The Valentine’s Day Disaster (4 page)

“Sounds like Miss Pendergarten, all right.” Sesty nodded. “She favors gauzy gowns. She used to be an actress. Just local stuff mostly. Her biggest success when she starred in
Great Expectations
at Casa Mañana and the director told her she was a Texas Helena Bonham Carter. Now she plays Miss Havisham every year at our Dickens on the Square event. Plus, she’s had a string of bad romances. I believe she was even stood up at the altar. I wonder if she gets that she’s become the cliché she plays.”

“Hell, Ses, she was on her knees, picking up pieces of glass and cradling them to her chest and she’s got all these little cuts up and down her arms. I tried to help her up but she called me every obscenity in the book, so I backed off.”

“Yikes!”

“And then the cops show up and there I am in flip-­flops, boxer briefs, and a terry-­cloth robe. Not one of my finer moments.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this. Big doings for Twilight.”

“They arrested me for trespassing and destruction of private property. Lily Munster—­aka Miss Pendergarten—­is hopping around saying I did it all on purpose. This morning, when I’m arraigned in front of Judge Blackthorne, I learn she had those neon lips special made in Vegas and they cost ten thousand dollars. Can you believe that?”

“Neon sculptures are expensive.”

“The judge ordered me to pay for the damn lips and sentenced me to the forty hours of community ser­vice.”

Sesty pressed her lips together to keep them from twitching into a sucks-­to-­be-­you smile. “So you’re a hardened criminal now. Wonder how that will play into your bio for the bachelor auction program.”

He did have that bad boy aura, rough-­edged and manly—­his unruly hair clinging to the back of his neck, stylishly shaggy, his jaw a ­couple of days past a scrape with a razor, the back of his hands nicked with scars. How was it possible for him to look so devastatingly handsome? Especially to a woman who just two weeks ago was in a committed relationship.

Ah, but long before Chad there was Josh, her high school sweetheart.

“I wonder why Judge Blackthorne sent you to me?” she mused. “There’s plenty of other ways for you to serve out community ser­vice. Picking up trash on the side of the road comes to mind.”

“He probably thought having me work for my ex-­girlfriend would be added punishment.”

“Is it?” she asked. “Added punishment?”

His eyes gobbled her up. “Not from where I’m sitting.”

Unnerved, she glanced away, and noticed that overhead, the toddler-­sized papier-­mâché Cupid was really swinging hard and fasting in the heater vent blast. Mocking her.

“This isn’t the first time your impulsiveness has gotten you into trouble,” she pointed out. “I remember when you and your buddies started a food fight in the high school cafeteria and you got a three day suspension.”

“Yeah, my old pal Duck’s fascination with
Animal House
might have had something to do with that. Duck fancied himself a young Bluto.”

“And of course you fancied yourself in the Tim Mattison role. Wisest of the wise-­asses.”

Josh grinned, slick and naughty. Not denying it. His wicked wit and verve for life was what had once attracted her to him. He made her feel entertained, dazzled, inspired, on fire.

“Whatever happened to Duck?” she asked.

“Hate to say he followed in John Belushi’s footsteps. I lost touch with him when he got into drugs. I heard he went to prison.”

“I’m happy you avoided going down with him.”

“We all have to grow up sometime or pay the price,” Josh said. “Foolishly kidding around was how I lost you.” Then in a softer voice, he murmured, “It was the biggest regret if my life.”

A weight settled in the pit of her stomach. Why was he telling her this?

They stared at each other a long moment and Sesty forgot to breath.
Stop it. Remember that you swore off romantic relationships for the time being, and you swore off Josh Langtree for good.

But he was looking at her with smoldering eyes and that I’d-­love-­to-­see-­you-­naked smile that made her forget every reasonable objection against feeling this way.

She thought about Chad and her college boyfriend, Avery. How neither man could measure up to Josh. Why had they been so good in bed together? Was it Josh’s skill? Or was it the way she felt when she was with him that had made the sex so freaking explosive? Maybe it was nothing more than being seventeen and in love for the first time. Maybe if they had sex now, it would be just as placid with him as it had been with Chad and Avery.

Ha! Just look at him, nothing placid about that guy.

Still, she couldn’t help thinking it might be fun to give it a go. Hot sex. No strings attached. Old times’ sake.

Especially since she had no idea how to do casual sex.

Yeah, but what if she slept with him and discovered too late that she simply couldn’t do casual sex and he broke her heart? He was her high school sweetheart, and Twilight was known for its Sweetheart legend.

And yet, how many quarters had she tossed into the Sweetheart Fountain, secretly hoping the legend was true? That if you tossed a coin into the fountain, you’d be reunited with your one true love.

