The smile that tilted his lips at her compliment tipped down, not into frown, but in a pensive, protective way. “My culinary education was atypical. A story for another time.”
She should stand up, shake his hand, and offer the deal again. Leave things on a professional level, and not this oddly personal one. “How about that drink I promised you? You look like a whiskey man.”
“Actually, I don’t drink anymore, but I’ll take a coffee. How about you?” He didn’t wait, but signaled their young waiter.
Once they were alone again, she bit the inside of her lip, studying him, not sure how deep to probe. “Are you in recovery?”
“Not exactly. I made a promise to my grandmother after I got out of the army.” He stared off to the side, but his unfocused gaze seemed to be directed inside himself. As if it explained everything, he added, “She was a teetotaler.”
The young waiter delivered their coffee, and she was grateful for the time to process what he’d revealed. Had he been deployed? In danger? Did demons do battle behind his sparking brown eyes?
She had conditioned herself to take her coffee black at an early age, but Logan emptied two sugar packets and half the cream into his cup, turning it a light brown. The spoon tinked against the sides as he stirred.
She avoided the questions burning and stayed on neutral ground. “I thought your grandmother passed. Isn’t the restaurant named for her?”
He titled his head toward the picture to their right and pointed. Superimposed over William Faulkner’s portrait was a quote. She read it aloud. “The past is never dead; it is not even past.”
“My promise didn’t die with Ada. That promise will live within me forever, along with my memories of her.” He took a sip of coffee, but his gaze remained fixed on her. Logan wasn’t simply a redneck Mountain Man or a two-dimensional entrepreneur in a magazine. His confessions and philosophical musings shaded and peeled back those images, revealing more than she’d imagined.
Her colleagues referred to her as “the barracuda,” and the nickname filled her with an odd pride and satisfaction. No one noticed that behind the hard-nosed exterior lurked the soul of an anxiety-ridden, insecure teenager she had tried to cut out of her personality.
There was a danger in revealing a vulnerability to an adversary. Yet, the words came anyway. “My ma-maw passed on nearly fifteen years ago. I drove by her house on the way here, but everything had changed.”
“How so?” He leaned over the table and looked genuinely interested.
“Her house was nothing special, I suppose. A typical fifties-style ranch, but she had these huge magnolia trees in the yard. I spent more time in the trees than out during my visits.” The shock and devastation at seeing the trees gone rolled back through her stomach, and she spun her coffee cup, sloshing a little onto the saucer. “They had been cut down, and the new owners had put potted plants on the stumps like decorating a grave. I used to dream about them, but I wonder now if those dreams will stop.”
She looked up from her untouched coffee. The intensity of his expression stilled her. “They’ll live on in your dreams.”
The certainty in his voice wiped away any doubt that she’d dream about the trees still reaching for the sky. “I hope so.”
Understanding flowed between them, and her heart clenched from the mirroring echo of loss in his voice. Logan Wilde had kept her off-balance since they’d met, and she’d yet to regain her footing.
She had to sever the crazy connection that seemed to strengthen with every passing second. Pulling out the sheaf of papers from her bag, she lay them in the middle of the table, a physical and emotional separation from him. “I’m going to leave these contracts for you to review. The salary is outstanding. The restaurant is in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. Upscale yet accessible.”
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, leaving the papers untouched. The cotton broadcloth pulled taut over his biceps, tension threading his body. “What about Adaline’s?”
Jessica swept her gaze around the room. The restaurant carried the warm essence of a woman she’d never meet. Or was it Logan’s spirit she sensed in the mortar between the bricks? Her father had lectured her repeatedly on the danger of allowing emotions into negotiations.
With a steadying breath, she shed the shroud of sentimentality. “You could hire a manager or sell it, but you need to understand, when you accept our offer, your creations would belong to Montgomery Industries.”
“What if I told you I’m not interested in running a restaurant? I’m more interested in running your experimental kitchens.”
