Perfect Kiss (7 page)

During the entire shower, Levi and Shelby had worked together like a well-oiled machine. Some of the partygoers had even joked that she was a ringer. It was the first time, in a long time, that she could remember being truly happy and relaxed. Not once had she thought about the past year, Kevin, or the last two weeks she’d been in San Diego and Los Angeles. She’d just had fun.

Which terrified her.

In one day, how could a man (red flag number one) she barely knew (red flag number two), who she was attracted to like a bee to honey (red flag number three), actually get her to drop her guard? Was she that stupid? Had she really not learned her lesson from Kevin?

There was a loud knock at the front door, and Shelby shot off the couch and almost tripped while trying to reach the knob before the visitor decided to start pounding again. Both of the girls had just fallen asleep, and she knew from the hours that she’d logged being Super Auntie, there was very little that was worse than a baby being woken up too early from a nap.

Before she even got the door open, she was already saying, “Shhh, the babies are sleeping.”

When she saw who was on the other side of it, a smile spread across her face as warmth spread through her chest.

Henry Walker, her uncle and the mayor of Hope Falls, stood on the porch wearing his signature cowboy hat, jeans, cowboy boots, and plaid button-up shirt. At some point in his life, Henry had adopted the walk, talk, and dress of a real-life cowboy. Shelby had no idea where his affinity for ranch regalia, lifestyle, and speech had come from, but she’d always found it comforting and endearing.

“Oh. Well, then I better keep it down,” her uncle whispered with a wink as he pulled her into his arms and she melted against him. His broad shoulders were the epitome of safety and security.

Shelby had never been close to her dad. He’d somehow managed to be an absentee father even though he’d lived in their house. Actually, both of her parents had cornered the market on that particular trait. Matt had always been there for her, but he was her brother and only two years older than she was. Uncle Henry, although always having lived hundreds of miles away, had been more of a father figure than her own dad.

Uncle Henry pulled away from the warm embrace that Shelby could have stayed in for oh…the next few weeks or so. “How ya doing, Spunky?”

“Spunky” was a nickname he’d given her when she was four or five and had been obsessed with the TV show
Punky Brewster
. She loved the show so much; she dressed in loud colors just like Punky, behaved a lot like her, and related to the sassy, spirited, precocious lead actress. Shelby had always been ready to take the world on, full of optimism and tenacity. She was spunky…

However, these days, she felt anything but
spunky
.

“I’m great,” Shelby enthused as she moved to the side so that Henry could come into the house.

Moving past her, Henry stepped into the house, careful not to clonk his boots on the hardwood floor. As he removed his hat, his deep-set, wise eyes stared down at her. As he tilted his head to the side, a concerned looked crossed his face and he asked quietly, “You sure about that?”

Just say yes!
her inner voice was screaming. But when she opened her mouth to do just that, nothing came out. Swallowing hard, Shelby realized that not only had she been lying to everyone around her for the last six months, but she’d been lying to herself, too. She was
not
okay. Physically, she was healing. Mentally and emotionally? She’d lost herself.

How do you tell that to the people who love you?

Shelby had always been
fiercely
independent. Her first word was “self.” Not “mom,” not “dad,” not “bubba,” and not “sissy.” It was “self.” Now, for the first time in her life, she knew she needed help and she had absolutely no idea how to ask for it.

“Shelby?” Uncle Henry’s voice grew serious.

Maybe this wasn’t the right time to unload her emotional baggage—or even the right person to open it in front of—but she could feel the feelings that she’d been trying to ignore building like a pressure cooker inside her body and it was about to explode. Her chest felt like someone was squeezing the life out of her. Which was actually not a bad analogy for the past few months.

“I’m just…” She was grasping for the right words to express what she was feeling, to somehow explain the typhoon of emotions that was swirling through her, when a loud, piercing cry sounded.

Turning around, she saw that Paige’s baby swing had stopped swinging. Cry after cry rang out as Shelby tried to quickly unfasten the belt holding Paige in.

“You don’t have to get her out,” Amy said as she rushed into the room. “She just needs this.” She pressed a button on the side of the swing and it began rocking again.

