Falling for You

by Travis, Stacy

  I hoped he was right. It would help if I could put a face to the competition though, so I’d know whose ass to kick.

  * * *

  I stopped for chicken tacos at a food truck on the way back to my car, thinking some more about what was looking less like healthy competition and more like an attack.

  It made sense that if I’d had success, someone was going to come along to challenge my spot in the food chain, but it seemed so sudden and so thorough.

  Then again, there were other bakeries all over the Bay Area. Who was to say they hadn’t been undercut as well? I only had my own perspective and experience. Maybe it wasn’t personal.

  When the food truck owner handed me the small paper dish with my twin tacos, I took the opportunity to check out her setup through the window. The kitchen in that roving restaurant was impressive.

  “Is this your business?” I asked.

  “All mine. Try not to fall in a faint at the glory,” she said, spreading her arms wide and coming to lean on the shelf between us. I smiled at her and sized her up as being about my age, maybe a little older.

  She had her brown hair piled on top of her head and she wore a bright cotton scarf wrapped around her neck, reminding me of Cherry’s sense of style. I loved that she took the time for accessories even though she was working the grill inside a taco truck all day.

  “I love it. Nothing better than a portable business, right?”

  She nodded. “Truth. If I get tired of one location or the people don’t treat me right, I just re-permit and park somewhere new.”

  “Cheers to that.” I raised my taco in a toast and she lifted a plastic water bottle.

  “Enjoy the food. And if you’re still hungry, try the tofu with mole. I do a decent vegan business but I’m still experimenting so you can have it on the house.”

  Taking a bite of a taco, I hummed my approval as the tender chicken juices dribbled down my chin. “You make a good taco,” I said through my mouthful of food. It was really delicious and I found it hard to believe she could make food that good in the back of a truck.

  She gave me a little salute and nodded to a customer who’d walked up behind me. I scooted out of the way and finally checked my texts.

  There were a couple from Tom demanding that I call him. I deleted those. When I saw a few from Owen, my ridiculous heart swelled with happiness.

  The first one was a photo of bright green grape vines taken up close against an azure sky dotted with puffs of clouds that looked like popcorn. He’d typed, “Stop and smell the rosé.”

  There was a second photo of him hugging a shaggy golden retriever in a vineyard that seemed to go on for miles. That one was captioned “Everything happens for a Riesling.”

  I typed him a text.

  Me: Looks gorgeous there. And you are very punny.

  The dots started jumping on my phone immediately and it made my pulse race.

  Owen: I’m just one glass of wine away from typing really inappropriate things to you.

  Me: Really? Day drinking? I thought you had meetings.

  Owen: Kidding. No drinking. But not kidding about typing inappropriate things. I make ‘pour decisions’ when I’m not with you.

  This was escalating fast. I had to be the adult in the room or we’d be sexting by dinner.

  Me: Are you sure you’re not drunk?

  Owen: Positive. How are you? Are you facing down the corporate raiders?

  Me: Ugh, not really. Bread company is coming for me like the devil. Wtf, did I murder puppies in a prior life? Karma hates me right now.

  He didn’t respond right away and I second-guessed telling him real stuff via text. Maybe he just wanted to play. Well, too bad, because this was my life. If he wanted to be a part of it, he’d have to deal.

  The bubbles were back. He was typing.

  Owen: Fuckers. You and me, Sunday, we’re working on your business plan. Being up here has given me some new ideas that might work for you too.

  I didn’t know what he had planned or whether he knew enough about my business to be helpful, but seeing those words gave me hope, and I needed hope.

  Me: You’ve got yourself a date.

  Owen: Not gonna dissect that one. I’m just going to interpret it how I want. I’m looking forward to our date.

  Me: Me too.

  Owen: And to be clear, if I wasn’t stuck up here for meetings, I’d be there in a prosecco.

  Me: Where are you getting these?

