Candy Crush (3 page)

“That’s fine,” she said faintly, feeling as
if she really had no choice. Although she reasoned she would be a
fool to turn down the offer of help.

The few days lead time would give her time
to take inventory, decide where everything should go, order any
necessary supplies. In her head, she mentally pictured everything
she could ask her help to do. She wondered if they would paint for
her too.

And then she wondered if she had fallen down
the rabbit hole. She’d been in town for all of an hour and already
she had the Sarantos family scheduled to help clean up her candy
store on Saturday morning.

“It’s settled then. Enjoy your pizza.”
Korina walked away. Brandon called out for another Corona and then
turned to glare at Gabriella.

“What?” she asked, blinking owlishly.

“You could have said no,” he pointed
out.

“I’m not sure I could have,” Gabriella
commented as she watched the formidable Aunt Korina walk away.
“Besides, why don’t you want me to accept her offer of help?”

***

Brandon thought about his rather large
family – all the women who wanted to marry him off and all the men
who would be instantly attracted to Gabriella.

“Let’s just say once you’ve accepted help
from the Sarantos family, there’s no going back.”

Gabriella was too busy enjoying her pizza to
comment on his cryptic explanation. And Brandon was too busy
watching her enjoy that pizza to be able to do much of anything at
all. When she took a bite and moaned with pleasure, he inhaled the
piece he was chewing and started choking.

She jumped up and started beating on his
back while he grabbed his beer and took a long drink. He pushed her
hand away and gasped, “I’m fine, stop.”

She sat back down and took another bite. Her
moan of pleasure was much quieter this time.

“That’s a noise someone makes when they’re
having sex, not eating pizza.”

Gabriella’s eyes widened and she stared at
Brandon, but she did not speak until she’d swallowed the food in
her mouth.

“This pizza is almost as good as sex,” she
said, and then she looked utterly shocked, as if she was surprised
at her own words.

Brandon lifted one eyebrow. “You haven’t had
very good sex then. I mean, this pizza rocks, but it’s not
that
good.”

“I also haven’t eaten in seven hours,” she
pointed out. “So practically anything would taste good. And this
pizza
is
nearly as good as sex.”

Brandon decided he was definitely going to
have sex with her. And then he’d ask her again if the pizza was as
good as sex.

They each had one more drink and with
Butter’s help they finished off the pizza and bread sticks.

As they left the restaurant, Brandon asked
her where she planned to spend the night. In his head, she turned
to him and whispered suggestively, “
I was hoping you’d offer
your bed
.”

In reality, she said, “The real estate
company said there is an apartment above the candy store. I planned
to stay there.”

Brandon gave the candy store a dubious look.
“Maybe I should go with you, check for raccoons again,” he
suggested.

She hesitated.

“After seeing the state of the store, are
you sure you want to be alone when you check out that
apartment?”

Gabriella sighed and gestured at the alley
that ran behind the row of stores on the candy store’s block. “Lead
the way,” she said, sounding resigned.

***

Behind each business there was a small area
of asphalt with a small dumpster parked to the side of the back
door. Each business also had a large spotlight, shining over each
back door. Gabriella wondered if the apartment over the candy store
had heavy drapes, otherwise she’d never get to sleep with all the
lights glaring into the windows.

They walked in and out of shadows, as they
passed each spotlight in turn. Gabriella had taken off Butter’s
leash and she wandered around the alley, sniffing dumpsters and
watering clumps of weeds.

Gabriella could see the stairs leading up to
the apartment above the candy store. The staircase was outside the
building and was exposed until the top, where a small tin roof
covered the balcony that jutted out from the back of the building.
When they reached the stairs, Brandon held out his hand, palm up.
Without a word, Gabriella handed him the keys and followed him up
the rickety stairs. Butter climbed the steps behind her.

“One of my cousins is a carpenter. I’ll
mention these stairs to him. He’ll probably be here Saturday,”
Brandon said when he reached the top.

He unlocked the door and stepped inside,
flipping the nearest light switch as he did so. Gabriella was
relieved when a bright light popped on. And then she gasped.

