Perfect Kiss (4 page)

So much had changed for Shelby over the last few months. In all of her twenty-eight years pre-Kevin, she’d never once second-guessed herself. Had never been insecure. Had never been socially awkward. She’d been confident, with a very healthy self-image, known for her outgoing personality.

Now, everything was different. She didn’t even feel like a
shell
of herself. She
wished
that were the case. No, she didn’t even recognize the person she’d become. Her world, her identity—her whole foundation—had been turned upside down and inside out. She’d lost herself. Completely.

“Are you meeting your brother here?” Tessa asked.

“Oh, um…I was… I’m just…um…” Shelby’s mind was racing. Should she say that she was here to meet her brother? Would that give something away? She
had
to say something!

“Oooooooh!” A knowing expression crossed Tessa’s face and her eyes lit up as a wide smile appeared on her pixie face.

Shelby’s stomach sank. Tessa knew. Great. Not only had she turned into a complete and total social misfit, but she’d now successfully ruined Tessa’s surprise. She should have stayed parked in front of her brother’s house and waited for him to get home. Maybe it would have raised some unwanted suspicions, but at least she wouldn’t have been a party-crasher/surprise-spoiler.

Tessa lowered her voice and leaned forward, holding on to Jake’s arm for balance as she conspiratorially whispered, “Are you here to see Levi? I remember you guys dancing at your brother’s wedding. There were more sparks flying off the two of you than the Fourth of July.”

“No! I’m not here to see him!” The denial flew out of her mouth with much more force than she had anticipated, as did the explanation that followed. “I just need to use the bathroom.”

Apparently, fear that people would think anything had happened between her and the sex-on-a-stick bartender was enough to inspire clarity in Shelby’s muddled brain. Thank God for small miracles. Note to self:
When in doubt, say you have to pee.

“Oh, you have to…” Tessa’s eyes widened even further. “And I’ve been talking your ear off. Sorry!”

Tessa moved away from the door and motioned for Shelby to walk in first, which was
not
a good idea since she was fairly certain that, as soon as that door opened, there would be a chorus of “
Surprise!
” that wasn’t intended for her. Not having a clue what to do, Shelby froze.

“Aww!” A sweet grin pulled on Tessa’s lips as she pivoted on her heels and snuggled up against her husband, placing her hand on his broad chest. “Remember when I first got to town and stopped here to use the bathroom? I was
so surprised
to see you, and you looked like you were seeing a ghost.”

Jake kissed his wife on the forehead then nodded, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary as he reached for the door. “Yep. You were
surprised
alright.”

As Tessa spun back towards the entrance, Jake looked at Shelby and shrugged with resignation as he reached around his pregnant wife and opened the door.

“After you, ladies.”

Before either Tessa or Shelby took a step, there was a thunderous chant of, “Surprise!”

Tessa screamed and jumped back against Jake. Shelby, on the other hand, ducked her head and tried to make herself as invisible as possible while she squeezed past the couple and into the room unnoticed.

Good news: Everyone’s attention was on Tessa’s reaction. The mob of well-wishers swarmed Tessa and Jake like bees flitting around a honeycomb, so Shelby was able to move past the crowd without drawing unwanted attention to herself.

Bad news: When she cleared the danger zone and raised her head, the first person Shelby made eye contact with was none other than the bad-boy bartender who had haunted her dreams for the past year and a half.

The second Shelby’s stare locked with Levi’s, it felt like the room was spinning and they were the only two people standing still. Over the years, in multiple movie montages, she’d seen this exact special effect take place. She was pretty sure that, to achieve the SFX, the actors remained perfectly still while a camera on a rig spun around them. How in the world was that very thing happening to Shelby right now, in real life, in the middle of a crowded bar? She had no freaking idea—but it was.

Maybe she was finally having the nervous breakdown she’d been trying to ward off for the last two weeks. Maybe this was the first step in her seemingly inevitable emotional downfall. Or maybe the fact that she’d just driven through the night and hadn’t slept for more than an hour at a time for the last couple of weeks was finally hitting her.