  Owen: Maybe I am drunk. That, or I’m at a novelty T-shirt shop.

  Me: I like you either way.

  Owen: Aw, Isla, that makes me happy to hear. And just so you know, the feeling’s mutual.

  That made me laugh. He was good at that—making me laugh or smile more than most people. I couldn’t control the flood of warmth in my chest or the dumb grin on my face.

  What am I doing?

  With Tom bugging me with messages and this new threat from Flour Artisan, whoever that was, I was in no place where I should be texting cute guys and thinking about them around the clock. I’d just gotten out of a relationship two days ago, for crying out loud.

  I reaffirmed my commitment to keep Owen firmly in the friend zone so he didn’t get the wrong idea. No late-night kissing that would leave me tired and ill-equipped to save my business before it was too far gone to save.

  He’d understand. We could look at business plans and have coffee like normal friends. We’d already talked about how the other night was just a rebound thing.

  It didn’t feel great to think about pushing him away, but I was a big girl—I could make difficult choices and stick to them. We were friends and with a little effort, I could discourage the flirting and put myself back on solid ground so I could focus.

  With that decided, I did the only thing I could at that point and went back for a tofu mole taco. I insisted on paying for it—from one small business owner to another.

  Chapter 13

  Owen

  Isla was right that no normal people get up at five on a Sunday morning, and that included me. But that was before I knew she’d be working early and before I’d waited two days to see her again.

  After trying not to admit that I’d pretty much spent whatever hours I wasn’t working on Friday and Saturday thinking about Isla, I gave up on lying to myself.

  For the past year, I harbored what seemed like a harmless crush that kept bringing me back day after day. I figured eventually it would pass when some other woman grabbed my attention or I found a bakery closer to work. Now I didn’t see either of those things happening.

  After one night, a landscape in Healdsburg that normally took my breath away had looked like a sorry backdrop. All I could think about was how much prettier the royal blue sky and sun dappled acres of vineyards would be if she was standing in front of them.

  I couldn’t get her out of my head. I wanted to make her smile.

  In an effort to do that, I’d bought her a multicolored pile of T-shirts with wine-related sayings, some of which I’d borrowed for my texts to her. Late last night, I placed them in a neat stack by the back door where I knew she’d see them first thing this morning. I’d say that I did it without thinking because I’m the kind of guy who acts first and apologizes later.

  But I am not.

  I think. And sometimes overthink. It’s a supposed character flaw that has saved my hide in business more than once, so eventually I decided that overthinking was not a flaw at all.

  Case in point, the boutique hotel I’m in the middle of opening. Initially, my investment group loved the idea of the hotel being an eco-friendly spa in Napa Valley where we could take advantage of wine tasting tours and seasonal traffic that made it an obvious vacation destination.

  I almost went with the plan. But while meeting with everyone on our Healdsburg staff, a few things occurred to me that I was currently sorting out while running on the treadmill at rooster hour.

  Yes, the weather in San Francisco made for some really nice outdoor jog
s. But I hated the hills. Hated them with the fervor of an angry rhino. Running uphill sucked, and running downhill just made me nervous because I was always pretty sure another uphill was just around the bend. In San Francisco, it usually was.

  In the case of the Napa hotel, something had been bothering me. It just didn’t feel like the right location for one of our hotels. Napa was great and it had the benefit of international name recognition—the wine region exported to restaurants everywhere in the world, so it wasn’t a reach for travelers to want to visit.

  Maybe that was the problem, I thought, as I cranked up the speed a little faster. I couldn’t hear the sound of my own breathing over the music blaring from my headphones, which gave me the mistaken idea that I wasn’t panting as loudly as I probably was.

  Ergo, I believed I was in better shape than I probably am. I’m not above a little illusion in the name of a workout.

  There were already several known boutique hotels owned by big hotel groups in Napa. I believed ours could compete with them, but why? The wine region spread far and wide from the Russian River Valley and Sonoma all the way to Healdsburg.

