Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 38

This looks delicious, I thought bitterly as I pulled the cover off of my lunch. It was in a rectangular glass container with a snap-on lid. A bit harshly, I pulled a paper towel from the roll in my office break room so I could put it on top of the container while it cooked. I’d stepped up onto my back porch yesterday morning to find a cooler filled with six single-serving containers: breakfasts, lunches, and dinners from Buck.

This morning had been ricotta pancakes, as the helpful note stuck on the lid had said. In a tiny, separate container, he’d packed a fruit compote; the turkey sausage had seemed artisan; and the half of a roasted tomato had reheated well and been deliciously ripe. I hated him for knowing I hated pancake syrup, and for being sweet after breaking my heart—the heart I’d sworn I wouldn’t put on the line. I hated how his kindness rubbed salt in the wound, by reminding me what I was losing. I hated how sumptuous his food was, rich and savory, comforting and complex, just like the man himself.

Today’s lunch was lasagna, another masterpiece—a perfect balance of tangy sauce, mild sausage, and bechamel. I slammed the microwave door too hard after setting it inside, as if I were mad at my lunch, then stabbed the buttons like they’d done something to me. While the lasagna cooked, I got started on my salad in a jar. Perfect Buck had layered all the fixings. They needed only to be poured out and tossed. I knew I was being petty and ungrateful and overreactive, and that I could have just given the food away. I knew I had to put myself in check.

“When did you start cooking?”

I’d been so far down in my own head that I hadn’t even heard the sheriff come in. Jeffrey James eyed my Tupperware suspiciously. My lack thereof was kind of a thing. I was the reason why there was a toaster oven in the kitchen. I used it to cook my canapés. It had been that way for years.

“Oh, I still don’t cook.” I tried to sound nonchalant. “My neighbor made me this.”

The sheriff raised his eyebrows. “Must be a good neighbor...”

And since there was no way to explain how I would eat Buck’s food, simultaneously savoring and resenting it, I smiled agreeably and simply answered,“Yes. He is.”

I retreated to my office to eat, quasi-relieved that this was the last portion. Halfway through my lasagna, a grimmer thought occurred: if this was my consolation prize, I might well never eat his cooking again.

A long call after lunch distracted me from my problems. Several motorists had been rubbernecking to catch sight of a mama bear and her cubs, up near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The cars had crashed like dominoes, resulting in multiple rear-endings. The big picture was straightforward, but it was an interesting case from an investigative perspective. The sheriff took the call with me, and taught me how to assess the scene. In multivehicle crashes, the person who hit you wasn’t always at fault.

After we finished the call, I hastened to get home. This week had felt entirely too long. Since wallowing had gotten me nowhere, maybe it was time to settle back into my old after-work routine.I sorely needed respite.

I can have onion tarts for dinner, I tried to tell myself cheerily as I turned onto my street, a pang of indignity washing over me as I gave myself a pep talk over pastry puffs.

And I can get back into my own kitchen. Maybe make something for the legit side of Sniffing Around.

Recent weeks had found me neglecting my surplus of rosemary. I used it to make a room spray I liked; Cletus had recently inspired me to expand into beard oil. Tonight was a night I could actually give it a try. No one hated handcrafted, organic beauty products.

I’d just popped the cork on a bottle of rosé when my phone began to ring. I hated the way my heart felt hopeful every time. Not that Buck would call. I knew a brush-off when I heard it.

“Hello? Is this Loretta Boggs?”

Nope, not Buck, I thought, though I had already gathered as much from the unfamiliar number.

“Speaking,” I replied, relieved that it didn’t sound like anyone from the station calling me back in.

“This is Frenchie from the Need for Seed Cryobank. We have you down for a consultation in March, but you had asked to be placed on the cancellations list. I have an opening for next week.”

Mention of the fertility clinic pushed all thoughts of Buck out of my mind. “Next week?” I repeated incredulously.

“The opening is on Friday, November 25th, the day after Thanksgiving. All the other patients I called before you can’t make it on that day.”

“Of course.” Now my melancholy set back in. Other people didn’t spend the holidays alone. Neither did I, technically. There was always a COO potluck at somebody’s house. But the Friday after Thanksgiving, I didn’t have plans.

“Sure, I can take the appointment.”

“Fantastic.” Frenchie seemed to perk up, then lowered his voice. “You know, you’re really skipping the line. People ask to be put on the cancellation list all the time, but hardly anyone ever gets through.”

I thought back to what Clarine had said to me weeks earlier, about the universe and signs and me being so used to not getting what I wanted that I hardly knew what to do when I did. Me getting off the waiting list seemed like the universe intervening. Not just intervening, but guiding me definitively. Telling me it was time to move on.

“Hey, Clarine.”

Two days later, I picked up her call from the button on my steering wheel. I was back on the road after a stop home after work. Not that I needed to look particularly nice for Cheated On-Onymous, but changing out of my uniform let me feel more like myself. I’d also had plants to water. My own wilted spirit meant that I’d thrown myself into the gardens.

