The Bachelor and the Beauty Queen (5 page)

A lock of her hair fell down her back, brushing against his arm. “You still want to bring up the dress?” he said, casting a glance back at Kimber. “Let's talk about the dress.”

Lexi's eyes flashed wide before falling across the table.

“Yeah, I thought not. I am willing to barter with you.”

That got her attention. She looked at him sharply. “Barter how?”

“Do you believe Philly has what it takes?”

She peered around his shoulder to look at the five-year-old. A sweet smile spread across her face. “I haven't seen a natural like her in ten years.”

A certain sadness twinkled in her eyes, then disappeared. Stephen was here to make a deal with Lexi, not psychoanalyze her. If she was the best, she was what Philly deserved. “So you would be willing to let go of your grudge against me to help Philly?”

“My grudge?” She stared incredulously, and if she became any stiffer she would break in half. Lexi held her face back in shock as if she'd been slapped. “Do you think I would hurt that little girl's chances to spite you? Quite the ego you have there, Mr. Reyes.”

“Wouldn't you?”

The music ended and Lexi stopped moving. “I am not an arrogant ass like you.”

“Did you call me an ass?” he asked humorously. Before she could step away, the music started back up and Stephen pulled Lexi back into his arms. “Uh-uh,” he taunted her, “the music hasn't stopped, and you don't want to make a scene by leaving me on the dance floor.”

“You're such a miserable bastard. Must you make everyone else around you the same?”

“Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.” Stephen twirled her around and dipped her backward. “Get used to seeing more of me, Lexi Pendergrass.”

Chapter 4

S
unday morning, the streets of Southwood appeared to come to a halt. Cars filled the parking lots. As they passed along the bread-box churches with steeples, Stephen searched for one long gold Cadillac, finding it parked in front of her store. His dance with the beauty queen had left him unsatisfied.

For the second morning straight, he had woken up in his pullout bed in his office-slash-bedroom, forgetting he was not a preteen boy with uncontrollable, erection-producing dreams. He needed to get over this odd obsession with Lexi. She hadn't squirmed enough in his arms Friday night, at least not until he suggested she get used to seeing more of him. Now he couldn't wait to watch her squirm when he walked through the door. As soon as Nate pulled up beside Lexi's car, Stephen's blood began to quicken.

Nate cut off the motor, and before the engine had time to cool down, the girls were out of the car and running toward Grits and Glam Gowns, pressing their faces against the window to peer inside. The leather of the driver's side seat squeaked, and Nate turned toward him, his left arm cocked on the black leather steering wheel.

“I've got this under control,” said Nate. “Find something else to do.”

Silence filled the front seat of the car. A church bell went off somewhere in the distance. Stephen recalled Nate's eagerness to attend the fair a second night in a row. His brother claimed he wanted to chaperone Philly while she sat in the front of the parade car. Perhaps what Nate wanted to do was catch a glimpse of Lexi. How did Stephen know? Because that was his reason for going to the fair, too. “You're into Lexi?” Stephen hated to ask, fearing the answer. They never competed for a woman.

“What I am
into
is this small town. Lexi's had a hard time here.”

“And you know this how?”

Nate tore his eyes from the glare he held with his brother and stared up ahead. “I repeat,” he sighed, “this is a small town.”

“
We
came from a small town—” Stephen shrugged, gesturing his hand between the two of them “—on an island, secluded from the world.”

“Villa San Juan is not secluded.” Nate tried not to laugh, pressing his lips together and avoiding eye contact.

“Unless you had a boat or caught the ferry,” said Stephen, glad the tension between them had dissipated, “you were stuck if the bridge went out.”

“Look, all I'm saying is Lexi's been through a lot, and a lot of people around here won't let her forget her troubles.”

“Explain to me why we want someone troubled in Philly's life.” Stephen's mind grasped the nugget of information. He needed something to shake the feel of her silky skin out of his mind or the scent of her sweet body out of his head.

“If you're going to act like this, go back to Atlanta.”

“I'm here.”

“What about your house in Berkeley Lake?”

“Just because I didn't sell my place immediately doesn't mean I'm not committed to the girls. I told you I've already found a place to set up shop here.” He inclined his head toward the shop wedged between Grits and Glam Gowns, and the café.

Nate's gaze followed, then his mouth dropped open with horror. “What did you do?”

“I made an investment in our future, a future for the girls.” Stephen grinned proudly before manually unlocking the passenger's side door to step outside into the late-morning heat. Already a cloud of humidity surrounded his frame. He loosened the knot of his yellow-and-gray paisley tie. Perhaps wearing a dark suit today was not the best choice. “You cannot honestly tell me you like working out of the house.”

