Love Me: The Complete Series (71 page)

“Hey Gandhi. You have another customer.” Abby called. Abby had coined Caroline’s new nickname by prophesizing they’d turn a profit.

“Would you mind handling it? I’m in the middle of unpacking this delivery.” She stared at one remaining box.

“I’ll take the boxes for you. This one asked for you personally.”

Huh? What? None of their customers knew her personally.

She dug out the dustpan and broom from a closet and used a hip to shove backward through the door just as Abby yanked it wide. She stumbled into the room. Oh, shit. “Roger?”

“What’s up?”

She held up the broom. “Working.” Abby shoved her in the back and closed the office door, flipping the lock in place. What the heck?

“I thought we should talk.”

She heard the buzzer on the back door, then a clank. Abby had shoved her into the darkened store with Roger, then escaped out the back. The coward.

“What about? I mean, there’s not much to say. We haven’t exactly kept in touch.” Her stomach did a small somersault, and she rubbed a hand down her front to still the rumble.

He stepped toward her. “Whose fault is that?”

Gulp. “Hey, I called.”

He rolled his eyes. “How was it over there?”

Why did she have a sneaking feeling he already knew? “Fine. Good. What does it matter? That was years ago.”

Roger stopped two feet away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, what’s your story now?” He reached up and flipped a finger against her hair. “Have you turned into a man-hater, or is it just me that burns your ass?”

“It’s just you,” she snarked.

He snickered, exposing a glimpse of those famous dimples, then lifted a hand to run through his hair. “Well, that’s a first.”

“Oh come on. Not everyone thinks you’re completely perfect.”

That made him laugh once. “I’m not even close, and that wasn’t what I meant. Most women hate me
after
they sleep with me. Not before. We never made it that far.”

Caroline shrugged. “Well, there you have it then. I guess I just skipped to the punch line. Look at it this way: you dodged a bullet. ‘Not before’ insinuates there’s an after coming. There isn’t. That ship has already sailed, buddy.”

Roger plucked a pink rose from a vase and held it to her cheek. His brown eyes twinkled in the dark. “Don’t you ever wonder what we’d have been like together if we’d stuck it out?”

There was no way in hell she’d answer
that
question. She glanced beyond him as a police car’s siren wailed past from the nearby station. The lights sent a blue comet across the room. “Stuck what out, Rog? We were friends. College buddies. It wasn’t serious.”

“Right.” A flash of something crossed his face. Anger? Sadness? He held her gaze and eased closer until his lips hovered within inches. She tried to step backward, but her butt hit a shelf. Holding her breath, Caroline searched for an escape path. God knows her entire body had gone into overdrive as soon as he stepped into her comfort zone.

“Soooo, college buddy, how many guys have done this since me?” His lips felt warm and comfortable when they met hers. She stilled, trying not to respond.

She failed. Her brain fogged just enough to slow her response. She spoke against his lips. “You want a number or descriptions?”

His lip twitched at the corner as he trailed more kisses along her cheek before returning to her mouth. “I don’t really care.” His tongue flicked across her lips, and damned if her mouth didn’t open without her consent.

He kissed her until her hand crawled up his chest and tickled through his thick brown hair. When he finally pulled away, her heart thudded against his chest. She gulped for air then spoke. “Would that be just the guys?”

He laughed, his heated breath toasting her face. “Very funny.”

She shrugged in an attempt to get her pulse under control. “I thought so.”

“Be serious, Caro.”

Caroline frowned. “No. Let’s don’t. I hate serious.” That was true. She’d had enough
serious
for a lifetime over in Teslehad. “I have no desire to be serious—not then, not now, not ever. So, if this little test of yours is over ... can I go now?”

Three months later, Roger stared at the blackish-blue paint on his walls in bewilderment. Nothing about the changes felt right. How had he let Marina and his mother talk him into this? He snickered.
Because it was safer than meeting her for dinner a second time
. God knows what she’d do to him then. The giant marshmallow-shaped sectional dared him to jump aboard and toss the perfectly placed pillows. Wait. Was that a brown patch on the cushions? He stepped closer and crouched down to see ... a paw. Conan was in that pile of pillows somewhere.

