by Ward, Alice
I furrowed my brow in confusion, watching him exit the car. Maybe he intended just to pick up an order from The Galley for us to take somewhere conducive to looking over important papers. As he rounded to my side, however, I chastised my constant suspicions about his intentions, for tainting me into assuming the worst and overlooking the simpler things. All he was doing was opening my door for me.
I slid out of the passenger seat as gracefully as I could and waited while he locked up. His hand found the small of my back when he was finished.
“After you, darlin’.”
If this was a date, it was off to a great start.
CHAPTER TEN
Cash
Like everything else in this town, the restaurant was quaint and rustic. Old-fashioned kitchen wares were hung on the walls, which were painted a soothing hue of cobalt, and the tables and chairs throughout were mismatched. The building had clearly been converted from a home to a restaurant, and the entire dining area didn’t have enough space for more than twenty people, but the coziness wasn’t claustrophobic like I would have expected. All in all, it felt like the right kind of place to take Gretchen in the interest of my new plan.
I was more determined than ever to successfully acquire her property after reminiscing about my father and the phone call with Harlan. Stopping by Auras on a daily basis for the last week, each time with a small gift of sorts, had only been the first piece to the puzzle.
I’d taken stock of every tactic used thus far and decided to develop a proper friendship with her. After all, monetary offers hadn’t worked. The pressure Pennington’s had been putting on her for months hadn’t worked. Even my coming to Fawn and dropping in on her so often it probably bordered on harassment hadn’t worked. Maybe a real friendship between us would.
I was interested in getting to know her better for reasons beyond Pennington’s, so it wasn’t an entirely manipulative move on my part, but I figured an amicable relationship between us would come to benefit us both. I’d be able to return to Oklahoma with my first major success as CEO, and I’d make certain she had everything she wanted and needed to continue her business and day-to-day life. It was a win-win.
It had to be.
A neat little chalkboard sign at the entrance told us to seat ourselves in chalked cursive, so I motioned for Gretchen to choose whatever table she wished. She selected one at the back by a broad bay window overlooking an emerald lawn adorned in an array of metal art and bird feeders. I was beginning to understand why she loved the town so much. It had the kind of charm every country singer sang about, though it was difficult to imagine that same charm when the sky turned gray and snow piled up.
“Hey there, Gretchen!” A slender man with lines around his eyes and a wide mouth strolled over to us before we’d even scooted our chairs in. “Been a long time!”
“Hi, Joe.” She smiled the kind of smile I never received when I appeared, and an unexpected stroke of jealousy blitzed through me.
“How’s business? Seems like you’re the only one left with your doors open.”
She turned her mossy eyes onto me as she responded. “I am. Actually, Joe, this is Cash Pennington. He’s the man responsible for the Market Street shutdown.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, and her lips twitched almost imperceptibly. Joe’s attention was on me now. Judging by the singsong way she’d delivered the introduction, I assumed I was about to endure an onslaught of insults, and I braced myself.
One thing my father had successfully drilled into me was the importance of remaining cool, calm, and collected in the face of opposition because composure provided an automatic professional advantage. Unfortunately, while that tidbit of information had stuck with me all these years, I still struggled to act accordingly. A quick temper was one of my many faults.
To my surprise, however, Joe didn’t seem at all displeased by my presence in his restaurant. His eyes widened slightly, and he glanced between Gretchen and me a couple times, but his smile didn’t dissipate. “Well, how’s that for a twist in the hose!” I had to stifle a laugh. Oklahomans were known for our unique brand of idioms and phrasing, but this one went a step above. Joe clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Good to meet you, sir. I’m Joe Fletcher.”
“Fletcher?” The name snagged something in my brain. “Are you related to the guy who used to live in the Frog Hotel?”
Gretchen covered her mouth with her hand to muffle a chirping giggle. “He means Bullfrog Bay, Joe.”
“I sure am!” Joe puffed out his skinny chest with pride. “Norman P. Fletcher was my great-great-grandpop!”
