Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,29
again, but one look from him and she snapped her mouth shut and put her seatbelt on. At least she understood when not to press her luck.
They drove the short distance in silence, which gave him way too much time to think about how she could go from . . . well, ravaged, the first time he’d laid eyes on her, to jumpy and nuts in his office, to essentially normal and sociable today. Essentially normal. She was still jumpy. What’s that about, anyway?
He recalled, far too easily for his liking, the way she’d looked at the bakery shops, and the way she’d trembled as she’d looked at all her worldly possessions packed in her ancient car. Maybe it had just been the fatigue of driving cross-country.
He resisted the urge to slide a sideways glance at her. He knew Bea had talked about her niece being an artist of some kind, but he’d never paid any real attention to the chatter. Just folks bragging on family, which . . . well, it was understandable why he didn’t follow that much. Her artsy side might explain her rather off-the-wall wardrobe choices. Artists were often eccentrics, weren’t they? Hell, maybe that explained all of it. What it didn’t explain was why he gave a crap.
He turned off the town square toward the channel road, then into the alley that ran between the shops. He shut off the engine, got out, and scooped up Lolly from the back. She trotted over to the back door and waited for Dylan to unlock it.
“She seems right at home here,” Honey said as she came up behind them.
“She usually comes to work with me, but it’s been too hot lately.”
“What happened to her back leg?
“I noticed the limp,” she added when Dylan glanced at her. “And the fur growing back. Is she okay?”
Given the speedy island grapevine and the fact she was stuck on Sugarberry for at least the next week, Dylan knew there was no point in changing the subject. “The old repair shop burned down about six months ago. She got caught in the fire. Beam fell on her hind quarters.”
“Oh no, that’s awful.” Honey immediately squatted down and gave Lolly some extra love, which, naturally, the mutt lapped up. “You poor thing.” She looked up at Dylan. “How did she get out?”
Dylan unlocked the door and went inside. The sun was setting and it was still damn hot. Even hotter in the closed work bay. He went over and rolled up the bay door to let the evening breeze move the muggy air around a bit while they transferred her stuff to his truck. And managed to avoid answering her question. “I’ll get the keys.”
“You know, I wondered why everything looked so clean and fresh. I mean, for an auto repair shop. Given the name, I figured it wasn’t likely a new business.”
He stifled a sigh when he realized she was following him. “It’s not.” He flipped the light on and crossed to the wall next to his desk and the row of hooks used to keep the keys on the cars in for service. He didn’t normally lock them up when they were locked in the service bay overnight, but since it looked like she had all her worldly possessions in hers . . . he’d figured better to be safe than sorry.
He snagged her key ring—it was easy to see with a big red and white spotted mushroom hanging from it—and turned to find her looking around the office.
“I’m guessing you’re the son of Ross & Sons.”
“I’m the owner, the only Ross left,” he said. And hoped like hell she’d leave it at that. She’d hear all the stories at some point, but she wasn’t going to hear them from him.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I lost both my parents. My dad to a heart attack when I was nineteen, and my mom in a car accident two years later.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he said, uncomfortable.
“Thank you. Aunt Bea was the last of my family, so her passing sort of brought it all back. Do you have other relatives on the island still?”
“Just me.” He would have brushed by her, but didn’t need a repeat of what had happened the other day. He jingled the keys and nodded toward the door. “Let’s get to it.”
“Right.” She went on through to where her car sat, then stepped aside so he could unlock it. “Some of it’s fragile, so—”