Chapter 8
Felicity headed outside, down the wrought-iron stairs, in through the shop’s back door, and then out the shop’s front door. A gust of brisk air shoved her back, catching her gauzy workout tank like a ship sail caught in a sudden squall.
Freaking Kansas.
It was thirty degrees colder today. A weather change that a plant shop owner should have been aware of. And of course she was wearing nothing but thin leggings too.
Nic and an unfortunately very familiar man were standing outside on the patio.
Oh hell no.
“Toby Keegan, take that stupid hard hat off. You aren’t a contractor, and this isn’t an active construction site.”
“I arrived here straight from another job. I’m exploring other opportunities and put an ad in the paper and this nice man contacted me for an estimate.” Toby tipped his hat at her with a nod.
“Your last name is Keegan?” Nic asked Toby. “As in Jean Gallagher-Keegan? And if your name’s Toby, why is your company called Bill’s Contracting Solutions?”
“I did some research on which names were the most successful and trustworthy. Bill was high on that list, so I thought it would lend the right air of trustworthiness to my brand.”
“Toby’s my aunt’s stepson,” Felicity added.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why Jean left her niece the plant store instead of me.
And basically, it’s because my stepmother had very strong opinions about women-held businesses remaining women-held businesses.
” Toby adjusted his hat. “She and I had a few differences of opinion about the future of that retail space, so she disinherited me.”
“You wanted to turn the store in a sports memorabilia shop.” Felicity shook her head. “Not even the good sports. We’re talking disc golf and Olympic badminton.”
“I saw a gap in the market and made a strong business case. And if you excuse me, I’m here to provide an estimate.”
Felicity huffed. “You made a five-slide PowerPoint presentation. You got her house. She didn’t disinherit you.”
Nic rubbed his chin. A few millimeters of stubble had grown in overnight to cover that cleft she had touched the night before.
“By all means, let him continue to give you an estimate.” Felicity flashed a mocking smile.
“I’m the daughter of a very successful general contractor and have done a lot of renovation work, so I’m really interested in his recommendations.
For starters, do you know what kind of permits you need to pull on a job like this? ”
“Uh…”
“And given that Mr. Holm-Bozic here can only legally commandeer half of this patio space, have you told him that we would need to get an official survey on the property lines and setbacks so you know where any additions can be?”
“Well, I feel like a lot of that is more of a suggestion,” Toby said. “I know where my stepmother’s property line is.”
“Do you?”
“Of course.”
“Show me.”
“Show you what?”
Felicity narrowed her eyes. “Show me where the property lines are that divide Aunt Jeannie’s property from Mr. Greene’s half of the old church building. Show me exactly which part of the patio you are allowed to build whatever Mr. Macaroni here has planned.”
“You know I didn’t actually come up with the pasta-in-cows concept, right?” Nic’s voice was almost sheepish. “Marshall won that cow statue in a charity touchdown derby way back in—”
Ignoring Nic, Felicity glared at her cousin and made a sweeping gesture.
“Where’s the line?” Felicity leaned back against the brick wall and nearly jumped away as the cold hit her bare skin.
Goose bumps prickled her arms, and she fought against a shiver.
She was suddenly very aware that she’d picked the red tank top that didn’t have a built-in bra.
Toby hopped off the patio and strutted with the air of a man who was desperately trying to seem competent but hadn’t ever learned how. Nic was watching Toby’s little dance with increasing annoyance before turning back toward her.
Nic tilted his head. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She folded her arms over her chest as her incompetent cousin did a third walk around.
“You … cold?” A single eyebrow perked up.
“Balmy. Why?” She unfolded her arms and rested her hands on her hips.
“You seem cold. Also, it’s frigid today. What the fuck is up with the weather here?” His eyes scanned her body and quickly looked up at the sky.
“Which part of me ‘seems cold’ exactly?” She was perfectly aware of the obvious nipple situation, but if Nic was going to bring it up in that superior gotcha tone of his, she wouldn’t let him back down.
“Your lips are turning blue. Want my sweatshirt?”
“I want you to get my clown of a cousin off my goddamn property. I want you to drop this entire patio thing until spring.”
“Why until spring?”
“Because I need the whole thing until then. After that, I’ll let you have your half.”
He shook his head. “No way. But I’ll make you a deal. You let me use the entire patio during the week for bookings, and I’ll let you have your plant classes here on the weekends during the day.”
“You are not getting the entire patio, you-you-you pasta—”
“Prig? Pillock? Pinhead?”
“All of those.”
“You and your alliterative insults. You know what, when you give C’est la Vache the patio, I’ll use the extra money to get you a thesaurus. I’ll underline all the ones that would be helpful for on-theme name-calling. Because when you called me bucko yesterday … I mean, that was just sad.”
“Listen, you bovine noodle-addled nincompoop—”
“So much better.” He winked.
“Gahhhh…”
So this is what it’s like to see red.
Could she strangle this man in broad daylight?
Courtney would probably be mad, and Toby would hand her over to the cops in a heartbeat.
Marshall Greene would cry, because without Nic, this business would fail like the others, and as pissed as Felicity was at Nic, she couldn’t do that to him.
Marshall Greene was the human equivalent of a giant labradoodle.
He deserved to have his professional football career retirement trip to Europe and Asia not be ruined by the news that his chef was garroted by an angry ginger.
“Two-thirds of the patio irrevocably, if you wait until spring and let me hold Sunday-evening classes using the whole thing in the spring and summer.”
