What I Love About You (4 page)

“I don’t have sexual shame.” Probably a healthy dose of Baptist guilt though. “I can’t run around with men. I’m a mom.”

“Charlotte wouldn’t know.”

The one thing she missed about a relationship was the sex. She missed that a lot. “She probably wouldn’t know if I stole a candy bar from Paul’s Market, either, but I can’t tell her not to steal if I do.”

Lilah rolled her eyes. That’s where Charlotte had learned it. “Blake Junger is probably married,” she said on a sigh.

“I’ve never seen anyone over there.” Natalie held the bag up and picked off a few strings.

“Where?”

“The neighbors.” She picked off a few more threads. “Blake Junger lives in the Allegrezzas’ old house next door.”

“What?” Lilah grabbed the bag from her hands and turned Natalie to face her. “And you didn’t tell me until right now?”

“I just met him yesterday, and I didn’t even know his name until today.” Natalie grabbed the bag back and held it clamped in a fist on her hip as she told Lilah about the meeting.

“He actually said his dog was turned into axle grease?” Lilah was a dog lover so that didn’t go over well.

“Yes.” Though that wasn’t his biggest crime. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. He told Charlotte he shit bigger than her and made her cry.” Lilah was Charlotte’s godmother. Her very protective godmother. Sometimes a little too eager to rush into battle for Charlotte. This time Natalie wouldn’t hold her back. “And he implied that I am a bad mother.”

“That wasn’t very nice. Really horrible.” Lilah tapped a finger to her lips. “Maybe he was having a bad day.”

“Maybe he’s just a jerk.” She turned to the printer and fit the canvas perfectly on the plate. “If he was ugly or had a handlebar mustache you wouldn’t make an excuse for him.”

Lilah’s stepfather had once had a handlebar mustache, and that was reason enough to hate them. “I’m not making an excuse for the guy, but maybe he’s lonely in that big house. I’m sure he needs a friend.”

Natalie looked over her shoulder at Lilah. “He needs something.” She frowned. “He needs a shovel to the side of his head.”

Chapter Three

He needed to get laid.

Blake pulled his truck into the parking lot of Paul’s Market and stopped in an empty space in the second row. In the pocket of his hooded jacket he had a short list of other things he needed. Regular things like soap and shaving cream, potatoes and apples. Those were some of the things he’d written down, but the list in his head had only one thing on it.

Get laid.

He needed to feel hot, naked skin against his. His hand on a warm, soft female. His mouth on her neck and belly and thighs. He needed intimacy in his bed. He needed to make love in the shower. He needed to fuck against the wall.

Damn. He shut the door of his red Ford F–150 and moved across the lot. He passed a Jeep and a Suburban, and walked into the grocery store. What he needed was to stop thinking about his neighbor in his bed and his shower and against the wall.

The docs and counselors in rehab had preached abstinence, but Blake wasn’t the kind of guy who went without. He didn’t believe in abstinence for a man his age. He was thirty-nine and had only gone without sex when he’d been down range. He didn’t like to go without. It made him itchy and antsy and preoccupied with the outline of a white bra beneath a white blouse, holding full breasts as nice as her perky ass.

It had been five days now since he’d walked into that print shop and seen Sweet Cheeks standing behind the counter. Five days since he’d seen all of her up close and personal, and all of Sweet Cheeks up close and personal was something worth seeing. She was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that turned heads and gave a man thoughts of undressing her for a better look. And there was nothing funky about her dark blue eyes.

It had been five days since he’d seen those big blue eyes wide and her pink mouth open as if he’d caught her at something. Something like discussing the picture of a guy’s big dick. Maybe that was why he couldn’t get her out of his head. If she wanted to see a big dick, he’d be happy to show her one in person.

A few of the locals stared as he yanked out a cart and headed for the produce aisle. To take his one-track mind off the neighbor and her soft mouth, he studied the area around him. On first glance, Paul’s Market needed new weather mats, updated vinyl flooring, and a fresh coat of paint. Last summer, before his brother had hijacked him into rehab, Blake had spent most of June helping out his good friend and retired SEAL Vince restore an old convenience store in Texas. Vince had done a hell of a job on the demo, but he’d needed Blake’s help with the restoration.

For the past fifteen years, Blake had been partners with his cousin Dale, flipping houses in Virginia Beach. It was something that he’d started as an investment and a hobby. When he wasn’t on deployment, he’d enjoyed working with Dale, and by the time he retired from the teams, he had three Silver Stars and six Bronze with Valor, the Navy Cross, commendations and achievement medals from the Marines and Navy, and a contractor’s license from the commonwealth of Virginia.

Blake grabbed a sack of oranges and set it in his cart. Compared to BUD/S or SERE or sniper school, the contractor’s exam hadn’t been difficult. Not like abstinence from alcohol. Or sex.

