Beautifully Used (The Beaumont Brothers Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter 8

I stared out the window remembering the real reason Don and I
had broken up, and it didn’t have anything to do with me moving back to San Diego, or him doing drugs. He’d gotten tired of never getting anywhere with me. At least that’s what he’d said. Doing nothing but kissing all the time had lost its appeal. I didn’t want to give myself to anybody until I was certain about how they felt about me, or how I felt about them, and I just hadn’t felt all that much for him.

I
wanted to think about something else, and as I continued to stare out the window, my thoughts drifted back to the way I had betrayed Lena when I’d slipped up about her whereabouts to Troy. Sometimes, the guilt from that was very overwhelming, and I wondered how she could possibly still want to be friends with me, but I was thankful and so very glad that she did.

C
aught off guard when Brodie turned into a parking lot, my body accidentally fell against him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn so sharply,” he said as he helped me straighten. I quickly righted myself, noting the gentleness of his hand against my arm. A tingle ran down my spine, and I remembered how it felt when he’d laid his hand over my breast that time he’d kissed me, a completely different feeling then. The way I’d reacted, you’d think he’d grabbed me somewhere else. It wasn’t that it was bad. It did happen while he was kissing me, but it had been completely unexpected. I wasn’t ready for it. I knew from what Lena had told me that most girls jumped at the chance to be with Brodie. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so hard on him, knowing that’s what he always expected. Why would he treat me any differently? I still felt a little embarrassed about that virgin remark I’d made. Of all the stupid comparisons I could have used, why did I have to pick that one? So what if I were a virgin? I mean, I technically was. But the fact that it had been practically stolen from me a long time ago was something he didn’t need to know. Nobody needed to know that.

“You have that list Lena gave you?” Brodie asked after getting out of the truck and locking it up.

“Yeah, right here.” I pulled
a slip of paper out of my purse and waved it at him.

“Let me see.”
Brodie stood a few feet away from me studying the list. This was really the first time I’d gotten a look at him since earlier in the kitchen. His now dry hair hung down close to his eyes, and he pushed it back with this hand. It didn’t help though as the curls settled back onto his forehead. He wore a black T-shirt that said, “Bass. Like a guitar but cooler.” His charcoal grey shorts hung low on his waist and stopped just below his knees. He donned black leather Reef flip-flops on his feet, and I bet they had a bottle opener on the bottom side but I didn’t ask. He glanced up from the list and scanned the area. “This way,” he said, pointing to his left and starting to walk quickly in that direction. His stride was twice as long as mine, so I practically had to run just to stay close behind him. Then he suddenly stopped walking and turned his head toward me. He didn’t say anything, but when I caught up, he faced forward and began walking again. This time a bit slower.

It wasn’t a particularly large downtown area, certainly not as big as I
had expected, but the sidewalk was busy with people window-shopping and eating ice cream, or frozen yogurt I guess since we’d just passed a “Yummy’s Frozen Yogurt” store sign a few feet back. The sun kissed my cheeks and warmed my skin. I suddenly wished I’d worn another one of the sundresses I’d brought with me instead of the capri jeans and tank. Except for the issues when getting in and out of Brodie’s truck, the dress would have been a much better choice as far as keeping my legs cool.

We came to a
store opening and stopped at the entrance. The sign outside read,
Lucy’s Party Shop
. The window decorations held an array of frilly, lacy things perfect for topping tables for weddings and parties. 

I looked at the list I held. “This is the first store on her list. I think we might find some of those things for the table
s here.” 

Brodie made some sort of grumbl
ing noise and stepped through the door. We came to a table covered with lace, ribbons, and pearls.

“
Ooooh. I think Lena would love something like this on each table.” Brodie’s eyes went to the vase I was admiring.

“Maybe.”

“Oh, and look,”
I couldn’t help cooing at the display we stood in front of with all the lace and stuff for decorating tables.

Brodie
laced a string of pearls through his fingers. “Pearls. Yes.” He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows at me. I felt my cheeks flush pink, remembering yesterday and the underwear encounter in the kitchen.

I took a picture of the small vase with my phone and texted it to Lena. Two minutes later, she responded with “Looks perfect
!”

All we had to do was reserve and pay for the stuff. It would all be delivered on the day of the wedding, so we didn’t have to carry any of it back. I did have the lady bag up one of everything for me to take with us though. I wanted to show it all to Lena
in person when we got home.