Within seconds, Paige settled back down and was sound asleep.

“Sorry,” Amy apologized as she readjusted the towel that was wound on top of her head. “I should have told you that. During the day, she only sleeps if the chair is rocking. My mind is as mushy as their baby food these days.”

“I think your mind is just fine,” Uncle Henry, who was always one to be positive, stated.

“Oh my gosh!” Amy startled, clutching her hand to her chest as she spun around. “Hi! I didn’t even see you there, Henry.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just stopping by to see how all my girls were doing.” Henry motioned to the babies and Amy and Shelby.

“Well, I am feeling a little more human now that I’ve showered.” Amy smiled brightly at Henry. Then, turning to Shelby, she shook her head. “I can’t remember the last time I got a shower in before noon.”

“Glad I could help.”

“Do you want something to drink? I think we have some soda and water,” Amy offered to Henry.

A comforting warmth, like stepping into the sun on a hot day after having been in the shade, washed over Shelby. She was so happy that her brother had found Amy. After Matt’s first wife, Jess, had been tragically killed in a car accident, Shelby hadn’t been sure Matt was going to come back from it. Before Kevin had gotten her fired from her job at a local bar called Midnight Hour, she’d seen Jess’s brother, Aiden, who was a musician. His band had been playing at the bar, and he’d asked about Matt. Shelby had been happy to report that her brother was doing great. Sadly, Aiden had still looked haunted from his sister’s passing. Shelby didn’t know how people moved on from the death of a loved one. Thinking of the look in Aiden’s eyes put Shelby’s issues into perspective.

“Oh, no. I’m just fine,” Henry answered, right when a ring sounded.

It had been so long since Shelby had heard a landline ring that it took her a second to register that it was Matt and Amy’s phone. After quickly picking the receiver up, probably in an attempt to catch it before a second ring could wake one of the girls, Amy’s voice was quiet as she said, “Hello.” When she glanced over at Shelby, her eyebrows went up and her eyes sparkled. “Yep. She’s right here. Hold on.”

When Amy held the cordless phone towards Shelby, panic gripped her. Had Kevin found her? She’d changed her number. Had he tracked her down here?

“It’s Levi,” Amy half mouthed, half whispered.

“Oh.” Relief that it was not her ex on the other end of the phone rushed through her like a tidal wave. It was followed immediately by nervous butterflies wildly flitting inside her.

Then she froze.

Yesterday, she’d hightailed it out of the baby shower so fast that she wouldn’t have been surprised if her sandals had left skid marks on the hardwood dance floor. Once they’d been named the winners of the grand prize and Nikki had handed them the envelope containing the gift certificate, Shelby had barely said bye to Levi before rushing out the door.

Was he calling her to cash in the prize they’d won at the baby shower the day before? Was he asking her out? On a date?

One way to find out
, her inner voice piped in as she bit the inside of her lip.

Why was she so terrified of an inanimate object?

Because the voice on the other end is all kinds of scary.

Old Shelby’s reaction to her current predicament would have been: Game on. She wouldn’t have been running through all kinds of excuses in her head to avoid the phone call. Sudden laryngitis. Sprinting to the bathroom with an emergency stomach ailment. Running out of the house with no explanation at all.

No. This was ridiculous. Maybe Shelby didn’t know the exact path to take to return to her old self, but she did know that, if she gave in to the panic she was feeling at taking this presumably innocuous phone call, it wasn’t just a step in the wrong direction—it was a giant leap.

Taking the phone from Amy, who was grinning in anticipation, Shelby cleared her throat before saying, “Hey.”

“Hey, Shelby. It’s Levi.” His baritone voice vibrated through the phone, and she felt what she was now mentally referring to as Levi-tingles spread all the way to her toes.

Ignoring the wave of shivers, she pushed full steam ahead. “Hey.”

“I heard that you were looking for work. Since Tessa left, I’m looking to hire someone. I remembered you saying that you have bartending experience. Would you be interested in picking up some shifts?”

“Sure.” Her immediate response surprised her.

“Oh, okay.” Levi sounded equally as shocked. “Is tomorrow night too soon to start?”

“Nope.”