A dozen? More? None lately, but once upon a time she’d lost a few bucks to the fountain.

“You’re not the only one soured on Valentine’s Day,” she confessed.

His eyes narrowed and he canted his head. “You too?”

“Me.”

“Miss Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday?”

She gave a wry, one-­shoulder shrug. “You know how it is. Things change.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Cheating, rat fink boyfriend.”

“Ah, but mine was a fiancée.”

“Mine happened just two weeks ago.”

“She did it with my best friend.”

“Okay, you win. Your heart is more broken than mine.” She assessed him. Just how heartbroken over his ex was he?

“It’s not a competition,” he said. “Any way you slice it, getting cheated on stinks.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And yet, here you are, putting on the town’s big Valentine’s Day bash.”

“What can I do? It’s my job.”

“Call in sick.”

“You know I would never do that. Besides, my career hinges on making this the most successful Valentine’s Day event ever.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t curl up our lips at love in secret whenever we’re together.” With his index fingers he drew the shape of a heart, then made a fist and punched the air where the imaginary heart dangled. “Down with Valentine’s Day.”

“Love stinks,” she said, fully getting into the V-­Day bashing.

“Yeah, yeah.” He hummed the J. Geils Band tune.

“Hiss, boo love.”

“Goopy holiday.”

“Cupid should be thrown in jail. Diapered dude going around wreaking general havoc on ­people’s lives.”

“To hell with bicycles built for two.”

“All this fuss over phenethylamine,” she exclaimed.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“The love chemical. It’s in chocolate. Why do you think they sell more chocolate during Valentine’s Day than any other time of the year?”

“Capitalist bastards. Taking advantage of hapless humans held hostage by hormones.”

“It’s not
really
love, just a chemical reaction in your brain.”

“A case of temporary insanity.”

“I’ve never felt so close to you,” she teased.

“Solidarity in the Valentine’s Haters Club.” He held up a palm and she slapped him a high five.

The waitress reappeared to clear their plates. “Dessert?”

Josh wiggled his eyebrows. “I think we deserve something decadent to help us mend our broken hearts, don’t you?” he said to Sesty.

She was about to slide her cell phone from her purse to check the time, but stopped herself. He was right. She did overschedule her entire life. “What the heck? Want to split something?”

“Sure,” he said. “But in a totally nonromantic way.”

“Of course. None of that syrupy mess going on around here.”

“What’s your most popular dessert?” Josh asked the waitress.

“Ever since Rinky-­Tink’s went out of business,” the waitress said, referring to a formerly favorite ice cream store on the town square, “our top seller has been the ice cream sundae.”

“Bring us one of those.” He held up two fingers. ­“Couple of spoons.”

“On it.” The waitress left.

Josh turned back to Sesty. “Hot fudge sundae okay with you?”

“It’s a little late to ask my opinion.”

“Sorry, that was rude of me. And it’s chocolate. Do we want to risk it with that phenethylamine stuff? Should I catch her and change our order?”

“I’m just yanking your chain. I love hot fudge sundaes, and if I hadn’t, I would have spoken up. I’m not that simpering girl you used to know.”

“You were never simpering.”

“I used to be much more of a ­people pleaser.”

“What changed?” he asked.

“Breaking up with you. I kept thinking if I’d spoken up sooner, maybe things wouldn’t have come to a head the way they did. Then again, I was dating Chad because my friends and family liked him, and look what happened.”

“Chad?”

“The cheating rat fink boyfriend.”

When the waitress returned, she set a massive hot fudge sundae in the middle of the table. After she left, they both stared at the chocolate oozing down the ice cream, then looked up at each other.

“Do we roll the dice?” he whispered.

“I think we’re safe.”

“How’s that?”

“You build up a tolerance to phenethylamine over time,” she said, “and then it eventually stops working.”

“So because you and I have been down this road together before, phenethylamine can’t suck us into something we don’t want to get sucked into?”

“I’m no scientist. I only know this stuff about phenethylamine because I researched it while planning the bachelor auction. I’m passing out chocolate candy at the door. Get those women in the mood to bid high.”

“Wow.” He looked impressed. “You do throw yourself into your work.”

“And you don’t, Mr. Hard Driver?”

“How did you know that’s the excuse Miley gave me as the reason she slept with Dave?”

“Miley the ex?”

He nodded. “She said I spent too much time under the hood of a car instead of under her.”

“She favored the woman-­on-­top position?”

“She favored the Miley-­on-­top-­of-­my-­best-­friend position.”

“You deserve better,” she said, and truly meant it.

Josh’s laugh was sardonic. “Aren’t we a pair? Both of us duped and dumped.”

