Once in a Lifetime(42)

“Of course I remember what you did. You cost me a thousand bucks and ruined the best pumpkin I ever grew. And this is Lucky Harbor. It was easy to get your number; I called Lucille.”

“I’m going to grow you new pumpkins,” she said.

“Off-season?”

She sighed. “Okay, so I didn’t plan that part so well. But maybe one of them will be a prize pumpkin,” she said. “It’s my way of apologizing.”

“Fat lot of good that’s going to do me now,” he said. “I’m too old to be worried about the watering.”

Well, crap. She hadn’t thought of that, either. “I’ll do it,” she said.

Ben laughed and then choked it off when she glared at him.

“You’re going to water the pumpkins?” Mr. Wilford asked in disbelief. “You, Miss Fancy Pants?”

“Yes,” she said through her teeth. “I am.”

“Pumpkins like to be watered regularly,” he warned.

“Fine. Um, how often is regular—” But he’d hung up. She slid her phone away.

Ben was still grinning.

“Not a word,” she said, Googling “pumpkin patches.” “Unless you know how often to water pumpkins.”





That night, Aubrey closed up the bookstore after a decent business day and smiled as she walked across the scarred hardwood floors. They’d been a surprising find beneath the carpet. The wood was nice and light, and it seemed to open up the store.

Happy, she headed up to her loft. There, she pulled out her notebook and eyed the crossed-off items, including BEN.

She’d improvised there, and she thought maybe she’d actually pulled it off. But now, without Ben’s prying eyes watching her, she added one more item to the bottom of her list.

THE HARD ONE.





Chapter 15



The next morning, Ben went to work on the countertop for the serving area of the Book & Bean.

Aubrey was two weeks away from her grand-opening party.

Though it would be close, the renovations would be done on time. Ben thought of the coil wire in his pocket. He’d hoped to get at least one more day of driving Aubrey around, even though he was pretty sure he knew exactly what she was up to now.

And it wasn’t trouble. In fact, it was the opposite of trouble. She was working at righting her wrongs, and it was tugging at a part of him that didn’t want to be tugged.

He hadn’t planned on feeling anything for her and was now trying to resign himself to the fact that they had more than just some seriously explosive chemistry. He’d told himself that they could get past that by spending some quality naked time together, but they’d already tried that, and it’d backfired because he’d gotten past exactly nothing. In fact, now all he wanted was more. A lot more.

It was 7:00 a.m. before he heard signs of life from above, and thirty minutes more before the telltale click, click, click of her boots alerted him that she was coming down. And, like Pavlov’s dog, he started to go hard.

He was ridiculous.

“Ben?”

And just like that, the sound of her husky voice finished the job. He wondered what she’d say to a second round of wild monkey sex, right here, right now. If he just stripped her out of her clothes and sat her on the stack of wood he still had to measure and cut, he could then step between her legs. He’d slide his hands beneath her sexy ass, of course, to prevent splinters. Or they could use her couch. Better yet, he could bend her over the stack of boxes of new stock that’d come in, shove up her dress, and take her from behind.

Yeah. That was the ticket.

She came around the corner, and he unbuckled his tool belt, letting it fall to the floor. They were going to do this, and it was going to be good—

“I’ve got company,” Aubrey said. She went to the front door of the store and opened it.

And then one, two, three…eight women came in behind her, one of them his own aunt Dee.

Lucky Harbor’s resident hell-raisers.

Dee smiled and waved at him, giving him a sweet kiss on the cheek as she passed him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Croaked.

“Aubrey’s invited my book club to meet at her store,” Dee said. She frowned at him. “You sick, honey?”

“No.” Dee’s book club was a weekly event—“club” being a loose word for a bunch of women who got together, drank too much wine, laughed so loud they could break windows, and talked about everything but books. The “club” had been kicked out of the diner, the bar and grill, and the senior center. They’d been talking about having to disband.

He glanced at Aubrey.

“I wanted them to have a place to go,” she said.

“You’re going to need a ‘crazy’ permit,” he said.

Dee smacked him upside the head. “We’re trying something new,” she said. “Meeting in the early mornings. You know, before people get…feisty.”

Ben sent Aubrey a good luck look that she ignored. Instead, she walked her guests through the bookstore and sat them in the chairs and on the couch that he’d just made nefarious plans for.

“So,” she said, looking to the seniors’ ringleader—Lucille, of course. “What do you think?”