The Sweet Spot

by Heather Heyford

  “That so?” Roy replied.

  As he left the post office, he was already pulling up Hank’s number. Hank agreed to meet up at the café.

  Roy checked the time before stashing his phone in a back pocket, then swore under his breath. He really didn’t have time for this. He looked up at the pewter sky. The gritty flakes stung his face. This was the kind of snow that stuck. It was going to make for tricky driving later.

  Still, he had to talk to Hank before tonight. Why had he denied that there was anything going on between him and Jamie? And why had Jamie neglected to mention the fact that she’d ever worked at the Sweet Spot?

  * * *

  “Happy New Year.” Roy closed one hand around Hank’s while the other grasped his arm just above the elbow.

  “Happy New Year,” Hank grumbled.

  “Don’t recall as you were ever one to grow a buck beard,” Roy joked as they climbed onto their counter stools. “When was the last time you went deer hunting?”

  Hank rubbed his jaw without smiling. “Just haven’t felt like shaving lately.”

  When the server came over, Roy ordered two coffees.

  “I’ll take a double shot of whiskey in mine,” Hank added.

  “Before I forget,” Roy said, “I got a message for you from a woman named Margarita. She was up at the bar at the Turning Point the last time we were there.” He pulled up a photo and showed it to Hank. “Remember her?”

  Hank shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Ran into her again at the White Horse. She told me next time I saw you to tell you she’s dying to meet you.”

  Hank nodded politely.

  “What’s the matter, man?” Roy demanded.

  “Nothing’s the matter.”

  His friend raised a brow in doubt. “How’re things going out at the Sweet Spot?”

  “Fine.” Hank brightened a little. “Matter of fact, better than fine. This fall I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’ve made some decisions for the coming year. Got a head start by getting rid of some dead wood. Come hiring time next spring, I’m completely overhauling the staffing structure. And the chardonnay grapes my dad planted aren’t living up to their potential. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m going to rip them out and replace them with pinot gris.”

  Roy nodded in frank admiration. “Three years ago you were wrenched back to the Willamette Valley kicking and screaming. There was even talk that after seven generations, the Friestatt dynasty might finally be coming to an end.”

  At that, Hank looked up. He hadn’t known his waffling had been so obvious, let alone the subject of scuttlebutt.

  “Small town,” said Roy with a hint of apology. “Just keeping it real, between friends. I’m glad to hear you’re finally coming into your own. What was it that turned you around?”

  Hank thought for a while. “I was too bullheaded to see what was right in front of me. Took losing almost everything I had to see what I have left.”

  Roy laughed and slapped Hank on the back. “Along with the vineyards, you inherited the Friestatt stubborn streak. What’d you do for the holiday?”

  “Wasn’t feeling particularly festive this year.”

  “Can’t say as I blame you for that. You’re still getting over losing Ellie. But you had to do something. Who you got working out there this time of year?”

  “Inn’s closed for the season. The wines are tanked and barreled. Just a skeleton crew of field hands giving me a hand with trellis repair and maintenance. I’m mostly just selling.”

  Roy shook his head. “No good spending Christmas alone.”

  “What’s past is past. No sense looking backward. Enough about me. How ’bout you? How was Alta?”

  “The powder was waist deep, man. And so dry you could blow it off your glove. Come along with us next year.”

  “Intrude on your family vacation?” Hank huffed and shook his head. Had it come to that?

  Roy peered into his coffee cup and weighed his next words.

  “What is it?” asked Hank. “You didn’t call me down here the minute you got back to get caught up with the latest gossip. And on New Year’s Eve. You must have plans. Big date.”

  Roy spread his palms. “I already brought it up once. Don’t want to hound you. But—”

  Hank tried to mitigate his sinking feeling with a fortifying swig of Irish coffee.

  “Straight up now, between friends. Did you—do you and Jamie Martel have some kind of thing?”

  Hank spoke carefully. “She’s a great girl. Like I told you before, she filled in for Nelson when he was out with his broken leg.”

  “That it?”

