I Want Candy (11 page)

Turner leaned back, propped himself on his hands, and gave her statement some thought. There was nothing unkind about what she said. In fact, it was downright noble. She was protecting his heart. She was interested in doing the right thing—both for him and for herself. He admired that.

There was just one problem—he wasn’t feeling anywhere near as decent. In fact, since that white-hot make-out session in the parking lot, he’d been walking around mostly indecent, with the majority of his blood supply backed up in his boxer shorts. He hadn’t been able to shake the feel of her soft body against his, the way she melted into him, fit around him, surrendered under him. He couldn’t shake the taste of her sweet mouth or the rich scent of her arousal.

For the rest of the day, Turner had felt like a sex-addled zombie, stumbling through the joint task force meeting while every cell in his body continued to vibrate from his encounter with Candy. By three o’clock, he realized he might be ready to move on, to let Junie go. By five o’clock, he realized the time had come for him to live again—he was sure of it.

In fact, right at that moment, he’d have to say his vote was for rolling around in bed—and fuck the consequences.

“What are you thinking?”

Turner tried not to laugh. He really did. But it was just too funny—the reason he’d driven out here was to tell J.J. he’d made up his mind to ask Candy to date him. Officially. And here she was, turning him down before he could even spit out the words! So when he laughed, it had come out sounding pretty bitter.

“I was just being honest with you,” she said, obviously hurt. Candy brought her legs up under her and began to push to a stand. “I should go.”

He touched her arm, stopping her. “It wouldn’t be just a fling and you know it.”

She stared at him with wide eyes, but didn’t move.

“I haven’t been with anyone since Junie passed, and if you and I did end up in bed together, it wouldn’t be just some kind of hookup. It would be special.
You
are special. You have always been special.” Turner paused a moment, weaving his fingers with hers and staring down at the sight, dark and light laced together. “
This
is special, Candy.”

She nodded softly, but Turner swore she looked like she was about to cry. That would be a first.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“So could we just—”

She placed the fingers of her free hand over his lips to shush him, shaking her head gently. “Let’s just leave it at that, okay? Maybe if things had been different, if the timing had been better … I don’t know.”

He pulled her fingers from his lips. “You owe me an explanation, Candy. Why now, all of a sudden?”

She cocked her head in confusion.

“Why did you suddenly notice me? After all these years?”

Her eyes flashed with something close to embarrassment. “I’ve always noticed you. I’ve always liked you. A lot.”

“But you said yourself that you just now saw me in a different light.”

Candy grinned. “No. What I said was that I just realized you’re the sexiest man I’ve ever known.”

“Yeah. I just wanted to hear you say it again.”

She laughed. “I’m not sure why, Turner, okay? But there you were, pulling me over with your flashing lights and your bright smile and it was like I was seeing you for the first time. That probably doesn’t make much sense.”

“Oh, yes it does,” he said, “I was suddenly out of context. I wasn’t your childhood running buddy, hanging out with you and J.J. and Cheri, like always. Plus, you were practically naked from the waist up, and that might have given you a slightly different perspective.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

Turner laughed. Very carefully, he leaned in closer to her, now gripping both her hands in his. “The point is I think you saw
me,
just a man, for probably the first time.”

Candy frowned slightly and turned away, moving her eyes to stare at the water. “Tell me the rest of that story,” she said, a hesitance in her voice.

“Which story?”

Candy glanced at him again, the corners of her mouth turned down and her chin trembling. “When you drove me to Viv’s you mentioned something about the night you called and my dad answered the phone.”

Turner pulled back, surprised. He studied her for a moment, but saw nothing but sincerity in her eyes. “All right.”

“It’s just that I think I’m starting to remember some of it,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I need you to fill in the blanks, if you don’t mind.”

Turner freed his hands from hers, turned his body square with the edge of the dock, and gazed out over the lake. “All right,” he said. “It had taken me months to summon the courage to ask you out on a date, but I finally decided that the moment was right. You had just broken up with Petey Swanson, remember?”

