Once in a Lifetime (6 page)

“Kevin didn’t know me. Jack just got him last year.”

“Whatever, man.”

Ben smiled. “
You
missed me. Admit it.”

“Shut up.” Luke snatched Ben’s plate of pancakes and pulled it toward him. He doubled the amount of syrup on the plate and dug in. “You should know that you’ve already turned in your résumé.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah. Stole it off your laptop. They expect you to stop by this week.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Smart-ass.”

It was early the next day when Ben pointed his truck in the direction of the bookstore. Halfway there he stopped at a four-way stop and saw a woman standing on the sidewalk in front of a town-house complex. She was staring at a lower unit, looking unsettled and anxious. Normally, this wouldn’t necessarily have caught his interest, but the willowy, well-dressed blonde wasn’t just any woman.

It was Aubrey.

She shook her head, muttered something to herself, and then began walking away. She turned the corner.

There were no cars behind him, so Ben remained there a moment, a little thrown by having seen her look so off her axis not just once, but twice now.

And then, suddenly, she was back, retracing her steps so that she once again stood on the sidewalk staring at the town house.

“What the hell?” he murmured, and pulled over.

Aubrey stood in front of a small, narrow town house, taking mental notes. The place was clearly well taken care of—lovingly so—with flowers lining the windowsills and freshly painted shutters.

You’re not here to notice the care of the building
. Drawing a deep breath, she looked at the list in her hand, then back at the town house.

But still, she hesitated. Yesterday she’d have said she had courage in spades, but the truth was that her encounter with the first person on her list hadn’t gone so smoothly, and she was still smarting. What if this one didn’t go any better?

Just do it, she told herself. Like the Nike commercials. She drew in a big breath and started forward—

“What are you up to?” asked an unbearably familiar male voice.

She nearly jumped right out of her skin. Instead, she forced herself to calmly turn.

Ben was in his truck, window down, idling at the curb, dark lenses hiding his eyes from her, looking effortlessly big and badass.

The way she wished she felt.

B
efore Aubrey could formulate an articulate answer, Ben turned off the engine and ambled out of the truck.

Damn it. Cursing herself for getting cornered, she narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Wondering the same thing about you,” he said calmly. He glanced at the building. “You seem a little fixated on number forty-three. Who lives there?”

“None of your business.”

As if he had all the time in the world, Ben leisurely pulled out his phone and thumbed the screen for a moment. “Huh,” he said, sounding fascinated. Then he lifted his head. “I knew this place was familiar. Mrs. Cappernackle lives here. The school librarian.”

Like she didn’t know. “How did you do that?”

“I have ways,” he said mysteriously. “Didn’t you and she have an incident? What was it?” He paused, thinking, and then nodded. “I remember now. You stole some books from the library, and she busted you for it.”

No. No, no, no, that
wasn’t
what had happened. Well, not exactly, anyway. “Stop it,” she said. “Go away. Go put in a water system in Nigeria or something.”

He actually smiled. “Already done.”

Show-off.

“Why are you at the home of someone on your list?”

She went still.
Shit
. He had the memory of an elephant. And he was relentless.

And as nosy as any of the old ladies in town.

“Again,” she managed to say through her teeth, “none of your business.”

“You planning to off the people on that list or what?”

She whipped around to stare at him. He pulled his sunglasses off, and that’s when she saw the light of amusement in his eyes. He was teasing.

Sort of.

Because the smile wasn’t quite real. He didn’t understand her. He was confused by her.

Well, join my club, she thought.

“Because if you are,” he said, shifting closer, lowering his voice to a conspirator’s whisper that shouldn’t be so sexy, but totally was, “then you should be scoping the place out at night, not in broad daylight. And you should be in a vehicle with night-vision and heat-seeking goggles.”

“I’m afraid to ask how you know all this,” she said.

“I’d tell you, but…”

“You’d have to kill me?”

His smile went slightly more real, but his eyes were still laser sharp. “What’s going on, Aubrey?”

She shook her head. What was going on was that she’d lost her mind if she thought she could really pull this off.

A million years ago, or so it seemed now, Mrs. Cappernackle, the high school librarian—the woman who lived in the town house—had tattled on Aubrey. Her claim was that Aubrey’d had sex in the reference section of the library with the principal’s son.

And though Aubrey certainly had been guilty of being in the wrong place with the wrong guy before, she hadn’t been that time, and not with the boy in question, either.

