30. Justin
thirty
Idon’t care that my truck makes a funny noise or that Moose is drooling over my shoulder.
Chloe is sitting right next to me, and nothing could be more perfect. I peel my eyes off her pretty little dress creeping up her tanned thighs and adjust my jeans, then downshift as we approach Dewey’s Hollow.
A shadow catches my peripheral vision in the quickly darkening landscape, and I hit the brakes, my arm coming across to hold Chloe and Moose. “What’s wrong?” Chloe asks in near panic. Her question is answered when a black cow jumps onto the road. “What’s that?” is her next question.
I curse under my breath. “That’s Daisy.”
“Ohmygod, I heard of her. She’s real? I thought it was some kind of urban legend. Rural legend.”
I chuckle, relieved that I didn’t hit Daisy. How that has never happened to her yet, I don’t know. “Oh she’s real, and she’s a real pain in the neck.” As if to prove my point, Daisy ambles in front of us, then kicks her hind legs in mock provocation before jumping over the ditch and running across the field toward the Chandlers’ farm.
“My parents got her a couple of years ago, and they can’t seem to keep her at the farm. She always finds a way to escape, and then either someone ropes her back in or she just shows up when it’s raining too hard or the cold is too much for her.”
“That’s too funny,” Chloe says, her gaze following Daisy up a hill.
“Not for my parents it’s not. And not for Declan. He gets all the complaints. It turns out, Daisy loves to snack on flowers.”
“Oh dear.” Chloe laughs.
“Yup.” With Daisy out of the way, I pick up speed. “Matter of fact, I think that’s how she got her name.”
“That’s too funny,” Chloe says again, then starts playing with the radio stations until she stops on country rock. “This okay?” she asks.
“Sure.” I like that she asks me. I also like that she’s not a music snob. People who are partial to this or that type of music get on my nerves. Music is music. A good rhythm, a melody you can hum to yourself, lyrics you can relate to. That’s all I ask for. Making my point, Chloe hums softly along with the chorus, then she rolls her window down and her soft hum turns into more of a full-on bellow.
Totally off key. Totally adorable. I can’t help the smile spreading across my face.
Somehow she catches me. “What?” she snaps.
“Nothing,” I say. “It was a good day.” I glance at her.
“Hard not to have a good day in Emerald Creek,” she answers, filling my heart with pride and warmth.
“You’re right about that.”
She turns her head to the window, butchering the music in the most endearing way. I wish the song would never end.
But it does, and then she lowers the volume and asks, “What was it like, growing up here?”
“It was…” Where do I even start? “We spent most of our time outdoors, helping on the farm or building tree houses or swimming in the river or the lake.”
“Wow. I can’t imagine. What about winters?”
“Sugaring.”
“What’s that?”
“Making maple syrup. That only lasts a few weeks. And we’d take care of the animals—mainly cleaning stables. We didn’t have many when I was a kid. A couple dozen cows, chickens, a couple of horses. When those chores were done, we’d go sledding. Snowshoeing. Late fall and winter, hunting.”
“Did you go skiing?”
“Not so much.” More like, not at all. “It gets expensive, with five kids. Although, the school started a program when I was ten or twelve. Mostly, we’d skate on the lake.”
“You—what?”
“Lake gets frozen solid in the winter. We’d clear the snow and skate.” It was the best. Mom would freak out that we would go too early, before it was solid enough, or too late, when it’d started thawing, but we were smart. We’d heard the horror stories. That’s how Ethan got picked up for hockey, actually. A rich tourist was staying at the resort, and he saw him skate. At the same time, the town got some trickle of federal money, and with it, they built the arena. They put together a team, and Ethan became the golden boy. Emerald Creek won game after game. We won the national championship. Ethan won the national championship.
“Hey, where’d your mind go?” Chloe interrupts my thoughts.
“Skating,” I semi-lie.
“That good, huh?”
“Most of the time, yeah.” The times Ethan wasn’t there to cast his shadow over me. I shake the feeling away, guilty about it. I’m always guilty when it comes to Ethan.
“I haven’t gone skating in I don’t know how long.” I catch her pensive gaze on me from the corner of my eye. “Never on a frozen lake,” she adds.
