Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Fallon
The kitchen is spotless. Not a speck of grease on the stainless steel, not a crumb on the floor.
I’ve been at it for an hour, wiping down surfaces that were already clean, but it’s better than sitting around waiting for Knox to get back from the bank.
I whistle an old Beatles tune, the sound echoing off the high ceilings, trying to fill the silence of an empty restaurant. I’m just polishing the faucet on the prep sink when the back door opens.
I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. The air shifts. The scent changes—something floral and sweet cutting through the smell of bleach and sanitizer.
Amber.
I turn, a grin already tugging at my lips, but it freezes halfway there.
She stands by the door, shaking a light dusting of snow from her coat. She’s wearing her hair in a high ponytail, exposing the long, graceful line of her neck.
She’s got on the softest, pinkest cardigan I’ve ever seen, fuzzy enough that I just want to rub my face against it, paired with dark jeans tucked into sturdy boots.
She looks fucking beautiful. Gorgeous enough that my brain short-circuits for a second.
She’s haunted every dream I’ve had for the last two weeks. In them, she’s laughing, or cooking, or looking at me with those hazel eyes like I’m the only man on earth.
But as she steps fully into the light of the kitchen, I notice something else. Her eyes are rimmed with red. The skin around them looks puffy and tender.
The grin slides off my face. My defenses snap up, instinct kicking in.
“Amber? You okay?” I abandon the rag on the counter and walk toward her. I stop a few feet away, not wanting to crowd her if she needs space, but close enough to catch her if she sways. “What happened?”
She offers me a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine, Fallon. Just didn’t sleep well.”
“Rough night?”
“Yeah. Maisie had a nightmare,” she says, reaching up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Her hand trembles slightly. “A bad one.”
I wince. I know how much that kid means to her. “I’m sorry. Is she okay now?”
“She is. It just... it took a while to settle her down.” She sighs, her shoulders drooping under an invisible weight. “It’s a long story.”
I nod, keeping my mouth shut. If she wanted to tell me the story, she would. I know better than to pry.
“You look exhausted,” I observe gently. “Why don’t you take the day off? Go home, catch up on some sleep. I’ll cover your station. I can explain it to Knox when he gets back from the bank.”
She shakes her head immediately. “No. I need to work, Fallon. Honestly. It’s good for me. If I go back there and just sit in that quiet house, I’ll just start thinking too much. I need to keep busy.”
I study her face. She looks fragile, but there’s a steely resolve in her jaw that I recognize. It’s the same look she gets when she’s hauling heavy buckets of flowers or scrubbing a stubborn stain out of the floor.
She doesn’t want coddling. She wants purpose.
“Alright,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “You win. But if you crash, you’re taking a break. No arguments.”
“Deal.”
I glance at the clock on the wall. “I actually have to run a few errands. We need to hit up the butcher for that specialty beef for the weekend, and I want to check the catch at the docks. You want to come with? Keep me company?”
She hesitates, looking around the empty kitchen. “Where’s Eli?”
“He went to meet with the wine supplier. Some vineyard down in Eugene is trying to push a new pinot on us, so he’s down there tasting and negotiating. It’ll take him all morning.”
“Oh.” She processes this. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll come. It sounds better than chopping onions.”
“Great. Grab your coat.”
She turns to grab her purse, then pauses, looking back at me. “Aren’t we waiting for Knox? Are we just going to lock up?”
“Yeah. Knox will be back in an hour, maybe less if the line at the bank is shorter.” I walk over to where I tossed my leather jacket. I slip it on, then reach out and take her hand.
I haven’t held her hand since the night in the office when I admitted I liked her. Her hand is soft, her fingers cold from the outside air.
The contact sends a jolt up my arm, straight to my chest. It feels good. Better than good. It feels right.
“We’ll just shoot him a text,” I say, squeezing her fingers gently. “Let him know we’re out procuring the goods. He can hold down the fort for an hour.”
“Okay,” she breathes, looking down at our joined hands. She doesn’t pull away.
We head out to the parking lot. The snow has stopped, leaving the world glittering and white. I open the passenger door of my truck for her, waiting until she’s climbed up and buckled in before rounding the hood.
The engine rumbles to life, a deep, satisfied growl. I pull out of the lot, heading toward the center of town.
“I just need to make a quick stop at the bank,” she says, breaking the silence as we drive down Main Street. “To deposit my check. I know it’s out of the way, but...”
“It’s not out of the way,” I say immediately. “Whatever you need.”
“Thanks.”