But in spite of her innocence, she’d gotten in big trouble, and because Mrs. Cappernackle falsely claimed she’d stolen books while she was at it, she was suspended. So when a few weeks later Aubrey realized she’d actually forgotten to return a library book she’d legitimately borrowed, she did a really stupid, juvenile thing. She claimed she
had
returned it but that Mrs. Cappernackle had only said she hadn’t because the librarian had it out for her. Aubrey even managed to produce real tears and must have been convincing enough, because she’d gotten away with it, and Mrs. Cappernackle had been written up by the superintendent.

Mrs. Cappernackle had retired later that same year, and Aubrey had always felt guilty, like she’d had something to do with it.

Now, more than a decade later, Aubrey had the book she’d stolen in her purse. It wasn’t the original, of course, but a new copy from her store. She wanted to hand it over as a peace offering. Or such had been her plan, but it seemed stupid now. “I’m asking you nicely,” she said to Ben, “to go away.”

This was hard for her, very hard, and some of that must have been conveyed, because he studied her with those assessing eyes for one long moment, then nodded and walked back to his truck.

And then he was gone.

She wasn’t hopeful enough to think he’d actually completely vanish from her life, but that he’d left for now was good enough. Drawing in a deep breath, she marched up to the town house and forced herself to knock.

A moment later, Mrs. Cappernackle opened the door. She was tall, thin, and using the cane she’d once wielded to enforce her reign of terror in the library. If you got that cane pointed at your nose, you knew you were in deep trouble. Aubrey’d been at the wrong end of it often enough to vividly remember the bone-quaking, knee-shaking fear it could evoke.

Mrs. Cappernackle had aged in the past decade, and she’d been old to start with. But she took one look at Aubrey, and her expression puckered as if she’d just sucked on a sour ball. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”

“You don’t have a cat, Martha,” said another woman’s voice, and then she poked her head around Mrs. Cappernackle.

It was Lucille. She was a senior, too, and though Aubrey had never personally had any run-ins with Lucille, the woman’s gossiping prowess was legendary. So was her soft heart and kind soul. Aubrey was banking on both. “Hi,” she said.
You can do this
. “Mrs. Cappernackle, I was hoping for a moment of your time.”

“I have no time for you,” Mrs. Cappernackle said. “And stay away from Ben McDaniel. You don’t deserve him.” And then she slammed the door on Aubrey’s nose.

Aubrey stared at the closed door and felt her inner strength wobble a bit. Two for two…she turned to walk away, but the door opened again.

It was Lucille. Glancing back over her shoulder as if checking for a tail, she tiptoed out and grabbed Aubrey’s hand. “Honey, don’t take that personally.”

“Hard to take it any other way,” Aubrey said.

Lucille paused as if she wanted to say something, but changed her mind. “It’s not a good day,” she said carefully. “Will you do me a favor and try again, real soon?”

“Sure,” Aubrey said softly, managing a smile when Lucille gently patted her arm.

“You’re a good girl,” she said, and then vanished before Aubrey could tell her she wasn’t a good girl at all.

Not even close.

Three days later, after a very long ten hours at the bookstore, Aubrey closed up shop and was dragged to a wine tasting and spa event at the local B and B with Ali and Leah. While having a free paraffin hand treatment by the spa’s owner and sheriff’s wife—a very lovely, very pregnant Chloe Thompson—Aubrey dodged her friends’ questions about Ben. She did this because, one, she didn’t want to talk about her feelings for Ben, and, two, she didn’t even know what her feelings were.

Liar, liar
.

On the way home, she stopped and picked up some color samples from the hardware store for the paint she couldn’t possibly have been able to afford if not for her incredibly generous uncle. She’d spoken to him yesterday via Skype from his cruise and got a lump in her throat just thinking about it. He knew his wife had loved the bookstore, and he loved Aubrey enough to give her a shot at it.

It meant the world to her, but she wasn’t going to spend more than was absolutely, strictly necessary. And she’d repay every penny.

The moment she parked next to Ben’s truck at the bookstore, she nearly chickened out and retreated to her loft apartment for the night instead. But she wasn’t a chicken, she told herself, and she forced herself to enter via the front door.

“How much do I owe you?” she heard Ben ask.

She moved in far enough to see him. He had his back to her. He held a bag of something delicious-smelling in one hand and was shoving his other hand in his pocket.

Another guy stood in front of him in a bike helmet, army fatigues, and a black T-shirt that read
EAT ME DELIVERS
. Aubrey recognized him as the man who’d been at AA the other night.

Ryan.