No matter what the reason for her momentary trip into movie-montage land was, the way to fix her current predicament became crystal clear:

Solution: Ignore it. Look away and pretend that it wasn’t happening. Which, obviously, it wasn’t. Well, except for in her mind.

In reality, there was no earth-shaking—or, in this case, earth-
spinning
—connection between her and Levi. It was just a figment of her overactive imagination.

“Hey, sis!” Matt snapped her out of her room-spinning eye-lock with Levi. Her brother wrapped one arm around her while the other was busy holding one of her nieces. “How you feeling?”

“Much better,” she answered truthfully.

“I still can’t believe that you finally learned to surf!”

It hadn’t taken long for word to spread about her newly acquired hobby since she’d told her sister last week. Which was fine with her. She’d come up with a cover story and it was covering.

After giving her brother a quick hug, she looked down at the tiny bundle of love in his arms. “And who is this angel?”

“This is Peyton. Amy’s feeding Paige.”

“Well, hello, princess.” Shelby sniffed, trying to suppress, ignore, and deny the overwhelming emotions that were welling up inside her at seeing the small infant. Her voice came out as a strained whisper as she spoke to her niece. “You are so beautiful.”

Matt handed the baby to her, and the second Peyton was in her arms, every attempt at holding her complicated feelings at bay evaporated. Tears began pouring down her face, but no sound came from her mouth.

“Hey, are you okay?” The concern in her brother’s voice just made the tears flow in greater force as she silently wept for the loss she hadn’t let herself grieve yet.

“Yeah.” She smiled up at her brother through her tears and decided to reach into her bag o’ tricks. “I just can’t believe you’re a dad.”

Matt beamed down at his daughter and shook his head. “I know. Neither can I.”

Redirection was quickly becoming her new best friend.

As she held her niece and gazed down at her cherubic face, she realized that she might need more than a change of scenery to work through, move on from, and heal everything that was going on with her.

So the million-dollar question was: What did she need?

“Hi, Shelby.” Levi’s baritone voice sounded beside her, and Shelby felt its vibration.

Then panic flooded her. No, no, no.
That
—or should she say
he
—was
not
what she needed.

Chapter 3

‡

L
evi hadn’t been struck speechless by a woman—ever. But when Shelby’s baby-blue eyes met his, that was
exactly
what happened. The connection he’d felt was so powerful that he was surprised he was still upright. If anything could’ve knocked him on his ass, that mesmerizing stare could have. He would have bet the farm that the power of it hadn’t been one-sided.

It had taken him a few minutes to get himself together enough to go say hi. Now that he had, he felt more nervous than he had when he was eighteen and he’d walked into a courtroom to petition for custody of his twelve-year-old twin brothers. That had been the scariest moment of his life. Until now.

Palms sweaty. Mind racing. Stomach turning. Over a
hello
. What in the hell kind of voodoo did this girl have over him?

Shelby stood less than a foot away from him, holding her niece, and it felt like it was taking an eternity for her to acknowledge him. He knew that it must have been all in his imagination. Time wasn’t really standing still while he waited for her to nod, raise her hand, or say hi.

“Shelbs?” Matt’s voice sounded slightly concerned.

Levi realized in that moment that it apparently was
not
his imagination.

“Huh?” Shelby looked up at her brother and then over at Levi saying a forced, “Oh, hi.”

Okay. This was weird. The opposite sex was a mystery to him. He didn’t claim to know anything about them, in general, but he knew exactly what the girl in front of him lips tasted like. He knew the soft sound she made when he slid his tongue into her mouth. And he
knew
that something was off with her.

The girl he’d met at Matt and Amy’s wedding was outgoing and bubbly. The girl he saw now at now looked like she wanted to disappear. When she’d slid inside beside Tessa, he had assumed she’d been trying not to steal any of the guest of honor’s glory, but now…

“How are you?” Shelby asked, snapping Levi out of his thoughts.

“Good. How was the drive?” Levi heard himself ask, his voice low and raspy.

Shelby’s eyes weren’t meeting his and she was shifting her weight from foot to foot. He wasn’t sure how to define the energy between them. Actually, awkward, uncomfortable, and highly combustible summed it up perfectly.