“The entire thing or it’s not worth it to wait when we can increase reservations now.” Nic’s voice held an infuriating amount of premature victory.
“I need some outside space for my business too.”
“Guess you’ll be down to half in thirty days then.”
Felicity tilted her head, with a pointed look. “You realize we’re about to have a cold snap and you’re going to have to fit this job in around ground freezes, which might make it difficult to find a contractor who’s willing to sign on to the project? It’s supposed to rain a ton soon too.”
Nic’s smug face went blank. “I … I honestly hadn’t even thought about weather impacting this until right this second.” He rubbed his chin. “Well, now I’m feeling a little like a…”
“A what exactly?”
“A bovine noodle-addled nincompoop. Goddamn.”
She smothered her impulse to laugh with a dramatic grimace. “And you have another problem. A worse one.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”
“Technically, the paver blocks here were installed by me and my brother when we added the patio on for my aunt. While the land absolutely belongs to Marshall’s dad, and he can take it back…”
He glowered. “You wouldn’t.”
“I found this small area behind my shop that I’m going to use for outside storage, so I’m afraid I’m going to need to take back the patio materials on his half,” said Felicity, sweet as caramelized Brie topped with raspberry jam. “I just don’t have the resources to purchase more.”
“That has to violate the terms—”
“After your little visit to Wallace, I did my own yesterday after a couple little birdies told me what you were up to. Only took five minutes for him to lay out exactly what was permissible. And nothing in the agreement prohibits my business from reclaiming and dismantling a structure that we built on our own dime. In fact, there’s some implication in the language that it might be in my best interest to dismantle the structure for liability reasons.
Unfortunately, it’ll probably wreck the space until the weather cooperates enough for you to install your own structure. ”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” He gritted his teeth. “You would really spend the next week digging up pavers just so I can’t use the space?”
“Stop giving me ultimatums. We were going to talk about it tomorrow, but you still decided to call in Sir Cosplaying-Contractor-Clown over there to start measuring things without even telling me.” Her head jerked toward her stepcousin, who was pacing out measurements and digging through the shrubs.
“This is completely ridiculous.” Nic’s eyes flashed. “I was only getting an estimate.”
Felicity stepped up to him, lengthening her spine to stand to her fullest height. “It’s going to be real tough when all that rain comes next week if the front of your business is one gigantic mud puddle. Boo hoo. So sad.”
He stepped forward, his jaw set. “You are being entirely unreasonable.”
She halved the distance between them, mirroring his arms-crossed posture. “Am I?” Her bare skin could feel the heat from his body at this distance, and she fought the urge to move closer. “Anytime a woman fights for her business she’s being unreasonable and difficult?”
“Only when the way she’s fighting is damaging to her community as a whole.
And especially when she knows it. But she has a personal grudge against me so she’s doing it anyway.
” He reached a hand toward her and brushed some of her messy hair away from her eyes.
Fury laced his tone, yet the brush of his calloused fingers across her forehead was tender and gentle.
After he pulled away, he held out a tiny piece of green monstera leaf that was stuck in her hair from the night before.
She hadn’t bothered to brush her hair before coming down.
She plucked the leaf from his fingers. “I made you an alternative offer, and you refused. Pity.”
“Here’s one more offer. You let me take two-thirds of the patio for bookings now.
I let you do your daytime weekend classes you already have booked, and in the winter, I will let you use the second storage room off the restaurant for your extra inventory.
And I will pay you to help me install a temporary paver pathway from the restaurant to the patio. ”
Felicity shifted her weight as she considered this offer. “I’ll think about it.”
“I found it,” said Toby, popping up from behind the patio and pointing at a particular brick in the wall between the two businesses. “This is the property line brick.”
“Incorrect,” Felicity said without sparing her cousin a second look. She glanced at Nic. “I’ll give you my answer by the end of the day.”
“Please, Felicity.” Nic kept his gaze fixed on Felicity in a way that made her forget she’d been shivering only moments earlier. “If I’m going to build something here with Marshall’s business, I need to give it a fighting chance.”
Her voice lowered, an idea occurring to her. “If I agree to this, you need to promise me something.”
His neck craned down, inching closer. “What?”
“Over the next six months, you have to use that same weird cosmic energy you’ve been putting into your miracle mac to help me beat Bruce Hogan and figure out a way to stop that parking garage from ever being built.
And maybe we can also win the pocket park grant, because the Bruces of the world want—”
“Shitty invasive shrubs and concrete.”
“Exactly.” He was so close now, if she uncrossed her arms from over her chest, they’d brush against his jacket. “So, do we have a deal?”
“Well, then I have a stipulation of my own.”
“Are you really in a position to negotiate?” Her voice had gone husky, and the word position couldn’t help but sound dirty when he was looking at her like that.
Nic’s voice was gravelly. “I want us to be friends, Felicity. And I want you to stop hiding from me, because I like you despite this patio predicament and your alliterative, on-theme insults. Stop hiding from the others too, for that matter. Sam and Courtney. Mr. Greene. Everyone’s worried about you. ”
“You want to be friends?”
“You can even keep calling me rude names if you want.” He winked at her in a way that only seemed to fuel some inconvenient fiery feeling deep inside her core. “But if we’re going to outmaneuver and win against the local neighborhood fascist, we have to be kicking for the same team.”
“Will I have to endure more sports metaphors?”
“Only those related to soccer and football. Never disc golf or Olympic badminton.”
“I can work with that.” She held out a hand. “Friends?”
“Friends.” He shook it, green eyes glinting in the early-morning sun.