by Donna Alward
“Because it’s yours! She got into the most competitive culinary school in the country, and you won’t let her go. You want to keep her here, under your thumb.”
“No, I am respecting my daughter’s decision. And you will too.” He grabbed a T-shirt from his nightstand and pulled it on. “She’s not a kid anymore. I can’t tell her where to go to school anymore than you can tell her what to wear. And you know what? I’ve done pretty damned well by her, considering.”
“She’s been talking about New York ever since she got accepted.”
“No, you’ve been talking about New York.” He stood and brushed past her on his way to the kitchen.
Jules followed right behind him. “It’s no secret I’ve wanted to go back to New York since you dragged me here. Drea did too, or she never would have applied there.”
“Drea only applied because that’s where I went to school. She thought it would make me proud. But someday you’re going to learn that as a parent, you want your kid to be happy, not to make you happy.” He powered up the espresso machine and scrubbed his face with his hand.
“I want her to be happy. But she’s not going to do that if she keeps trying to be you.”
“You’d rather she try and be you?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “Jules, you’re her sister. Be that.”
“You’re her uncle.” Her head started to ache.
“No, I’m your uncle. And since there’s only twelve years between us, I don’t blame you for not thinking of me as a parent. But when I adopted Drea, she became my daughter, not my niece. I know you don’t get it, but maybe someday, when you have kids, you will. Parents love their children from birth, but then there is something about a child that needs you that makes you love just as hard. I didn’t make her biologically, but I’ve helped make her who she is. And she is pretty damned amazing. There are grown-ass women who would be scared to trust their instincts or even stand up to you. And she’s this seventeen-year-old kid, and she just did it.”
“You’re proud she’s not going to live up to her potential?”
“Potential for what, exactly?”
“To be a great chef. She’s better than you, and she’s a teenager.”
“She’s talented, but I’m not even sure she wants to be a chef. Yesterday she was talking about trying culinary school and that if it’s not for her, she’ll do the university next year.”
Jules bit her lip and looked about the cluttered kitchen. “She’s always wanted to be a chef. This doesn’t make any sense.”
“This is normal teenage behavior. It’s the perfect time to figure out what you want to do, where you want to learn. She’s not like us, Jules. She doesn’t have a ten-year plan. She has no responsibilities, no pressure. She gets to explore who she is and what she wants. Hell, she might shock us both and become a lawyer.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I know, but I keep wondering what will her big rebellion be. She’s such a great kid, there hasn’t been much. And then I think that maybe, my dad is looking down and hoping something of him shows up.”
Jules shuddered. “Or maybe he’s looking up and regretting his whole damned life.”
Ben took a slow breath. “He did the best he knew how to do, which I didn’t understand until you showed up.”
“He disowned a sixteen-year-old with a newborn baby. Pardon me if I don’t think fondly of the man who told my mother to leave me at the hospital.” She pulled open the fridge and grabbed the cream. This day called for a double shot, drowned in decadence.
“If this is where I’m supposed to defend him for that, I can’t. He wanted his life a certain way, and after my mom died, it never was again. He only knew how to throw money at problems he couldn’t deal with.”
“That’s no excuse.” The machine hissed and roared, steam billowing up. “His children were more adult than he was.”
“Well, we were raised better.” Ben sipped his espresso. “Mom would have loved you. You’re just like her, all determination and drive.”
Ben mentioned how much she was like her grandmother whenever he tried to be nice. Which was often after a screaming match. “Since we’re fighting anyway, I’m not going to cake anymore. I drew up a new baking plan and left it downstairs.”
“I’m going to have the bakery do it. I’m not as young as I was when I did everything myself.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” She wanted to throw things at him the way she had when she’d first been dragged kicking and screaming into this town. “The bakery puts cinnamon in their chocolate cake, their sponge is cardboard, and don’t get me started on freezing cheesecake.”
“Maybe they’ve gotten better. They have great cinnamon rolls and doughnuts.”
“Ben, you have to hire a pastry chef to come in and do the desserts. I don’t think anyone on your line wants to.”
“I hate hiring people.” He eyed his now empty cup.
“You hate firing people when they don’t work out.” Which she’d handled for the last few years. She liked the business side of the restaurant, especially when she found ways to increase profits. She’d been able to apply every business course she took to making the restaurant more successful.
“You should hire someone before you leave. You have a better track record with the front of the house staff.”
“Fine, but you’re handling desserts until I do.” Her mind whirled at the change in plans. She could stay longer if she wasn’t doing the cross-country road trip with Drea. But putting off the inevitable might make it harder to leave.
“Since we’re laying it all out there, I have a question. Are you fucking with Slade Weston, or is he fucking with you?”
Jules almost dropped her cup, but recovered quickly, like she always did. “What do you think?”
“I think I don’t want to be working with someone who’s messing with my kid.”
“I’m not your kid, remember?”
“You know what I mean. He’s a lot older than you.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t affect your relationship with Weston Ridge.” Especially once she left.