She stares out the window, watching the shops go by. Her profile is tense, her brow furrowed. Whatever is bothering her—and I suspect it’s more than just a lack of sleep—it’s weighing on her heavily.
I wish I could reach over and massage the tension out of her shoulders, or pull the thoughts right out of her head and crush them.
I hate seeing her like this. I want her to smile that wide, genuine smile that makes her eyes crinkle.
I bite my tongue and keep driving. She’ll talk when she’s ready. Or maybe she won’t. Maybe she just needs a distraction.
We stop at the bank. She runs in, quick and efficient, while I wait in the truck, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. When she comes back out, she looks a little lighter, but the shadows are still there under her eyes.
“Did you see Knox in there?”
She shakes her head.
“Maybe he’s already left.”
“Okay,” she says, buckling her seatbelt. “Where to first?”
“Meat,” I say with a grin. “I know a guy.”
We drive to the edge of town, to a small, brick building with a sign that reads Miller’s Meats. It’s not a fancy chain store; it’s old school, family-run. The kind of place where they know their cuts.
The guy behind the counter, a burly man with a white apron stained with blood, waves when he sees me.
“Fallon! What can I get you?”
“Hey, Joe. I need ten pounds of that prime ribeye, trimmed. And five pounds of short ribs. And those sausages we talked about last week?”
“Coming right up.”
While Joe weighs and wraps the meat, I turn to Amber. She’s examining the display case, looking at the marbling on a sirloin with a critical eye.
“You know your beef,” I observe.
She shrugs. “I’m a mom. I did cook before I started working in a restaurant, you know.”
I laugh. “Touché.”
“So,” she says, turning to look at me, “how did you get into this? Being a butcher, I mean. It seems like... a lot.”
“It is,” I agree. “But I love it. My dad was a fisherman. Worked the boats out of Portland his whole life. Hard, dangerous work. My mom was a nurse. We didn’t have much money, growing up. I’m the youngest of five.”
“Five?” Her eyes widen. “Wow.”
“Yeah. My brother Sean is a cop in Portland. Fiona is a teacher in New York. Connor owns a bait shop down in Miami—loves the heat, the idiot. And Moira tends bar in Seattle.” I shake my head, smiling at the memories. “It was loud. Always someone screaming or stealing your food.”
“Sounds intense,” she says softly.
“It was. But we stuck together. My mom is the one who taught me to cook. Said if I could feed myself, I’d never go hungry.
” I lean against the counter, watching Joe wrap the meat in brown paper.
“But I didn’t really get into cooking, not seriously, until I got a job at a local meat market when I was fifteen.
Just sweeping floors, cleaning the grinder. ”
“And you liked it?”
“I loved it,” I admit. “There’s an art to it.
Understanding the muscle, the bone. How to cut something so you waste nothing, but you get the best flavor.
It’s precise. It’s visceral. I worked my way up, got a job at some high-end restaurants in Portland, doing the prep and the butchery for them.
That’s where I met Knox and Eli. We clicked. The rest is history.”
Joe hands me the packages. I pay him and we head back to the truck, loading the meat into the coolers in the bed.
“Next stop, fish,” I tell her.
The docks are cold, the wind whipping off the river and cutting through my coat. Amber shivers, wrapping that pink cardigan tighter around herself. I walk closer to her, using my body to block the wind as we talk to the supplier.
I pick out some stunning halibut and salmon, the flesh bright and firm. Amber watches with interest, asking about sustainability and seasonality.
She’s smart. She asks the right questions. I could watch her all day, her nose pink from the cold.
By the time we have the fish packed away, the morning is wearing on. My stomach growls, loud enough that Amber hears it over the wind.
She laughs. “Hungry?”
“Starving. All this talk about food is killing me.”
“Coffee?”
“God, yes.”
We drive back toward town, stopping at a small café near the riverfront. It’s warm inside, smelling of roasted beans and sugar.
We order at the counter—large black coffee for me, a latte for her—and I grab a box of donuts, sliding them across the table to her once we sit by the window.
“Eat,” I command. “You’re too skinny.”
She picks out a glazed donut, taking a small bite. Powdered sugar dusts her lip. It takes everything in me not to reach across the table and lick it off.
I swallow a gulp of hot coffee, burning my tongue slightly. It wakes me up. My gaze drifts to her forearm, resting on the table.
The sleeve of her cardigan has ridden up slightly, revealing the edge of the tattoo on her wrist.
“I like your tattoo,” I say, nodding toward it.