Seconds before picking up, I’d been pulling out of my own driveway and ignoring the fact that Buck wasn’t home. It was easy to tell. The man rarely parked his truck in his garage. It felt like months since I hadn’t been able to stop bumping into him or catching glimpses through his bedroom window. Now, he was like a ghost.

“Hey, Clarine. You all set for the meeting?”

“Would you mind heading to Donner Bakery to pick up a banana cake for tonight? Jolene had to cancel, and it was her turn.”She sounded frazzled.

“No problem.” I replied, relieved to be able to help. Clarine had taken on so much, so suddenly and so gracefully, that lightening her load was the least I could do.

“And I think I’m out of honey for the tea. And we might be running low on plates. Would you mind stopping by the Piggly Wiggly?”

“Check, check, and check,” I hit my turn signal, needing to switch lanes. I’d head to the bakery first, then work backward. If traffic worked in my favor, I would only be a few minutes late.

By the time I pulled into the back lot at the library, my front seat was laden with bags. It was unusual to have trouble with parking. The library had to be holding some kind of special event judging from all the extra cars.

Plenty of practice hauling supplies down to the meeting room found me making quick work of the stairs. The small window on the heavy steel door that opened up to our room was oddly dark. Sliding a grocery bag to the crook of my elbow, I used my only free hand to open the door. I almost called Clarine’s name when more darkness greeted me. That’s when I saw it: the candlelight.

If someone hadn’t chosen that moment to relieve me of my cake, I might have dropped it. My bones went slack, and the bags I held slid down my arm. Pillar candles encased in glass adorned every surface. There was no circle in the middle, but a square formed by the contours of the walls. And it wasn’t just Peggy, and Darlene, and Shenita, and Jolene, and Clarine, and Emmie, and Cora. It was years’ worth of COOs.

My heart clenched as my gaze slid over the faces of women I loved, most of whom held candles. Some held flowers and frames. My feet carried me forward and it dawned on me why I had been stalled and what was happening. I had just walked into my own graduation.

Clarine approached with a watery smile and clasped both my hands. “You told me to surprise you.”

I was still too shocked to speak.

“Turns out we couldn’t find a penis cake big enough to share with everyone who came to see you off. We’ll celebrate in a bit. But before we do, some people want to say a few words.”

“Loretta.” A woman named Ruby stepped forth, an original COO—one of the first ten who had stuck with me those first months when I’d barely known what I was doing. I gave her a long, tearful hug.

“Loretta,” she repeated once we pulled back. “I found this group at the lowest point in my life. Showing up on Tuesday nights is what got me out of bed. Having something to look forward to, here with these women, taught me how to look forward to other things. You cared about me when I felt like no one did. And I’ll always love you for that.”

Ruby and I shared a meaningful look, and she gave my hands a squeeze before sending me down the circle. Katie was more composed, but tears brimmed in her eyes.

“Loretta, you offered me a safe haven. I can’t even count the number of times you let me stay at your house. Or how many times I tied up your phone and cluttered up your kitchen table working my plan to leave Jim. I brought something that belongs to you.”

My gaze followed her hand as she reached into her pocket and pulled out an item I’d forgotten: a key chain with the national parks arrowhead. Now, the tears in her eyes did fall.

“When I tried to give it back to you four years ago, you wouldn’t even take it. You said to keep it as a reminder that I had someone, in case my plan didn’t work out. Now, I’m giving you back your key, and adding mine to the ring. No matter where life takes you, you can always come knocking on my door.”

I’d kept in touch with Katie. She’d found her happiness in Texas—married some sort of oil tycoon who thought she hung the stars. We hugged tightly, and more tears flowed.By the time I got to the third person, someone had pressed a tissue into my hand. I had a feeling I’d need the whole box.

I had only seen the beautiful, dark-haired young woman in front of me in pictures. But I’d known the woman in the frame—Babs, had passed away a year earlier from uterine cancer. Nicole was the daughter who she had bragged about dozens of times, and who she’d gone to live with in California when she’d gotten sick.

“You know she would be here tonight if she could,” Nicole began shyly. “So it’s up to me to speak for what you gave her. This group gave her the strength to leave my dad. We had no way of knowing three years ago that she didn’t have long to live. The truth is, living out her last years still married to him would’ve been misery. Thanks to you all, she lived in a way she never could have if you hadn’t helped her. Because of you and the women in this room, her last years were her best ones. Full of life and surrounded by friends.”

I lost all sense of time and space as I walked around the room, feeling a little like I had when that consultant told me how much Sniffing Around was worth. My heart overflowed to see all that I had built. It had started out as a way for me to understand my own marriage, and grieve what had happened with Floyd. Never could I have imagined six years ago that anybody would claim I’d save their life.

By the end of the line, I was all cried out. But the lights came up and the celebration began—champagne, and hot hors d’oeuvres, and cake. Being with these women—knowing all they’d overcome—gave me the slightest glimmer of hope that I would be okay.