“No one to hold hands with on Valentine’s Day and send sappy cards to and—­”

“We dodged a bullet,” Josh said. “At least to my way of thinking.”

“Did we? Two Valentine’s haters stuck working a bachelor auction together. Sounds kinda pathetic if you ask me.”

“It could be worse.”

“How’s that?”

“We could be falling for the mushy hype like those two over there.” He nodded toward a lovey-­dovey ­couple in a corner booth. They were sitting on the same side of the table cozying up and feeding each other bites from their plates.

“Eye rolling,” she said.

“Get out the Pepto.”

“Why don’t they just book a room?”

“Call a doctor. Looks to me like phenethylamine overdose.”

“Oooh darling.” She clasped her hands together, tucked her pressed palms against her left cheek and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Give me another bite. I’m too helplessly in love with you to lift my own spoon.”

“Here you go, sweetums.” He dipped his spoon into the sundae, served up a morsel of vanilla ice cream dripping with hot fudge, chopped nuts, and whipped cream to her lips. “I love it when you lick my spoon clean.”

“Mmm.” She opened her mouth and he slipped the cold spoonful of ice cream over her tongue.

It was a shock. The cold. The fact he was feeding her. The realization that she was letting him.

She swallowed quickly. Too quickly. Her throat seized up.

“Ses? You okay?” Josh leaned forward, put his hand on top of hers.

That didn’t help. Not one bit. She shook her head, put her palm to the throat.

“Are you choking?”

“No.” She panted. “Killer brain freeze.”

That’s when a loud creaking noise from overhead drew their attention upward, just as Cupid broke from the chain anchoring him to the ceiling and came tumbling down on top of them.

Chapter Four

A
FTER THEY PICKED
the plaster from their hair following Cupid’s revenge at Pappa Pasta’s, Josh and Sesty went to the small office she rented above an art gallery on the town square. She unlocked the door and entered ahead of Josh. He couldn’t resist staring at her butt. How many times had he cupped that sweet bumper in his palm?

Your loss buddy. You let her get away.

And for what? The adrenaline thrill of NASCAR?

Hell yeah, he did love the sport, but now that he’d been sidelined, he was starting to understand just how narrow and stunted his life had become. He could drive a car fast and that was about it. Where Sesty had grown and changed, he’d become stagnant, zooming endlessly around track after track. No wonder Miley had gone looking for love in other places. He’d become completely self-­absorbed.

Hollow. He felt a hollowness deep in his belly. He shook his head. This self-­examination crap was for the birds.

“Ta-­da.” Sesty spun in a small circle, arms outstretched.

The room was long and narrow, and if her arms were a foot longer, she could have touched both walls. The entire town square of Twilight was listed in the historic registry, and proudly carried the mark of its pioneer heritage. In keeping with the theme, an antique rolltop desk sat in the corner, stacked neatly with piles of paper and color-­coded folders, and there were old black and white framed photos on the wall of the town back in the late 1800s.

Sesty’s eyes glistened like a hand-­polished hood in the noonday sun. “My own office space.”

“The inner sanctum.”

“As long as I can afford it.” She nibbled her bottom lip.

Josh couldn’t help wishing he were the one snacking on that sweet pink mouth. “Money woes?”

“Always. That’s why doing a good job with this bachelor auction means so much to me. If I can’t get legs under my event planning business . . .”

“It’s back to the B&B?”

She nodded.

“Would that be so bad? You used to love working there.”

“It’s not that I don’t like working at the B&B.” She hesitated, jiggling her foot back and forth against the creaky wooden flooring of the old building. “It’s that I need to find my own place in the world. Make a mark that’s separate from my parents.”

“Breathing room from Jim and Marcie. I get that.”

The office door opened and Jana came bopping inside, but stopped in midstride when she spotted him. “What are you doing here? Not that I mind. In fact . . .” Jana sent an approving gaze over his body. “I don’t mind at all.”

“Slave labor.” Josh winked.

Jana boldly winked back. “So what are you guys up to? Need any help?”

“We’re making the set designs,” Sesty said. “Sawing and sanding and painting. With your asthma, you might want to avoid the office of the rest of the day.”

“Thanks for the heads-­up. I have a situation I need to handle anyway.”

“What’s up?”

“The stage manager called. We’ve run afoul of some stagehand union rules that will impact the budget for the auction. I’m going over there to see if I can’t smooth things over.” Jana unbuttoned two buttons on her blouse, revealing an abundance of cleavage.

“Jana!” Sesty exclaimed.

“What?” Jana grinned. “The stage manager’s got a crush on me. I’d be dumb not to use that in negotiations.