After
reserving twenty of the vases, and at Brodie’s insistence, an equal amount of pearls to lace around them, we headed to the next store on the list. The flower store. At first, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of picking out all the flowers for Lena’s wedding, but after she showed me some pictures and told me what type of flowers she wanted, I relented. I did, however, send her another text with the cost along with pictures of everything, everything except her bouquet. That was coming from Jackson, and he wanted to surprise her with it. Brodie took care of it, knowing exactly what Jackson had told him to order. He wouldn’t even let me see the design, and he seemed to really get a kick out of that, gently shoving me away when I came too close to the book he was perusing, saying it was a secret. I stood on the other side of the room pouting, and he glanced back at me and grinned. It seemed Brodie Beaumont had a softer side, after all. I knew there must be some major gunk clogging up his brain from his past, wrecking him so badly and destroying the way he felt about relationships. That was the only explanation for him using women the way he did. But now, after spending time with him in the flower store, I was beginning to think that maybe there was another side to Brodie, one that he didn’t let out very often, which meant there was still hope for the guy.

After paying and making sure
the clerk had everything she needed for the delivery, Brodie turned to me on our way out. “You hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I know the perfect place. Let’s put all this in the truck and go eat. He reached over and took the bags from me, then grabbed my hand, tugging me along toward the parking lot. After securing the packages in the cab of the truck, he locked the door. “Hope you like burritos,” he said as he grabbed my hand again before waiting for my response. I don’t think he did it to be romantic or anything. I think he held my hand because he was in a hurry to get to wherever he wanted to go eat because there was nothing romantic about the way he pulled me along. My feet had to do double-time just to keep up.

The restaurant, if you could call it that, consisted of a counter
just off the sidewalk with six stools in front of it and one guy behind the counter cooking. Luck must have been with us, because right when we walked up to the place, a guy and a girl stood and left two seats open for us. Just in time too, because after I sat down, I turned to see another couple walk up. They had to stand on the sidewalk and wait for more seats to free up. “This is the best burrito you will ever have,” Brodie whispered in my ear.

The guy cooking handed a plate
with one of the largest burritos I have ever seen smothered in red sauce to the guy sitting next to Brodie, then turned to us. “What’ll you have?”

Brodie glanced at me. “Um …” I gave a quick look up at the menu above the cook’s head.
Feeling a bit under pressure, I blurted out, “A number two,” not taking the time to read all the ingredients except for the word chicken, but I figured I couldn’t go wrong with chicken. Brodie ordered a number one, and I looked to see what was in that one. Carne Asada, but I stopped reading after the words hot green chili sauce.

Chapter 9

“You don’t like spicy food do you?” I asked Gabrielle as she stared at the large flour tortilla smothered in green sauce on the plate in front of her.

She looked at me. “Um, no, I do. I just didn’t expect the green stuff on top. I guess I didn’t read the entire description before I ordered.”

“You don’t like green chili sauce?”

“No. I guess.
I’ve never had it. It’s more that I don’t like green sauces.”

“You’re joking right?”

“No. Why?” she asked as she began scraping the sauce off the top of her burrito.

“
You mean you won’t even try it just because it’s green?”

“When I was a kid, my mom made
me eat brussel sprouts. After I ate them, I puked all over my plate. I haven’t been able to eat any sort of green slimy looking things since then.”

“Sorry I asked,” I
admitted, sticking the green, slimy chili sauce covered bite into my mouth. I laughed. “I’m going to try to keep that visual out of my head while I eat this.”

“Good idea.” She smiled and took
a bite from the inside of her now dry burrito. She ate the entire contents of the inside, never touching the tortilla itself, and was very careful not to let any of it touch any of the green chili sauce.

It didn’t bother me that she didn’t like green
sauces. After all, who was I to put someone down for his or her little quirks when I had plenty of my own? 

Chapter 10

The
mattress slumped down as a body crawled onto the bed, waking me from what was probably the most peaceful sleep I’d had in a very long time. I opened my eyes, but quickly shut them as the glare from the morning sun just about scorched them to a crisp, possibly blinding me for life. I’d forgotten to close the blinds again.

“Wake up.” I squinted my eyes open to see Le
na hunched on her knees beside me. The grin on her face was astronomically large and most likely had been there from the time she first woke up. “We get to go try on dresses today!” she squealed and jumped on her knees, making the bed and me shake.

“Okay, okay. Calm down a bit. My brain needs to process that it’s morning first, then I can get excited,” I complained with a yawn.

“I can’t wait for you to see the dress I picked out for you. You are going to look spectacular.”

“Me? You’re the bride. You’re the one that’s supposed to glow with
radiance. Nobody is supposed to outshine you on your big day.”

“Oh, I’ll shine
plenty, don’t worry, but you’re going to look so good. I can’t wait to see you in it. So get up and get dressed.”

“
I need coffee.”

“Got it right here.” She jumped off the bed and
handed me a cup that had been sitting on top of the dresser.

“Thanks.” I closed my eyes, inhaling the robust smell of the caramel colored brew, then took a sip. Lena knew just how I liked my coffee, a little half and half and a smidgen of sugar. “
How soon do we need to leave?”

