But behind the veneer of his Sunday routine, the hours dragged by in a surreal haze. He pictured Poppy breaking the news to her parents and he tried to imagine what they were going through, wanting the best for their only child, even if it meant losing her.
He had never felt closer to them in spirit.
At least once every hour he checked his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed Poppy’s call.
When Dad retreated to his den, he drove to the deserted brewery and wandered around like a ghost, checking on things that didn’t need checked. Finally he sat down at his desk where, before the reunion, he’d been in the midst of planning the year ahead.
He thought of how lucky he was. The business was going great guns. He and his team had exciting stuff in the pipeline: a great new Bavarian-style wheat beer, a beautifully polished pale ale. He should be on top of the world.
His seat creaked in the silence when he got up, shoved his hands in his pockets, and peered out the window. The sun had refused to show his face all day, as if he, too, were brooding.
Last night had been lit up with artificial lights, music, and good cheer. But now the winter solstice, the darkest time of the year, approached.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hours after she broke the news, Poppy’s parents still looked shell-shocked.
Neither of them had to work today, so they wandered around like lost sheep, bumping into each other, trying to help Poppy but only managing to get in her way.
Tossing clothes into piles, she heard the house phone ring.
“Poppy?” Mom called from the living room. “It’s a reporter from the NewsRegister. Can you come to the phone?”
A reporter? She dropped what she was doing to talk to him. Wait until Demi Barnes and mean old Mrs. Baker and any other naysayers read this!
A while later, the doorbell rang.
“Who can that be on a Sunday afternoon?” Mom fretted.
It was a deliveryman with a long box full of orange flowers.
“Who are they from?” Mom hovered over her as she opened the card.
There was no message, just a name.
Poppy looked up, eyes misting. “Heath.”
Mom’s hand flew to her breast. “Poppies, this time of year? They must have come all the way from Holland. Can you imagine? Do you want me to put them in a vase for you?”
Afraid to speak for fear her voice would crack, she handed them over gratefully. Dwelling on Heath while she was trying to get ready to leave town was counterproductive, she thought, with a twinge of guilt. Going back down the hall to her room turned upside down, she pushed his touching gesture out of her mind.
Then an assistant from the cosmetics company called, transforming Poppy’s guilt into self-satisfaction.
“Congratulations! We’ve been following your progress, and we’re so happy to welcome you as the official face of Palette!”
All her efforts were paying off—and then some.
“We think your look personifies the Palette woman. Now for the details. Dieter will be your trainer. He’ll be waiting for you tomorrow at six a.m. sharp.”
“Pardon?” Her own personal trainer? She stood sideways in the full-length mirror at her slightly pouty tummy and tried, unsuccessfully, to suck it all in.
“I thought I was supposed to be the Face of Palette Cosmetics. Not the body.”
“We don’t want chipmunk cheeks, do we? Dieter’s the top trainer in Portland, and he has cleared his calendar for us. Per your contract, you will be meeting with him on a regular basis.”
“But I’ll have to leave Clarkston at four thirty to get there by six.”
“As I said, it’s in the contract we faxed you. You did read it?”
All that fine print? It would have taken her days.
She swallowed her misgivings. Mandatory workouts were a small price to pay for having everything you ever wanted, she supposed.
Next, her new boss called to tell her there was a staff meeting at one o’clock tomorrow, followed by a tour of the new facility and a celebratory dinner at a place so exclusive, Poppy had never dreamed she would ever get to go there. Now she was going as a guest of her VIP boss, at his expense.
If this was any indication of what her new life was going to be like, those workouts might come in handy.
“There’s this great Bordeaux-style blend from the coast of Tuscany that I want your opinion on,” said Cory. “It’s among the top ten Italian—”
Her phone vibrated. Heath. She was supposed to have called him.
Her eye landed on Heath’s stuffed dog in a box atop a stack of folded sheets.
The phone buzzed again, and her blood pressure ratcheted up.