“Great!” she answered, a little too brightly.

As they remained locked in an impromptu staring contest, Levi really had a chance to study her. When she’d first walked in, all he’d been able to process was how unbelievably sexy and soul-crushingly beautiful she was. In his mind and dreams, he’d remembered her long, chestnut hair, her sun-kissed skin, and her large, ocean-blue eyes, but his memory hadn’t come close to doing her justice.

Now that the shock of seeing her again had passed, Levi noticed that her face looked a little sunken in. She’d lost weight. Not only that, but she had dark circles under her eyes and, the space under her left eye looked slightly discolored.

The urge to scoop her up in his arms and carry her out of there to get her alone and ask—no,
demand
to know—if she was okay was so overwhelming, that he fisted his hands at his sides to stop himself. He also reminded himself that, as much as he had built up some out-of-this-world connection between the two of them in his head, the truth was that her brother was seeing the same things he was. He obviously knew her better than Levi did. If something were wrong, Matt would address it.

It was none of Levi’s business.

“Shelby, it’s so good to see you!” Amy stepped between Levi and her husband and wrapped the arm that wasn’t holding the matching set to the baby in Shelby’s arms around her.

“You too.” Shelby’s eyes briefly met Levi’s over Amy’s shoulder before she pulled back and looked down at the baby her sister-in-law was holding. “And this must be Paige.”

Levi retreated, heading behind the bar to give Shelby the space she obviously wanted. Questions he had absolutely no answers to raced through his head like a getaway car running from the police.

What was she
really
doing here?

Why did she look like she hadn’t slept?

When had she become so scared?

“Hey, I know this is a baby shower, but the guys wanted to know if they could get some beers,” Jake said as he strode up to the bar, motioning over his shoulder at the guys from the fire station who had already taken their places around the pool tables.

“Sure thing. How many do you need?” Levi tried to shake his runaway thoughts off and focus on the crowd in his bar.

Sue Ann had provided catering from her café. Against the far wall, there were triangle sandwiches and bowls filled with more different types of salads than Levi had even known existed. There were also several bowls of orange-colored, ice cream-filled liquid that was apparently commonly consumed at parties like this. When Levi had asked what Sue Ann was doing when she’d dumped an entire carton of sherbet ice cream into a clear bowl, she’d looked at him like he was a few cards short of a full deck and spoke slowly as she’d informed him that she was making Rock-A-Bye Punch.

Yeah, Levi knew nothing about women.

“Five,” Jake answered, holding his hand up to illustrate the number.

Levi pulled three bottles out of the refrigerated cooler in one hand and two in the other, quickly popping the tops before setting them on the bar top.

“So, Shelby’s looking good,” Jake commented before grabbing one of the longnecks and taking a swig.

“Aren’t you off the market?” Levi had a pretty good idea where his friend was going with this, and it had nothing to do with
Jake
finding Shelby attractive. This knowledge didn’t mean Levi was going to make it easy on him though.

“Yeah.” Jake grinned, and his voice rose a little to be heard over the chattering crowd. “But last I checked,
you
weren’t.”

Levi’s shoulders tensed, and he slowly breathed in through his nose. His patience, which was normally something he prided himself on, was wearing extremely thin. So he didn’t respond to Jake’s observation. Instead, he busied himself by wiping the bar down.

“She made it clear that she wasn’t here to see you,
but
the way you two were looking at each other when she walked in, told a different story.” Jake’s left brow raised.

Levi knew that he was playing straight into Jake’s hand, but that didn’t stop him from showing his cards. “What did she say?”

“Not much.” Jake shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eyes, which irritated the shit out of Levi. “Just that, when Tessa assumed that Shelby was stopping by the Roadhouse to see you, she denied it faster than an overdrawn credit card. Shot Tessa’s theory down like a sniper taking out a target. The word ‘no’ flew out of her mouth like a rocket being launched—”

“Okay. I get the point.” Levi knew that, if he didn’t stop Jake, his friend could go on for hours like this.