“Please do up at least one button.”

“Okay. For you.” Jana sent her a tolerant smile and buttoned one of the buttons she’d just undone. “I’ll send you a text to let you know how it goes.”

She left with an over-­the-­shoulder wave.

“She’s just going to unbutton it again when she gets outside,” Josh predicted.

“I know.”

“She’s not the kind of partner I would have pictured you with.”

“I know that too. But I like Jana. She pushes me out of my comfort zone.” Sesty slipped out of his jacket and handed it to him. “Let’s get down to work.”

Her soft fragrance rose up from his jacket, sweet and flowery. God, she smelled good. He had a driving impulse to bury his nose in her hair and take a long deep whiff. Over the years, whenever he thought of Twilight, this was the scent that came to him—­honest, clean, homey. Unnerved and suddenly way too warm himself, he draped the jacket over a high-­backed chair and cleared his throat.

She went to the closet, flung it open and started dragging out three large plywood planks.

“Hey, hey, let me do that,” he said, high-­stepping over to wrestle the plywood from her hands. His knee twinged a warning.
Watch it.

“I can do it,” she insisted.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.”

“So let me do it.”

“While I admire this independent streak of yours, I’m the man, and I’ll be doing the heavy lifting,” he insisted. “Isn’t that why I’m here in the first place?”

“Actually, you’re here because you busted Miss Pendergarten’s lips.”

“True that.” He loved the saucy look on her. She should tease more. “But when you put it like that, my crime sounds dastardly.”

“My mother always said you were on the road to ruin.” Her smile, tender with amusement, crinkled her eyes and his heart.

“So did mine.” He chuckled.

They stared at each other, three sheets of plywood between them. Good thing too, otherwise he just might have kissed her, and that would have been really stupid. They both were on the rebound, and even if they weren’t, there was too much history here.

Sesty was the first to look away. “We should get to work.”

“Yeah,” he croaked. He wished he came equipped with a bleeder valve so he could release some of the sexual pressure building inside him. “What are we doing exactly?”

“Constructing the sets for the bachelor auction. Here are the plans.” She handed him blueprints of the set designs. “Are you good with your hands?”

“Is your memory that faulty?” he couldn’t resist asking.

Her cheeks flamed red, but she didn’t say anything else, just reached into the closet for a leather tool belt and extended it toward him.

He hesitated. Eyed the belt. “Did this belong to Chad?”

“No,” she said. “It’s mine. Chad was useless with tools.”

Josh bit down on his tongue to keep from saying,
Lucky for me.
He might as well fall to his knees and beg for trouble. Damn, he wanted her. How did a man stop himself from wanting a woman he shouldn’t want?

You managed it ten years ago. How’d you do it then?

Oh, yeah, she’d kicked him out of her life for his reckless behavior. But that “recklessness” had led him to his career, and that career was what kept his mind off losing her.

A career that had lost its shine.

His knee twinged again, dark thoughts for another time. He slapped a grin on his face, readjusted the tool belt to fit, and strapped it on.

Sesty studied him, head canted, lips pursed, and unless he missed his guess, he saw a hot flare of interest in her dark blue eyes. Some women got charged up over men in tool belts. Did she?

Just in case she did, he positioned the belt low on his hips like a cowboy’s holster. Her gaze tracked his every move. Yep. He definitely had her attention.

“I’ll need a saw,” he said.

“Got one.” She reached into the closet for a jigsaw.

“Should have known.” He moved to take the saw from her. “Some things never change. You always were prepared.”

“Not on the night that—­” She broke off, shook her head. “Never mind that.”

Yeah, he didn’t want to talk about that night either. The night she broke up with him in the police station after their parents came to pick them up, following their spectacular crash into the Sweetheart Fountain.

It was the first time he’d had his heart ripped from his chest and torn to shreds. He thought of the old Rod Stewart song, “First Cut is the Deepest,” and turned away from her with the saw tucked tight against his chest.

Forty hours.

Just get through the forty hours with her. If he could survive working so close to her for forty hours, he could survive any test of will and come out unbreakable.

H
ER TINY OFFICE
was not the best place to do sawing and hammering and painting, but she really had nowhere else for them to work besides her own home, and she wasn’t about to take him there. The setting was too intimate, too ripe for temptation.

Gad! You have to stop thinking like this. There is nothing between you and Josh.

That ship had sailed a long time ago. Yes, he was sexier than ever. Yes, every time she looked at him, her body heated up in troublesome places. And yes, she kept imagining doing the most scandalous things with and to him. But she’d been scorched by love, and he’d been the first one to set her ablaze. How stupid would she be to go back for third degree burns?

