Forgetting Jack Cooper: The Outlaw Edition Page 4

  She did, extending her leg to let him easily slide the boot free, first the left, then the right. He pulled off her socks as well, then rolled up the cuffs of her jeans while he was at it. The feel of her soft skin hit him harder than he expected, so at first he didn’t notice how quiet she was.

  Then he looked up to see her eyeing him oddly. “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just—your arm,” she said, but he got the feeling that wasn’t what had caused her to stare. Still, she gestured to his arm, where a spray of old scars lay white against the darker tan he sported in the summer. “What happened?”

  “Nothing much.” He stood and pulled her off the bench, pointing her toward the beach. He paused only long enough to grab a couple of small water bottles with his free hand. “I was in the military for a couple of tours—Air Force, special operations. Not everyone in the air force jumps out of planes, but I did. When I was still figuring out how to do that correctly, I got a little dinged up.” Not exactly true, but close enough for now.

  But Chantal still watched him funny, more curiosity in her eyes as they passed through the dunes again and out onto the open beach. “Did you see combat?” she asked, then immediately grimaced. “I hope that’s not rude to ask.”

  “It’s not,” he shrugged. “Air Force doesn’t typically see a lot, but where we were stationed it was all hands on deck. We went in right alongside the Army in some cases. Fighting terrorism’s changed a lot of the old rules.”

  “Yeah, I bet.” Chantal’s voice was a little quieter, but she didn’t drop his hand—hopefully he hadn’t freaked her out. Being in the service didn’t define him, it’d just been the right thing to do. Like taking care of his great aunt and uncle was. Like being here on this beach was, too.

  He looked up, slowed to a stop. “It’ll be soon, now. The sunset, I mean.”

  She squinted down the beach. “Looks like you’re not the only one who thinks so.”

  The other beachgoers—the few that were on this more isolated strip of sand—had slowed as well, couples drawing together as the sun began to slip down toward the horizon. There was a low line of clouds right at the water’s edge, and the sun had turned them into puffs of pink and purple and orange—the colors growing ever more vibrant as they watched.

  “Is this what you wanted me to see?” she asked, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was staring at the horizon, her lips parted, her eyes wide. To Luc, she somehow managed to look even more beautiful in that moment, and he knew this had been the right thing to do. Even if Chantal never came back to this strip of sand, she’d remember it, he knew. Maybe even think about it, from time to time.

  Without waiting for him to reply, she turned and looked up at him, and he couldn’t read the expression on her face—didn’t have time, really, because just that quickly she leaned up against him, standing on her toes, her face angling to the side as their lips brushed once—twice.

  All the breath seemed to die in Luc’s throat, and everything on his body that could go hard…did, in the space of two breaths. He dropped the water bottles into the sand and slid his arm around Chantal, deepening the kiss. She lifted her hands to either side of his face, her fingers threading through his short hair. He could hear her heart pounding as heavily as his own, and when they broke apart a few moments later, he suspected he looked as dazed as she did.

  “Uh, wow. Sorry,” she managed with a small laugh. She stepped back from him, but not all that far.

  “Don’t be,” Luc grinned. “It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  He gestured at the other couples, several of whom were embracing, then leaned down and picked up the bottles again.

  He handed one to Chantal. “My folks would always toast the sunset with whatever they had, so long as it was stronger than water—I figured it was a good tradition to keep going. I didn’t know if you drank, though.”

  She unscrewed the cap, sniffed the bottle, then screwed up her nose. “Sweet tea?”

  “Well, it is the south.”

  Laughing, she touched the bottle to his. “To the sunset, then,” she said, smiling up at him. “And to whatever you have in that picnic basket back there in the dunes, which I suspect is going to spoil me for every first date from now until the end of time.”

  Luc felt his heart squeeze in his chest. He’d been raised right, and he wouldn’t tackle this woman to the ground no matter how much he wanted to. At least…not tonight.

  But he also was pretty sure he never wanted her to have a first date with anyone else, after tonight.