“Is this about Philly sticking the piece of bologna in the DVD player?”

Stephen chuckled. “No, I am not upset with her for trying to hide a lunch you made. How does anyone mess up a bologna sandwich?”

“We're not talking about my cooking.”

“Why are you acting so surprised? We need the office space.”

Nate scrambled out of his side and stood in front of Stephen, blocking him from stepping onto the curb. “Remember when I said you need to fix whatever you did wrong? We're not destitute. We don't need to continue working for a long while. We're here to raise our nieces.”

Stephen decided to leave the arguing alone. He listened to the bells over the door until they stopped chiming. The traffic downtown seemed motionless. For a minute, he swore he heard the traffic signal changing colors. In a diner across the street, a few people sat in the window, peering disapprovingly at the newcomer. A few dozen sets of eyes peered out from the drugstore across the street.

He hated small towns. The main reason he'd left Villa San Juan was to get away from everyone always being in everybody's business. As part of the Torres family through his mother, they were all subject to gossip. A major perk to living in Berkeley Lake was that he barely saw his neighbors. In Villa San Juan, you couldn't turn a corner without hitting a Torres.

Stephen reached for the set of keys, delivered to him yesterday, in the front pocket of his dark gray slacks. Despite the stares, the town truly was picturesque and moved him to the memory of when he first got excited about scouting out locations. He'd been about eighteen at the time and visiting his grandparents in Puerto Rico when he met an ambitious producer by the name of Christopher Kelly. Christopher wanted to impress his TV studio executive mother with hidden vacation spots, and Stephen, knowing all the beautiful hideaways not on the maps, was the right man for the job. After the success of his travel show for Multi Ethnic Television, also known as MET, people sought out Stephen's services. Using his shoulder, Stephen pushed against the wood frame of the door still bearing the name Divinity Bakery etched into the glass. Mounds of old newspapers nearly tripped him; dust floating through the beams of sunlight triggered a sneezing attack. The first thing he needed to do was start cleaning. The black-and-white tiled floor needed to go. Stephen preferred hardwood floors and office privacy. The only closed area so far was through the double doors leading to what he presumed was the kitchen, if he didn't count the short hallway to the left of the closed-off kitchen. Though the electricity was out, making it hard to confirm, Stephen bet the two closed doors down the dark hallway were bathrooms marked with the universal symbols.

Over the years Stephen had built a reputation people trusted and a knack of anticipating the trends in the real estate market. As a broker, he sold dreams. He sold extravagant homes to rich people who had money to spare and he sold homes to producers and directors in the film industry, who wanted authentic locations. At the high end of his real estate business, Stephen found exact replicas of movie mansions for wealthy people. Perhaps he had his mother to thank for his affinity for old movies because he had developed a keen eye for those types of homes.

Out of the three children Elizabeth Torres Reyes had raised, Stephen was the only one who managed to sit still without fidgeting through one of her beloved classic movies. Stephen never minded the rich films, which ended up helping him later in life, whether it was the dancing in
Black Orpheus
, the satire in Luis Buñuel's
Viridiana
, or the understanding of differences in the architectural structures from the American classic
Gone with the Wind
. Over the years he'd found replicas of homes like Tara, the seaside house from
Practical Magic
, the Victorian home from
Meet Me in St. Louis
, as well as colonial and Georgian houses from
Father of the Bride
and
Home Alone
.

For all his experience, Stephen lacked the ability to decorate the interiors of houses. He could find a home but couldn't put anything inside. He stood in the darkened room with his hands on his hips, knowing he needed Nate's expertise on where to construct walls. Stephen sighed and reached for his phone. There was nothing he could do right now without power.

Stephen lifted his phone in the air in an attempt to gain a bar. This morning Philly had played her favorite candy game on his device, but surely not enough to drain his battery. Light shone through the boarded-up windows of the bakery. With little effort, Stephen yanked a few of the boards and tossed them to the floor. He used his phone to snap a few pictures from each corner of the room. The icon for its battery was full and raring to go, but the internet connection said quite the opposite. He cringed at the thought of needing dial-up. In hopes of getting a better connection, Stephen stepped toward the door and held his phone toward the sun. A screen indicated a strong Wi-Fi connection came from Grits and Glam Gowns, but of course it was password protected. He debated for a moment, trying to guess the code.
Tiara?
Dresses?
Highly Inappropriate Dresses?
Nah, too long
, he decided. Besides, after further review of what he'd seen the two times he'd been inside the store, most dresses appeared to cover every inch of a woman's leg.

