She sighs and pastes another smile on her face. Her false one. “It’s all right. I understand.” She puts her backpack over her shoulder and grabs keys from a small hook. “I’ll see you later,” she says and I wave good bye.
And the second I can’t hear the rumble of her car anymore. The second I know she’s out of sight, I’m out the back door and jogging down the road to the small group of trailers in the cul-de-sac beyond the row of trees.
It’s silent. The three trailers deserted. There’s a fire pit in the middle, some lawn chairs around it. I check the door on the first trailer and it opens, but the trailer is empty. No sheets on the bed. No dishes in the cupboard. Still, I check everywhere, but there are no hidden laptops. Not in any of the places I’d hide one.
The second trailer is empty, too. Though there are sheets on the bed, a water glass in the sink. Like whoever was living here just moved out. Or was only spending the night. The windows are open, letting in the breeze.
But it, too, is empty of all laptops.
The third trailer is the biggest of the three. There’s a weather vane of a carrot hanging off the side. Plants in pots on the stairs. It screams Penny.
I hesitate at the bottom step and I have to remind myself of what I know to be true.
She’s Simpson’s daughter. She’s hiding the information that would put a very bad man behind bars. She could be using his money to fund this place.
I think of my mother. My father.
And I’m up the stairs, pulling open the screen door, only to find the main door locked. There are two locks. One that came with the door and she had another one installed.
In this place of completely unlocked doors, hers is double locked.
I check all of her windows and those are locked, too.
There’s something in there she’s protecting.
Or hiding.
Penny
I GET BACK to the inn late. I took my time coming home. Checking out a cheese supplier and a local shepherd with a flock of lambs she butchers and sells.
Stalling maybe. Getting distance mostly.
Because the disappointment I felt when he couldn’t come to the brewery was ludicrous. Disproportionate. I stop in at the kitchen. Everything is fine without me, which is how I want my kitchen to run.
We have seven reservations for dinner and we’re making fresh pea risotto with scallops.
My crew can make it in their sleep. It seems cowardly, but I leave them to it. Because I don’t want to serve dinner to Simon. I don’t want him to come to the kitchen and chat with me in the shadows. Or touch my wrist.
Turning my life upside down.
I leave my car behind the inn and walk to my trailer, breathing in the midday sunlight. I finally feel calm when I turn the corner to the trailers then stop in my tracks.
My heart in my throat.
Simon is here.
He’s sitting in one of the chairs around the fire pit.
My eyes dart to the trailer as if to make sure it’s still there. Still locked up.
It’s ridiculous. He has no reason to go in there. No reason to go looking for an old laptop. No reason to know what I’m hiding.
But I look anyway.
Am relieved, anyway, when I see my door shut. My windows shut. My secret safe.
“Hey,” he says, so friendly.
“What are you doing back here?” I ask, not sounding very friendly at all. I’m rattled by him being here.
“Cabin fever,” he says with a shrug. “And I wanted to hear about your breakfast beer.”
“It was good.” I laugh, relaxing. He gets up from the chair and walks over to me, the pine needles and stones crunching under his boots.
“You seem uncomfortable,” he says. “Is it because I’m here?”
“I just didn’t expect to see you,” I say.
He stops in front of me and I could reach out and touch him. And the degree to which I want to is shocking. Startling. I swallow a gasp and try not to reveal how badly I want him.
But it’s useless.
“I missed you, too,” he says and I want to close my eyes and groan. I want to fall down at his feet. I want to invite him inside.
And that I can’t do. It’s too dangerous. Too private.
“Invite me in,” he whispers.
“What?”
“Let me in. No one is here. No one has to know. Just…” He reaches up, his hand against my face. His thumb touches my lip and now there’s no swallowing my gasp. I can’t control it. I can’t control anything.
“Penny,” he breathes. “Let me in.”
And he kisses me. His mouth, his beautiful mouth is on mine and he tastes like mint and coffee and I want more. I want everything.
I sigh into him, my body against his. My lips let him in and he groans like he wasn’t expecting it. He groans and wraps his arms around my back, lifting me up on my toes.
We kiss like we’ve always done it. Like we know just how the other one likes it. He sucks on my tongue. I bite his lip. I put my hands in his hair and he purrs like a big cat. He fills his hands with my ass and I gasp like I can’t get enough.
And I can’t.
He walks me backward and I don’t realize it until he’s at the steps of my trailer and I’m gone, I’m so far gone for this guy. But not this gone.
Not gone enough to let him into my trailer.
I break the kiss, but my body is still against his. I can feel the beat of his heart against my hand. The hard press of his erection against my belly.
So I step back, his hands don’t let go of me, though, and I step back again. Out of touch. Out of reach.
There are pictures in that trailer. Not damning ones, but still. My mother and I in yellow swimsuits on the beach in Greece. Me with my goats. My grandfather and I in front of the garden, looking like Greek farmers.
The goddamn laptop.
It’s not just Mom’s information. But the trust information is on there, too.
