I Want Candy (16 page)

Your basic hillbilly diner employee.

She completed the register transaction and reminded herself that it didn’t matter. So what if she didn’t look particularly alluring? She wasn’t interested in luring Turner in any form or fashion. He was her friend. He was a paying customer. And the man had obviously come here for lunch and nothing else, because when she glanced at him he was studying the single-page laminated menu, not her.

“Hey, Turner. Nice to see you.” Candy stood on the other side of the counter from him, poised to take his order. “Anything look good to you today?”

Oh, God. Oh, shee-it. That might have been her standard greeting to normal customers, but the instant those words escaped her lips she knew it would have an entirely different meaning with Turner, a man who couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her in public places. She swallowed hard. She waited for how he’d respond.

Ever so slowly, he looked up from the menu and pinned her down with those gorgeous hazel eyes. A barely visible smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. And then he whispered, “You, Candy. You look good enough to eat.”

She heard herself make a squeak of helplessness, which was embarrassing. She wanted to bolt out the kitchen door and into the alley, where she could hide behind the Dumpster.

But all she could do was stare at that mouth of his. Those lips were a work of art—masculine lines, soft curves, and supple berry-brown flesh. The fact that all this could be found on one man’s mouth just wasn’t fair. It was too much. She’d never known a man with a mouth that beautiful, a mouth that taunted you to lick it and nibble on it and pry it open with your wet—

“Counter order up!”

Candy jumped. She turned around to retrieve the food and found Lenny frowning at her. “You got a line at the register, girlie.”

“What?” Candy peered over her shoulder. How long had she been frozen where she stood like that, pen in hand, staring at Turner’s mouth? What the hell was wrong with her?

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Of course not.”

“You must be running from the law, then.”

“Huh? No!” It was then that Candy noticed Lenny laughing. “Oh, just mind your own business!”

It took her about three minutes to return, and she found Turner waiting patiently. That little smile was probably still on his lips but she would never know because she refused to look. Instead, she focused her attention on the restrooms at the opposite end of the diner, which she decided were fascinating.

“What’ll it be? Can I interest you in one of our specials?”

*   *   *

Turner bit his tongue. The special he was interested in wasn’t on the menu. The tension between them was so thick and the attraction so heavy that they should be laughing their asses off at how ridiculous it all was. But Candy stared off into the distance, looking at anything but him, and she seemed so skittish that he had to take pity on her.

So he wouldn’t answer the way he wanted to. He wouldn’t confess that the only thing that interested him was making his X-rated dreams a reality, that he was especially interested in seeing Candy nekkid on all fours, wiggling that perfect round ass as she begged him to ravish her.

“I’ll have the meat loaf,” he said, stifling a chuckle. Honestly, he felt like a junior high kid. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so lighthearted and goofy.

“Anything to drink?” Her big blue eyes continued to focus on anywhere that didn’t include him.

Lord have mercy. Yes, he wanted a drink. He wanted to put his mouth on her sex and lick and suck and slurp at her until she came all over his face, draining her sticky juices and getting her sweet pussy nice and ready for his dick.

“Mr. Pibb, no ice, please.”

“You got it.”

When she turned away and reached up to clip his order on the little metal wheel, he thought he’d choke. Her jeans looked like they’d been painted on her ass. Those two incredible globes of flesh were split right down the center by double-stitched goodness. He felt actual physical pain just looking at her, because he knew how that ass felt cradled in his palms, each half firm but soft, a luscious handful of perfection, and he ached for another shot at it.

Turner had to adjust himself on the diner stool.

“Here you go—Mr. Pibb, no ice,” she said, delivering his drink. Before she could take her hand away, Turner touched her wrist. She gasped. Her eyes widened.

“Thank you,” he said, just before he raised the pop to his lips and gazed over the rim of the glass and right into her baby blues.

Candy licked her lips.

Who were they kidding? It was obvious that given the right set of circumstances—such as no one else around and a room with a door—they’d eat each other alive.