  There were great wineries that weren’t on the typical Napa tasting path and my new hotel could help boost them up and give us a way to distinguish ourselves.

  But that had been done too. Just trying to be different wasn’t enough. There was still something I was missing, and I cranked up the speed one more time to wake my brain up and get the neurons to fire.

  It was probably backward logic because the faster I went, the more oxygen and blood went to my heart and lungs and legs, leaving my brain shit out of luck, but somehow a lonely neuron did the heavy lifting anyway.

  The airport.

  Napa wasn’t particularly close to an airport and a lot of visitors flew into Oakland and drove an hour to the destination. I envisioned a map of the area I knew so well that it might as well have been tattooed on my brain.

  The Sonoma Airport, also known as the Charles Schultz Airport because the Snoopy cartoonist had lived in Santa Rosa for thirty years, was only a short car ride between Sonoma and the wine region I should be serving with a new hotel.

  No one should be wine tasting and driving. But people had their cars with them because they’d driven up from Oakland, and now they had to hop in an Uber or go wine tasting. There was too much transportation involved.

  I slowed the pace a little bit to allow my lungs to catch up to my thoughts and tried to figure out what angle I could take in Sonoma besides the obvious convenience of not having an airport commute. I had to figure out the wine tasting route that would make the hotel destination a slam dunk.

  That’s when I glanced at my lonely spin bike that had been sitting in a corner, waiting for me to get excited about riding it. I still wasn’t excited, but the bike gave me an idea.

  Most people probably wouldn’t want to ride thirty miles to taste wine, but if we offered electric bikes along with regular tasting tours by air-conditioned van, we could hit lots of different parts of the market and do something that wasn’t happening in Napa.

  Once I’d landed on a solution, the idea of building in Napa seemed so ludicrous I was almost embarrassed I’d considered it for so long.

  Score one for overthinking.

  The same logic could also probably help Isla as she tried to fend off her competition. I’d learned a few things about that as well, thanks to my lawyers and their computer skills, and I was eager to sit down with her.

  Yeah, sitting is definitely the goal.

  I showered and hoofed it two miles through the streets to her shop, where I saw Isla standing near the bakery case writing things on a clipboard. I knocked and she waved before coming over and unlocking the door.

  “Coffee’s made. I’ll grab you a cup,” she said like she always did. After bringing it back and depositing it on the table by the window with a carton of milk, she went back to whatever she was computing on the clipboard.

  I didn’t want to interrupt her if she was counting or calculating so I poured milk in my coffee and sipped it while she worked. There was nothing abnormal about the morning because I usually just sat and observed while she went about opening the bakery.

  But today, I wanted affirmation that she wanted me there, and I wasn’t getting it.

  In fact, the silence in the room started to feel aggressive.

  Yes, we’d had the just-friends discussion, and I’d done my best to ignore it and flirt with her shamelessly, but she had a lot going on, so maybe I needed to dial it back to small talk. I didn’t like it, but I had to respect it.

  “How’s your morning going?” I asked as I did every time I came to the bakery.

  “Not bad. Ovens are full, so that’s good. You?” she asked, not looking up from her clipboard. She worked her way from one end of the display case to the other, making more notes. Normally, at times like this we’d talk. I’d ask her about bread and she couldn’t tell me enough.

  “Tell me about the bread. You try the new flour this morning? You said you had a new blend.”

  Finally, she looked up. “Right. The maple rye blend. I tried it on Friday but the jury’s still out. I’m not sure it’s bad, but maybe I just can’t get used to it.”

  “If you need a second opinion, I’m here for you,” I said.

  That earned me a smile.

  “We didn’t save any of it from the Friday experiment but maybe I’ll make some today or tomorrow.”

  “Great. Happy to be your bread guinea pig.” Normally, it was fun to talk about things like maple rye grain. Now it felt like a giant bag of flour covering the elephant in the room. She was avoiding me and I hated it.

