Chapter 8 #2
“I’m working on a strawberry roll recipe,” she said. “Something with nice pink frosting. I think the bakery case would look so lovely this spring with some naturally beautiful pastels in it.”
“Well, I know I would drive to get one of those,” Cody said. “So hopefully everybody in town feels the same way.”
“Hopefully.”
Cara scampered out of the kitchen and left Cody and Marlowe standing there by themselves.
The ache that she had felt since she woke up was now twice as fierce, and impossible to ignore. He looked at her, those eyes assessing as they swept over her body. It was brisk, and he didn’t linger, but still, it was like a touch.
She cleared her throat and turned away, desperate to get some space between them, but he followed closely.
“Do you want brochures in here?” Cara was standing in the main room looking expectantly at both of them, and for a moment, Marlowe couldn’t figure out which one of them she was talking to. Possibly because her head was still messed up from that moment of tension with Cody.
“Why?”
“So that all the different features of the resort can be advertised to anyone who stops here. I know this isn’t a totally main highway, but people can take it to get to Bend, to go to Crater Lake, so it seems like maybe we might get a little bit of random traffic.
And maybe we can advertise the resort through the bakery.
I mean, you’re already advertising the bakery through the resort. ”
“Yeah,” Cody said. He nodded, as if to emphasize the point. “Good thinking.”
He sounded as disconnected from things as she felt.
“Okay, now, do you want the shelves to be lined up evenly with each other, or do you want them staggered?”
It took a moment to realize that Zane was speaking again, too.
“Oh,” Cara said, frowning. “Staggered how?”
“I mean, we could have them in a line,” Zane said, gesturing from top to bottom, stepping over a foot and gesturing from top to bottom, “or arranged randomly.”
“What do you guys think?”
“Oh, I…” Personally, Marlowe would probably put the shelves in a line, because that was her aesthetic.
But Cara was whimsical, and she could see a cluster of shelves with flowers and potted plants, small statues of mice, and other things that were very Cara, being cute in this instance.
Cody took a step back, like he was also assessing the space, and she got a strong hit of his aftershave.
Spicy and rich, enticing.
She looked up at him, just as he looked down at her, and it was like the rubber band that had been stretching between them snapped. Except neither of them moved. Cara was standing right there, and so was Zane.
But she felt like they were the only two people in the room. Hell, in the entire world.
And she didn’t try to hide it.
She had a feeling that her hunger for him was bleeding through on her face. That it was clear and obvious to anyone who wanted to have a look.
Clear and obvious to him, and she wasn’t trying to disguise it.
But neither was he. He wanted her. She could see that. She couldn’t recall the last time she had seen that look on a man’s face. She supposed it was Aiden. She supposed it was a long time ago. But had it ever been this?
This felt so dangerous. So wrong. It felt like a runaway freight train that she couldn’t get a handle on, and that was what was exhilarating about it.
She was wounded, cut loose and abandoned, and free.
Free on top of everything else.
Yes, there was propriety.
Yes, there were best practices when it came to working for somebody, working with somebody, yes, she knew that it could put this new life, this job, in danger, but it made her feel more excited, which was messed up. Absolutely, completely messed up, but so was everything else.
“A cluster,” Marlowe said quickly. “I think that would be perfect for you. Especially when you get all your little knick-knacks there, it’ll be a statement wall.”
“Great.” Zane didn’t sound like he thought it was great. But she had a feeling he would’ve responded to either answer and exactly the same way.
Cara nodded. “I agree. I think that will look great. Oh, I need to go buy some knick-knacks. We’re going to have to go back to town.”
“Back to town?” Cody was looking at her.
“We had dinner last night. At La Befana.”
“Oh. Was it good?”
“It was. It was great. We… enjoyed ourselves.”
Cara looked at her with a barely suppressed conspiratorial look on her face. And Marlowe tried to get her to chill, using just her eyebrows.
“What?” Cody asked.
“Oh. I just… thank you again for the truck. I did find out that my… My ex took the money. The money that I had saved for a car.”
“Right. Well. Are you going to get a lawyer on him?”
“Yeah. At some point. Right now, there’s so much to do.
” And she had a feeling that he wasn’t going to do it.
He wasn’t going to initiate the divorce because nothing would benefit him.
