Cupcake Club 04 - Honey Pie Page 7

  “And why in the hell I’m thinking about any of that mess, I have no idea,” Dylan said, scrubbing a hand over his face. What he did know was that fifteen years ago, this boat had been his salvation. If he couldn’t leave home and leave his dad behind, he could, at least, run away to work on the boat. Many a night he’d slept on board, behind the repair shop, lying on his back on the deck, looking at the stars, listening to the gulls, the sound of the water, and imagining what kind of life he’d have if he could do anything he wanted.

  Turned out what he wanted to do was fix cars. He was good at it. Even better than his father and his grandfather. Plus, cars didn’t drink, they didn’t punch, kick, scream, or shout. They didn’t make his life a living hell. Instead they’d been the one thing that made his life tolerable. They made sense. If they were broken, it was just a matter of figuring out what was wrong and fixing it. And it felt damn good to know he could fix something. Because he sure as hell couldn’t fix his family.

  Dylan had been running the shop pretty much by himself by the time he was sixteen. Mickey was never around, and only came by when he needed to take money from the office safe or steal parts he could sell for booze or drug money. He’d never had any real interest or inclination to work on cars . . . or to work at all.

  Their father had passed away from a heart attack right after Dylan’s twenty-first birthday, and Mickey had finally landed himself in prison eleven months later. Only then had Dylan felt like his life was his own, to do with as he pleased. Unlike Dick, Mickey wasn’t ever getting out. Dylan had tried to see him, see if maybe hitting bottom, losing their dad, and being the only family they each had left had finally shaken some sense into his brother. Mickey had refused to see him. And, family or not . . . Dylan hadn’t tried again. What was done was done. Mickey had lasted twenty-two months inside before getting himself killed.

  So, for a peaceful ten years now, it had been Dylan, the shop, and the sailboat. Well, and Lolly. Dylan hadn’t wanted the damn dog, but she’d been hanging around the docks all last summer, and as the fall had turned into winter, she ended up crawling under his bay door to sleep in the garage at night. And if, after a while, Dylan left some scraps from his lunch or dinner behind, who was to say if she helped herself to them, too?

  Then the fire had happened. An electrical fire in a neighboring building got out of hand. It had been a chilly, windy night, and sparks had flown, burning bits of the engulfed building had landed on the old roof of the garage, and it had gone up, like so much tinder.

  That same night Dylan had learned a thing or two about himself. The only thing he’d about killed himself to save before the building went completely to ash, was the damn dog. Even the boat, fortunately under tarp for the winter, hadn’t been the first thing on his mind when the call from the fire chief had woken him up. Just the damn dog.

  Part black and white border collie, part who the hell knew what, she wasn’t the standard of canine beauty by any stretch, but that didn’t matter to Dylan. Almost five months later, her fur was coming back in where it had been singed off on her side and left hind quarter where the burning beam had fallen on her. She still limped a little and even though the vet said she likely wasn’t more than a few years old, she slept more than she used to. The vet bills had been staggering, but old Doc Jensen had asked Dylan only one time if he wanted to put the homeless mongrel down. Apparently something in Dylan’s expression had the old doctor nodding . . . and seeing to the dog’s needs.

  When asked her name, Dylan had answered on the spur of the moment. He’d always given the dog a hard time, complaining that she was always lollygagging about. And Lolly had just popped out. He hadn’t even been aware that he’d already been thinking of her by a name until that moment. If anyone asked, he’d referred to her as the thousand dollar mutt—because that’s what it had cost him to fix her up. He’d figured she owed him companionship after that, so it was only fair he keep her with him so she could fulfill her end of the deal.

  He glanced over at the peacefully sleeping mutt. “You’re sleeping on the job,” he called down to the dog, but he smiled as he turned back to the boat and his prized new piece of equipment. He could already envision how it would look, mounted on the—

  Movement on the road caught his eye. “Well, holy hell. What’s she doing here?”