The apartment had either been ransacked or
there had been a struggle of some sort. The eat-in kitchen and
living area was all one room, and while the kitchen appeared
relatively unscathed, the living area was virtually destroyed. A
couch sat in the middle of the room, its cushions and arms in
shreds. A chair was upended next to it, with springs sticking out
the bottom. An old box television with a smashed screen lay on the
floor. Pictures hung haphazardly from the walls. Most had broken
frames and broken glass. The coffee table was in two pieces,
splintered wood sticking out every which way.

“Whoever was here last was really pissed
off,” Brandon said as he stepped around the debris and walked down
a short hall to look in the bathroom and bedroom. “The bathroom
looks okay but the bedroom is ransacked as well. The bed looks like
someone took a knife to it. And I think there might be something
living back there. I think you should stay somewhere else tonight.
Maybe for the rest of the week, until my family can get in here and
get this cleaned up. I don’t suppose you have an alternate place to
stay?”

Gabriella shook her head dismally. This was
not at all what she expected to find when she’d decided to start
her life over. She expected a little dust, maybe some dated
furniture, but at least she expected it to be inhabitable. She
suddenly felt overly depressed and exhausted. “I guess I’d better
go find a hotel.”

“There aren’t any hotels in this town.”

“There has to be a hotel,” Gabriella said, a
tinge of desperation in her voice.

Brandon shook his head. “Just a couple of
bed and breakfasts at two-hundred dollars a night each.”

Gabriella blinked up at him, desperation
shining in her eyes. She couldn’t afford to stay in a
two-hundred-dollar-a-night bed and breakfast. She had already
dumped almost all of her savings into this candy store, and at the
moment, she did not have a source of income.

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” she choked out as
she shifted her gaze to the hall leading to the bedroom.

Brandon snorted. “No you won’t. Come on, you
can stay with me. It’s only four blocks away. I usually walk to
work, so I’ll ride home with you.”

“Absolutely not,” she said with such
vehemence that Brandon laughed. She gave him a cross look and he
sobered to just a lip twitch.

“I’m not harmless,” he admitted. “But I’m
not a rapist or serial killer or whatever the hell you’re afraid of
right now.”

“I’m not afraid,” Gabriella insisted.
More like petrified, but I’m not sure if it’s of him or my
reactions to him
.

“You’re a lousy liar too. Come on, let’s go
back to the pizza parlor first. Aunt Korina will vouch for me.”

“And I’m supposed to take her word?”

“Sure. She makes the best pizza in
town.”

Gabriella didn’t exactly agree with his
convoluted reasoning, yet somehow, some way, she found herself
standing next to her car on the grassy curb, staring up at an
imposing Victorian home, complete with intricate scrollwork on the
tallest point. A light shone over the front door, illuminating a
wide front porch that wrapped around the side of the house. A
pentagon-shaped tower jutted out into the porch corner. She could
tell there were two large trees in the front yard. Everything else
was dark.

“It’s huge,” she said before she could stop
herself.

Brandon chuckled. “See, you can relax, Sweet
Pea. We don’t even have to sleep in the same wing, if you don’t
want to.”

Gabriella glanced back at her car and the
miniature U-Haul trailer hooked to the bumper. “What about the
trailer? I’m supposed to return it by the end of day tomorrow.”

Brandon thought about it for a moment. “I’ll
think of something by tomorrow,” he finally said. And for some
inexplicable reason, Gabriella believed him. “Come on.” He started
walking towards the house.

“It’s beautiful,” Gabriella breathed, still
rooted to the spot, staring once again at the antique home.

Brandon stopped walking and turned to give
her a bemused look. “It’s good looking too, but you’ll have to wait
until daylight to get the full effect. It was my great-grandma
Sarantos’. By the time she passed, everyone else who was old enough
had a home, so I got it by default. Luckily, I’m pretty handy,
because it wasn’t in very good shape when I inherited it.”

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” she
started again, but Brandon shook his head and cut her off.