Man, I’d love to take her skating. “Something to look forward to,” I venture. What am I doing? I need to stop thinking about her that way. I will not take her skating. Skating with a girl is a… it’s a first date thing. And then it’s a repeat date, or maybe a nice proposal idea. Shit. She’s a friend, Justin, think about her as a friend.
She gives me a big smile and it’s hard to get my focus back on the road entirely, so I slow down a little. “How’s it going at the restaurant?” I say to bring the conversation back on safe territory.
She shakes her head. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“About what my mom said the other day…” Fuck, where do I even start?
“It’s okay,” she interrupts me softly. “Parents don’t always know what they’re talking about.” She tucks her hands between her knees.
The thing is, although Mom shouldn’t have said anything—but being Mom, how could she not?—she was right. My plan is—was—to take over the space.
“I don’t get it…Why did they bring you in?”
“Who? My aunt and cousin?”
“Yeah. As a restaurant manager.”
She pulls her hands from between her knees and crosses her arms. Squints through the window. Licks her lips. “The day… the day I found Tucker…”
The day she found her ex cheating. “Yeah?” I prompt her gently.
“I was coming home early because I’d been let go.” Fuck. What a shit day. She blinks and her eyelashes flutter. “Then it was the funeral, and uh… I guess my cousin found out everything that had gone down with me, and he asked for my help. He wanted to help me get out of my funk too. First I didn’t want to do it. I was already job hunting. But then I figured, you know what? They’re family, they need my help, and I could use a change. I should do this.”
“So they hired you—what? Full time?” What I really want to know is, if she’s staying here for good.
“Yeah, you could say that. The plan initially was for me to run the restaurant as they looked for a buyer. But then I convinced them to give me time to bring the restaurant in the black before putting it up for sale.”
So she’ll be leaving at some point? I want to punch something.
She continues, “I went to that conference in Boston to get some basic food industry knowledge and contacts.”
“What did you used to do?”
“Business development for a beverage company.”
“That’s not too far out,” I point out, my mind turning the phrase she said before, as they looked for a buyer. “Seems like you have exactly the skillset for the restaurant.”
“Yeah, I dunno.” She plays with the last button on her dress, distracting me from the conversation. “I’m used to corporate environments. This kitchen power play… too much bullshit for me.”
My knuckles tighten on the wheel. “Samuel giving you a hard time?”
She chuckles, but it’s a sad little sound that I hate for her. “Not that kind. He’s moved to mind games now.”
I hate that guy. I need to nail him stealing from her, get her rid of that asshole. “Fuck,” I growl. “How ’bout the rest of the crew? Those who came to the tasting seemed cool.”
“They’re great. I mean, they all have their quirks, right—we all have—but we’re a good team. I think they trust me, and I trust them. Abby and Shoshana kill it in the dining room. Corine and Eric do a great job in the kitchen. I mean, the nights that Samuel was out because of you-know-what,” she adds with another chuckle, a happy one this time, “they did fantastic. I’m actually thinking of promoting Corine to Chef de Cuisine.”
“You wanna get rid of Samuel?”
“Just thinking ahead. Anyway, my aunt wouldn’t back me if I decided to let Samuel go. But I opened up the conversation with Corine about it, and she freaked out. I just wanted her to have a nicer title when Samuel isn’t working, and I want her to build up her confidence. She’ll get there. I just want her to start thinking about it. Projecting herself.”
I love how she appreciates her staff. I used to think they were a lazy bunch, but all they needed was a better leader. Is it weird that I feel proud of Chloe for how she’s turned them around? I glance at her, the way she talks about the business and the people, the care she shows.
Shit. It’s making me hard. Not her naked legs and bare arms, not the cleavage she’s showing, not her dark hair and the memory of how it looked wrapped around my cock. What’s making my cock hard and my heart soft is the care and passion she’s putting into what she’s doing, although I know it’s not what she would choose to do if she could. She did it out of a sense of duty to her family.
She’s the kind of person who goes all in. Gives herself entirely.
Gives herself entirely.
I’m having trouble swallowing.
She’s still talking. “David keeps to himself, and I have to say, that’s kind of a relief. No drama. No questions. Last one out every evening. Does everything he’s asked to do.”
I bet he is. He’s smarter than Samuel. He knows better than to antagonize the boss when he’s stealing from her. I keep my thoughts to myself. Like Declan said, I need something specific, and proof.