  Lolly didn’t seem to have an answer for that, either, but she was a damn sight more interested in finding out than Dylan. She hauled herself up and trotted crookedly down the driveway with her tail wagging to greet their guest.

  “Look, but don’t touch,” he muttered after the dog, finding himself somewhat curious about how Miss Skittish would respond to the friendly canine overture. Dylan hadn’t been a pet owner long, but he already put a lot of stock in how people responded to Lolly. Of course, she had never met an enemy. So it was all on Honey.

  Honey Pie, he recalled Alva calling her, a nickname bestowed by her aunt Bea. Sounded like something you’d call a happy, free-spirited little youngster. Turned out he didn’t have any part of that right.

  He watched as she rolled her bicycle to a stop—controlled this time—and immediately held the back of her hand down for Lolly to sniff. Lolly being Lolly, she simply licked Honey’s palm and barked once in happy greeting. Unlike Dylan, the dog loved company. He figured the only reason she hung out with him was to use his garage as a means to get attention from his customers. It worked, too.

  Honey laughed and gave the dog’s head a good scratch. “Well, aren’t you a good girl?” she crooned. “Coming out to meet your guests.”

  Lolly barked again, then trot-limped back up the drive, tongue hanging out, looking proudly at Dylan as if to say “look what I found!”

  Dylan was only half paying attention to the dog. He was still hung up on the sound of Honey’s laugh. The woman he’d first met in his garage hadn’t seemed capable of such a sound, and their meeting earlier hadn’t changed his mind all that much. It was possible he’d been too busy noticing how that filmy, flowery skirt had clung to her legs when the steady island breeze picked up, making him wonder if perhaps he hadn’t been too quick to pass judgment on her body as average. Now she was wearing a green T-shirt and some kind of rolled up jean shorts, proving he hadn’t been wrong about those legs being noteworthy. “You changed your clothes.”

  Her smile didn’t fade, but it did turn wry.

  Damn if he didn’t like that, too.

  “Yes. Seemed to make more sense in this heat. You’re working on your boat.”

  He tried not to let his lips quirk, but he had to work at it. “If I want to sail it someday, I have to do that.” He set the dorade down, but didn’t climb down off the boat. “Now that we’ve stated the obvious, are you here for a reason, or were you just pedaling by?”

  “For a reason,” she said, not bothering to climb off her bike. Since she had to look up to talk to him, she shaded her eyes with a hand to her forehead, which only served to make those eyes of hers even spookier looking.

  It annoyed him that he was noticing that . . . or anything else about her. Batshit crazy didn’t simply change with the change of an outfit. “And that would be?”

  “I went by the garage after talking with Lani, but it took longer than I’d realized, and you’d closed up for the day. Alva told me where you lived and that you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by. Said you’d most likely be working on your boat.”

  He sighed. Miss Alva was going to have to make a lot more than jelly rolls if she wanted to get back on his good side.

  “Since my car is going to take a while, I was hoping to get more of my things out of it. All of them, actually, if I could.”

  “I open again at seven in the morning.”

  “I’m taking a cab over to the county offices in the morning.”

  “Courthouse doesn’t open till nine.”

  She didn’t ask him how he knew that.

  Just as well. If she stayed on the island much longer, she’d know all about his family past anyway, an
d just how often he’d had to deal with the county courthouse. And why.

  “Well, okay. Would it be possible to meet you a few minutes before you open, like six forty-five, and maybe get some help driving the stuff over to the B&B? I’ll be happy to pay you for your time.” When he didn’t respond right away, she added, “Actually, I’d be happy to ask anyone other than you, but you’re the only person I know with a truck.”

  He had to work not to smile then, too. “If it will all fit in your little car, it will fit in someone else’s car.”

  “With some planning, sure. An open bed truck would just be a lot faster and easier. My car is in your shop. Where your truck is. Every day.” She waved her hand. “You know what? Never mind. I’ve only met a few folks at this point, and just thought . . . but that’s okay. I get it. I’ll figure something out.” She bent down and stuck her hand out. Lolly happily obliged and trotted right back over.