Cory—he’d insisted she start calling him by his first name—was still talking about the wine list. She couldn’t interrupt him by accepting another call. In fact, she should be paying careful attention what he was saying. She would be expected to remember it tomorrow.
No sooner had the buzzing finally stopped and Cory’s words started making sense again than her father appeared in the doorway, tapping his foot.
“I can’t get the right size U-Haul until Thursday,” he said when she hung up. “Why don’t you just commute until then? If you don’t, you’re going to have to sleep on your floor until I can get your bed delivered.”
It had been a long day in the Springer household. Nerves were frayed.
“You don’t have to do that, Big Pop. I told you, I’ll buy a new bed.”
“Oh, I see, Miss Big Spender. Are you planning on buying a whole houseful of new furniture, all at once? You at least need your chest of drawers . . .”
Her head was spinning.
“Pop! Let me figure it out, okay?”
He threw up his hands and disappeared, muttering to himself.
It wasn’t the right time to call Heath back.
Nor was it time later, either, when she finally caved to her mom’s nagging to sit down and eat her favorite vegetable soup, made from scratch.
After that, she still had to decide what clothes she couldn’t live without until her next trip back to Clarkston. She’d never been that into clothes, yet suddenly, nothing she owned seemed good enough.
When she was startled awake by yet another call, the sky outside her bedroom window was pitch black.
She hoisted herself onto an elbow, wincing at muscles unaccustomed to bedroom aerobics and dancing and dozens of trips out to her tiny Mini Cooper to stuff it with as many of her belongings as would fit.
In the glow of her pink ceramic lamp with butterflies cavorting on it, her stripped-down room looked eerily unfamiliar. That lamp was definitely staying.
“You awake?”
“Heath.” Her hand flew to her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
There was silence on the other end. She’d meant to call him hours ago. By now he might be pacing in the dark in front of one of his floor-to-ceiling windows, or seated spread-legged on the edge of his black leather couch in one of his collection of faded T-shirts, patiently waiting for her call before going to bed.
“You said we could talk.”
“I know,” she sighed heavily. “It’s just that today was so intense. Trying to pack with reporters calling, Cory calling, my parents driving me nuts . . .”
“Scarlett and Big Pop just want what’s best for you.”
“I know.”
“You all set?”
“I think so. I don’t know. I fell asleep on the floor.”
“Been an eventful twenty-four hours.”
Her defenses, always close to the surface lately, bobbed up again. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Immediately, she regretted her words. “I didn’t mean to sound snippy.”
Heath didn’t deserve that, especially after all he’d done for her. But her whole life was about to change, and she had decisions to make and people were pulling her in different directions.
“This is the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”
It was his turn to say he knew.
“The best thing ever, come to think of it.”
* * *
Stung, Heath considered where he would rank making love with Poppy in the bigger scheme of things. Above his career success, for sure.
“I never want to go back to being a loser again,” she was saying.
“‘Loser?’ What about your party, after the reunion? No one there ever thought you were a loser. The only one who ever said that was Demi, and not even she believed it. She was just jealous because of some imagined shortcoming of her own.”
“Well, I grew up thinking they did.”
He rubbed a spot on the leather couch where someone had spilled something the night before. “I guess perception is reality.”
“Look, Heath,” she said with a sudden urgency in her voice. “Why don’t you come with me?”
He knew her so well. Well enough to know that this was only last-minute jitters talking.
“This is my home. I belong here.”
“Remember what that brewmaster said the day we went up to Portland? They would welcome you like a hero. You’d fit right in.”
“Clarkston suits me fine.”
“It’d be so much fun! Think of all the things we could do together,” she prattled on, ignoring his protests. “A different restaurant every night. The clubs, the shops, the museums . . .”
“Aren’t you going to be working most nights and weekends?”
That gave her pause. “I won’t be working twenty-four seven.”
“What about the modeling gig? When are you going to fit that in?”