She pulled her arm from his touch and walked away. For the next few minutes, Turner observed Candy do her job. Her smile was genuine. She joked with the customers and had a special tenderness for the older folks. She even let the old men flirt a little without biting their heads off. Candy worked fast at clearing dishes and wiping off the counter and refilling waters and coffees. She really looked like she enjoyed what she was doing. For a moment, Turner couldn’t picture her in the kind of life she apparently had led down in Tampa. That kind of wheeling and dealing seemed too cold for a woman like her, a woman whose smile affected everyone around her, a woman so soft and sweet and real.

“Bon appétit,” she said, placing the meat loaf special in front of him.

“Hey, Candy?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow. She was trying so hard not to let him know she still craved him as much as he craved her. What if J.J. were right? What if the answer to this mess was finding a way to make her want to stay? How would he do it? What could he possibly offer a woman like Candy Carmichael that she couldn’t get anywhere else?

That’s when he remembered there was a reason he came to Lenny’s and it wasn’t necessarily to win Candy’s heart. It damn sure wasn’t for the meat loaf. It was to get a feel for whether she was safe around Gerrall Spivey.

“So you doing okay out at Cherokee Pines?”

She raised her chin. “Fine, thanks.”

“No problems with anyone out there?”

“Of course not. Everyone’s very nice—well, not
every
one, but I’m enjoying my visit with Jacinta, surprisingly enough.”

“So nobody’s bothering you?”

She frowned at him. “Wainright Miller is a real horse’s ass. Why? You gonna arrest him for me?”

Turner chuckled. “That particular shortcoming doesn’t violate either county code or state law, which is a good thing, because I’d be hauling in about ninety-nine percent of the population of Cataloochee County if it did.”

Candy tried to fight it, but she smiled, and at that very instant, Turner swore to heaven above that she’d be doing a lot more of it and he’d be there to see it. Maybe someday he’d even be the reason for it.

“Nobody else givin’ you a hard time?”

Candy shook her head. “Lorraine Estes is a trip. Not the most pleasant chick I’ve ever met.”

Turner nodded. “That grumpy old hen could start an argument in an empty house.”

Candy laughed. “Meat loaf’s getting cold.” She leaned a hand on the counter and shifted her weight to one hip, which accentuated her already killer curves. Turner had to drag his eyes away.

“Right.” He dug his fork into the too-firm hunk of mystery meat.

Candy sighed. “And then there’s bizarro Gerrall Spivey.”

Turner put the fork down. “Oh, right.” Turner managed to sound casual. “He works out there, doesn’t he? So he’s buggin’ you, too?”

Candy shrugged. “Gerrall’s harmless, I suppose, but sometimes he creeps me out just the littlest bit, you know, going overboard with the compliments and stuff. He doesn’t mean anything by it. I think he’s just kind of clueless, and because I’m nice to him he’s under the mistaken impression that I’m hot for him. It’s a little awkward.”

Turner nodded as if he were barely interested in what she was saying. The truth was, he was so pissed off that the top of his head felt like it was going to blow off. If that little motherfucker even came close to touching Candy, he’d bust him up something awful.

“You might want to try to avoid him as much as you can,” Turner said with a sigh, hoping his words sounded like friendly advice and not an official warning.

“Seriously? Why?”

Turner shrugged. “Oh, nothing really. That it must be kind of uncomfortable for you is all.”

“Counter order up!”

“I should get back to work.” Candy straightened and smiled at Turner warmly, the skittish discomfort gone from her expression. “Anything else I can get you? Everything okay?”

“It’s incredibly good.”

Her gaze wandered to his plate and she laughed. “You haven’t even tasted it yet, Turner.”

“I mean it’s incredibly good to see you, Candy. I’ve missed you.”

His words seemed to catch her off guard. She got all flustered again, and began wiping her hands on her apron. “I—”

“You’re not doing me any favors by keeping your distance.” Turner surprised himself. It wasn’t his style to come on this hard, but for some reason it seemed like the natural way to handle this situation, to handle her. “And I damn well know it’s not what you want, either.”

Candy paused for an instant. Her lips parted in shock. And Turner watched a dozen different emotions pass over her expression before she seemed to snap out of it. “I really have to get back to work,” she said, slapping his check down on the counter in front of him.