All my dirty secrets are in that trailer.
“You want me,” he says. “I know you do.”
“I want a lot of things,’ I say, reaching for a joke, but I fall short. I want to stop lying. I want to tell him the truth. I want to sit in the sun and have him call me by my name.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“Penny,” he says. “You’re lying. You won’t invite me into your trailer even though you want to. What are you hiding?”
“I think you should go,” I say.
“You can tell me.”
I laugh and it sounds hysterical.
“I’m serious, Penny. You can tell me. Is it a dead body?” He’s making a joke, but nothing is funny.
“Please, Simon.” I try to keep my voice calm but I can hear the tremors. And so can he.
He reaches for me again and I know he’s trying to be comforting but I can’t be comforted right now. I’ll splinter.
“What part of no don’t you get?” I snap and he flinches.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers like I’ve shocked him and fine. Good. Whatever it takes.
“Go,” I say.
And he does and once he’s out of sight I unlock my trailer. I pull open all the windows because it’s airless. Because I keep it locked up like a tomb.
Nothing has been touched. Nothing disturbed. But I pull off the banquet seat and open the small compartment hidden inside.
The laptop and the case are there.
Keeping my mother safe.
The laptop poses a moral question I can’t answer. My mom’s life instead of justice. My mom’s life instead of medicine for sick people who can’t afford my father’s medicine.
I chose my mom’s life.
And I don’t like what that makes me.
So I put the cushion back and keep it all hidden.
FIFTEEN
Penny
THE NEXT MORNING does not start well. I sleep late, thanks to fevered, hot dreams about Simon. Specifica
lly, about his hands and his flirtatious hair. I make up elaborate scenarios with just those two ingredients and I sleep through my alarm.
The cold shower does little to calm me down.
I walk from my trailer to the inn, trying to talk my heart out of pounding. It doesn’t work. He’ll be here. I’ll see him.
He’s turning into an addiction.
I open the back door to the kitchen and Brandi, the prep chef, is already here, getting the breakfast menu ready. Poached pears with blue cheese and an asparagus frittata.
“Sorry I’m late,” I say.
“I didn’t notice,” Brandi says. Another sign of a keener, forgiving the sins of the people in charge. I want to tell her to stop. To hold me accountable. To hold everyone accountable. To stop being ready to be walked on. But that feels too much like my mother.
She gives me the list of what she has going and I check on all of it and am pleasantly surprised. My praise makes her turn bright red.
“Oh,” she says as if just remembering. “That guest, the handsome one with the hair?”
“Simon?” Just saying his name makes my stomach twist.
“Yeah. He was here. Asking about you. Said to tell you he won’t miss his meal this morning. But that he was going for a run.”
Last night in the darkest part of the night when desperate and sad decisions are made, I decided that I have to tell him to leave.
Nothing can happen and it’s beginning to hurt. Really hurt to have him here.
“Penny!” Megan comes into the room looking like she’s already had a long day.
“What’s up?”
“I have good news, bad news and more bad news.”
She puts the iPad and a newspaper on the table and Brandi, who doesn’t like any kind of bad news, finds something important to do in the walk-in.
“Start with the bad news,” I say and brace myself.
“Our dishwasher quit.”
“Larry? Quit?”
“He’s going back to school. No notice.”
“Okay. I guess…we can call —”
“I’ve called. I’ve called everyone. We’re on lean staff anyway for tonight and now I have to move one of the servers to dishes. And —”
Megan stops, looks over my shoulder and sighs. “Good morning, Simon.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt.”
I brace myself before I turn, but there’s no bracing that works. There’s nothing I can do to control my reaction to him. To control how much I want him.
He stands there covered in sweat, his T-shirt gray at the shoulders and neck, clearly just back from his run.
And I want to lick him. I want to lay him down on my floor and taste his sweat and suck his dick and fuck him forty different ways.
And I want to tell him the truth. Any truth. All the truth.
That’s why he has to leave.
“We’re just having some staffing issues,” Megan says diplomatically. I’m too busy watching a bead of sweat make its way over the contours of his neck.
“I heard. Dishwasher.”
“I can do it,” Megan says. “It’s not a big deal. The dinner —”
“Are you crazy?” I ask, because I love Megan. I love her to pieces. She has a lot of strengths. Managing the dishwasher during service is not one of them.
“I’ll do it,” Simon says.
“Now you’re crazy!” I cry.
“I actually have plenty of experience,” he says. “After…well, high school, my friend Tommy and I worked in a lot of kitchens.”
“Simon,” Megan says. “That’s very kind of you, but the solution to our problem is not putting our guests to work.”
And he has to leave. He has to go. I can’t have him here anymore. It’s tearing me apart.
“I’m here,” he says. “Offer on the table. Have I missed breakfast?”
I check my watch. “You still have forty-five minutes.”
“Great,” he says. “I’ll just clean up and see you down here for a proper meal in the proper dining room.”
