Chapter Nine
W eird. There was no other word for it. Rustin Wildish felt weird. Instead of his usual tunnel-vision calm, he was keyed up and felt out of his body.
So many people wanted to talk to him. People he remembered. People he didn’t know. Most of it was about The Wild Side. When he was opening. The food. The themes. Rebekah had created marketing materials and a menu vision board. And so many questions, the main one being how he had convinced Miss Millie Maye, a Belmont institution, to sell the second-generation diner.
It had been an act of hubris, announcing at barely seventeen when she’d dropped him off at the bus station to head to Atlanta and a top culinary institute, on her dime, that he’d come back someday and buy Millie’s.
She’d shaken his hand firmly.
“Bold words, Rustin, mean nothing. Hard work. Intention. Action. Follow through. Those need to be the words on the pavers of your road to success.”
Rustin now looked around at how he’d changed the space to reflect what he wanted. Would Miss Millie think, as so many had claimed tonight, that he’d arrived ?
The Wild Side wasn’t officially open, but people returned for a signature coffee or cocktail to complete their Movable Feast evening. Guests lingered on the deck with the party lights and heat lamps merrily blazing, or they’d ventured to the second-level loft-style bar to watch the crowd below.
Rustin had hired a DJ, a friend of Lucas’s, who made and sold beats with him. He was mixing up holiday classics with sick beats that should have given Rustin a splitting headache, but instead, the music fit the vibe of the party and space, and he was starting to feel the suspicious tug of something that might be interpreted as holiday spirit.
Lucas had arrived a few minutes ago and joined the DJ. It felt good, solid, to see his brother so happy, relaxing and doing something he loved after working hard all day. But his attention kept tugging to the deck door, waiting for her: Chloe.
He didn’t imagine any of the Maye sisters would come, and he didn’t care, but Chloe would definitely come. And he felt like he was crawling out of his skin to see her, talk to her, to find out how tonight had gone for her.
She’d practically become a fixture in his life this week, arriving after school or her private voice lessons to help put the finishing touches on The Wild Side. And he found her more enchanting every day, like he was spellbound. He’d resisted at first. Dismissed the tug of attraction. Then he’d tried to intellectualize it away. He was tired. Wound up. Hadn’t been with a woman in over six months as all of his energy had been focused on gaining awards as a chef and hustling funding for his own restaurant.
I can ignore the attraction, think of it as a low-grade headache.
And then she walked in, and Rustin felt the air whoosh from his body like the building had exploded and he’d been propelled thirty feet in the air and splatted on the ground. He felt slightly dizzy, disoriented, and unable to look away. She entered with Jessica, but all he could see was Chloe, shrugging off her red wool coat and hanging in on a hook in the entry. Her bright eyes searched the room, and she smiled as she tucked her mittens in her coat and unwound a brightly knit long scarf from her slender throat. She wore ivory flowing pants and an ivory and gold flimsy tank that made her look more delicate, more magical than usual. Her dark curls glistened in the light with the beginnings of a rain shower.
And then she looked up and saw him.
Play it cool. Acknowledge her but talk to someone else.
But as if preprogrammed, Rustin muttered an excuse to the group that had gathered around him in the loft area to discuss the restaurant’s architecture and use of reclaimed wood and industrial detritus—whatever that was—as part of the design to create a sense of place. He practically soared down the distressed metal stairs, his entire focus missile-honed on Chloe.
As he hit the first floor, the people arriving, moving toward the buffet, or getting a drink parted as if they were actors hitting their cue. It was then he noticed Jessica, a speculative look on her face, standing next to Chloe. He hesitated.
“Congratulations.” Chloe rushed forward solving his dilemma of how to greet her. No dignified greeting for Chloe. She threw her arms around him and held tight, and everything in him settled, grounded him.
“You did it, Rustin! You did it! The Wild Side looks amazing! It looks so chic and cool, and like it’s always been here waiting to show off. You stripped it to its bones and rebirthed it, and with people here, it feels like…” She let go partially, one slim arm still tucked around his neck as she swung back like a door opening. “It feels like history. Like it’s yours.”
Chloe laughed and hugged him again. “I’m so happy for you! So happy. You’ve worked so hard, and I know, know, know that this,” she waved one arm airily around, “will be your typical Saturday night: full of life, full of fun, people dressed up or dressed down, vibing with each other, eating delicious food and creating memories and experiences.”
“That’s the plan,” he said. Totally lame response after her gush of words, but he could barely speak, and all he wanted to do was tug her out to the deck and down to the path along the river so he could have her alone, hear himself think, express the words and thoughts that drummed against his skull.
But he knew, absolutely knew, that he needed to keep himself and his confusing feelings locked down tight.
