Mr. Write (Sweetwater) (21 page)

“Am I?”  He pulled a
silly-me
expression.  “I guess I just got a bit turned around.”

“
Um, Mrs. Jenkins niece was a bit late picking her up, so I was just walking her back to her bed and breakfast, but I could –”

Whatever she was about to say was drowned out by an enormous crack of thunder, and even Mason didn’t have to feign a jump.  “Perhaps we should all seek more immediate shelter,” he suggested.  “May I escort you ladies into the lounge?”

“Oh!  There’s my niece now,” the un-godmother trilled, finally getting back into the fairy-tale spirit. “Thank you, darlings, but I’ll just be running along.  You two should go on, though.  This storm looks to be a doozy!”

As her coach pulled up – well, okay, it was a Volvo – and she disappeared in a sparkle of fairy dust and exhaust fumes, Mason turned to smile down at Allison.

“Your first walking tour seems to have been a success.”

“It was… I was going to say nerve-wracking, but while that’s true, the
fact is I had
such
a good time.”

“What do you say I buy you a drink
to celebrate?”  Then to prove that he’d paid attention, added: “Non-alcoholic, of course.”

“Um,” Allison peered across the street, looking at the bar like it was the apple in Eden. Or perhaps the snake
, he couldn’t tell.  “I… oh my goodness, what happened to your lip?”

“My lip?”  He touched it rather absently, then winced.  “Oh.  Right.  Minor accident involving Tucker’s elbow.  Is it bleeding again?”

He bent down, leaned closer.  Nearly close enough to kiss.

“It…” Her eyes widened, then went a bit blurry.  “Just a little,” she whispered.  “It looks like it could use some ice.”

Thunder rolled again, and she jumped back.

“Maybe we could take a – ha – rain check,” he said.  “Best to be
home when this storm breaks.  May I walk you to your car first?”

“M
y car’s still at the store,” she said.  “So unless you’re going back into the bar, it looks like we’re both heading the same way.”

Which had
, of course, been his intention.  “At the risk of repeating myself, may I walk with you?  Nothing against your local musicians, but to be honest, I’d just really prefer to spend the next few minutes in
your
company.”    

She visibly softened.  And that hadn’t even been a line.

“I’d like that,” she said, just as another angry breath of wind snuffed her lantern’s candle, the air stinking of sulfur.  “Oh!”

Lightening crackled, and the street lamps flickered.

“Looks as if we may want to hurry.” Mason took advantage of the sudden dark to join their hands.  “Carry on.  I’ll trust you to lead the way.”

SARAH
splashed through puddles the size of your average wetland, mentally consigning her leather shoes to the trash heap. They were surely ruined.

Much like her evening.

It seemed to be a particular skill of Victoria Hawbaker’s, ruining people’s evenings. And lives. She’d certainly ruined Harlan’s. The woman deserved her own natural disaster rating scale.

Of course, she couldn’t entirely blame the night’s outcome on Victoria, much as she might like to. After all, she was the one who’d been foolish enough to become, what – enamored with? Attracted to? – a Pettigrew.

True, the Pettigrew in question didn’t seem to have been cut from quite the same cloth as his grandfather.  But he had, apparently, inherited Carlton’s innate skill with deceit.

She didn’t want to think about this just now. She was soaked to the skin, her heel hurt, and worse, her pride was bruised. All she wanted was a hot shower and her warm bed.

The light on the porch of her cottage burned through the deluge, a beacon in the darkness.  But as Sarah hurried toward it, squishing in her wet shoes, she heard a growl coming from the vicinity of a camellia bush.

She faltered, then bent down when she spotted a piece of sodden gray fur.

“Useless?”

Slitted yellow eyes stared back. 

“What are doing, sitting out here in the rain, you dummy? And just how, pray tell, did you manage to get out?”

Shaking her head, Sarah reached beneath the bush to retrieve her wayward pet.

Useless hissed, and swiped at her with his paw.

“Hey, hey.” Sarah jerked back her hand,
frowning at the three lines that welled red. “What was that for?” Useless never resorted to claws. He generally couldn’t work up the motivation even to hiss.

Sarah glanced around, feeling the skin prickle on her neck. Something must have scared him.

“Was there a dog?” she said, before recalling that she wasn’t actually going to get an answer. She was so used to talking to him that sometimes she forgot he couldn’t talk back. “Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now.” She hoped. “And we’re both getting wet, so –”

“Who are you talking to?”

Sarah screamed, falling down on her butt in the mud. Pushing her sopping hair out of her eyes, she glared up at her brother.

“You
scared
me!”

“Sorry.” He looked genuinely contrite. And dry. The jerk was holding an umbrella. “I didn’t realize you’d left. You shouldn’t be walking home alone, Sarah.”

Sarah started to protest that she was the older sister here, but given Jonas’s little housewarming gift last week, considered that he might have a point. “Well, the only thing in the area currently out to get me appears to be my cat.” She glared at the bush, tempted to leave the fat little bastard to the mercies of the storm.

Then she sighed. She couldn’t abandon him out here, alone and frightened, contrary though he might be.

“I’ll get him,” Noah said, handing her the umbrella.

While Sarah watched, he neatly extracted Useless from the bush, tucking him beneath his arm like a hairy football.

“Come on,” Noah said, while Sarah and the cat glared at one another. “I’ll walk you home.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT
was early, he was tired, and Tucker wanted a damn cup of coffee.

A
good
damn cup of coffee.

And he didn’t want t
o have to placate, grovel or otherwise compromise his integrity to get one.

But if he knew Sarah – and he was starting to – any or all of the above might be on his
immediate agenda.

