Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PENNY
Several days later, I was at my workstation, which currently looked like the definition of organized chaos: all burners going, prep table crowded with ingredients from the seven different meals I was working on simultaneously, sink stacked with used utensils, pots and pans, the air sizzling as I flipped strips of carne asada in the pan, the scent of all the spices making my mouth water.
But that wasn’t why I had a stupid smile on my face.
Nope, that came from reliving the dream I’d been having before my alarm had interrupted me that morning—the one where Caleb hadn’t interrupted me and Ryder, no one had, and he’d nudged me up against the counter, peeled me out of the sweatshirt I was never giving back, and?—
“Why do you keep letting out dreamy sighs?” Vi asked from her station next to me, which wasn’t organized chaos. Just chaos. I had no idea how she knew what she was even doing with the mess around her. “You must be dreaming of more sleep, chocolate, or about a man.”
“More sleep,” I said instantly. “And chocolate.”
She turned to me, studying my face. “Lie.” She pointed at me with a spatula. “Two lies. Explain.”
Only if someone first explained it to me.
Yes, the kiss had been…wow. But it was more than that.
Last night, I’d gone through the email Ryder had sent me and Grandma.
It’d been the list of things he recommended for our kitchen, including approximate materials costs, leaving it up to us to decide what we could and couldn’t afford.
He’d even included a price for replacing the roof, if we wanted to go that far.
It’d been thorough and thoughtful, but more importantly, it had given Grandma and me all the power.
“Hello?” Vi had switched to a knife and waved it at me. “Earth to Penny. What’s going on with you?”
“Um…it’s a nice day?”
“Uh-huh.” Vi gave me a get on with it gesture. “And…?”
“And…” Now that I’d taken away the pressure of going out with Ryder, I somehow wanted to be with him even more. “I just really like my assignments from Kiera for the week.”
Renee came out of her office and beelined right for us. She snagged a mini quiche from Vi. “What are we talking about?”
“Penny’s new lying to my face habit.” Vi looked at me.
“You can’t possibly like your assignments, not when you handle more than anyone else.
And not because you’re one of the newer people here, but because you’re willing to work harder than everyone else, so Kiera takes advantage of you. All of us know it.”
Renee nodded confirmation of this. “She likes you best, for sure. People are jealous.”
“Is that why everyone always tells me they’d be happy to take Colburn Restorations off my hands?” I asked.
Renee snorted.
Vi outright laughed. “Honey, that’s no secret. Colburn Restorations is filled to the brim with smoking-hot men, led by the smoking hottest man of them all.” She looked deep into my eyes. “But as my BFF, you do realize if you ever want to dump that account, you’re obligated to offer it to me first.”
I laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“That’s a yes, right?”
When I ignored this, she stepped closer and lifted my chin, turning my head this way and that until I smacked her hand clear. “Do you see what I see, Renee?”
Renee eyed me. Smirked. “Yep, and now that I’ve seen it, I don’t know how we missed it.”
“Missed what?” I asked.
“You got some.”
“Some what?”
Vi’s brows jumped up and down exaggeratedly.
I gaped, then laughed. “I’m not even dating anyone.”
“Since when do you have to be dating to get some?” Vi wanted to know.
“The smile says it all,” Renee said. “I wish I was smiling like that right now. I’ve even been sitting outside at night trying to catch sight of the Legend, but so far nothing.” She sighed dramatically. “I want a reason to smile all goofily like you are.”
“I’m not smiling like anything.” But I was. I could still feel it. It’d been there since that morning days ago now. I couldn’t get it to go away. I’d tried. “And I didn’t get any.”
“Maybe not the main event, but we’re missing something good,” Vi said, not taking her eyes off me.
I tried even harder to lose the smile and utterly failed, and her mouth fell open. “Oh my God. I’m right. Who is it? It’s Ryder Colburn himself, isn’t it? You like him, right? Like, you like him like him.”
I gave myself whiplash from craning my neck to make sure no one around us had heard her. “Ohmigod, shhh!”
Vi looked around too, then tugged us out the back door, where there was a small patio that no one ever used.
The early morning spring sky was a canvas painted in soft shades of blue and streaky white clouds.
A gentle breeze cooled my overheated face.
The only sounds were some ridiculously happy birds in the massive birch tree behind us.
Vi stared into my eyes. “You know how much I love you, right?”
Oh boy. Where was a loud airplane that prohibited a conversation when you needed one? “The last time you started a sentence like that, it was to tell me that my Indian-style roasted chicken sucked.”
