I Want Candy Read Online Free PDF Page B

kiss.
    “You sure I can’t get you another beer, Turner?”
    “Naw, man, thanks. One was my limit tonight.” Turner nodded subtly to Candy before he moved his focus to J.J. “In fact, I probably should be heading out. I gotta get a little rest before I go back to work.”
    Turner pushed himself up from the lawn chair, hugged Cheri, and thanked her for a lovely evening. He slapped J.J. on the back and told him he’d see him tomorrow. Turner felt Candy’s eyes on him.
    “Would you like me to drop you back in town?” he asked her.
    “Oh! Sure. That would be great.” Candy grabbed her bag and hugged J.J. and Cheri good night. They walked together to Turner’s SUV and he opened the door for her, averting his eyes from the backs of her bare thighs and the luscious curve of her ass as she climbed up.
    God damn, she had it going on.
    Candy remained silent during the ten-minute ride through the dark woods. Turner knew that it would be up to him to start the necessary conversation.
    “Please don’t feel uncomfortable about what happened this morning. I understand completely, Candy.”
    Very slowly, she turned her head and shot him an undecipherable look. “You do?”
    “Sure,” he said. “You were relieved that I didn’t cite you. You didn’t mean anything by that kiss, and I didn’t make more of it than it was.”
    “Okay,” she said, not entirely convinced.
    “I mean, right?” A flash of alarm went through Turner’s body. It had been a long time since he’d tried to decipher a woman’s way of communicating, and perhaps he’d lost his ability. Was she toying with him? Was she trying to tell him something without actually saying it? What was going on here? He tried again.
    “What I’m saying is you made it clear to me a long time ago that you weren’t interested in me that way—you know, as someone you’d want to date—so I figured the kiss was just a … well, you know. A fluke.”
    Candy made a clicking sound with her tongue that sounded to him like annoyance. She was annoyed with him ? He almost burst out laughing.
    “What the hell are you talking about, Halliday?” She turned abruptly in her seat to face him. “You and I never discussed the possibility of dating. It never even came up. You always seemed perfectly happy being my friend, so I figured that’s what we’d always be.”
    He tried not to choke as he peered at her in the dim light. The thing was, Candy looked perfectly sane and she sounded completely rational, like she believed the words she’d just spoken. How a person could be that delusional and look so normal he had no idea. “So that’s how you remember it, huh?”
    Candy swung her arm up over the back of the driver’s seat and leaned closer to him. Her blue eyes were huge in the glow of the dashboard. “What exactly are you getting at?”
    Turner chuckled, turning the vehicle down Main Street into Bigler. He knew Viv’s house was no more than two minutes away. There would be no way they could sort out this mess by then, but he couldn’t stop himself from setting her straight.
    “I’m talking about that night I called your house and your father answered.”
    Slowly, a puzzled frown pulled at Candy’s brow. She shook her head very slowly, sending her pale curls brushing across her shoulders. A stray lock slipped down over the top of her breast. “You called my house all the time, Turner.”
    “I did, but it was usually to tell you where we were all headed or what time we’d swing by to pick you up. The night I’m talking about was different.”
    Turner didn’t see any sign of recollection in her expression. She tipped her head to the side and lowered her chin. Still nothing. Was it possible she really didn’t remember that conversation and the fallout from it?
    His mouth fell open in disbelief. “It was May of junior year. You actually don’t—”
    “No.” She shook her head definitively. “I don’t know what night or what phone call you’re referring to.