They worked for hours on the set pieces. She held the plywood in place over two saw horses while he cut out the designs—­a box of chocolates, a teddy bear wearing a heart-­shaped bow, Cupid, again, slinging an arrow. Sawdust flew. Goggles protected their eyes, but sawdust got in their hair, clung to their clothes, landed on their lips.

Once the cutting was done they took a break and swept up the mess. Sesty pulled two bottles of water from the minifridge in the corner and passed one to him.

“Thanks.” Josh ran the back of his arm over his forehead, which was beaded with manly perspiration, and then tilted back his head and took a long drink.

Sesty’s gaze hung on the column of his throat and watched his powerful neck muscles gulp down the water. She remembered what it felt like to run her palms over his bare chest, finger the taut ripples of his hard planes and lines. Instantly, her body reacted. Tingling, tightening, moistening.

To distract herself, she moved to the closet, found the sandpaper and hand sander she’d gotten from her father, put her goggles back on and started sanding the teddy bear cutout.

“Do you have another sander?” he asked, coming over to squat down beside her.

“Only the one.”

“Then let me do the sanding.”

“I’ve got it.” She bumped his shoulder with hers, muscling him out of her personal space.

“You sure hate giving up control.”

“No more so than you.”

“I’m no control freak,” he denied.

“The heck you aren’t. I’ve heard ­people talking. They say the reason you wrecked during your last race was because you thought you knew better than your crew chief.”

“Yeah, well, it’s easy for ­people to be armchair pit crew. They have absolutely no idea what it’s really like out there on the track.” He got a faraway look in his eyes.

“What
is
it like?” she prodded.

“Scary, exhilarating, a complete physical and mental rush. Actually, it’s a whole lot like great sex.” His gaze lingered on her breasts.

She ignored that last part. “How difficult is it?”

“It requires one hundred percent concentration. One wrong move and poof!” He clapped his hands, flinging fine particles of sawdust into the air. “It’s all over.”

Which was precisely why she’d broken up with him. She couldn’t handle loving a daredevil, knowing that at any moment one wrong turn and he’d never come home to her.

“Is it true? Did you crash because you didn’t listen to your crew chief?”

“It’s true that I don’t like to be controlled.”

“Who does? Now do you understand why I want to wield my own sander?”

Josh flapped a permissive hand. “Okay. You’ve made your point. Sand away.”

“Thank you for getting out of my way.” She pushed her goggles back down over her face and went back to the sanding, pressing her lips into a straight light, keeping her attention fully focused on the task at hand. Taking no notice, as best she could, of the masculine man sitting on the floor beside her.

The vibrating sander sent tremors up her palm, through her arm, and into her shoulder. The sander hit a rough patch on the plywood, made a revving noise.

She switched it off and raised her goggles for a closer look. There was a divot where the jigsaw blade had hung in the plywood, cutting a small chunk from the side of the teddy bear’s face.

“Oh no,” she exclaimed.

“What is it?”

“Teddy’s ruined.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look here.” She traced an index finger over the flaw.

“What?”

“The cut is jagged.”

“So?”

“We need to cut out a new teddy Bear. I’ve bought a ­couple of extra pieces of plywood just in case something like this happened.”

“Excuse me?” He cupped his palm around an ear.

“We’ve got to cut out a new—­”

“I heard what you said, but I can’t believe my ears. You’re going to throw out this cutout because of one little mistake?”

“It’s on the bear’s face where everyone can see.”

“Big deal. This is a set design that will be used once. ­People aren’t going to be inspecting it with a magnifying glass. Odds are no one will notice.”

“
I’ll
know.”

“Sesty, you’ve got to be joking.”

“Don’t you see how important this is? The event has to go off without a hitch. If I screw this up, I’ve lost my shot.”

“You’re not going to screw it up.”

“I will if I let subpar work go up on that stage.” She prodded the divot with her finger and more wood fell out.

“Stop poking at it!”

“I can’t. Do you think I’m OCD?”

“Ses.” He laid a firm hand on her shoulder and gently tilted her around to face him. “Trust me. It’s going to be okay. Everyone will be looking at the bachelors anyway. Let it go.”

She cast a glance over her shoulder. The light caught the cutout just right, making the irregular cut look like a deep gash. Yes, she was being irrational and she knew it, but knowledge couldn’t counter the anxiety punching her stomach. “It’s not perfect.”

He took her chin between his fingers and thumb and forcefully turned her head back to meet his gaze.

She averted his eyes. His stare was simply too intense.

“Look at me.”

Reluctantly, she met his eyes. Dark pools of chocolate, warm and inviting, enticed her to jump right in.

“Do you know anyone who is perfect?” he asked.