He ran a hand down his unshaven face before yanking open the Dust Jacket’s front door.

The smell hit him first.  Books, coffee and something involving fat and sugar.  The triad of morning bliss.

Unless you were fortunate enough to indulge in that other perfect sunrise sampler: sex and more sleep.

But since that plate had been whisked away from the table before he’d even had a chance to taste, Tucker resigned himself to the coffee.  And whatever little chunk of his hide he’d have to give up in order to get some.

The old lady rose from where she’d obviously been loading stuff into the display case, and Tucker stopped in his tracks.  He glanced around, but since he’d intentiona
lly gotten here just as they opened, he was the only one in the store.

He tried a smile.  “Good morning.”

She fixed a look on him that he would swear was meant to do him physical harm, before muttering something and walking into the back.  A moment later, Sarah came through the same door.

She’d done something to her hair that made it hang straight as rain over her shoulders. Tucker found himself both baffled and annoyed that he’d noticed her hairstyle again.

“You’re certainly up early,” she said.  “Hoping to get the worm?”

“Hoping to get coffee.”

“To go?”

Screw it.  “For here.”

“Black?”

“You read me.”

She paused in the act of reaching for a mug.  “As a matter of fact.”

That
, to his chagrin, had actually been some kind of fatigue-induced Freudian slip. But he might as well follow up.

“When?  After you stormed out last night?”

“I walked out, rather sedately, as – and I believe I mentioned this – I was trying to get home ahead of the actual storm.”  The calmness of her reply made his own stomach jumpy.

“Look.  Am I supposed to feel
, what, guilty”
stupid
“for not mentioning the fact that I’m an author?”

“I don’t know, Tucker.  Are you?”  She poured coffee from a fresh pot.  “Although, I have to say – speaking as a bookseller, you understand.  I have to say that it’s an odd
business strategy for a writer to basically boycott the bookstore he’s moved next door to.”

“I haven’t boycotted you.” 

“Okay.”

“Would you stop being so fucking reasonable?”

She settled the mug onto a sturdy saucer, smiled.  “As a bookseller, I’ve found it’s a better business strategy not to tell customers to go to hell.”

“D
amn it, Sarah –”

“Fine.”  Shoving a waterfall of red out of her face, she abandoned all pretense. 
“You were visibly annoyed the first time you walked in here.  You resisted overtures, ignored invitations.  You acted like our very presence was some kind of personal trial.  I don’t get it.  Unless our little store is just too bourgeois for your tastes.”

“I thought we covered this last night, but apparently you’re a slow learner.  I’m not some damn elitist snob.  I…” he wasn’t going to use his mom’s very sudden, very unexpected death as a sob story.  He just wasn’t.  “I had my reasons for being unsettled when I first got here.
”

“You sat there, asked me
why books. 
And said nothing.”

Because the answer she’d given had been so close to his own. 
And it had moved him.  “So?”

She threw up her hands.  “Never mind. 
It doesn’t matter.  Would you like a scone with your coffee?  The apricot-white chocolate is the special today, and believe me when I tell you that it is nothing short of divine.”

Tucker figured he had two choices.  He could say yeah, sure, accept the wall of professionalism she’d erected between them, drink his coffee, eat his scone, and then leave.

And whatever they’d started last night – or hell, several weeks ago – would die a quiet death.

Probably better that way.  Certainly easier.

But he’d never been one to take the easy route.

“You don’t have it stocked.”

“What?”

“Heartland. 
I –”

“Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late.”

Tucker turned around to see Allie bustling through the door behind him.  Clearly flustered, she stopped when she noticed him, pinking up a little when she glanced between him and Sarah.  “Good morning, Tucker.  Sarah, I’m so sorry.  I seem to have forgotten to set my alarm.”

“The flogging will commence shortly.”

“Ha.  Well.”  She flushed again when she glanced in Tucker’s direction. “I’ll just…” she gestured vaguely toward what Tucker thought must be the office. “Nice seeing you, Tucker.”

When she’d fled – there was no other word to describe it – Sarah turned narrowed eyes on him.  “What was that about?”

“Damned if I know.”  He’d seen her a number of times since their encounter in McGruder’s, and while she’d been a little uncomfortable, maybe a touch embarrassed, he’d thought she was well over it by now.

Then Tucker thought of the plates of cookies and scones, of the containers of Tupperware in his fridge.  Of the fact that Mason had taken off without a word last night, that the door to his bedroom had been closed
this morning.

“That bastard.”

“Excuse me?”

Tucker waved it away with his hand.
  He’d deal with Mason later. 

He stepped up to the counter, took the coffee she’d poured, and drank half of it down where he stood.

“That has to be hot.”

“Don’t care.”  He choked a little, felt his eyes water.  And took a smaller, more reasonable sip.
  “More.”

She topped it off, and this time sat a little pitcher of cream, some packets
of raw sugar on the counter.

Tucker slid onto a stool.  “How’d you know?”

“The past few days, Mason would come over early, get two large coffees, black.  Later, he’d be back, switching to tea for himself, and to sweet and light on the coffee.  By noon, or thereabouts, the coffee was inevitably iced.”

“Observant.”

“Pays to be so, if you’re going to run a business that focuses on customer service.  That personal touch can make the difference between someone coming back or going somewhere else.”

Tucker thought that that was true on several levels.  And
because he did, he watched her as he ripped open one of the little packets of sugar. “There was a deli, just down the block from my apartment.  When I write – when it’s going well, anyway – sometimes I forget stuff.  Laundry in the washing machine, appointments.  Food.  The guy who ran the place, he’d send one of his delivery kids over with sandwiches and coffee periodically, when he knew it had me gripped.”