Lauren Dane - Whiskey Sharp - Torn

“That’s a good way to look at it. So what are you doing Friday? Want to have dinner?”

Oh. He asked her out. It delighted her with the simple joy of it. “I’m going to the pumpkin patch so I can start all my Halloween decorating and there’s an event at the gallery so I’ll be there until about eleven. But I’m free after. Or before if you want to come to the pumpkin patch with me.”

“Well, that’s... I’ve never been to a pumpkin patch.”

“Really?” she asked, incredulous. “I’m not sure... I mean, are you averse to Halloween entirely or are you indifferent?”

He gave her a raised brow. “You seem passionate on this point. It’s terrifying and also sort of sexy and mysterious.”

“Terrifying? Me? Ha! The truth is, I love Halloween. It’s my jam. And I love decorating for it and for fall in general.”

He cocked his head, looking fucking gorgeous doing it. Jeez. “I can believe it. I’m not averse to Halloween. Or pumpkins. In fact, I’m mulling over a few different fall soups so if they have cooking pumpkins there, I might go just for that. We didn’t celebrate Halloween when I was growing up. And then when I wasn’t with the group anymore, I was already an adult and sure, I went to parties at Halloween, mainly to ogle women in sexy costumes and drink too much.”

“Mom is an immigrant so she never really got into Halloween because she didn’t grow up with it. But my dad, being a first generation American, absolutely loves it. When we were kids, we’d go to the Halloween store the day after Halloween and buy all the stuff on sale. Our house is on a lot of land, but most of it is behind and to one side so we’d decorate the front yard with gravestones, giant fake spiders in the trees. Cauldrons and vampire bats. Spooky stuff in the windows. We were sort of in the country a little, at the edges of what’s now a much larger city, so you had to drive to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. But people did! If you came to our door you got scared, but it was all so fun. My dad dresses up every single year as Dracula. I’m not joking. It’s adorable. So. Pumpkin patch? Do you have rain boots? It’ll be muddy probably. I mean, it’s just a big field.”

“You seem excessively excited about the chance of mud.”

Cora giggled. “It’s a damned mess. So I don’t take my lovely car but rather borrow a truck. It’s a work truck so it won’t be a crime if we get mud in the bed. Of the truck, I mean. I don’t want mud in my sleeping bed. Because that would suck.”

She was being way more random than usual. He made her nervous but more in a giddy way than a scared way.

Instead of panicked or annoyed, Beau appeared to at the very least be amused by her. His body language was easy, relaxed.

“Agreed on the mud in the truck versus the sheets distinction. I’m in. This sounds like an adventure.”

She wasn’t sure if that was purely a compliment, but it made her happy anyway.

CHAPTER SIX

A star seared its way through the icy black

of space as if it were fabric.

Becoming something else.

“DO YOU HAVE rain boots? Or know where I can get some?” Beau asked Ian the following day when he came over.

His friend, who stood at the counter in his wet dream of a kitchen, gave him a wary look. “Should I ask why?”

“Cora tells me I might want them at the pumpkin patch because it could be muddy.” Beau grabbed a slice of mango from the cutting board.

Ian gave Beau all his attention then, one of his eyebrows rising a moment. “Oh, Cora does. Well then.”

“She’s apparently wild about Halloween. I’m apparently wild about her. I’ll make her a meal when we get back.”

And then he needed to find a way to be invited to the gallery event. She’d brought it up to him in the first place, which he had decided to take as an invitation. Of a sort. He just needed to get that firmed up.

“That’s a lot of togetherness in a short period of time for you. This is the woman you knew back in the day in LA? The composer’s kid?”

“She’s only five years younger than I am.” Beau rolled his eyes. “It’s easy to be with her. God knows that’s not always a thing. She’s weird and thoughtful and funny and sexy as fuck.” Beau leaned against the kitchen counter and looked out the windows over Elliott Bay, thinking about her laugh and the way she sounded when she came.

Need for her, to be around her more, made him greedy. It confused him but not enough to make him so wary he didn’t pursue her.

“You’re breaking your rule about not getting involved with people in your friend group. So does that mean she’s not in your friend group so I keep my distance? Or, you’re breaking your rule because she’s different? In which case I really want to meet her.”

Beau said, “She’s unlike anyone else I’ve been attracted to. Like I said, it’s easy to be with her and we have wild sexual chemistry. Off the fucking charts, for real.” He shoved a hand through his hair as the remembered heat between them brushed against his skin.

“So you’re up for the pumpkin patch because you want to get some? That’s the tale as old as time there, dude.” Ian snorted and indicated the cabinet near Beau’s head as a way to invite him for a cup of coffee.

Beau grabbed himself a mug and after getting the coffee sugared up, he eased into a chair at Ian’s breakfast nook just off the kitchen. “Like I said, mad chemistry. But there’s something else about her. Like she’s going on an adventure even if she’s just going to get her mail. I can’t say I ever really wanted to, but I find myself thinking maybe going to a pumpkin patch with Cora would be fun.”

“You came up here to start a new chapter in your life. So it’s not that strange really that you’re attracted to someone who is also a new sort of chapter. And you know her, which alleviates all that suspicion that she might want something from you. Her mom is famous in the music and art communities. She gets the celebrity thing.”

They shared a look, both of them having experienced people trying to use them for something. To get an endorsement, investment in this or that business, wanting to be on TV as a date at some big event. Ian had a divorce under his belt because of it.

As a result, Beau had a policy about not getting involved with anyone in his social group because if it was going to go wrong he could walk away unscathed and still protecting the strength of his private life. His closest friends were family. They’d seen him through some pretty dark times and no one was worth threatening that.

“I totally think the fact that she’s familiar with the weirdness of our world is a big part of why I’m so comfortable around her. She doesn’t want me for anything but my dick and maybe my cooking. I’m good with that.”

At least while he tried to figure out just what it was about her that fascinated him so much. She was unexpected, but not an engine of chaos. Another thing he found interesting.

Ian shrugged. “Okay then. Yes, I have some mud boots you can use. I wear them when we go digging for clams and when I head out to the fields of any of the produce farms that supply my restaurants. They’ll do.”

“Thanks.”

“Bring her around one of these nights to meet us all.”

Cora and a bunch of foulmouthed chefs drinking and eating at one in the morning? Yeah, he could see her fitting in just fine.

* * *

JUST TWO DAYS later and the sky was blue-gray, the clouds dark with the rain threatening to fall on them any minute, and yet Cora nearly shone with her excitement when he showed up at her place Friday morning.

“Hi!” she told him with a huge grin, right before she launched herself into his arms for a hug.