My Heart's Protector

by Jenn Sable

  “I panicked,” I said quietly.

  “Yeah, you did,” said Rose, emphatically and cupped her head and made an explosion sound while she rained her fingers down theatrically displaying what surely happened to my brain when I had canceled all the summer guests.

  “It’s the Evans family panic curse,” agreed Abby.

  “I think everyone gets the picture, thanks,” I said. I was embarrassed by my rash actions, but what was done was done.

  A knock on the meeting room door by my brother-in-law broke the tension. My brother-in-law, Owen, the tall, muscled, and classically handsome eldest Brocker, strolled into the boardroom with an easy, confident stride. I smiled, and relief pooled in my stomach at the sight of him.

  He walked straight over to me and wrapped me in a brief but supportive hug. “Welcome home, El. We’re glad you’re back and relieved that Winnie’s at home, resting,” he said, then walked over to stand behind Sammie, placing his hands on her shoulders and pressing a kiss onto the top of her head. Although there was a ten year age difference between Sam and Owen, they were both first-born children and had a parenting air about them.

  Owen cleared his throat. “I want you to know that whatever you decide to do with the inn, you have my full support. We’re family, and that means we’re here for one another no matter what,” said Owen and looked directly at me.

  I blew out my pent up breath, and nodded. “Thank you, Owen. Truly. All I ever wanted was to run the inn and build a career for myself successfully,” I tried to explain.

  “And you will, El. Let the dust settle on the current situation so you can see clearly before forging a new path. Take the next few weeks to rest and relax at home,” said Owen and reassured me with a smile that reached his eyes.

  Fair enough. I nodded and blinked back the tears behind my eyes. “That’s a really good idea. I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  He winked and nodded. “Okay, now that everything's not all lost, I’m flying to New York with the family’s legal genius, Mason, to work out a deal with the Milton’s.”

  Rose sat up. “Does Milton Inc. really want to build an amusement park in Frost Forest? That seems so... odd.”

  Abby brightened. “Oh my goodness, your kids are going to love living near an amusement park!”

  Owen nodded. “Yeah, they will. Zach, property guru, said that amusement is actually a great idea, and he wishes that we would’ve thought of it first. Last year, I purchased a small bit of acreage off of the Probst Farm to help out the old farmer, Everett, and now, the Milton’s are pressuring Everett to sell the farm. I’m going to meet with Rex Milton to see if I can work something out because Everett does not want to sell his property in order for it to become an amusement park. The last time Milton tried showing up at Probst Farm, Everett threatened him with a shovel.”

  “People really need to leave that farmer alone,” said Rose.

  “He’s too old to be left alone,” I murmured, and Sammie and Owen agreed.

  “So what do you and Mason plan to propose to Rex Milton?” asked Abby.

  Owen took a deep breath. “Mason and I are going to offer leasing my purchased twenty acres to Milton and allow for a train ride to be built on the land or for it to be used as a storage or maintenance area for the park, then offer the monthly earnings in rent to Everett as a way to help him financially. His dairy farm loses money every year, and he’s starting to accrue some substantial medical bills that his sons can no longer pay,” said Owen. A slow smile traveled across his face when Sammie stood up and wrapped her arms around him.

  “You’re a good man, my love,” said Sammie.

  Owen smiled and pulled Sammie close, tipped her face up to his and brushed his lips over hers.

  The frosted door opened, and Mason Brocker’s muscled form leaned inside. “Ladies,” he said with a smile. He looked at Owen and rolled his eyes.

  “Get a room, you two,” joked Mason.

  “I wish we could,” whispered Owen, in a low, barely perceptible voice, meant only for Sammie’s ears.

  “We all heard that,” said Mason, making Owen scowl and the rest of us laugh.

  “Mason, did you need something?” barked Owen.

  “Yeah, you. The pilot is ready when we are, and I need to get back from New York by seven. I’ve got a special dinner date planned with Trish tonight,” said Mason, wagging his brows.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” murmured Owen. Then he cupped Sammie’s face and whispered something into her ear that caused a blush to crawl up her neck and settle onto her cheeks.