“Hey, big guy.”

A moan echoed from the velour depths, and a pillow rumbled to life then shifted aside to reveal a chocolate eye surrounded in fur. Roger laughed. His bachelor-pad comfy couch was perfect for an oversized old bachelor—of the canine variety. Conan’s head emerged from the pillows, and he arched a wrinkled ear to Roger as if to ask why he’d been roused from a perfect nap. The dog stretched, taking up all six feet of cushions, then rolled to display his back to Roger. A classic
leave me alone
move.

Roger obliged. He went to work.

Around nine o’clock, his mother called to remind him he was eating at her house on Saturday. At eleven thirty, Rhianna called to ask if he’d stop by and repair a broken hinge on her bathroom door. At 3:43, Rebecca texted to ask him a calculus question.

His life was run by women—and boring as hell. A slow boil in his brain seethed through and by the time he’d left the office, he’d snapped twice at the receptionist and said something incoherently inappropriate to Abby, the plant lady who just happened to be his friend Carter’s soul mate. If he didn’t get a little respite from overbearing female companionship, he was going to explode.

The fiasco with Rhianna’s door increased his frustration exponentially. He showed up at her forty-year-old home wary of the time involved in her repair. His sister loved renovations. Truthfully, her friends were as much a project to her as her house: she was always trying to reinvent them into something more than they wished. Her husband, Trey, was no exception, a definite work in progress with zero talent for repairing old doors or leaky faucets.

Once the door was moving freely, Rhianna padded to the kitchen and tapped a paper on her counter. “You should go to this with me. It’s next Tuesday evening.”

A colorful flyer demanded his attention.
Reinvention Convention—Are You Struggling To Find Your Passion?

He frowned. “Passion isn’t exactly what I need at the moment. Besides, you know as well as I that we’d be sitting a room full of middle-aged women unhappy with their lives.”

She sighed. “You don’t know that.”

Yes, he did. He hiked a brow in response.

She threw up her arms. “Okay, maybe there will be more women than men, but that’s a
good
thing for a single, unattached man who—”

“Wants to stay single and unattached. Why does everyone in our family throw random women at me?”

Her eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

“Mom took the liberty of hiring a decorator for my house.”

She grinned, a dead giveaway she already knew. “Oh, really?”

He nodded. “Really, except
I
had to pay for it. There was a huge discount, but ... she’s trying to fix me up again.” He wadded up the flyer on her counter and reached to toss it at the waste can.

“Hey.” Rhianna grabbed for his hands. “I want that. I’m going with or without you.”

“Oh, uh, my bad.” He smoothed out the paper in a futile attempt to remove the creases. “Sorry, sis. I love you, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to one of those rah-rah self-help things. I’d rather pluck my whiskers out with a pair of pliers. That’s a job for your husband. Your door’s fixed. I’m going home. Have fun finding your passion.” The only passion he had at the moment was for adventure. He didn’t want any more busybody women steering his life. He seriously doubted her geek-a-zoid husband would oblige willingly either.

Roger shoved out the door before she had a chance to argue. At the office later, he dove into the paperwork and budgetary documentation for a project Carter and he were sharing. The sound of footsteps plodding on the carpet caught his attention. Someone else was working on a weekend?

“Knock, knock.” Carter leaned in. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You shouldn’t either.”

“I don’t have a choice. By tomorrow morning, I’ll be flying over the Atlantic.”

“Need anything from me before you go?”

“Nah, just don’t send any more of your fancy text messages about boobs, butts, or babes. Okay? I don’t think Abby’d forgive me.” Carter wasn’t joking.

Carter had been commuting to Indonesia for months. No wonder he and Abby had had such a rocky start. It hadn’t helped that Caroline pushed things along with erroneous text messages.

Which reminded him he hadn’t looked at her blog in a few days. After Carter strode back to his office, Roger pulled up the browser link. He’d placed a shortcut on his desktop and fictitiously labeled it “News” just in case anyone looked.

Caroline was good with words. Funny, too. Her post today was about Love, Lust, and Lavender. A cute title. Apparently love is purple according to her blog post. He smiled as she rambled on about how much women love the scent of lavender.

