Chapter 1 #2
If only she were still on good terms with Tracey next door, then Carrie could just call her.
But after Halloween, the JoElle’s manager had blocked Carrie’s number.
It hadn’t helped that Carrie had pointed out Tracey’s own lack of preparedness was partly to blame.
When JoElle’s had run out of candy during peak treating hours, it had resulted in a feral pack of junior high boys, hopped up on sugar, running through the craft store, screeching like banshees, and scaring the grandmas, Ethyl and Dorothy, who worked the JoElle’s fabric cutting table into giving them every fall themed candy on display.
Carrie didn’t know how she was to blame for their gravely insufficient candy supply.
However, she did feel badly about Ethyl’s heart attack.
And poor Dorothy never had found her fabric scissors.
The Judge had declared her remorse to be “insufficient,” however, and Carrie, in an ultimate display of non-functioning brain-mouth filter, had just had to ask how $50,000 would solve anything either.
Just like that, it had become $100,000. Now corporate was mad, Carrie’s Toys-A-Lot store was about to go under, and Giselle was down to her wood frame and a pile of fabric.
Even if Carrie could call Tracey, there was no way the JoElle’s manager would help her, especially after midnight before Thanksgiving Day.
Which reminded Carrie of her other problem: she was supposed to bring her signature yam and apple casserole to Thanksgiving at Aunt Melinda’s house tomorrow. She glanced at the clock—it was nearly one. Today. She needed it today.
She groaned. With all this FurrBaby business, she had no time to cook.
Add in the crap her family was going to give her about not having a steady boyfriend—didn’t she see how she was torturing her poor mother by not giving her grandbabies?
her aunt’s voice was shrill in her memory—and Carrie was dreading Thanksgiving dinner.
Maybe she could claim having the flu. She whispered, “Whatever,” to herself, making a W with her fingers in front of her chest and summoned the ultimate voice of self-confidence and determination—Cher from Clueless.
This was what she had to do: She was going to get these FurrBabies restuffed and repackaged tonight.
Then she was going to call every radio station in three counties and get the store ready for the biggest Black Friday sale, like ever.
She was going to do what she had to do to save her store.
Starting with breaking into JoElle’s Fabric and Crafts.
“You seem to be thinking awfully hard, Cara,” Buck said, coming back around and eyeing both Carrie and the still-boxed FurrBabies piling up at her table.
“I remember that look on your face from back in high school, right before you aced a project and totally blew the curve for the rest of us. What’s going on in that cute, nerdy brain of yours? ”
“My brain is not cute or nerdy!” Carrie replied and then realized she just sounded pouty.
He grinned at her as if she’d just proven his point.
Carrie frowned and grabbed the toys, shoving half to each of her neighbors.
She ignored their glares and faced Buck, pulling herself up to her full height, which meant she was looking him in the chin.
He was annoyingly tall. She was going to do what he wanted, but this was her store and her life. She was in charge.
“I think we need to remember that you came to me because you’ve got a packaging problem.” She reminded him. “Which I’m taking care of so that you don’t have to dump highly recognizable and attention getting evidence somewhere it will totally be found and reported to the police.”
He stiffened, eyes squinting, and opened his mouth, but Carrie summoned Cher, put up her talk-to-the-hand and barreled on. “You need me.”
“You’re going to make a nice profit here too,” he said.
“Correct.” Otherwise, why would she be doing this?
“But I’m the one who has to make this work, as you pointed out.
Missing my family’s Thanksgiving, not that I want to go anyway and hear—never mind.
That’s beside the point.” She put her finger up and got herself back on track.
Her hand found the curve of her hip. “I was supposed to bring a casserole.”
Wait, that was still not it. His lips quirked up in a smile as if he knew that wasn’t what she’d meant to say.
“And now there’s no way, because those doors,” she waved at the front of the store and checked her watch, “open for Black Friday in twenty-eight hours and it’s not like I need sleep or anything so I can run the insanity that is Black Friday at a toy store.
I’ve got to get these things back to brand new condition,” she waved at the piles of deflated FurrBabies, “get them stocked and priced, get ads on the radio stations ASAP—”
“Ads?” Buck asked in alarm.
