Chapter 7
Aspen
After meeting with Cooper, I went back to my office in town hall. It was quiet now that Eve was working from home. But I was having trouble focusing on the schedule for the upcoming holiday season.
There was something about Cooper. He was quiet and unassuming, and when I wasn't yelling at him, he was surprisingly easy to talk to. The only problem was, I shouldn't be confiding in him.
I was proving my parents right. I was impulsive and reckless. I didn't know how to be professional. I'd only ever worked the kind of jobs where no one expected too much of me, so it was easy to exceed expectations. This was my first real challenge.
I had to step into a role I wasn't prepared for and work with a man that I couldn't stand a few short weeks ago. But he was different than I thought.
Did I know on a subconscious level that I was attracted to him? And the antagonistic exchanges were a necessary means of self-preservation? I was fighting this attraction before my conscious mind knew it existed.
Eve expected me to run the town for the holiday season, and I couldn't afford to be distracted. I'd just managed to refocus on the spreadsheet when there was a knock on my door.
"Come in," I said as Reina walked in.
I leaned back in my chair, grateful for a break. "What are you doing here?"
Reina glanced around the room with curiosity. "I thought you might want to grab lunch."
I closed my laptop. "That sounds great."
"I wasn't sure if you were busy now that you're taking over Eve's responsibilities."
I stood and grabbed my purse. "I am, but I can take a break for lunch."
Reina grinned. "I was hoping that was the case."
I turned off the lights and closed the door. "I don't see you as much now that the bakery is reopened."
"I keep adding more things to the schedule. And it's keeping me busy."
"I've been wanting to catch up." We recently became friends when Morgan was renovating her bakery after it was damaged in a fire.
"Morgan is keeping me busy too," Reina said with a naughty smirk.
I covered my ears. "I don't want to hear about my brother."
She laughed. "Noted."
I lowered my hands. "It's enough to know you're happy."
She smiled. "I am."
"I'm just glad the women outnumber the men at Sterling family events now. What do you feel like?"
"Pizza." Reina shifted her purse higher on her shoulder.
I pushed opened the door. "I can do pizza."
Reina stepped onto the sidewalk into the cold air. "This was exactly what I needed. Some girl time."
"If you'd ever come out of that bakery—" I teased as the wind blew my hair in my face.
She smacked me on the arm. "You should talk. You have, like, four jobs. You're never available to go out."
I sighed. "It's only going to get worse now that this job is essentially full-time."
"What are you going to do about the rest of your jobs?"
"Natasha hired someone else to man the front counter now that I'm working for Eve. I can pick up assistant jobs whenever I need to at the Wilde Ski Resort. And I was only working on Sundays at Belle's Bookshop. She hired a high-school girl to help out."
"I don't know how you do it all."
"I like to stay busy." When I paused, that's when I had too many questions about what I was doing with my life. And I wasn't sure if it was my parents' opinion or mine that was bothering me.
"Busy is good. But sometimes I wonder if I should be slowing down. It seems like things have only gotten busier since the bakery reopened."
"That's a good thing. Your business is successful." I opened the door to the pizzeria, and we walked in. The lights were dim. The sign indicated we should find our own table, so we slid into a booth by the front window.
Reina took off her jacket. "Sausage?"
"Definitely."
When the waitress stopped by, we ordered two iced teas and a large pizza with sausage.
Reina placed her arms on the table. "Tell me how it's going, working with Cooper."
I shrugged. "Not bad actually."
She raised a brow. "You two can't be in the same room without taking jabs at each other."
I let out a breath, wondering how much I should tell her. I was never telling anyone about my little crush on him. Especially not him. "We talked about the situation and decided we needed to be mature about it."
She let out a breath. "Morgan was worried about you."
I stiffened. "Do I want to hear why?"
Reina sighed. "Don't take this the wrong way, but he was worried that you and Cooper wouldn't work well together, and you'd quit, or they'd lose the contract with the town."
I shook my head. "That's not going to happen."
"I'm sure he'll be relieved that it’s working out.”
"We met this morning to discuss the renovations at the inn, but then we went our separate ways.
