Can't Fight This Feeling (24 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

G
LORY
’
S
HEAD
SWUNG
around at the jingle of the bells on the door. Brett Walker stood at the front of the store, his wide shoulders tense and his expression carved from granite. A plastic bag dangled from one of his fists.

Uh-oh.

Angelica had returned from her trip for coffee thirty minutes before, her usual glow gone. Glory had sent her to the storeroom to handle paperwork because her sad face would have upset the customers—she was that much a favorite.

Smiling as if she couldn’t sense his mood, she approached. “Hey, there! How are you?”

“Where is she?”

Oh, yeah. Here was the source of her friend’s low state. Angelica had hinted that things between her and Brett had become...friendly, and here was evidence that all wasn’t so warm now.

“Glory, where is she?” he repeated.

“Hi, Glory,” she said in overly cheery tones. “I’m peachy. Yourself?”

“I need to talk to Angelica.”

He’d completely missed the point. “No social niceties?”

“I’m not feeling very nice at the moment.”

If he’d already bitten off Angelica’s head, and now thought to take another piece of her, he had another think coming. “Then why don’t you toddle out to the deli and pick up a soda or something? Maybe it will sweeten you up.”

Instead of answering, he raised his voice. “Angelica!” With long strides, he ate up the linoleum floor in the direction of the back room. “Angelica!”

At a run, Glory managed to get herself in front of Brett. Cutting him off, she put her hand on his chest to halt his forward movement. He glanced down at her fingers. “What the hell? What’s gotten into you, Glory?”

Panic. Fear. An unreasonable—maybe—concern about the state of her pal’s heart. It was projection, possibly. Probably. Yes.

But she and Angelica were connected, sisters of the soul, and it suddenly seemed important to save her friend from heartache. That way, she could have hope she’d avoid her own.

“Angelica’s not here,” she said.

He plucked her palm away. “You’re as bad a liar as she is. Her car’s in the parking lot.”

“I sent her out...to...to...” Before she could drum up a bullshit errand, Angelica emerged from the back room carrying a clipboard. She glanced over, hesitated for a second when she saw Brett, then she continued on to the stock ladder currently set up in the aisle of cleaning supplies. As if the man had ceased to exist for her, Angelica climbed up and began ticking off items with a pen.

Good for you
, Glory silently cheered.

Then she took a peek at Brett’s face.
Oh
, she thought.
Oh.
The hard expression on his face had softened. He was staring at Angelica, his free hand flexing as if preparing to snatch her off the ladder and throw her over his shoulder.

He was a caveman itching to claim his woman.

But there was hesitance there, too, as if he feared he’d break something important by making a wrong move.

Having observed Brett and his casual, serial dating ways for years, she could see his feelings for Angelica were different. The phrase
highly engaged
came to mind. But the spine of his object of attention was ramrod straight, and her head was bent over the clipboard, the fall of her wavy hair masking her face. She appeared completed absorbed by her work and as if she was alone in the room.

In the world.

Blinking against the hot pressure behind her eyes, Glory rubbed her aching chest. Suddenly, she was struck by it all: Angelica’s fundamental loneliness; the naked want on Brett’s face and the way he seemed unable to move toward her; Glory’s own uncertainty about reaching for the only man in years who made her excited about life.

Brett took a step forward, the sound of sole to floor as loud as a shot.

Angelica flinched, proving she was not so immune to his presence.

He hesitated again, and Glory finally was spurred to action. She gave a solid shove to Brett’s back.

He glanced over his shoulder, as surprised by her romantic whim as she was. In for a penny... Glory thought, and shooed him toward her friend.

Brett took a step and then another and another, until he was standing at the base of the stepladder. “Climb down,” he said.

Glory winced. Really, Brett,
really
? This was no time for gruff orders. To prove her right, Angelica didn’t even flick him a glance.

“No,” she said.

“How else can I apologize for being a big dick?”

“I can hear you just fine from here.”

Ooh, Glory thought with admiration. Nice royal coat of frost, there.

“I’m sorry for being a big dick.”

“Mmm.” Her pen made another tick on the paper.

Brett stared up at the ceiling, blew out a breath, then took in another, the picture of a man seeking patience. “Are you going to come down the ladder now? Look at me?”

“Why?”

“I brought you a present.” He held up the bag.

She glanced at him now, suspicious. “What is it?”

From the plastic, he drew out a package of hot dogs. “Franks. To throw at my head.”

It might get a
huh?
from Glory, but at the sight of them Angelica’s lips twitched. Then she was smiling, the bright one that had won the heart of every male that came looking for tape measures or tool boxes. “You think you’re funny,” she said, clearly trying to turn her mouth down in a frown.

“I think I’m groveling.” Brett looked astonished at his own admission.

It surprised the hell out of Glory, too, because Brett Walker wasn’t a humble kind of man.

His voice softened and he ran his hand over Angelica’s calf, clad in dark indigo skinny jeans. “I snapped at you, angel face. That was wrong of me.”

Glory didn’t think her friend could hold out for another minute, not when the big, handsome mountain man was speaking in such gentle tones. And when she was right, when Angelica started down the ladder and Brett pulled her free of it, Glory’s eyes stung again.

Franks, pen, clipboard fell to the floor as Brett slid Angelica down his tall body until her toes touched the floor. He held her close, one arm banded around her waist, the other sifting through her hair. His mouth close to her ear, he whispered something that had her pushing her forehead into the hollow of his shoulder.

Glory couldn’t look away.

