The Best of Us (11 page)

Harm laughed. “You got a new friend there Carly?”

“
Heavens no! She is trying to convince me that I can’t run the store alone and that I need her expertise. She is also trying to make sure I know that Daniel and I could never be and that she is the one for him.”

Carly thought Harm would laugh or make fun of her but instead he said, “Shows what she knows.” What an odd thing for him to say.

“
Listen, I have ten more minutes and then I can lock up.”

“
Not a problem, I’ll just look around a bit.”

Carly was starting to count down the money in the drawer when the bell jingled. She looked up and froze. Trevor was standing there; Trevor, the one that broke Jenna’s heart. They just stared at each other for a space of a couple of heartbeats.

“
Hello Trevor.” The iciness in her voice didn’t go unnoticed.

“
Hi Carly.” Trevor seemed very nervous. “How are you?”

“
What do you want?” Carly was in no mood to be civil.

“
I see you still hate me. I had hoped you would have forgiven me since…” he trailed off.

“
Since? Since what? Since Jenna is gone? Not gonna happen.”

Trevor shifted his feet uncomfortably. “I just wanted to, I mean, I just needed to,”

Carly waited to see what he was going to say.

“
What I mean is, now that Jenna is gone and she doesn’t need it, I was wondering if I could get the engagement ring back?”

“
You’ve got to be kidding me!” Carly was outraged and Harm heard it over the blood pounding in his ears. He had started back to the front when he heard the bell and had heard the last thing Trevor had said.

“
You son of a…Get out of here! Don’t you ever step foot in this store again. Do you hear me?” Carly was coming around the counter, Harm cut her off when he came toward Trevor. Trevor hadn’t been aware that he was there until it was too late to move out of reach. Harm grabbed hold of Trevor’s sleeve and twisted his arm around. He then grabbed a handful of his shirt collar and pulled him to the door. Carly already had opened the door. Harm threw him out, nearly causing him to fall on the sidewalk but he caught his balance before he actually fell.

“
Don’t you ever come around any of my family again or I won’t be so nice.” Harm said in a low and menacing voice.

“
Carly isn’t your family.” Trevor managed to squeak out.

“
Carly is family and if I hear that you’ve come near her again, I will not be as gentle. Get your sorry butt out of here.” Harm added, “NOW!” when Trevor just continued to stand there. But with the last word, he turned tail and ran.

“
You okay?” Harm said turning to Carly.

“
The nerve of that weasel! Jenna finished paying off that ring after he dumped her and he has the nerve to feel he has a right to it!”

Harm put his arm around her and hugged her tight. “Come on, let’s get locked up and go find some food.”

By the time they reached the pizza parlor, they had both calmed down. They got a booth toward the back away from the video games. They wouldn’t have been able to talk with the group of boys that were enjoying the games the owner had added a couple of months ago to help bring in business.

Once they placed their order and received their drinks, Carly leaned forward and said, “So, what’s going on?”

“
What do you mean? I told you I just wanted to catch up.”

Carly gave a quick bark of laughter, “It’s Friday night and you are never without a date. So fess up…what made you come see me instead of going out with whoever it is you’re seeing now?”

“
You know I would rather have pizza with you then go out with anyone else.” Harm was one of the sweetest men she knew, but she had known him long enough to know when not to believe him and the look she gave him said so.

“
Okay, okay,” Harm held his hands up as if surrendering. “I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he continued when he saw her about to argue, “and to see what was going on with you and Mike.”

“
HA! I knew you had an ulterior motive.” Carly looked smug. “What exactly did you want to know?” Her smug looked changed to suspicious.

“
Look Carly, this is just me and you. I know how you feel about Daniel and I’m worried that you are making decisions based on hurt feelings rather then what you really want.”

Carly didn’t know how to respond. Harm, nor Carter, had ever tried to talk to her about Daniel. Jenna was the only one that she had ever talked to about Daniel. She looked down at the straw wrapper she had been absently playing with and tried to figure out what to say.

“
Harm, I’m touched, really I am. But don’t you think that I’ve spent enough time following Daniel around like a puppy? He isn’t interested and I’m not getting younger. I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting for something to happen. It’s not gonna happen.”

“
Don’t be too sure.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Daniel isn’t real happy about you and Mike. It’s bothering him; he just hasn’t come to terms with it yet.”

“
You’re seeing things that aren’t there Harm.”

“
No I’m not. Carter and I both saw how he acted with you at the ball. He couldn’t take his eyes off you and it ticked him off.”

Carly laughed, “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? He looks at me and gets ticked off?”

“
You’re not getting it. He didn’t know what to do with the feelings he was having and that’s what he resorted to. It’s his fallback when he doesn’t know how to respond to something, always has been. When he doesn’t know how to act, he gets mad.”

“
I think you’ve got it all wrong. Daniel told me that nothing could ever come of us. He told me I’m like a sister to him.”

