by Em Petrova
He arched a brow. “Guess that’s what good partners do.”
She dropped her hand from his arm. Partners? What did he mean? They were rivals. She started to tell him this, but he turned and walked to his own side of the road, leaving her to stand there with far more questions than she could formulate into words.
Partners were friends. They worked together toward a common goal.
She shook her head. She and Dom were the opposite. Well, they did work toward the same goal in business, but for personal ends. She didn’t come up with ideas about new sign logos to improve his business, and he didn’t think up good ideas like having live entertainment to bring customers to hers.
Yet, in an odd way, they were pushing each other, weren’t they? Maybe that was what he meant by partners.
As she slowly began walking to her restaurant, she thought about how they had been partners in doing what was best for his grandpa too—they’d bonded in that common goal to make him happy.
She suddenly wanted to spend time with his grandpa. Today would be the day to spend time with the elderly man and focus on someone besides herself.
After sales slowed for the evening, she packaged some food into a bag and took off for Crossroads Manor. Coming here since she quit gave her a pang of nostalgia, especially when all the nurses and other workers piled out of rooms and offices in order to greet her.
She hugged some of her old friends and stood talking to several others before she finally made her way to Grandpa Cole’s room. When she saw his name, she grinned and rapped on the door.
“Who’s that?” he growled out.
She pressed the door open and poked her head inside. “It’s me, Jada. Do you want some company?”
His grumpy expression fell away, and he waved her in. She approached his armchair and leaned over the man to give him a hug. “How are you?”
“Fine. Better now. I smell food.”
She laughed and brought the bag out from behind her back. She set it on his lap and then sank to the other chair. “You sure do smell food. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Always hungry. You know what they feed us in this place.”
She compressed her lips to keep from smiling. “I hope you like brisket.”
“I do. Is this from my grandson’s?”
Her spirits drooped a bit. Maybe she really should drop the brisket from her menu—if Savage’s was known for the brisket, then maybe she should stick with the chicken. But she was proud of her brisket’s complex flavors and thought it added something to her offerings.
“This is my brisket. Give it a try.” She watched as he opened the takeout lid and pulled off a bit of the meat with his fingers. He placed it in his mouth and chewed.
She watched him closely, and when he closed his eyes, she straightened in her seat. He popped open his eyes and pierced her in his stare. “That’s darn good, girl. Darn good.” He forked up another bite.
She beamed. “Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”
“Have you been seeing my grandson?”
Each time she visited, his grandpa asked about the status of their relationship. It was one of those facts she wished he didn’t remember with such clarity. Last time, he got her talking openly about her family’s visit and how Dom had come up as a topic during dinner.
She tread lightly. “I saw Dom just today. Our mail got mixed up, and he delivered it to me.”
He gave her another piercing look. “Has he shaved?”
She blinked in surprise. “Um…not that I noticed. Why? Did you tell him to?”
He shook his head as if his grandson’s hygiene habits were disappointing. “Yes, I did. Can’t even shave,” he mumbled and took another bite of his brisket.
She sat with him talking about some of her employees and their regular customers who he might know while he polished off his meal.
“Did you bring me peach pie?” he asked.
“No, I brought pecan.”
“Mmm-mm.” He rubbed his stomach.
She took away his empty food container so he could cradle the pie one. She heard one of the nurses speaking in the corridor. “He’s doing just fine today!”
Jada went on high alert. She remembered that singsong, overexcited tone very well as one the nurse adopted when Dom came around.
She barely had time to think about that, when the door opened, and the man peeked in.
His smiling face gave her heart a heavy throb, and then his gaze fell on her.
He entered the room. “Jada. I didn’t know you were here.”
She got to her feet. “I was just visiting with your grandpa. But I’ll go.” She saw the bag of food in his hand. “Oh. I already brought him food. Sorry.”
“He can eat it for lunch tomorrow. Can’t ya, Grandpa?”
The man looked at Dom and went back to his pie as if neither of them were there.
Jada found herself holding back a chuckle, but Dom didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “I see how I rate against Jada’s pie. Can’t say I blame ya.” He leaned against the wall across from where she sat, giving her a good view of his strong legs and the way he filled out his shirt just right.
She stole a glance at him, keeping her lashes lowered so he didn’t notice. But she glanced up once to find his heavy stare weighted on her, and he didn’t bother trying to hide it.
Finally, Grandpa sat back in his seat, his pie finished. He looked between them. “When is your wedding date again?” he asked.
She jolted, and Dom drew away from the wall. Their stares locked, and she felt a frantic need to set the older man straight.
“Uh… We…”
Dom came to her rescue but didn’t look away from her face. “Not as soon as you’re thinking, Grandpa.”
“What are you waiting for?” He peered closer at Dom. “You didn’t shave yet. That’s the problem.”
Dom’s complexion reddened to a ruddy blush beneath his tan. Whatever the man meant by shaving, Dom understood.
Grandpa stood and in his regular spry manner, walked to the door.
“Where are ya going?” Dom called out, but the man sailed out the door, leaving Jada and Dom to stare at each other.