  He offered her a grin. “Spoken like a lady in need of some serious spoiling,” he said. “So it looks like I’d better get started.”

  And he leaned forward again and kissed her.

  Chapter Four

  “Yo, Chant, watch out!”

  Chantal jerked herself back to awareness as she hopped back from the main drag. She barely avoided the enormous Harley Davidson cruising way too close to the sidewalk, its octogenarian owner grinning ear to ear beneath his old-fashioned half helmet and thick goggles.

  Murdoch elbowed her arm as they continued walking. “Anything wrong, boss?” he asked in his crusty voice, made rougher still by three solid days of jawing with customers, suppliers and prospects.

  “Yeah, I’m worried you’re going to gain a hundred pounds by the time this week is out, you keep eating those doughnuts,” she said, eyeing the white-dusted pastry in Murdoch’s thick paw.

  “This is a beignet, I’ll have you know,” her chief mechanic grinned. With his other hand he patted his flat stomach. “And the way this crowd is running me ragged, I need all the calories I can get.”

  He had a point. The bike rally in Panama City Beach had been Sex Machina’s most successful yet, especially when it came to foot traffic from curious onlookers. That traffic had shot up into the stratosphere with the arrival of a cute kiosk from La Boulangerie, filled with free pastries every morning by one of Luc’s staff. Murdoch had had the idea of laying out any gear sporting French fleur-de-lis next to the kiosk, and they’d practically sold out of the stuff within the first day. After that, enough buzz had built for the free pastries that they’d become one of the more popular spots in the rally. All their lower end gear had been sold—and some mid-priced stuff besides. A new shipment was coming in to finish out the last few days of the event.

  “Who would have thought we just needed to add food,” she muttered, surveying the crowd. As usual with rallies, it spanned the gamut—old, young, rich, poor, wild and timid. It helped that the weather was beautiful, of course, and that Panama City Beach had dealt with more than its share of public events. The police were everywhere, and a pervasive feeling of safety hung in the air.

  Murdoch snorted. “Not just any food. This stuff is the best—not too messy, other than the sugar, not too big, easy to talk around—especially when the coffee hasn’t run out. It also plays off your name, which never hurts, and it’s classy. Classy is good.”

  “We’re nothing if not classy,” Chantal agreed, brushing a dusting of sugar off Murdoch’s black shirt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a hulking, familiar form, and she kept her smile steady. “Keep walking. Granger’s glaring at us.”

  “Let ‘im glare,” Murdoch said, but he ambled on casually enough, his smile never wavering. “If he’s noticed our traffic, well, so’s everybody else. Not like he’s our competition anyway.”

  “Yeah…” Chantal blew out a long breath. Granger’d left her alone after that first day, but she knew he’d seen Luc around, and she couldn’t help but be nervous about that. Most of the time she didn’t mix her work and personal life, but Luc was—well, he wasn’t like anyone she’d ever met before. He’d wined and dined her on that first date and then they’d sat by the water for a while, wrapped up in thick cotton blankets—but he’d never made a move on her beyond kissing her goodnight. Though without question…it’d been one hell of a kiss.

  They’d gone out a couple of times after that, but gi
ven her responsibilities with the rally and his early hours at the bakery, only for a few hours here and there. Conversation had come easily, but every time she’d wanted to learn more about him, or God forbid take off her clothes, one or the other of their phones had chirped, rang or chimed. It was about to drive her insane.

  This evening, though, she was taking the night off. He’d promised her dinner and was actually picking her up, so she was bound and determined to get more than a basic kiss. Just the idea of seeing Luc without his shirt on…

  “Earth to Chant, come in Chant.”

  Murdoch was poking her again, and Chantal realized they were back in front of the Sex Machina site, a cluster of people standing around the bikes and a few guys in suits obviously waiting for her. Sex Machina helmets were starting to create as much buzz as their bike detailing, ditto their women’s line. They were one of the few places who didn’t look at women’s gear merely as a manifesto to take a man’s item and “shrink it and pink it.” Women had noticed, sales had shot through the roof, and now she was getting more attention from larger retailers every day.