The image of Lexi's long legs entangled in his sheets entered his mind, stiffening his body. Stephen shook his head. What he needed to do was clear his mind. Maybe a walk to City Hall would help. Sunshine blinded him the moment he opened the doors. With one hand, Stephen covered his eyes. The large bakery sat nestled between the coffee shop on one side and Lexi's on the other. The neighbors on his block consisted of a jewelry store, a shoe repair store and a florist before he reached a crosswalk. Every step or two, Stephen found himself taking another picture of each business, impressed with the quaint feel of downtown. He began to cross the street and lift his hand to wave at the man sweeping the top two steps of a restaurant. Black buckets of long-stemmed roses lined the wooden railing and sent out a sweet floral scent.

“Afternoon.” Stephen lifted his hand.

The elderly man pressed his lips together as if deciding to acknowledge Stephen's greetings. “You jaywalked,” he finally said in a gruff voice, his mouth turned down into a frown.

“Sorry, in a bit of a hurry to get to City Hall.”

“You can rush all you want,” said the old man. “You won't get anywhere today. Most everyone closes up on Sundays. These are things you might want to know since you're new in town.”

“I stick out that much?” asked Stephen. He slid his hands in his pockets.

“You don't have to wear overalls—” the man frowned again “—but you may want to invest in some new threads.”

“Thanks for the advice,” he replied. He stepped forward and extended his right hand. “I'm Stephen.”

“Yes, Reyes,” the man said, accepting Stephen's hand with a firm shake. “I remember your brother—great man. You may call me Dave.”

“Thanks for the kind words, Dave—” Stephen nodded his head “—and for letting me know what's the deal around here.”

“Anytime.” Dave went back to sweeping, but Stephen stood still for a moment.

“Nice flowers.” Stephen nodded his head toward the buckets. “Got anything else?”

* * *

The bells over the front door jingled and out of the corner of her eyes Lexi watched everyone turn—everyone but Philly. The five-year-old remained focused. Lexi tried to regain her composure, but the image of Stephen Reyes waltzing into her store for the third time now gave her butterflies in the pit of her stomach. He wore a white button-down shirt, open at the throat, sleeves rolled up. A dark jacket hung over one forearm and he grasped a couple of flowers. White tissue paper covered the parcel cradled in his arms.

“All right, Philly.” Lexi cleared her throat to recuperate. “I want you to remember there will be a couple pieces of masking tape on the stage in the form of an X. I put some down today for your markers but I want you to practice not having to look at them. Let's try a front T-formation. Pretend the judges are over there.” Lexi pointed toward her right, where Nate and Kimber sat. The space Andrew and Chantal had created included a long stage stretching from one side of the room to the other and enough room outward for the girls to walk forward and work their talents.

In an attempt to point, her hand swatted against Stephen's hard chest. For some reason, Lexi mumbled an apology. He needed to apologize. He needed to be anywhere but here.

“Yes, ma'am,” Philly said sweetly.

“Hi, baby girl,” Stephen called out, waving his arm in the air.

“Shh, Uncle Stephen, I'm at work right now,” Philly lectured. “I want to start over.”

Before Lexi could protest, Philly took off behind the fuchsia curtains. Standing this close to Stephen made Lexi's cheeks burn with heat. Well aware of his strong masculinity, she tried to focus on Philly's stride rather than how dainty she felt standing next to him. The mental score card in her head for him rated Stephen at a high nine out of ten for poise and presence. She certainly felt it.

“I wanted to give your coach these.” Stephen presented the four branches of Dancing Lady orchids. Her favorite.

The corners of her mouth twitched, and she reluctantly raised his score up to a full ten. “You didn't have to.” Lexi remained calm, keeping her smile to a minimum. The chocolate scent wafted upward. She closed her eyes at the memory of her Grandma Bea's backyard. The sweet smell had always enticed Lexi to linger longer at her place.

“I did.”

The pep in Stephen's voice irritated her. She needed to stay angry with him. “Well, then, thank you.” Her lashes betrayed her, batting against her cheeks. “You're just in time for lunch. Hungry?”

Lexi did not mistake Stephen's eyes lowering to her lips. She bit the corner of her bottom lip. The temperature in the room rose a degree or two. Why did she decide to wear the pink sweatpants and matching jacket? Maybe something had happened to the air conditioner? With the orchids in her arms, Lexi turned her attention back to the stage. “After lunch, we'll work on hair and makeup.