But she did, finally, when their mouths met. She busied herself behind the register, sorting through the detritus that gathered in the space beneath the cash drawer. A few minutes passed, then the bells over the door rang out again, and she saw Brett’s back as he exited.

Angelica stood by the front window, her hand on the glass, watching him cross the street.

“You okay?” Glory called.

Angelica glanced over her shoulder, a small smile on her face. “I’m better than I was an hour ago.”

“That Brett Walker can sure work an ‘I’m sorry,’” she observed.

“Yeah.” Angelica straightened her shoulders and tugged at her sweater as if returning to work mode. “He can.”

“Do you trust it?” Glory asked. What she really wanted to know was if Angelica could trust Brett. No, if Glory could trust Kyle.

Her friend bent to retrieve the fallen items: clipboard, pen, hot dogs. She crossed the floor to put the package of food on the counter. “Winter’s on its way, but I still see sunshine. I guess I’m enjoying it while I can.”

* * *

I
STILL
SEE
SUNSHINE
. I guess I’m enjoying it while I can.

Those words played in Glory’s head as the afternoon waned. She thought she knew what Angelica meant by them. The other woman wasn’t counting on forever or fretting over change or a season that might turn hearts in a different direction. The now was good, this moment, and her friend was embracing it. Standing in the sun and accepting its benevolent rays.

While Glory was still hiding in the shadows, worrying about what-ifs.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Brett and Angelica’s embrace: the beauty of the yin and yang of it, the muscled man, the soft woman. His face as she took the first step toward him.

The beauty of that was what Glory had been denying herself.

On impulse, she picked up her phone. Kyle answered his after two short rings. “Hey,” he said. “I was just thinking of you.”

Her stomach fell toward her knees. It had to be a good omen. “I can say the same.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”

“Where are you?” Suddenly, she wanted to see him. Had to see him.

“On a picnic table at Lake Arthur.”

“I love Lake Arthur!” Another omen. Surely. “Stay right there, will you?”

“I’m wherever you want me to be, Glory.”

Ending the call, she looked over at Angelica and committed family sacrilege. “We’re closing early.”

Her drive to the lake was short. Dusk was just beginning to add its purple filter to the air when she arrived at the almost-empty parking lot near the public beach. Kyle’s beat-up truck occupied one of the spaces. In the distance, she could see him sitting atop one of the picnic tables near the sand.

He’d turned his head when she pulled into the lot and he continued watching her now as she climbed from her little SUV and made her way toward him. Her heart was galloping, but her strides were more cautious.

Was she being a fool?

Then she was within an arm’s reach and could take in his handsome features, his sexily disheveled hair, the dark shadow on his jaw. They’d traded kisses the few times they’d been out, but she’d been careful then, too. Always so damn careful. Constrained in her box of caution just as she was physically bound by the walls of the hardware store.

He reached out to her, a lean hand asking for hers.
Break out.

She touched just the tips of her fingers to the cup of his palm, taking in his warmth, feeling it travel through every digit toward her heart. He tugged her closer. “It’s getting colder.”

Winter’s on its way.

But she pushed that from her mind and climbed up to snuggle beside him, hip-to-hip. They both wore heavy jackets over their jeans. She had a scarf that she tied close to her throat now. Her mother had made it for her in knitting class and it featured a pattern of jumping frogs. Cute.

But Kyle was looking at her as though he saw beauty.

“Why are you here?” she asked, gesturing toward the beach and lake with her hand. It was nothing near as big as Blue Arrow Lake and was a county recreational area, not a private body of water surrounded by posh homes and estates. There was the wide sandy beach and a hiking trail all the way around. In the summer, you could rent paddle boats or rowboats or kayaks or paddleboards. During that season a massive, snaking water slide was open for the brave to make a splash.

“Appreciating,” Kyle said. “I still can’t get over all the natural wonder the mountains have to offer.”

Glory opened her mouth, closed it.

But he must have sensed something because he sent her a sharp glance. “What?”

“Well...” She cleared her throat. “I hate to break this to you, but this isn’t natural in the least. The land was owned by Samson Arthur, who put up a sawmill here to make crates for the citrus fruit he grew down the hill. When the trees were gone, he talked the federal government into damming two forks of a creek that ran through here via a WPA grant in the 1930s.”

“Oh.” Kyle appeared deflated.

“Mother Nature still had a hand in it, though. The story goes that they estimated it would take three years for the lake to fill. But that season the rains came big and they came early and it was filled in three
days
.”

“Must have been quite a winter storm.”

That season was hovering. Glory shivered.

“Cold, honey?” He curled his arm around her and drew her closer to his side. “Shall we go somewhere else?”

The sun still lingered, though low, in the sky. “Just a few more minutes,” she said, then rested her head on his shoulder. It felt solid. Good. Her gaze took in the quiet waters. “I used to love this place. And that slide. My favorite. I haven’t been on it in years.”

He ghosted his mouth over her hair. “Why not?”

“Summers are so busy at the store. I’m always working.”

“We’ve got to fix that,” Kyle said, jumping off the table and pulling her with him.

“What?” She tried resisting, but he was towing her toward the slide. “It’s closed, it’s cold, we...we can’t!”

He glanced down at her. “But honey, isn’t this what it’s all about? We
can
.”

That’s when she realized that her call had been riskier than she first thought.

* * *

T
HE
COLD
TOOK
Kyle’s breath. When the water closed over his head, the shock to his system also stopped his heart. Jesus. He was too young to die. But then he remembered Glory was right behind him and he kicked, straining for the surface.