  Keeping all that in mind, Chantal dutifully plastered on the biggest smile she could, ruefully noting the day’s pastries had already been cleared out. Oh, well. She was going to get the real thing later. She could wait.

  It was past sunset by the time her day finally wound down, and, as she had for the last few nights, Chantal couldn’t help feeling depressed about that. She kept missing the sunset, wondering if Luc was watching it on that pretty strip of beach—or if he was watching it with someone else, which was worse. Ridiculous, since she’d only just met the guy, and yet…

  She knew the moment Luc arrived at their booth, however, and not only because he was greeted as the entire crew’s best friend, all of them now firm converts to French baking and espresso. The whole atmosphere of the rally seemed a little bit brighter and fizzier when Luc was around. He didn’t make her nervous, exactly, he simply—made her want to smile. It was no more complicated than that.

  “Chantal.” She could tell he’d just come from either the bakery or his great aunt’s, because his accent was thickly French. “I haven’t come too early, have I? If you’re not ready, I can come back.”

  “Please, no,” Murdoch groaned. “She’s been a distracted mess all day. Get her out of here, and don’t bring her back until it’s time for more beignets.”

  The crew guffawed, but Chantal just rolled her eyes, and Luc took the ribbing in stride. He appeared equally comfortable around her team as he had that first day in his bakery. It also seemed like he knew half the town—from little kids to old people—judging by everyone who waved at him or called out his name at the rally. He was meant for this little town, she thought, even though he seemed way too young to be putting down roots anywhere. The thought made her unreasonably wistful.

  “Mind if we drop by my great aunt’s on the way to dinner?” Luc asked as they walked to his truck. “I made dessert earlier today, and she insisted I leave it so that it stayed cool for as long as possible.”

  “Not a problem at all.”

  Chantal forced herself to wait until he opened the door for her—another weird thing he did that she could get used to, whenever a motorcycle wasn’t her means of transportation anyway—then slid into Luc’s truck. It smelled of fresh bread, and she flopped back on the seat, smiling as she gazed out the window.

  Then she blinked. Was that Granger, skulking in the…no. It couldn’t be.

  Stop worrying so much, she admonished herself. His setup’s on the other side of the rally. That wasn’t him.

  “You okay?” Luc’s voice was even, steady, and she flashed him a quick look. Her first instinct was to ignore her own concern, but for some reason…

  “Yeah,” she said. “But there’s this guy, Granger. We dated years ago, and he’s never let me forget it. Only now he’s gotten weird.”

  “Biker?”

  “In his dreams,” she snorted, surprised at how good she felt sharing even this small worry with someone else. It wasn’t something she’d ever done. “He started out okay—we worked for the same guy at the beginning—but it takes a lot of persistence to get anywhere in the biking community, and working hard isn’t so much Granger’s thing. So he’s stayed on the fringes, I guess you’d say. Now he sells tee-shirts, low-end gear, that sort of thing. Tends to stir things up, make a lot of noise.” She shrugged it off. “He’s trouble, but not major trouble, if that makes sense.”

  “It does,” Luc said. His phone pinged, and he pulled it out, talking while he scanned the screen. “I overheard a bit of your interview with Jack Cooper that first day. Sounds like you’ve had some experience with trouble.”

  She grinned, settling back in the seat. Granger had definitely disappeared in the crowd. Good. “Yeah, well. That whole incident at the old man’s garage—I was there first, you want to know the truth. I’d been popping in regularly to check out Hassel’s cars. Man was richer than God, had a whole barn full of ‘em, and his locks were easy to pick. I was working my way up to the Ferrari, and it was just my bad luck that Jack and his idiot friends decided to get the same idea when I was in there.” She gave a short laugh, remembering it. “Trouble has a habit of following me around, I guess.”

