I Want Candy (20 page)

Turner shook his head and smiled. “I got no words for how much I enjoyed it.”

Candy smiled so big she worried her face would break.

“So,” Turner said, pushing the dessert plate to the side and leaning in on his forearms. He flashed those eyes up at her and produced one of his trademark smiles, and Candy forgot how to breathe. “You got any other talents I should know about?”

“Counter order up!”

*   *   *

She was back at Cherokee Pines at ten, where she found the back door propped open again. She left Gerrall’s cake on the counter and was scurrying toward the hallway when she let out a yelp—someone was there, in the dark, waiting for her!

Gerrall flipped on the kitchen lights. Candy gasped. His face was all bruised. One of his eyes was blackened and swollen shut.

Candy waited for her heart to stop thudding. “What the hell are you doing stalking me like that? You scared the living
shit
out of me!”

“Just having some fun. Did you bring my applesauce cake?”

“Uggh!”
Candy slapped the swinging door open and tiptoed down the hallway counting the doors until she reached Jacinta’s, sixth on the right. As a precaution, she ducked below peephole level when she passed by Lorraine’s door—that woman would jump at the chance to report Candy’s illegal status to Miller. Jacinta was waiting and opened the door in silence, much to Candy’s relief.

“Whew!” she said to her mother once she was inside. “Living on the down low’s harder than it looks.”

Jacinta smiled. “That’s what Hugo always says.”

“And I’m starting to really wonder about that Gerrall Spivey guy—he’s creeping me out big-time.”

“I think you made a mistake trusting him with your secrets,” Jacinta said, shaking her head. “Like I said—he’s not from good people.”

Wednesday started the same way. Turner came for lunch and ordered a chef’s salad. Candy put some extra croutons on for him. He had a piece of her white chocolate almond cake for dessert and when he was done he laughed and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Good?”

“Candy, you should open your own bakery. Seriously.”

“Right.”

“Hey, Bigler’s only bakery closed up years ago and the town needs one. Why not?” The suggestion was so earnest and his smile so sweet that it almost sounded less than completely ridiculous.

Candy pressed her thighs together as if to check on Sophie.
No,
she reassured the bracelet and herself,
not in this lifetime.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asked him.

That’s when Turner reached across the counter and took Candy’s hand in both of his. She was so surprised that she froze, sure that everyone was staring. Public displays of affection in this town were significant statements, no matter who was on display. But public displays with the town sheriff during the Lenny’s lunch rush had to be considered an outright spectacle.

Turner didn’t appear the least bit concerned. “You know, I won’t be working these crazy hours for the rest of my life,” he offered. “I want to spend time with you. I want to take you out—you know, for real, once things slow down at work. I just wanted you to know that it’s not always going to be this tough.”

Candy brought her other hand up to wrap around his. “I’d like that.”

“Dating a cop can be a challenge sometimes.”

“Hmm. I noticed,” she said. “Ice cream interruptus and all that.”

Turner lowered his head and laughed. When he looked up, she leaned across the counter and planted a quick kiss right on his lips.

Once Turner had left, she enjoyed the sensation of floating for a few minutes, right until Cee-Dee Creswell shuffled over to the register to pay for his senior lunch special.

“How was everything for you today, Mr. Creswell?” Since that was her standard question and the old guy was one of her counter regulars, Candy didn’t even raise her eyes to him until she noticed he didn’t answer. “You okay?” She looked up and held out his change.

Mr. Creswell glared out the windows of the diner, as if intentionally ignoring Candy. Maybe he was becoming hard of hearing. That had to be it, Candy decided. She’d known this man her whole life. He went to the same church as her family. He’d been a client of her father’s. And Mr. Creswell held a special spot in her childhood, since the hardest whupping she ever got was after she, Turner, Cheri, and J.J. got caught doing belly flops in the mud pit out behind his smokehouse.

“Are you all right, Mr. Cresswell?”