A vague smile touched her lips.

“But your daddy picked up the phone. I was very polite. I said, ‘Good evening, sir. This is Turner Halliday. May I please speak to Candy?’” He turned toward her again, and saw the pain in her expression, but he continued. “Your father asked me why I wanted to talk with you, and, since I knew I’d have to go through your father one way or another, I told him I wanted to date you.”

“Oh, no,” Candy murmured. She shook her head and closed her eyes.

“He called me ‘boy.’” Turner heard the stiffness in his own voice. “Your father asked me who I thought I was and said I’d never get anywhere with you because you’d been ‘raised right.’ Then he told me to stay within my own race.”

Candy gasped. She slapped a hand over her mouth and widened her eyes.

Turner chuckled bitterly. “Yeah, I know. But when he finally put you on the phone, I went ahead just as planned. I asked you to go out with me that Friday night. Do you remember what happened?”

She shook her head quickly, her hand still covering her mouth.

“You pretended you didn’t hear me. You started laughing even though I hadn’t said anything funny, and that’s when I knew for sure your daddy had to be standing over your shoulder. You told me you had to go because your family had company and that you’d see me at school. Then you hung up on me.”

Candy’s hand fell away from her mouth but she continued to shake her head from side to side, like she didn’t want to believe it. Then she bit down so hard on her bottom lip that Turner half expected to see blood.

“Now do you remember?”

“I … I didn’t hear what my daddy said to you before I got to the phone. I didn’t know he—” Candy struggled for air. Her entire body began to shake, like she was freezing. “I just knew what he’d do if I … no wonder he … that whole night was so awful and … Oh, God, Turner. I am so sorry!”

He nodded. Somehow, after all this time, her apology didn’t bring any relief. It hardly seemed to matter, in fact. Candy’s reaction had been so intense that he was more worried about her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m glad we got that out in the open. I better go.”

“What?”

She grabbed her sandals and popped to a stand. “Please forgive me,” she said stiffly, looking down at him. “I had no idea I’d hurt you like that. It makes me sick to know you’ve been carrying that memory around all these years.”

Turner retrieved his shoes and socks and stood up with her. “Hey, that’s life.”

“Yeah, and life can suck, especially any part of it that involves Jonesy Carmichael. The happiest day of my freakin’ life was the day I drove out of this town and…” Candy stopped herself, her jaw tightening with the effort. “My daddy wasn’t a good person. Let’s just leave it at that.”

She began to walk away, heading down the dock, her long and curvy body outlined in what little twilight remained. Turner stared at her retreating form. “So that’s it?” he asked. “You’re just going to run away from me, too? Just like you run away from everyone?”

Candy turned around. He knew right away that she was crying. “The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you again, and that’s what would happen if I gave in to this, Turner. I am not staying in Bigler. I can’t.
I won’t
. And you have this whole
life
here, Turner, this important, real, wonderful—”

He’d only taken a few steps when she straight-armed him. “Don’t. Please. Just let me go.”

Turner stopped. It was plain to him that whatever pain he’d been harboring all these years from his brief contact with Jonesy Carmichael was probably nothing compared to what Candy carried, and yet she’d always seemed so carefree, so joyous and fun-loving. He’d never guessed.

“Please don’t go, baby,” he said.

She laughed, wiping away her tears. “I’m not anybody’s baby and, like it or not, I’m not going anywhere for three months. I promised Lenny I’d stay on at the diner that long. So you’ll see me around.” She forced a smile. “Take care of yourself and keep your eyes open for happiness, because I know you’ll find it. You’re the kind of person who deserves it.”

Candy turned and began to jog toward her car. For a moment, Turner remained frozen where he stood, her last comment echoing in his head. And then it hit him—she was absolutely right. He did deserve to be happy. And the only thing that had brought him any happiness in the last four years of his miserable life had been Candy’s touch. Her kiss. The feel of her body pressed against his. The sound of her laugh.

He ran, catching up to her immediately. He spun her around by the shoulders. She stared up at him, her face shining wet with tears and her lips quivering.