Roger’s eyes bugged at the last paragraph. “What the hell?”

For all you men who own big slobbering dogs that need discipline, the smell of dog fur and Purina isn’t exactly the aphrodisiac a girl needs. Clean your place and burn a candle. If the animal is bent on marking his territory, buy a pot of lavender to mask him with something attractive in the scent category.

Was that a jab at him? Or maybe at Conan? He grunted. Scrolling down the screen, he read three comments that pissed him off further as women expounded on smelly dogs, underwear, gym clothes, and men’s flatulence.
Hey, come on, women fart too. Besides, Conan doesn’t stink.
I wash him twice a week—more if he runs around in the dirt.
Surely he’d know if his place reeked of dog, right?

“I’ll stick up for you, Conan.” He was talking to thin air as he keyed in a response and pressed submit.

Two days later, Caroline recognized she had fallen into the role of marketing coordinator just as easily as Abby fell into the role of accountant and store manager. The creativity of marketing was similar to journalism, and being able to write from the heart was like fulfilling her destiny. Yes, corny but true. Maybe she was her father’s daughter after all. It added a little bounce to her step as she waltzed to unlock the door, and she smiled at the cheerful jingle of their old-fashioned door alarm.

Abby and Carter were having breakfast together at the coffee shop down the street—a good descriptor for morning nookie. Thank God they’d finally had their come-to-Jesus meeting. It had taken months for them to sort out all their mistaken identities, which had grown exponentially more complicated with every text and online app. Geeze, those smart phones were dumb. She switched the sign to
Open
and skip-danced to the office in the back. She couldn’t wait to write her next blog post about the epic adventures of her partner and the store.

The worst thing about having a business partner-slash-friend in a happy relationship? It made Caroline realize how perfectly and proportionately
un
happy her own life felt. Top that with being locked in the store with ex-flame and crazy-lech guy Roger for a few minutes of mind-numbing kissing, and Caroline wanted to barf. She still hadn’t forgiven Abby for that gimmick. Abby said he’d begged for a few minutes alone with her to talk. But then he hadn’t talked; he’d
criticized
.

Who the hell was he to tell her how much
she’d
changed? Had he traveled the world seeking a news media career comparable to her father’s? Had he witnessed the inhumane cruelties of third-world countries and intolerable abuse of children and women?

No. He hadn’t even left his fricking hometown. The smug, over-snarky prick. Speaking of changes, he’d turned into a marshmallow. Not fat, but soft and lacking in adventure. Ironic, considering he’d been the one with all the fancy big-ass plans of becoming an entrepreneur. How could he judge her for pursuing a personal dream of her own?

Crash.
What the hell was that? The wheels of her chair squealed as she jolted up, spinning it across the small space. She rushed through the door.

“I’ll pay for the damage. I promise.”
Roger?
Caroline blinked to be sure.

“What are you doing?” Caroline hadn’t seen him in a while and noted the way his jeans cuddled his body. They fit perfectly—dammit. Worn smooth in all the right places and slung low on his waist. His sockless feet were comfortably lodged into loafers, which bared a dapple of hair on the arches of his feet. She swallowed.

He bent to clean up the debris from the plant he’d knocked over. The guy was a walking, talking wrecking ball. He met her gaze. “I thought I’d sign up for one of those package deals you’re advertising. You know, the one on your website.”

She folded her arms and cocked a brow. “For a girl or guy?”

Roger stood and mirrored her gesture—showing his normal sass. Or should she say “ass”?

“A guy? Seriously? What guy wants flowers?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a finger to silence the words.

“Don’t. It’s for a girl—actually, a group of girls.”

Caroline rolled her eyes and rounded the counter to get her enrollment book for the BFB service. “Of course.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I have sisters, okay?”

Caroline could probably get on board with selling flowers to a sister or two. “None of my business. We just need names and addresses for the recipients on this form.” She slid a blank page his way. “Here’s a pen.”

He browsed the paper. “I’ll need two of these.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Roger shook his head, and she noted the scruffiness of beard growth at his cheeks. Was he growing it out, or had he just forgotten to shave? “Nope, three sisters plus my mother—but you already knew that. Or have you forgotten more than just our body heat?”