Someone to Watch Over Me
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Authors: Anne Berkeley
By Anne Berkeley
Copyright by Anne Berkeley
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Chapter
1
C
losing my eyes, I let myself zone, my head bobbing to
the beat of the
music on the radio
.
Rarely did I get time to myself, but Mother Nature deigned to bless
me with a few hours off due to the storm that
had
rolled through. It was a quick hitter
and was over
in a flash
, but
not before it
had
done
its damage.
Actually, most of the
damage occurred south of home, where I worked, fortunately. Several
trees had fallen and taken down the power lines to the surrounding
area. Consequently, the office doors closed early and I received
the rest of the day off, with pay.
Storm
clouds
lingered in the distance, but the
sun shined overhead, warming my face as I tipped my head back
against the seat
, my fingers drumming against
the steering wheel to the beat of the music. I had the top down.
The air smelled of freshly clipped grass and rain.
Behind me, someone laid on
the
ir
horn. The light had turned green
and I hadn’t hit the gas quick enough to please
the impatient.
Flinching, I glanced in the rearview mirror
as I eased off the brake and tapped the
pedal
. They were driving a
black
Escalade with tinted windows. The thing
gleamed ostentatiously, begging for attention. I supposed whoever
was driving the thing
would
be in a hurry. They had to be
a
workaholic to afford it.
Me, I was a workaholic just to
afford my Mini. I loved my Mini,
however
,
and wouldn’t trade it for a dozen Escalades. The price of gas had
much to do with it. I had a decent-paying
office
job with great benefits and it paid the
bills
—most of them—but
it was a bit of a
commute.
The twenty-six mile per gallon fuel
efficiency made up for the one-hour drive.
The
bills I couldn’t afford, I paid by waiting tables
and singing on stage
at a local bar called The Loft.
It was an old, converted barn. They had great—no
amazing
—food, stocked an impressive variety of home brewed
beers and were large enough to house a decent crowd on band night.
In two nights alone, I could rake in almost a week’s pay
compared to
my day job.
Taking a sharp right, I pulled
into Dairy Obscene. Creative, I know. It was an independent shop.
One of a kind. Their ice cream was to die for, with flavor
combinations that would curl your toes. Seriously. It caused you to
make noises that sounded, well, obscene.
Shifting the car into park, I
climbed out of the car
, and was nearly
plowed over by the
same
black Escalade. I
took a step back, glaring at the tinted windows. Taking it with a
grain of salt, I slipped my
cardigan
over
my shoulders and dropped it in the car, averse to staining it
with ice cream
. No matter how careful I
would be
, I was
bound
to drip something on it.
Besides, the air was steamy thanks to the rain and the
upper ninety-degree temperature.
Beside me, the window powered
down. “Hey, sweetheart—” The deep, male voice was cut off with a
thud. The sound of flesh on flesh if I didn’t know better.
“What the fuck, man!”
Whatever. I locked my car and
crossed the parking lot. I had two hours to spoil myself with
whatever I desired. It was a rare occurrence. I planned to squander
it with countless calories
,
which was
another rare occurrence. I was highly allergic to calories. My body
tended to swell whenever I ate too many of them. Imagine that. As
my athletic instructor always said,
‘
A
minute on the lips an hour on the quip.
’
Cheesy but true
, and
I hated the
treadmill.
“Hey!
Excuse
me?
”
Suppressing a roll of the eyes,
I turned, hoping that I’d simply dropped something. A ten or twenty
would be nice. But I knew I didn’t have such luck. The douches were
hailing me.
They looked my age. Or close
to. Maybe a bit older. The passenger was tall, dark haired with
eyes almost black in color. He wore a black designer tee with faded
jeans and espresso boots, like the biker kind with squared off
toes, not shit kickers. His lower lip was pierced. And his entire
arm was cloaked in a
sleeve
of tattoos
from wrist to where it disappeared beneath his shirt. I felt a stir
of recognition, but quickly filed it away. Likely, we’d crossed
paths before at the Stop & Shop. I stopped there often for
odds and ends on the drive home
.