This was Chloe Maye Cramer. And Maye was a big part of that. She was sweet, and he was in no position to start anything because of the demands of his restaurant. Too many people depended on him. And Miss Millie trusted him. He could hardly put moves on her granddaughter.
“It’s crowded,” he stated the obvious. “Loud. Do you want to take a walk?”
What? That’s not what I was supposed to say!
“Yes.” Chloe smiled at him, her expression so open, so guile-free, that he nearly kissed her. Time clunked to a stop, and it was hard to breathe.
He was acting out of character. For over a decade he’d been driven, disciplined. A few weeks in Chloe’s presence, and he felt himself slipping precariously toward the edge of…something.
It’s that damn book.
But that was crazy, right? But so was this out-of-the-blue need to be with Chloe.
“But first I want to taste that cherry bounce you created. Lucas went on and on about it. I think his brain cells were getting fried by so much time by the smoker, even though I kept bringing him water and herbal sweet tea to keep him hydrated. He said you’d made your own batch, fermented it for weeks.”
“I like to play around even though the bar is not supposed to be my domain.”
“ All of The Wild Side is your domain.”
He should ask her about her night, how her stop on the tour had gone. Chloe had said she’d been volunteering at the feast since she’d been eleven or twelve, so plating, serving, cleaning up, and welcoming a parade of guests wasn’t new to her. But this had been her first year cooking and being in charge. And more tickets had been sold this year than ever.
“Congratulations, Rustin,” Jessica approached him.
He’d practically forgotten she’d arrived with Chloe. He never would have imagined the woman he’d loved beyond reason as a teen, the one who had kicked him to the curb, would become nearly forgettable. Maybe time did heal most wounds.
“You’ve really,” she looked around, and he saw her pulse kick up in her elegant neck, “created something,” Jessica said softly.
He waited for the hot burst of heat. Of anger. Of agony. But he felt nothing.
“Thank you,” he said cautiously, amazed that he could talk so politely to the woman who had once crushed him.
“It’s been a long road,” he admitted, feeling prideful. “I wanted to come home and open my own restaurant even before I left,” he admitted.
“Why?” Jessica asked, her voice full of curiosity. She ran a hand through her thick, rich hair. “Why would you want to come back to a town with so many painful memories? Why do you want to work so hard on such slim profit margins?” Jessica’s voice still had that little curious husk that had always torn him up inside, made him mad with desire to protect her.
She really wanted to know. He saw her smile, and her hands clenched in front of her fluttered before she gripped them again, but his attention caught and held on Chloe, who stood on her toes, smiling widely, waiting for his answer while her eyes sparkled with warmth.
She wasn’t beautiful like Jessica. But Chloe had magnetism, charm, and an openness that invited him in rather than left him on the outside looking in.
“Why, Rustin?” Jessica insisted. “Why Millie’s? Why a restaurant?”
“Because.” His voice felt raw, scraped from the back of his throat. He tried to swallow. Jessica had asked the question, but it was Chloe he was talking to. She saw him. The real him he’d always hid, even now. “Because I was always hungry.”
He let that sit a moment. It hit him as hard as it seemed to knock into both Chloe and Jessica.
“Excuse us,” he said before he even knew he’d meant to speak or move, and he lightly put his arm around Chloe. “I wanted to show Chloe something after I get her a glass of my cherry bounce. Enjoy the party at The Wild Side, Jessica.” He wouldn’t tell her it was good to see her again. But it hadn’t hurt one bit, and he’d take that as a win.
Going with instinct, he steered Chloe out of one of the doors that led to the deck. Not willing to stop long enough to grab her coat, he shrugged out of his leather motorcycle jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“What did you want to show me?” Chloe asked after they’d walked about fifty yards down the Riverwalk away from the restaurant and farther from downtown.
“I just needed to get out of there and wanted to talk to you,” he admitted.
She sipped her drink and turned around to face the moody lighting but festive atmosphere of The Wild Side. Her smile was radiant.
“I love your holiday mix,” she said softly. “And the tree sculpture is amorphous enough that you could leave it up all year on the back wall—maybe add more to it—a mural or more to the sculpture, like kudzu or grasses.”
She pulled his jacket closer and breathed in deeply.
“I always loved the way you smelled.”
“In the animal kingdom we’d be mates.” He pushed his luck recklessly.
What was wrong with him? Was he a lemming running solo off a cliff?
“We are animals,” she said softly. “People just pretend they aren’t. Look, Rustin.” She tapped his forearm, and without thinking he closed his hand over hers.
She turned him back toward the restaurant.
“It’s beautiful rising up in the night. The lines. The light. The way it nestles above the bank of the river. It’s a beacon.”
“Feels like.”