Harm didn’t know whether to laugh at the sister comment or curse at the whole situation. Instead he just said, “He never acted this way around Jenna. Trust me; he doesn’t see you as a sister anymore!” Before Carly could comment Harm rushed on, “Okay, we have all thought of you as a sister in the past, but Daniel has finally gotten the blinders off. He doesn’t see you that way anymore and he doesn’t know what to do about it.”

“
I need to get some space between us. He doesn’t want anything to happen; he likes things the way they’ve always been. I don’t want to be the one to cause the change in our relationship and have him resent it. If he feels anger over the way he feels, then I will step out of the way. With Mike and me going out, I get to experience what it is to have feelings for someone else…” Carly let the sentence falter.

Harm looked expectantly at her, waiting for her to explain, when she didn’t he said, “I take it that means that you haven’t developed any feelings for Mike.”

Tears filled her eyes but none fell. “Harm, I want to feel something for him. He’s a great catch. He’s really nice, sweet and thoughtful.”

“
But?”

“
But, it isn’t there. We are supposed to go out tomorrow and if there’s no spark, I’m going to let Mike know that it just isn’t working.” Carly looked so downtrodden that Harm couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her.

“
I just want to be happy and the man I want doesn’t want me and the man that does, well, I don’t have any special feelings for him.” Carly looked up at Harm, “Why does life mess with you like that?”

“
Honey, if I knew the answer to that, I could become a very rich man.” Harm looked at the misery he could see in her eyes, “It’ll work out, trust me.”

Carly had about as much as she could take and didn’t know what to do about any of it. She just smiled and nodded as she pretended to eat a bite of pizza.

Saturday, the day of her date with Mike, was a beautiful day and Carly was miserable. She knew that nothing would come of her relationship with Mike. She just had to figure out what she needed to do with her life now that Jenna was gone and the store didn’t hold the same appeal that it once had.

“
I would like it if you would come by and take a look at the store to see what, if I decide to sell, I should or could get out of it.” Carly was on the phone with an old high school friend that was now a realtor. “I’m interested in possibly selling with all the store stock included. The items in the apartment wouldn’t stay.” Carly had been doing a lot of thinking and she felt it was time for a change.

“
Are you sure?”

“
I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I would like your opinion on what my options are.”

“
Okay, today isn’t a good day though, how about first thing Monday morning?”

“
That would be great. I open at nine. I can let you in early if you want to look around why we are still closed.”

“
Eight o’clock would be perfect.”

“
Great, I’ll see you at eight, Monday.”

With that taken care of, Carly set about her day just waiting for tonight. The night she’s going to tell Mike that she just wants to be friends.

“
I’ve been watching the store. I started to go in, but there were too many people in there. I got as far as the threshold and turned to leave before I was seen. But I did hear the woman running the store on the phone confirming a date for tonight.” The woman took a deep breath, “We will go into the apartment tonight. We have to find it!”

“
Look, I don’t like this. We can get into some serious trouble. It’s not worth it!”

“
It is to me!” The woman snarled into the phone. “Come pick me up at seven. We will go in as soon as we are sure she’s gone.”

The day had been uneventful. The guys had quit spending the whole day with her in the store but several times a day, someone from the fire station or one of the Wayne boys would just happen to come by. She was rarely alone.

Her date with Mike was coming up but she still had a little bit before Mike would be there so she decided to relax, as she was turning to head upstairs the phone rang.

“
Treasures.”

“
Hey Carly.”

“
Hi Mike.”

“
Listen, I’ve been delayed a bit but I’m still coming if you don’t mind getting a late start.”

“
Well, I don’t guess it matters. What time are you thinking?”

“
It’ll be a couple of hours yet, how is eight thirty? Can you wait until then to grab a bite to eat? I’ll call ahead and order a pizza. It should be ready when we get there then we can walk across the street to the movies at ten. What do you think?”

“
That sounds fine. The store will be locked so just call when you pull up and I’ll come on down.”

“
It’s a deal.” Mike said as he hung up.

Carly hadn’t slept well the night before after her strange conversation with Harm. Carly still didn’t have any idea why Daniel had sent her flowers. He’d only come in once since he’d sent them and there were a lot of people in the store at the time so they didn’t talk. Since she was afraid that she might fall asleep during a late movie she had planned to rest her eyes, but now she could take a short nap.

It took Carly longer then she’d expected to fall asleep; she hadn’t been asleep long when she was suddenly awakened. She wasn’t sure what had awakened her, but sure that something had. She had her phone next to her so she didn’t miss Mike when he called but the phone hadn’t rang. Carly looked around the dark living room but didn’t know what had awakened her. She hadn’t turned on any lights when she had come up and with the living room not having any windows, it was dark in there.

Carly was just starting to relax when she heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open and close. Carly held her breath and just listened. All of Jenna’s brothers had a key to the store and could easily be dropping by her apartment, but it was unusual. Plus the footsteps were slow and quiet. If it wasn’t for the creaky stairs, Carly wouldn’t even be able to hear anyone. The stairs came into the apartment facing the kitchen but when you got to the top and turned right, you were looking directly into the living room. Carly stayed very still, it was dark enough that if whoever it was didn’t turn on a light and she didn’t move, they might not see her.