by Kait Nolan
If anyone could coax these horses to make that choice, it was Sebastian. The former Army Ranger had been through a similar struggle after his separation from the military. He’d made the choice for life himself and come here. Sometimes he had to renew that choice, but over the months he’d been here, working with the horses, Logan had seen that choice become easier. With them he had a reason to keep making it.
“You’ll convince them it’s worthwhile,” he said.
Sebastian just grunted.
“If the horses are settled for a bit, I brought beer and pizza,” Porter announced. “Figured y’all could help me eat it.”
“Yeah?” Logan perked up at the idea he wouldn’t have to drive to town for sustenance. “I can get behind that.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Not me. The farrier’s making a special trip out this evening to take care of those hooves so we can get a jump on treating the thrush. And I want to see if they’ll let me close enough to wash and groom them. They’re skittish yet.”
“Another time then.”
“I’m gonna head on up to shower off my day. Come on inside when you’re ready and make yourself at home.”
Logan detoured through the kitchen and snagged that beer. He drank half as he stripped down, switched on the water to scalding. Once steam billowed through the bathroom, he stepped into the shower, tucking the bottle into the caddy beside the body wash. The steady spray beat at his sore muscles, sluicing over his head and shoulders to rinse away the grime. Because it just felt damned good, he lingered, sipping at the other half of his beer as his body relaxed.
He was a man who appreciated simple pleasures. A cold beer, hot shower, good food, and the company of a friend. About the only thing that would’ve made his mood even better would’ve been a gray-eyed, sharp-tongued beauty joining him in the shower. The image of Athena in nothing but skin, hair slicked back like a seal as she swam through Opal Springs with about as much agility was burned into his brain. It was easy enough to picture her here, in his shower. That, too, was simple.
Someday. Maybe.
By the time he made it downstairs, he felt considerably more human. The sound of voices and the scent of herbs and pepperoni drew him into the kitchen, where he found Xander kicked back against the counter, a beer in his hand.
“We having a party?”
“I am blessedly off-duty. Thank Christ.” Xander lifted the beer in toast.
“You’re off-duty and not spending the night with your wife?”
“Kennedy has to work tonight. I figured I’d come out, have a look at those horses in their new home, and steal a beer. Besides, game’s on.”
Indeed, one of them had switched on the TV. The faint murmur of an announcer’s voice from the living room underscored the conversation. Maybe this really was just a simple case of drop in and hang out. But Logan suspected there was more at play here than an impromptu social call.
He ducked into the fridge, grabbed another beer. “We’re second string. We get it.”
“We’ll take the dregs,” Porter agreed.
“So the good Sheriff here came out to check on the horses. What about you? Why the pizza delivery out here in the sticks?” Logan asked.
“I wanted to check on Sebastian.” It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last when Porter followed up on his old Army buddy.
“He hasn’t needed checking on in a while,” Logan pointed out.
“Old habits, man.” A wealth of loyalty earned in battle underlaid those three words.
He knew that was at least half the reason Porter had suggested Sebastian for the job. “I’m not seeing any signs you should worry about. He’s still got some insomnia, but the horses, the work, have been good for him. The lessons and interactions with people will be good for him, too, when we get to them.”
“Good.”
They loaded up plates with the pizza Porter had shoved in the oven to keep warm and moved into the living room to watch the game. Lured by the prospect of scraps, Bo and Peep appeared at the door from wherever they’d spent their afternoon. As soon as Xander let them inside, they made a beeline to the living room, camping out at attention, just waiting for somebody to toss them a crust.
“They act like you don’t even feed them,” Porter observed.
“Spoiled rotten, the both of them.” Which was entirely true, but Logan wouldn’t have it any other way.
Xander propped his feet on the scarred coffeetable and tipped back his beer.
Recognizing the tell, Logan braced himself.
“So, what’s going on between you and Athena?”
Not nearly enough. But he couldn’t say that. Instead, Logan took a pull on his own beer. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pull that evasive shit with me. I’m a cop, not an idiot. I could tell the other morning that there’s…something between you. Why the hell did she even call you to pick her up? I didn’t think you even knew each other beyond family functions.”
“We’re friends.” Okay, maybe that was a stretch, but they were working on it.
Porter snorted. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”
Irritated at being cornered in his own damned living room, Logan wondered if Pru had been talking. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you two have never given off friend vibes. I wondered if something happened between you two at the wedding last summer.”
“No way,” Xander insisted.
Caught off-guard by Porter’s observation, Logan didn’t quite manage to don his poker face.
Porter pointed. “See?”
Xander’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
On a sigh, Logan accepted that the cat was out of the bag. “Okay yes. We hooked up at your wedding.”
“Called it.” On a satisfied smirk, Porter split a crust in two and tossed it to the dogs, who snapped the pieces out of the air before turning their attention to Xander and the slice he held limp in his hand.
“I didn’t. Dude.”
“Why are you so surprised? She’s sexy, smart, and the things that woman can do in a kitchen…Jesus, I’ve had dreams about what she can do with bacon.”
