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.