Once in a Lifetime

Ali laughed. “Probably not. I told you that I saw you and Ben through the window of your store, right?”

For a beat, Aubrey’s heart stopped, until she realized that Ali was referring to the kiss, not the…deed.

“What I saw was really hot,” Ali said. “So hot you nearly steamed up the glass. But it was more than just lust. He cupped your head, Aubrey.”

“Aw,” Leah said on a dreamy sigh. “He did? Really? God, I love that man.”

Aubrey shook her head to clear it, but nope, she was still confused. “What does it matter that he cupped my head?”

“It means it wasn’t just a kiss,” Ali said. “It was more. And we”—she gestured between herself and Leah—“having recently found the loves of our lives, can tell the difference between sex and love.”

Leah nodded in agreement.

“When you do it with Ben,” Ali went on, “it won’t be just sex. It’ll be love.”

Aubrey inhaled wrong and got a bunch of powdered sugar down the wrong pipe.

Leah jumped up to get a glass of water.

Ali helpfully pounded Aubrey’s back. When she could breathe without wheezing, both her friends were looking at her rather seriously.

“So you already slept with him,” Leah guessed.

Aubrey took a moment with that one, because in all truth, there’d been no actual sleeping involved. “Was it only okay with you when I was just kissing him?”

“No.” Leah covered her hand with her own. “No, it’s not like that. I think you’ll be fantastic for him.”

“We’re not together,” Aubrey said. “Not like that. It was just a one-time thing.”

Ali laughed. “Yeah, okay.”

“No, really.”

“I saw you,” Ali said. “I saw the chemistry. Remember when the town hall caught fire, and the entire town was covered in smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I saw more smoke generated between you two than I did at that fire.”

At that, Aubrey rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious,” Ali said. “Whether you like it or not, you and Ben have something.”

For the record, if this was true, she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Which means you should really tell him about the list,” Leah said.

No one was more aware of that than Aubrey. That damn list was starting to eat her alive. “He’s seen it. He’s guessed about it.” She let out a breath. “But he doesn’t know that he’s on it. I’m not telling him that part.”

“You could tell us instead,” Ali said, fishing.

Aubrey shook her head, and Ali sighed.

“I still think you should tell him,” Leah said.

“No,” she said firmly.

“That might come back to bite you on the ass,” Leah said.

No doubt. “The grudge he earned from me with that whole coil-wire stunt is currently scheduled to last years,” Aubrey said. “So there won’t be any more…smoke. And we’re done talking about this.”

Like good friends, they dropped the conversation and ate some more doughnut holes.

“These are amazing,” Ali said. She smelled like roses today, which made sense, since she was looking like she’d rolled in them. They clung to her clothes, as did the scent of the petals.

Aubrey agreed with her friend’s assessment of the doughnut holes, but her mouth was too full to talk.

Leah was pulling pies from her oven. “These should go like hotcakes—”

The door out front opened, and the bell rang, signaling a customer. “Damn it,” Leah said, and eyed both Ali and Aubrey. “Aubrey. You get it.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because you look the most presentable. Just tell whoever it is I’ll be right out. Or better yet, serve them.”

Ali grinned. “This is why I dress in flower gunk.”

Aubrey sighed and jumped off the counter, heading out front. She stopped short at the sight of Ben. She was still mad at him, really mad, but some of that anger faded without her permission at the sight of him standing there with a little girl clinging to each of his hands.

The girls were tiny, a little scrawny, and one of them was dressed in pink from head to toe. The other’s hair was falling out of her pigtails, and her dress was smudged and dirty. Also, she had the beginnings of a black eye. It matched Ben’s.

His eyebrows went up at the sight of Aubrey. “You take a second job?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s called eating doughnut holes.” She smiled at the girls, her heart melting a little. They were a little bedraggled and so damn precious. “Hey, there,” she said to them. “What’ll it be?”

“We don’t got any money,” the one all in pink said, eyes locked on the display case.

“I’m buying,” Ben told her. “Whatever you want.”

“Wow,” Pink said reverently, nose pressed up against the glass. “Whatever we want? Really? What about those pretty red cupcakes? Oh, wait, no—look at those cookies; they’re black and white with little pink dots! Oh, oh! Those pink-and-chocolate thingies! Look at all the pink—”

Ben held up a finger, and she stopped talking. “Whatever you want,” he repeated.

“Any of it?” she asked in awe.

“All of it, if that’s what you want.”

The little girl said “Wow” again and very carefully surveyed the displays. “We gotta be sure to get something that won’t spill on the car seats you got for us.”

“They’re borrowed,” Ben said. “And they can be washed.”

Aubrey stood behind the counter, ostensibly waiting for the kid to make a choice, but really watching Ben with the girls. He wore dark jeans, an untucked button-down shirt, and work boots. His hair was just a little tousled, either from his fingers or the wind, and he looked like a rock star. A really sexy one. He was relaxed, hands in pockets, head tilted down, listening politely to the girls’ chatter.

Or the girl. Singular. Because only one of them talked—the one all in pink. She pointed to the cookie section. “Can we pretty please each have one of those big fat chocolate chip cookies?” she asked Aubrey.

“Of course.” Aubrey handed one to each twin. The one in pink smiled and said, “Thanks.” Her twin didn’t smile; she just stared at Aubrey, eyes large and red-rimmed and shimmering, the bruise standing out starkly against her pale skin.

“She says thanks, too,” the one in pink said, and hugged her twin.

Her twin nodded and solemnly took a bite of her cookie.

Aubrey gestured to the girl’s eye, wondering what had happened to her. “Looks like it hurts.”

She nodded again.

“Someone got her with an elbow on the playground,” her twin said. “It was mean.”