“Wait, actually,” Megan says. “Our good news has something to do with you too, Simon.” She pulls out a newspaper and Simon suddenly goes white beneath his sweat.
“What’s that?” he asks like Megan just pulled out a gun.
“This,” Megan says with a little flourish and a twinkle in her eye. “Is the Los Angeles Times.”
Simon looks at me with pure panic. “Penny,” he says. “I can explain —”
“There’s nothing to explain!” Megan says. “Look at this picture in the Food section.”
She folds the paper the way she wants it and smacks it down on the table. Both Simon and I step forward to look at it.
Someone at the fundraiser took a picture of the bar, during that moment we’d had, doing shots of very expensive booze. The picture is really well framed, almost like we planned it. You can practically see the sizzle in the air around us. Simon looks amazing in his tux, his flirty hair doing its job.
I look…happy.
“Chef Penny McConnell and guest enjoy a drink at the bar,” Simon says, reading the caption. “Well, the picture is pretty great.” Whatever panic he’d been feeling before is gone.
But mine had doubled. Tripled.
“I said no pictures.” I turn the paper over like that will make a difference. But it’s too late.
The Los Angeles fucking Times, even.
That dumb picture in Gun and Garden, at least I’d been too blurry to really see. The only thing identifiable was my birthmark and that you could see only if you were really looking.
This is me, smiling in the Food section of one of the biggest newspapers in the country.
“Did you okay this?” I ask Megan.
“No. I mean. Not specifically.” She’s opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. “I thought the thing with the pictures was just you being self-conscious.”
Oh, God, if only that were the case. If only I didn’t want my picture taken because I’m not pretty. That would be simple.
Better.
“I don’t understand. What’s the problem?” she asks.
The problem is I’m hiding. My father can’t know where I am or he’ll come looking for me. Because I have something he wants. Badly.
The problem is my father is a bad, bad man who will literally stop at nothing to stay out of jail and keep turning a profit.
The problem is I can’t tell her any of this.
I can feel Simon watching me, his eyes picking me apart. So I smile as bright as possible but its edges are false. I’m not fooling anyone.
“There’s…no problem, I guess. You’re right, it’s a great shot.”
“And amazing for the inn.”
“And amazing for the inn,” I parrot, though my stomach is in my goddamn shoes.
“Well, as your un-named guest, I’m thrilled I could be a part of that,” Simon says and his grin is…well, it’s potent.
He excuses himself to go take a shower.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this picture?” Megan asks. “I mean, I can’t do anything about it now, but I can be more careful —”
“It’s fine,” I say and flip the picture back over. It’s shot at a distance and I really believe that unless you know it’s me, it could be any petite, blonde woman.
At least that’s what I want to believe.
My father hasn’t seen me in eight years and I doubt he would have been able to pick me out of a line-up even when I was a little girl.
“Simon’s a nice guy,” Megan says, pulling me away from thoughts of my father. “You guys seem to be getting close.”
“Nothing has happened.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything and I think maybe…maybe I was wrong. If this thing between you is real —”
“It’s not. He’s leaving Friday.”
“But —”
“We’re just friends, Megan. That’s all we’ll be. He said you guys talked about his foundation doing a fundr
aiser here.”
She blinks. “We didn’t talk about anything.”
“The other night?”
“No. I worked in the office and left a little after eight. I didn’t see him.”
“Weird. Maybe he was just looking for you to talk about it. So, I’m guessing the picture is the good news. What’s the other bad news?”
“It’s the benefits package for employees. I know you want to go with the best coverage we can get —”
“It’s not a debate,” I say. “We owe it to our people. We want them to leave the city and work out here. We need to take care of them.”
“I’m not arguing that,” Megan says. “I totally agree, but then…we need more money. Like…now. We’re going to be doing great in six months, but as of this moment, we’re still working in a deficit.”
“What do we need?”
“You need to go talk to the investors,” she says, looking pained.
“I got it.”
“Or I can do it. You don’t always have to do this part alone —”
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “He’s an old family friend. I’ll reach out. How much do we need?”
“Another ten grand.”
I nod like it’s no big deal. Because it’s not. Megan just doesn’t know why.
And never will.
“I’ll figure out the dishwasher,” I tell her. “Don’t worry about it.”
Megan thanks me, steals a scone and heads to her office to get ready for the tour.
I put on my coat and button it up to my neck. Like it might protect me from Simon.
The fact that he’s seen all my tattoos, that he knows what I’m hiding makes the uniform a tease.
The story I tell on my body is a secret we both keep.
Fuck, I think, how has this gotten so serious so fast?
But as I swing out into the sun-drenched dining room, the French doors open to let in the light and the lavender-scented breeze, I see him at a table, newspaper in front of him, the sunlight gilding his skin.
He makes me breathless.
And he looks up and our eyes meet and I see the same reaction in him.
The dining room falls away and Brandi, coming up behind me, nearly runs into me because I’ve stopped dead in the middle of the service way.
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