  “What’s it to you?” he growled. Just thinking about Jamie dredged up pain he’d rather forget.

  “When I went to the post office this morning to pick up my mail, I heard something from Seth Thompson.”

  Hank’s whole body tensed up.

  “He said you and Jamie were seen dancing close last summer at the Turning Point. Any truth to that rumor?”

  Hank hesitated. He hadn’t told a soul his version of what happened last summer. “She came out here on vacation about the same time Nelson broke his leg and Bailey took off.” Once he started talking about Jamie, he couldn’t seem to stop. “It was Ellie’s idea to hire her. Couldn’t believe she said yes. Must’ve been meant to be, because it wasn’t long after that that Ellie took sick, and Jamie was right there by my side every minute, juggling reservations, hiring extra help to keep the kitchen going . . . she just knew what to do, as if by instinct. All the while running to the hospital to see that Ellie had her own hairbrush and pajamas. Taking her flowers from her own garden. No way could I have gotten through last summer without her.”

  Roy smoothed his napkin on the table. “It’s no fun losing a good employee. But it’s not enough to make a man stop shaving, snub his nose at a fox like Margarita for no good reason, and start lacing his morning coffee with whiskey.” He looked up at Hank expectantly.

  “There might have been more to it than that.”

  Roy nodded. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So. You gonna tell me, or are you going to waste another half hour of my day playing twenty questions?”

  “Then she was gone.” Hank’s hands went palms up. Then he propped his forehead in his hand. “I thought she went back to her job, back East. At least, that’s where she told me she was going. Till the night you and I saw her at the Turning Point.”

  “Jeesh,” said Roy. “No wonder you were spooked.”

  “I’ve never been so happy to see someone in my life,” he blurted. Losing Ellie had been hard, but losing Jamie at the same time had been almost unbearable. After trying to bury his grief for four months, it was such a relief to finally admit it.

  “And now?”

  “Now she’s seeing the rhythm guitar player in that band she’s with,” he said, miserably.

  “Who, Tony Harwood?”

  “That’s him. They teach together. And from what I can tell, that’s not all they do.”

  Roy looked at Hank incredulously. “Tony and Tracy Harwood are one of the tightest couples I know. I met them soon after they moved here from California, a couple of years ago. What makes you think he and Jamie have something going on, just because she’s in his band?”

  “I saw them with my own two eyes! Followed her back to her place that night after the Turning Point.” Hank described the scene he’d witnessed through Jamie’s living room window.

  “You followed her back to her place, but there was nothing between the two of you except that she worked for you?”

  Hank scrubbed his hand through his hair. “It’s not like it sounds,” he explained with a pained expression. “Like I tried to tell you, we had ‘something. ’ What are you supposed to do when your heart starts going berserk and your hands start sweating every minute you’re around a woman? And she felt the same way. I know she did, but . . .”

  “Why did she lie then, and tell you she was going away?”

  Hank
couldn’t speak around the painful lump in his throat. But no words were necessary. Wasn’t it obvious? She just wasn’t that into him.

  Roy gave a snort. “You must’ve read it all wrong, that night you went a-spying. I just saw Tony and Tracy, Christmas shopping with their toddler. Tracy looked to be about nine months pregnant. Everything seemed fine to me.”

  With the faintest spark of hope, Hank searched Roy’s face.

  “I got to be straight with you, though, man. I took Jamie out for dinner a couple of times.”

  At Hank’s reflexive reaction, Roy reared back and raised his palms in self-defense. “Can you blame me? She’s the best thing to hit this town in a while. I thought I cleared it with you. Nothing happened. She’s as nice as she is pretty, but there’s just no . . . what’d you call it? ‘Something?’ No ‘something’ between us.”

  Hank relaxed, but only a bit. “You sure she feels the same way?”

  “If she didn’t, I think I’d know. There’s nothing between us but a peck on the cheek. Truth is, she seems kind of lonely. Doesn’t know anybody except the teachers she works with down at the school.” Roy paused. “One more thing you oughtta know. I asked her to go to the big New Year’s dance at the hotel tonight. But I got an idea. Why don’t you—”

  But Hank was already out of his chair, sweeping his ball cap and sheepskin coat from the wall hook, and headed toward the exit.

