Chapter 6
Noelle
Only sixty-nine more days till Christmas.
Seventy more days to get married.
And, oh yeah, my high school sweetheart who broke my heart out of nowhere is home for the holidays which means I’m going to be running into him all over town.
The same boy who has grown into a really hot, perfectly built man who scrambled my brain with one stupid smirk just like he used to do in chem lab.
Focus, Noelle.
One thing at a time.
Life has thrown harder things at you before.
You can do this.
You can do this.
“I can do this,” I whisper to myself under my breath.
“I’m sorry?” A voice I don’t recognize startles me. Blinking a few times I realize that a couple of guests are standing in front of me, waiting for me to help them.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I apologize quickly. “Got lost in a thought. How can I help you?”
They smile kindly at me and start to ask where some of the best shops are to find holiday gifts and local goods.
As I show them the map of town and point out my favorite places, a loud crash comes from the kitchen.
This isn’t the first time this has happened in the last week so I brush it off with a casual laugh.
“Everything’s fine,” I say to them, showing them to the door. “It’s only our new chef finding her way around the kitchen. Be sure to come back in time for dinner so you don’t miss out on her world famous pork chops!”
As soon as they close the front door behind them, my face falls in panic. I nearly sprint down the hallway and shove the kitchen door open to see what happened.
“Eve, what the hell is going on in here?” I call out, glancing around the kitchen trying to find her. While it’s spelled like ‘Christmas Eve,’ it’s pronounced as if you’re saying the two letters individually. ‘Like the Pokémon’ she likes to tell people.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it, I’m okay.
” When she stands up from the other side of the prep table, I see a couple new stains on her chef’s coat that weren’t there when I last saw her.
Wearing her hair in two low buns, one is frayed around the edges and the headband she’s wearing is slipping halfway off her head.
“Jesus, Eve, you need to be more careful. You nearly gave me a heart attack.” I release a sigh and clutch my chest with my hand.
“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Noey.” She waves a wooden spoon at me. “I know how to handle myself around a kitchen. Even a little kitchen like this one.”
I don’t miss how she seems to turn her nose up at our quaint, albeit small, kitchen space.
“Frank never crashed into things the five years he worked here,” I say pointedly. “And he’s like three times the size of you.”
“Well Frank organizes his fridge with the vegetables on the bottom and his meats in the double–wide like a moron,” she snaps back.
She landed back in Evergreen a few days after our phone call last week.
The same phone call that ended with me running smack into Nick for the first time in more than ten years.
The same Nick who told me we should ‘explore new things and that includes new people’ since we were going off to separate colleges.
Even after we talked and agreed to make long distance work.
The same Nick who I thought would be my husband one day only for him to pull the rug out from under me and not even offer to help me back up when I fell.
Fucking ass.
“Noey, hello? Are you listening?” I blink when I feel a puff of air hit my face and see Eve waving the wooden spoon in my face.
“I am now. What did you say?”
“I said I’m changing the menu for dinner tonight if that’s okay with you?”
“Oh, yeah, sure that’s fine. Whatever you think is best,” I respond, still half distracted by my thoughts.
My friend squints at me from the opposite side of the table. “Where is your head at?”
I pull my shoulders back and try to wipe whatever look I have on off my face. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t play dumb. I’ve known you since we were six years old. I know when something is ruminating in that head of yours.” Again, she shakes the wooden spoon she’s holding in my face.
I feel my eyebrows pinch together defensively. “You do not.”
This has her laughing out loud. “Yes, I do. Now spill, what’s got your panties in a twist this time?”
She reaches for a bowl of some sort of white, creamy mixture and begins to stir it. Her eyes watch the other people supporting the kitchen like a hawk while still standing at attention in front of me. Leaning against the counter, I give in and tell her what’s going on.
“It’s this whole ‘you have to be married thing,’ is all.
” I only partially lie. I hadn’t told her about how I ran into Nick last week but that was mostly for his own good.
