How Sweet It Is

by Wendy Vella

  “I’m leaving town, Jake, and I wondered if you could give these keys back to Macy for me.” Even her voice sounded off, a bit high and squeaky. She knew Jake had noticed, because he was taking his time studying her. She had the feeling he could read every thought she was trying to hide, every flicker of hurt and disappointment that she was battling to tamp down.

  “Well, now, there may be a bit of a problem with that.” It was the sheriff who spoke, and she was relieved to drag her gaze away from Jake.

  “Why, Cubby?” She curled her fingers around the keys, letting them bite into her palm, the sting helping her focus.

  “I’m thinking about closing the roads.”

  She looked out the window at the vehicles lining the street, then back to the law enforcement officer.

  “I’m just about to head out and tell everyone before I go down to the end of Main Street and put up the ‘Road Closed’ signs.”

  He had no reason to lie to her, and it was a testament to her state of mind that she even allowed the thought to enter her head. “When will it open?”

  “I would say tomorrow, as long as we don’t have another big dump overnight.”

  “It could happen, though, so it would pay you to stock up on a few supplies,” Jake told her. Reluctantly she looked at him once more, focusing on his right ear.

  “B-but what about your carnival?”

  “Everyone’s already here, and those who aren’t will arrive when Cubby opens the roads again. It’s still three days away, so there’s plenty of time for everyone to get here.”

  He was talking to her gently, as if she were a child who’d scraped a knee. She was mortified that somehow she’d given herself away, and Jake could see her turmoil.

  “Is there any other way out?”

  “You got some kind of emergency?” Cubby asked.

  His eyes held hers steadily, and she found herself shaking her head when what she’d wanted to do was nod. “No, I just need to get back to New York.”

  “Only a day or two delay. No big deal when your safety’s at stake.” Jake gave her another gentle smile.

  She felt numb. All the adrenaline that had driven her to pack and get here was draining away, and now she felt exhausted. She was pathetic. For pity’s sake, woman, toughen up. It’s not like this is the first, or the last time, for that matter, that you’ll ever be disappointed, she reminded herself. It was just another reminder that she could only trust herself.

  Disappointment. She almost laughed at the word. What was going on inside her was more than that. It was a seething mass of pain.

  Cubby persisted, “Don’t drive around in this unless it’s urgent, or unless you have tire chains. Even then I’d rather you just laid low until the conditions clear.”

  “If I had chains, could I leave, Sheriff?”

  “Sorry, not until the road has reopened.”

  “Okay, I understand.” Willow was a rule follower, and she knew it was too risky to attempt to do otherwise in these conditions, but she wanted to try. In fact, if she could walk to Brook without turning into a block of ice, she’d start out now.

  “Where are your hat and gloves?”

  “Pardon?” She looked over at Jake again.

  “You have wet hair, and it’s freezing out there.” He grabbed her arm and led her down the first aisle, stopping when they came to a rack that held woolen accessories.

  “Jake, I…really—”

  He pulled a soft, pale gray wool hat off the shelf, then positioned it on her head. “What do you think, Cubby?”

  The sheriff came into her line of sight and studied her, tilting his head slightly. Willow wasn’t sure she wasn’t dreaming; the entire situation was completely beyond belief. Her mind was all over the place, and here she was with two men who were deciding what hat best suited her. She’d laugh, but was worried that if she started she wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “Try the dark green one with the turned-up edge. I think that’d be a winner,” Cubby said. “There’s a scarf to match that, and she needs one of them too.”

  “You could be right,” Jake said seconds later, after the gray hat had been replaced by the green.

  “I like that,” a deep Irish voice said from behind her. “Goes with her hair.” Declan O’Donnell joined the two other men. “Looks lovely on you, Willow.”

  “Th-thanks, but I have these things in the car. I just forgot to put them on.”

  “It’s on me,” Jake said. Then he grabbed a pair of gloves in the same color and pointed to her hands.

  Willow found herself opening her fingers like a small child while he fitted them on her hands. “I can pay, Jake.”

  “I insist,” he said, nodding to a man she guessed was the proprietor, who was hovering behind her.

  Declan smiled. “Now, you take a seat right there in front that fire, and we’ll have some mulled wine. You can tell me what you liked best about my books, and I’ll coax you into doing that drawing for me.”

  It was a parallel universe, Willow thought minutes later as she sat with a cup of mulled wine in her hands and her new hat, gloves, and scarf on her lap, with the world-famous novelist D.J. O’Donnell seated across from her. Maybe she was Alice, and she’d fallen through the rabbit hole.

  Would she still feel this pain her chest if she were in Wonderland, the burning ache that came whenever she thought of Buster? She just had to get through today, she told herself. Tomorrow she could leave, and she wouldn’t look back.

  She left The Roar after they tried to offer her a second cup of mulled wine, and headed for her car. Her eyes were drawn to The Hoot, and her heart raced when she saw Buster walking up the street with two bags of groceries in his hands.

  “Buster!” she called to him without thinking, even started walking toward him. Then he turned and saw it was her, his gaze caught hers briefly, and he turned away and kept walking.

