Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,63
ever consider that you were a lot younger the last time you outed yourself, so to speak? So maybe your perspective was a little young then, too.”
“Immature, you mean? Yes. Maybe it was because I got grief from people of all ages that I felt age wasn’t the issue.”
“I’m not sayin’ that folks here will just shrug it off. It’s some pretty unusual stuff you got going on.” He grinned when her mouth dropped open. “I’m just sayin’ that you might not be so quick to assume how we’ll react, until we do. Stand up a bit for yourself.”
She closed her mouth, then laughed at herself. “Own it, you mean? Like Bea did?”
“Might not be the worst thing. Could be a good thing.”
Honey looked back out the window, a furrow between her brows as she realized they were heading toward the town square. “Where, exactly, are we going?”
He glanced briefly her way, then back to the road. “Have a little faith, sugar. You’re killing me with the schoolmarm thing, again. So serious.”
She felt the heat bloom, only it wasn’t embarrassment so much as it was a kick of heightened awareness. Like she needed to be any more aware of him. “You realize you’re fixing things, again.”
“Well, I may not be able to fix your second sight, or whatever you call it, but I might be able to help with the other parts of your Honey Gets a Life program.”
She laughed at that, not at all offended by the label, mostly because that was exactly what she’d come here to try to do. “You’re not even denying it.”
He shot her a fast grin that made her heart skip all over the place. “Sugar, fixing things is what I do. It’s the one thing I’ve always known how to do. Humor me.”
She lifted her hands, palm out, in a motion of surrender. “Lead on.”
She glanced at Dylan again as they turned off the square, then went past the alley that led behind his garage and the cupcakery, and turned on the old channel road, stopping the truck in front of the empty building next to the garage. Actually, except for his garage, all the commercial space on this road appeared to be empty and looked like it had been that way for a very long time. She hadn’t paid much attention when she’d first brought her car in, more worried about her problems and thankful she’d seen the sign advertising the repair shop.
“Do you need something from the garage?” she asked.
He didn’t answer as he turned off the engine and dug a set of keys out of the console wedged on the floorboard between the seat and the dashboard. Then he looked at her. “You took a big chance, coming all this way, sight unseen, hauling your life with you.”
She still had no idea where he was going with this. “Well, technically, most of my life is still packed up in crates and boxes back in Oregon, waiting to be shipped here. I only hauled the part of my life that could be crammed into a Volkswagen Beetle.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “My point is, you took a big risk, which proves you can. They might not get easier to take, but at least you know you can take them. So . . . keep an open mind.”
Oh, he’s opened my mind all right. She had to force herself not to let her gaze drift down to his mouth. Much less think about, even for a second, kissing that mouth—which she’d done repeatedly. And that that mouth had kissed her back.
“Sugar, you keep looking at me like that and we’re going to end up finding out about what happens when I put my hands on you right out here on the street in broad daylight.” His voice was a deep, drawling promise.
And oh, for just a moment, she was tempted to collect on it. She cleared her own throat to dispel the sudden dryness there. “Right. So . . . risks. Open mind. I get it. But that doesn’t explain what we’re doing here.”
He clicked off his seatbelt, then hers, shot her a wink, and climbed out of the truck. Before he could play Southern gentleman and come around to offer assistance in helping her down, she scrambled out her side and closed the door behind her.
Dylan let Lolly out of the truck bed so she could trot across the road to use the grass on the far side. The grassy strip ran