Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(25)
“I hear you, Aunt Jane.”
“Here’s what I need from you, Colton Lane: stay out of trouble and make a decent living. Can you do that for me, son?”
It hurt when she called him son. It hurt in a good way.
“I can.”
“Your heart is so big, but you have to be careful how much you love. The more you love, the more you have to lose, the more you strike back.” She was staring at his face—he could feel the severity of her eyes on him. “One day I will be gone, and I am counting on you to take care of Mel. If she doesn’t have you, Colton, she has no one.”
He looked up at her, locking his eyes with hers. Aunt Jane had been his salvation. Without her, he’d have spent his childhood in juvie, he’d have gone into foster care, he would have been utterly abandoned after the deaths of his parents. The simple and seminal truth was that he would do absolutely anything for her.
“Melody will always have me. I’ll make certain of it.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise, Aunt Jane.”
She nodded at him, her eyes and smile sad, at odds with the steel in her voice when she continued, “Remember your promise. Be careful who else you love. Be careful that loving someone else doesn’t put your promise to me in jeopardy.”
His aunt’s words echoed in his head as he glanced over at Verity, who looked out the windshield with a dreamy half smile on her face.
She was a bad idea.
Such a bad idea, because in the very short time he’d known her, she’d gotten under his skin in ways he couldn’t have possibly anticipated.
Be careful who else you love. Be careful that loving someone else doesn’t put your promise to me in jeopardy.
There was only one solution, he thought resolutely, looking away from Verity’s pretty face. He could help her. He could date her. He could even f*ck her, if that’s what she wanted. But under no circumstances could he fall in love with Verity Gwynn.
CHAPTER 7
Verity sat behind the counter of the TLOC gift shop taking princess dresses out of plastic bags, adding a price sticker to their labels, and arranging them on hangers. She’d wanted Thursday to come so badly, but now that it was here, she was . . . nervous. Excited, but nervous.
The gift shop manager, Beverly, looked over from where she was arranging plastic swords in a wooden barrel for display. “Think you’re ready to work a real shift on Saturday? Gets real busy here for the five o’clock show, with all the kids. And they’re mostly brats who get whatever they want by having tantrums.”
“I think so,” said Verity, looking up after putting a price sticker on a light blue, glittery princess gown. She’d grown accustomed to Beverly’s sourpuss over the last few days. “I finally understand how to do a void on the register, and where to find everything in the stockroom.”
She finished the last dress and gathered the pile of pink, yellow, mint-green, and baby-blue tulle in her arms, carefully hanging the dresses on a rack next to the flower crowns. Fingering one that had pink rosebuds with hot-pink and powder-pink ribbons, she wondered what Colton would say if she came down the stairs tonight dressed as one of the serving wenches. Would it get him into her pants any faster? Because seeing him daily was doing nothing to take the edge off her hunger for him.
Chuckling softly to herself, she walked the long way around the jewelry counter, stopping, as she almost always did, to take a look at the Viking jewelry. It sat between the medieval and Celtic collections, and she found herself drawn to it, wondering how many ladies stopped to buy a ring or earrings after watching Colton in the show. She’d seen the show three times now, always sitting in the yellow section, and always leaving after Colton lost to Artie. It was a shame that she’d be working during the show on Sunday and wouldn’t be able to see him finally win. Then again, she thought, fingering a necklace that bore a charm of the mythical tree Yggdrasil in pewter, she got to see him every morning and every evening.
“You like it?”
Her neck snapped up, surprised to find the object of her thoughts standing beside her in flesh and blood, looking down at the pendant she was touching.
“Where’d you come from?”
He looked up from the display, and her heart sped up. He looked handsome tonight. There was a shadow of blond beard on his strong jaw, and from this close she could see the delicate blond eyelashes that were out of sync with his otherwise rugged, unpretty face. But when his eyes went soft on her, as they just did, something inside her clenched hard in anticipation. Handsome. Yes.
And hot. Oh God, this man had hot down to a fine science.
His hair looked shiny and soft, held back in a ponytail with a simple black band, and he smelled like soap and cotton, clean and masculine. Instead of his usual T-shirt, he wore a white button-down shirt, rolled up to his midarm, showing off the sexy veins that wound around his muscular arms. His jeans were faded and fit him like a glove, pooling a little over dark brown leather thongs. She stared at his feet for a moment, realizing that she’d never seen them before, and smiling because they were another beautiful part of Colton, complete with a black tribal tattoo on the right one that was, if she was honest, a little badass.
“Are you staring at my feet?”
“You have a tattoo,” she said. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not my only one.”