  “Owen Brocker,” she gently scolded and then laughed.

  Mason crossed his arms and shook his head. “Now, you two really need a room!”

  Owen’s lip and brows flattened. “Who hired you?” he asked.

  “My big brother. He’s a nice guy most of the time, owns Brocker Industries, about your height and build, totally whipped by his wife, have you seen him?” joked Mason and winked at Sammie.

  Owen growled but then took hold of Sammie’s hands and pressed his forehead against hers. My stomach clenched over thinking about how Troy Witmer did the same thing to me the day he stopped over at the inn with the noise complaint.

  “Cripes, Sammie, would you please tell your husband that you’ll see him later this afternoon?” asked Mason, flicking his eyes to watch.

  Sammie smiled and lovingly cupped Owen’s face. “I’ll see you later this afternoon. I love you. Be careful.”

  Owen pressed another kiss to the back of her knuckles then turned to join Mason.

  “I’m not too old to pummel you,” threatened Owen as the frosted doors of the board room closed behind the brothers.

  My phone buzzed with a text message, and I was startled when I saw Winnie's name.

  “Winnie must’ve found the business cell that I hid in the bottom drawer of her desk in St. Tropez,” I chuckled and shook my head.

  Winnie: Hi, love. Details are still fuzzy here, but help is on the way! Trust. I'll be out of touch until this is over, but everything is going to be okay. Promise. Stay safe. XOXO always W.

  Huh? What does this even mean? I thought the doctor said for Winnie to stop using her business cell. I looked up, and all of my sisters were leaning toward me.

  “Well?” said Rose. “What did Winnie have to say?”

  “Everything's going to be okay,” I stammered, puzzled by Winnie's message.

  A serene smile graced Sam's face. “Of course, everything's going to be okay. We just need to gather, refocus, and plan.”

  “Excuse me for a moment, I need to call Winnie,” I said, pressing the phone icon in the corner of our text thread. It rang twice and then went to voicemail. Strange. I pressed her number again this time, and it went immediately to voicemail.

  What the hell?

  “Winnie is a strong woman. She’ll pull through this and she won’t leave you in a lurch and neither will we,” said Rose.

  “Thanks, Rosie-Ru,” I said distractedly.

  I immediately wanted to return to the inn to try to contact Winnie again. I had so many questions for her: what is going on, what help is on the way, and why is she going to be out of reach? I wasn’t sure why, but I felt the need to keep my concern about Winnie's text from my sisters. At least until I could decipher what was happening first.

  I moved toward the meeting room’s frosted-glass doors, turned, and said, “Well, ladies, if there’s nothing more for today. I’m going to “let the dust settle on the situation.”

  Samantha crossed her arms. “Sit,” she said. Her voice was low, but commanding.

  “What else do we need to talk about?” I asked and tried to dismiss my uneasy feeling.

  “Plan B.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, I was back at the inn and limped toward the garden, relieved to be alone and collapsed heavily onto the first lawn chair that I saw. My head throbbed, but it had nothing to do with the wine that I had earlier that morning and everything to do with Sammie's new plan to delegate our fam
ily inn to outside management if I didn’t break even within the first month of opening the teahouse.

  I knew that Sam's heart was in a good place. She just wanted the best for me and didn't want me to feel so tied down with commitment and responsibility. She trusted Owen's friend to manage the inn until I was ready to take over. I hated the idea that I had let her down or that I couldn't fulfill my promises to her and Owen.

  The plastic slats of the lawn chair felt warm against my back from sitting in the sun. I pulled a garden hat out from under the chair, promptly covered my face, and closed my eyes. All that I needed was a tall glass of iced tea on the side table and a handsome man running his thumbs up and down the arches of my feet while he murmured what he'd like to do to me once we got back inside.