“Stop stressing, Sweet Pea. I like my
position with the DDA and my family probably already likes you more
than they like me. You’re safe here.”

The look he gave her was contradictory to
what he said. The look said,
You’re anything but safe with me.
Want to see my bedroom
?

Gabriella wondered what the hell she was
doing. She was going home with a man she’d met only hours ago, in a
small town that she knew nothing about, with no family or friends
to help her if she ended up in trouble. What if he really was a
mass murderer? Or a rapist?

Or worse: what if he came on to her and she
was too overwhelmed, too tired to resist? She shivered delicately.
Brandon leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I only bite if you
ask nicely.”

Gabriella straightened and walked around to
the trunk of her car, goaded into action by his assumption that she
might be interested in doing just that. She was
not
attracted to him, damn it.

She opened the trunk and began shifting
through the bags and suitcases. She pulled out a bag of dog food
and a shoulder bag that contained Butter’s necessities and handed
them to Brandon. Then she pulled out one of the suitcases, pushed a
button to pop out the handle, and pulled it up the curb and
followed him up the front walk to the porch.

At the front door, Brandon said, “Get your
dog. We have skunks out here. You shouldn’t leave her outside alone
after dark.” So Gabriella called Butter and the three of them
walked into the house.

Brandon flipped on two light switches
simultaneously, brightening both the foyer and living room.
Gabriella saw gleaming wood floors and lots of crown molding. A
stained glass door was propped open and led to the left and into
the living room, which was large and pentagon-shaped, matching the
outside wall. She saw a giant flat screen television, a leather
couch, two reclining chairs, a coffee table and two end tables. The
stairway leading upstairs was directly in front of her.

“You look beat, so I’ll save the grand tour
for later. Living room there,” He nodded to his left. “Through the
living room is the dining room and then kitchen. There’s a small
half bath off the kitchen, and the laundry room doubles as the
mudroom and leads to the backyard. I suppose you drink coffee?”

Gabriella nodded.

“I usually drink mine at the office, but
I’ll make some in the morning. Coffee pot will be on at seven a.m.,
so if you aren’t an early riser, you won’t get fresh coffee.”

Gabriella was indeed an early riser,
although she’d had to endure a lot of late nights in her former
life. She realized she was looking forward to getting back into a
routine of her own choosing. Fresh coffee at seven a.m. sounded
wonderful.

“I usually leave for the office around seven
forty-five,” Brandon went on. “I’ll leave you a key. You’re welcome
to make yourself at home.” He looked at her, presumably waiting to
see if she had questions. When she didn’t say anything, he
continued.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your bedroom. You
can help me put sheets on the bed. I wasn’t expecting company.” He
placed the bag of dog food and Butter’s bag of supplies on the
floor in the foyer, pulled the suitcase out of Gabriella’s hand and
walked upstairs. Gabriella followed, with Butter on her heels.

“My bedroom is down there,” he nodded to the
left. His bedroom was directly above the living room. Gabriella
wondered if it was shaped like a pentagon as well. “I’d be happy to
give you a tour,” he said, promise dripping from the words.
Gabriella quelled any ideas he may have been forming with a frosty
look.

“Okay, then, your bedroom is down here,” and
he led her down the hall to the right, pointing out the bathroom,
which they would be sharing, on the way.

The guest bedroom was small and cozy, and
had a window seat that overlooked the front yard. While they were
by no means in separate wings, as Brandon suggested earlier, they
were on opposite ends of the house, and Gabriella noticed the door
had a lock.

She decided she was safe enough. For some
inexplicable reason, in the last twenty minutes she managed to come
to the decision that she could trust Brandon Sarantos. It was an
odd feeling, since the only men in her life she had been able to
trust for the last few years had been her brother and her
father.

Brandon stepped back into the hall and
reappeared with an armful of sheets. He pulled the comforter off
the bed and Gabriella helped him put on the sheets.

“The middle bedroom is my office. I’m going
to check my emails and then probably head to bed myself. Just knock
if you need anything.” He watched her for a long moment and then
said, “Good night, Sweet Pea.”