“I don’t care about any of it, Candy. I want you, and I’m not letting you walk away.”

She shook her head in refusal even as she grabbed him by the back of the head and crushed her mouth to his.

Turner dropped his shoes to the ground. His immediate thought was that if this were a good-bye kiss, then nothing in the world made any sense. Candy’s lips were hungry and determined. Her tongue slid over his, hot and wet and greedy. Her hands were everywhere—his ass, his back, his thighs. So he gave it all right back to her, and then some.

Turner’s brain exploded with yearning as his body burned with desire. He wanted more. He wanted it harder. Hotter. He was suddenly aware of how simple everything was, how the whole vast, complex universe suddenly fit into that small spot of grass on the edge of Newberry Lake where he stood in his bare feet, where everything Turner had ever wanted and needed and everything that had ever mattered to him just narrowed down to the sensation of her body against his. The kiss they shared was seamless, flowing, full of need and sadness and joy. It was full of love.

And then it was over.

Candy slapped her palms against his chest and pushed him away, hard. “No more,” she sobbed, looking around to locate her car in the darkness. “I can’t do this. I would rather die than hurt you, Turner. This can’t happen. Do not—”

He took a step toward her.

“Do
not
come after me. Promise me you won’t.”

He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. Turner shook his head.

“This is not what I want, don’t you get it?” Candy swung her arms out to her sides as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “This is not the life I want!
You
are not what I
want
!”

With that, she turned and ran to her car. He was so stunned by her words that this time, he didn’t follow.

*   *   *

Candy pulled into the Cherokee Pines parking lot and checked the time on her cell phone—eight fifty-five. She had a little over an hour to kill before she could return to Jacinta’s apartment, not counting the extra fifteen minutes she’d need to add as insurance. She didn’t want to walk in on anything Hugo-related. She was strong, but she wasn’t
that
strong.

Though the night air was hot and heavy with moisture, air-conditioning wasn’t an option in her car. Even if it worked, which it never had, she didn’t have the gas to keep the engine running. She’d be cruising into work tomorrow on fumes as it was. So Candy found a blanket from the assortment of personal belongings in the backseat and spread it out on the hood of the old Chevrolet. She climbed up and stretched out, folding her arms behind her head against the glass windshield. She took a deep, deep breath, and felt her belly quiver.

She’d been crying the whole drive back from the lake house, and felt strangely alive from the experience, like her nerves were overly sensitive and her blood was overly oxygenated. Maybe she just wasn’t used to it. Maybe that’s what crying did to people. All she knew was she hadn’t cried that hard in her whole life, and it had swept through her like an electrical storm.

In fact, while driving past the tannery, trying to see through her tears, it occurred to her that this might be why she swore she’d never come back to Bigler—because she’d end up face-to-face with all the crap she’d left behind.

That’s why she’d made that deal with herself twelve years before and had never looked back. She’d told herself that the day she and Cheri left Bigler, North Carolina, was the day her life began, that none of what happened in Bigler had been real. When she arrived at Florida State, Candy had had her first intoxicating taste of creating an identity for herself from scratch. No one there knew her as Jonesy and Jacinta Carmichael’s girl from a nothing town in the middle of nowhere—the pretty cheerleader who baked cakes. She discovered she could be anyone and anything she chose, and that’s what she did.

She got to do it again when she transferred to Miami and again at Central Florida. She was hooked. And she was aware that she’d looked for the same kind of thrill after college when she began building businesses only to sell them. The beauty of it was she got to start with a blank slate every time. Each new venture was a fresh start. No history. No past decisions she’d have to make room for in the present.

The pattern continued in her and Cheri’s real estate endeavors. Candy had seen each new property as a new beginning. Each house could be renovated, redecorated, and resold, and the profits would pay for the next go-around.

It was the rhythm of Candy’s life. And she’d
loved
it.

So of course staying in Bigler wasn’t an option for her. Of course this place would never bring her satisfaction.