Once Bitten Twice Shy. Sommer Marsden
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her bag. She hurried off to find the farm stand that sold the best raw honey and always had wonderful big zucchinis. She put a hand to her face, feeling the heat there. She had been blushing after all.
She was deciding between cloverleaf and lavender honey when she saw him. His hair jet-black in the sun, his eyes gleaming bright as he squinted at heirloom tomatoes. Her heart rabbit kicked and her stomach dropped. August heard herself let out a low moan and the honey man noticed because he looked up.
Kendall.
August felt her lips go numb. Her number one signal that her body was under extreme anxiety. Her fingers started to shake and then the man glanced her way. Not Kendall. His doppelgänger perhaps. But not him.
Air whooshed into her lungs but the damage was done. Her body, despite the false alarm, was on red alert. All she wanted to be then was home. Home, painting, sipping a cup of tea and listening to The Dead Weather on her iPod.
August took a deep breath, handed the man fifteen dollars for the honey and took her change.
‘You OK, Miss?’ he asked. He was younger than Mac, but just as weathered. His truck read Hollow Farms so she knew that like Mac he was a farmer.
‘Fine. Just…tired. I thought –’ She smiled suddenly, waved him away and said, ‘Fine. Have a good day.’
She turned quickly, eager to get back to her car and home. The magical quality of the market had worn off. She’d skip the vegetables and wouldn’t run into the stationery store for blank cards the way she’d intended. She just wanted to get home.
August promptly ran right into a small blonde woman whose cider proceeded to spill over and soak them both.
‘I am so, so sorry –’ She started, looking into deep-brown eyes that somehow reminded her of Jack’s. ‘I’m so clumsy. Sorry – can I –’
She was cut off in mid-sentence when a familiar face appeared behind the woman and said with great concern, ‘August? Are you OK?’
Jack.
The man was Jack.
‘You know, I’d have a hard time forgiving cider on my favourite shirt if it weren’t for the fact that you made that amazing stationery,’ Kelly Murphy said. She had rich brown eyes like her brother but her hair was a shade lighter.
‘Stop busting her chops, Kel,’ Jack said, setting a decaf caramel latte in front of August.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘And it’s fine. I feel like such a klutz.’
‘You looked spooked,’ Jack said, pulling up a chair next to her. He took a sip of his Chai tea and the spicy scent of it hit August fully. For some reason it made her crave pumpkin pie. She didn’t acknowledge his statement.
‘I was only joking,’ Kelly said, laying a hand atop August’s. ‘You know that, right?’
‘I know. I know. I do feel horrible, though.’
‘Don’t. I’d have spilled this on myself anyway,’ Kelly said, hoisting a double mocha concoction.
‘It’s true,’ Jack said. ‘We’ve become convinced she has a hole in her chin.’
Kelly shot her brother the bird and August couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Glad you joined us for coffee. Do you shop at Toby’s?’
Toby’s was the stationery store located on the shopping strip that housed the open air market. It had been on her list of things to do today. ‘I do. I get all my blank paper and sets there. I know the manager and since I buy in bulk he gives me a discount.’
‘Nice,’ Kelly said. ‘I wanted to head in and get some beads. I make bad jewellery when the mood hits me. Come with us.’
August hesitated. It was the concerned look on Jack’s handsome face that made her nervous. She could see him wondering what was up and the fact that she liked him being concerned about her was unsettling. The only person allowed to be concerned about her – besides her parents, who currently resided in North Carolina – was Carley.
Her heart sped up as he studied her, his face set in grim determination as he tried to figure her out. She was forced to look away.
‘Oh, I can’t intrude on your day.’ She said it to Kelly, still avoiding Jack’s gaze.
‘Please. You’ll save me from listening to talk about you. You’re here so he won’t embarrass himself,’ Kelly said.
‘Kelly –’ Jack growled.
‘What? I’m only speaking the truth.’
He talked about her? August wrapped her hands around her paper coffee cup to keep them from trembling. He talked about her, and the fact that he did so set off what felt like bright white fireworks in her stomach. And lower.
‘You’ll embarrass her.’
‘More like you,’ Kelly countered. She touched August’s hand again. ‘But seriously, it’s not every day I get to meet an honest-to-God artist. I’ve had delusions of grandeur about being an artist for years. Let me follow you like a stalker in the art store. You’ll make my week.’
August’s face went hot again but she really liked Kelly. And despite the yammering, negative part of her brain that wouldn’t shut up, she enjoyed being around the two of them. Their energy.
She couldn’t help but hear, in her mind’s ear, Carley egging her on. She knew damn well what her friend would say. ‘What have you got to lose, August? Your loneliness? Your hermitude? Your fear?’
‘OK,’ she said, before she even knew she was going to say it.
When Jack’s face lit up and he smiled at her, she felt those fireworks spread up into her chest and her heart gave what could only be a joyous little kick. Either that or she was going to stroke out from fear.
‘So you like white, black and red?’ Kelly said, following August patiently through the store.
‘I do. They pop the best. Sometimes, if they have a deep purple or a vibrant blue. But I am…boring, I guess.’
‘Oh, my stationery is anything but boring,’ Kelly said ‘The pack Jack gave me, I mean. It’s your stationery but now…that pack is mine.’ She winked and August laughed.
Jack had wandered off into the woodworking section and it was just the two women. August had a million questions she wanted to ask Kelly about what she’d said about her brother, but the questions didn’t seem to want to come out of her mouth. She got lucky, though, because Jack’s sister was nothing if not talkative.
‘What I said is true, you know,’ she said, picking up a packet of pale-pink stationery and then putting it back.
August’s heart skipped a beat, but she tried her best to keep her voice light. ‘What is?’
‘That he’s talked my ear off about you. August is an artist…August does the most amazing canvases…August seems to like lilacs.’
August laughed and picked out a packet of mini cards. She’d been considering doing a line of gift tags. Charging two bucks a pop for something that took her about ten minutes to create was a good thing, she thought. A low-priced item that people would gravitate to when trying out a new online shop, and a reasonable payoff.
‘I do like lilacs,’ she said, softly. And I like your brother… But she left that part unsaid.
‘August is coming with me to Alice’s show on Monday. But just as friends!’ Kelly mimicked, throwing her hands up as if to ward off argument. August assumed she was imitating Jack.
‘Yes,’