Honey Pie (Cupcake Club)

chapter 13


For the next week and a half, it was the memory of that smile on her face that kept Dylan from wishing he’d never offered to let her move in next door. Not because she was pestering him with questions or asking for his help, quite the opposite. Her bike would be parked in the alley behind the bookstore when he arrived at his garage in the morning and would still be there when he closed up shop at night. The only way to see her or talk to her was to poke his head in and see how she was doing.

She’d always stop whatever she was doing and make time to talk with him, bring him up to date on how things were going, but he could see her mind was racing on to the million and one things she had to do—all of which were detailed on the clipboard never far from her hand. He’d managed to go thirty-one years without having her around, so why it was bugging him that she was so unavailable to him he had no idea.

“Dude, you’re pouting. Not cool. You need to man up.”

Dylan lifted his head from working on Honey’s old Beetle to give Dell a withering glare. Of course, Dell being Dell, it didn’t so much as faze him.

“Chicks don’t dig it when guys get clingy.”

Dylan bent back over the engine. “For your information, I don’t pout and I don’t cling. Never have, don’t plan on starting now.” He caught his knuckle on the carburetor piston valve spring and swore a blue streak, thankful for the opportunity. He sucked at the blood, spit out the grease, then pressed the gash against his T-shirt until it stopped bleeding. “Least she could do is ask about how things turned out with Frank,” he muttered. “Ask someone a favor, you should follow up. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

“You should ask her out on a date. Get her out of the shop and away from work.” Dell looked up from shelving air filters and lining up quarts of synthetic oil and grinned. “Then she can focus all her attention and make it all about you.”

“I hired you, you know. I can fire you.”

“Then who will be nice to your customers? Who will talk to Mrs. Bingle three times a day when she brings her car in every other week, convinced that her late husband jinxed it before he died? And who will listen to Ned Stultz tell us how he worked on Jeeps in the Army, and if anyone knows how to take apart and put together an engine, it’s him? Of course, that does his Cadillac no good whatsoever. And who—”

“Okay, okay. Anyone ever tell you you’re annoying as hell?”

Dell grinned. “Daily. And they’re all grateful to you for offering me a job and keeping me out of their hair and off the mean streets of Sugarberry.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“Too late for that.”

Dylan shook his head as a smile creased the corners of his mouth, thankful the hood of the car prevented Dell from it. For all the kid talked like a seasoned veteran of dating and life, he was all of fourteen and had never been anywhere farther than Savannah. Still, he was fourteen going on forty. Too smart for his own good and twice as observant. He was some kind of kid genius who’d been doing college level schoolwork by the time he hit middle school age.

Patsy Miller, his poor mother whom Dylan had known since their own high school days, was a single mom who had tried her best to keep Dell grounded and involved with other kids his age. She’d finally given in and let him graduate early and start taking courses at the community college just over the causeway. Problem was, she worked full-time on the other side of Savannah, and had been at her wits’ end, since the kid wasn’t even old enough to drive yet.

Fortunately for Dylan, the kid’s freakish knowledge extended to car engines. Unlike Ned Stultz, Dylan was pretty sure Dell could actually take apart and put a Jeep engine, or any engine, back together . . . probably blindfolded. The kid could look at a diagram or schematic one time and know it by heart. Same with shop manuals.

He’d hired the boy part-time right after opening up the new location. It helped Dylan out, and gave Dell a place to be when he wasn’t in class. Dylan had helped find the old motorbike Dell had bought with money he’d saved up from birthdays and Christmas since he’d been ten or eleven. They’d found salvage parts and an old manual, and Dell had fixed the thing up so now he had a way to get over the bridge to class and to work.

While his constant stream of chatter might annoy Dylan no end, truth was, the customers loved it and him. Dell’s winning smile and his tow-headed, brown-eyed good looks that made him seem like the poster boy for the Got Milk campaign and the Boy Scouts all rolled into one didn’t hurt matters, either. The older women fawned over him like a beloved grandson and the men all thought he was a fine, upstanding young man, a role model for American youth. God help Dylan when the kid was old enough that the women started flirting with him and the guys started leaning on him to go out for a beer and shoot some pool.

Had he asked for that headache? No, he had not. He didn’t want to worry about the kid, much less what kind of young man he was going to become. All he’d wanted was some part-time help. If it allowed Patsy not to worry so much about her kid, so much the better.

“So, have you asked her out? I mean, like on a real date? Because women really dig—”

“Just what is it you think you know about women, anyway? You’re like, twelve.”

“I’ll be fifteen in five months, three weeks, four days and”—he glanced at the wall clock—“about five hours. Mom went into labor with me at three in the morning on a Tuesday, but it took her seventeen hours—”

“Spare me. Please.”

Dell switched gears without even taking a breath. “Even if you just take her to Laura Jo’s for lunch or something, I bet she’d really like that. She hasn’t met all that many folks yet. Everyone is talking about her.”

Dylan straightened and looked around the hood of the car. “Talking about her how?”

