Page 77 of The Pumpkin Spice Romance
“I’m supposed to go to Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house today. My perfect Aunt Melinda, with her perfect daughter, and now perfect grandbaby. I’msupposedto bring a special side dish that I don’t have time to cook, and make nice conversation while everyone asks me about my stupid, boring job, and lack of boyfriend, and why I’m not a lawyer or doctor or whatever.You had so much potential, Carrie.”She pitched her voice into a high imitation of her most irritating aunt.“We just want to see you happy, Carrie.And then, I swear, one minute later it will be,are you dating anyone, Carrie? Why aren’t you settled down with a nice man yet?And then,Isn’t Sarah’s baby just the sweetest? Don’t you want to hold it, Carrie? Don’t you want one of your own?And no! NO, I DO NOT!” She realized she was venting at her ex-high school crush and looked over at him, scared at what she would see. She was surprised to see him nodding along.
Carrie sighed. “I don’t think I’m going to go, even though my mom will kill me. I’ve got too much to do here anyway.”
“I get it,” he said, digging her phone out of his pocket and handing it back to her. “But, for whatever it’s worth, maybe think about going anyway. Family is everything.”
“I just wish,” she sighed wistfully, but shook her head and turned away. “Never mind.”
“No, what?” He caught her hand and turned her back to him. With his other hand, he touched a finger under her chin, bringing it up so he could look into her eyes. “What do you wish?” he whispered, looking in that moment as though he’d give it to her if he could.
“That I could be someone’s everything,” she whispered, blushing at having admitted such a desperate thing out loud. “Silly, I know.” She turned away in embarrassment, breaking the mood.
“You probably just haven’t shown them your Blue Christmas dance moves,” he said softly. It was probably the lighting playing tricks, but when she glanced at him, the look on his face was . . . tender?
“Oh, shut up,” she said, but couldn’t keep the corners of her lips from turning up at him.
When they got back to the Toys-A-Lot warehouse, Buck’s associates were just about done gutting the mutant, neon monsters. Carrie began the re-stuffing of 900 wrinkly-skinned alien owls.
“Ugh, Buck, did you take one of those awful candles or something?” she asked. She sniffed the air until her nose brought her to the bag of stuffing she’d just opened. She looked at the bag’s label and recoiled, beforethunkingher head down on the table. Buck picked up one of the bags of stuffing from the nearest cart.
“Huh. Who knew they even made this stuff in pumpkin spice scent?”
Carrie took a deep breath (through her mouth) and kept stuffing and repackaging the now irreparably fall-scented FurrBabies. It was 3am before Thanksgiving Day. She did not have time to stop.
~ 12 Hours Later ~
Carrie felt like her eyelids were weighted with sand as she nursed her third cup of coffee and finished up her phone calls to every radio station in the tri-state area from a floral brocade armchair in the corner of her aunt’s living room. She could say her spiel by rote now.Amazing news! Toys-A-Lot location has received a lucky shipment of the fall’s must-have toy! FurrBabies fully stocked for Black Friday!Location, hours, blah, blah, blah, next.
But she was here. She’d made it to her family’s Thanksgiving, and as she hung up her cellphone on the last call and looked around her aunt’s trendy forest green and dusty mauve living room, her cousins chatting and playing with the baby just a few yards away, she felt a rush of accomplishment in that simple fact. Yes, she was surrounded by her annoying aunts and cousins, but she had to admit that her annoyance level may have had something to do with her lack of sleep, and she felt good about making it there after all. She remembered Buck’s advice: family was everything.
She’d gotten home in time to shower and change into a cute fall outfit, brush her hair, slap concealer under her eyes, and had even stopped at the grocery store for mac and cheese from the deli. It wasn’t the special casserole she’d promised, but hey, it was food. She’d firmly told her family she was happy to see them, but tomorrow was a big day for her and she was still working. And she’d told themno. She didn’t have a boyfriend and didn’t want to hold the baby. The look on her aunt’s face had been priceless.
Carrie hadn’t said that she wished the boyfriend part wasn’t true.
She still had to go back to work after dinner, but she could see the finish line in sight. The monstrosities were all miraculously re-stuffed and back in their boxes, the miracle being that Carrie had worked the rest of the night and all through the morning to get them into a semblance of their proper shape. Now she just had to print up orange labels (thankfully leftover from Halloween) to say,Special Edition: Fall Scented!and slap them on the boxes to explain their unmistakable stench. It was going to work and she felt the euphoria of her first, nearly complete heist . . . caper . . . whatever. She just had to make it through the Black Friday sale and she was home free.
And she owed this feeling to Buck. Two days ago, she’d been going along in slow-motion, nearly asleep at the wheel of her life. Then Buck had jumped in and shoved her foot down on the gas. She felt wild and out of control and . . .alive.She liked it. She liked it a lot.
Too bad she’d probably never see him again. She felt herself droop at the thought, but she wasn’t going to lie to herself. Buck had gotten what he needed from her. Whatever late night magic she thought she’d felt, it had just been twinkle lights in his eyes and the excitement of doing illegal deeds at midnight. That was all. She was sure he flirted with every girl that way.
The doorbell rang and Aunt Melinda poked her perfectly coiffed head out of the kitchen, pearls gently swinging at her neck. “Could someone get that please?” she called.
Her cousins were either busy playing blocks with the little one or football in the backyard, so Carrie got up and went to answer the door, taking her coffee with her. The satisfaction she felt at her accomplishment was still there, but the euphoria was already fading. As she opened the door, she wondered how she could get it back. How could she keep her own foot on the gas?
The familiar, handsome face on her aunt’s front porch made her gasp in surprise.
“Buck!” Carrie felt herself blush up at him over her coffee mug, her exhaustion draining away as Buck smiled crookedly at her. “What are you doing here?”
He was wearing a button down and slacks, looking both gorgeous and responsible. Definitelynotlike a mafia gang leader, and holding a white casserole dish covered in foil. Still dangerous though, with the way he made her heart rate speed up when he winked down at her. He also looked somewhat less exhausted than Carrie, after he and his associates had abandoned her at 3am to her FurrBaby re-stuffing to move their cocaine to . . . wherever they handled that sort of thing. She probably didn’t need to know.
Directly behind him at the curb, a flash of blue caught her eye and she couldn’t help but stare at the black Porche Boxter parked there conspicuously, looking fast just sitting still.
“No!” She gasped aloud this time. She absolutely needed a ride in that car.
“Ahem,” he coughed a laugh, drawing her eyes back to him with a smirk. “My eyes are up here.”
She gulped and looked back up into said eyes, dark lashed and blue like the Pacific. The knowledge that he’d tracked her down at her aunt’s house, bringing a fast car and a casserole, shot a thrill straight to her core.
“You said you didn’t have time to make a side dish. I kind of thought I owed you one,” he said, pulling her attention back to the dish he was holding. She reached out to peek under the foil, sniffing at the heavenly smell of savory spices and butter.