“I don’t care about that. I don’t like some guy who’s let the whole town know he’s looking for a wife hooking up with my kid on the side. I thought he was better than that.”
She held up a hand. “There’s no on the side. It’s just me, and it was my idea. It’s just fun until I leave. No harm, no foul.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Well, neither does he, so…” As much as she and Ben butted heads, he still tried to guide her way. For a long time she’d fought him on it. Though this bout hadn’t escalated the way their arguments usually did. And it wasn’t as if she had anyone else to talk to. “He asked me to stay.”
“Slade?”
“No, the president. Yes, Slade. I met his kids yesterday and his daughter…” How to explain what happened in that room with April. She couldn’t explain it. It had been like a magnetic pull.
“You’re twenty-three.”
“I’m aware.” Nope, Ben had not been the right one to open up to.
“And you want to go to New York and design. You can’t do that with two kids and a husband.”
“I know.” She put her cup in the sink and resisted the urge to wash all the damned dishes. How they lived like this, she’d never know.
“That’s why you’re so upset about Drea. Holy shit, Jules. You want to stay.”
“Whoa there, that is not what I said. He asked me to stay. I told him I have to go. I have to know if I can make it as a designer.”
“If that’s all you need, then I’ll tell you right now. You can. You can do anything you set your mind to. Whatever it is you want to do, you can make it happen.”
“You have to say that.” These dishes had to be dealt with, immediately. She pulled open the dishwasher and started puzzling the plates and bowls to fit in as many as possible. It was as if they let them pile up on purpose until she popped downstairs
and cleaned the place. Savages.
“No, I have to love you. That’s all. But it’s like me and the restaurant. I had the vision, I found the space, and I made it happen. You did that with the quilted tote bags business you sold last year, and now the dress-up aprons.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “You know, as great as you are at making dresses, you make your money on homemaker shit.”
“You need to learn to use a dishwasher. Every time I’m here, it’s empty and your sink is full.”
“It’s because we have a dishwasher downstairs. But back to you, do you want to stay?”
“I do not want to stay in Opal Creek.” Slade Weston and his kids were another matter entirely. She wanted him in her bed to play with at night and April and Gus to love on during the day, and where the fuck had that come from? Jules shook her head and scrubbed the black off a sauté pan.
“Okay. I get that.”
He really didn’t. Her brain was being torn in two, and her heart, well, thank goodness she didn’t have one of those. Ask anyone.
“You don’t have anything to prove, Jules. There isn’t anything you can’t figure out how to do. If you want something bad enough, the world just has to get out of your way. I can’t tell you how many people told me I couldn’t open my own restaurant at twenty-five, couldn’t make it successful, couldn’t raise two girls on my own. Most people couldn’t, but I could. Did. You will too. Whatever it is.”
“If you don’t want to do dishes, you ought to just use disposables.” Their plates were an atrocity. Didn’t they know to even rinse them off?
“Julianne, look at me.”
She held out a sheet pan and turned to face him. “Why the hell do y’all insist on broiling cheese toast and leaving the burned bits on the pan? Scrape them off while the pan is hot.”
“You’ll be an amazing mother. And not because you can bake and sew and clean dishes like a beast. You know what it’s like not to have one. And maybe in filling that space for a child, you’ll fill that space for you too.”
“Leave the psychology to the professionals.” She rolled her eyes and then turned before he could see the tears building. She didn’t know how to be a mother. She’d had a role model of what not to do, and she got upset with Drea rather than being understanding. April and Gus had already been through enough trauma in their short lives, they didn’t need her messing them up more.
“Sometimes I think about how your mom barely made it past thirty, and my mom didn’t see forty. Maybe we need to live a little more now and not in the future, you know?” Ben shook his head. “No matter what you decide, we should bring someone on to cake. Do you want me to post it on the website?”
“Stay away from the website.” The last time he’d tried to update the seasonal menu, he’d erased the whole damned thing.
“For someone with one foot out the door, you’re holding on awfully tight.”
“You know what, Benny boy?” She slammed the pan into his dirty sink, then grabbed a towel. “Maybe you ought to turn all this advice on yourself.”
“I’ve tried. You’ve run off every woman I’ve dated.”
“Please. If some twit is intimidated by me, they’d never make it with you and your ‘Yes chef!’ mentality. Unless that is your thing.” She held up her hands. “Nope, don’t want to know. I need to go bleach my brain now.”
“I feel the same way,” Ben yelled after her as she left.
She climbed the stairs to her own apartment. She needed some serious time with a wedding dress. The sooner she finished it, the sooner she could leave the temptation of Slade Weston, and all of Opal Creek, behind her.
…
Slade furrowed his brow as he drove to the house. A large SUV was parked in front of his garage, the Cattlemen’s logo emblazed on the side. His pulse jumped a little and he checked the rearview. Like always, Gus and April had fallen asleep on the drive home from church. Gus usually woke as soon as he killed the engine, but April would be down for at least an hour.
