Wilde Magic (Wilde Women Book 3) (56 page)

Well, shit. Stumbling upon some random female attitudes was just what he needed more of. Filing that information away, he jammed the last two cinnamon nuggets into his mouth, brushed off his shirt and chewed quick as he could. Good thing too because Amy must have sensed him lurking and turned around.

“Oh my God. And look who’s here! Ladies. Have you met Jax’s little brother yet?” She wound her arm through his and pulled him forward where two pair of assessing female eyes gave him a thorough ocular stare down.

“Monica, Jessie,” she purred. Cal glanced at her. The purr sounded vaguely mocking. “Meet Caleb Merrill—of the Merrill’s of Virginia,” she twanged in a passable southern drawl.

To him she winked and flat out smirked. “Cal, Monica and Jessie are my neighbors. Being the stuck up bitches they are, neither of ‘em bothered to hang out here. Until your brother happened along. Now they come by almost every day, drink all the free coffee they can, and wait patiently for the object of their ogling fascination to make an appearance.”

He grinned and rolled his eyes. Man, his brother had it made.

The older of the two women was looking him over like a car in a showroom. He wouldn’t be surprised if she kicked his tires and tried to peek under the hood.

“Caleb,” she sniggered. “You don’t seem little to me.”

Hold up. Was she actually staring at his crotch and licking her lips? Then the other woman giggled merrily and drank from her mug. “Good God, Jessie. Must you be so obvious?”

“He looks like he can take it.”

Amy shook her finger playfully at her friends. “Aw, come on. You’ve already scared the piss outta’ Jax with your nonsense. Besides, I think this one’s taken. Am I right Caleb?”

Loud noises coming from the parking lot swung everyone’s attention to the windows where an unobstructed view showed activity, and a lot of it, just outside. A horn honked, followed by the distinct revving of an engine.

“Locals behaving badly?” he asked.

A chorus of yips and yee haws got drowned out by the roar of the engine. He figured it was kids showing off.

“Locals?” Jessie sniffed. “Hardly. Try the tall drink of cool water Jax took under his wing and that hellion, Charlie Wilde.”

Say fucking what? His head whipped up and his spine snapped rigid. He was making for the door in the next heartbeat.

“Shit,” Amy muttered. “Cal, wait.”

He didn’t. When his hand grabbed the knob he almost yanked the fucking door off its hinges. Stepping out of the Tea Room, he heard Amy snapping at her friends. “God dammit, Jessie. Are you insane? And she’s not a hellion. She’s just … Charlie.”

Just Charlie. Well. He’d see about that.

Stomping like a madman he charged toward the parking lot as a flash of orange and black whizzed by. Planting his booted feet like he was preparing to attack, Cal watched dumbfounded as a ’69 Dodge Charger started doing precision donuts in the parking lot.

And driving the muscle car? The goddamn Baroness of fucking Wild.

“Damn girl,” a masculine voice lauded. “Gonna get you signed up at the Pocono Speedway!”

Er, uh …what?

She pulled out of the donut and did a loud, roaring circuit around the edge of the lot, ending with a dramatic burnout. That was when he’d had enough. Barely registering who else was standing around, Cal zeroed in on a wildly laughing Charlize—determined to pull her out of that damn car and drag her away to safety before she got hurt. The fact that she drove like a fucking pit boss barely registered.

Five steps from the car, Jonas moved into his field of vision. He was laughing and high fiving the hand extended through the car’s open window.

Uh, no, no, no, no. No fucking way.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” Cal growled, bodily shoving the younger, leaner man out of the way. “You trying to wrap her around a tree?”

Jonas, who Cal knew damn well was an ex-Marine, had the skills to kick his ass despite his unthreatening appearance. But knowing and giving a shit are different things.

“Back off, buddy,” the younger man warned. “Chuck knows what she’s doing.”

“Chuck?” The minute he asked, Cal knew how stupid he looked.

“Yeah, you know.” A totally separate voice chimed in. Cal looked up and found three of the workmen Jax employed standing right behind them. The smallest guy, a bearded hipster going by Patch, elaborated.

“Chuck, chuck, fo-fuck

Banana fana, fo fuck

Fe Fi fo fuck

Chuck!”

Everyone laughed. Jonas the loudest. Cal lost his fucking mind and grabbed the man by his throat, pulling his arm back, lining up to punch his fucking lights out.

“Jesus!” An arm was wrestling with the fist he had at the ready. “Caleb. What are you doing? Stop this!”

He shook his arm, trying to dislodge the annoying hindrance. All he wanted to do was flatten the other man’s grinning face.

A half-assed punch landed square in his gut—shocking him just enough to let go of Jonas. He reached a hand out to grab whoever was interfering, took hold of an arm and yanked.

“Cut it out you big bully!”

What word did that woman use to describe Charlize? A hellion? Apt description because rowdy, mischievous troublemaker hit this girl’s nail on the head. Twisting and wriggling furiously in his grasp, she was spewing angry invectives his way while everyone else stood around enjoying the show and laughing.

“Were you trying to get yourself killed?” he bellowed because he didn’t know what else to do.

“I was doing donuts in an empty parking lot. Something any sixteen-year-old boy worth his pubes can do. Where’s the harm in that?”

Not stopping to question the fierceness of his protective response, he shouted back at her. “Harm? You’re joking, right? Goddammit, ‘tessa. You’re just a girl. What if you lost control and slammed into a tree. Or the wall. Who said you could drive like that? Huh? ”

Crossing her arms and cocking a hip, she radiated universal female body shade, complete with head wag, that let him and everyone else on the planet know he was a butt head and really shoulda’ checked his fucking mouth and temper at the door.