  Traitor. To Dylan’s surprise, the dog slowly sat, favoring her hip, then lifted her paw, something she hadn’t done since the fire.

  Honey, clearly delighted, took Lolly’s paw and gently shook it. “Well, at least someone has that nice island hospitality my aunt was always telling me about. What a sweet girl you are.” She gave Lolly another scratch behind the ears. “Go work your charms on that guy, will ya,” she said, voice lowered, but still loud enough for him to hear—which wasn’t by accident.

  Lolly barked as if in complete understanding. And, knowing the dog, Dylan wasn’t too sure she didn’t.

  “I’ll try to get Mr. or Mrs. Hughes to come over with me first thing in the morning. If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.” She put one foot back on a pedal to turn around, which was when he noticed she was wearing beat-up red Chucks.

  He recognized the classic high-top basketball sneakers because he still had his own ratty old pair.

  Lolly barked once at her retreating form, then again, up at Dylan. “Oh, for Chrissake.” He braced a hand on the side of the boat and jumped down, wincing as he bent his knees to absorb the impact. “Hold on. Just—hold on.”

  She skidded briefly on the crushed shells, but stopped and stayed upright, then looked back over her shoulder at him, and he felt that . . . thing again in his chest. For the life of him, he couldn’t rightly say there was a single thing about her that should stir anything in him except a great deal of wariness. Her shorts were baggy, and rolled up the way they were, as if recently hacked off, wasn’t the most attractive thing. Her legs were, well, they weren’t hard to look at, but they were almost translucent in their whiteness. Her dark green T-shirt, also baggy, bore some colorful company logo that, from where he stood, looked like a gnome . . . or something. Her hair was in a single ponytail, again. No makeup. No sunglasses, either. Just the big, clunky horn rims. Her eyes were an attention getter, but her face was as fair as her legs. He hoped to hell she was wearing sunscreen.

  “Let’s just get it done now,” he said, snagging his keys from the makeshift tool bench. He slapped his thigh. “Come on, Lolly.”

  More active than he could recall seeing her in months, the dog all but high stepped it over to the truck, prancing back and forth in her uneven gait.

  “Lolly,” Honey said. “I like it. Suits her.” She climbed off her bike, then took a quick two steps back as he reached for it.

  That was all it took to shake off the odd moment of awareness and get him right back to reality. “Just putting it in the truck bed.” Why it pissed him off that she got all freaky again he couldn’t have said, but it did. He got that it apparently wasn’t personal, but it felt insulting as hell, all the same.

  “Right, thanks. And, listen . . . I do appreciate this. I meant what I said, about paying you for your time. I really didn’t just mean for you to drop everything and—”

  “Get in.” He put the bike on its side in the truck bed so it wouldn’t slide. Then he bent down, scooped up Lolly as she wasn’t up to jumping yet, and set her down in the open area between the bike and the cab of the truck. “Be a good girl,” he told her and got a bark in response; then he climbed on the driver’s seat.

  Honey paused for a moment, then the engine gunned to life and she leaped toward the passenger door and climbed in. “I really do appreciate this,” she said again, but one look from him and she snapped her mouth shut and put her seatbelt on. At least she understood when not to press her luck.

  They drove the short distance in silence, which gave him way too much time to think about how she could go from . . . well, ravaged, the first time he’d laid eyes on her, to jumpy and nuts in his office, to essentially normal and sociable today. Essentially normal. She was still jumpy. What’s that about, anyway?

  He recalled, far too easily for his liking, the way she’d looked at the bakery shops, and the way she’d trembled as she’d looked at all her worldly possessions packed in her ancient car. Maybe it had just been the fatigue of driving cross-country.