He put the truck in park as Ben O’Connor climbed out of his rig. He pulled the keys from the ignition and wondered if this was a conversation he wanted to have with his kids so close. They liked Jules, but he didn’t think they’d put together that he and Jules were together. He lowered all the windows, hoping they’d sleep right through whatever was about to go down.
He closed his door as quiet as he could, then walked around to where Ben stood. With his arms crossed and his jaw set, there was no question about why he was there.
“Hey, Ben. The kids are in the truck, so—”
“This won’t take long. I just have a favor to ask. Man to man.” Ben pushed a hand through his dark hair. “Father to father. Don’t play with her. She comes off ballsy, but it’s just armor.”
“I know that. I didn’t expect any of this to happen.” He glanced back at the truck.
“She’s twenty-three. I know she seems older, but that’s because she’s been through so much. I don’t think you realize what you’re asking her to give up.”
“No, I get it.” Did he ever. Here was this amazing woman with a future so bright it shone, and he wanted to anchor her to a place like Opal Creek. “What I don’t get is why you two are always fighting.”
Ben nodded. “It’s hard to parent someone who’s barely a decade younger than you. When my sister died, I didn’t have a clue about how to help her deal with that. She acted out, I got angry, and it became a pattern. Most of the time it’s because we’re too much alike. But don’t think that just because my relationship with Julianne isn’t perfect, that I won’t do everything I can to protect her.”
Julianne. He couldn’t help the grin. There were a million things he still had to learn about her. “I understand.”
“She’s confused right now. So I’m asking that you think hard about why you want her to stay. The whole town knows you need help with those kids. And I know summer is the busy season around here. So if you’re just playing with her to make the next few months easier on you, you need to back off.”
“It’s not about helping with the kids.” He’d had to explain the same thing to Ace yesterday. He’d gone to his older brother for advice, and to tell him that if Jules stayed, he wouldn’t be able to work as much as he usually did. They’d need to build their relationship, and this summer could make or break the whole thing.
“I know she’s a beautiful girl—”
“She’s also strong and smart and determined. And I wish I had more to offer her. She has these big dreams and—”
“Don’t be so sure you know what her dreams really are.” Ben held out his hand.
Slade shook it, the grip firmer than usual.
“I’ve always thought you were a stand-up guy, Slade. Don’t prove me wrong.”
As Ben climbed in his SUV and drove away, Slade hoped for the same thing. He started toward his truck, both kids still snoozing in their car seats. They had no idea how much was riding on the decision of the woman who could turn all their lives around.
…
Ace Weston waited at the hostess station, staring at her as Jules made her way across the dining room. No matter what Slade thought, the Westons dictated much of what happened in Opal Creek. Ace usually came in during the afternoon to meet with Ben, but she could tell from his grim demeanor this was not a business visit. Even her normally friendly staff gave him a wide berth.
He hadn’t bothered to take off his black hat, which was always a point of annoyance with her. Why cowboys didn’t leave the ugly things in their dirty trucks she’d never know. She put on a smile like a shield as she took him in. He was handsome, but in an edgy way so different from Slade, it was hard to imagine them as brothers.
He looked her up and down, but differently than most men did. Instead of a gleam of appreciation in his gaze, she only saw disappointment. Which didn’t matter. She’d been judged by too many people to start caring now.
“Is there something I can help you with?” She wouldn’t give him the edge by cal
ling him Mr. Weston. She didn’t know why he was here, but from his annoyed glance it wasn’t good.
“We need to talk.”
If she were anywhere else, she would have told him they had nothing to talk about and turned on her stiletto heel. But bitchy didn’t play well when you had employees watching, even if it was exactly what he deserved. Instead, she gave him a nod and led him to the empty booth in the back corner. The same booth she’d sat in with Slade when her world started to tilt.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked automatically.
“No, we won’t be long.” He slid into the booth, so she did the same. “You’re seeing my brother.”
She didn’t give him a response. Best to wait and find out what he was after.
“Slade is in a difficult place. A place that would be easy to take advantage of. I don’t mean any disrespect, but you are the wrong girl at the right time.”
Her pulse kicked up. Not because he was wrong, but because he echoed her biggest fear about Slade’s feelings for her.
Ace leaned across the table. He didn’t have Slade’s warm brown eyes. His were much darker. “How much would it take?”
“Take?”
“For you to leave Slade alone. I’m sure you look at him, and Weston Ridge, and see money.”
Jules pulled in a tight breath, her heart thundering, her skin prickling with sweat. She wanted to rip that black hat off his head and beat him with it. She closed her eyes for a moment and drew upon a composure she didn’t know she had.
She spread her fingers along the tablecloth, pressing down to keep her hands from shaking. “I’m going to do you a favor, Ace. A really big one, and whether we know each other for days or decades, you best never ask me for another.”
“I don’t need any favors.”
“Oh, you do. I’m going to forget you even came in here tonight. I’m not going to tell Slade how you just disrespected me, or him. Because the only thing that would come of him knowing about this conversation is him being hurt and I won’t be the cause of that.”