“As soon as you’re ready. We need to go into the city.”

“The city? As in San Francisco?”

“
No, not that city. Redding, where you and Brodie were yesterday.”

“Oh. Good.” I yawned again. “Because I don’t think I’m up for
a super long drive.”

Lena giggled. “Me either, girl
, but we have an appointment at eleven this morning. So we need to get going.”

The drive into Redding went so much faster this morning with Lena than it did yesterday with Brodie. Maybe because we talked the entire time about the wedding and all the plans she had made
, and I wasn’t feeling so self-conscious about Brodie’s hot body sitting right next to me for what seemed like an eternity during that ride. Lena talked most of the time about Jackson and how wonderful he was. This was the first time we’d had the opportunity to talk without Jackson or Brodie being around. The weird thing was, Lena mentioned that Brodie was hardly ever at home since she’d moved in, and she was surprised that he’d been there for the past couple of nights. She said he claimed he didn’t want to cramp their style, but she figured it was more Brodie’s style that had become cramped. That was one of the reasons they’d put a rush on things for the house so they could move out as soon as they were married.

The sidewalks weren’t as crowded today as they were yesterday when Br
odie and I were walking around, and the air had a slight chill in it, I noticed, tugging the sweater I’d worn a little closer for extra warmth. On our way to the dress shop, Lena and I stopped in front of a little shop to admire the shoes in the window. “We should go in here to get your shoes before we try on the dresses. That way if they need to hem your dress, they’ll be able to get the right length.”

“What about your shoes?” I asked
.

“
Got ‘em, right here.” She held up the bag she was carrying. They’ve already done mine. This is supposed to be my last fitting, so keep your fingers crossed that they got it right. If they need to hem yours, we’ll need to come back in a couple days to pick it up.”

We bought my shoes, or should I say stilts
, and headed to the dress shop. Lena insisted I get four-inch high heels so I would look taller standing next to everyone else in the pictures. I was five foot, five, which in my opinion wasn’t all that short, but I suppose, compared to everyone else, I was. Lena was an easy five-seven, and Jackson and Brodie were both over six feet. In fact, Brodie was even a bit taller than Jackson.

“Crap, we’re late,” Lena said, glancing at her watch. She grabbed my hand and tugged me along as we hurried down the sidewalk
. In the rush, I ran smack into a wall of a guy as he came out of one of the shops we were passing.

The collision had me tilting toward the pavement. “Whoa!” The guy held onto my arms, righting me before I fell all the way onto my backside.

“Sorry,” I managed
, and Lena turned back to check on me.

“Are you all right?” he said, still holding on to my arms.

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

He looked at Lena. “It’s Lena, right?” He released my arms and took a couple of steps back.

“Yeah. Do I know you?”

“We met once. I’m the new guy on the soccer team.
Jeff? I came into Jackson’s bar with the team about a week ago.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Who is this?” he asked, staring at me. In fact, his beautiful grey eyes never left mine.

“This is
…” she wrapped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me close against her, “my maid of honor, Gabby. We’re on our way to pick up our dresses.”

“Right. The big day is almost here, isn’t it?”
He smiled, showing bright teeth. He ran his fingers through his over-the-ear dark blond hair, but the front came right back down over his forehead, landing in an attractive curl right above his eyebrows.

“Yep. You’re coming to the wedding
, aren’t you? I think Jackson invited the entire team."

“Yeah, sure, wouldn’t miss
seeing my man Jackson get hitched.”

“
Well,
your
man, is going to be my man soon.”

“Na
h. You got that wrong.”

“
Excuse me?”

“The way I see it, he’s already yours.
From what I’ve heard from the guys on the team, he has been since he first laid eyes on you. We can’t even get the guy to come out and practice anymore. One of the guys on the team even said he’d tried getting Jackson back out on the slopes all winter long. He might as well sell that snowboard of his now that he has you. I hope you won’t keep him from playing soccer this season.”

“
I wouldn’t intentionally keep him from doing anything. He would have gone snowboarding but he wanted me to go and I just wasn’t quite ready for it. He refused to go without me. Maybe next year.”

Jeff gave Lena a wry look
and stuck his hand in the pocket of his jeans. My eyes fell to the muscle protruding from the sleeve of his grey T-shirt. “Yeah sure. By then you’ll be pregnant and he’ll have another excuse.”

“I don’t think so. We want to wait on
starting a family for a year or two. I’m sure Jackson will be playing soccer this fall though. He’s already told me about the team. I think he’s really excited for me to watch.”

“Maybe you’ll play
, too.”

“Maybe I will.” Lena smiled. “Though
, I’ve never played.”