  Of course, I pictured Troy. I’d given up the insane notion that I could fight off daydreams of him. Even though things didn’t end the way I’d hoped or planned they would, I couldn’t keep him from my thoughts. I relished my daydreams of him and allowed my imagination to take flight. I’d only been back in Frost Forest for two days, and I already had nervous butterflies in my stomach over the thought of seeing him again. That was, if Troy was even still in Frost Forest. My body melted a little more into the chair. I took a few slow, deep breaths and released my worries enough to drift off.

  A feather-light touch grazed my cheek, and I felt the pull of consciousness as it frayed the inky-black edges of my nap. I pinched my eyes closed tighter, fighting to stay asleep. No. I'm not ready to step back into the world. Not quite yet.

  It was too late. I felt my brain coming back online, and I growled, still forcefully keeping my eyes shut. A loud cackle exploded above me, and my eyes snapped open. I went from relaxed and rejuvenated to full-blown shocked and alarmed. I blinked rapidly at the narrow face of an unfamiliar, buck-toothed woman who loomed above me, laughing at me and studying me, like a specter.

  “Jesus,” I screeched and clutched my chest, gasping.

  “Saves,” chimed the woman with a slight British accent. She laughed again, and I noticed that she held a peacock plume.

  “What the hell? Did you stroke my cheek with a peacock feather just now?” I asked incredulously.

  The woman smiled, and her buck teeth slipped over her bottom lip. She wiggled the peacock feather in the air. “I brought it as a gift,” she said and smiled knowingly as she wagged her brows. “Peacocks symbolize integrity and rejuvenation. Remember, hmm?”

  She winked and extended the peacock feather toward me. I took it and stared between her and the feather dumbfoundedly. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Tula Cooper Parks, and I'm here to help you,” she said. Her smile deepened, and her dark-sapphire eyes sparkled.

  I blinked hard and swung my legs to one side of the lawn chair. “I think you're lost, Tula. How about we get you and your peacock feather turned around and headed in the right direction. I'll help you with directions, where do you need to go?”

  “Here. I am here to see Eloise Evans and to help her. You are Eloise Evans, aren't you?” she asked softly, eying me curiously.

  When I heard my name, it stopped me from getting up from the chair. “Who sent you?”

  “Why Winnie, of course! Who else?” she said and laughed.

  “Oh my God. That’s right. Your name sounded familiar. Winnie and Nigel mentioned you. You must be the help that she texted about earlier today.”

  Tula's brows raised in alarm. “Winnie texted you earlier today? That woman never listens to rules or guidelines. She’s always pushing the envelope.” Tula looked agitated and shook her head as though she was trying to push away a thought.

  “Are you some kind of marketing agent? “I asked, feeling a glimmer of hope spark in my heart.

  “Good Lord, no! What about my long hair, crystal jewelry, and peacock feather gave you that impression? Think of me as the equivalent of your fairy godmother here to help you on your way! Did Winnie not tell you about the peacock feather? Our secret sign of integrity and rejuvenation?” she asked, hand on hip now with a toe tapping.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head.

  She threw her hands into the air, then looked down at me and burst out laughing. “Oh my God, then I'm just some strange lady standing in your backyard with a peacock feather!”

  “Basically,” I said slowly but found myself starting to smile as I watched this woman's face transform into a myriad of laugh lines, chunky teeth, and bright, shiny eyes.

  “Well then, dear girl, let's just go ahead and have a redo, hmm?”

  “I think we're going to have to,” I laughed.

  “I'm Tula, and Winnie sent me to help you get things back on track with the tea business until things are situated on her end.”

  Relief flooded through my stomach. Maybe my prayers had been heard. Maybe I could still save the inn from outside management and make something out of my dream yet.

  I stood and shook Tulah's hand, and she pulled me in for a hug. She was a thin, pale woman with long, brown hair streaked with gray that she kept back from her face with a thick headband. Her clothes, a large off-white, loose-knit sweater over a simple rust-colored dress made her almost peasant-like, but the material was of good quality, her leather shoes looked expensive, and she's dripped with crystal jewelry.

  “You look like a psychic,” I said out loud but didn't mean to.

