Chapter 1
Which was possibly why she was in her current fudged-up situation . . . and even now, even just in her head, she couldn’t properly swear. That probably said something about her.
But now, here was Buck in front of her like a shot of adrenaline to her comatose system, or maybe like Nitrous Oxide to a neglected engine.
If possible, he was even taller, darker, and more handsome than she remembered, with that same wicked grin that had made Carrie weak in the knees in high school.
Turned out, six years later, it still did.
While her libido said, yes, please! her brain sounded a weak alarm. Dangerous.
At least she could give Buck a point in his favor for running an open gang.
His young “associates” were an eclectic mix, all boys full of strutting bravado but seemingly good natured, and wearing jeans sagged so low they had to keep their hands in their pockets when they walked, the belt clearly more fashion than function.
In the negative column however, Carrie was the only female present and she wasn’t really here by choice.
Minus three points. It probably should have been more than three.
Sighing, Carrie pushed the lock of wavy blond hair that had escaped her Rachel Green up-twist out of her face and went back to the inescapable task at hand:
Open the bottom of the box (where the original seal had obviously been disturbed.) Take out the fake-furred, neon owl-ish monstrosity—and hot new item of the season—the FurrBaby X-Tra Stuffed.
Pull open the flap at the bottom of the creeptastic toy’s oddly heavy, granular feeling rearend and pull out the reason for said strangeness, a plastic bag of coffee grounds.
Open the bag and carefully remove the package of cocaine inside, placing it to her left for Buck to pick up on his next pass.
Give a full-body shudder as the now floppy-skinned horror decided to turn itself on and began talking gibberish out of its—was that a beak? Toss it onto the pile to her right. The stack of deflated furry things now almost filled one of the crates the toys had arrived in.
Wonder how she was going to make this work. Because it had to work.
It was Thanksgiving Eve and Carrie had been giddy after a visit at closing from her old crush Buck.
He was bringing her a “misplaced” container shipment of the toy that could save her store, the impossible-to-get FurrBaby.
How had he managed that? Carrie knew there had to be a catch to the deal, this was Buck after all, but it had felt like the answer to her Black Friday prayers.
Now, not only had she found the catch, she was sitting smack in the middle of it.
Back in high school, there’d been a rumor about Buck’s family being in the mafia.
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time.
They were so nice. Mr. Buchetti was a big booster for the football team and Mrs. Buchetti made delicious Italian almond cookies for the bake sale every year.
How could they be mafia bosses? But now she could see that they totally were, and Buck was determinedly moving up the ranks.
He’d been put in charge of shipments (just this shipment?
All shipments? She didn’t know) and there had been an untimely strike at the dock.
He needed an alternate way of getting rid of the way too noticeable “packaging” his suppliers had used, aka, the much-abused FurrBabies.
And he’d remembered from their recent five-year reunion that Carrie had stupidly taken over managing the local Toys-A-Lot.
Then came the article in the newspaper about the court case, the Halloween fiasco, and how much money she owed.
When he'd said how unfair the ruling was she’d teared up.
Everyone else said it was her fault. Buck had always known an easy mark when he’d seen one.
“Buck,” Carrie said to him on his next pass to place the cocaine from each table into an unmarked duffle bag. “You know I can’t sell these things like this. Where’s the stuffing they took out?”
“Carrie. Caarrrie.” He pulled her name out like caramel, like he was savoring it, leaning companionably against her table and gave her the half-smile that used to charm the pants off half the girls in school.
“You’re new here, so I’m gonna clue you in.
” Here was apparently referring to the mob.
Part of her wanted to point out that she hadn’t agreed to join his mafia gang, but that was shoved aside as she felt a thrill shiver up her spine when he focused on her with those intense, blue eyes. She bit her lip.
“I’m handing you a goldmine, Carrie, but I need you to do some of the digging.” His eyes dropped to her teeth digging into her lower lip and he leaned in, his fingers trailing lightly up her arm. His voice dropped to a rumble. “You gotta have a little skin in the game, you know what I’m sayin’?”
She sucked in a breath. Was he threatening her or flirting?