“Oh, you know, new person on the island kind of thing. I guess there’s some chatter about her being Bea’s niece and all. Folks are wondering if she’s got Miss Bea’s . . . you know . . . mad skills. Not mad as in, you know, crazy. It’s just an expression. It means, like amazing or—”

“I know what it means.”

“I was the first one to meet her, you know. When she got here, I mean. I thought she was cool. Funky glasses, sick artwork, like stitched right to her jeans. She didn’t seem much like Miss Bea at all. I mean, Miss Bea was all grandmotherly and awesome, but Miss Honey, she’s young and so cool.”

“Too old for me, I know,” he quickly added when Dylan’s eyebrows rose. “I heard she, you know, knows things even more than Miss Bea did, way more. Mrs. Hughes was saying how she kept Mr. Hughes from getting himself killed, keeping him off John John Hughes’s trawler last Monday before that storm came up.”

“I kept Frank Hughes off John John’s trawler last Monday.”

“Right, yeah, but after it all worked out, Miss Honey told Mrs. Hughes she was thankful he hadn’t been hurt and I guess it all came out about how she had some kind of spooky-like vision of him getting gaffed in the thigh. How awesome is that? It’s like she’s got a superpower.”

Dylan scowled and ducked back under the hood. Drag his ass into meddling with folks and then come right on out and tell them she had a premonition. Why even bother getting him to do the dirty work for her, that’s what he wanted to know. Probably just as well they weren’t spending time together. Probably a sign he should get his focus back on his work and leave her to getting the shop ready for the inspectors to come check it out, see what kind of code issues she was dealing with.

That reminded him. He needed to tell her he had a guy who’d handle any electrical problems she might have for little more than cost. The guy owed him a favor for digging up a part for his ’76 Mustang Cobra.

Dylan swore under his breath. It was like she’d taken up permanent residence inside his brain. He really did need to stop thinking about her, get her damn car fixed, and get back to life as usual. She was staying and she’d be working right next door. That didn’t mean they had to push things between them, personally.

So he’d gotten a little caught up in it, in her. It had been a while and that was probably part of it . . . and the heat made folks do things they might not otherwise do. The storm had come, blown the heat out with it, and spring weather had returned . . . along with his sanity.

At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

“Folks are wondering if she’ll, you know, help them out, like Miss Bea did. You think she’ll be taking appointments for that kind of thing? I read up on it a little and—”

“No, she won’t be taking appointments. She’s an artist, not a—she’s an artist, and that’s it, okay? The only thing she’s going to help anyone do is add a few grins to their gardens and knickknack shelves and maybe teach them to whittle or sculpt something. Don’t go bugging her about that other stuff, you hear?”

When Dell didn’t respond, Dylan ducked around the hood again. “I mean it, Dell. She didn’t come here for that.”

Dell wasn’t paying attention to him. He was looking out the open bay door, frowning. Dylan followed his gaze and saw the thin trail of smoke.

“I think it’s coming from next door,” Dell said.

“Shit.” Dylan tossed his wrench in the tool box, grabbed the grease rag, and was still wiping his hands as he ran next door. He started to pound on the door, but decided there was no time for that and tried the knob. Unlocked, thank God. No smoke in the immediate storage room and the door wasn’t hot to the touch, but as soon as he opened it, he could see the gray haze in the front room. “Honey?” he called out. “Honey!”

He tried not to let visions of the last time he’d run into a smoke-filled building fill his brain, but it was pretty damn impossible not to. It made his bark a bit louder than absolutely necessary; the smoke was little more than a thin haze. Maybe he’d caught it just in time.

He heard coughing coming from just past the bathroom and break room, and ran to that door. Also not hot to the touch, it led to the other ground floor back room. “Honey?” he called out as he opened the door . . . only to stop just inside, where he found her crouched on the floor.

She was hunched over a small hibachi, having just squelched what appeared to be a little grease fire. Or breakfast. A huge industrial size fan was propped up on the top of a big steamer trunk, running loudly at full force, trying to suck the smoke out and force it through the small window that had barely been cranked open.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

She let out short squeal of surprise and leaped to her feet, almost upending the hibachi and the fan in the process. Hand clutched to her chest, she turned on him. “Holy crap, I think you just took five years off my life.”

“I’ve been shouting your name, but I guess you couldn’t hear me over the vortex of fans here. What the hell happened?”

She scowled at him as she crouched back down and tried to fork off some charred black ruins that appeared permanently adhered to the grill surface. “Nothing. I just got caught up with some stuff I’m clearing out upstairs and sort of forgot I was making breakfast.”

It was only then that Dylan had the presence of mind to look around the room, spying a futon, an open suitcase, a small cooler, the stack of boxes she’d retrieved from her car when she’d moved into the Hughes’s place, and the rest of the stuff she’d hauled out of the car earlier in the week.

“Are you . . . living here?”

“Would that be violating some other kind of code? Never mind, don’t answer that. I just got off the phone with the inspector who came by yesterday and I’m pretty sure there is no code left that I’m not already in violation of, so what’s one more?”