Ryan shook his head vehemently at Ben. “Nothing, man. You owe the diner nothing. It’s on me.” He paused, and his voice was filled with emotion. “It’s good to see you home. Safe. Everyone’s so happy to have you back.” Then he stepped close to Ben and enveloped him in one of those masculine, back-slapping hugs, holding Ben for a long beat, as though he was incredibly precious to him.

Ben let out a breath and hugged him back, and Aubrey felt another lump in her throat, this one the size of a regulation football. Uncomfortable with the emotion, she let her heels click on the floor, and both men turned to face her.

Ben met her gaze, his giving nothing away.

Ryan looked at her as well, and it was clear from the way he gave one slow, surprised blink that he remembered her from the AA meeting. She braced herself for questions, but he didn’t say a word. He merely turned back to Ben, clapped him on the shoulder once more, nodded at Aubrey, and then was gone.

“You know Ryan?” Ben asked into the silence.

“No.”

“Sure? It seemed like you two might know each other.”

“No,” Aubrey said again, and bent to pet Gus, who’d come close to wrapping himself around her ankles.

Meow
, he said a little forcefully and accusatorily.

She was late with his dinner.

Aubrey fed him and glanced at Ben. He was back in his tool belt, which was made of leather and crinkled all male-like when he moved. Plus, it forced his jeans a little low on his hips. She couldn’t stop staring, because there was something about the way he wore his clothes that suggested he’d look even better without them.

And then she noticed…he had cat hair all over his jeans. That shouldn’t make her melt, right? Swallowing hard, she forced herself to turn away. But her eyes had a mind of their own and needed one more peek, and she pivoted back.

And bumped right into him.

Chest to chest.

Thigh to thigh.

And everything in between. He’d moved silently, coming right up on her. “Did you talk to Mrs. Cappernackle?” he asked. “Did you apologize for whatever it is you did?”

She went still, then forced herself to relax. “You think you know something,” she said. “But you don’t.” She turned to leave, but he wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her back.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. Once again he was close. Too close.
So damn close.
“At all,” she added, hearing with some alarm that her voice had softened.
Everything
had softened, at just his proximity. “Ever,” she whispered, and found her gaze locked on his mouth.

He had a really great mouth.

“I don’t want to talk, either,” that mouth said very seriously. And then he lowered his head. They shared a breath for a beat, just long enough for her to know what was going to happen and feel the anticipation wash over her.

Then he kissed her, deep and slow and utterly mesmerizing. His hands were firm on her back. Needing an anchor, she reached out and grasped his shirt and leaned into him. He was warm and solid, so very solid, emitting the kind of strength that she herself was a pint low on today. Leaning in more, she felt his body respond.

Someone moaned.
I did
, she realized, swamped with the sensation of being wanted, even just physically. She took in the delicious taste of him, the feel of him, the sound of his very male groan when she stroked her tongue to his.

Things got a little hazy then. A lot hazy. She felt his hands move over her, melting her bones away. She touched him, too. Her hands wandered all over his body—and good Lord, what a body.

She had no idea how long they kissed—
and kissed
—but she didn’t think about stopping until she ran out of air. Breathing hard, she slowly opened her eyes and stared directly into his.

They’d heated. Darkened. And something else. He wasn’t looking so relaxed now. In fact, he was looking the opposite of relaxed. He looked…feral.

And she was his prey.

It made her quiver in arousal, which was crazy, but she couldn’t look away. He was still holding her. In fact, he was holding her up. And having his hands on her was doing a number on her heart rate. “I have paint samples,” she said inanely.

“Paint samples,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“You were thinking about paint samples just now?”

No. She was thinking about the temptation of his hard body and how he might feel on top of her, holding her down while he did all sorts of delicious things with all that…
hardness
. Not that he needed to know that. “Yes,” she lied. “I was thinking about paint samples.”

His lips swept along her jawline to her ear. “I could make you forget about them.”

No doubt in her mind
. “I don’t think so,” she said, having to lock her knees, what with her bones melted and all. Her palms were damp. Other places on her body were damp, too. Damn him. Realizing she was still fisting his shirt, she loosened her hands, stroking her fingers over the wrinkles she’d left.

He stepped back and let out a small smile. “I know better than to compete with paint samples.” He dropped his tool belt and headed to the door.

She stared after him. “Where are you going?”

“For air.”

“But…there’s work to do.”

“Yeah. You and your paint samples should get on it.”

And then he was gone.

Meow
.

Gus was still hungry.
Starving
, if his vehemence said anything.

Aubrey was hungry, too. Just not for food.