  She laughed but then nodded and wagged one pointer finger in the air. “I'm not, but I won't deny that I do have some sensitivities. Comes from my mother's side, they say.”

  “A saleswoman?” I guessed.

  “No.”

  “Then what do you do? I need help marketing and making sales,” I said, growing exasperated.

  “I'm a sex therapist.”

  WINNIE SENT ME A sex therapist. Of all the contacts and highly skilled business professionals that Winifred Langley, the tea empress, business mogul could have possibly sent to help me to salvage my business that she had just ejected herself from, and she decided to send me a British hippy, sex therapist. What. The. Fuck.

  Standing in line at Darling Donuts, I tried my best to figure out how in the world Winnie thought a sex therapist was going to somehow save my teahouse in my rural, traditional, and quite conservative town of Frost Forest.

  I stood and titled my head from one side to the other, rubbing the tense muscles in the back of my neck, feeling as though all of it was just a bad dream and then the real nightmare began when I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard the voice of April Kline.

  “Hi, Eloise, do you remember me?” she asked. I fought the urge to turn and walk out without a backward glance.

  Oh, I remember you. I remember that you’re Maxwell's cousin and the brazen married hussy who is after my man! Wait, when had I started to refer to Troy as my man? Oh God, I just wanted a Bavarian cream donut and to retreat to my sanctuary of solitude. I was almost impressed by how good of a job the universe was doing to align the perfect cluster fuck of stars in order to curate such a bat-shit crazy day.

  I turned around and pasted a friendly smile on my face and hoped that I didn’t look like I was about to cause her bodily harm. “Hi, April. I remember you. So you're moving back. What a surprise! Are you and your husband relocating because of a job?”

  I knew right away that I messed up by asking that question. Of course, something must have gone wrong between April and her husband because no one chooses to live in Bloombury when they're on their way to political stardom.

  I’d heard that April and her husband had an open marriage. I naively assumed that if you had reached a conclusion to sleep with other people, there couldn’t possibly be anything break you up. Apparently, the reasons for divorce were numerous, which served as another reminder that I shouldn’t be referring to Troy as my man, even in the privacy of my mind, and especially not in the arena of my heart.

  April's mood soured, and her eyes narrowed once the question popped out of my mouth. “No, Howie won’t be joining me, but thanks for asking
,” she said, in a sickeningly sweet tone. “He and I are actually... not together anymore. I guess you haven't heard.”

  ”I'm sorry, I didn't know. I just recently returned to Frost Forest myself,” I said, trying to think of something to say and laughing at how I could want to smack this woman and yet try to spare her feelings at the same time.

  April brightened. “Oh, that’s right! I think my uncle was just talking about you spending some time in France with some unknown, older woman. You two have something private and special going on together.”

  The way she said it made me uncomfortable, as though she were fishing for details and making assumptions and insinuations about Winnie and me. As though she wanted me to confirm or deny something. This chick can go sit on it and rotate... as long as that thing is not Troy. Not that it’s any of my business who sits on Troy. Ugh. I’m giving my mind a time out because we’re not on the same side today.

  When I stayed silent, April shrugged a shoulder and continued with the conversation. “Well, Eloise, I would love to stop by your tea shop sometime! I’m so curious to see what you've done with the place. I know a lot of people who are quite curious to see how you’ve managed to pull things together. You . . . are still moving forward with that idea . . . right?” She started laughing and then flipped her long, blonde hair off of her shoulders and reached into her purse to pull out some lip gloss.

  I stood there and breathed through my urge to scratch out her eyes while she squirted shiny liquid over her bright-pink lips. All I wanted were my damn donuts, and the person in front of me was taking forever, but afterward, I would be next. It seemed a shame to abandon ship now. I was so close to a dreamy Bavarian cream that I could actually taste it in my mouth.

  “My cousin, Maxwell, was just talking about you this morning. You seem to be a popular topic of conversation these days, lucky you!”

  I cringed a little bit. “Oh, and how's Maxwell doing?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation cordial but was quickly downgrading my expectations to civil interaction.