by Kait Nolan
Curling into a chair at the table, she wrapped her hands around the glass, trailing one finger through the condensation. One leg bounced and her eyes fairly sparkled. Something was definitely up.
“Okay, spill it. What’s going on?”
Her lips curved into a grin. “You said if I waited long enough, something would work itself out. You were right.”
The smile invited him to join in the good news, but dread began to curl in his gut instead. He blanked his face, retreating to clinical distance for the discussion because he had a feeling he was gonna hate where this was going. “Oh?”
“This wasn’t even on my radar as a possibility, but I got contacted by an exec with SizzleTV today. They want to give me my own cooking show.”
It wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He’d thought it would be maybe a job offer taking her to New York or Boston or some other big metropolis as head chef to…somewhere. But he wasn’t sure this was any better. “A cooking show?”
He listened. Thanks to his clinical training he was a hell of a good listener. But his mind spun with implications and questions as she told him what she knew, which, by his estimation, wasn’t nearly enough.
“Anyway, I’m flying out to L.A. tomorrow. I’ll be meeting with execs and filming the pilot episode.” She all but vibrated with excitement, which made him feel like an asshole for bursting her bubble. But one of them had to be responsible here.
“Don’t you think this is awfully fast? What do you know about this guy? This company?”
“The guy checks out. Maggie’s heard of him. And I know SizzleTV is the biggest competition the Food Network has. A show with them would go a helluva long way to eradicating the damage from that video. This is my shot at redemption, Logan. At rebuilding my professional reputation. At being somebody again.”
Who did she think she was now?
He shook his head. “I thought you’d made so much progress since you got home, but ever since that asshole critic was here, you’ve been reverting to old patterns. This is just more regression.”
The excitement in her expression chilled and hardened. “Excuse me? Regression? Old patterns? Progress? Are you psychoanalyzing me, Logan?”
Was he? Damned straight. “Yeah. Because right now, you need it.”
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this with her, but he had to make her see reason. “If you go out there, if you do this show, it’s just gonna be a whole other set of pretentious assholes. Except instead of food critics and the like, it’ll be network execs and the money men and whoever the hell else who’s going to end up telling you what to do and how to do it. You won’t have control. It won’t be about the food, and you’ll hate it. Haven’t you learned anything these past few months?”
“This is for my own good, right? Because I wouldn’t know that, and never mind what I actually want, what I’m telling you I want.” She stared at him with a mix of disgust and fear that curdled his gut.
But she couldn’t mean what she was saying. She couldn’t have thought it through because that meant she was okay with leaving Tennessee, leaving her family. Leaving him.
Panic made the wheels of his brain slow and stutter as he tried to figure out how to deescalate the situation.
“Have you been trying to head shrink me this whole time?” she demanded.
No sense in lying now. “It’s part of my training. It’s not like I turn it off like a light switch. It doesn’t change anything.” The moment he said it, he knew he’d fucked up. The energy in the room seemed to suck toward her, gathering for what he knew would be an explosion. But hell, he was in it now.
“Doesn’t change anything?” The hiss of her voice was low and dangerous. “How can you say that? You’ve spent all this time watching and analyzing everything I say, everything I do and figuring out how to handle me.” Her voice rose in volume with every word, until the dogs flinched. A momentary flash of contrition crossed her features as she reached out a hand to soothe them both.
“It’s how I deal with everybody. It’s called getting to know you and being respectful of who you are.”
Her gray eyes went to slits. “Is that supposed to make this better?”
Yeah, he wasn’t even gonna get into that. “You’re veering off-topic here. We’re talking about L.A. and why this isn’t a good idea.”
“There’s not a ‘we’ here, Logan.” Her words struck him like bullets. “You’re the only one who doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
Ari clearly didn’t think it was a good idea either, but he wasn’t going to bring her into the discussion. “Because it’s not going to make you happy.” Couldn’t she see that?
Athena crossed her arms, the picture of belligerence. “And you’re the expert on that?”
What the hell did she think he’d been doing since she came back to Eden’s Ridge? As his own temper rose, his grip on that careful impartiality began to slide. “I’d say I’ve done a pretty fucking good job of it up to now.”
Her nostrils flared. “I don’t have the luxury to make decisions purely around what makes me happy. I have a financial responsibility to take care of my father.”
“Stop using your dad as an excuse and own up to how much of this is about soothing your damaged ego.”
Her head kicked back as if he’d slapped her, but he couldn’t stop now. He had to make her see.
“You’ve said over and over again how you want to prove yourself. But who the hell are you proving yourself to, Athena? What does the adulation of a bunch of total strangers actually get you? What the hell good is it when everything and everybody else you care about, who cares about you, is here?”
Feeling the shift again, he braced for the explosion. It came in the form of her hands slapping the table. Then she gripped it, hard enough her knuckles pressed white against the skin of those scarred, capable hands. “Everybody who cares about me understands that I deserve this chance.” Her chair screeched across the wide-planked floors as she shoved up. “I was meant for bigger things than a small-town life. I’m not going to hold myself back because of fear—mine or yours.”
