Excerpt from "Tattoos and Mistletoe" in THE NAUGHTY
LIST
CHAPTER 1
Ten years ago, Charlie Coltrane left
Whistler, British Columbia, taking only her ratty old
backpack and the
certainty that she’d never return.
And now, here she was, back in the
damned place, riding in a cab from the bus station to the
B&B she’d
inherited. From beyond the grave, Aunt Patty had, for
whatever bizarre reason,
found the sole motivator to make Charlie return to the
place where she’d grown
up. The place that, like Patty, had treated her like shit
from the day she was
born.
Well, screw Whistler. She wasn’t the
same loser kid with a bad rap, she was a Toronto
businesswoman. In a few days
she’d have her aunt’s B&B tidied up and on the market,
and she could blow
this town once and for all. With the sale proceeds, she’d
open her own tattoo
parlor in Toronto and achieve her dearest dream: to be her
own boss, making a
living from her art.
Shading her eyes against crisp winter
sunlight, she noted lots of new buildings but the town
still had the flavor of
a Pacific Northwest version of a Swiss village. The color
palette hadn’t
changed either. Under a frosting of snow and a hodgepodge
of tacky Christmas
decorations, the forest and earth tones were harmonious,
but boring.
In her day, she’d spiced things up,
roaming Whistler at night and painting graffiti art on the
post office, liquor
store, and some upscale shops. That Halloween mural she’d
done on the wall of
the police station, with the skulls and zombies, had been
totally inspired.
Those blandly painted buildings still
made her fingers itch. She grinned. Now, there’d be a way
of letting Whistler
know Charlie Coltrane was back in town.
The grin faded. Nope. As a kid, she’d
had to live here and had learned to put on a tough-girl
shell, to pretend to
the town—and to herself—that she didn’t care what anyone
thought. Now, she’d
rather fly under the radar.
Yes, she’d changed. The old Charlie had
been fuel for the gossip mill: graffiti, cutting class,
suspensions, driving
without a license, being thrown in juvie.
People had assumed the kid of two loser
drunks had to be a loser, too. That gave Charlie two
choices: let them know she
gave a fuck, or tell them to fuck off. She’d had enough
pride that the first
choice wasn’t an option.
Suspensions were preferable. Even a night
in juvie. Yeah, thanks for that, Aunt Patty. For not coming
to claim me when
Mom and Dad were too shit-faced to do it. The driving
without a license had
been to take her dad to emergency. And yeah, she cut class,
missed exams. Who
cared about school when her parents fought all night and
she couldn’t study,
much less sleep?
"White Gold." The taxi driver announced
the subdivision.
She leaned closer to the window. More
Christmas glitter assaulted her eyes: sparkling lights
twining through trees,
fake icicles hanging from eaves, gross rubber snowmen.
He turned onto Nancy Greene Drive.
"What’s the address?"
"It’s the Mountain View B&B."
She grimaced at the decorations,
reminders that Christmas was two weeks off. The worst time
of year. A stream of
bad Whistler memories filled her mind and she squeezed her
eyes shut. But how
not to remember? Especially the afternoon she’d come home
to find that her
parents and her home had gone up in flames. If she’d been
there, not sketching
in the woods . . . But she couldn’t re-make the past.
"Here we are." The driver stopped the
cab and glanced over his shoulder. "You know this place
shut down after the
owner died?"
"I know." Charlie had to stay at the
Mountain View. It was a term of her aunt’s will. "It’s
okay." Even if it hurt
to be back, she’d keep her goal firmly in mind.
When she paid him, he said, "You’re the
niece? The one who used to live here, who inherited?" His
eyes were bright with
curiosity.
What rumors had he heard? It seemed
that at its core Whistler was still a small, gossipy town,
underneath the gloss
of tourists and seasonal workers. "I am."
Before he could say anything else, she
slid out of the cab, tugging her bag behind her. She
hoisted it on her back and
stared at the B&B. The basic structure, a homey wooden
chalet, was
appealing, but the paint was faded and a couple of shutters
hung crookedly.
Surprising, because her aunt, a pretentious snob, used to
keep the place in
tip-top shape.
Charlie stared at the front walk.
Roughly shoveled now, it had been immaculate the day she’d
left town.
When her parents died, Patty, who’d
shunned the family, had been forced to take her niece in.
After the funeral,
she told Charlie, "I’ll do my duty and let you live with us
until you finish
grade twelve. But there will be rules. You will not
embarrass me."
Yeah, right. "You don’t want me,"
Charlie’d said, "and I don’t fucking want to be here."
Her aunt had ordered her not to swear,
but hadn’t denied the truth of her words.
In that moment, Charlie’s last hope had
died. Why should Patty want her, love her, when her own
parents hadn’t? Five
minutes later, she’d been out the door with everything she
owned—the art
supplies she’d been carrying the day of the fire—in that
crappy old pack she’d
got from the community services thrift shop.
Memories sucked.
She took a deep breath. Then, as the
scent filled her nostrils, another. Mmm. Pine and snow.
She’d forgotten this
smell, so fresh and pure. It made her think of days spent
hiking in the
wilderness and sketching deer, snowshoe hares, the pattern
of ice on a
semi-frozen river. The few happy times she’d enjoyed
here.
