Chapter 25 Pane
Pane
Rowe spends the next week running away from me. Every time I enter a room, she exits faster than a jewel thief escaping the scene of the crime in a Ferrari.
It’s killing me. I want to talk about what happened, about that kiss. Whenever I close my eyes, I still feel the burn of her on my lips. But Rowe doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.
She thinks I’ll be just like all the other men who’ve abandoned her.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I will be. Maybe as soon as all this is over, I’ll feel the pull to leave, to return to my life.
Where will that leave her?
What does it matter if she won’t talk about it? We can’t even kiss, because when we do, she runs like a chaos goblin in the other direction.
Rowe is like a wild animal I’m slowly coaxing to eat out of my hand—extremely distrustful, prowling at the dark edges of the perimeter. But eventually she’ll come around.
At least, I hope so.
Because the ache in my heart from being with her day in and day out, without doing anything about it, is excruciating. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
The guys notice, too—about Rowe, not about my heart.
So much so that it’s become a running joke between Ron, Isaac, and McCauley. They place bets on how fast she can escape a room if I’m in it.
“Rowe, can you take a look at this?” I call out.
Ron and Isaac built the front desk using old doors Ron found in the barn. He had the notion to turn them into a counter, but skirted around telling me, hemming and hawing. Finally, I pointed out everything he’d fixed at the house, and Ron confided in me about his idea. I told him to run with it.
So both men sanded, polished, and finally nailed the slabs together. It’s beautiful, a breathtaking piece.
Rowe’s going to love it.
Isaac wipes the counter with a rag. “I give her three seconds before she scatters like a caught fox.”
“Nah. More like five.” Ron eyes the counter to make sure it’s square. “She’s gonna like it.”
“I say thirty seconds for her to fawn over the piece, throw a ‘looks good’ at Pane, and then hightail it back to painting,” McCauley says as he pulls up drop cloths from the floor.
Isaac winks at me. “Whatever caused this thing between the two of y’all, you may need to do it again to get it out of your system.”
“Classy, Isaac—and nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened to what?”
Rowe appears in the doorway. She wipes the back of her hand across her cheek, where a line of slate-colored paint is smudged.
“Uh, nothing,” Isaac mutters.
She smirks. “Doesn’t sound like nothing.”
I shoot him a scathing look. “It’s that nothing happened to this beautiful front desk. What do you think? Ron and Isaac built it.”
“I supervised,” McCauley jokes.
She steps into the room, making sure to give me a wide berth, and whistles. “Wow. Y’all did great. It’s elegant and original.”
“Just like this place,” I murmur.
The only sign she shows of hearing me is a twitch of her lips.
“Pane would like a kiss on the cheek in thanks,” McCauley teases. The other two burst into laughter.
I’m going to kill those guys as soon as she’s gone.
Rowe turns beet red and glances out the window. “Oh, looks like the deliveryman is here. I’d better see what he wants.”
She darts from the room and out the front door.
McCauley opens his palm. “Pay up. I had to get her out of here somehow. She was taking too long.”
“Don’t pay him a dime,” I snap.
“Yeah, you’re no better than Luke,” Ron tells him.
“Bring them in,” Rowe says from the front. “You can put the boxes there.”
I frown. I didn’t order anything. Haven’t needed to. The plans are coming along great. We’ll have everything finished before the deadline. Appointments are being booked, and Ron’s in charge of the night walks. Everything will start at the grand opening, which is still weeks away.
And if bookings hold, there’s no way this farm won’t be valued at less than a million. I’ll have Stone beat, which means the Maddox Group will be mine.
A sense of elation should fill me, but the only sensation in my body is a pit opening in my stomach.
Must be indigestion.
When I step into the foyer, the deliveryman is unloading four large boxes off a hand truck. “Be right back. I’ve got more.”
“What’s this?”
Rowe shrugs. “It’s all for you.”
“I didn’t order anything.”
A sexy smirk smears across her lips. “As long as your name is Donalpane Maddox, then they’re for you.”
A groan escapes my lips. “They’re from Stone.”
“Your brother?”
“My brother.”
I don’t even have to open the first box to guess what’s inside. But once I do, I find a case of gourmet hot dogs.
“Wow, Pane. I didn’t know you liked hot dogs so much,” Ron says from over my shoulder.
“I don’t. It’s a joke.”
The deliveryman drops four more boxes in the foyer and leaves. This is well over four hundred sausages.
Rowe’s brow furrows. “What are we supposed to do with them?”
Isaac and McCauley exchange a look before saying at the same time, “Cookout!”
Rowe groans. “We’ll have to invite everyone we know to get rid of all these.”
