Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WILLA
Lincoln:
A vendor just showed up, and I’m not sure when I’ll be done with them. If you get here while I’m still busy, grab Brooks to help you haul in the order.
Willa:
Or how about I just do it myself?
Lincoln:
Or how about you stop being a stubborn shit for one goddamn morning and let the able-bodied 22 yo kid do it?
Willa:
You’re a pain in my ass
Lincoln:
Better than a pain in your back
If Lincoln sent me one more text like he was the director of my day, I was going to stab him with a fork while he was sleeping. He could take his overprotective bossiness and shove it up his ass. Honestly, who did he think he was? My keeper?
I’d been living the chronic pain life for six years.
I wasn’t new to this. And in that time, not a single day had gone by when something didn’t ache, pinch, stab, or radiate down my legs like hellfire.
If I waited for a pain-free window to do things, I’d be rotting in the silo, getting absolutely nothing done, all while being buried under a mountain of unpaid bills.
So, no. I wasn’t going to sit around with a heating pad waiting for Prince Charming with giant biceps, annoying dimples, and a rescue complex to show up.
I was going to do what I always did and get shit done.
I backed up my truck to the delivery door at One Night Stan’s, already mentally organizing the crates of honey, syrups, and eggs by drop point. The bar was the first of many deliveries today, and I had it timed down to the minute. Which meant I wasn’t going to wait around to grab someone to help.
Except I hadn’t even turned off the ignition before Brooks came bounding out the back door.
“Morning, Willa,” he called with a wave, already popping open the tailgate and pulling crates from the truck bed.
I opened my mouth to tell him to slow his roll, but he was already halfway to the door carrying three crates, so fine. Fine. If he was gonna be eager, I wasn’t going to stop him. I still needed to make sure the back storage shelves were cleared and ready for the delivery anyway.
Inside the bar, the early morning quiet was almost eerie. No music, no crowd, no obnoxious husband. Just the gentle clink of glass as I checked the storage shelves, taking note of what they’d gone through and mentally adjusting for the next order.
By the time I turned around to head back outside, I expected six crates to be waiting by the door. What I did not expect was all of them.
Like, literally, all of them. Every single last one from the truck bed was stacked three high along the back wall.
Shit.
That wasn’t just One Night Stan’s order. That was everyone’s order. The bar. The bakery. The café. The resort diner. Even the extra crates that were supposed to be dropped at Starlight Cove Resort for an event they were hosting this weekend.
I blinked, hoping maybe I was hallucinating from lack of caffeine. I wasn’t.
“Goddammit,” I muttered and rubbed at the tension setting up shop between my brows.
I glanced around, finding the culprit of this mayhem standing at a table near the front of the bar, earbuds in, head bopping to some beat only he could hear. Brooks moved to the rhythm as he set up the chairs and wiped down tables. Blissfully unaware of the chaos he’d just caused.
I dragged a hand down my face, exhaling hard.
Of course. Of course this was what happened the one time I let someone help.
Now, instead of staying on schedule and knocking out the rest of my deliveries on time, I was stuck hauling three-quarters of the inventory back to the truck, reorganizing everything in reverse order, and losing time I didn’t have to give.
Twenty minutes later, I hoisted the final fuck-up crate into the truck with a grunt and turned toward the back door, only to come face-to-face with Lincoln.
His grin dropped the second he slid his gaze over me, clocking the crate I’d just shoved into the back of the truck. “Um, I gave express instructions that you weren’t supposed to unload the truck.”
“I didn’t unload it,” I said with an eye roll. “I’m reloading it.”
“Why the fuck are you doing that?”
“Because your helper helped a little too much,” I said, hands on my hips. “And now I need to get the orders reorganized and ready for the rest of my deliveries.”
“If Brooks fucked up, then you tell him he fucked up and get him to unfuck his fuckup.”
“Or I just do it myself and make sure it gets done right. Like I should’ve done in the first place. Besides, it was just a little bit of hauling.”
His jaw ticked, drawing my attention to the thick layer of stubble he hadn’t shaved off this morning. “Right. I didn’t realize a little bit of hauling was okay for your back.”
“Well, it is.”
Lincoln didn’t respond. Instead, he just stared.
Not in a way that made heat lick over my skin like it had been doing, but in a way that made me feel cracked open and vulnerable.
Like he saw more than I wanted him to, adding up everything from the slight pinch between my brows to the stiff way I was moving and coming to the conclusion I was in pain.
News flash: I was always in pain.
“Uh-huh,” he said flatly. “And how’s your back doing now that you’ve done all this unfucking?”
“It’s fine.”
“Right.”
I took a deep inhale, praying for patience I knew wouldn’t come. No amount of breathing exercises could ease the constant friction between Lincoln and me.
“I’m fine,” I bit out. “I’ve done these deliveries every week for years.
And I haven’t had Brooks with me to help with a single fucking one of them.
I’ve handled it, and I’ve handled it fine.
The deliveries get done and done right, and guess what?
That all happens thanks to this one-woman show.
So maybe stop acting like I need rescuing every time I lift something heavier than a coffee cup, and—are you even listening to me? ”
Instead of responding, he turned around and strode back inside, walked behind the bar, and grabbed a piece of paper and a thick black Sharpie like I hadn’t said a word. Then he started scrawling something so aggressively I was surprised the marker tip didn’t snap off.
“Are you seriously writing a to-do list right now? What the fuck?”
It was only then that he met my gaze as he capped the marker, then tore off a piece of painter’s tape. With his eyes still locked on mine, he slapped the paper to the back wall, rubbing his finger over the tape to make sure it stuck.
“I wasn’t writing a to-do list,” he said.
“Well, you sure as hell weren’t listening to me.”
“Oh, I was listening. I just don’t believe the parts where you insist you’re fine.”
I shifted my gaze to the sign he’d taped to the wall. In thick black marker and underlined three extremely aggressive times, it read:
WILLA LIFTING BAN
IN EFFECT UNTIL FOREVER
“Oh my god,” I seethed. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m very serious, wife.” He crossed his obnoxiously muscled arms over his obnoxiously broad chest, standing guard next to the sign as if just daring me to rip the thing down.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” I said. “You’re fucking ridiculous. And I can’t stand around arguing with you all day. I’ve still got deliveries to make, and I’m now almost half an hour behind.”
He glanced out the open back door and to the truck bed with all the crates stacked inside. His mouth pinched into a firm line, his jaw ticking once. “I don’t like that you’re doing these by yourself.”
“And I don’t like that I married a jackass,” I shot back, stalking out the back door. “Guess we’ll both have to figure out how to go on with our days.”