“Please let that not be a euphemism. That’s my sister-in-law.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “So?”
“It’s not like you to sniff around somebody else’s territory.”
“I’m not. She dumped the douchebag.”
Remembering the pizza in his hand, Xander nodded and bit in. “I wondered. She hasn’t said anything to Kennedy. Pru either, far as I can tell.”
“Maggie’s worried about her,” Porter added.
“Because of her whole reaction to the farm or something else?” Logan asked.
“There’s that. But in general. I was pretty worried myself when I picked her up here the other morning.”
“I wondered how the hell she got back to the inn.”
“I haven’t seen her that rattled in…hell, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her that rattled except when she realized her daddy was never coming home and staying with Joan wasn’t gonna be temporary.”
“He’s still living?”
“Yeah. If you can call the state he’s in living,” Xander said.
Logan turned his attention back to Porter. “You were there then?”
It was easy to forget Porter had been one of the Reynolds sisters’ many foster siblings.
“Yeah. I’d been in and out for a couple years at that point. I saw all kinds of reactions to kids fresh in the system. Most of us came from shitty homes. She didn’t. And being yanked out like she was…she never got over that.”
“Why was she taken from him?” Logan remembered she said she’d been pulled out of class by a counselor about falling asleep in school.
“He had a drug problem,” Xander explained. “Somebody saw him with a guy who was a known dealer and put a bug in the ear of the right person. They had Athena questioned by the school counselor and a social worker. It was
enough for the state to temporarily take custody while they investigated. Then he overdosed.”
“She trusted the wrong people and they took away her control,” Logan mused. And she’d spent all these years trying to get it back.
“Be careful,” Xander warned.
“Is that for me or for her?”
“You. She’s got a hard shell.”
Logan felt a prick of irritation on Athena’s behalf. How many people saw only that? “You’d be wrong about that. That whole thing is a defense mechanism.”
“Dude, above all, do not psychoanalyze her. You will lose your balls. She absolutely hates that shit.”
“That’s like telling me not to see the grass is green.”
“You know what I mean. I’m just saying she’s anti-therapists.”
Logan lifted his last slice of pizza. “Then it’s a good thing I’m a farmer.”
Cowardice tasted of stone ground cornbread. It crumbled, soaked in sweet cream butter, into Athena’s mouth, and it didn’t even matter that she’d burned her tongue. This wasn’t about pleasing anyone but herself. That was what the past two-and-a-half weeks had been about, after all.
Two-and-a-half weeks since the disaster. Two-and-a-half weeks she’d been licking her wounds and hiding the truth. Two-and-a-half weeks she’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the form of one of her sisters finding out about Olympus. Because she really didn’t want to be the one to tell them. She didn’t want to admit what she’d done. How she’d screwed up.
It was only a matter of time. It surprised her none of them had figured it out already. But Maggie was busy as hell running someone’s world. Pru was all focused on the baby and Ari and the spa expansion, not to mention her sexy new husband. Kennedy was likewise occupied by newlywed bliss and all the promo for her upcoming book. Their distraction had bought Athena a reprieve. But that wouldn’t last.
She’d been hoping to have her next steps in place before she admitted it, so she could control the spin and make it look like a move she’d made on purpose. But that would necessitate actually putting out feelers in the foodie community, and she hadn’t done that either. All she’d done was hide out, taking over the inn’s kitchen, pitching in with whatever other chores she, Flynn, and Ari could manage to wrest from Pru. Because she was afraid of the answer. Afraid if she reached out, she’d get nothing but crickets—or worse, derision, in return. Deep down, she was afraid that all her value was tied up in Olympus and without it, she was nothing but a farm girl from Tennessee who happened to know a lot about cooking.
Miserable, she forked another bite into her mouth.
Her phone rang. She didn’t want to admit she’d begun keeping it on her so she wouldn’t miss texts from Logan. But he’d been the one sort-of bright spot these past weeks. A balm to her wounded ego.
Master of Carbs flashed across the screen. Moses. Relief and longing washed over her in equal measure. Friend and colleague, Moses pulled no punches. He’d talk her through this and bully or browbeat her into action.
“Please tell me you’re calling to give me the shot in the ass I need to get over this shit.”
“Athena, I am so sorry.” The rumble of his voice rolled over the line, sparking new worries in its wake. He wouldn’t be apologizing now for what had happened with the video, so what was he talking about?
“For what?”
In the beat of silence, she could almost see him closing those dark eyes and rubbing a broad-palmed hand over the head he kept shaved. “Shit.”
“Moses. Tell me.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“I’ve lost my restaurant and become a viral video. I don’t know how much worse it can get.”
He blew out a breath. “Olympus lost its Michelin star.”
She wanted to ask him to repeat himself, but couldn’t form the words. His statement echoed through her skull like a gong, resonating through every pore and crack, until she thought one more blow would shatter her completely.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Forty-five minutes later, she was still sitting at the kitchen table, phone clutched in her hand, though Moses had said goodbye already. The sound of voices and footsteps from the foyer didn’t manage to get her moving. No more hiding. She wasn’t that good an actress or liar.