She started to walk out and panic blasted through his anger like lightning. If she went out to California, he’d lose her.
“You’ll hate it.” His words had her hesitating at the threshold, so he spit out the rest of it, fueled by frustration and fear. “You’ll hate it, and you’ll blame them, blame circumstances, blame anybody else but yourself for making that choice. Make a different one, Athena.”
He saw the barbs strike home in the way her spine snapped straight.
Sometimes the truth hurts. He hated to be the one to do it. But maybe now they could talk about this openly, honestly. Even if it was at top volume. He’d take a raging fight over nothing at all.
But Athena didn’t turn. She didn’t fire back with the fury he’d expected. Her words, when she spoke, were low and measured. “This is the only choice I’ve got.”
Without another word she walked out of his kitchen and, he suspected, out of his life.
Chapter 13
“I don’t know how you did this haul so often in the last year.” Stepping into Maggie’s apartment, Athena dumped her bag and stumbled over to collapse onto the sofa. “How is it that Tennessee feels like a million miles further from L.A. than Chicago does?”
“Well, having to drive hours to the airport in Nashville before even getting on the plane has a lot to do with it. I’m gonna guess by the fact that you’re doing a fine impression of a throw blanket on my couch that you would vote for a nap before going out for dinner?”
Throwing an arm over her eyes, Athena considered just passing out right here and skipping food altogether. Then her stomach growled. “Please, God, don’t make me people anymore. Can’t we just get takeout?”
“Seriously? After months in Eden’s Ridge, you’re back in a city, with access to every kind of food known to man, and you’d rather stay in? What happened to you, girl? I’ve never known you to bail on the ch
ance to try new cuisine.”
“I’m just wiped out. I guess I’ve lost some tolerance to the volume of people in the city since I left Chicago. It’s the longest stretch I’ve been home since I left at eighteen.” How had she not realized that before? She’d expected to be itchy and dying to get the hell back out of Tennessee. Instead she’d slid back into the rhythm of it like a pair of favorite jeans.
“Well, if this whole show pans out, you’ll have plenty of time to try everything you want out here. And there’s a lot.”
Athena waited for the usual buzz of excitement that accompanied the idea of culinary exploration in a new place. But it didn’t come. Maybe she was just too damned tired. She hadn’t slept for shit last night, too anxious about the trip, about how this meeting with network executives would go. Too upset at the fight she’d had with Logan. She didn’t know where they stood. Maybe that was the answer in and of itself. She hadn’t wanted to get in too deep for exactly this reason. A show would mean she’d be moving to Los Angeles, at least for the bulk of the year. Maybe some people could maintain a long distance relationship from three thousand miles away. She wasn’t one of them. And what did that matter, anyway? He wasn’t the guy she’d thought he was.
“Who’s not the guy you thought he was? Logan?”
Athena peeked out from her arm, startled to realize she must’ve spoken aloud. Dammit. Maggie would never let it alone now. “Yeah.”
“You’re gonna have to explain that because every other conversation we’ve had you’ve been your version of giddy about him.”
Insulted, Athena sat up. “I was not giddy.”
“I said your version. And giddy was Ari’s term.”
Athena rolled her eyes. “Of course it was.”
“What happened?”
He’d ruined her high, that’s what happened. When she should’ve been able to bask in the excitement and thrill, instead she’d been sucker punched. Knowing her sister would just wait her out, Athena grabbed up one of the colorful pillows and wrapped her arms around it. “I went out to the farm yesterday to tell him about the show.”
Maggie moved into her kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. “I gather that didn’t go well.”
Athena snorted. “That would be an understatement. This is the first legitimate offer I’ve had that could salvage my career, and he shot the idea right on down. After being so supportive of me this whole time, when push came to shove, he was just paying lip service.” She accepted the glass of wine. “Thanks. And—and—not only was he absolutely against the idea of the show, he’s been shrinking my damned head this whole time!”
Maggie folded herself onto the other end of the couch. “He what?”
“He’s a therapist.”
“I thought he was a farmer.”
“He was a therapist, or almost, before he left the last semester of school to be a farmer.”
“So he never practiced?”
“He’s been practicing on me, apparently. Using his shrinky skills.” Athena scowled, replaying everything he’d ever said to her, wondering what else she’d dismissed as casual conversation.
“Used them to what exactly? Coerce you? Manipulate you?” Maggie’s expression remained neutral, but the steel in her tone said she’d castrate anyone who tried.
Athena wanted to say yes, but couldn’t. Logan hadn’t coerced or manipulated her. Not in any castration-worthy way. No matter how angry she was, she knew he wasn’t a bad guy. It was just— “He acted all blasé about the whole thing, like he left the program, he’s just a farmer, but the whole time he’s taking in everything I say and do and analyzing me.”
“To what end?”
She thought about what he’d said. “He said it was about getting to know me and being respectful of who I am.”
“That doesn’t sound so terrible.”
“Then why does everything in me want to reject that?” Athena sipped at the wine, barely registering the bold notes of plum that underscored the grapes.
“You know why.”