As she strode resolutely up the walk,
she noted the two trucks in the driveway: a battered old
one and a newer 4x4
with "Banfield Renovations" on the side. Good, the work was
underway.
The lawyer, Jeff Mattingly, had said
her aunt had been giving the place a face lift, but the
renos had been put on
hold when she died. It was a condition of the will that in
order to inherit,
Charlie had to live at the B&B and ensure the job was
completed.
She stood outside the closed door.
Should she knock? The screech of a saw suggested no-one was
likely to hear.
Mattingly had couriered keys to her, along with the legal
papers she’d needed
to sign, so she dug them out, unlocked the door, and
stepped inside.
"Holy shit!" Whole walls were missing,
and a ceiling. This wasn’t renovation, it was
demolition.
Stunned, she set down her pack,
stripped off her heavy jacket, and shook back her long,
near-black hair. More
comfortable now, in jeans, a turquoise tank, and a zippered
top in a rich plum
shade, she made for the source of the noise. Competing with
the saw was a radio
playing The Black Eyed Peas. Loudly. She liked The Black
Eyed Peas. The saw,
not so much.
A muscular guy around her age, clad in
jeans, a faded gray tee, and a tool belt, stepped through a
doorway.
"What the hell is going on?" she
demanded.
Surprise crossed his face, and what a
face it was: broad planes, strong angles, and sexy stubble
all dusted with
gold—or, more likely, sawdust. The same dust that clung to
coal-black hair
tousled by the goggles he’d shoved atop his head.
A white smile flashed. "You’re Charlie
Coltrane. Jeff Mattingly said you’d be arriving."
The saw stopped and a short, wiry guy,
several years younger, hurried through the door behind
him. "Hey, LJ, d’you
want me to— Oh, sorry, boss, didn’t mean to interrupt." His
curious gaze
scanned Charlie. "Bet you’re Ms. Coltrane. My mom had you
in her math class at
Whistler Secondary. Ms. Anderson?"
She winced. "Not my biggest fan." Not
that she’d had fans in Whistler.
He grinned. "Heard about the graffiti
on the gym wall. Sweet!"
Her lips quirked. "I thought so." She’d
done caricatures of the teachers, including his mom. And
received her
second—no, third—suspension.
"Joey," LJ said, "what did you want?"
"Oh yeah, right."
The two men launched into a carpentry
discussion that made no sense to Charlie, and she leaned
back against a huge
freestanding stone fireplace. Despite her angst over why
these guys were
destroying a perfectly good B&B, she could take a
moment to enjoy the view.
Namely, LJ. Hunky guys in tool belts
were a rarity to her, but she could get addicted. The old
tee and jeans
showcased rippling muscles, and when he gestured to Joey,
his movements were
strong and confident.
He was noticing her, too, casting
appreciative glances that heated her skin. She unzipped her
top, leaving it
open to reveal her tank and the snout of her dragon tattoo.
When the men finished talking, Joey
left and LJ came over. "Sorry. He’s an apprentice, and
scared to do anything
without asking directions. Which is mostly a good thing."
He grinned, lips full
and sexy, blue-gray eyes glinting out of that gold-dusted
face.
A shiver darted across her skin. There
was something familiar about those eyes.
Only ten minutes ago she’d had a flood
of Christmas flashbacks. Including the high school dance.
Her townie date had
turned out to be a jerk, then attacked her in his car. Then
that science-geek
kid rescued her, only to reject and humiliate her.
What had that kid’s name been?
Something appropriate like Chester. Hadn’t his eyes been
rather like LJ’s,
behind thick lenses? She found herself asking, "Do you have
a brother?"
The saw started up again, a room or two
away.
Raising his voice, he said, "No, a kid
sister. Why?"
She shook her head. Loads of guys had
blue-gray eyes. She had to stop letting bad memories
distract her. "So, LJ,
what’s going on? Mr. Mattingly said the place was getting a
face lift. I
expected clean-up and basic repairs, but you’re knocking
out walls."
He took a step closer, eyes crinkling
appealingly. "Patty said the older a woman gets, the more
heavy lifting is
required."
Reluctantly, she grinned. When it came
to heavy lifting, this was one man you’d want around. She
could smell the
fresh, woodsy scent of sawdust, and her fingers itched to
brush it off his
strong cheekbones, to let her fingers drift over his warm
skin.
"She signed off on the plans in
October," he said. "She paid for the work and we got
underway, then she died.
Just got started again after Mattingly said you’d given the
okay."
Maybe her aunt had decided on major
renos just to keep LJ around. The idea was tempting. Or
would be, if this was
anywhere other than Whistler. Even tool-belt guy couldn’t
make this town
appealing.
She planted her hands on her hips. "I
didn’t okay all this."
His gaze followed her hands and
lingered on the curve of her hips.
Trying to ignore the sexual awareness
that prickled her skin, she said, "Rework the plans to do
just the essentials,
and be finished in a week. You can pay back the
balance."
He raised his gaze to linger on her
chest. On her dragon’s snout, hissing fire across her
cleavage. That had been
her first tattoo, the dragon that protected her heart. Too
bad he couldn’t keep
her nipples from tightening.