  Why the pain of that rejection should hurt so much, when he’d already told her this morning that he thought she’d betrayed him, she had no idea—but it did. A small part of her had hoped that with some space and time, Buster would realize he’d made a mistake when he’d accused her of manipulating him. Now she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  She jumped into the rental, started it and backed out of the parking spot, then made her way slowly through town. Cubby had said he hadn’t put the Road Closed signs up yet, so technically she could leave—and she would, because there was no way in hell she was going to stay in Lake Howling another day.

  This was Buster’s town, and soon everyone in it would know what she’d done, or believe they knew what she’d done, and she couldn’t face that, or him, again. She also didn’t want to see her family. She would rather face Michael Howe and tell him she’d failed than slice open that particular vein again.

  When she reached the town limits of Lake Howling she couldn’t see the sheriff, so she made a run for it, and once she was climbing the road out she began to breathe easier. Tears were falling before she realized she was close to crying, and she had to keep wiping her eyes to see.

  “You’re an idiot! When will you learn that you’re not equipped to get into any kind of relationship?” she said loudly, trying to snap herself out of her grief. “Leaving is the best choice for everyone.”

  Suddenly, the car was spinning wildly. Willow struggled to get it under control, but seconds later she was over the bank and heading toward the trees.

  The impact was followed by darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Thankfully The Hoot was batshit crazy, so Buster could channel his anger into work. He kept seeing the pain in Willow’s eyes this morning when he’d refused to let her explain about that conversation he’d overheard, and again when he’d ignored her in the street.

  What did she expect, the lying witch?

  “Order.” Conner stuck his head around the door and waved a piece of paper at Buster.

  Buster had three staff on, and they were stretched. As soon as a table emptied i
t was occupied again, and he needed the frenetic pace because the work stopped him from thinking about the night he and Willow had spent together.

  The sex had been mind-blowing; more than that, it had been special, and he’d felt…shit, the only word that came into his head was moved, and that couldn’t be right. When he’d heard Willow’s conversation this morning, after the experience they’d just shared, he’d felt betrayed, and then he’d remembered Jessica and that some women were not to be trusted. The problem was, he had begun to believe that Willow wasn’t one of those women. It seemed he’d been wrong.

  He had to shut thoughts of Willow out of his head, or he’d never get through the lunch rush.

  Buster braced himself as Jake walked into the kitchen a few hours later, with a look in his eyes that spelled trouble.

  “Busy as shit here, bud. You want to come back later?”

  “Connor said it’s easing.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got prep to do for tomorrow.” Buster hoped his friend would take the hint.

  “So do it. I’m not stopping you.” Jake took up his usual position leaning on the door jam. “What’s the deal with Willow?”

  The knife Buster had been holding slipped from his grasp and headed for his toes. Protected only by tennis shoes, he jumped to avoid being impaled by the tip, and the knife clattered safely to the floor at his feet. “What?” He picked it up and took it to the sink to buy himself some time. Just hearing her name made his heart thud harder inside his chest.

  “Willow. What’s the deal? You said she headed out of The Howler alone last night. Did you catch up with her?”

  “Sure. She was cold when I did, but I took her home, and she said she’d take a shower to warm up then go to bed.”

  He pulled the pastry he’d made out of the fridge, floured his board, then began to roll it out with his mother’s rolling pin.

  “I saw her in The Roar earlier. She was leaving town, but Cubby told her the roads were closed.”

  Buster reminded himself she’d played him for a fool, and he didn’t care that she was leaving Howling. “Why did he tell her that when they’re not closed?”

  “Because she looked incapable of driving the entire distance to Brook safely.”

  “Is she sick?” He might be angry with her, but he didn’t like the idea of her being sick.

  “No. Pale, shaky, and her words sounded a little off, kind of high-pitched and squeaky. Cubby thought she looked like she’d suffered a shock, and I have to agree with him. Plus she came in with wet hair, no hat, gloves or scarf.”

  No, he wouldn’t feel guilty. He’d heard her words this morning. It was Willow who was in the wrong, not him.

  “You sleep with her?”

  The rolling pin flew out of his hand and hit a pile of baking trays, sending them crashing to the floor. “Fuck, McBride!”

  “Well?” Jake crossed his legs and arms, which told Buster he was settling in for a nice long talk. “What did you do to her?”

  “Maybe she did something to me.”

  “Did she?”

  “Just leave it alone, Jake. She’s going back to New York, and it’s the best place for her.” Buster retrieved his rolling pin and started flattening the pastry with more force than the job required.

  “She’s not Jessica, Buster.”

  “She might as well be.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  He saw Jake’s feet move out the corner of his eye as he walked out to the disaplay cases. He heard them opening and closing, then Jake reappeared with a chicken pie, his favorite food. Branna always said her husband would sell her if that was what it took to buy the last one in existence.

  “What’s with you, McBride? Doctoring not enough? Now you’re looking for a position as everyone’s favorite shoulder to cry on?”