He'll handle the estimate and repairs, and I'm planning the events.
It's not as bad as I thought it would be.
In fact, I can avoid him most of the time.
" It was probably dangerous to let anyone know that we were getting along.
Next thing you'd know, they'd be asking if we liked each other.
My family could be juvenile sometimes. And like it or not, Reina was part of my family now that she was engaged to Morgan.
Reina smiled. "That's good to hear."
"You have nothing to worry about. The season will be seamless, and the inn will have updated bathrooms before the winter ball."
Reina paused and looked at me. "You're trying to get the renovations done before the ball that's scheduled for this year?"
"Have you seen those bathrooms? They're awful."
"They're like something from the seventies," she agreed.
"Everything is so grand, and you think you're living in a fairy tale until you have to go to the bathroom. It's embarrassingly bad."
Reina laughed. "You're right about that."
"Cooper has plans for a sitting room. How lovely would it be to have a place to sit and rest, maybe chat about your evening? He proposed comfortable couches and end tables to set your drinks down."
She raised a brow. "In a bathroom?"
"It's separate from the bathroom. Remember how there's an empty room between the doors to the bathroom?"
She nodded. "I think so."
"He wants to make it a usable space, a sitting room."
"Not a bad idea. But my question is, are you going to the ball?"
I frowned at that. "I plan events. I don't attend them."
Reina shook her head. "That was your role before. But now you're the face of the town, the event coordinator, and essentially the mayor."
"I'm not the mayor."
Reina sighed. "You know what I mean. Eve went to the events as a representative of the town."
I had seen Eve at the winter festival, walking through the crowd, talking to people about their experiences while she was managing it. "That's true."
"So you're going to need a ballgown," she said excitedly.
"I wouldn't go that far. I'm still working the event. I could wear whatever the servers are wearing. Probably black pants, white button-down."
"Eve wore gowns. She probably has a closet full."
The truth was that I didn't have the money for anything like that.
"I'm sure she'd let you raid the gown shop and borrow a few."
"I'll talk to her the next time I see her." But I'd already vowed not to bother her. It was important that I maintain the illusion of control. I'd act like I knew what I was doing and hope everything fell into place. "It's going to work out."
She squeezed my hand. "Of course it is. You're going to be an amazing event coordinator."
Then why did I feel like I was drowning? Everyone around me knew more about my job than I did. Why did I think I could go into the busiest season of the year, and everything would go off without a hitch?
Eve was going to discover I was a fraud. I couldn't let that happen. I listened to Reina talk about the upcoming events, wondering if I was going to be able to pull this off.
"Eve spent a lot of time coordinating parking. Some of the shop owners are concerned that if there is no parking or it's too busy, people will stop coming."
"She gave me her plan for that." Was that enough though? What if visitors increased exponentially this year, and I wasn't prepared to handle it? What did I know about crowd control or parking?
I was in way over my head.
I came into work early and worked late nights. If I worked longer hours, there was no way anything could fall through the cracks.
Decorations were up year-round, and holiday music played perpetually through the speakers placed strategically throughout the town.
The events were what brought more visitors to town.
I had to schedule the Santas and post the schedule.
There were various festivals, the post–Thanksgiving parade, and the winter ball. There was so much to do.
It was late on a Saturday when my door opened. Cooper stepped inside, looking around my mess of an office. "What are you still doing here?"
"Working."
He frowned. "You never responded to my email about the estimate."
I was so focused on the town events, dealing with the shop owner's concerns, and the logistics, I hadn't had time to read through every email. "Oh? Did you just send it?"
He stood in front of my desk in a blue henley that was pushed up his strong forearms, worn jeans, and scuffed work boots. His hair was on the longer side, falling over his forehead. "I sent it days ago."
I put my reading glasses on my nose and turned my attention to the screen. "I must have missed it."
He crossed his arms over his chest, drawing my attention to those forearms. He mainly supervised projects now, but he looked like a man who still did manual labor. "I thought the bathroom renovation was the town's top priority."
I pushed the glasses up my nose even though I didn't need them to see the sight before me. Instead, he was blurry. The distortion would prevent me from being distracted by how hot he was. "It is."