He couldn’t recall ever seeing her so out of sorts. It shouldn’t have wanted to make him smile, but given he’d been out of sorts for the past week and a half, it seemed only fair. “I’ll take a look at the list. Maybe I can help.”

“I didn’t ask for your help. I can figure it out.”

Grinning, he entered the room. Fully cognizant that he was risking sending her into a vision, or possibly getting whacked upside the head with a burnt hibachi, he gently took her arm and hauled her to her feet.

She didn’t jerk her arm away, neither did she bean him with anything, or go all weird in the face, so he took that as encouragement and tugged her closer. “Bad day, sugar? Week, maybe?”

She ducked her chin and let out a long breath, swore through another one, which made him chuckle. Before she could punch him, or worse, he pulled her into his arms and tipped her face up to his. “Getting a place up and going sucks. I know. More bad days than good at first. But it gets better.”

“I know, but—”

“Shh. It gets better faster when you let folks who are willing to help out do just that. Like I said, you’ll have ample opportunity to repay the favors down the line.”

“I appreciate that, I do. It’s just the inspector was—pardon my language—a real . . . jerkface.”

“Jerkface, huh. Wow.”

She lowered one brow and scowled. “Okay, he was a completely asinine, wholly arrogant, condescending dickwad. There, I said it.”

“Feel better?”

“Some.” She said it grudgingly, and tried to shift her gaze to a point past his shoulder.

It struck him that this was the first time he’d really had her in his arms, at least, in the traditional way. He was rather enjoying how well they matched up. He shifted slightly until he caught her gaze again. “I can think of something that might take that some and turn it into more.”

She turned her gaze fully back to him. “Why do men think that sex is always the answer to every problem?”

He grinned and lowered his head. “Because it often is.” He brushed his lips over hers. “Or, at the very least, provides a nice break from your worries. Come here,” he murmured, and took her mouth slowly as if they had all the time in the world.

She surprised him by sighing against his lips and relaxing into the kiss, into him.

Just like that, slow and languorous was the last thing he wanted. His body growled to life, pulsing hot and hard as he fought the urge to take her the way he’d imagined taking her pretty much every night for the past week and a half.

“I missed this,” she said on a sigh when he finally lifted his head.

All the mad he’d built up over the past week and a half vanished. “I’m right next door, sugar. No need to miss anything.” He kissed her again.

She sighed and let her forehead drop to his chest when he lifted his head again. She felt relaxed and her mad was gone, too.

“It does cure what ails you,” he said.

“Don’t gloat,” she replied, but the dry humor was back, and she was still soft and snugged up against him.

“I’ll apologize now because I’ve probably gotten axle grease and God knows what else on you.”

She lifted her gaze to his. “I’m covered in cobwebs, dust, dirt, and reek of burnt bacon. I think we can consider it an even trade.”

“Your glasses are fogged.”

She smiled somewhat smugly. “I know.” Then she put her cheek right back against his damp and dirty work shirt. “At least this time it’s for a good reason.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Good God your hair stinks.”

“Sweet talker,” she murmured.

He chuckled. “Tell you what. Why don’t I leave you to the fun and excitement that is your day, while I go back and try not to give in to the temptation to just push your Bug into the channel rather than working to fix the damn thing. Then, when we’ve had enough of that, what say we clean ourselves up and go out to eat some food together like grown-ups do.”

She lifted her head, eyebrows arched above her horn rims. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Dell told me chicks dig stuff like that.”

Honey giggled. “Dell is wise beyond his years.”

“I know. It sort of bites, when you think about it. Fourteen, pretty sure he’s a virgin . . . and he has more game than me.”

“We all have our strengths. Hey!” she said when he pinched her behind.

“Is it a date?”

“Yes. I accept. I’d love to. Fair warning, though.”

“Hey!” he said when she pinched him right back. “Sneaky.”

“Like I said, we all have our strengths.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’d offer to clean your glasses on my shirt, but I’m pretty sure that would just make them worse.”

“You smell like engine grease, and now, bacon smoke. So yeah, thanks, but, no.”

Grinning, he dipped his head and stole another hard, fast kiss, risking that he’d have to wander around the block or something to let his body settle down before heading back next door. It was well worth it.

“Bring the stuff from the inspector with you and we’ll look over it while we eat.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s in the Things Not To Do part of the dating handbook. But this chick? Yeah, she’d dig that.” She tipped up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks. For helping. And being patient. I’m getting there.”

Dylan could have told her about the very last thing he’d been feeling this past week was patient, but however he’d gotten to this moment, it had been worth the struggle. “Eight o’clock?”

“That works.”

He reluctantly let her go, then went over and gave the old-fashioned louvered window handle a good yank and cranked it fully open. “I’ll get the other ones in the storage room on my way out.”

“My hero. Thank you.”

He shot her a wink. “My pleasure, sugar.”

He was back in the garage, head under the hood before he realized he was whistling again. He just grinned and put a little more effort into it.