The idea of returning to my “suite” later suddenly felt intrusive. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I’d been sleeping in Joe’s bed, working at Joe’s desk, bathing in Joe’s shower. To be polite, however, I smiled and held out a hand for him to shake. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. You wouldn’t happen to have any beer back there, would you?” I couldn’t imagine the quiet little restaurant serving anything more potent than homemade lemonade.
“Oh, sure, I got a couple domestics and an import. Want me to check what kinds they are?”
“No, that’s fine. I’ll take the import.” I looked across the table at Gretchen. “One for you too?”
She wrinkled her nose, and my cock hardened at the adorableness of the sight. Joe answered for her. “No, sir, Gretchen doesn’t drink.” He grinned at her. “Lemonade?”
Ah, so they were the lemonade kind of place I thought they were.
She opened her mouth to reply but closed it before anything came out. A strange glint flashed in her eyes. I found it eerily arousing, though I couldn’t put my finger on why. When she answered him, her voice was slightly higher than usual, and she’d injected a firmness into it. “Actually, I’ll have a glass of wine. White.”
Joe’s eyebrows shot up toward his receding hairline, but he disappeared to retrieve the requested beverages. I watched her sit back in her chair, looking rather proud of herself.
“So, you don’t drink, huh?” I was only partially poking fun at her for having ordered alcohol after the announcement of her sober status. The other part of me was very curious to learn why Joe had said that.
“Not really. I mean, Joe wasn’t wrong. It’s something I do very rarely.” She ran delicate fingers through her untamed coppery hair. “My dad is an alcoholic. He’s been in recovery for about ten years now, but there were some pretty dark days when I was a kid because of booze. A lot of times, children grow up to follow the same pattern as their parents, but I made a conscious decision early on to mind what I drink. Once I turned twenty-one, I discovered it was just easier to abstain. This will be the first drink I’ve had since my brother’s divorce.”
I smirked. “You celebrated your brother’s divorce? You must have really hated his wife.”
“They had a party.” She laughed. “And Elena is my best friend. She and Greg have the most love-hate relationship I’ve ever seen, and that includes TV. It just so happened they were in the love stage when the divorce was finalized.” Her laugh melted into a pleasant smile, which I couldn’t resist returning. “You’ve met her. Elena, that is.”
I stared blankly at her. “Is she that quiet employee of yours?”
“No, she’s a housekeeper at Bullfrog Bay. She told me you helped her with a vacuum.”
The memory flooded back to me, and I nodded. “Yeah, I remember her. I wouldn’t say I met her, though. We barely spoke.”
Joe reappeared with a bottle of doppelbock in one hand and an already-poured glass of white wine in the other. He placed them on the table in front of us, then stepped back. “I don’t know if you’d be willing to help me out here, but I want to add a new dish to the menu before next season starts.” He was addressing Gretchen more than me, which was an unusual experience, but I didn’t take offense. Their acquaintance made it only natural. “Gulf shrimp and goat cheese grits. Would you both be willing to have that tonight and give me your thoughts?”
“That sounds g
reat,” Gretchen agreed eagerly, which surprised me. Apparently, seafood was on her list of approved foods.
Joe looked at me. I never would have said it aloud for fear of being rude, but the idea of ordering grits in Michigan was as laughable as ordering vegetarian barbecue in the south. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to be difficult, so I conceded. “I’ll be glad to be your guinea pig, Joe.”
He looked giddy enough to bounce on his toes and clap his hands together. Thankfully, he didn’t. “I’m excited to get the opinion of a true southerner.” With that, he trotted out of sight into what I presumed was the kitchen.
Gretchen was watching me. She leaned forward when he was out of earshot, though she still spoke more softly than normal. “That was nice of you.”
“What was?”
“Being a good sport.” She was smiling, but her eyes were serious. “You think there’s no way he can make good grits, but you said yes anyway. It was nice.”