His friends weren’t much
different in attire. They all had that same rock star vibe, but
looked almost nothing alike. One was blond with highlights that
gave him a surfer look. Another had long ebony hair, like the kind
of black where it’s flat, lifeless and you know it came from a
bottle. The last guy had brown curly hair that hung in sexy
waves
around his face, framing his bright
blue eyes. If he wasn’t mopping a smear of blood from his nose, I
might’ve been attracted to him, but as it stood, I didn’t like to
be called sweetheart, or be told I couldn’t drive.
“
We weren’t
honking at you
.” While the guy’s boots weren’t shit kickers,
he could still kick some ass. His knuckle was scuffed and bleeding.
“
Were we, Carter
?”
Carter
shook
his head
and passed us, swaggering through the door of Dairy
Obscene. “
Don’t believe a word he says,
sweetheart
,” he said before the door could drift closed.
“He can’t be trusted.”
Another car pulled into the
lot. Mr. Biker Boots placed his hand at the small of my back and
ushered me forward. “
Don’t listen to him.
Carter gets cranky when his blood sugar is low.”
“Low blood sugar,” I said
skeptically. I might’ve snorted.
“Seriously. He really does. Has
a
medical tag and everything.”
“
If you say
so
.” Turning, I stepped
over
the
curb and entered the store. Cool air wafted across my shoulders,
raising goosebumps over my skin.
“Hey Coop!” said Ash, waving
from behind the counter. Levy
, my two year old
son
and I
,
were regulars. And
nobody could resist Levy, so I was known by association. “The
usual?”
“Nah, going all out today.”
“No Levy?”
“What he doesn’t know won’t
hurt him.”
“I’ll be with you in a
minute
,” she told me. Handing a cone to the
blond surfer guy, she wiped her hands on her apron and turned to
the next customer.
“No rush.”
Scooting
onto a stool along the counter
, I smoothed my pencil skirt down over my thighs
.
When I
looked up
, I found
Mr. Biker Boots and his friends
staring at me
.
“The usual?” Mr. Biker Boot
inquired. He slid onto the stool next to mine. I suppressed a sigh.
So much for ‘me’ time.
“Vanilla.”
“Sounds boring.”
Behind the
counter,
Ash gasped with mock outrage, clutching her chest.
He’d totally dissed her shop.
“You’ve
never had
our
vanilla before. Here try a sample.” She passed
him a small, white, paper
cup
with a tiny
pink spatula.
“
For
real
?” he said, eyeing the spatula with disdain.
Shrugging
, his pinky popped out as if he were
holding a cup of tea. My mouth quirked
in a dim
smile
. Trying the ice cream, his eyebrows arched in
surprise. “It’s good. Still boring, but good. What makes it so
special?”
“The vanilla beans,” Ash
explained. “Baboons find them a real delicacy. They eat them by the
dozen. The pods ferment in their stomach, which magnifies and
enhances the
bean’s
flavor. Once they
pass
,
the villagers go around and collect
them from the dung.”
His friends busted out
laughing. So did I.
“Dude!” Carter gasped, holding
his stomach. “That’s just wrong on so many levels! You just ate
monkey shit!”
Unfazed, he finished the
vanilla then turned to his friends and delved his tongue into the
empty cup
,
licking the paper clean in a
manner that was anything but polite or couth and could be construed
as nothing but blatantly sexual. And
dear god
did he go to
town on the thing.
I could feel my face flush, my
mind going places I had no right to be.
Realizing his gaffe, he blinked
and curled his tongue back into his mouth. “Sorry, that was really
crude. Been hanging around the guys too long.”
I raised one brow. “Oh, so you
swing that way, eh?”
This only sent the guys into
another
round of gibes
. “Oh man!” said
the guy with the fake black hair
to the
surfer
. “
That was an epic fail
!
She just totally shot him down!
”
“Kidding,” Ash said to Mr.
Biker Boot, as she passed me my cone. “Really. We use Madagascar
beans
, only the best heavy cream,
a
nd
our ice cream is
all hand
-
churned.” She smiled
congenially. “So what can I get for you?”
“What she’s having.” He jerked
his head in my direction. Ok, maybe I was enjoying my ice cream a
little too much, but like I said, it was toe curling. I was
determined to enjoy it.
“One Cooper special coming
up.”
“Cooper special?”
Ash beamed, flashing her pearly
whites. “White chocolate ice cream with a raspberry sorbet swirl
and a dark chocolate shell on a sugar cone. Cooper
concocted it
and we kinda stole it for our own.”
