them, which leaves room in your greenhouses for new plantings.”

“Come Spring, people are more eager to plant after a long winter, I could double my prices and still sell.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got the long, cold winter coming and outside of Christmas with poinsettias and tree sales, you’re looking at a lean season. Plus, this is only phase one, we have several phases and developing good customer relations will ensure we come here for not only the completion of our project but yearly maintenance and expansion.”

Her eyes darted to me, a grin tugging at her mouth. She was having the time of her life. Turning to the man, who honest to God looked a bit like Loki had this morning, I knew Avery totally had him.

“You drive a hard bargain young lady, but you’ve got yourself a deal. $1200 including delivery.”

“Awesome.”

“Let’s go write it up.” He led us into the greenhouse where he had the cash register, but peered at Avery from over his shoulder. “I’d have let you have it for $1000.”

Her smile was cocky. “I’d have taken it for $1500.”

To this, the man tilted back his head and roared with laughter.

In the car on the way to Coney Island, Avery was like a firecracker with a lit fuse, bouncing around in her seat. “I can’t believe he caved and so easily. I can’t wait to tell Mom.”

“Is she the one who taught you how to haggle?”

“Yeah, she haggles for everything including groceries at the Acme.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s a nut and it’s not that she needs to watch the budget, she just likes it.”

“Well, I think she’d have been impressed. I was, you enjoyed every second of that.”

“I really did. Now I’m hungry.”

Glancing at her, she was in profile as she looked out the side window. Wanting to see how her hair looked down, I reached for the elastic and tugged it out. The action caught her by surprise; her head turning to me in confusion, but shyness quickly took its place. Her hair was red, a dark mahogany red, thick, straight and long enough to fall past her shoulders. Beautiful.

“Why don’t you ever wear it down?”

“I’m usually in the kitchen.”

“Hair like that needs to be down.”

She didn’t reply, but she didn’t pull her hair back up either. I grinned.

“Will you go on the rides with me?” She asked some time later.

“Yeah.”

“First we need hot dogs from Nathans.”

“Nowhere better to eat.”

“With everything.”

“Agreed.” Her focus was out the side window again, her hair now curtaining her face—a definite negative to her hair down. “Avery?”

Our eyes met.

“I’d help you bury the body too.”

The sweetest smile touched her lips, the meaning behind my words not lost on her. And then she said, “That’s good because there’s probably going to be one sooner than later.”

I almost ran the truck off the road. “What?”

“My stepmother, I’m thinking about offing her.”

What was even more comical than sweet Avery plotting her stepmother’s demise was the expression on her face. She was completely serious. “She’s really that bad?”

“Yeah. She hates me and she’s a bitch. I want to stab her in the eye with her designer heels. I don’t think that makes me a bad person. I really don’t. I mean I’ve never wanted to kill someone with her own shoes before. It’s her, she brings it out in me.”

Yep, she was goofy.

He’d help me bury the body. I felt a bit giddy thinking about his declaration, but I didn’t have long to ponder his words because we were strapped in a roller coaster that was climbing high. I loved roller coasters because they scared the crap out of me. Rafe sat next to me, his body relaxed, his fingers not gripping the pole to the point that his knuckles stood out in drastic contrast like mine were doing. To look at him, you’d think he was sitting in his living room watching a ball game.

“Aren’t you even a little bit scared?”

Those eyes found mine. “No. Are you?”

“Terrified.”

Concern moved over his expression. “I thought you wanted to do this.”

“I do.”

“Even though you’re terrified?”

“Especially because I’m terrified. Makes the experience that much better, conquering the fear to experience the pleasure.”

His focus moved to my mouth and I suspected he was thinking about doing his own conquering. I didn’t know what was going on between us, but I didn’t want it to stop. Hell, I wanted so much more, wanted him to kiss me, wanted him to unleash what he seemed to be holding under very tight control.

And then we crested the top of the drop. Peering down, my stomach moved up into my throat, my heart pounded so hard it hurt and then we were falling. And even screaming my head off, I felt Rafe’s hand covering mine, his fingers threading through my own. And in that moment, I knew I was falling in love with him.

I felt off-balanced when we exited the ride and it had nothing to do with the roller coaster. Crushing on Rafe was cool, flirting with Rafe was fun, liking Rafe was wonderful, but feeling the way I did about him scared me a bit because I’d never been in love. I suddenly found myself in uncharted water and I wasn’t entirely sure how to navigate it.

“You okay?”

I was okay, terrified, but definitely okay and also not ready for him to know just how far I’d fallen so I tried for cool. “That was fun.”

“I think I’m deaf in my right ear.”

“Sorry.”

“Worth it though. You weren’t kidding that you liked roller coasters. You game to ride another?”

“Are you kidding? You’ll have to drag me out of this place.”

“All right. Then let’s do it.” His hand reached for mine again, linking our fingers, before pulling me to the next ride. Maybe I wasn’t falling in love, I may have already fallen.

“Hungry?” Rafe asked as the gates to the park locked behind us. We really had stayed until they kicked us out. My love of roller coasters reached a whole new level, sitting next to Rafe, his big powerful body pressed against mine while he held my hand. And now he wanted to feed me. Best day ever!

“Yeah, starving.”

“Pizza?”

“I could get a slice.”

“Not a slice. They don’t do slices where we’re going.”

“So you’re saying I have an excuse to eat more than one slice of pizza. Yeah, let me work up an objection.”

Rafe laughed, I loved his laugh. We started for his truck; he reached for my hand. My eyes flew to his. “I’ve held it all day, don’t see any reason to stop now.”

The distinct ‘splat’ noise was my heart. “Again, let me work up an objection.”

When we reached the pizza place I was seriously disappointed to see the line was down the street because my stomach was growling.

“That sucks.”

“What? The line?”

“Yeah.”

“Not a problem.”

“Based on that line, we won’t be eating until midnight.”

“True, if we were waiting in the line.”

“We’re not waiting in the line? Are we going to sneak in?”

“You want to cap off the day of haggling and near-death experiences with a felony?”

“If it means I get pizza that’s worth waiting in a line like that, oh, hell yeah.”

Humor looked back at me. “I know the owner.”

“Even better.”

He parked in the employee parking, before coming around and helping me down. Again he took my hand and led us to the back door. It opened; the man that greeted us was huge, with tats down his arms, and the most incredible dark brown eyes. Seeing Rafe, he smiled before pulling him in for a hug.

“Hey man. How are you?”

“Alcide, I’m good. This is Avery, Avery the man behind the pizza.”

That fairy godmother—unbelievable. “Hi.” Kind of lame but the man looked like Adonis and the scents coming from his kitchen made me want to weep.

To say I was surprised when he yanked me close and hugged me hard would be fair. “Nice to meet you, Avery.”

“Likewise.” I didn’t say more since at that moment a pizza must have just been pulled from the ovens because the mouthwatering smell that wafted out to us had me blurting out. “Oh my God, that smells incredible.”