“Okay, that was weird. Maybe I better go after him.” Jada stood and gathered the empty food containers and carried them to the wastebasket. When she started toward the door, Dom reached out and caught her by the elbow.
She froze. A tickle of awareness started deep in her core. Slowly, she pivoted her head to meet his stare.
He stood so close that she sucked in a breath.
His throat worked on a long swallow. “Jada.” He slid his fingers up her arm, clamping on her skin and then pulling her around to face him fully.
“Dom.” Her insides shook, and with supreme effort, she managed to swallow around a dry lump. He leaned in, hovering, filling her head with his masculine scent that smelled like he’d frolicked in a grassy field all day even though he hadn’t stepped foot out of his restaurant, as far as she knew.
“How is it that you smell like…” she pulled in a deep breath, “hay?”
“Dunno. How is it that I never stop wanting to kiss you?”
Her breaths halted the flow through her lungs, and she started to wonder when he would do just that, when applause broke out from the doorway.
Dom looked up. Jada jerked away. They turned as one toward the commotion of what appeared to be Grandpa and a posse of his friends. Six other old folks gathered there, clapping for no apparent reason.
“What is this, Grandpa?” Dom asked.
“I brought my friends by to help us celebrate your engagement! It isn’t every day that my grandson finds the love of his life.” The older man beamed at Jada and Dom, his face wreathed in so many creases of joy that Jada didn’t have the heart to try to set him straight.
“Lester, start the music.” Grandpa gestured to a man who seemed to shrink in size by the day, being a good inch shorter and more stooped than when Jada had last seen him. Lester pulled a ukulele out from behind his
back and grinned as he began to serenade her and Dom with a song.
She threw Dom a look, and he returned her shocked expression but stepped up next to her. He placed his hand on her lower back and whispered into her ear, “Just roll with it. It will make them happy.”
It was true. Each of Grandpa’s friends wore big smiles. Two of the women came forward with arms outstretched to give them congratulatory hugs, and Grandpa tapped his foot in time to the old folk tune.
“Let’s see that ring,” one of the ladies demanded, crowding closer to Jada.
“Um…I’m not wearing it. It’s getting…resized.” She threw Dom a terrorized look.
His warm fingers lingered on her spine, spreading heat through her into places that she didn’t want to acknowledge while Grandpa and his friends looked on.
“Oh, well, next time you’ll show it to me.” The woman bobbed her head and stepped back a few paces.
Two more people appeared in the doorway. “What are we celebrating?” one asked.
“Oooh, a party. I’ll grab some snacks from my room.” The other disappeared and rushed back faster than Jada could even imagine possible with some unopened bags of potato chips and cookies.
The shift nurse peeked into the room. “Oh! Is this an engagement party?” she cried out.
Oh God. Once this woman started spreading rumors, the entirety of Crossroads Manor would believe they were engaged, and then it was only a matter of time before all of Crossroads did too.
She inwardly groaned but something about Dom’s warm, solid presence at her side, and his hand on her, kept her upright. She could set them all straight by raising her voice over their excited mumblings and the ukulele music. But seeing all those disappointed faces was not an option.
“Congratulations, guys!” A nurse that Jada hadn’t seen since she stopped working here ran up and threw her arms around her and then Dom. “I’m not surprised! I knew you’d end up together. We were all rooting for you.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Jada didn’t know what else to say. She felt like a total loser for allowing this farce to continue, but by now Irene and Hal had broken open the chips and someone found some dip, so the party was in full swing.
People shoved furniture up against walls, making more space in the room. Jada felt herself being nudged, and then Dom swept her up into his arms. To an old Elvis Presley love song on the ukulele, Dom swayed her back and forth in an engagement party dance.
“This is insane.” She stole a look at Dom.
“Yup.” The corner of his lips tipped in that sexy way that sucked her in from the first time she ever set eyes on him. She allowed him to shuffle her to and fro on the smallest of all dance floors crowded with elderly patients also swaying with canes, and one lady had her walker parked in the middle of the floor and was bobbing up and down on her arthritic knees.
“How do we tell them?” she whispered to Dom.
He simply shrugged as if letting the whole town believe they were to be married was no big deal.
“You’re going to make beautiful babies!” an old lady called out across the room.
“What? This is going too far!” Jada started to break away from Dom, but he held her, reining her closer so her cheek pressed against his chiseled pec.
“Just go with it, sweetheart. We’ll figure it out in the morning. This is the most fun these people have experienced in a long time.”
She looked around at the smiles she never saw down in the rec room on bingo night. Her heart settled. “You’re right. I can’t break it up.”
“No, you can’t.” He gave her one final twirl to the strains of the Elvis tune and applause broke out as they stepped apart.
After that, Dom was scooped up by an older lady eager for a dance, and Jada stood eating a handful of barbecue chips on a paper napkin. People came and went. New ones arrived. Pretty soon, an hour had passed at the impromptu party, and then visiting hours were called to a close.
A nurse came by to shoo patients back to their rooms, immediately freeing up a lot of space. Jada looked over to find Grandpa settled in his armchair, grinning.