I rested my forearms on the table to subtly draw nearer to her. The scent of floral perfume stroked my senses. “How do you know what I think?”
She shrugged with the casualness of someone being asked why it’s raining. “I just do.”
That should’ve scared me. The image of the witch she’d mutated into in my dream popped into my head, and I should have been disturbed that she somehow had a window into my mind, but I wasn’t. If anything, I was more drawn to her than ever.
The only person on the face of the earth who ever knew me well enough to read my thoughts was Drew, and his insight was limited mostly to stupid jokes and boyhood memories. It was as if an invisible rope of silk had been strung between us, linking us together, and she was able to channel me through it. We didn’t really know each other — yet — but she somehow knew me.
Incredible.
My emotional taste buds were tantalized, and I craved more. I wanted to read her like she could read me, if only to leave her as flabbergasted for a moment as I was. The only logical place to start was the one thing we had in common: the desire to have her property.
“So, tell me, Gretchen.” I settled back against my chair and propped an ankle over a knee. “I know you don’t want to sell me your store, but I want to know why. Is it me, specifically? Or Pennington’s? Would you sell it if someone else came along with different intentions for the place?”
Her verdant orbs flicked back and forth between my dark ones, and I saw the wheels turning behind her stare. She ran her fingers through her hair again, this time from the top of her scalp all the way to the ends. The bangles on her wrist clinked merrily. I’d grown accustomed to them, and I’d started regarding them as the instruments to our personal soundtrack.
Finally, she sucked in a breath and offered an answer. “You know, I don’t like corporate business. I hate that your company puts no value on quality goods and customer satisfaction, and I despise how you and other companies like you treat your employees like dirt because you can get away with it. But, if I’m honest, I don’t think I’d sell even if the buyer was just as dedicated to an ethical, meaningful business as I am.”
I wanted to argue with her accusations about Pennington’s, but I was reluctant to interrupt her and change the flow of our conversation. Her eyes had a faraway look in them as she talked, and I felt like she was opening up to me. I didn’t want to jeopardize that with defensive claims.
“This is probably in your file on me somewhere…” she said with a hint of sarcasm, which garnered a cheeky grin from me, “but Auras wasn’t always Auras. Before Madam Adam bought it, it was a bakery owned and run by my grandmother. I spent a lot of time there, helping her make cookies and drawing signs for the daily special that she’d hang up in the window. She used to let me help her ring up customers too, and they’d always give me a dollar or two as a tip. It was one of my favorite places in the whole wide world.”
I saw a little girl with wild waves of strawberry blonde hair in the back of my mind, standing on a chair behind a glass case full of cakes and announcing totals in a cherubic voice. Children had never been a soft spot of mine, but my heart melted a bit at the imagery.
“My family lived in the upstairs apartment for a while when it was Gram’s bakery too. It’s a small space, and it felt even smaller with my dad, my mom, my brother, and me all crammed in there, but nowhere else has ever felt quite as much like home to me as that apartment does. That’s why I live there now. I could afford a larger apartment or a starter home, but I don’t want to live anywhere else.” She shrugged, and I noted a wisp of sheepishness in her expression. “It’s silly, right?”
“Not at all.” I looked her dead in the face as I said it. “I’m envious that you have somewhere like that, a place that means so much to you. My parents’ house has never meant more to me than a luxury shelter.”
“Well, it’s not all because of nostalgia,” she hastily added. I got the impression she didn’t want me to think she was a wishy-washy woman stuck in the past by the way she vehemently shook her head and rolled her eyes to one side. “There’s some pride in it too. I bought Auras from Madam Adam all on my own, and I made it into what it is now. It’s mine, you know what I mean?” I nodded. “It’s something I can point to and say, ‘I did that.’ That’s not enough for some people, but it’s more than enough for me.”
I lowered my brow. “Who isn’t it good enough for?” I was assuming she was referring to ex-boyfriends or something, and my fists knotted of their own accord in my lap.