“How do you think I’m going to get people here to buy these things if no one knows we have them?
In summary, for me to take care of your problem, I’ve got to concentrate on my part, which needs to get done pronto.
People will believe imperfect packaging on Black Friday when everything’s chaos, but they’ve gotta sell that day, or they’ll sit till after-Christmas clearance. ”
Maybe not. They were FurrBabies after all, but she didn’t have to tell him that.
She marched into her office and quickly opened the wall safe, making sure she was blocking any view of the combination from the door where Buck stood watching, and grabbed the petty cash, stuffing it in an envelope and scribbling a note all but illegibly on the front.
She stuffed it in her pocket along with a dusty key from the very back of her desk drawer.
She turned to the door and stopped short because there was Buck, leaning casually in the way, one arm up against the doorframe.
Something in her couldn’t help but appreciate the way his tall, muscular body seemed to take up most of the space in the doorway, and a fair amount of her miniscule office as well.
She cleared her throat to indicate he was in her way. He didn’t move, like he was making a silent point after her little speech about who was in control here. She felt her heartrate pick up.
“Excuse me.” She raised her brows emphatically.
His full lips turned up at one corner and he slowly moved a step to the side to show he’d heard her.
His head gave a little jerk to indicate she could go on through, but he still took up most of the space.
She walked toward him, sucking in a breath and feeing suddenly nervous with his full attention on her.
His eyes were half-lidded as they followed her approach, like he wanted her to come closer. Like she was prey.
That is ridiculous, Carrie! She shivered at the thought and her heart began to pound.
He is not going to eat you up. She held his stare as she walked the last few steps toward him, until he dropped his gaze to rake her up and down with his eyes.
She shivered again, feeling more excited than she had in a long time.
What if . . . what if I want him to eat me up?
She had no answer for that errant thought and she dropped her eyes to squeeze under his arm.
She walked unsteadily to a rack of unsold Halloween costumes, her heart racing and very aware of him silently stalking after her.
Get ahold of yourself, Carrie! She took a deep breath as her shaking fingers drifted across the costumes, unable to keep from fingering a filmy, blue harem girl number.
No, she was not going to think about how it had felt to try that on after everyone had gone home.
Delicious, that interior voice supplied.
“What did you wear for Halloween?” His voice was rough behind her.
“Hmmm?” she asked innocently, pretending not to understand his question.
“What. Was. Your. Halloween. Costume?” He spelled out like it was causing him some sort of internal pain. “One of those?”
The rack held adult-sized costumes, “adult” being the operative word. She’d tried telling corporate that this was a toy store, you know, for kids. But they’d said the sexy costumes sold well to teens and college students, and that was the most (read only) important thing.
“Oh, no. I was working,” Carrie replied. “Handing out candy.”
She heard him inhale and slowly exhale. His voice came out more normal. “So, what was it?”
“Oh, um, racecar driver.” She didn’t add she’d gone as Janet Guthrie, first woman to compete in the Indy 500.
She hadn’t won, so most people didn’t remember her, or that women did race at the highest levels.
She couldn’t wait to see a woman take the checkered flag at the Indy 500 and NASCAR someday.
Focus, Carrie.
She stopped stroking the filmy harem costume and threw on the black hooded cape she’d come over here for, taking the matching Scream mask in hand.
They’d sold thousands of the things a month ago.
Anyone could have one. Last, she grabbed two empty shelving carts and rolled them to the back door, pausing to put the mask on and make sure the alley was empty.
She got to the back door of JoElle’s and realized Buck was following her.
She ignored him, about to put the key in the lock and praying the locks hadn’t been changed.
The store managers before Carrie and Tracey had had a better relationship.
She doubted anyone even remembered the long-forgotten key at the back of her desk drawer.
She heard Buck sigh. “Hang on, Cutie,” Buck said behind her.
Carrie turned to him in shock. She was Cutie now?
“What?” Carrie wasn’t sure if she was questioning the nickname or why she was waiting.
“You don’t know anything about breaking and entering, do you?”
“Well, excuse me, but there weren’t courses on theft offered at my university.”