  “Hold up!” Roy threw some bills on the counter, grabbed his own coat, and chased after Hank.

  It was snowing harder now. The air was thick with swirling white flakes from a charcoal-colored sky.

  “Hold up, man.” Roy jogged down the sidewalk in the yellow glow of the café lights. “Where’re you headed?”

  “Where do you think?” Hank shouted over his shoulder, thrusting his arms into his coat sleeves against the rising storm.

  At the end of the walk, Roy halted. “Got it,” he said with a salute, though Hank’s retreating shape was already fading into a blur. “Okay. No problem. Just—tell—Jamie I’ll . . .”

  But his words blew away in the wind.

  * * *

  Jamie had been monitoring the forecast on and off all day. She wasn’t sure what to expect with regard to tonight’s festivities; whether the party would go on in spite of the storm or be canceled due to inclement weather.

  She hadn’t heard from Roy, so she’d gone ahead and bathed and dressed.

  Now she turned the TV station back to the weather channel yet again.

  “A rare holiday snow storm is pounding the Willamette Valley. Snow is expected to accumulate another five inches. Winter storm warnings have been posted for the northern and western Cascades . . .”

  Restless, she went around the room she had already cleaned, rearranging curios and straightening rugs. She stopped pacing, propped her hands on her hips, and surveyed the blue sofa accented with cream throw pillows that she had carefully selected from the mall in Tigard.

  Something was missing. And then it hit her. All her furnishings and knickknacks were brand-new. Unlike her grandmother’s flowered dishes and the collection of objects at the Sweet Spot, they had no provenance to give them meaning.

  She went to the mirror and ran her hands down the column of black velvet that smoothed out her curves. She had worn it only a couple of weeks ago to conduct the holiday pageant. It was the only thing she had left that had a history.

  Dark had fallen outside her window, and it was still snowing so hard she couldn’t see a few feet past the glass. Shivering, she turned up the gas fireplace until she had a lively blaze.

  * * *

  Hank was used to driving in wet weather, but snowstorms weren’t a common occurrence in the Willamette. In the short distance from the café to Jamie’s town-house complex, he had to stop twice to reach out his window and flip snow off his wiper blades. Even four-wheel drive didn’t keep the SUV from sliding all over. Thank God most people had the sense not to be out on a night like this. His was practically the only car on the road.

  He set his jaw. In a matter of minutes he was going to see Jamie again. That was all that mattered.

  The white lines that let him know what lane he was in were invisible in the snow. He leaned harder into the windshield, fighting against the wind to keep the vehicle out of the ditch he knew from experience ran parallel to the road.

  The town houses should be coming up soon. Though he couldn’t bear to waste even another second, his foot eased off the gas as he pivoted his entire upper body in search of the sign.

  It didn’t register that the radio was even turned on until a song came on that he hadn’t heard since the day he picked up Jamie at the airport.

  “When I find your house, I’m gonna rip that door off its hinges . . .”

  At last he skidded to a stop in her parking lot, narrowly missing a parked car. He forced the truck door open, the bottom of it scraping through white stuff, and bounded with giant leaps up the steps to that same door he’d seen Jamie enter that November night, with the guy from the band.

  Shaking with cold, exertion, and nerves, Hank pounded on Jamie’s door, rubbing his frozen hands together in an attempt to stave off the cold.

  * * *

  Guess the party’s still on, Jamie thought when she heard the knock, wishing she felt more enthusiastic. She hurried to admit Roy in out of the storm.

  But when she opened the door, it wasn’t Roy, but Hank standing on her stoop in that bulky shearling coat, snow piling up across his broad shoulders.

  It had been four long months since she’d been this close to him. He looked decidedly different.

