Page 80 of Candy

I deserved someone who loved me, someone who wanted to build a life with me. Not someone who wanted me to take care of his son because he was afraid. I couldn’t do that. No matter how I felt for Mike or Harley. I had to put my foot down, or I would lose myself.

Carmen had moved on to talk about something else, and I slipped into the house, grabbed my purse and keys, and then disappeared out the front door before Harley, or anyone else saw me leave.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

MICHAEL

All week I had been thinking about this. Not just how I felt for Candy but also how well things worked with her. She was fantastic with Harley. Not only her, but everyone in her family had helped with some aspect.

Coral had invited him down to the café for hot chocolate and cookies. Carmen was working with him to help him move forward. Ethan had assisted in finding out about his mother’s death, and Evan, well, Evan was just being nice about the whole thing. He wasn’t staring daggers into me or giving me a hard time.

None of them gave Candy a hard time either, as far as I knew. I hadn’t met her father yet, but I knew that Harley had been to meet him. He even had lunch over there and told me about her father's garden, which grew yellow corn, red tomatoes, brown potatoes, and green cinis. I figured he meant zucchini but didn’t correct him.

Candy herself had gone above and beyond what I could have asked of her. Not once did she complain, and every night when I climbed into her bed, I felt at peace as I pressed my body to hers. I couldn’t resist her, and even though I should have let her sleep, she didn’t seem to mind when I woke her up.

Just the night before, after we had finished, she drifted back to sleep, and I lay there staring at her face. My heart was so full of emotion that I almost wanted to cry. I had no idea what made me feel that way, except it felt right. Everything about her felt right.

And not just at the house with Harley either. The sale was going through for the tavern, and Laney had architects who had drawn up plans. We had met at the bar one night for an early dinner to discuss them, and renovations would begin two weeks after the sale went through. The structure renovations were due to start the day after we signed the papers. I wasn’t sure how Candy managed that, but with her working for the company, the cost of the work was twenty percent less because of her discount.

It was all moving along, and I was both excited and nervous as hell. In the back of my mind, I was trying to figure out how I could manage to run this tavern and take care of Harley. I wasn’t going to be able to do it without help, that was for sure.

I felt guilty for asking Candy to do so much, but she never seemed to mind. That didn’t mean that I wanted to continue and take advantage of her. Eventually, I knew that would happen, but what if I weren’t asking a friend to do it? What if Candy was more than just my girlfriend or lover? What if she was my wife?

The first time that thought came to mind, I laughed out loud and shoved it away. The second time, I found myself frowning as I considered it for a few seconds but again pushed thoughts of it away. Candy would never want to marry me. I had nothing to give her—nothing except a family and a more significant stake in the tavern.

We would own eighty percent of the tavern together if we were married, while Laney would own twenty. That made good business sense to me, but what made more sense was that Candy just fit into my life. Harley was crazy about her, and I enjoyed everything I knew about her. I wasn’t sure I had even found anything that I didn’t like.

I dwelled on that for a moment and couldn’t recall one thing that made me wonder why she did it or that I found bothered me. She probably had a dozen things she hated about me, like the fact that I was an ex-biker. We never talked about that, but I wondered if that bothered her.

I knew without a doubt that Candy cared about me. I saw how she looked at me, could tell in how she touched me, and how she cared for Harley. That’s why I brought it up as I sat on the back porch.

If I cared about her, and she cared about me, then why not? Why not get married and make this all legal? It made sense. It would allow us to work together and have all the sex we wanted while still caring for Harley and giving him a stable life. It just made sense.

Except Candy didn’t seem to think so. When I brought it up, she appeared to distance herself from me. I didn’t understand why. Couldn’t she see that I cared about her? Maybe I didn’t love her, or perhaps I did. I wasn’t sure, but even if I didn’t, what I was proposing felt right.

We went back and forth until she mentioned being a guardian. “I was going to ask you to do that, but then I thought that if we got married, it would be smarter.” I paused as I got closer. “Can’t you come to love me?”

“Can you make yourself love me, Michael?” she retorted.

The words were on the tip of my tongue to tell her I was already falling for her. Every time I was with her, I felt more, and when we were apart, she was constantly on my mind. Except, I didn’t get a chance because Carmen joined us to tell us how things had gone.

Candy excused herself, and I sat with Carmen to hear how the session had ended. I was glad that Harley felt comfortable enough to talk about what he had gone through, and Carmen said that she thought he would eventually put it behind him. His mind was resilient, and he was learning so many new things that it might write over the trauma. I hoped so.

Harley came outside a few minutes later. “Where is Candy?”

“She might be in her bedroom,” I suggested.

He shook his head. “No, she’s not, and her car isn’t here either.”

“What?” I said as I got to my feet and rushed into the house and straight to the front window—her SUV was gone. “Did she say anything to you before she left?”

He shook his head.

“Okay.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called her, but it went to voicemail immediately. Well, shit, had I upset her that much that she had to flee her place? I frowned as Carmen joined us.

“Did she leave?”

I nodded and asked Harley to watch some television while I finished talking to Carmen. Then we would make lunch.

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