3. Willow
3
WILLOW
I could count on one hand the moments in my life where I had an out-of-body experience. Where I felt like my spirit was hovering over my body, staring down at the scene playing out in front of me.
One was when Harold told me that he had been cheating on me with Nicole, his assistant. The other time was when I was in labor with Jasper. And the third was happening to me right now as I stared at Cole Watkins.
He returned my stare with equal intensity. His eyebrows were raised as he held my gaze with an expectant look in his eyes.
Right. He was waiting for my response.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked as I clutched the menus to my chest like they were my lifeline and I was drowning. My brain seemed to have short-circuited, and I was struggling to process what he’d just said to me.
“I’m the co-owner of this diner.” He glanced around the restaurant for a moment before meeting my gaze once more.
“That’s impossible. My great-uncle owned this place before he transferred the title to me. He never said anything about a co-owner.” My cheeks were flushed as I moved to set the menus down on the hostess stand in front of me.
This had to be some sort of joke. He must have heard that I’d just inherited the diner and was here to mess with me. Of course I was the idiot who was standing there, letting him fool me.
Not wanting to look like an idiot anymore, I turned and headed toward the empty table the Stephenson family had just vacated. I was going to distract myself with cleaning it up, and hopefully Cole Watkins would lose interest and find someone else to bother.
I quickly gathered up the empty plates, hoping that I’d allowed him enough time to leave the diner. As I lifted the pile off the table and turned, I yelped. My heart leapt into my throat as I stared into the narrow eyes of Cole Watkins.
I glared as I gripped the plates tighter and moved to sidestep him. “I’m not sure where you got your information, but it’s wrong. I own Sunny Side-Up diner.” I paused as I turned to look him dead in the eye. “And I am the sole owner.”
I held his gaze, mustering confidence that I did not have. I wasn’t going to let him walk all over me. Inheriting the diner had been the first good thing that’d happened to me after walking in on my ex in bed with his assistant. I had to pack up my son and take him away from everything he knew when I moved to Harmony Island for a fresh start.
I was finally seeing the sun peek out from behind the clouds, and I wasn’t going to let this man stand in my way.
I wasn’t sure how long we stood there, staring at each other, but my heart sang with victory when he sighed and shifted his weight. For a moment, I deluded myself into thinking that I’d actually won as I watched him reach into his back pocket to remove what looked like a folded-up piece of paper. He held it out to me expectantly.
I frowned. “What is that?” After going through a messy divorce, I hated paper. Nothing good was ever printed on paper.
“It’s the contract that your great-uncle signed with my dad.” He unfolded the first flap and then the second.
On the piece of paper was scratched the familiar handwriting of my great-uncle. Something about losing a bet and Nick Watkins being a rightful co-owner of the diner. It was signed and dated by both parties.
After I scanned the piece of paper, I laughed. He had to be joking, right? Sure, I recognized the handwriting, but there was no way this contract was valid. It wasn’t notarized. I glanced up to Cole, whose gaze hadn’t faltered. He was staring at me as intently as when he had first walked in.
“You’re joking.” I shifted the pile of plates so they were more stable as I nodded toward the paper. “This is your proof?” Every second that ticked by made me feel better and better about this situation.
“It’s a contract,” he said, his expression remaining stern as he stared at me.
“It looks like chicken scratch.” I gave him a wide waitress smile. “I doubt any judge will uphold that.”
His eyes widened at my words. I could see his gaze darken as he stared at me. I instantly slammed my lips shut, cursing myself. Why had I said a judge ? I didn’t have the mental bandwidth nor income to fight a lawsuit right now.
“A judge?” he asked slowly and methodically.
Well, I’d already started down this path, there was no way I could turn back now. “Yes, a judge.” I glared at him. “Do you honestly think that you were going to be able to come in here and make these demands when not a single soul here has ever heard of you before? Did you think that all you had to do was wave a handwritten piece of paper around and I was just going to, what? Concede?” The plates felt like bricks in my hands, but I wasn’t going to let up. He needed to know that I wasn’t a woman who could be pushed around like that.
He studied me. It felt like an eternity before he slowly started to fold the piece of paper up and tuck it into his back pocket. The sounds from the diner slowly faded away as my ears pricked against the silence between us. He wasn’t speaking, and his lack of words made my entire body feel on edge.
Why wasn’t he saying anything?
“I can see that we’re not going to see eye to eye on this,” he said as he slowly brought his gaze up to study me once more.
I snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
He didn’t acknowledge my comment. “I have to head back to Miami?—”
“Of course you’re from Miami,” I huffed under my breath.
He paused, his gaze fixed on me. My cheeks warmed with embarrassment. This wasn’t how I acted.
When Harold cheated, he broke me. He ripped me to shreds and left me in a pile on the ground. It took sheer will and my love for my son to pick myself back up and dust myself off. I wasn’t whole by any means, but I was doing what I had to keep my head up and my body moving forward.
What Harold did to me left me weak, and I so desperately wanted to be strong. I should be strong, but I feared I wasn’t capable of doing anything but faking it.
I hated that about myself. Jasper deserved a strong mother. But at every trial, I proved I wasn’t. I’d lost his father to another woman. If I lost this diner to Cole, what was I going to tell him? Sunny Side Up Diner was our fresh start. It was going to bring in a steady income. I was finally going to be able to give him the life he deserved. What kind of mother would I be if I lost this chance?
Not a very good one, that’s for sure.
“I don’t have time to come back until next month,” he continued, ignoring my little outburst. “I will have a lawyer assess this contract, and I’ll bring better proof when I come next.”
I parted my lips, but his words had left me speechless. What was I supposed to say? I’d been the one to mention a judge. I didn’t fault him for realizing that, in order to get anywhere with me, he was going to have to come with receipts. And if I were honest, Uncle Doug was a gambler. It was not out of the realm of possibility that he’d gotten himself in too deep. I just never thought he was capable of betting half the diner.
“Okay” was all I could squeak out. My entire body wanted to collapse, but I couldn’t with the plates still clutched in my hands. So I just stood there, my arms burning and my knees threatening to give out.
“Everything okay?” Breia’s familiar voice had us both turning to face her. She was standing there, her gaze focused on me with a pad of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. She raised her eyebrows when my gaze met hers.
Grateful for her interruption, I nodded. “I’m good,” I said, the words scraping against my dry throat.
Breia’s gaze flicked over to Cole. I slowly glanced in his direction as well. He just gave Breia a curt nod before he turned and made his way to the front door of the diner and disappeared outside.
Now alone, I took a staggering step back in an effort to keep myself from collapsing.
“Whoa,” Breia said as she quickly tucked her pad and pen into the front pocket of her apron and hurried to take the stack of plates from me.
“Thanks,” I murmured as my arms went from numb to tingling. I rubbed them in an effort to make them wake up faster.
“Who was that guy?” she asked as she nodded toward the door.
I waved for her to follow me. When I got to the kitchen door, I pushed it open and held it so Breia could pass through. Once we were in the kitchen, I headed toward the dish sink in the back.
“Just a guy claiming to have rights to half the diner,” I said over my shoulder. I had to raise my voice slightly to be heard over Brody as he spoke to the staff in the kitchen.
“What?” she asked. From the corner of my eye, I saw her quicken her pace to catch up to me.
I stopped at the sink and turned to start unloading the plates from Breia. “Just some guy claiming to have rights to the diner,” I repeated.
Breia frowned. “Did Doug tell you about him?”
I shook my head. “Not a word.”
“So, he’s lying.”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to agree with her. But I’d seen the contract. It looked like my uncle’s handwriting. All indications pointed to that document being real. I just feared if I spoke the words out loud, I would speak them into reality. And I didn’t want that to be my reality.
I was so ready for freedom when Uncle Doug signed over the diner. I’d lived the last seven years of my life stuck under a man who was hell-bent on crushing me. From my brief five-minute interaction with Cole, I feared I was going to find myself back in the same situation.
I wasn’t ready to give up my independence. Not yet.
“Well, if he thinks he can just come in here and take over, he has another thing coming,” Breia said as she set the last plate onto the stack in the sink.
“He won’t be back until next month,” I said as I reached over and flicked on the faucet. Water started to shoot out from the sprayer.
“Next month?” Breia asked.
I nodded. “That’s what he said.”
She laughed. I turned to see that she was grinning at me. “What a loser. He won’t be back.”
I raised my eyebrows. “He won’t?”
“No. He won’t. He came here, tried to throw his weight around, but found out you’re a formidable force.” She folded her arms. “You scared him off.”
I studied her. Was that true? I wanted to believe her. I wanted to think that this was the last time I was going to come face-to-face with Cole Watkins. And maybe for the next few weeks I could let myself believe what Breia said was true.
But deep down. Deep, deep down, I knew. This wasn’t the last time I was going to interact with Cole Watkins. He would be back.
I was sure of it.