Coming Up Roses - Staci Hart Page 0,3

her into a hug with arms like tree trunks. She squealed like a girl when he picked her up and spun her around wildly.

Wild. That was perhaps the best adjective to describe him. His hair, dark as sin, disheveled and untamed. His eyes, crisp and bright, a shade of blue so electric, so luminescent, it defied logic. Golden skin, kissed by the California sun that had shone on him the last five years. His smile told a tale of lust, loose and easy, given without thought or care. And though he didn’t have the discipline of a predator, his body moved with the ease and grace of a great black cat.

His lips said he’d come home to help save the shop, but his history said otherwise. I’d believe he ran out of money. Or that he was running from Wendy Westham, their marriage come unraveled, just like we’d all known it would. I’d believe just about anything beyond altruism.

Luke Bennet had come home to wreck everything he touched, just like he always did. And the saddest thing? He didn’t even have a clue. Not one.

He was feral, a thing unbridled, without rules or constraint. He went where he wanted, did what he chose. Never, not in a million years, would he be called responsible or dependable. And he hadn’t changed a bit in five years, but for the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes.

Should have worn sunscreen. Irresponsible asshole.

My teeth ground together with a squeak, and my eyes followed my hands as I snip, snip, snipped stems, imagining they were Luke’s neck.

I realized I sounded like the insufferable one, like he’d said. But ten years of being ignored by Luke Bennet would do that to a girl.

Maybe ignored was the wrong word. Forgotten. Rejected. Disregarded.

Because Luke didn’t ignore anybody. In fact, he had a knack for making every person he came across feel special and important to him. As such, every girl in a thirty-block radius—including yours truly—had, at some point, had a massive crush on the handsome, cavalier charmer. Regardless of the fact that he systematically snakebit every woman he came across and exploited every little crush to the fullest extent.

The worst part? He didn’t do it with a single malicious intention. He just gave and took and moved right along.

I almost couldn’t be mad at him.

Almost.

Except I couldn’t forgive him for the night he’d forgotten. He didn’t remember that kiss, touched with whiskey and fire. It had branded me like a red-hot iron, but it’d meant so little to him, he didn’t seem to have a flicker of a memory of the moment. And the next day, when I saw him at work, he treated me as if it had never happened.

Worse—he’d brushed right past me on his way to manhandle my best friend, Ivy.

“Lucas Bennet!” Mrs. Bennet said in that fond way a mother scolds her child. “Let me get a good look at you.”

He set her down, standing proudly, smiling softly. If he wasn’t a beast, he’d look like a boy.

Mrs. Bennet lifted her hands to his face, her gnarled fingers brushing his cheeks. My heart lurched at the sight.

Rheumatoid arthritis had twisted her hands, limited her mobility, ceased her passion. I’d been her hands for years, my mentor, my surrogate mother. She’d taught me everything I knew, inspired my own passion. I’d found my calling, thanks to her.

I’d found a place to belong, thanks to her.

And now, Luke had returned with his stupid, perfect ass and his pizza bod. You know the kind—broad shoulders, narrow waist that pointed to some spicy pepperoni you’d just love to get in or around your mouth. Even through his T-shirt, I could make out the landscape of his back—hills and valleys, ridges and rolling bulges, like alluvia drawn by water running through sand.

My life as I knew it had officially been flung into a meat grinder, and Luke Bennet’s hand rested firmly on the crank.

Snip, snip, snip, I cut, so mad that I saw everything behind a curtain of fuchsia. I barely even noticed Brutus, the shop’s cat and premier rat hunter, had taken a seat on the table next to me, watching me with detached curiosity, golden eyes knowing and dark fur gleaming.

I had known Luke was coming home—the rest of the Bennets had just arrived, and per the usual, he was late. Really, I should have assumed he’d be working here. What else would he do? The whole point of their return was to help