Cupcake Club 04 - Honey Pie (8 page)

He had to work not to smile then, too. “If it will all fit in your little car, it will fit in someone else's car.”

“With some planning, sure. An open bed truck would just be a lot faster and easier. My car is in your shop. Where your truck is. Every day.” She waved her hand. “You know what? Never mind. I've only met a few folks at this point, and just thought . . . but that's okay. I get it. I'll figure something out.” She bent down and stuck her hand out. Lolly happily obliged and trotted right back over.

Traitor.
To Dylan's surprise, the dog slowly sat, favoring her hip, then lifted her paw, something she hadn't done since the fire.

Honey, clearly delighted, took Lolly's paw and gently shook it. “Well, at least someone has that nice island hospitality my aunt was always telling me about. What a sweet girl you are.” She gave Lolly another scratch behind the ears. “Go work your charms on that guy, will ya,” she said, voice lowered, but still loud enough for him to hear—which wasn't by accident.

Lolly barked as if in complete understanding. And, knowing the dog, Dylan wasn't too sure she didn't.

“I'll try to get Mr. or Mrs. Hughes to come over with me first thing in the morning. If it wouldn't be too much of an imposition.” She put one foot back on a pedal to turn around, which was when he noticed she was wearing beat-up red Chucks.

He recognized the classic high-top basketball sneakers because he still had his own ratty old pair.

Lolly barked once at her retreating form, then again, up at Dylan. “Oh, for Chrissake.” He braced a hand on the side of the boat and jumped down, wincing as he bent his knees to absorb the impact. “Hold on. Just—hold on.”

She skidded briefly on the crushed shells, but stopped and stayed upright, then looked back over her shoulder at him, and he felt that . . . thing again in his chest. For the life of him, he couldn't rightly say there was a single thing about her that should stir anything in him except a great deal of wariness. Her shorts were baggy, and rolled up the way they were, as if recently hacked off, wasn't the most attractive thing. Her legs were, well, they weren't hard to look at, but they were almost translucent in their whiteness. Her dark green T-shirt, also baggy, bore some colorful company logo that, from where he stood, looked like a gnome . . . or something. Her hair was in a single ponytail, again. No makeup. No sunglasses, either. Just the big, clunky horn rims. Her eyes were an attention getter, but her face was as fair as her legs. He hoped to hell she was wearing sunscreen.

“Let's just get it done now,” he said, snagging his keys from the makeshift tool bench. He slapped his thigh. “Come on, Lolly.”

More active than he could recall seeing her in months, the dog all but high stepped it over to the truck, prancing back and forth in her uneven gait.

“Lolly,” Honey said. “I like it. Suits her.” She climbed off her bike, then took a quick two steps back as he reached for it.

That was all it took to shake off the odd moment of awareness and get him right back to reality. “Just putting it in the truck bed.” Why it pissed him off that she got all freaky again he couldn't have said, but it did. He got that it apparently wasn't personal, but it felt insulting as hell, all the same.

“Right, thanks. And, listen . . . I do appreciate this. I meant what I said, about paying you for your time. I really didn't just mean for you to drop everything and—”

“Get in.” He put the bike on its side in the truck bed so it wouldn't slide. Then he bent down, scooped up Lolly as she wasn't up to jumping yet, and set her down in the open area between the bike and the cab of the truck. “Be a good girl,” he told her and got a bark in response; then he climbed on the driver's seat.

Honey paused for a moment, then the engine gunned to life and she leaped toward the passenger door and climbed in. “I really do appreciate this,” she said again, but one look from him and she snapped her mouth shut and put her seatbelt on. At least she understood when not to press her luck.

They drove the short distance in silence, which gave him way too much time to think about how she could go from . . . well, ravaged, the first time he'd laid eyes on her, to jumpy and nuts in his office, to essentially normal and sociable today.
Essentially
normal. She was still jumpy.
What's that about, anyway?