Aubrey’s heart squeezed. “Wait here.” She ran through the bakery kitchen, past her two startled friends, out the back door, into her bookstore, and to the freezer, where she grabbed her second bag of peas. When she dashed back to the bakery and handed it to the little girl for her eye, Ben smiled.

“Thanks,” he said. “Have Leah add the cookies to my tab.” He dropped a five into the tip jar. He turned the girls to the door, and then they were gone.

Aubrey was still standing there, staring at the closed door, when Ali and Leah flanked her.

“Isn’t he adorable?” Ali asked.

Ben was a lot of things, but Aubrey was pretty sure adorable wasn’t one of them.

Chapter 18

With a week and a half left until her grand-opening party, Aubrey stood in the crap-food aisle of the grocery store, trying to decide between cool ranch and salt-and-vinegar potato chips. It was an important decision, and one she took very seriously. Whichever flavor she picked would be keeping her company through tonight’s TV session. She went back and forth for a ridiculously long moment before deciding the hell with it and tossing both in her cart. That’s when she saw the barbecue-flavored chips as well. Damn. She wasn’t supposed to be able to choose between them all, was she? She was reaching for a third bag when she heard her name.

Turning, she came face-to-face with Pastor Mike, smiling his easy smile.

She quickly backed away from the barbecue chips and briefly wished she had fruit and vegetables in her cart. Which was silly. Pastor Mike was a man, not God. He didn’t care how many bags of potato chips she consumed. And probably God didn’t care, either. Still, she moved to stand in front of the cart so he couldn’t get a good look at its contents, which so far consisted of Advil and the chips.

“How are you?” Pastor Mike asked.

“Great.” She wanted that third bag of chips.

Pastor Mike smiled. “Is that why you’re chip-loading? Because you’re great?”

She sighed and glanced at her cart. “Saw that, did you?”

He smiled. “I love those salt-and-vinegar chips.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

“So,” he said in that calm voice. “How are you really?”

“Well, as you can clearly see, I just loaded about ten thousand calories of chips into my cart, so…” She shrugged.

“I’ve been hoping you’d come to another meeting.”

“Oh, I don’t think—”

“There’s one tonight.” He flashed a charming smile. “Better for you than chip therapy.”

“Is there anything better than chip therapy?”

“No,” he admitted. “But this would be really close. We’d love to see you there. It’s at eight thirty.”

Well, hell. “Maybe.” She paused. “And thanks. You’ve been so kind—and helpful, too.”

He cocked his head, eyes curious. “I haven’t done anything.”

She thought about the list and how she was working her way down it. And how, in spite of having about a fifty-percent success rate at the moment, it’d felt really good to face those ghosts. “You did a lot,” she said. “You motivated me.”

He smiled. “Well, then, I’m glad. You’ve got my number if you need a ride. Otherwise I hope to see you tonight.”

She nodded and then went through the checkout. And if she added a candy bar from the evil, evil rack right before the cash register, no one but she had to know.

She had one more stop to make before heading home, and suddenly she needed the candy bar to face it. Chocolate courage, she decided. She inhaled it and then headed to the Love Shack. She knew that someone from her list went there every night for a quick nightcap before heading home.

Sue Henderson.

Back when Aubrey had been eighteen, Sue had been an assistant DA. She’d moved up the ranks in the years since. She was a judge now, which only made her all the more intimidating. She was at the bar nursing a white wine when Aubrey approached. The only reaction Sue gave was a simple narrowing of her critical gaze over the rim of her glass.

“Well, that answers the question of whether you remember me,” Aubrey said, and gestured for the bartender. She was going to need a drink for this.

“Rumor is you’re working your way through town and making apologies,” Sue said.

Aubrey stared at her, stunned. “Well, that was quick.”

Sue shrugged. “It’s Lucky Harbor.”

True. Aubrey accepted her wine from the bartender. It was Jax serving tonight. He co-owned the bar with Ford. Jax was handsome and charming—and sharp enough to take one look at Aubrey and Sue sitting together and bring them each a second glass. “On the house,” he said, shooting Aubrey a quick wink before moving off.

Sue finished off her first wine and reached for her second. “So.”

“So,” Aubrey said. Her heart started pounding. This was always the worst part, getting started. But then Sue started for her.

“You put green food coloring in my pool on the day I was hosting a huge, important town hall luncheon,” she said. “The luncheon I was hoping would get me from ADA to DA. I spent a fortune decorating my backyard that day, bringing in gorgeous tables and flowers. The caterers had set up around my pool—which, thanks to you, looked like a toilet tank. A really disgusting toilet tank.”

“Yes,” Aubrey said, nodding. “I did that.”

“I didn’t get to be DA that year.”

Aubrey knew that, too. Sue had been her father’s neighbor. They were still neighbors, actually. And on the few occasions when Aubrey had been invited to visit, Aubrey had run across Sue, as she and her father had been friends.

Sue hadn’t approved of Aubrey’s beauty contests and general upbringing. She’d been fond of saying things like “Looks will fade, Aubrey, and you’ll find yourself fading along with them” and “I guess your sister really did get all the brains.”

Aubrey hadn’t really minded hearing the looks-fading thing; she’d known that. But she had minded being held up against her sister and found lacking. Or maybe she’d just been plain tired of all of it by then. Regardless, she’d done Sue wrong. “I shouldn’t have put the green food coloring in your pool,” she said.

“And my pond,” Sue added.

“And your pond,” Aubrey said in agreement.

Sue stared at her. “That’s it? That’s my big apology?”

“You did eventually get promoted,” Aubrey pointed out. “And you’re a judge now. A good one.”

Sue looked slightly mollified. “I am a good judge. But you stained the pool’s finish—did you know that? We had to drain it and redo it. And the pond…you killed my fish.”