Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,27

equipment. He could already envision how it would look, mounted on the—

Movement on the road caught his eye. “Well, holy hell. What’s she doing here?”

Lolly didn’t seem to have an answer for that, either, but she was a damn sight more interested in finding out than Dylan. She hauled herself up and trotted crookedly down the driveway with her tail wagging to greet their guest.

“Look, but don’t touch,” he muttered after the dog, finding himself somewhat curious about how Miss Skittish would respond to the friendly canine overture. Dylan hadn’t been a pet owner long, but he already put a lot of stock in how people responded to Lolly. Of course, she had never met an enemy. So it was all on Honey.

Honey Pie, he recalled Alva calling her, a nickname bestowed by her aunt Bea. Sounded like something you’d call a happy, free-spirited little youngster. Turned out he didn’t have any part of that right.

He watched as she rolled her bicycle to a stop—controlled this time—and immediately held the back of her hand down for Lolly to sniff. Lolly being Lolly, she simply licked Honey’s palm and barked once in happy greeting. Unlike Dylan, the dog loved company. He figured the only reason she hung out with him was to use his garage as a means to get attention from his customers. It worked, too.

Honey laughed and gave the dog’s head a good scratch. “Well, aren’t you a good girl?” she crooned. “Coming out to meet your guests.”

Lolly barked again, then trot-limped back up the drive, tongue hanging out, looking proudly at Dylan as if to say “look what I found!”

Dylan was only half paying attention to the dog. He was still hung up on the sound of Honey’s laugh. The woman he’d first met in his garage hadn’t seemed capable of such a sound, and their meeting earlier hadn’t changed his mind all that much. It was possible he’d been too busy noticing how that filmy, flowery skirt had clung to her legs when the steady island breeze picked up, making him wonder if perhaps he hadn’t been too quick to pass judgment on her body as average. Now she was wearing a green T-shirt and some kind of rolled up jean shorts, proving he hadn’t been wrong about those legs being noteworthy. “You changed your clothes.”

Her smile didn’t fade, but it did turn wry.

Damn if he didn’t like that, too.

“Yes. Seemed to make more sense in this heat. You’re working on your boat.”

He tried not to let his lips quirk, but he had to work at it. “If I want to sail it someday, I have to do that.” He set the dorade down, but didn’t climb down off the boat. “Now that we’ve stated the obvious, are you here for a reason, or were you just pedaling by?”

“For a reason,” she said, not bothering to climb off her bike. Since she had to look up to talk to him, she shaded her eyes with a hand to her forehead, which only served to make those eyes of hers even spookier looking.

It annoyed him that he was noticing that . . . or anything else about her. Batshit crazy didn’t simply change with the change of an outfit. “And that would be?”

“I went by the garage after talking with Lani, but it took longer than I’d realized, and you’d closed up for the day. Alva told me where you lived and that you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by. Said you’d most likely be working on your boat.”

He sighed. Miss Alva was going to have to make a lot more than jelly rolls if she wanted to get back on his good side.

“Since my car is going to take a while, I was hoping to get more of my things out of it. All of them, actually, if I could.”

“I open again at seven in the morning.”

“I’m taking a cab over to the county offices in the morning.”

“Courthouse doesn’t open till nine.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew that.

Just as well. If she stayed on the island much longer, she’d know all about his family past anyway, and just how often he’d had to deal with the county courthouse. And why.

“Well, okay. Would it be possible to meet you a few minutes before you open, like six forty-five, and maybe get some help driving the stuff over to the B&B? I’ll be happy to pay you for your time.” When he didn’t respond right away, she added,