The old man slowly turned his face in her direction. For an instant, Candy didn’t even recognize him. He looked ugly. His mouth was pulled down at the corners and a mean squint had replaced his usually kind eyes. A red welt of anger had discolored his skin. “You should be downright ashamed of yourself,” he hissed, ripping the change from her hand. “Your daddy would disown you if he was still livin’.”

And suddenly, the lightness she’d held in her heart was replaced by confusion and anger. What the hell had that been about? She couldn’t seem to close her mouth while watching Mr. Creswell walk out of the diner.

Lenny’s large hand landed on her shoulder. “I heard what he said. You okay?”

“What’s wrong with people?” she whispered. “Really! What is it with people around here? It isn’t 1850 anymore! For heaven’s sake—our country’s president is a man of biracial heritage! All I did was give the sheriff a peck! What is their
problem
?”

“Maybe you should take a break.”

Candy nodded at Lenny’s suggestion, ran into the kitchen and out the back door, where she took big swallows of fresh air. Her tears came fast and hard, and it didn’t take long for her to understand that they weren’t about Mr. Creswell. They were about her father. They were for the way her father had spoken to Turner all those years ago. About everything that happened that night—the night she swore hadn’t happened, hadn’t been real.

What a bastard Jonesy Carmichael had been. What a sorry excuse for a man.

Eventually, Candy cried it all out. She threw cold water on her face and went back to the counter, and made it through the rest of the rush without incident. In fact, a couple of her regulars told her to not pay any mind to old Creswell.

“Meaner than a skillet of rattlesnakes,” said one customer.

“So
ignernt
he couldn’t piss his own name in the snow,” said another.

Later that afternoon, while she sorted silverware, Candy told herself she had to be the stupidest girl on the planet to get all excited about the way Turner made her feel—she was leaving Bigler in two and a half months. While she folded aprons, she decided she wouldn’t worry about what was down the road, but would focus on enjoying the ride instead. The only thing that mattered was that she was completely, perfectly honest with Turner.

While Candy baked seven cakes, she talked herself into going back to the Victorian house on Chester Street to try negotiating with the landlady one last time. She wanted that apartment. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. This was one of those things in life she would just have to make happen.

It was close to five
P.M.
when Candy knocked on the door. The same woman answered and the same kids gathered behind her legs.

“Oh!” she said, looking surprised.

“I know you weren’t expecting me, but I’m back,” Candy said. “I am begging you to reconsider my offer. I can get you letters of recommendation if you’d like—from my boss and the publisher of the
Bugle,
who happens to be my best friend. I can provide copies of my last paycheck. And my tax returns for the last few years. It might be hard to believe, but at one point my net worth was—”

The woman put her hand on Candy’s arm. “I rented it yesterday. I’m sorry.”

Candy wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. The apartment was rented? But she was supposed to have that place. It was perfect. It was
her
place.

“I’m very sorry to have bothered you,” Candy said, turning away and heading down the steps.

“Good luck!” the woman called after her.

After last call in the library reading room, Candy again headed for the church garden. When it began to rain, she raced back to her car in Lenny’s parking lot and used the time to brainstorm by the glow of the overhead security light, jotting down some business ideas in the notebook she kept in the glove compartment. That little exercise segued into a list of pros and cons for getting involved with Turner. The cons she’d already gone over a million times in her head and began and ended with the fact that she was L-E-A-V-I-N-G. How much simpler could it get?

The pro column ended up being pretty long. Turner was a good man. He was available. He was sexy. He was sweet and kind and compassionate. He was doing something to make the world better. He believed in something more than his bank account balance or how much he could bench press. He loved his job and worked hard at it. He made Candy feel special, beautiful, desired. He made her laugh. His kisses caused her to levitate. She could watch that man walk till the end of time and never grow tired of the view.

She had to stop writing when her hand began to cramp.

Chapter 14

Candy headed home, and since it was raining hard when she arrived at Cherokee Pines, she decided to take the risk and park adjacent to the rear entrance. Her usual spot behind the senior citizen vans would require a long run to the building, which would certainly ruin Gerrall’s cake. She’d just have to remember to leave a few minutes early the next morning to make a clean getaway.