She laced her fingers with his. “I had fun tonight. I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d be nervous, fumbling. But it was like I finally found my rhythm. Not like I am Grandma Millie herding the good people of Belmont into good deeds, but looking at the recipes, finding ones I liked, strategizing the steps to cook everything with you this past week, and learning how to scale and delegate—again you,” she bumped against his shoulder, “it gave me a confidence I didn’t expect to feel, and that’s you too.”
“Maybe it’s you…cutting loose from your family a little. Striking out a bit more on your own.”
She stared at the water.
“I never left Belmont, but I never felt like I was missing anything. I mean, I traveled—I studied abroad in Paris, summer conservatory programs in London and Rome for voice, and a couple of trips with Grandma Millie—but I never left Belmont, as in maybe not coming back. All of my cousins did. They went away to school. Lived other places. Worked. Jessica moved to Cramer Mountain this year and has been working hard to restore the Cramer gardens. Sarah’s finished up her residency and fellowship and work commitments and she’s joining a pediatrics practice in town. I think Meghan’s thinking about joining a firm in town instead of traveling so much for IP law.”
He didn’t want to talk about her family and their accomplishments.
“You’re not thinking of moving are you?” His stomach lurched uncomfortably, even as he knew he should welcome Chloe leaving—less distraction for him. He could get back to normal.
“No,” she said. “I love teaching at South Point High School.”
Everything in him soured. “I hated high school.” He’d not felt like a kid or a student. He’d put most of his energy into making money to help put food and more on the table. And he hated not doing well at anything.
“Not a single good memory?” she asked softly, leaning her head against his upper arm.
If he turned his head, he could kiss one of her springy curls.
Don’t do it. Disaster!
“You fought so hard,” she said. “You were so fierce and focused. A man when you should have been allowed to be a child. But the struggle, the resilience, the determination to get up again and again each day to fight, to slay, honed you into the man you are, so I’m not sorry, although I wish you had some good memories.”
Her voice, her understanding and kindness was like an ointment soothed over a burn. Bandaged.
“I do,” he said. “I felt confident and necessary at Millie’s. She put me to work. Taught me discipline. Organization. My life had been chaos. She taught me order and the value of working, being prepared and being part of a team. And you brought the light.”
“ Me? ” Chloe blinked up at him, looking so beautiful he nearly slipped his leash and kissed her.
Just one taste?
“You were always bouncing, full of questions, smiles, observations, random songs, and quotes and ideas. Unfiltered and uncaring what people thought of you.”
“I cared,” she groaned.
“Yeah, I guess when we’re young we care too much. I pretended I didn’t give a rat’s ass, but I cared too much about being dismissed. I felt raw with it.”
“I don’t know if it’s just being young,” she said. “But I’m learning that I can’t be who I thought I should be or who others expected me to be. Teaching has taught me how richly diverse people are and the value in that diversity. I had my students, my colleagues, and then I always had singing. That was the one thing I was good at.”
“You’re good at a lot of things, Chloe. Better than good.”
“I’m finally starting to believe that,” she said softly.
They were quiet. The night was a cloak billowing around them. No agenda.
Don’t kiss her.
Don’t kiss her.
The warning rang in his ears as Chloe took a sip of punch, then stole the decision from him. She stood on tiptoes, hooked her hand behind his head, and angled him down for a kiss.
*
I’m kissing Rustin Wildish!
The thought shot lighting through her body with the visceral punch of fireworks.
His lips, firm and sensual, stilled for a moment, and Chloe, who could count the men she’d kissed on one hand and have digits remaining, seized her courage and coaxed, sliding her tongue along the seam of his mouth and nibbled his bottom lip.
Then his lips parted, and he kissed her back, making her toes curl and her heart thunder in her ears.
He broke the kiss, briefly resting his forehead against hers, and she breathed him in.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” she admitted.
“Bad-boy fantasy?” His mocking tone cut through her thrill.
“No. Rustin fantasy,” she corrected.
She reached for his hands. “You’re too strong. Too determined to fall in with anyone else’s outdated and narrow-minded thinking.”
His eyes darkened and he scowled, but she continued because if she didn’t say this now, she’d likely never get the chance.
“When I was a kid, I saw you as a fierce, independent spirit, so far out in front of everyone else, a fighter for what you wanted, for justice, for freedom from all the BS little boxes everyone wanted to kick you into, and I felt… I felt…” She clenched her hands together and held her fists against her wilding thumping heart.
“Inspired. I wanted to have your courage. You stalked through life, where I felt the urge to hide and be an observer. I wished your magic would rub off on me.”
He huffed a laugh, or maybe he choked on his spit. “Pretty sure you were the only one with that opinion, Chloe.”
“Unique,” she said, wishing she could smile, relishing her individuality instead of feeling always on the outside looking in.
