Chapter 15 Noah
fifteen
Noah
Istart the day holed up in the small office tucked under the staircase, the quarterly report spread in front of me. I try to focus on my task, but thoughts of Willow keep interrupting me, even though I managed to avoid her this morning.
When my father told me about the marriage clause, he explained it originated with the store: according to Noah The First, you couldn’t run a general store on your own.
You needed a partner you could trust. More than a business partner: a life partner.
Someone with complementary skills and a different sensitivity.
A wife.
“It’s a load of shit, son,” Dad had said, “but there’s no way around it. Thankfully nowhere does it say that your wife needs to work in the business, so you just let her do her thing while you do yours and you’ll live a happy life.”
Dad didn’t always have a happy life in the romance department, but I knew what he meant, and I planned to follow his advice. Ironically, Mom would often be at the store and seemed happy here. But she never made it sound like she was necessary to the smooth running of the operation.
I’ve been operating the store on my own for years now, and I couldn’t see myself sharing the work. I’m set in my ways. I have my processes. I know what sells and what doesn’t. I know how to sell it: just like we always have.
My employees, Dean on the floor and register and Elaine at the deli, have been working here for decades, and they have their routine perfected to a science.
When it’s tourist season, they call in their family members to help, and that’s enough.
Having a partner would mean discussing changes, options, putting everything I do in question.
Talk about a nightmare.
Adjusting my glasses, I savor the solitude, until it’s interrupted by the front door chiming before Dean’s start time. Against all odds considering the weather, we have a customer. They have to be regulars. With a few lights on, they’ll be able to find their way.
“Let me know if you need anything!” I holler.
I chuckle at an email from a vendor insisting I stock their vacuum cleaning robots, then finish the analysis of the quarterly report.
Sales are slipping, but I don’t want to worry about it.
It’ll pick up in the summer, when tourists flock into town.
Although, I tell myself that each year. It’d be nice to have a solution against seasonal dips in sales, but I suppose that’s the nature of the beast. It’s always been that way, and generations of Callaways have dealt with it.
I will too.
“There you are!” Willow’s voice sounds right next to me.
I jump, taking her in. Her raincoat is open on a summer dress, a splattering of raindrops making it cling to her thighs. Her hair is lightly matted with water, and her eyes are shiny.
I stand from my desk and take my glasses off. She’s quite a sight, and I need to blur the whole picture for a minute. “Hey! On your way to work?” I hope she doesn’t make it a habit to spring on me like that. I could get addicted to it.
She spreads her hands in the pockets of her coat, her floral perfume hitting me in a wave. “Nope. What can I do to help?”
Maybe the bakery had a power outage. Or Chris decided to just stay in bed with Alex, customers be damned. The recent memory of Willow in my own bed overpowers me, and I avert my eyes from her. “Literal rain check?” I ask.
“Something like that.” She takes her coat off, looking for a place to hang it.
“What are you doing?”
She takes a deep breath. “We have a problem,” she says and closes the door to my office. After a slight hesitation, she hangs her coat behind the door, on top of my windbreaker.
I slump on my chair, gesturing to the seat across from my desk.
She chooses to sit one butt cheek on my desk, her foot dangling. It’s too comfortable. Too easygoing. Too natural. Like we’ve been doing this for years. “I’m going to have to work here,” she says.
Absolutely not. I chuckle. “And why is that?” I wipe my glasses and put them back on.
She starts telling me about people asking weird questions at town hall, how Kiara seems to think that the timing of our wedding is a tell there’s more to it, and finally Chris having some theories about what the Callaway women should and shouldn’t do in town.
“For what it’s worth, he did say I was a great salesperson, with a sense for business, so…
” She looks at me with hope in her eyes, and it nearly kills me.
“He let you go?” I bark and reach for my phone.
Her eyes widen. “What are you doing?”
I scroll through my contacts list. “Telling Chris this is no way to treat my wife. The fuck is wrong with him?” It’s all my fault. First, she gets into a fight with her mom. Now this.
“Noah, no.” She takes a shaky breath. “Please don’t do this. It’s… embarrassing. He meant well. The Callaway image and all that.”
Jaw clenched, I set my phone down. “Alright. You can just pick a spot and read a book… or whatever.”
She narrows her eyes on me. “Excuse-me-what? Did you hear the part where he said I was a great salesperson?”
Oh hell no. “I’m not… I don’t… this was never the plan.” It’s hard enough to have her at home.
I’m not a big enough man to subject myself to the temptation of her 24/7.
She leans over to look me in the eye, giving me a prime view on her cleavage, and suddenly my mood is elevated to heights previously unknown. I try to keep my gaze focused on her eyes.
It’s hard.
“I am not risking the very generous arrangement I have with you because you don’t know how to delegate,” she says in a tone she might think is threatening.
I don’t know what? “Excuse me?” I ask, trying to sound way more irritated than I feel.
Her answer is lost to me. Only the sound of her voice makes it to my consciousness, the message irrelevant.
The vision of my wife all mussed up from the rain, perched on my desk, with her boobs close enough that I could lose myself in them just by tilting my head is enough to dissipate any kind of annoyance life might throw at me.
Willow is rarely upset, but when she is—full-on fire. Her skin gets a sort of inner glow, her eyes brighten, her lips are redder and fuller, and there’s an overall energy radiating from her… it just makes me wonder what she’s like in bed.
“Got me?” she asks.
I have no fucking clue what she said, but her delivery was chef’s kiss. “Sure,” I answer, shaking my head, hoping I can rile her up on the regular.
She hops off the desk, a great big smile on her face. “Great! I’ll get right on it.” She turns on her heel and bends over, the damp dress clinging to her ass.
I clear my throat and shift in my chair, my hard-on uncomfortable. “What are you doing?”
She looks at me over her shoulder, still partly bent, one foot up, unsteady on the other. “Putting on my house shoes.”
Ah, hell.
That must mean she’s staying.