I Want Candy by Susan Donovan Read Free Book Online Page B

Pants, do you?”
    By that point, Turner had had enough of his brother. “Don’t call her that, okay? I need to go, man.”
    “Hey, I don’t mean anything by it. You and J.J. used to call her that all the time back in school. I remember—”
    That made Turner perk up. He cut the ignition and gave his full attention to Reggie. “Tell me what you remember.”
    “All right.” His brother nodded and pursed his lips in thought. “I remember how much you secretly liked her. Hey, I didn’t blame you, man. It was obvious that she was going to be a brickhouse when she grew up.”
    “Anything else?”
    Reggie frowned. “You talking about that night I heard you on the phone with her dad?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, let’s see. I was back home for Thanksgiving break right after my Achilles tendon surgery, so that was my senior year at State, right? So you had to be, what, about seventeen?”
    Turner nodded.
    “And I saw your face fall when her daddy answered. And then Candy came on the phone and gave you some kind of bullshit answer while that racist son-of-a-bitch father of hers breathed down her neck.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “And you got really upset. You were shocked more than anything. You just couldn’t believe that someone you’d known all your life could freak out like that the second you wanted to date her. But since I’d been down that road once or twice myself by that time, I took you out into the backyard and—”
    When Turner busted out laughing, Reggie stopped talking. “Did I say something funny?”
    “Nope,” he said, letting his laughter die down to a bitter chuckle. “Thank you, Reg.” Turner patted his brother on the shoulder. “See, I was starting to think maybe I’d made the whole thing up in my head or exaggerated it all out of proportion, because when I asked Candy about it last night, she didn’t even remember the conversation. She said I’d never asked her out.”
    Reggie’s mouth fell open. “You’re shittin’ me.”
    “I am not.” Turner sank back into the headrest.
    “So you asked her out again last night? Did she say yes this time?”
    Turner’s head popped up. “ Hell, no.”
    “She said no again?”
    Turner sighed and started up the SUV once more. “I didn’t ask her out, all right?”
    “Well, why not? Jonesy Carmichael was wrapped up in his pointy-headed white sheet and laid in the ground a long time ago. This is God giving you a second chance, little brother. You need to jump on that.”
    “I am not ready to date,” he said, backing out of the drive even though Reggie was still leaning in the window. “And if I were, you think I’d be fool enough to start with Candy Carmichael?”
    Reggie began to jog along by the side of the vehicle, pivoting when Turner put the gearshift into drive. “Whoa! Damn, T! Why are you still touchy about that chick?”
    Still touchy? Hardly. Until she came back to town a few weeks ago, she’d barely crossed his mind. The last time he’d seen her had been more than five years before, at J.J.’s ill-fated wedding to Cheri’s flaky sister, when Turner and Junie had exchanged pleasantries with Candy. More importantly, Turner hadn’t had a decent conversation with Candy since before she went away to college and he joined the corps, which had been seven years before that .
    So as he drove back to the municipal complex, Turner thought about his brother’s fool question, and decided Reggie could be a real ass sometimes. Ridiculous! Of course Turner wasn’t still touchy about Candy Carmichael.
    He was touchy all over again.
    In fact, as he picked up his messages from Bitsy, he decided “touchy” might not even cover it.
    Turner closed the door to his office. He sat down in his desk chair. He nodded to himself. He wasn’t touchy. No. It was far worse than that.
    His fuse was lit and he was damn near ready to detonate.

 
     
    Chapter 5
     
    “All right then,” Jacinta said, smoothing her caftan around her in the easy chair. “First