Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jasper
Jasper
Good Morning, Daddy
Daddy
Mornin’, sugar, what’s up?
Jasper
I’m working on some recipes this morning. I need a taste tester that isn’t a goat. None of them does anything but eat more.
Daddy
Well, they are goats, so that’s gonna happen.
Jasper
You’re going to hurt Tammy’s feelings. She thinks she’s your favorite.
Daddy
She is extra cute…
Jasper
So that’s a yes?
Daddy
It’s a yes. See you at noon.
“Oh, hey, handsome.” I’d spent the whole morning working on a rotating menu with enough variety to keep long-term guests happy—if I ever had any—and keep myself from wanting to gouge my eyes out due to making the same thing every day.
Since moving here, I’d spent too much time…
or maybe just enough…thinking about the ways I’d screwed up.
Lack of organization? Check. Say hello, my many, many lists.
Boredom? That’s why we have rotating menus.
Getting distracted by a man? Yeah, well, no one’s perfect.
I needed to double down on the other two as an offset.
It felt like the kind of logic you’d get from someone who made a lot of lists.
“Lemme wash up a little. I was out checkin’ fences, and I’m grimy,” Daddy said, holding up his dirt-smudged hands, knuckles rough from work.
“Here, I’ll get the handle,” I said, stepping in so he wouldn’t smear it on my clean kitchen.
“I promise I tried to knock the dust off outside.” Daddy’s grin was bone-melting and dick-hardening. I wondered if he had any idea how good-looking he really was. He acted like it was nothing, but I swooned a little each time.
Daddy disappeared into the bathroom, and I hurried to finish my offerings. Was it dumb to name the dishes after my goats? Maybe. But I was doing it anyway. I laid everything out across the counter and moved two stools over so we could sit and snack.
“You smell yummy, sugar,” Daddy said when he snuck up behind me.
“I think that’s the food.”
“Nope, it’s all you.”
Well, how could you not kiss a man who said such sweet things? I was powerless. What was supposed to be a sweet little brush of a kiss turned hot and heavy. I was left panting, and he looked smug.
“What were we doing?” I asked with my chin propped on my fist. This man made every thought in my head fly away. Instead, I just wanted to look at his double row of dreamy lashes.
“Taste testing? I distinctly remember being offered food.” Oh, snap.
“Yep, that’s right. We’ve got food.” I jumped off the stool, triumphant, and headed to the other side of the work table, where the plates were warming in the drawer.
“What am I trying here?”
“When I was going through stuff, I found a recipe that looked like it had been through a war with little handwritten notes all over it. I’m about ninety percent sure it’s Sissy’s handwriting, but not positive.”
“Hmm. I didn’t know her handwriting well enough to say. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I’ll figure it out. Anyhoo, it’s a recipe for biscuits and red-eye gravy. After that, we’ve got Peggy’s pecan pie waffles, and the last one today is Latrelle’s Pear and Brie Tart.”
“Damn, sugar. You’ve been busy. First off, I’m gonna eat all of them because they smell damn good. Second, is the tart breakfast-y?”
“Aww, you’re sweet and right. That’s a good combo,” I said with a wink. “Since most of the guests will be here over the weekend, I figured skewing toward brunch was fine. My weekday offerings will be more grab-and-go.”
“That was my next question—will you have bookings during the week?”
“Yeah, but I think more like people visiting on business rather than for getaways. To cover both, the rooms will all have some kind of writing desk so they can Zoom or work or whatever, and I’m trying to figure out how I can hide a little fridge and microwave in there too.”
“Oh, that’s nice, especially for the weekday ones. They can bring back leftovers and not have them go gross.”
“Yeah, and in the afternoon, I’ll have a little snacky-snack for them, but nothing heavy.
I’m thinking coffee, tea, no liquor because I don’t have a license and getting one seems hard, and some light food.
Maybe guests could BYOB? I need to check.
” That question went onto my running list. At some point, it should get shorter, but for now, it was growing like a weed in summer.
“What are you thinking?” Even while we talked, Daddy kept shoveling food in his mouth. His appreciative noises made me smile. It required superhuman strength to resist the urge to remind him I’d made it all with my own two hands.
“Scones? Cheese and fruit spread? Charcuterie board? It wouldn’t be anything fancy, but enough to hold them over until dinner. It’d be nice if it encouraged mingling.”