His forehead wrinkled. "Then why haven't you reviewed it yet?"
"I didn't see the email." I scanned my email for his name, then opened the email and downloaded the estimate. "I'll review it and send it to Eve."
"That should already have been done." He started to pace the room.
I hit Print on the estimate, knowing it would be easier to focus on it if it was on paper. I tended to get distracted when I had a lot of tabs open on my computer. Setting my glasses on the desk, I said, "I've been planning the upcoming holiday events."
He paused and looked at me. "The bathrooms have to be done before the winter ball, which is when?" He waved his hand in the air. "Early December? That doesn't give us much time."
"How long will it take to complete the renovation?"
"I put several estimates in the paperwork if you'd bothered to read them."
I sighed. "I'm sorry."
"If this is too much, tell Eve that you can't handle it." His tone had a bite to it that I didn't appreciate.
"It's not too much."
He rapped his knuckles on the desk. "You're already missing stuff."
I thought we were getting along just fine, but that was before we were put to the test. I was already failing at this, meeting everyone's low expectations. "Maybe I'm not the right person for this job."
It wasn't too late to back out now. I could tell Eve that it was too much, that she should find someone else. I could go back to my easy part-time jobs, where there was little expectation and no stress. The idea was looking more attractive.
Why did I need to work all these hours? Sure, the money was great, but I'd vowed never to let work run my life, and that was exactly what was happening now.
He drew up and shot me a look. "You're going to quit?"
"I could." It's not like that wasn't what everyone was expecting anyway. I prided myself on making my own hours and having plenty of time to tend to my plants, go to yoga classes at the inn, and relax. This wasn't the lifestyle I'd planned for myself.
He shook his head. "I can't believe this."
I shrugged. "I already messed something up. There's no point in pretending that I'm the best person for this job."
He threw his hand in the air. "And just like that, you quit. When you promised Eve you'd be there for her."
"I'm sure she'll understand," I said, even as my stomach dropped.
"You'd be leaving her in the middle of the season. She’d have to find someone else or do it herself."
I didn't like the idea of that. But what else could I do? "This was obviously a bad idea."
He took a step back. "You're not who I thought you were."
"I'm sorry you feel that way." That stung. I hoped things would be different, but nothing had changed. I was still the same person who couldn't decide on a career, who jumped from one thing to the next. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
He glanced at me one more time, as if he was waiting for me to change my mind or say something different. But this was me. The proverbial disappointment. He turned on his heel and walked out.
Thankfully, he refrained from slamming the door. If he was mad at me, it was a default state of being for those who were around me. I shouldn't have tried to be someone else. I was sure it wasn't even possible to change. So why had I tried?
I looked at my desk, the office, where the evidence of my long hours was clear.
There were empty coffee cups and take-out bags overflowing the trash can.
There were papers strewn over my desk. Why had I thought I could be a town coordinator?
It was a ludicrous idea. At the same time, I hated that Cooper was disappointed in me.
Why did it matter what he thought of me? Everyone was disappointed in me at one time or the other. I'd dated enough guys to know that they'd eventually grow tired of my lack of ambition.
Now that I'd decided to quit, there was no point in working late now.
I needed to review the estimates and create a comparison spreadsheet. But that was probably a waste of time. I was sure there was nothing I could offer Eve that would help.
I turned off the light, and closed the door. I'd tell Eve with enough time for her to find someone else. But for now, I wanted to go home and wallow.
I'd been meaning to hang twinkling lights on my deck so that I could sit outside in the evening and enjoy my plants. As soon as I got home, I grabbed the box of lights and a small ladder and started tacking the cord to the overhead beams. Once the strands were secured, I turned them on.
The lights made the space feel magical.
I sat on my rocker and closed my eyes. My room was amazing, and for once, I wasn't working. So why was there a pit in my stomach?
Taking this job was a mistake. I should have known it would be too much for me. And Cooper should already have known that. He shouldn't be surprised that I'd dropped the ball.
The worst part was that I was disappointed in myself. Why did I think I could do this?