She did know why. He was just like those assholes who’d analyzed her without her knowledge or consent and used that to take her away from her father.
“But you’re saying he didn’t get to know you and then use that against you?” Maggie asked into the protracted silence, like she wanted to be sure there was no valid opportunity to mete out violence.
Athena thought about it, and because she was messed up and tired, because Logan’s reaction to her news and that whole conversation had really thrown her, she had to think really hard. But no, Logan hadn’t betrayed her; he wasn’t like the counselors in her past. But there was something. He’d done something, because she’d felt…something.
“Athena?”
“No, he didn’t use it against me. The fact is, he does know me. So well it makes me feel...” She struggled to find the words to explain that feeling of exposure.
“Vulnerable?” Maggie suggested.
“Yes. And I hate that. I hate that so much.”
“You always have. As long as I’ve known you. But I’ve never asked you why that is. What are you so afraid of?”
She’d had a big chunk of sleepless night and hours on a plane to think about it. “Because it means he can hurt me.” Setting her wine aside, Athena drew her knees up and rested her cheek against them. “I didn’t mean to let him so close.”
Maggie studied her over the rim of her glass. “It’s not that he can hurt you. It’s that he has.”
“Yes,” Athena whispered. “In the heat of things he said none of this was about my father. That it’s just about my reputation and ego. I get that I have a titanic ego. It goes with the territory of my profession. But literally everything I have done in my career has been about attaining maximum success so that I could take care of Dad. I chose paths I wouldn’t otherwise have chosen just because it would mean more commercial success.”
You’ll hate it. And you’ll blame everyone but yourself for having made the choice.
On some level he’d been right, damn him. She had hated it. Not all of it, not all the time. But in the end, she had hated it. But he was wrong about the choice. She didn’t have one. Not really.
Maggie sipped her wine, considered. “I think a lot of it has been about that, yeah. But you’re a chef, not an accountant. If it was just about the money, you could’ve gone into a multitude of other more lucrative fields. You chose food because it’s your passion. So there’s a lot of you bound up in it, too. As there should be.”
Athena bristled. “Are you siding with him?”
“I’m not taking sides here. I’m asking questions to clarify. Given your level of pissed off about this, I have to ask if he’s right. If your dad wasn’t part of the equation, would you still make the same decision to come out here, to try this?”
If she didn’t have the financial burden of her father’s care, if she didn’t have a ticking time clock over her head, would she still choose the show? “After everything I’ve been through the past months? Yeah. Yeah, I would. Because I feel like a failure. A disgrace, and I want to reclaim my reputation. You, of all people, get that.”
“Yeah, I do. It’s why I’m way out here instead of home. Because here I can be something other than ‘that girl who got knocked up in high school.’” Maggie tipped back the rest of her wine. “What did Logan say when you explained that?”
I was meant for bigger things than a small town life. I’m not going to hold myself back because of fear—mine or yours.
“I’m…not sure I did explain it. Not very well. The discussion kind of degenerated.”
“I can only imagine. Well, you’re here. You’re going to go to that meeting tomorrow and wow the hell out of them. You’ll see what there is to see about whether this opportunity is what you want it to be. And if it is, know that I will be ecstatic to have you here. I miss family. I miss home. It’s hard being this far from everybody.” She set her glass aside. “You know. It was the same for you in Chicago.”
/> Yeah, it had been. She’d lived in big cities on her own since she left home at eighteen. Every single one had been an exciting new opportunity. A chance to learn something new. That had been enough to override the inherent homesickness. After a while, she’d forgotten what life had been like before. She’d learned to do without the tight bonds of community and the daily presence of her sisters. But she couldn’t help but think that it would be so much harder now that she’d had a solid reminder of what home actually felt like.
And if it was Logan’s arms and the farm she thought of rather than the inn where she’d spent her teen years, well, she’d learn how to do without them too.
“Brother, you look like shit.” Xander accompanied that pronouncement by pushing past Logan into the house. Porter and Flynn trailed behind him.
“What the hell are y’all doing here?” But he knew.
Athena had left for L.A. this morning without a word. Logan shouldn’t have been surprised by that. She hadn’t come out when he’d dropped Ari home yesterday, not even to pick up their fight. Maybe in her mind it was done. Maybe they were done.
And he didn’t have anyone to blame for that but himself.
“I brought bourbon,” Xander called from the kitchen.
Logan’s beverage of choice for drowning regrets. Exactly how much had she said to her sisters before she left town?
His old friend had already retrieved glasses from the cabinet and poured two fingers into one. He offered it. “Here.”
Logan eyed it for only a second before accepting the glass. He was done with work for the day. “What did she say?”
“Not a bleedin’ thing,” Flynn said. “She packed up and lit out this mornin’ with barely a word. Not even to say she was excited about the prospect of a job.”
“Our wives are convinced something’s wrong between the two of you, and given your reaction just now, I’m guessing they’re right. What happened?” Xander demanded.
Logan took a hefty swallow of the bourbon, rolling it in his mouth a moment before swallowing down the fire. “I guess you could say we had our first fight.”