“You say it like it’s all so easy.” Daddy promptly shoved a bite of biscuits and gravy into his mouth. With his eyes closed, he managed to smile and chew—with his mouth closed—at the same time. His expression was blissful, giving me no reason to ask if he liked the food. I basked in his enjoyment.
“Well, all of them can be done pretty quick on the fly or made ahead of time. Easy-peasy.”
“And you’re gonna do events or skip those?” he asked before another bite was gobbled down.
I didn’t know if Daddy was actually interested in my plans, but he sure acted like it. Between the steady stream of questions and then waiting for answers, it felt like he recognized I wasn’t just playing house. I had an idea and a business plan, not just hope and a dream.
Every evening, I got out the books I’d brought with me on inn management or scoured the internet for articles.
The accounting software I’d purchased included a booking program.
I set up dummy guest accounts so hopefully I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of anyone trying to figure it out.
Most people didn’t take me seriously, sometimes with good reason, but I didn’t want to screw this up.
Daddy stopped eating at some point during my explanation. He sat on the stool and stared at me with a bemused expression.
“What?”
“What what?”
“Why are you staring at me?”
“Because you impress the hell out of me.”
“Me? Lay off the liquor, honeybuns.”
“Do you not see it?” Daddy was on a roll.
He scooted his stool back and pulled me to stand between his knees.
Heat radiated from him and steeped into my core.
“You moved cross-country to create this place. Yeah, Sissy gave you a head start, but you didn’t even know that until you got here.
You came up with a plan and started movin’ on it the minute your feet hit the property.
And your food is amazing, and this place is going to be so damn great. ”
“Uh, yeah, it’s not that deep. I could crash and burn, ya know?”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I got a good feeling.”
“Someone should tell my dad,” I whispered under my breath.
“Maybe one day, he’ll see it for himself,” Daddy offered.
Ugh. The last thing I wanted was to drag Daddy into my family drama.
And, as drama went, it was pretty tame. My dad had three successful kids and a perennial screwup.
He wasn’t mean about it, and he didn’t call me names like an asshole.
He just worried. Oh no, the horror. I’d had friends—note to self: text them—whose parents made them feel like crap.
My dad never got mad, only disappointed.
“You have bat-level hearing,” I told Daddy.
“A superpower?”
“Nope, just creepy.”
“I’m gonna choose to think you’re wrong, sugar. And these tart things are fucking delicious.”
“Oh yay.” Also, thank you, universe, for moving on from my dad. “Those are the ones on the short list for the potluck.”
“Do it. I like that everyone gets to do their own thing.”
Daddy grabbed his plate and twisted away from me so I couldn’t have any.
“Yeah?” I gave him a bemused smile. If Daddy wanted them all to himself, I’d make them for him every day.
“I don’t mind sharing though.” Dread didn’t hit me until he added, “And speaking of that…”
“Oh, good news for me,” I said with my best fake smile. Here it comes…
The kitchen warmed by twenty degrees in the space of a second.
I squirmed a little in my chair because I knew what was coming next.
Most guys I’d dated wanted an open relationship by default, and it looked like the streak was alive and well.
I went along with it because I didn’t have a great argument against it.
It wasn’t my first choice, but it was the expected default.
My usual response was that I didn’t want to know about it.
“You know I’ve never been in a relationship, but I’ve been thinking about it lately.” At my raised eyebrow, Daddy clarified, “With you. Thinking about it with you.”
“Ready to just jump in the deep end now that the seal of dating is broken? That’s cool. Open is fine, but I say we keep it separate from each other and not blur things, ya know?”
The urge to move away from him was too strong to ignore.
The happy feeling I’d had when he’d entered the kitchen evaporated.
I needed to do something. Anything. Whatever would give me some space from the conversation I knew was headed my way.
The grill had been scrubbed already today, but I’d happily do it again.
“Sugar, are we talkin’ about the same thing? ’Cause I don’t think we are.”
“You’ve seen you can do dating and focus on your place, so you want to do that? It’s cool, and I’m happy you figured it out.” I mustered the biggest, fakest, brightest smile I could and turned to dazzle him.
“With you. Why would I go from no one to jugglin’?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sugar, I’m not that talented or efficient. Kinda lazy too.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Daddy gave me a searching look. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, I need you to spell it out for me, please.” Hope bloomed, but I wasn’t willing to trust it yet.