Either way she felt breathless and a little bit scared.
She’d never been involved in anything illegal before and she couldn’t help the full-body flush of excitement at the thought.
Or was it Buck’s nearness? Goosebumps rose on her arm as he slowly, lightly dragged the backs of his fingers up and down her arm.
The corners of his full lips ticked up, as if he knew exactly what he was doing.
Carrie gulped. He stared directly into her eyes.
It was completely unfair for a man to have such long, dark lashes.
“So the stuffing got left behind. What can ya do? Sometimes you have to do some problem solving if you want to make some dough.”
She tried to focus on his words and not her stomach doing flips at a simple touch on her arm. What were they talking about again? Oh yeah, problem solving. He wasn’t wrong. She really did need the money. That court judgment wasn’t going to pay itself.
He leaned in far too close and she tried not to like the woodsy scent of aftershave mixed with the faint aroma of coffee.
“Don’t you want to be part of the solution, Cara?
” he said the endearment with an Italian accent he must have picked up at home.
It was so close to her name and yet worlds apart.
He winked at her and walked on down the line, giving her time to think. Carrie gulped and blindly went back to disemboweling the next fluorescent gremlin.
“Ugh, I’m so going to jail,” she mumbled to herself. Either that or for a swim wearing cement shoes. There had to be a third option. Make out in the backseat of Buck’s ’68 Charger like she’d daydreamed about in high school?
No, not that. She mentally slapped herself. She did wonder if he still had that car though.
Come on, Carrie. The smart part of her brain whispered. Have some guts. An entirely different part added.
Buck had brought this to her because he couldn’t just throw a thousand gutted FurrBabies into a dumpster.
They were too noticeable. And at retail, they would go for $100 a pop—if she could get them re-stuffed.
She didn’t feel like she was really in danger, as long as she did her part and kept her mouth shut.
As long as she could help him pull this off, then Buck needed her.
He needed strait-laced, goody-goody, never tardy Carrie Smith to solve his problem.
She felt a kind of thrill shoot up her spine.
What could go wrong? Besides everything?
the strictly law-abiding little voice in her head asked.
Ppssshhh. the reckless new voice replied.
Where had following the rules ever gotten her?
Even if the cops did come sniffing around, if she sold the evidence, what would they have to go on? Nothing, that’s what.
The brightly-colored gargoyles were still basically new, right?
Carrie looked at the pile of empty, no-longer-pristine, clear-front boxes and the floppy, deflated bodies.
A gang member gave her a grin showing a jaunty gold tooth and grabbed the full crate to drag it away.
A hundred pairs of animatronic eyes suddenly came to life, blinking at Carrie all at once, the beaks moving with a cacophony of gibberish.
Liar, liar, pants on fire, the toys seemed to taunt her. She took a breath and told her conscience to shut up. On Black Friday, people would buy almost anything, and FurrBabies . . . those they would fight over. She simply needed to restuff them.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t just commandeer all the other stuffed animals in the store in a sacrifice to the gods of capitalism.
Corporate was expecting her to sell those on Black Friday to pull herself out of the hole she’d dug with the great Halloween snafu.
For which she had been completely innocent!
It was not her fault that some of Toys-A-Lot’s more exuberant young customers had read Carrie’s Trick-or-Treat flier more literally than intended.
Unfortunately, the judge hadn’t seen it that way.
Which reminded her, JoElle’s Crafts was right next door . . .
No. That was as bad an idea as making out with Buck in the backseat of—out of curiosity, what was he driving much too fast nowadays?
Anyway, she mentally chastised herself. JoElle’s had to be a last resort. There were other options left, weren’t there?
Carrie nodded decisively and left her station, giving Buck a determined look and a hand signal saying hold on, before going to the front of the store and dragging Giselle into the back. She pulled a pair of scissors from the utility drawer and said goodbye to the 10-foot-tall gazelle mascot.
An hour later, she had to admit that Giselle hadn’t held as much stuffing as she’d hoped. She’d barely gotten a hundred FurrBabies re-stuffed (most of them looked decent too!) but that wasn’t nearly enough. Only 900-ish more to go.