There’s no telling what she will do when she finds out he’s back and since she has a litany of knives at her disposal, it’s probably nothing good.
Not that I care about what happens to him because I don’t care about him at all.
“Yeah, that’s pretty fucked up. Do you think she’ll really sell the place if you don’t get married by her birthday?”
“That’s what she told me at breakfast and she seemed pretty serious when she said it.”
Her face falls into a frown. “What are you going to do?”
I groan and throw my head back, unsure of what my answer is because I don’t know what I’m going to do. At the same time, the back door to the kitchen flings open and a person steps inside.
“Produce delivery, fresh from the patch!” a happy voice booms out. Jack, our long-time produce man, spins around to reveal he’s carrying a massive crate of vegetables. Some are nearly spilling out over the edge, one of them actually does and tumbles to the floor.
Bending over to pick it up, Eve snaps back upright quickly and smiles when she sees who’s standing in front of her.
“Jack! No shit, you’re still in Evergreen?” Her eyes go as wide as her mouth does as she smiles at him.
“Eve?” Her name comes out as more of a whisper when he sees her. He almost drops the entire crate on her feet before he catches himself, blinking quickly. “I, uhm, I didn’t know you were back. When, uhm, when did you get back?”
I bite back a smile as I watch him find his tongue.
It’s no secret around Evergreen that Jack has had it bad for Eve ever since he moved here our freshman year in high school.
Eve and I grew up here, born and raised.
Jack and his family relocated to Evergreen when his dad bought a few acres of farm land on the edge of town.
Ever since he saw her on the first day of ninth grade, he’s been pining after her, waiting to get the courage to finally ask her out.
They were fast friends but everyone in town knows that he’d give her his right and left kidney if she needed it.
When she left for New York, they kinda fell out of touch.
I’m really the only person Eve still talks to from Evergreen anymore.
She pulls the crate from his hands, sets it down, and pulls him into a hug. “A few days ago. I’m staying with Noelle at her place and helping around the kitchen while I look for a new restaurant to work in. I didn’t know you were the produce supplier for Holly House.”
“He’s been our one and only supplier since he took over his dad’s farm a couple years ago,” I explain. She glances at me before looking back at him.
She punches him hard in the shoulder and smiles at him. “You took over the farm? That’s great, Jack!”
A hint of pink touches his cheeks and he pulls the knit cap off his head. “It hardly compares to that big fancy job of yours in New York City.”
“Oh, forget New York City, the place is a cesspool. That’s amazing, Jack, I’m so happy for you.” His eyes lock on the hand that she’s placed on his arm in reassurance until she pulls it away.
“Well, I guess I’ll be going now,” he says after a beat.
“Okay, thanks for the haul. I’ll be sure to use this in this week’s dinners. The squash looks beautiful,” Eve comments, looking at a massive beige squash she’s pulled from the crate. She brings it to her nose and smells it before smiling once more.
“Yeah, it really does,” he says softly while watching her. Pulling his eyes from her, he glances at me with a kind smile. Nodding politely in my direction, he excuses himself and slips out the back door.
“Eve,” I say bluntly, leaning over the counter on my hands and staring at her.
“Hmm?” she mumbles, not looking up from the produce she’s pulling out of the crate. With each new piece, her eyes grow wider and I can see her mind running away with all the different recipes she can make with it.
“That man is in love with you,” I say a little louder so she actually hears me over her daydreams. She finally looks up from the produce and frowns at me.
“Not this shit again,” she laments. “Jack is not in love with me; he never has been. We’re friends, that’s it.”
“I don’t think he wants to be your friend. I think he wants to be way more than your friend,” I say with a raised brow.
“Well you’re on crack and need to let that go.
It wasn’t true in high school and it certainly isn’t true now,” she protests.
Having picked a carrot out of the crate, she slices off a few pieces and pops one into her mouth to taste.
“Oh my god, what is true is the fact that that man knows how to grow a vegetable.”
“I’m sure he’d like to show you his personal vegetable and how well he can make it grow,” I comment without missing a beat. I smirk at her and laugh when her face screws up into a grimace.