If anything, he would owe her money back, probably the cost of the move, at least half the money for the car.
There wasn’t a house to split, there weren’t kids to work out custody for, and the benefit would be minimal, but he was the one who had started all of this, and there was no reason for him to finish it unless he wanted to marry his new woman, and somehow, she had a feeling he wouldn’t do that.
Not because she didn’t think he… Maybe he was passionately in love with this other woman. Maybe she was the sun and the moon and the stars. Then maybe he would ask for a divorce so that he could make her his wife.
Somehow, though, Marlowe had a feeling that she was a little more than a getaway car. Something he had used to make himself feel special, alive in a way that he had missed.
Well, two people could do that. That was how she felt when she looked at Cody. Alive in a way that she wasn’t sure if she ever had been before. She wasn’t the one who had blown all this up.
But why couldn’t she have all the benefits of Aiden blowing it up?
Why couldn’t she be just a little bit wild in response to it all?
“We can help with that,” he said.
“What?”
“Yeah. We have a guy that we used for all the legal stuff with the ranch. I’m sure he can help you, or he’ll know someone who can.”
“Oh. I… That’s really nice of you but –”
“We don’t play about that kind of thing,” Zane said, turning to face her.
This was the first time he had looked at her fully, rather than simply continuing to be preoccupied by the work that he was doing.
He was holding a hammer, arms crossed over his broad chest. His eyebrows were dark, almost black, and heavy over his brow.
His beard was thick and dark. He looked like a lumberjack. A very intimidating one.
“You don’t?” Cara asked. She looked like she was bowled over by him.
“No,” Zane said. “If you work here, then you’re family. And one thing we do here is protect the family.”
“That’s the god’s honest truth,” Cody said. “I told you. I’m going to make sure that you’re taken care of.”
He didn’t mean for it to be erotic. But it felt erotic. Like a bedroom sort of promise, and it made her shiver.
“Great,” Zane said. “I’m going to get back to it then.”
His gruff voice broke the moment, though perhaps not as much as it might have.
If she weren’t resolved. If she weren’t done fighting it.
It was a record for lowest self-control threshold on the planet.
She was just giving up. Because if he wanted it, she was going to be looking for signs that the moment was right for her to make a move. Regardless of whether it was smart.
Regardless of whether it was right.
“Are you ready to go look at the cabins?”
His question was asked rough, husky.
Yes. Yes, she was ready to go look at the cabins. She wasn’t even going to question what it might mean.
She knew. In her soul, she knew.
“I would like that.”
“Okay. See you both around,” Cody said, waving at both Zane and Cara in what she felt was a little bit of an obvious gesture. But maybe not. Maybe she was reading this wrong.
They walked out of the bakery together, with a healthy amount of space between them, got into the truck, and he started the engine, and didn’t reach toward her, didn’t even look at her.
So nothing about that was different. Except everything felt different. Like he was unmasked, or something. Not that it changed his facial expression, but it allowed her to feel the emotion emanating from his body.
The need.
If she was reading this wrong, she was going to be shocked. But then, she didn’t really have any experience with this kind of thing, so maybe she shouldn’t be.
Her nerves were like a live wire, and she could scarcely figure out where to put her hands. Could hardly catch her breath.
The road to the cabins took her on a part of the property that she hadn’t been to before. The trees got thicker, and it was more shaded than the open range, and even if she didn’t know that the cabins were by the river, she might’ve guessed.
It was almost like a different ecosystem. Shaded and cool.
“We planted some ferns and things, I thought they looked good with the mossy rocks. Wanted to give it kind of a forest feel.”
Yet again, she wanted to dig into that. Wanted to go deeper with him. To figure out what all this actually meant to him. Really. Revenge against his dad, proving that he was worthy, but what did this land mean to him?
That was a whole puzzle for another day.
It wasn’t what she wanted to uncover, not now.
She wanted something else.
Just thinking about it made her mouth dry.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said.
She knew that her mouth sounded dry.
“Thanks. I think it turned out pretty good.”
There was a line of gravel with railroad ties marking individual parking spaces, probably lined up with the cabins, though they weren’t visible from where he parked the truck. They got out, and that was when she noticed the first little wooden sign.
“Otter. Raccoon.” She moved to the next space. “Egret.”