  He resisted the urge to slide a sideways glance at her. He knew Bea had talked about her niece being an artist of some kind, but he’d never paid any real attention to the chatter. Just folks bragging on family, which . . . well, it was understandable why he didn’t follow that much. Her artsy side might explain her rather off-the-wall wardrobe choices. Artists were often eccentrics, weren’t they? Hell, maybe that explained all of it. What it didn’t explain was why he gave a crap.

  He turned off the town square toward the channel road, then into the alley that ran between the shops. He shut off the engine, got out, and scooped up Lolly from the back. She trotted over to the back door and waited for Dylan to unlock it.

  “She seems right at home here,” Honey said as she came up behind them.

  “She usually comes to work with me, but it’s been too hot lately.”

  “What happened to her back leg?

  “I noticed the limp,” she added when Dylan glanced at her. “And the fur growing back. Is she okay?”

  Given the speedy island grapevine and the fact she was stuck on Sugarberry for at least the next week, Dylan knew there was no point in changing the subject. “The old repair shop burned down about six months ago. She got caught in the fire. Beam fell on her hind quarters.”

  “Oh no, that’s awful.” Honey immediately squatted down and gave Lolly some extra love, which, naturally, the mutt lapped up. “You poor thing.” She looked up at Dylan. “How did she get out?”

  Dylan unlocked the door and went inside. The sun was setting and it was still damn hot. Even hotter in the closed work bay. He went over and rolled up the bay door to let the evening breeze move the muggy air around a bit while they transferred her stuff to his truck. And managed to avoid answering her question. “I’ll get the keys.”

  “You know, I wondered why everything looked so clean and fresh. I mean, for an auto repair shop. Given the name, I figured it wasn’t likely a new business.”

  He stifled a sigh when he realized she was following him. “It’s not.” He flipped the light on and crossed to the wall next to his desk and the row of hooks used to keep the keys on the cars in for service. He didn’t normally lock them up when they were locked in the service bay overnight, but since it looked like she had all her worldly possessions in hers . . . he’d figured better to be safe than sorry.

  He snagged her key ring—it was easy to see with a big red and white spotted mushroom hanging from it—and turned to find her looking around the office.

  “I’m guessing you’re the son of Ross & Sons.”

  “I’m the owner, the only Ross left,” he said. And hoped like hell she’d leave it at that. She’d hear all the stories at some point, but she wasn’t going to hear them from him.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I lost both my parents. My dad to a heart attack when I was nineteen, and my mom in a car accident two years later.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” he said, uncomfortable.

  “Thank you. Aunt Bea was the last of my family, so her passing sort of brought it all back. Do you have other rela
tives on the island still?”

  “Just me.” He would have brushed by her, but didn’t need a repeat of what had happened the other day. He jingled the keys and nodded toward the door. “Let’s get to it.”

  “Right.” She went on through to where her car sat, then stepped aside so he could unlock it. “Some of it’s fragile, so—”

  “Are the boxes marked?”

  “Well, no. I didn’t think anyone would be handling them but me. Just—here, I’ll hand stuff out to you, okay?”

  He backed up so she could step in, and he noticed her fragrance for the first time. It smelled like . . . sandalwood. Or something like that. Woodsy, earthy, with a bit of spice to it. Nothing flowery or feminine. He thought again about how he’d misjudged her based on a name. Seemed he was making a habit of it. He had to admit, the scent suited her. A little offbeat, a little bohemian, and unexpectedly sultry.

  “Um, here?”

  He snapped out of it and realized she was juggling a box from the car toward his waiting hands. He took the box.

  “Not fragile,” she said.

  “Then stack another one on top.”

  She dragged out another one and carefully put it on top.

  Careful not to touch him, either, he noted.

  “Fragile.”

  He said nothing, just made his way through the open bay door to the back of his truck and set both boxes in the open bed, then slid the top one off and tucked it up by the cab. He went back inside and stood behind her, ready for the next batch, trying like hell not to notice there was actually a very fine curve to her backside, where the baggy shorts had pulled snug as she reached farther into the car’s interior.