  “Aramis, you can spit and snarl all you like. There’s nothing I haven’t heard come out of your mouth, and you and I both know that eventually you’ll spill because I’m nothing if not relentless.”

  “You can’t make me talk,” Buster said, knowing he sounded like a five-year-old, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Now, we both know that’s not true,” Jake drawled. “I’ll simply put out the call to Annabelle, and you’ll be spilling your guts in minutes.”

  “We slept together, then this morning I heard her on the phone saying how I was stubborn, and she needed more time to work on me.”

  Jake whistled softly. “And you being a man who believes every woman who shows interest in him has an ulterior motive, thought instantly that she’d slept with you because she was trying to get your signature on that contract.”

  That was exactly what he’d thought, but if he could be honest with himself now that his anger had eased, he might have overreacted, which just went to show that it was better Willow was leaving soon, because he never overreacted. In fact, the last time he had, he’d been with Jessica, and wasn’t that a scary thought?

  “Let’s back it up, then.”

  “Do we have to?”

  “You sound like a kindergartener. Get a grip.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Much better.”

  Buster flipped him the bird, then put the pastry into pie dishes and got the filling out of the fridge.

  “So, did you ask her why she left The Howler last night?”

  “She said it was something to do with her family.”

  “And you didn’t believe her? Seems to me like she’s not the type to lie.”

  “You knowing her so well and all,” Buster muttered.

  “So, you warmed her up and then this morning overheard this conversation. And then what?”

  “Warmed her up?”

  “I don’t like to think about you and sex. It upsets my stomach,” Jake said, swallowing the last mouthful of his pie.

  “Yes, that’s what happened,” Buster said, thinking it was, in fact, a mile from the truth. What they’d done had been unbelievable, and he couldn’t get the feel and taste of Willow Moonbeam Harper out of his head.

  “So you think she deliberately walked out of The Howler without telling anyone,” Jake said. “Then risked hypothermia and whatever else could have happened to her if you hadn’t found her, just so she could lure you into her trap and get you to sign that contract?”

  When put like that, it sounded like he was a jackass. “I know what I heard.”

  “It’d take a hell of a lot of manipulating to get her family into The Howler, and then act like she didn’t want them there. She then had to stage an argument and leave. Sounds a little far-fetched, don’t you think?”

  He hadn’t thought about it like that, either.

  “So you don’t think that she might have just woken up, been a bit confused and off balance from your legendary prowess between the sheets, and just wanted to get whoever was on the other end of the line to back off so she could climb back into bed with you?”

  “There is a sharp fucking knife just inches from my hand, McBride, and if you don’t stop taking shots at me, I’m gonna use it.”

  “Whatever.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, she meant every word,” Buster said, but inside he was now having major doubts. He was starting to see things more clearly. Like the shock on Willow’s face when he’d said, “I thought she was the biggest bitch I’d ever met, but it seems I was wrong.” They’d talked last night in that dark room, really talked, and she’d opened up to him. Was that part of the ruse too?

  “Well, here’s the thing, Baker Boy. That woman I saw in The Roar was running scared. She was shocked, upset, or whatever the hell you want to call it, and she didn’t look like a calculating woman to me. I just don’t think she’s that good at acting.”

  “You always were a sucker for a pretty face.” It was beneath him, but he felt cornered.

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  Buster pushed the pies aside and lowered his forehead to the cold steel of his work table. “Jesus, Jake, I just
don’t have this shit in me to do again, even if I wanted to…which I don’t.” In his mind, Buster saw Willow’s face, bleached of color, just before he stormed out of the cabin this morning.

  “By ‘do,’ I’m gathering you mean relationship, caring, investing in another person’s emotional wellbeing as well as your own?”

  “You’re such a girl,” Buster said, still bent at the waist with his forehead pressed to the table. “And it wasn’t that long ago that you were angry, belligerent and commitment-phobic.”

  “Branna would have your ass for the first part of that statement, and the second is true, but I saw the light.”

  “Well, halle-fucking-lujah,” Buster muttered. “Willow lives in New York, Jake, and even if—and I stress that word, if—I wanted to have any relationship with her, it would be too hard.”

  Jake leaped with him in the conversation change. “I’ve heard that people relocate occasionally. There’s even air travel now.”

  “She was born in a field in Illinois,” Buster said, slowly remembering Willow’s words.

  “There’s a whole new level of weird with that family, don’t you think?”

  “A shitload, but only because we don’t get it. The parents and the twin sister seem to love Willow, but she’s fighting that because her childhood was messed up, and she’s got all this anger inside her,” Buster said, standing upright again.

  “So, what now?” Jake reached for the bowl of chocolate frosting and wiped a big finger around the edge.

  “Nothing, is what now. She’s got her shit, I’ve got mine, and we’re not going to meet in the middle,” Buster said, sending his friend a look that said conversation over.

  “So, you’re happy for Willow to leave upset and believing you think she’s been manipulating you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chickenshit.”

  “Whatever. Now get the hell out of my café.” Buster ignored the clucking sounds Jake made as he left.

  Five minutes later, in burst Mikey Tucker.