He recalled, far too easily for his liking, the way she'd looked at the bakery shops, and the way she'd trembled as she'd looked at all her worldly possessions packed in her ancient car. Maybe it had just been the fatigue of driving cross-country.

He resisted the urge to slide a sideways glance at her. He knew Bea had talked about her niece being an artist of some kind, but he'd never paid any real attention to the chatter. Just folks bragging on family, which . . . well, it was understandable why he didn't follow that much. Her artsy side might explain her rather off-the-wall wardrobe choices. Artists were often eccentrics, weren't they? Hell, maybe that explained all of it. What it didn't explain was why he gave a crap.

He turned off the town square toward the channel road, then into the alley that ran between the shops. He shut off the engine, got out, and scooped up Lolly from the back. She trotted over to the back door and waited for Dylan to unlock it.

“She seems right at home here,” Honey said as she came up behind them.

“She usually comes to work with me, but it's been too hot lately.”

“What happened to her back leg?

“I noticed the limp,” she added when Dylan glanced at her. “And the fur growing back. Is she okay?”

Given the speedy island grapevine and the fact she was stuck on Sugarberry for at least the next week, Dylan knew there was no point in changing the subject. “The old repair shop burned down about six months ago. She got caught in the fire. Beam fell on her hind quarters.”

“Oh no, that's awful.” Honey immediately squatted down and gave Lolly some extra love, which, naturally, the mutt lapped up. “You poor thing.” She looked up at Dylan. “How did she get out?”

Dylan unlocked the door and went inside. The sun was setting and it was still damn hot. Even hotter in the closed work bay. He went over and rolled up the bay door to let the evening breeze move the muggy air around a bit while they transferred her stuff to his truck. And managed to avoid answering her question. “I'll get the keys.”

“You know, I wondered why everything looked so clean and fresh. I mean, for an auto repair shop. Given the name, I figured it wasn't likely a new business.”

He stifled a sigh when he realized she was following him. “It's not.” He flipped the light on and crossed to the wall next to his desk and the row of hooks used to keep the keys on the cars in for service. He didn't normally lock them up when they were locked in the service bay overnight, but since it looked like she had all her worldly possessions in hers . . . he'd figured better to be safe than sorry.

He snagged her key ring—it was easy to see with a big red and white spotted mushroom hanging from it—and turned to find her looking around the office.

“I'm guessing you're the son of Ross & Sons.”

“I'm the owner, the only Ross left,” he said. And hoped like hell she'd leave it at that. She'd hear all the stories at some point, but she wasn't going to hear them from him.

“Oh. I'm sorry. I lost both my parents. My dad to a heart attack when I was nineteen, and my mom in a car accident two years later.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said, uncomfortable.

“Thank you. Aunt Bea was the last of my family, so her passing sort of brought it all back. Do you have other relatives on the island still?”

“Just me.” He would have brushed by her, but didn't need a repeat of what had happened the other day. He jingled the keys and nodded toward the door. “Let's get to it.”

“Right.” She went on through to where her car sat, then stepped aside so he could unlock it. “Some of it's fragile, so—”

“Are the boxes marked?”

“Well, no. I didn't think anyone would be handling them but me. Just—here, I'll hand stuff out to you, okay?”

He backed up so she could step in, and he noticed her fragrance for the first time. It smelled like . . . sandalwood. Or something like that. Woodsy, earthy, with a bit of spice to it. Nothing flowery or feminine. He thought again about how he'd misjudged her based on a name. Seemed he was making a habit of it. He had to admit, the scent suited her. A little offbeat, a little bohemian, and unexpectedly sultry.

“Um, here?”

He snapped out of it and realized she was juggling a box from the car toward his waiting hands. He took the box.

“Not fragile,” she said.

“Then stack another one on top.”

She dragged out another one and carefully put it on top.

Careful not to touch him, either, he noted.

“Fragile.”