It hardly mattered. Candy was sopping wet by the time she reached the door. The cake looked more like pudding. She yanked hard on the door handle, finding solace in the fact that she’d be inside in seconds. But it didn’t budge.

“What the—?”

She tried again. Nothing. She tried harder. It was
locked
! Uh-oh.

Candy knocked. No one came. Where the hell was Gerrall? She knocked harder but stopped before she reached a full-out pound, knowing that if she banged hard enough for Gerrall to hear from the lobby then everyone else in the place would hear, too. That left her no choice but to make a run for the front entrance.

Shoving her car key in her pocket and balancing the cake in both hands, she ran through the rain, glad that she wore gym shoes, grateful for the brief dry pavement she found beneath a stand of evergreens near the building. But as she rounded the corner and hit the front lawn, a brilliant flash of lightning crackled so close she could feel the hairs on her arms stand up, and the loud
boom!
that followed made her lose her footing on the wet grass. She fell forward, the cake shooting out of her hands and skidding to a stop on the wet pavement, where it split into pieces and collapsed in a pile. Another crack of lightning, another loud
boom!,
and Candy struggled to her feet, her only goal now to get inside before she got toasted like a campfire marshmallow. But as she staggered headlong toward the entrance doors, she saw that Gerrall wasn’t at the front desk—
Miller
was!

“Shee-it!” Candy ducked low and ran quickly past the double glass doors, hoping Miller wouldn’t look up and see her. Now what? She plastered her back against the red brick exterior of the building and caught her breath, then checked her arms and legs for charred flesh. She stared out through a curtain of rain, thinking … thinking …

Candy suddenly looked to her left. The window! She could climb in Jacinta’s window! It should be easy enough to find. Hers was the sixth apartment on this side of the building.

She crouched down low and counted her way along—a bedroom and a living room window for each unit—until she reached the sixth apartment. Unfortunately, the window was just a bit too high to reach from the ground, so she jumped up and quickly tapped her fingers on the glass. The light remained off. She jumped again. Still dark. Clearly, she needed to make a more regular tapping sound to get Jacinta’s attention, so she whirled around and looked for a stick or twig in the mulch, but since the property had been landscaped to within an inch of its life, she found nothing sticklike anywhere. So Candy decided to break off a limb from one of the shrubs, an idea that sounded simple enough but involved several minutes of bending and ripping and pulling. Right when she began wishing she’d joined the Girl Scouts instead of the cheerleading squad, the branch snapped off. “Yes!” she whispered.

Candy began rhythmically tapping the branch on the window, hoping her mother would get the message that she was locked out and couldn’t come in the standard way. But nothing. Oh, no! Maybe she’d fallen asleep!

“Jacinta!” Candy hoped her loud hiss could be heard over the rain and through a closed window. “Open up! I’m outside! Jacinta!”

Candy had no choice but to climb. Dammit—she sure picked a bad day to wear a skirt to work, but there was nothing she could do about it now. So Candy pulled up her denim skirt to mid-thigh, reached up to grip the brick window ledge, and lodged her gym shoe into a groove of mortar. She pulled with all her might and rose above the ground, only to hang there in midair, too weak to pull herself all the way up. She tried again. Still couldn’t manage it. She banged the branch on the window again, harder this time, and still got no response. This was ridiculous. She was ready to cry from frustration.

“Get it together, Carmichael,” she said aloud. “You can do this. This is
nothing
. You can climb in one little freakin’ window. Now stop your blubbering and do it. Just
do
it!”

Candy gritted her teeth in determination as she reached up, jammed her toe against the brick, pulled. And pulled harder. And soon her chin cleared the window ledge, and even though her arms were shaking she let go with one hand and clutched at the vinyl window frame while walking her toes up the wall. She did it! She was there! And as soon as she pushed against the window frame it moved. Unlocked! Thank God! Finally—something had gone her way tonight.

Candy balanced all her weight on her left big toe and raised her right leg. If she could only get her knee on the ledge, then she could push her body up and over. She could get the top half of her body inside and then—