  “Thank you, sir.” I almost saw a glimmer of the more laid-back Isla I’d gotten a peek at on Wednesday before it disappeared.

  Then she went back to the kitchen and came back with two trays of lemon squares. Camille was responsible for baking the pastries, but Isla always set up the front cases herself. Not that it was crazy for her to do it—it was her place and she probably knew best how she liked everything to look.

  Still, having juggled multiple hotels for a while now, I knew it was impossible for an owner to retain that kind of control over every aspect.

  The effort and the hours became too grueling, and with no partners or executive managers to share the burden, it often led to burnout. I’d seen it firsthand, yet it wasn’t my place to tell her what to do. Especially if she wasn’t even going to talk to me.

  I caught her eye while she was arranging the pastries and smiled. She returned my smile, then ducked back down and worked.

  Drinking my coffee, I leafed through a newspaper from the shelf where they were available for customers.

  After thirty minutes, the cases had been filled and the front of the shop looked the way it always did when they opened their doors. I could tell without even looking at the time that it was nearly seven, and even on a Sunday that meant people would begin showing up in an endless stream. The cashier, Kim, arrived and started her morning ritual.

  Every so often, a baker would come out from the back with a tray full of loaves which Isla then lined up on the shelves along the back wall, where they never stayed for long once the place opened for business.

  At first, I only saw two bakers alternating bringing out the bread, but then a third appeared with baguettes and more of the oblong loaves.

  She had three bakers.

  Instead of being busier than usual, she should have had time to chat.

  Wow. She’d completely shut down. She was avoiding me, plain and simple, and even though she’d let me in the door, she might as well have slammed it in my face.

  “Isla,” I said the next time she appeared from the back.

  “Yes.”

  “You have a free moment, maybe?” I was asking in order to be polite, but I wasn’t asking. I tipped my head at the baker who’d brought another tray of bread out, and she immediately knew what I was insinuating.

  She wiped her hands on
the apron she was wearing and untied it at the back before pulling it over her head and hanging it on a hook by the door to the kitchen.

  She was wearing the pink ‘It’s wine o’clock somewhere’ shirt I’d left her.

  She hadn’t shoved it on over whatever she was wearing before. She’d changed into it and knotted it at the back because it was a size large. It didn’t fit and she wore it anyway, which gave me a tiny shred of hope.

  “Nice shirt,” I said. I couldn’t help the smirk.

  “Thanks. Someone I like a lot gave it to me.” She gave me the benefit of a smile.

  I nodded. “Pink is your color.” She blushed and turned away, checking the bakery cases once more. They were perfect.

  “I’m on a break for a bit. I’ve got my cell if there’s a catastrophe,” she told Kim, who had one long braid that hung down her back and she always wore blue eye shadow, no matter what color clothes she had on.

  Isla gestured to me to follow her out the door, but not before she grabbed a to-go cup for my coffee and carefully poured it and added milk before handing it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Can’t shortchange you on your coffee, can I?”

  “Well, considering I never pay for it and you own the place, you can do pretty much whatever you want.”

  She smirked and pulled the door closed as we moved out to the sidewalk. The warmth of the bakery made the morning chill outside that much more noticeable, and Isla was only wearing the T-shirt.

  “You’re gonna freeze. Do you have a jacket?” I asked.

  “I don’t think we’ll be that long. I can handle it.”

  Oh. Okay.

  So this was not going to go my way. This was where she’d tell me the other night had been a mistake and I should forget it ever happened. I didn’t know if I had much of an argument to the contrary, but I felt like I should at least have the option of a rebuttal, so I quickly thought of a list of reasons why she shouldn’t send me packing.

  “Here’s the thing, Owen. I don’t want anything to be awkward, and I have a business to run.” She looked me dead in the eye and there was none of the mischief or fondness I saw the other night. There wasn’t even the normal friendliness.