But no. She was leaving her childhood insecurities in the past where they belonged.
“ You are unique, Chloe, then and now,” he said, trailing one knuckle along the side of her face.
His eyes darkened to charcoal. “I always noticed you. Thought you were too sweet to be a Maye.”
“I always wanted to be a Maye,” she said, heart heavy.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t be anyone but who you are.”
It was the sweetest thing anyone, except Grandma Millie, had ever said to her.
The moment stretched out, fraught with things unsaid, expectant, but not a bit awkward.
“I feel like you put a spell on me,” Rustin said slowly.
His statement was totally unexpected, and Chloe had no answer.
“Since the night you cooked the practice entrée for the Movable Feast.”
“You mumbled something about a spell or a curse when you ran out.” She remembered his odd behavior. “But what do you mean? I just followed the recipe.”
He opened his mouth, and she leaned forward, wondering what he would say next. The Wild Side rose above the river, lights glowing, a door rolled up so the crowd, noise and music drifted into the night, but it was a pleasant hum, almost a bubble of humanity floating above them and away on the chilly breeze.
A smile teased his lips. “Yeah, recipe follower. That’s it. No witchcraft involved.”
“Definitely not,” Chloe said, thinking how Grandma Millie would cross herself if she’d heard him say that. “I don’t have a black cat, but…” she paused. “The book is called Southern Love Spells .” She hummed the music from The Twilight Zone .
“You’re not funny.”
“You were going to show me something,” Chloe invited, not ready for the alone time to end. The next few weeks would be so busy for them both, and once his restaurant opened, he’d be working long nights, and she’d be back in her classroom teaching days, directing her choir, and seeing vocal students a couple nights a week.
“I am,” he said. “Crazy idea. An impulse that I purchased for a different reason a couple of years ago, but the more I think about it and adjust to the idea and free-range menu options, it may be a stroke of luck.”
“We make our own luck.”
“Can’t disagree with that idea,” he said. Holding her hand, he walked farther away from The Wild Side and the party.
Chloe felt like she’d never experienced a more perfect moment. He brought her hand to his lips.
“So finely made. Delicate. But such strength,” he breathed against her skin, sending her tummy tumbling.
No. Those seven words were the best thing anyone had ever said to her, and she hugged the words to her heart, committing them to memory to take out and savor later.
“Show me,” Chloe invited. She hadn’t expected the vintage Airstream trailer.
“Wow, this is cool!” Chloe exclaimed.
The trailer was parked farther down the trail in the Catawba Riverfront Park, which was closed and under renovation as part of the Riverwalk project.
“Do you live in this?” she asked, beyond curious. She hadn’t thought about the practicalities of Rustin’s life. After his long hours renovating Millie’s into The Wild Side and perfecting his menus, where did he lay his head at night?
“I did a few times. I renovated the trailer with Lucas. It was his idea. Initially, I thought we could live in it to save rent money when I started my own restaurant in Charlotte, but Lucas had bigger plans. He thought it could be a food truck, save us money instead of going the brick-and-mortar route.”
“Brilliant,” Chloe enthused.
“I didn’t want a food truck. I wanted my own destination. To create an experience with the food and drinks and ambiance.”
She smiled. So Rustin.
“This could be a pop-up, though,” she said as she explored the small, efficient kitchen. “I love this.” She opened the awning-style window that worked as a counter where people could see into the trailer and kitchen. “If you cut a hole in the other side like this one, you could serve specialty food items on one side and turn the other side into a bar. There’s room for three people to work in here, Chef,” she smiled. She pretended to be working and wiggled her butt near him as if to prove there was space. “Food prep, order-taker/server, and then a bartender on the other side. This could be a fun way to cater an event, or you could have a presence in the community—farmer’s market or…hey…” She snapped her fingers. “The Christmas Market! Waffles and fried chicken, and then mulled wine, cocktails, drinks for the kids. Hot chocolate slathered in whipped cream. ‘Welcome to The Wild Side, y’all.’ All you need is an awning with some party lights and a crew to boss.” She pointed to herself. “Sign me up.”
“You want to help.” He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching her closely.
She nodded.
“Rebekah thought we should have a presence at the Christmas Market in Belmont and the light festival in McAdenville the following weekend.”
Chloe felt a little embarrassed. Of course, Rebekah was in marketing and managment. She’d be thinking months in advance. It was her job.
“You’re going to do it, right?”
“Thinking on it. Fried chicken and waffles, huh?”
“I saw it in the book,” she said.
“I’ll have to check it out.” His expression turned thoughtful. “I’ll need a taste tester. Original recipe first and then I play.”
Rustin made the word play sound dirty, and even though Chloe knew she might be punching above her weight, she wasn’t going to let those three bitches—fear, caution, and doubt—push her aside.