His eyes narrowed, and she sensed an imaginary gauntlet being tossed on top of the papers. Used to the sudden change of landscape during negotiations, she riffled through possibilities. She had just appointed a new director to the kitchens. “That could be a possibility, but I’ll need time to figure some things out.”
“You do that.” His lips quirked with a ghost of a smile, but it vanished before she could be sure.
Like any good general, she knew when to retreat and reevaluate. She left the papers and stood. “Thank you for the outstanding dinner.”
He joined her and guided her through the maze of tables with a light hand on her lower back. “How’re you finding Lilliana and Hancock House?” The warm puff of his breath tickled her ear and sent goose bumps down her arm.
“Fine.” She clipped out the word.
“Will you be staying there until our business is concluded or is it not up to your standards?” He pushed the door open. Muggy, thick air enveloped her.
She stopped and shifted to face him. “I’ll be staying there. Can we set up a time to meet tomorrow?”
“Not sure of my plans. Had to cut my time in the woods short to fix a stove.”
“Will you be here in the morning?”
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
While his lack of commitment annoyed her, he still held the upper hand and she didn’t want to push too hard. It was a small town. She could track him down if necessary. “Well then, I’ll be in touch.”
She turned and took half a dozen steps. He was still at her elbow. She stopped again. “What are you doing?”
“Walking you to your car.”
“I am capable of walking, thanks.” She let her long legs loose, but he matched her step-for-step.
“Believe me, I understand how capable you are, but I’m trying to behave like a gentleman here. Usually, women love it.”
She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye. He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it. His grin was full of a good-humored charm he didn’t need to fake. The man probably had every single woman from eighteen to eighty panting after him. No wonder the Southern Living writer couldn’t control her fawning assessment.
She unlocked the loaned gray sedan on their approach. He darted ahead, opened the door, and gestured her in with a little bow. She waggled her finger between them. “This is not a date. I would appreciate if you would ignore the fact I’m a woman and treat me as a business associate.”
Even though his head didn’t move, his gaze travelled from her eyes all the way down to her toes. His grin widened and turned wicked. “Not sure I can ignore the fact you’re a woman, Jessie. But, it won’t affect our business relationship. My grandmother was the strongest woman I’ve ever met, and my cousin Darcy is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Believe me when I tell you, I have the upmost respect for women and their capabilities.”
She almost corrected him again on her name, but the way the shortened version drawled off his tongue stilled hers. “Pretty speech. I’ll bet the ladies love you . . . I mean, not you you, but the way you talk.”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and wished she could staple her mouth shut. Thankfully, he ignored her tripping words and gestured her in with a wink. Once she was behind the wheel, he leaned close. His scent was a combination of rich coffee and clean laundry. “You know the way back?”
At her brisk nod h
e closed the door and tapped on her roof twice before walking away. She drove out of the parking lot, her eyes on the rearview mirror until he was out of sight.
She drove past Falcon High School and a football stadium that was bigger than some small college stadiums. Dark light towers reached high into the sky. Not much father down Main Street, a backlit display window outlined a mannequin posing in a high-end dress she’d seen at the Macy’s in Richmond. A beauty shop’s pink sign swung slightly in the breeze—Marlene’s. A large bank sat on one corner, the gray-speckled marble in solemn contrast to the cheerily painted brick storefronts bordering it.
The library was a white-columned, redbrick building another block down. At the next intersection, she stopped for no one at the blinking red light. Saturday night and the street was deserted. Richmond’s restaurant district would be doing a final seating, while the streets filled with people on the way to hear live music or to drink coffee. Falcon was pitiful.
The streetlights glowed yellow, highlighting a scene straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. She fished in her purse to take a selfie with the street in the background. Weeks from now the picture of the sleepy, backwater town would provide laughs.
Except in the moment, she didn’t feel like laughing. She pressed the phone against the hollow ache in her chest, staring into the rearview mirror. She didn’t want to destroy the fantasy by taking a picture or even looking over her shoulder. Tonight, the past and present didn’t seem to exist in linear, chronological steps but were fluid and jumbled.