His brother Beau had gone without sex for eight months. On purpose. His twin said he wanted to wait until it meant something. Wanted to wait until sex was more than getting off with a faceless woman. Blake could respect that, but the brothers hadn’t been virgins since they’d been fifteen. There was no putting that horse back in the barn, especially when that horse liked playing in the field.

He grabbed a sack of potatoes and dropped it in his cart. There’d been a time when he and his twin had grabbed a few weeks together between deployments or met up at bases in Bahrain or Okinawa or Italy or half a dozen other joint installations around the world. Anywhere there were beautiful women and bottles of liquor, the Junger boys were up for some drunken debauchery. There was even a rumor about the two of them picking up identical twins in a Hong Kong bar and spending three booze-fueled days swapping tail before hopping flights back to their platoons in Camp Fallujah and Kandahar, silent professionals returning to the job.

Blake tore a cellophane baggie off the spool and reached for a couple of deep red apples. They’d met the twins in Taiwan, and the only thing he and his brother had ever swapped were bicycles as kids. Their days of drunken debauchery were behind them now. Beau was engagement ring shopping for his little girlfriend and Blake was fresh out of rehab. Even Blake’s hell-raising buddy Vince was getting married. That left Blake the odd man out. The last man standing. On his own to hook up with beautiful women. Not that he minded. He’d never needed a wingman, but bars were the easiest places to meet women who wanted the same thing he wanted. Problem was, he no longer hung out in bars and he’d moved to a small town.

He picked up several more apples and put them in his bag. In his thirty-nine years, he’d lived in fifteen different states, been stationed on every continent, and taken his leave in just about every country, and the one thing he knew for certain, there were always women who liked to get wild. Women in small towns were no different. He just needed to get out of his house and look around at what Truly had to offer.

“The Granny Smith are better than the Red Delicious.”

Blake glanced over his right shoulder, and his gaze landed on a pile of gray puff. “Excuse me?”

“This time of year, the Granny Smith apples are better than the Red Delicious.”

He turned and looked down into a pair of brown eyes creased with age and lined in black. She wore a green and brown plaid wool jacket and a bright yellow scarf. This wasn’t exactly the wild woman he’d been thinking about, and he smiled at the irony.

“Are you an apple expert, ma’am?”

“I’m a member of Buy Idaho.” She had a black walker with brakes on the grips and a basket hooked to the front. Her hand shook from age as she picked up a yellow apple and handed it to Blake. “These are grown in Emmett. The Red Delicious are shipped in from Washington. Local is always better.” She looked into his cart. “I see you have Idaho potatoes in your cart.”

“Of course,” he said as if he’d actually paid attention.

“Good boy.” She turned her attention to him and he almost laughed at being called a “boy.” Red lipstick creased the lines in her lips and pink circles colored her sagging cheeks. “I’m Mabel Vaughn.” She stuck out her hand. “You’re the new fella in town.”

“Blake Junger.” Her thin skin was cool against his touch. “It’s my pleasure to meet you, Ms. Vaughn.”

“Call me Mabel.” She might have blushed. He couldn’t tell for the pink circles. “Roy Baldridge says you bought the Allegrezza house on Red Fox Road.”

Roy had been Blake’s Realtor. “Yes. It’s beautiful out there.”

She nodded as if to say,
Of course
. “Nick Allegrezza had to build a bigger house out at Angel Beach on account of having six kids. Five girls and one boy.”

He didn’t know what to say to that so he whistled like six kids was a lot.

“Roy says you’re single. A big fella like you needs a woman to boss him around.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Who knew Roy gossiped like an old lady in a knitting circle? “That’s what my mother tells me every time I talk to her.” His mother had become obsessed with Facebook and was stalking his old girlfriends in a desperate quest for grandkids. After he’d left rehab, he’d spent three weeks with her in Tampa. He loved his mom. She was the single most important female in his life, but he’d had to get away from the worry in her eyes when she looked at him, and the pressure to settle down like his brother.

Blake put his apples in the seat of the cart and reached for a bag of oranges. Fresh fruit was one of the things he’d missed most when he was deployed.

“You’re neighbors with Natalie Cooper and her little girl.” She followed beside Blake as he moved down the row, and he adjusted his stride to accommodate her. “That little Charlotte is a cute one.”

Her name was Natalie Cooper. He liked Sweet Cheeks better.

“Poor Natalie.” Mabel held a hand up to one side of her face as if she were about to impart a secret. “That husband of hers is getting out on parole soon.”

He hooked a left down the personal goods aisle. Sweet Cheeks was married? To a guy in prison? If he was in a sewing circle like Roy, he’d ask a few questions, but that would mean he was interested. He wasn’t. Curious maybe, but not enough to pry. He stopped the cart in front of the antiperspirants. It looked like he had three choices and he reached for the Old Spice Fresh Scent.

“Embezzlement and a passel of other charges,” Mabel provided. “Even stole from his own parents’ retirement.”

