Chapter 2 #2
Oliver glanced up as he slid a hot pan full of pastries into the tower rack. “Yeah, I know.”
Aaron was in the back, finishing up the bread, because it would be a fine line for them to get it baked and cooled enough to use for sandwiches this morning.
She took a few steps closer. Her lipstick was bright red today and matched her hair and the rims of her eyeglasses.
Valentine’s Day might’ve passed a week ago, but that didn’t mean Marjorie would ever give up her red and pink. She was like Indigo Bay that way.
“What happened?” she asked.
Oliver shrugged. “It’s nothing. A problem with Aaron’s car, easily fixed, hopefully. But after the morning rush, I’ve got to run him back home, to wait for a tow.”
“Do you?” Her eyebrow rose, a slash of bright crimson against her pale skin.
“Margie,” Oliver warned softly.
“You’re too nice. You know that,” she said.
“I don’t know that, actually,” Oliver said. He slid another pan of freshly baked pastry onto the rack.
The problem—or the blessing—with Marjorie was she’d known him for every year of his upcoming thirty years.
She was his mother’s best friend and had been his third-grade teacher.
After retiring from the school system, she’d been at a loose end, and it had made perfect sense for him to hire her to staff the bakery in the mornings.
Take into account that she’d gone to Europe most every summer she’d had off and could make a better cappuccino than him? It had been a no-brainer move.
Except for the fact she’d never forgotten she’d been his teacher.
“He’s young, he just needs structure,” Marjorie said, referring to Aaron.
“He has plenty of structure, trust me,” Oliver said dryly. Anyone who could consistently be here at three thirty every morning didn’t need a lecture on routine.
“Alright, well you do know best,” she said. “I’ll go flip the open sign if you want to fill the case.”
“Sure thing,” Oliver said.
For the next four hours, he didn’t have time to think about what she’d said at all, which was frankly better than him spending those four hours worrying that maybe he was being too nice.
He still told himself, as he dropped Aaron off to wait for the tow to the local mechanics shop, that he was being a good boss.
That was all.
But his mind wouldn’t quiet, as he turned onto Main Street, and he debated with himself about stopping by Walter’s greengrocery, seeing what he had that was fresh and new.
Maybe some recipe testing would relax him—but then he was tired, too.
It had been a long, hard morning. Harder than he’d had in a long time, and Oliver couldn’t deny that Aaron was at least partially responsible for that.
If he’d known how late Aaron was going to be, Oliver would’ve called his mother.
Or asked her to run over and pick Aaron up, so he wouldn’t be that late.
He was still going back and forth on if he wanted to swing by Walter’s when a flash moving across the street, just past the heart of downtown, caught his eye and he slammed on his brakes without a single second to spare.
Oliver had the fleeting impression of a man, a big man, broad and tall and solid in a dark suit, which was unusual because not many in Indigo Bay bothered with suits.
His hands landed on Oliver’s hood and then a pair of dark eyes turned on him and caught him right through the windshield.
Trapped him.
Even darker brows slammed down, and Oliver realized then, between the full lips, the wavy dark hair with its few silvering threads at the temples, and handsome face, that the man was full-on glaring.
Okay, yes, he’d almost hit him. But . . .there wasn’t a crosswalk here. Then there was the phone in the man’s hand. He’d been looking at it, Oliver thought, then rewound his brain, replaying what had happened again, and yes, he had been.
Crossing the street and not even looking where he was going, and now he was going to glare at Oliver for almost hitting him?
He should be thanking Oliver for not killing him.
His hand was shaking a little as he rolled down the window.
“The crosswalk is the next block down,” he pointed, hating the way his voice trembled. Adrenaline, it’s just adrenaline. But it was also the intensity in the man’s gaze. The size of him. The ferocity of him.
He should’ve scared Oliver. But he didn’t.
At all.
In fact, he was feeling rather the opposite of scared right now as the man curled his hands into fists and leaned around the side of the car.
“What?” he barked out. “The fucking crosswalk?”
“You know what a crosswalk is. A place to cross the street. Two lines. You try to stay between them? I find it’s a great way not to get killed.”
Oliver knew his overriding characteristic was that he was nice. Too nice, according to some people (ahem, Marjorie). But when faced with this man, it was hard—no, impossible—not to dish his snark right back.
The man stared at him in shock. He probably wasn’t used to people returning his shit, but Oliver had.
Because Oliver was momentarily crazy? Or temporarily mesmerized by the intoxicating look of passion in the man’s dark eyes?
Maybe it was the pissed off kind of passion, but it was passion nonetheless.
He straightened his back and prayed that his hands would stop trembling.
“Are you seriously trying to tell me what a crosswalk is?” the man said. His voice was deep and dark but also melodic, with a touch of something Oliver couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t French. It wasn’t Middle Eastern. It was something else. Something beautiful.
Oliver had never been tempted to fantasize over a man he’d met in everyday life before. But he had a feeling he’d be hard-pressed to forget about this one.
“Well,” he replied seriously, “I wasn’t sure you knew, as you weren’t crossing in it.”
“You almost hit me,” the man retorted.
“Exactly,” Oliver chirped.
For a second, those eyes went harder. Hotter, too. And Oliver trembled, not just on the outside—but inside, too.
Then the man muttered something under his breath and was pushing off from the car, his long legs striding across the street, and all Oliver had left was a departing vision of a broad back, covered in flawlessly tailored dark fabric, and a sneaking suspicion he’d be looking everywhere for that face for weeks to come.
Because Oliver would have remembered him, if he’d ever seen him around Indigo Bay before, and he definitely had not.
Was he new to the town? Just passing through? Maybe he could call his mother and ask if she was currently housing a man best characterized as a tall, dark drink of grumpy water.
A honk interrupted his internal sleuthing. Then another.
Oliver glanced up into his rearview mirror. “Shit,” he muttered. He recognized Chauncey Anderson’s car and also his glowering expression, and hit the gas, wheels squealing as he finally departed the scene of the crime.
No, he hadn’t killed the mysterious man.
But the mysterious man had definitely done something to him.