He said nothing, just made his way through the open bay door to the back of his truck and set both boxes in the open bed, then slid the top one off and tucked it up by the cab. He went back inside and stood behind her, ready for the next batch, trying like hell not to notice there was actually a very fine curve to her backside, where the baggy shorts had pulled snug as she reached farther into the car's interior.

He was still trying like hell not to notice when she backed out and swung around with several stacked boxes in her arms, only to smack them right into his chest. “Oh! I didn't know you'd come back. I didn't hear you.” The boxes bobbled wildly. “Fragile!”

He had no choice but to grab her arm with one hand and use the other to trap the boxes between their bodies until she steadied herself.

Her eyes shot wide as his hand wrapped around her arm, and her mouth opened on a silent gasp.

“I've got them,” he told her, keeping his gaze level on hers, hoping to keep her from going into . . . whatever the hell state she'd gone into the last time he'd touched her. “It's okay.” He heard the edge to his words and tempered his annoyance, which was really just a cover for concern. He didn't want to deal with another one of her episodes, but didn't want to see her deal with one, either. “I got it,” he repeated calmly and quietly when she simply stared at him, seemingly frozen in place.

“I'm sorry.” The words sounded strangled. She didn't move or let go of the boxes.

So he didn't—couldn't—let go of her, though he was sorely tempted. If he'd thought her eyes were spooky before, something in them now downright gave him the chills.

“Let me go,” she said, the words tight, almost forced, but with an edge of desperation.

“Can't do that, sugar, until you let go of the boxes. I've got 'em.”

She continued to stare at him, her gaze boring straight into his.

“How 'bout on the count of three,” he said, wishing like hell whatever it was she was suffering from didn't tug at him. But damn it all, it did. “One . . . two—”

She started trembling, then abruptly jerked her arm free.

If he hadn't been paying such close attention, he'd have dropped the boxes. He almost did, anyway. With his other hand under them, he managed to steady them, but his attention wasn't on the boxes. It was on her sheet-white face, her eyes wide with terror or horror as she stepped back, only to bang up against the car. He couldn't have said why, but he was pretty damn certain if the car hadn't been there to block her retreat, she'd have turned and taken off at a dead run.

Operating on instinct or his own brand of sudden onset insanity, he shoved the boxes on top of her car and shifted his body—without touching her—so she was boxed in. Not with the intent of scaring her, but with the intent of making her feel secure.

“All right, darlin'. It's okay. You're fine. It's all good, sugar, you'll be just fine.” He talked to her much the same way he'd talked to Lolly when she'd been anxious and scared coming out of the anesthetic after her first surgery. Gently, but firmly. “Nothing bad is happening. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

He wished he understood why she went from normal chick to crazy chick like she did. It obviously had something to do with coming into contact with people. Not dogs, apparently. She'd spoken quite naturally and calmly about meeting Lani, Alva, and Barbara Hughes, too. Maybe it was just men—which meant, he belatedly realized, it was highly likely at least one of his gender had done some not-so-nice things to her. In the recent past perhaps? Who the hell knew. He was an auto mechanic. He fixed engines, not people.

Still, he felt a bit bad for being so pissed off about it all. He should have figured it out sooner. He remembered the way she'd stared at him when she'd said, “I'm not crazy,” as if willing him to believe she really wasn't the loony tune she'd seemed back in his garage.

“I-I'm . . . s-so . . . s-sorry,” she said, stuttering the words, trembling even harder, jerking his complete attention back to the present. “About . . . the fire. That's terrible. Who'd do that? Only . . . no, it was electrical. The storage place, next door? It was so windy. And your garage—” She gasped. “You ran in! You ran in when it was burning. Why, why would you do that? What was worth saving that you'd risk—oh no! Poor Lolly. Poor baby. Oh my God. If you hadn't gone in—”

She was talking and looking right at him, though it was as if she could see straight through him. Or straight into him. She clearly wasn't in the here and now, anyway, nor was he quite sure she even knew what she was saying. It was as if she was a million miles away in some other reality only she could see. Except the things she was talking about were very real and specifically about him. She had the details exactly right.