I grab a pack from the box and display it proudly. “We could feed them to the piggycorns. Where’s Tallulah?”
Rowe snatches the dogs from my hand. “That’s cannibalism. You can’t do that.”
“Says they’re all beef.” Ron uses his finger to underline the words on the package. “It’s not cannibalism.”
Rowe exhales so hard her nostrils flare.
I grin at her as I yank the tape off another box. “You heard the men. Invite everyone you know. We’re having a party.”
“You want another hot dog?” Ron asks as he mans the grill.
I’ve already eaten three, so I pat my very full stomach. “No, thanks.”
He wipes his hands down an apron that reads Grill Power before eyeing the crowd.
Half of Mystic Meadows showed up, and they came out in color.
One look around the property, and I don’t see folks wearing drab grays and dingy white shirts like I did when we first went to town.
These citizens are wearing blues and reds, corals and yellows.
Most of the people, I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter to the good folks of Mystic Meadows. They greeted me as if I were their neighbor, their brother, their best friend.
I have to admit, sometimes it feels like I’ve known these people for a long time—longer even than I’ve known the staff at my hotels.
“This is the life,” Ron says whimsically as he turns the hot dogs.
I can’t help but smile. “Is it?”
“Oh yeah. Grilling out, watching your kids run around while your wife hands you a beer and thanks you for all the hard work you’ve done.”
I take a pull of my own beer. “Do you have kids, Ron?”
“Nah, but when I do, you can bet I’m going to be the best stay-at-home dad ever.”
“That’s if Jennifer decides to trust you alone with them.” Isaac comes up from behind and slaps Ron on the back. “Last I heard, Ron left the iron on and the house almost burned down.”
“That was three months ago,” he counters, stuffing a potato chip in his mouth. “A lifetime in dog years. I’m completely trustworthy.”
Isaac chuckles and grabs a cooked hot dog before dropping it in a bun and slathering mustard and pickles on top. He adds chips to his plate and takes a bite.
“Thanks for this, Pane.” He eyes the pasture. The sun’s beginning to sink, and it casts a golden glow across the grass. “Look at how beautiful this place is and how relaxed you are.”
I lean against a balustrade. It’s about as relaxed as I can get.
“You look like you belong here,” he adds. “Like you’re part of Mystic Meadows.”
“Yeah, like you’re Mystic Meadows’ very rich uncle,” McCauley says, winking at me before handing Ron a fresh beer.
The guys laugh, and my gaze wanders to Rowe, who’s standing with Cristina and Clarice Sinclair, who’s here instead of pouring drinks.
McCauley asks the question I’m thinking: “Who’s manning the bar tonight?”
Isaac swallows a bite of hot dog and places a fist in front of his mouth, answering, “I’m about to leave in a bit.” He eyes me. “You coming for poker night?”
“No, I’ve got some things to do around here.”
“The place looks good,” he tells me proudly. “So does town. People are taking notice of what you’re doing and cleaning up their storefronts.”
My brow lifts. “They are?”
“Yeah, you should see downtown,” Ron says. “There’s something . . . almost magical going on. The whole strip looks different.”
I don’t know what to say.
McCauley drops his empty plate in an open trash can. “It’s the Pane Maddox effect.”
“Working on everybody except Rowe.” Isaac lifts his beer to me. “May the curse be broken soon.”
I take another sip of my own beer. “You mean the whole Rowe’s-bad-luck thing?”
He shrugs. “That, plus if you two figure out your deal, then maybe the town will stop talking about you.”
Tallulah bounds up to the porch, her little tail swishing from side to side.
She spots me and makes her way over, wiggling happily as she brushes her body against my leg, starting with her shoulder and ending at her hindquarters.
I bend over and pet her, tugging playfully on the pink tuft atop her head.
She must be hungry, so I drop a hot dog in her food bowl. The pig snorts in thanks.
“Hey.” Ron points to the piggycorn. “Isn’t that supposed to be one of your rules? You don’t feed the animals? I heard it from Jennifer, who heard it from Clarice.”
I brush burnt hot dog marks from my hands. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Then, to Isaac, I say, “The whole town’s gossiping about Rowe and me?”
He nods toward Rowe. “Well, she hasn’t dated anyone since Luke, uh . . .”
“Dumped her publicly for Sally,” Ron finishes.
I frown and feel a crease slice between my brows. “That was a long time ago.”
“Yeah,” Ron starts. “But what he did to her after—”
Isaac shoots him a fierce look.
Now my curiosity’s piqued. “What’d he do?”
Ron takes the hot dogs off the grill and sets them on a disposable foil platter. “Might as well tell him. We already started.”
“You already started,” Isaac corrects. “I was keeping my mouth shut.”
“Fine. I started.”