Candy Apple Dead Read Free

best friend and the inventory retrieval specialist for the men’s clothing store Brandon owns. Brandon likes to brag that he’ll never need an expensive security system at Man About Town with Max around, and he’s probably right.
    At that moment, Max was laying on the sidewalk outside the front door of my shop, enjoying the late-September sunshine. Ever alert, he kept his head up, and his ears twitched as shoppers and local business people passed him by. Most of the locals were used to Max, but occasionally someone would cross the road to avoid him, and Brandon never ceased to find that amusing.
    I slipped a small piece of almond toffee onto a scrap of tissue paper, nudged it in Brandon’s direction, and began moving the remaining squares onto trays for that night’s meeting. “If you play your cards right, everything will be decided tonight.”
    Grinning a thank-you, Brandon shifted the candy to his table. “Everything will be decided whether I play my cards right or not. People have been dragging their feet long enough. The festival is just six months away. If we’re going to change, we need to decide now .”
    “For the record, I agree with you. I just think you’d be smart to back off a little. Don’t hit people over the head with it all the time. Inspire them to see things your way. And maybe stop calling them idiots in public.” I closed a box and slapped a gold-edged Divinity label on it as a seal. “You might even consider acting as if you’re taking their opinions seriously.”
    The bell over the door tinkled, and the Gilbert sisters, two elderly ladies with nearly identical heads of silver hair came into the store, catching Brandon’s attention momentarily. When he looked back at me, his face was expressionless. “You know what they say about opinions,” he said. “They’re like—”
    The sisters are devout Christians who carry their Bibles everywhere they go. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t appreciate the end of that thought, so I interrupted quickly. “I know what they’re like. Everybody has one. All I’m saying is you’d probably have fewer problems if you exercised a little more tact.”
    Grinning as if the Arts Festival and its detractors didn’t matter, Brandon stood and leaned across the counter, close enough that I could smell the faint hint of toothpaste and chocolate on his breath. Close enough to send a faint shiver of something I hadn’t felt more than a handful of times in the past few years running up my spine.
    “I’m not worried about it, darlin’,” he whispered. “Nobody ever takes me seriously.”
    There was a hint of something I couldn’t read in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to delve that deeply into his psyche. I might get caught there. “I hope not,” I whispered back, “for your sake.”
    He pulled away and looked down at me from nearly a foot above. If I hadn’t grown up with a brother, I might have felt a little intimidated. “My head’s on straight, Abby. Don’t you worry about that. I know what I want, and I know how to get it.” He raked a long, slow gaze across my face and his expression grew serious. “Speaking of what I want, how ’bout you and me spend a little time together after the meeting?”
    The invitation surprised me, but I can’t say it didn’t please me. I’m five-five and packing more on my hips and thighs than I’d like. Half the time my cocoa-brown hair looks like somebody ran over it with a lawnmower, and my wardrobe doesn’t qualify as any kind of chic—but in that moment, I felt beautiful.
    To give my heart a chance to slide back out of my throat, I swiped at the counter and tossed the cloth into the sink behind me. “Why Brandon Mills,” I said when I trusted myself to speak, “if I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were asking me on a date.”
    The grin on his face was deliciously wicked. “Yes, ma’am. I was thinking about dinner at Romano’s. How does that sound to you?”
    Was he kidding?