“All right. How does four sound? I’ll have a couple of hours to show you the ropes before we get slammed.”

“Perfect.” Apparently, Shelby could only manage one word at a time in this conversation.

“Great. See you tomorrow night.” Levi still sounded a little taken aback. “Bye.”

“Bye.” While hanging up the phone, she noticed that Henry and Amy were staring at her expectantly. “He needs someone to pick up a few shifts a week and offered me a job.”

“That’s great!” Amy smiled broadly.

Good news: She had a job and was not going to bleed her savings completely dry.

Bad news: It was working with a temptation she absolutely could not give in to.

Solution: Stay strong. Keep things professional.

The memory of Levi’s soft, firm lips touching hers from the one kiss they’d shared filled her mind. That memory brought a few friends to the living-in-the-past dance party her brain was throwing. Shelby also entertained thoughts of the sensation of the contours of his hard body swaying against her, his large hands running up and down her back, the callused pad of his thumb rubbing in circles on the small of her back as they danced to song after song at the reception.

Yeah. She was in trouble.

Chapter 5

‡

L
evi stepped out of the shower and dried off. Shelby was due to show up any minute, and he needed to get downstairs and reopen the bar for the happy hour crowd.

Today he’d made some progress on the cabin renovations. After pulling up the god-awful carpeting, he’d been happy that the flooring beneath was hardwood. Sure, it had seen better days, but it was his, and when it finally looked the way he’d pictured it in his head, it would be worth all of his blood, sweat, and tears. It wasn’t going to be one of those fru-fru girlie B&Bs. Hell no. This was going to be a place where men would feel comfortable staying. It was going to be warm and earthy. Inviting. Cozy.

Unwittingly, a scene played in Levi’s mind’s eye. He saw Shelby sitting in front of a roaring fire. Her back was to him. Long, dark brown sugar-tinted hair cascaded like a waterfall down past her shoulders. Just the barest hint of her golden skin peeking between the curtains of her silky strands as she coyly glanced at him. Her eyes glimmered with the same fire he remembered from the night they’d met. The fire he hadn’t seen yesterday.

Shaking his head, he tried to erase the image from his consciousness as he grabbed his toothbrush and squirted a line of toothpaste on it. While he ran the brush over his teeth, he reminded himself that he needed to keep his head in the game. Bottom line, that meant no fantasizing about a girl he’d just hired to work for him.

It wasn’t a good idea for a lot of reasons but the one that kept pushing its way to the forefront of Levi’s mind was that Shelby seemed different. She reminded Levi of a bird his younger brother, Lucky, had brought him when the twins were in first grade. It had a broken wing, and Lucky had wanted to “fix” it. Levi recalled that they’d gone to the library and looked up how to care for the winged creature. The healing process did not happen overnight. They’d nursed that bird for a good three months before they had taken their feathered friend into the backyard and released it. Levi still remembered the feeling of pride he’d had as a young twelve-year-old man, as the bird had flown up into the clouds.

The same feeling he’d gotten all those years ago when he’d seen the fractured wing of the helpless animal had swept through him yesterday when he’d seen Shelby. He couldn’t put his finger on why he’d felt it. It had just been a gut reaction—a sixth sense of sorts.

As a bartender, Levi was a natural listener and observer. He didn’t just hear the words that came from people’s mouths; he also watched their body language as they spoke. Shelby was different than she had been eighteen months ago. Levi knew that as much as he knew his own name. She was trying to
act
like she wasn’t, and he had a feeling that she had everyone, including her brother, fooled. But not him. Part of him wanted to believe that it was because he knew her. That the one night they’d danced until dawn had bonded them in a way that was…
special
.

Luckily, Levi had never been accused of being a romantic. He was a realist. How could he not have been? His parents had both exposed him to the harsh realities of life at such an early age that he’d never believed in true love. Soul mates. Happily ever after.

As he stared at his reflection, he noticed for the first time that he was starting to resemble the man who’d been his sperm donor. His eyes, and jawline, especially with the five o’ clock shadow he was sporting. Having the sudden urge to shave, he grabbed a razor but when he saw what time it was on his phone, he knew that he didn’t have time to shave.