When Candy turned away, her blond ponytail flipped across the back of her neck, and right there in the middle of meat loaf central, Turner caught a whiff of the delicate, feminine essence of everything Candy.

*   *   *

Two more praline chocolate turtle cakes. An angel food cake. A devil’s food cake with fudge icing. A carrot cake with cream cheese icing. And the pineapple upside-down cake Mildred Holzmann had requested, already perched on a foil-covered piece of heavy-duty cardboard and readied for delivery.

The cakes were lined up on the prep counter in Lenny’s kitchen like girls in cotillion dresses, all fluffy and lacy and exactly as she’d envisioned them in her head. Candy felt immense satisfaction at the sight.

“You’re a damn genius,” Lenny said. “Seriously. If these taste as good as that mouse-sized crumb you brought me this morning, you can slap me upside my head and call me silly.”

Candy laughed. “I told you, the bridge club ate nearly every bit of it! I had to run for my life just to bring you in that little sliver!”

“No matter,” Lenny said, reaching out to pinch a piece of devil’s food. “I can eat as much as I want now, right?”

Candy smacked his arm. “Don’t pig out on your profit, Lenny!”

“All right, now. No need to get violent.”

Candy grabbed the pineapple cake and her keys and headed for the employee exit. “I gotta run if I’m going to look at that apartment and get to Cherokee Pines in time for dinner. See you Monday!”

“Yes you will!”

She’d barely taken three steps through the parking lot when she decided to turn right around. Candy peeked through the glass window of the back entrance, only to see Lenny sticking his finger in the cream cheese icing, just as she’d suspected.

“Stop it!” Candy yelled, pounding on the glass with her free hand.

Just a couple minutes later, Candy arrived at the old Victorian house on Chester Street. She felt ridiculous driving, and would have been happy walking if she didn’t have Mildred’s cake to worry about. As she headed up the steps to the house, Candy calculated how much money she would save without a gas tank to fill every week, and the thought made her giddy.

She knocked on the door. A harried-looking woman a few years older than Candy answered, three wide-eyed kids clustered behind her legs. The scent of spaghetti sauce wafted out onto the porch.

“I’m sorry,” Candy said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I’m Candy Carmichael. I called about seeing the—”

“Oh, sure!” The woman welcomed her inside. “Follow me upstairs. It’s on the third floor.”

About fifteen minutes later the two women were on the front porch, and Candy was so frustrated she was near tears. The place was completely perfect! It was exactly what she needed! The apartment was furnished—nothing fancy but not threadbare, either—and available month to month. It featured a small bedroom, a sitting room, a compact galley kitchen, and full bath, plus it was privately tucked away from the rest of the house. All this for only $400 a month!

But the woman insisted on first and last month’s rent up front, and Candy couldn’t swing it.

She tried one last time to make a deal with her. She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out the roll of bills that had been burning a hole in her pocket since about ten that morning, when she walked to the First National Bank of Cataloochee County on her break and cashed her paycheck.

Candy held out the cash to the woman. “This is six hundred and ten dollars. I’ve got another thirteen stashed at my mother’s. And it’s all yours, right this very minute, if you’ll only let me pay the rest two weeks from now, when I get paid again.”

The landlady crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “I wish I could,” she said. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve been burned giving people breaks like that before. I hope you understand.”

Candy shoved the money back in her jeans pocket. “Can you hold the apartment for me, then?”

“No. I’m sorry. I just can’t. But if it’s still here in two weeks, it’s yours.” The woman snapped at her oldest child to close the screen door, then returned her attention to Candy. “Listen,” she said. “You seem like a nice girl and I’d like to rent the place to you but I learned a long time ago that if a tenant has trouble scraping together the rent at the start they’re gonna struggle every month after, and I just don’t have the energy to mess with that.”

The woman wished her luck and went into her house.

By the time Candy reached Cherokee Pines, any payday elation she’d felt had disappeared. The sense of accomplishment from baking was gone. All the whirling thoughts of Turner had been pushed aside. All she could think about now was what she’d do in two days, when her time was up at Cherokee Pines. Where would she go?