“We’re not that competitive. You’ll be fine
, and maybe your friend here would be interested in playing.” His gaze swept slowly over me and I suddenly felt naked though I was far from it in the blue sundress and white cropped sweater I had on. “We always need women,” he added, his eyes fixed on mine.

“I don’t know if I’ll be here in the fall. I’m supposed to go to Chico for school
. I’m transferring there from San Diego. But if I am still here, I’d love to play. I played in high school,” I added cheerfully.

“What do you mean? Are you considering not going
to Chico?” Lena asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you around this summer,” Jeff said, then quickly added. “We could … practice … you know, kick the ball around?”

“Yeah
, sure,” I said.

Lena glanced at her watch. “Oh, we
really need to get going. See you at the wedding, Jeff.”

“
Yeah. Nice to meet you, Gabby.” He waved his hand and headed in the opposite direction we were going. I glanced back at him, saw him turn his head and look back at me. He smiled and my stomach did a little fluttery dance. He was so very gorgeous and way out of my league, but it was nice having someone else to think about instead of Brodie. Not that I was actually in Brodie’s league either. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be.

Lena tugged me along and we hurried to the dress shop.
Upon entering the store, my eyes immediately fell upon the four mannequins all decked out in what I presumed were their top of the line and very expensive, but gorgeous wedding dresses. Turning to the left, I saw rack after rack of dresses hanging, arranged by color, style, and size.

A woman in her early forties
, I would guess, approached us immediately, greeting Lena with an over abundant amount of exuberance and gushed over Lena like she was her long lost cousin.

“Lena, darling, you’re so beautiful, but thin. Too thin, I hope we won’t need to make any adjustments on that gown. We are running out of time.”

“I’m the same size as I was when you took my measurements. Tanya, this is my maid of honor, Gabby.”

“Ah good. I have both your dresses right here. Go into the dressing room and I’ll bring them to you.”

After Tonya brought in the dresses, she excused herself and said she’d be back in a few minutes to check.

“You are so going to tell me what is going on
. Right now. What’s all this about you not wanting to go to Chico?” Lena demanded as she stepped into the white gown I held open for her.

I lo
oked up at her no-nonsense eyes and sighed. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don’t know what I want to do.”

“I thought you wanted to be a writer.”

“I do. I just don’t know if I want to continue on with school right now.” I’d been thinking about it for some time, but now that I’d actually spoken the words out loud, I decided that I liked them.

“But don’t you need your degree in English to be a writer?”

“No. It would certainly help, but it’s not required. To get a job as a journalist with a large news group I’m sure it would be required, but not to write books, and that’s what I want to do. I can continue my education, but I also want to spend more time writing. In fact, I’ve been writing, and … well, I’ve written several short stories and recently submitted a novel to several publishers. One actually responded and offered me a contract last week. I wasn’t going to say anything because I haven’t decided whether I want to use my real name or not, and I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to know.”

“You mean like a pen name?”

“Yeah, exactly like a pen name.” She turned her back toward me and I laced up the dress. It had so many loops to go through I didn’t think I’d ever finish. “Jackson is gonna have a heck of a time getting you out of this.” I laughed. When she turned toward me after I finished, my mouth fell open. “Oh my! Lena, you’re stunning. Forget about him taking it off. He might not want to.”

“You like?” She smiled as she admired herself in the three-way full
-length mirror.

“Very much. It’s just so exquisite
. The way the sheer white mesh lays against your collarbone and flows down revealing just a peek at your cleavage is so elegant. The tiny pearls along the edges are so pretty and dainty, and I love the way they interspersed more pearls throughout the bodice and the skirt. You look simply radiant.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What about the sleeves? Do you think I’ll be too hot?”

“Hmmm … probably not. They don’t really cover much of your arm, just the top of your shoulders. I love the scalloped edge with more pearls.”

“Thanks.” Lena smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here. Now
, tell me why you don’t want to use you real name?”

“Huh?”

“For the book. Why don’t you want to use your real name?” I’d been so caught up in the beauty of her dress I had almost forgotten I’d even told her about my book.

“
Oh. I don’t know. It has some weird stuff in it, you know, like sex and some bad language. I’m not sure I want my mom to read it.” That explanation was only partly true. There were other things in the story that could be incriminating if a certain person were to read it.

“
I think you should use your real name. Who cares about a little bad language? A lot of books have the F word in them. Wow! I can’t believe you wrote a book. That is so utterly fantastic. I don’t think I could ever do that. What’s it about?”

“It’s about a
college-age girl who finds a strange book in the dorm room she just moved into. Weird things begin to happen to her after she begins reading it. She’d grown up in a … troubled home, and the magic in the book helps her cope with things. It’s a little dark and edgy.”

“Sounds fun.
I can’t wait to read it.”