She met his eyes, and something about the twinkle there made her question whether he was really having a lucid moment and had hoodwinked her and Dom into going along with his crazy celebration.
She dipped her head and looked closer, but he only smiled at her. Her heart exploded with affection for the man. Even if he’d pulled one over on them, they all had a pretty fun evening.
While Dom moved furniture back into place, Jada walked over to Grandpa and gave him a hug. “Thanks for the great party.”
He patted her shoulder. “Thank you too. Both of you.” He swung his gaze between her and Dom.
Suddenly, she felt the reason for the party weighing on her. Pretending to be engaged to Dom had tricked even her for a few minutes, but now reality set in.
They were still adversaries, just living their separate lives with a prime route running through Crossroads separating them. But were they really so at odds?
She watched him hug Grandpa goodbye and ask if he needed anything before they left. When he declared that he would sleep like a baby tonight, Dom gave Jada a pointed nod.
She followed him out of the room, through the corridor and past the nurse’s desk. Walking out this way with Dom at her side reminded her of countless other times they’d done the same. Back when things were easier…simpler.
He opened the door for her, and she passed by him, inhaling his scent that never fully seemed to leave her nostrils. The evening closed in around them, a bright quarter moon hanging in the sky and crickets chirping in the grasses.
They strolled down the sidewalk leading to the parking area, and then she saw their trucks parked side by side. Like they belonged that way. An old pair of friends.
She turned to him suddenly. He stopped and faced her.
“We are friends, aren’t we?” she asked.
If her question surprised him, he didn’t let on. He nodded, and then they continued to their vehicles. Before she headed to her driver’s door, he reached out and closed his hand around her elbow the same way he had back in the room.
This time she knew he’d kiss her. And she’d let him. Because while her mind couldn’t figure out what to do about the cowboy, her heart sure did.
His eyes burned through the night, and her heart gave a hitch as he leaned close and brushed the softest kiss across her lips. She kept her eyes closed, just savoring the moment and listening to the crickets.
“We’re friends. That’s most important, ain’t it, Jada?” His voice pitched low and rough.
She opened her eyes and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Try to remember that next time I make you mad about your sign or some other thing regarding our businesses.”
She gave him a faint smile. “You remember it too. Ya hear?” With that, she opened her truck door and got inside. Then she watched him walk to his own vehicle, noting how his smile never left his face.
Chapter Eight
Dominick settled himself in the saddle and looked out over the horse’s head. Damn, he missed this—the fresh air and sunshine. There was something to be said for owning his own business, yet another for putting in a hard day’s work with his hands.
When Cort asked if he could spare another morning to help on the Bellamy, he’d jumped at the chance to be outdoors and out of his kitchen for a day. Grandpa would tell him it was all about balance, and lately he’d learned that the hard way.
“Been a while since you’ve worked with us, man. Think you can keep up?” His friend and a Bellamy ranch hand, Theo, called out to him.
“Was just askin’ myself the same thing. This week I spent so many hours manning the smoker and spit at Savage’s Barbecue that I’m pretty sure my back’s bowed.” He reached around to grab his back in the center where it ached.
Theo chuckled and guided his horse up alongside Dom’s. “Your band night went over pretty dang well.”
H
e bobbed his head. “It did. The Georgia Peaches killed it, and I earned more in that one night, even after paying their fee, than I have in two weeks put together.” Unfortunately, it still wasn’t much. After he paid the employees, invoices and all the other overhead, he didn’t earn much at all.
“Good to hear. Think you’ll do it again?”
“Yup. Already booked them for next quarter, and I’m looking at an acoustic group that tours out of Nashville.”
“Crushin’ it.” Theo shot him a grin.
“I’m glad to be away from the place today. You said Sherman and Cort are at an auction?”
“Yeah. Kaoz is away too, and that really left us shorthanded. Thought since you know the place the same as I do, you’d be the best man for the job.”
Dom gazed over the field dotted with cattle and experienced that swell of peace inside his chest that very few things in life ever gave him. One was being on the back of a horse and the other was looking into Jada’s eyes.
He pondered this a while as he and Theo rode in silence. Once they reached the pasture with the herd they needed to tend to, he experienced a sharp pang knowing that he’d messed things up so bad with Jada. Hadn’t he?
Theo twitched his head toward a group of cows gathered around the waterer. “Check that waterer first and make sure it’s in working order.”
“Will do.” He trotted toward the corner of the pasture. Cows scattered, and he moved in closer. He dismounted to examine the equipment and saw water freely flowed. He swung into the saddle again.
Theo was circling the herd, checking for illness or infirmities, and Dom joined him. Then he spotted the heifer with blood flowing down the back of her leg. Sticking his fingers in his mouth, he issued a shrill whistle that brought Theo’s head up.
Dom gestured to the cow and reached for his rope to separate her from the herd. As he whirled the rope and landed the lasso, Theo dismounted to help immobilize it. Other cows skittered away.
Theo took the rope from him. “Easy now. What happened, girl?” He ducked to examine the injury.
“Cut on a fence or something,” Dom said.
“Could be, but where?” He scanned the fence line that all appeared to be intact.