A shiver brought goose bumps to her arms. She dropped the phone to her lap and grabbed the wheel with both hands. Her foot came down hard on the gas pedal, and the car jolted forward, breaking the magic.
She glanced down at her phone, reminded she had no service. A rare sense of freedom lifted her mood. Her spine unlocked and rounded, tension leaving through her shoulders.
Her father expected an update. She pictured him still at his desk, drumming his fingers and waiting, but she had the perfect excuse not to call. She could borrow a book and relax in a bubble bath or get cozy in the middle of the four-poster bed and dream of her ma-maw and magnolias.
Tonight she would play hooky from Montgomery Industries. A light glowed from behind the stained-glass door on Lilliana’s porch. Thinking to slip upstairs to bask in privacy, she eased the door open. A loud creak betrayed her.
Lilliana darted out of the living room, a highball glass in one hand and an aged red hardback pressed to her chest with the other. “Excellent! I’ve been waiting to hear all about tonight. Let me get you some whiskey.”
Jessica limited her alcoholic intake to the occasional glass of wine at social events. Before Jessica could demur, Lilliana put the book facedown on the back of a tattered brocade couch, went to an ornately carved mahogany buffet, and poured brown liquor over ice cubes taken from a nearby canister.
Jessica hovered in the doorway, chewing on her bottom lip and eyeing the staircase. Lilliana plopped on the couch and crisscrossed her legs like a preschooler at story time, holding a glass in the air and wiggling it in invitation. She wore the shorts and the paint-splattered baggy T-shirt from the afternoon.
The unexpected familiarity and twinkle in the woman’s eyes had Jessica shuffling forward to take the glass. She perched on an overly squishy cushion of a side chair.
“Tell me everything,” Lilliana said.
A plug-in floor fan whirred from the corner, sending wafts of air to tickle her neck and ruffle her hair. The closet thing Jessica had to a female friend was her sister Caroline. Undercurrents of resentment and rivalry had driven them apart as teenagers, and as adults their friendship grew in fits but was marred by the daggers of judgment her sister would unexpectedly wield.
“It was fine.” She studied her feet and took a sip of her drink. The cinnamon-spiced whiskey whooshed through her body like a fireball, the burn banking into a steady warmth.
“Fine? Come on, now. You left here as ornery as a wild pig. Did you kick him in the nuts? Hopefully someone thought to record it.” Lilliana looked devilishly excited about the prospect.
A giggle spurted out. “Of course I didn’t”—Jessica took another sip, this one larger—“I’ll admit I entertained fantasies about punching him in the face. I restrained myself.”
“Did you at least get in a food fight?” With her fingers twined around the whiskey glass, Lilliana set her chin on the rim as if praying to Bacchus.
Brushing her fingers over the dried stain on her shirt, she stole a glance at the other woman. A dynamic energy vibrated the air. The mysterious beauty of Lilliana’s dark hair and almond-shaped eyes was in juxtaposition to her straightforward manner and the near-constant laughter in her voice.
“No fights at all, actually. We mostly talked business.” Jessica kicked off her heels and relaxed into the chair. Something about Lilliana induced trust, and with the whiskey beating a path through her body, she went with her instincts. “If you don’t mind me asking, did you two ever date?”
“Date?” Laughter had the other woman crumpling over her legs. “Sweet Jesus, no. It would be incestuous. Mind you, we’re not blood related, but I spent summers here getting up to no good with his cousin Darcy. My great-aunt Esmerelda and Miss Ada both worked at the library. And Logan . . . well, he enjoyed teasing Darcy and by extension me.”
“He was a bully?”
“Not in a malicious way, and if anyone was foolish enough to pester Darcy in his earshot, he swooped in and shut them down right quick.”
She’d expect nothing less of him. Darn it. Another too-large swig left ice tinkling in the bottom. “Did people pick on Logan too?”