He paused in the act of pulling the top off the antiperspirant, but didn’t respond. He wondered if Natalie was involved and had testified against her husband to save her own sweet ass. Not that it was his business, but if he wanted information about the neighbor he could get it. Just because he was retired from the teams didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to plug a name or two into a computer and get first account information.

“Everyone was so shocked.” She continued to follow, and Blake paused to pick up some soap, shaving cream, and a pack of refills for his Gillette Fusion. “I remember when they were young. Folks in town thought they were perfect. Then Michael let all that high finance go to his head.” She frowned. “The big city just corrupted him.”

“New York?” He tossed the razors in his cart.

“Boise.”

Boise?
He chuckled and coughed in his fist. Boise was a nice-size town, but could never be mistaken for a big city.

She put a hand on his cart. “I forgot my grabber. Could you get me some of that pine tar soap? Fred loves pine tar soap.”

Blake reached on the top shelf and handed it to her. “This one?”

“Yes. Thank you.” She put it in the basket on her walker. “There were some people in town who took some satisfaction in Michael heading for the Mexican border and leaving Natalie behind to deal with everything.” She paused and pointed to the toothpaste. “Can you get that Polident for me?”

He reached for the closest green box.

“No. The one with forty in it. It’s cheaper.”

Blake traded it for a different box and had the sneaking suspicion that Mabel had singled him out for more than gossip. The next few minutes confirmed his suspicions when she asked him for a four-pack of toilet paper.

“I’ll pay extra for fluffy and absorbent,” she told her “grabber.”

Most men might have cringed at the knowledge that Mabel liked extra fluffy butt wipe, but after twenty deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and dozens of clandestine missions, Blake also appreciated extra fluffy and absorbent. It sure beat the hell out of a round hole in the ground and any kind of paper he carried in his chest gear.

In the cooking aisle, he tossed some coarse ground pepper in his cart and she brought up his neighbor once more. “Natalie comes from a long line of Richards women who’ve had bad luck with men. It’s really unfortunate. Betty’s husband left her for a waitress down in Homedale and Joan’s ran off with that gal who drove the water truck for the firefighters back in ’84, but no one figured Michael would ever run out on Natalie, especially when she was pregnant.”

Blake moved down the aisle and tossed a bag of ground Starbucks into his cart. He reached inside the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out his list. He didn’t suppose Mabel’s gossip was just the random rambling of an old woman. Like choosing him for her human grabber, he was sure she had an ulterior motive.

“Can you hand me that nondairy creamer? Fred is lactose-intolerant.”

“Regular or hazelnut?”

“Oh. Hazelnut is too fancy. Fred has to have regular.” She took the creamer from Blake and put it in her basket. “Joan was a real good friend of mine before she passed. I could count on her for anything. She was smart, too, but she wasn’t a looker, sorry to say. Betty neither,” she continued. “That’s why everyone was surprised when Natalie came out so pretty. Never went through an ugly spell, that girl. She was head cheerleader, prom queen, queen of the Winter Festival, too. Just gorgeous, and Michael ran out on her and broke her heart.” She tsked and shook her head. “But she didn’t let that ruin her life. She started that photo studio on Main and made a real success of herself. She took my portrait a few weeks ago and did a real good job. Fred loved my smoky eye.”

Sweet Cheeks was a cheerleader? Blake smiled. Growing up, he’d had a ton of cheerleader fantasies. They’d been his favorite.

“A few years back, Betty retired from the Forest Service and moved up north with her sister Gloria and Jed. Now the three of them travel around the country in that fifth wheel. I don’t think anything funny is goin’ on. Not since Jed busted his hip, but Natalie doesn’t have her mama around anymore. It’s just her and Charlotte.” Mabel sighed. “A woman like that needs a good man.”

Blake lifted a brow. “Are you playing matchmaker?”

“Me? Heck no.” Her eyes widened like she was innocent. “I was just talking to pass the time.”

Sure.

“But I can’t stand around and gab all day. I have other things to do, you know.” Mabel looked into her basket. “I got everything I came for.”

“You sure I can’t grab you anything else?”

“I’m sure.” She patted Blake on the arm. “I hope to see you around, big fella.”

“See ya, Mabel.” He chuckled as the matchmaker pushed her walker toward the front. He tossed a few more groceries into his cart and headed to the checkout. He casually chatted with a clerk named Jan who wore a rhinestone bolo tie around the neck of her red Paul’s Market dress shirt. Jan put his groceries in four plastic bags and he hooked them in his finger and carried them to his truck. The crisp October air brushed his face and he breathed in that deep scent of earth and pine. The last time he’d spent any time in the mountains during fall and winter, he’d been training in Colorado for the harsh elements of Tora Bora and the Hindu Kush.

He slung the groceries in the back of his pickup and something let out a yelp. He looked into the bed and into the black eyes of a puppy. A small black puppy with white paws sat on a bag of Purina Puppy Chow.