“Oh, no you didn’t!” Her tone sounded like sand paper and scorn rubbing together. “Nobody tells me what I can and can not do. And unless you’re blind or just a dumb asshole, there was never a second when I didn’t have complete control of the car.”

“Dude,” someone muttered. “This girl could drive a milk carton if you gave it wheels and an engine.”

A light, something far off in the distance of his mind, started flickering. Oh shit. He’d stepped in it big time. With witnesses. Fuck. Trapped by his own bull-headedness, he tried to step back. “You’re missing the point, I’m just,” His mouth snapped shut when she poked him in the chest.

“I’ll tell you who’s missed a few points.” A second poke. “You ya’ dumb fuck! How dare you?” she growled. “You spent years tempting death every single day. Don’t preach to me about what
could
happen. You gave your family a king size helping of worry over what could happen. You scolded me once and said grow up. Well this is me scolding you right back saying take your head out of your ass.”

She whirled away from him and marched toward the tearoom entrance. He watched the furious stomp with dismay, noting her Chuck’s kicking up some stones as she walked.

Chucks for Chuck. Of course. Why not? He couldn’t keep up with how many names the girl was called and now he had forever burned in his head the desire to Chuck fuck her with those strangely sexy Converse sneakers over his shoulders.

He hesitated. What should he do? Follow? Apologize? Try to explain?

Jonas cut off his thoughts. “You’ve met her, right?” Cal heard the snigger and saw the smirk. “Did you know she got busted drag racing when she was in high school?”

Uh oh. He’d just made a major miscalculation and been a dick, but that wouldn’t change his feelings about her safety. Unfortunately, his feelings didn’t matter. Not when she was mad. And probably hurt. Nothing could piss his ‘tessa off more than hearing some macho asshole—that would be him—calling her out for being a girl. A girl in need of protection.

Cal glared at Jonas. “Don’t ever let me find you pulling her into a stunt like this again.”

The guy stared him down. “I’m not so sure you get a vote in what Chuck does.”

He had a choice. Put the little fucker on the ground or walk away.

He walked away.

W
ALKING FROM THE PARKING LOT,
through the tearoom and out the backdoor of the bakery felt like the green mile. This was exactly what he’d been thinking about while he drove. They’d done this all wrong. Every single interaction they had was fueled by hi-octane passion. That alone should have waved some warning flags.

Because he was a clueless idiot who didn’t know thing one about having a relationship and she was an honest to God wild child, they were always going to have these struggles as long as all they did was scratch the surface of their feelings.

Man, he really hoped it wasn’t too late. He didn’t think he could survive a break-up. Not after that last time.

He heard slamming cabinets and heavy stomping when he entered the house. Hoping a direct route was his best shot, he followed the noise and barreled into the dining room just as she was rounding the table. She had the bouquet of flowers in her hand and a look on her face that destroyed him.

“I’m sorry,” he blubbered uneasily.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. Sorry is a pathetically nuanced way of saying calm down.”

Cal gulped. It was entirely possible she was a thousand times smarter and
waaaay
more clever with language than he or Jax could ever hope to be.

“Uh, I’m a dick?” Her fulminous glare told him he shouldn’t have made that a question.

“You embarrassed me in front of the guys. Like … who do you think you are?”

The only words that stuck in what she said was ‘the guys.’ A wild beast roared to life inside him. She might be a fucking handful but she was his goddamn handful. There would be no, ‘the guys’. Not if he had any say in the matter.

“I don’t want you hanging around with the work crews.” He was all set to lay out a hundred reasons why, when she rushed forward and swinging the flower arrangement like a bat swatted him on the shoulder.

She went from zero to a hundred in point five seconds. It was impressive. “I’ll hang around with whoever I want. Frankly, Caleb,” she sniffed derisively, “you aren’t the boss of me. Just because we sleep together doesn’t mean,”

“Sleep together,” he howled. “Sleep together? Who the hell are you kidding? We don’t sleep together, Charlize. We make love, sometimes all night long. And occasionally we fuck. Like animals. Don’t tell me that doesn’t mean something.”

“It means, Mr. Merrill,” she spat out. “We share body fluids and if it was supposed to be more, I don’t recall you saying so.”

Share body fluids? Oh my God. What the hell was going on in her mind? That was when he made the mistake of his life. He grabbed her wrist when she tried to slide past him and yanked way too hard. He didn’t want her to run away and make him have to chase her. If they were going to get into it, well fine. Taking her wrist was just his way of slowing her roll. He wasn’t trying to restrain her.

Unfortunately, she didn’t read his actions the way he explained them in his head and started to struggle. Before he knew what was happening, they were grappling with each other in the hallway.

“Let me go,” she snarled.

“Stop wriggling,” he demanded.

She went very, very still. Her eyes shuttered. He felt the fight go out of her but had no doubt it was simply the means to an end.

Finally, she looked at him. “You know what, Caleb. I don’t want to do this anymore.” She sounded calm, too calm and he felt the ice building around her. “It’s been fun. Playing house out here in the woods, but we both knew it had to end when the newlyweds came home. Back to the real world.”

“Charlize, baby. This is the real world. And it’s a shit ton more than sharing body fluid. For the record, I did say so. But you’re right. We can’t continue fooling around when they get home.”

She didn’t react other than to stand there; hands limp at her sides, no expression whatsoever.