“Oh!” she scoffs before tossing a piece of carrot at me. “You’re disgusting.”
“Says the girl who was asking me about my sex life a week ago!”
“Who’s sex life are we talking about?”
Belle has entered the kitchen and stepped directly into our wildly inappropriate workplace conversation. She looks between the two of us, a shy smile forming on her face.
“Jack and Eve’s,” I say quickly before Eve can defend herself.
Belle’s mouth falls open as she gasps. “Finally! Oh my gosh, the town will be so happy to hear it’s finally happened!”
“Oh, not you too,” she groans, throwing a piece of carrot at her. Belle catches it and pops it into her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Eve, but that man is in love with you. Has been since we were kids.”
“Thank you for backing me up,” I say in her direction. We bump fists and look back at Eve with matching smirks.
“I hate both of you. I never should have come home,” she mutters, going back to inspecting the fresh produce.
“Speaking of high school love interests,” Belle continues, drawing out her words as she talks. “I heard a certain someone is back in town.”
She’s looking at me out of the corner of her eye and I do what I can to play dumb.
“Oh? And who’s that?” Eve asks, not looking up from her vegetables.
“A one Nick Winters seems to have blown in for the holiday season. As word on the street goes, he and our girl, Noelle, had quite the run-in last week in front of the coffee shop.” Belle’s voice tips up at the end as she looks at me expectantly.
We both jump when the sound of a knife coming down hard on a cutting board cracks through the kitchen.
“Nick…Winters?” Eve seethes from the other side of the table. She looks at Belle as she says his name but darts her eyes to me. “Is this why you’ve been acting so weird since I’ve been home? You saw him last week and failed to tell me?”
“Eve, stop. It didn’t mean anything and it wasn’t ‘quite the meeting.’” I scowl at Belle for blowing my secret. “We ran into one another, literally, on the sidewalk last week. He caused me to spill my coffee on my favorite pair of loafers and that was that. Nothing more.”
“I thought he was never coming back to Evergreen? Has he lost his fucking mind? Does he want me to chop his dick off for what he did to you?” She’s waving the knife in her hand around in the air and all of the men in the kitchen scatter like mice at the sound of genital mutilation.
“Eve—” I start but she cuts me off.
“No, don’t ‘Eve’ me. It took me months to put you back together and I’m not going to be here to pick up the pieces after he comes strutting back into town.”
“I’m not some naive girl anymore. I don’t need you protecting me,” I argue.
“Like hell you don’t because if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t come within twenty yards of you,” she retorts, pointing the knife at me.
“Besides,” I continue, trying to calm her down before she accidentally takes off one of her fingers. “I have zero intention of seeing him anyway, so there’s no chance he can do any damage. Not that he can because I’m so over him.”
Liar.
“Well that’s good to hear because he’s out in the library asking to speak with you,” Belle says brightly.
“What?” All of the muscles in my face fall at her announcement. I feel my heart quicken behind my chest at the thought of him being here, at the inn, and asking for me.
“That’s it,” Eve cuts in. She pulls out the largest knife I think I’ve ever seen. “We’re serving testicals for dinner.”
And before I can stop her, she’s storming out of the kitchen headed straight for the lobby.
“Eve, no!”
Belle and I hurry after her and pull her back just as she reaches the library. We stumble into one another and do our best to avoid the sharp blade while also dragging Eve back into the kitchen. It’s too late, though, and he’s already seen us.
Looking at me from the center of the room, I swallow hard at the sight of him.
A few inches taller than I remember him and with a far better grooming routine than when we were kids, Nick holds the attention of everyone in the room simply by standing there.
Two distinct dimples form in his cheeks as he smiles in my direction and I do what I can to ignore the feeling of butterflies taking flight in my stomach.
I push away from the other two and glare at Eve who’s being held onto by Belle as I walk to greet him. Stepping up to him, he smiles at me again before speaking.
“Hey, sugar.”