Lilliana chuffed on her way to grab the bottle and give her a refill. “Please. He was worshipped by all asunder. Athletic, a joker, reasonably intelligent—although don’t tell him I said so. Darcy’s always been dogged by gossip about her mama. Small-town life for you. Logan got into some trouble in high school though. Knocked him off his pedestal.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Drugs,” she said sotto voce. “They say that he went to juvie, but I don’t know for sure. He finished college, joined the army, deployed a couple of times. I only moved back for good this spring after my daddy died and left me this monstrosity.” Sadness quivered the timbre of Lilliana’s voice.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said softly.
Lilliana nodded, and they both took another sip. The silence between them was strangely comfortable. Lilliana drained her glass and got up for a refill, topping Jessica’s glass off again. A trickle of whiskey hit Jessica’s hand and dripped on her skirt before the Lilliana directed the rest into the glass. “Oopsie. Sorry about that.”
They spent the next hour drinking and sharing stories about their complicated childhoods. Lilliana the product of divorced parents; Jessica the product of parents who should have divorced. With no undertones of competition, Jessica found comfort in the common ground.
Looping her legs over the opposite arm, Jessica shifted to snuggle into the wing of the chair. She took in the worn rug and the sagging couch, the sun-faded green velvet curtains and the peeling old-fashioned wallpaper. In contrast, the fireplace’s mantle and stonework were a showpiece, and an array of ornate, valuable antiques littered the room.
An interior decorator had taken care of every detail of her house in Richmond. She hadn’t had the time nor inclination to pour over designs. It was beautiful, yet this shabby mansion felt more like a home.
Lilliana popped off the couch like a prairie dog. “I’ve got an idea. Want to watch an old movie?”
Though Jessica was tired and buzzed, she wasn’t ready to be alone with her thoughts. “Let’s do it.”
Her eyes drifted closed watching Baby juggle her watermelons in Dirty Dancing. The credits were rolling when Lilliana’s hand shaking her shoulder woke her. “I’m not sure you had the time of your life, Jessica. You missed the best parts. Come on, beddy-bye time.”
They trudged up
the stairs together, parting ways at the landing. In her room, Jessica stripped to her underwear, drank water from the bathroom faucet, and crawled into bed. The canopy spun in an oddly rhythmic dance to the throb at the base of her skull.
Tomorrow loomed in the back of her mind, and dread danced a rumba in her stomach. She dreamed of her father and Logan and her ma-maw’s magnolias in a mixed-up jumble of fear and longing and melancholy.
5
Bright sunshine streamed through the windows, lighting a path of dust motes across the room. She huddled under the covers, and allowed herself to be mesmerized. Normally, the first thing she did upon waking was to grab her phone and check her emails.
Without that option, a sense of contentment she hadn’t felt since the last summer she’d spent with her ma-maw seeped through her bones, relaxing her into the soft mattress. She sifted through the memories of her ma-maw like a miser. Those brief weeks each summer had been a string of lazy, hot days filled with too much TV, junk food, books, and laughter.
Her thoughts tiptoed from the past to the present. The present being occupied by one Logan Wilde. The man was more complicated than she’d imagined, and she wasn’t sure how to proceed.
Intimidation, pressure, and manipulation were off the table. Logan’s easygoing charm hid a core of steel. But he’d given her a peek at a possible weakness. His interest in the experimental kitchens could be leveraged into an acceptance. He’d have to consent to work under the new director though, and he didn’t seem the type to take direction well.
Her bladder set up an ever-increasing protest, and the scent of coffee snaking through the cracks around the door finally pulled her out of bed. After freshening up in the hideous bathroom, she followed the rich scents like a mouse after cheese.
Lilliana was sitting at an old, scarred kitchen table with mismatched chairs on the phone. She made a “help yourself” gesture toward the coffee pot. Jessica poured a mug and joined her, savoring the steamy goodness.
Lilliana’s “uh-huhs” came at regular intervals. Finally, she said, “I have to go, Aunt Esmerelda. I have a paying guest who requires breakfast”—Lilliana winked at Jessica—“which means I won’t be at church this morning.” A pause. “If you’re worried about my soul, sing extra loud. Love you, bye now.”
Caught Up in the Touch: Sweet Home Alabama Page 5