Kennedy came in with Ari, the two of them laughing over something. The laughter died away as soon as they caught sight of her.
“Athena?” Kennedy straddled the long bench beside her, laying a hand on her arm. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Athena didn’t look at her. She swallowed against a throat gone dry. “Get Pru.”
Kennedy looked to Ari, who bolted from the room as if lives depended on it. And maybe Athena’s did, in a sense.
They came back a couple minutes later.
“Athena? Honey? What is it?” Pru slid onto the bench on the other side. “Is it your dad?”
She shook her head, still not looking at her sisters. “Call Maggie.” She couldn’t endure going through this more than once.
Kennedy dialed from her own phone, setting it on speaker.
“Kennedy, I don’t have but a minute. There’s a—”
“It’s me,” Athena croaked.
Maggie sucked in a breath. “Hang on.” In the background, she could hear her sister giving orders to her assistant to hold all calls and let somebody know she’d be unavoidably late to the meeting. A door shut. Then Maggie was back on the line. “Okay. You have my undivided attention. What’s going on?”
Because her lips trembled, Athena pressed them together until she thought she could speak without crying. “I lied. I’m not home because Olympus is being renovated.” And she told them everything, editing out some of the gory details of what she’d walked in on for Ari’s sake.
The omissions didn’t stop her niece from snarling, “That bastard!”
It was almost enough to wrangle a smile.
“Ari,” Pru warned.
“Well, he is!”
“She is not wrong. I don’t know if the two of them planned this. Probably not. But the end result is the same. I’m out. Olympus isn’t mine anymore.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so, so sorry.” Kennedy wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed.
“It gets worse. There’s a video of our confrontation in the kitchen. It’s gone viral.”
Of course, that led to a trip to YouTube. They all watched in silence as her reckless behavior unfolded in all its glory. When it was done, nobody seemed to know what to say. This wasn’t the first tantrum she’d had. Wouldn’t be the last. But it was the only one that would have lasting impact.
“You always did have a hell of an arm,” Kennedy observed. “Though you were better with a softball.”
Athena snorted, but the sound came out somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “It gets worse.”
“There’s more?” Pru asked. Her arm slid around Athena’s waist, as if she sensed this was the worst part.
“Olympus lost its Michelin star.”
“Under somebody else’s leadership,” Ari put in.
Athena shook her head, wishing it were that simple. “That’s not how it works. They wouldn’t yank it over one bad meal. It would be a product of several visits over time, which means that loss is on me. I lost my Michelin star. I failed to keep up the standards. And I’ve torpedoed my career but good. No one’s gonna want to touch me after all this.”
They surrounded her in hugs, talking over each other trying to comfort. Much as she’d resisted opening up, this was why she’d come home. This unqualified defense and support.
“We’ll figure this out, as a family,” Pru insisted.
“I’m not sure what help y’all can be helping me find another job,” Athena said.
“Duh,” Ari said. “You should work here.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’s got a point.” Kennedy leaned back against the table. “The fact is, though we’re called The Misfit I
nn, we’re actually more of a B and B since we only do breakfast. True inns offer full-service meals. We could make that switch. Amp things up again.”
Stay and join the family business. It was the immediate and obvious answer. But it wasn’t what Athena wanted or needed to hear at the moment.
“I can’t make a decision like that right now.” She’d spent so much time and effort to escape this place. How could she even consider moving back for good? Wasn’t that giving up? Settling?
“You don’t have to make a decision right now,” Maggie pointed out. “Take some time. You said you’re covered financially through the end of the year. Maybe you want to do some experimenting in the kitchen. You’ll have options. They just may not be exactly what you originally thought.”
Yeah. That’s what she was afraid of.
Chapter 7
Are you still up for that distraction?
Logan stared at Athena’s text for ten full seconds before responding. Was she serious? She’d been pretty firm when she’d said no to that last week, so what had changed her mind?
“Only one way to find out.”
He thumbed back a reply. Any time.
The message showed as read, but though he waited, there were no little dots showing her typing a response. Had he scared her off?
Bo and Peep bolted up, barking, just before the knock sounded. A blur of black and white fur, they raced to the door. He waded through them and opened it to find Athena on the other side. Well, that explained the lack of a follow-up text.
“That was fast.”
“I was at the end of the driveway.” She bent, dropping her arms from where they’d been folded across her middle to give the dogs a rub. When she straightened, she had on what he thought of as her defiant mask. Shoulders back, chin lifted. It was a posture of confidence, yet it couldn’t hide that her cheeks looked pale and the skin around her eyes was pinched.
Not waiting for an invitation, she stepped inside, lifting a hand to his chest and skimming it up around the back of his neck.
When she would’ve drawn his mouth to hers, Logan gripped her shoulders. “Slow down.”
Temper flared in her eyes. But there was something else, too. “Slow wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”