“My mother.” Again, there was a note of sarcasm in her voice, but this time it was directed toward someone who wasn’t at the table. “She and I have very different ideas of success. For me, it’s happiness. For her, it’s money and power. She can’t keep a relationship going for anything, as proven by her three marriages all ending in divorce, but according to her, that’s no measure of success. The pretty little plaque on her desk with her name and title on it, however, is.”
“She’s not proud of what you’ve done? You’re twenty-five and a business owner. That’s hardly something to scoff at.”
Gretchen scoffed anyway. “The only way she’d be proud of Auras is if I expanded it across the country and hired people to do what I do while I sat at a desk and watched my bank account bloat.” Gretchen’s sultry lips turned up into a wry smile. “Now that I think about it, you are the child she never had. CEO of a major national chain, wealthy, and all before you’re forty. She’d be extremely proud of you.”
I nearly choked on the swig of German beer I’d just taken. “Too bad she never met my dad.” I coughed hard to clear my windpipe. “Sorry. Anyway, maybe she could have made me sound as good to him as you just did. I can relate to having a parent who never thought you were good enough.”
Her head tilted to the side as she studied me. “But you said your dad groomed you to do exactly what you’re doing for your whole life. It sounds to me like he thought you were more than good enough if he was planning to entrust his entire company to you someday.”
“Oh, no.” I wagged a finger at her, which she playfully slapped down. My cock shifted again in my pants at her spunk, but I ignored it. “He didn’t plan to entrust his entire company to me. He hoped he could entrust his entire company to me. Two very different things, and I’d bet my last dollar that, by the time he died, that hope was pretty much gone.”
She pursed those plump lips sympathetically. “Why do you say that?”
“He didn’t think I was dedicated enough, that I didn’t care about Pennington’s the way he did. Which he was right about.” I took another long drink directly from the bottle, savoring the bitterness flowing over my tongue rather than focusing on the bitterness of my words. “I never wanted to be Pennington’s CEO. Hell, I never wanted to be CEO of anything.”
“What did you want to do?” She propped an elbow on the table and rested her chin on her palm, looking at me with more honest interest than anyone ever had.
I instantly regretted my last sentence and felt a rare wave of shyness. The
se were the kinds of personal secrets only Drew knew, and he knew them solely because he was there when they happened.
I twirled the bottom of the bottle around on the table and chewed on my lip as I considered whether I ought to tell her or not. She had the spice of someone who’d mock me for it, but she also had an understanding soul that made it easy to talk to her about sensitive things.
“Most of my young adult life, I wanted to be a professional fisherman, especially fly fishing.” She lifted her eyebrows so high in surprise that her ears raised simultaneously. “It’s a foolish idea because very few people can make a living on fishing alone. But it has always been a hobby I loved, and I wanted a career that I loved just as much, so I thought I’d mash the two together.” I snorted and shook my head. “Talk about being a dreamer. My high school ambition was probably more realistic, and that was stupid enough all on its own.”
Her bangles jingled as she lowered her arm to lie flat on the table. “What was it?”
“Musician. I—” I stopped mid-sentence, growing even more embarrassed by what I was about to admit, but I’d come this far in my confession. It didn’t make sense to clam up now. “I play the banjo.”
“Ha!” The amused cackle sprang from her lips without warning, and I jumped back in my chair so hard that it hopped a few inches across the pine floor. She tried to apologize, but her giggles overtook her, and she could only manage a few gasps before waving her hand in front of her face as a sign of defeat.
I narrowed my eyes at her, but I could feel myself smiling. “It’s not nice to poke fun, Ms. Laughlin.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Real tears had sprung into her eyes, and she wiped them away before pressing two fingers to each cheek. “My face hurts! Oh my god! Sorry! I just… you in your suit… with a banjo… and…” She broke down into a fresh bout of laughter.
My dick was so hard, I thought sure it would poke a hole through my pants.