  His nose and ears were pink with the cold. He’d grown a beard, and it was sprinkled with snowflakes. But the biggest difference was in his eyes. Gone was the frown in his forehead, the clouded look of indecision. His brow was smooth, and his eyes shone with clarity.

  The wind howled. Hank’s breath came out in visible whooshes.

  Jamie stood there motionless, heedless of the snow already accumulating on the floor.

  “Hank? What are you doing here?” She looked around his six-foot-three frame. “Where’s Roy?”

  “Roy’s not coming,” Hank replied huskily, edging past her into the room.

  She stepped back, still stunned, while he slammed the door shut and pulled off his gloves, laying one on top of the other on her kitchen counter in an absurd attempt at neatness.

  It was quieter now with the storm shut out. They stood and stared at each other, each unsure of what to do next, how to act.

  “I must look like hell.” Hank chuckled, brushing the snow from his hair.

  His nervousness touched her.

  “No”—she shook her head slowly—“you look . . . amazing.”

  * * *

  Jamie was the epitome of East Coast elegance in that form-fitting gown she was poured into. Her lashes, darkened for the special occasion, accented the blue of her irises, and tonight the ponytail was gone, in its place flowing amber waves caressing her bare shoulders. And there was her scent that he’d despaired of ever smelling again, the smell of summer in the dead of winter.

  He took a step toward her, reverently taking her bare shoulders in his ice-cold hands.

  She sucked in a breath.

  Pulling her into him, he studied her face and tilted his head to kiss her, chucking his cap when the bill got in the way.

  His greatcoat followed, scattering more snow across her floor. He wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her close; with his right he cupped the side of her face. He thumbed the plump center of her lower lip, gently opening her mouth, and then he kissed her.

  Jamie met his mouth with equal ardor.

  He reveled in her curves, maneuvering his body to maximize their points of contact. Coming up for air, his eyes fell to the subtle shadow of cleavage above her bodice where her chest rose and fell. Resting his forehead on the crown of her head, he reached around to undo the tiny button at her nape that held up the velvet choker-collar enc
rusted with crystals. It fell, taking her bodice down with it, baring the crest of her breasts. He paused, fixated on the sight. Then he slowly raised his hands to cup them in wonder.

  He raised his head and looked into limpid eyes, then bent it again to kiss the twin swells, peeling her bodice lower as he did, exposing her nipples, feeling them harden beneath his fingers. Then he suckled her and her head fell back, her eyes closed, and a whimper came from her throat.

  At their feet, the snow from his boots was melting into puddles on the tiled foyer.

  Hank yanked off his boots and hopped deeper into the room in his stocking feet, never taking his eyes off Jamie. At last, his terrible longing was going to be satisfied.

  He clasped her wrist and quickly surveyed his surroundings. Through a doorway, his gaze landed on the bed, and he pulled her toward it with an almost savage intensity.

  In the bedroom, he gathered her to him again, pressing her exposed chest against his old blue chambray shirt.

  “God, I’ve missed you, Jamie,” he whispered into her hair. “I couldn’t breathe without you. Couldn’t think. I thought I’d lost you forever. You never left my mind. Never left my heart, not for a minute. I don’t want anyone but you . . . ever.”

  He kissed her again, relishing her mouth, claiming her for his own.

  His fingers fumbled for her zipper and when they found it, drew it down smoothly. The gown fell another stage to drape about her hips, exposing her creamy belly. Hank sat down at the foot of her bed and pulled her between his legs, covering the newly bared flesh with kisses, luxuriating in the decadence of his desire.

  Deliberately, he eased the soft, heavy fabric lower, still lower until the gown pooled around her feet, leaving her standing before him in only her satin panties and heels. Hank leaned back on the bed.

  “Look at you,” he breathed.

  * * *

  Jamie bit her lip, suddenly shy. She shivered in the cool air of the bedroom.

  “Cold?” Hank immediately stood and enfolded her naked body against his fully clothed one. He caressed her thoroughly, roving his hands over her exposed skin, kissing her neck beneath her ear, under her chin, and then again on the opposite side. He spread his fingers wide against her backside and urged her hips into his.