Chapter 9 #2
Sabrina turns a grin on her as if she’s completely immune to being near me.
She probably is.
This is a me problem.
“Wasn’t much time between falling and catching myself,” Sabrina says.
“ To put the higher dishes away ,” the woman chides.
“You shouldn’t be on kitchen duty at all,” Cedar says. He’s a tall, slender, younger man in a different Bean & Nugget apron, and I don’t miss the not-so-subtle side-eye aimed at me.
Like he thinks I’m the one who’s keeping her in here.
“I like kitchen duty,” she tells him. “Reminds me of when I was little and Grandma was running this place. Jitter . Sit .”
The dog leans sideways against me. He’s so big, his body rests against me mid-thigh, and he has no hesitation in pressing me away from Sabrina while he grins a happy doggy grin at me.
Being this near to a dog again is opening other old wounds.
I’m just off-balance enough now that being around another dog fucking hurts today.
This dog?
He belongs to Sabrina, and therefore, he’s as off-limits as she is.
Self-preservation says he has to be.
It’s not safe to like people who’ve already let you down, and it’s even less safe to like people who have made it clear they want the opposite of what you do.
“The dog has to go,” I tell Sabrina. “We can’t have it in the kitchen.”
It . That might be too far even for Super Vengeance Man .
But Sabrina doesn’t blink at my attitude or my order.
“Great! You can tell Shirlene when she gets here. She’s the health inspector, by the way.
You met her briefly yesterday, but you met so many people, I don’t know if you remember which one she was.
She asked me to bring him in today because she misses him since she moved in with her boyfriend.
You’re living in her old townhouse. First guest, actually, since she converted it into a vacation rental. I don’t think she mentioned that part.”
I’m momentarily speechless.
But only momentarily. “Don’t you all have work to do?”
Willa eyes me.
Cedar eyes me.
Zen mouths something that looks like they know .
Know what?
That Sabrina and I slept together? That I can’t convince myself to not like her? That I adore her damn dog?
While I’m still puzzling that out, all three of them head back to the dining room.
“Get your dog off me,” I tell Sabrina.
She grins.
She grins .
And it has that damn sparkle to it. “Sorry. He licked you. That means you’re his now. It’s the rules. If you don’t like it, I believe the mayor’s coming in for a late lunch with Shirlene. You can see if she can get that rule wiped off the city books.”
“I don’t belong to people who lick me.”
She blinks at me.
Just once, but she does.
And it’s enough to take me back to my hotel in Hawaii where she did so much more than just lick me.
It’s damn cold in here, and I’m sweating.
“Go sit ,” I tell the dog.
He stares at me forlornly for a beat too long, but then he ambles back across the kitchen to collapse dramatically to the floor inside his doggy house.
I look down at my fur-covered pants and stifle a sigh. Then I look up and find Sabrina righting the stepstool.
“What are you doing?”
“My job,” she answers cheerfully as she climbs onto the damn thing and reaches to put another large stainless steel bowl on the high rack.
“Stop.”
“Gotta get done.”
I stroll back to her side, take the bowl, and put it up high myself. “Ask for help with the high shelves.”
“I won’t sue you if I hurt myself while I’m doing something stupid.”
“And you were going to be right back.” Fuck . I did it again.
I brought up Hawaii again.
“Would you have still spent that whole evening with me if you’d known who I was?” she asks.
“Irrelevant. You’re not who I thought you were.”
“People are complicated. I can be who you thought I was that night and also be who I am today. Just like you can be the guy who was randomly in Hawaii on Emma’s wedding day after buying Chandler’s café, which prompts a lot of questions, by the way, and also be the funny, kind, supportive person who helped a stranger having a bad day out of the goodness of his own heart. ”
“Digging for gossip?”
She hands me another bowl to put up high.
“I was born exactly in that spot where you’re standing.
Jitter’s doghouse? That little nook used to have a table where I’d do my homework while my grandma kept an eye on me when my mom was working.
And she does work at a salon down the street.
That dent in the wall next to the stove?
My cousin Lucky’s head print. He and Chandler were fighting over who got the last blueberry muffin and Chandler shoved him into the wall.
Grandpa took blueberry muffins off the menu to punish them both, and Grandma never made another batch for either one of them.
She did , however, make them for me and Emma and Laney whenever we’d sweet-talk her into them, which we generally only did when one of us had had a bad day. ”
I almost smile despite myself, because Mimi would’ve done the same.
Also, I love the idea of Chandler Sullivan being punished.
But I don’t smile, because Sabrina hasn’t earned my smiles again.
She points to the desk before going back to the dishes.
“There are marks on the wall under the bulletin board where Grandpa tracked my mom and uncles’ heights while they were growing up.
My uncles had a mashed potato fight once fifteen years or so ago and there are probably still spuds behind the stove.
I can tell you why those six floor tiles by the back door are different, why we don’t have a more efficient coffee roaster, and who’d come back to work here and take this place to the next level with both our food and our coffee game now that Chandler’s not involved anymore, but I’m off gossip.
However, I’m not off doing whatever it takes to save my family’s café.
So if there’s something you want to tell me about why your face twitches like that every time someone says Chandler , now would be a good time.
I can help you. We can help each other. But only if you trust me. ”
Heat creeps up my neck again, but this time for an entirely different reason.
Trust her.
I trust exactly two people. Zen and Mimi.
I’m not putting my hard-won Super Vengeance Man suit in Sabrina’s hands.
Not when she ghosted me. Not when she shares genes with Chandler Sullivan. And not when I’m rapidly picking up on the clues that she’ll do anything she can to save this café.
“Maybe it’s always been a dream of mine to run a kombucha bar in the mountains,” I say.
“Big change from running your own research lab.”
The heat gets hotter. “Doing a little googling?”
“No, I’m awful at it. I have friends that work computers much better than I do and who have made it their current life mission to help me.” She hands me another bowl, this one soaking wet.
I grab the towel she was using. “Find anything else interesting?”
“I’m sorry about your dog.”
My shoulders hit the ceiling tiles. “Off-limits.”
“ Everyone in town is looking you up. You get one chance to tell your story before they fill in the details.”
“And how many details are you filling in for them?”
She pulls her soapy hands out of the water and looks me dead in the eye. “Only what they need to know.”
“What you need them to know.”
“Same thing.”
“Like that I know about Mr. Shredded Wheat and his two girlfriends?”
She doesn’t blink at that either.
Because she’s that good?
Or because she lied about the gossip in Hawaii?
“I’m not threatening you,” she says quietly. “I’m explaining to you how this town works. I can help you or I can stand in your way. Happy to do either. But I need to know what you want if you want my help.”
For a split second, I’m back in Hawaii. Carefree. Light. Hustling to keep up with the whirlwind that was my temporary Duchess as she tried to make the world a better place.
I want that.
I crave that.
But it’s not why I’m here.
“You left,” I grit out.
She looks up at me for a moment longer, then nods slowly. “Got it. Good luck to you then.”
That sounds ominous.
Worse, though?
It does nothing to cure the overwhelming curiosity about how different the next few weeks would be if I just kissed her.
Right here.
Right now.
“Sabrina?” Willa sticks her head into the kitchen. “Shirlene’s here.”
Sabrina smiles. “Jitter and I will be right out.”
Moment over.
She’s gone.
And I think I just lost her.
Again.