  “Can’t say that I blame it,” Luc responded, easily enough. He shut off his phone and slid it into the door, then started up the truck. “Sorry. I sometimes feel tied to that stupid phone, but we’re trying out some new stuff coming up, and everyone’s excited.”

  “I should be better about checking mine,” she said, patting her pocket—yes, she had it. “Makes Murdoch crazy when I don’t answer, but I’m not so good at being tied down.”

  Luc chuckled at that, but the moment seemed to become a little strained, and Chantal turned to the window. She felt like she’d said the wrong thing, somehow, but it was only the truth.

  The ride to Luc’s great aunt’s was barely twenty minutes, but the cute little street they turned down was night and day from the noise and lights of the rally. Chantal stared at house after house, each of them bordered by white ornamental picket fences. The whole scene looked like something out of a Disney movie.

  “Here we are. It’ll just be a minute.” Luc pulled into the drive, then cut the engine.

  “Can I look around?”

  “Of course.”

  As Luc went to the front door of the house, Chantal slid out of the truck and walked over to the fence, her hand dropping to it. Inside was a profusion of beautiful flowers, and she started as Luc’s great uncle popped up, grinning at her through a lilac bush.

  “Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Chantal!” he said. “You like our garden?”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, honestly. “Not for me, I guess. But it’s lovely.”

  “Not for you?” His bushy eyebrows lifted, his eyes still twinkling. “Mais, pourquois-pas?”

  Chantal didn’t know what he was asking, but it seemed like, “Why not?”

  She tapped the fence. “I never was that good with fences, I guess,” she said. “I always seem a little too eager to bust out of them.”

  “Ah!” the old man said, turning to the fence and nodding. “I see, I see, yes.”

  He didn’t seem at all nonplussed by her admission, though. Instead, he turned and beamed. “You like our Luc, yes? He is a good man. A very good man.”

  Chantal laughed at his earnestness, but found herself nodding as well. “He is definitely that,” she said. “What’s this flower?”

  With that, Jerome was off on a tear, and in what seemed like no time flat, Luc was back…carrying a suspiciously large box.

  Chantal eyed it while he greeted his great uncle. “What in the world is in there?”

  “You’ll see,” Luc grinned. “But we need to handle it carefully or it’ll tip over, and Tante will never let me hear the end of it.” He nodded to the truck. “Ladies first.”

  Luc didn’t miss Chantal’s curiosity as he pointed his truck back toward the be
ach. They hadn’t had much time truly alone since that perfect first date on the white sands of the gulf shore, but he had something a little different in mind for tonight.

  He pulled into his rental—for that’s really what it was, much more so than his full-time residence—and glanced over to Chantal.

  Her eyes were wide. “You live here?”

  “Some of the time,” he said. “I rent it out to tourists, mostly, especially with Tante Patrice and Jerome getting older. It’s empty right now, though. I decided not to rent it out for this month so I could finish up some renovations before the rainy season hit.”

  “But aren’t you missing out on primo rates?” she asked, not moving. “This place has to be popular. It’s right next to the beach.”

  “Not on the water, but yeah, it does alright.” He exited the truck and moved around to her door, helping her ease out with the pastry box. “Remember, if that thing tips before we eat it, Tante will never forgive me…So, plan on lying if that happens.”

  Chantal giggled, but dutifully followed Luc up the flight of stairs to the front door of the beach house. When she glimpsed the ocean between the buildings, however, she gasped. “You really are close.”

  Then they were inside, and the home’s high-ceilinged rooms and cool, crisp furnishings surrounded them. Luc grimaced, wondering how it must look to her. “Sorry about the décor. I was going for the broadest possible appeal, and put Tante on acquisitions duty. Everything here probably appeared on HGTV at one point or another.”

  Chantal, however, looked around and smiled. “She did an amazing job.”

  They didn’t stop until they reached the kitchen, and then only to put down the dessert. “What is this, anyway?” she asked.

  “Go ahead and look.”

  Obligingly, Chantal peeled away the wrapping, exposing the confection underneath. She frowned, clearly confused. “But…it’s so pretty.”