“It did suck,” Renee said. “But your Italian roasted chicken salad is the bomb. I made it for a date once and got lucky.”
Vi took my hand in hers, eyes serious now. “You never talk about guys. The only one you’ve ever mentioned even in passing is Ryder. I’m going to ask you again—is there something going on between you two?”
I sighed. “Maybe you’ve forgotten I’m broken.”
“Hate to break this to you, but you don’t have the market cornered on that. We’re all broken. But sleeping with The Ryder Colburn would definitely fix me.”
Outwardly, I rolled my eyes. Inwardly, I agreed with her. “I don’t think he actually uses a ‘the’ before his name.”
“You like him,” she said.
Vi and I had been friends for much longer than my latest stint in Star Falls. We’d first met in middle school, when her and Renee’s dad had run off with our very married school principal, whose jilted husband had been our science teacher.
To say life hadn’t been easy on Vi and Renee was the understatement of the year.
So we’d stuck together like glue, becoming our own family. I couldn’t lie to her. I mean, I could try, but Vi was like a human lie-detector test.
She snorted at the look on my face. “I’m going to take your deer-in-the-headlights gaping silence as a resounding yes on something going on with you and Mr. Sexy Pants.”
“Sexy pants?”
“Self-explanatory,” Renee said.
Vi nodded, not taking her eyes off me. “Tell us what’s going on.”
“Maybe you should define ‘going on.’”
“He touch you?”
“Well, technically I touched him first.”
Renee clapped in delight. “Yay, there was touching!”
Vi’s brows vanished into her long bangs. “Did this touching involve loss of clothing? Technically? ”
“No, Mom. We just…kissed.” Only there was very little “just” about it …
“Maybe we should vet him,” Vi said. “No one gets a free pass with my ride or die, no matter how hot he is. I’ll need all the contact info you’ve got on him, and I’ll?—”
“Slow down there, Thelma. I’ve got this.”
Renee gently set a hand on my arm. “We just worry about you.”
“You don’t need to. I’m fine.” I tossed up my hands for emphasis. “Why does no one ever believe me?”
“After the ex-who-shall-not-be-named,” Vi said, “my hatred toward any man who even looks at you burns with the passion of a thousand suns.”
I managed a little laugh. “Please don’t waste your energy hating on someone who no longer matters to me.”
“Oh, it’s really no trouble at all,” Vi said dryly. “Now, will you pretty please tell us something about Ryder?”
“Well…” I figured the fact that he kisses like heaven on earth didn’t apply here. “He’s upfront and honest.”
“Rare,” Renee noted with an approving nod.
“How is he at communication?” Vi asked. “Is he willing to discuss problems?”
I thought about how he’d handled my grandma, who people most found pushy and difficult. “Maybe even more than me.”
Vi scoffed. “That’s not saying much. You’d rather have a root canal than discuss a problem, or heaven forbid, face a feeling.”
I sighed at that true fact.
Pulling me in, Vi hugged me tight. “You know I love you, right?”
“I do.” I tried to extricate myself from her hug, but she didn’t let go, so I settled for patting her gently on the back.
“I love you too, okay? Look, this thing with Ryder isn’t really a thing.
I mean, is he very attractive? Yes. Have I noticed?
Also yes, because I’m not dead. But you’ve nothing to worry about because he’s a ten and on my best day I’m a six-ish. ”
She pulled back and glared at me. “You’re off the scale, you lovable idiot.”
“ Off the scale,” Renee agreed. “I’d totally do you.”
Vi’s eyes were fierce. “Did he say this stupid thing about you being a six?”
“No! No ,” I repeated more softly. “Of course not. Please don’t worry—this isn’t going anywhere.”
“Just tell me you didn’t sleep with him and then get the ‘this isn’t going anywhere’ speech.”
I gently squeezed Vi’s fingers. “Honey, that’s what happened to you . And I still feel murderous enough that Kyle should be happy he moved out of town. We’ve all been through it, but we’re smarter now, and tougher. We don’t give away our heart on a whim.”
Vi sighed out her tension, then held out her pinkie. “Swear it. We don’t give our hearts away on a whim. Not ever again.”
“Amen to that.” Renee stuck out her pinkie.
Since I could get behind that, I did the same.
Thirty minutes later, I was inside Colburn Restorations. Yesterday, Kiera told me that a request had come through for me to prep a conference room with food for a large production meeting. I headed there first and hadn’t done more than set the brakes on my cart when Ryder poked his head in.
“Hey,” he said, voice and smile warm.
It caused an answering warmth low in my belly, and just like that, the goofy smile was back on my face. “Hey.”