“Cory will give me time off for that. He says the extra publicity for the restaurant will be worth it.”
“ ‘Cory,’ is it? What happened to ‘Chef’?”
“All his employees call him by his first name.”
Her irrational idea combined with his fatigue was starting to wear on him. This conversation was all wasted breath. Poppy was facing a big, scary change, and she wanted her hand held. But their days of alternating favors were over. Now they had each finally arrived—at separate destinations.
“You can’t have it both ways, Poppy. I’m not moving to Portland when everything I love is here.”
Still, he refused to let things end on a low note.
“We’ll stay in touch,” he said, though deep down he feared the opposite, that they would drift apart. It was probably inevitable.
“Of course we will. I’ll call you—”
Like you promised to call me today? The same thought was in each of their minds, and they both knew it.
“Think of me,” he blurted, casting aside the last remnant of his pride.
“I have to do this,” she choked.
This was really the end, this time.
There in his dark, cavernous house, Heath scrubbed a hand through his hair. He had no choice but to let her go. She needed him to believe in her, not add to her self-doubt.
“I’ll come see you once in a while.”
“Sure you will,” she sniffed. “We’ll only be an hour away . . .”
With all of the commitments your new life entails? Might as well be a million miles.
“. . . and I’ll come back and see you, too. A lot. Or at least, as often as I can.”
Heath fisted the phone so hard it was a wonder it didn’t break in two, the way his heart was breaking. “And spend the night?”
“If you think I should,” she replied, a soft smile in her voice.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Hup twenty-eight! Hup twenty-nine! Hup thirty! Ten-second
Hbreak. You earned it.”
Poppy dropped the medicine ball, careful not to let it crush her toes, bent over, and fought for breath. She wiped her brow and peered up through the sweat dripping in her eyes at the clock on the wall of the elite workout studio.
Fifteen minutes? That’s all the time she’d been working out?
Then again, maybe if she broke a toe, she could get out of her contract.
“Break over! Did you hear me? I said, break over! Pick up that ball. Ready? Set? Hup one! Hup two . . .”
This must be what boot camp is like. She wished she’d had Heath read her that contract before she signed it.
“This is only our first day! I’m taking it easy on you!”
“How long”—pant—“do we have to do this?” Poppy managed to get out between reps.
Dieter circled her, noting her form with a critical eye. “Your company is very generous. They are paying me for three days a week for the length of your contract.”
Holy hell. When she’d set out to become a sommelier, she’d had no idea she would end up lifting weights and doing lunges until her butt cheeks screamed.
* * *
Despite the workouts, those first few, glorious days in Portland, Poppy felt like a caged bird set free.
Which wasn’t to say she didn’t work as hard as she ever had. Cory Anthony ate, breathed, and slept the restaurant business, and he expected his employees to do the same. Though everyone on his staff had experience, he insisted on spending the next few weeks retraining them to meet his standards for the way a fine restaurant should be run.
Poppy and the other two other wine stewards—stern Morgan, with his dark suits, bow ties, and impressive background in some of the top restaurants in Chicago, and nervous Stuart, who sported an artsy glasses collection and was always showing off the latest photos of his new baby—soon came to the realization that Cory was obsessive about his wine list. There were endless tastings and lengthy meetings with distributors. Not only did Cory value their opinions, he made it clear that he expected them to be proactive in helping the list evolve.
That only made Poppy more proud of her new position.
On her only two free mornings of her first week in in her new apartment, she combed the home goods stores picking out throw rugs, houseplants, her first towels chosen without help from anyone. Little things that might not be a big deal to some, but to her were tangible proof of her growing independence.
Friday morning, she got home from her workout to find the U-Haul Big Pop had rented sitting in front of her apartment.
Surprised at how much she’d missed her father, she ran over to where he slid open the back door of the vehicle and threw her arms around him.
“How’s it going, my girl?” he asked, the tension of their last day together long forgotten.
“I missed you!” she blurted.
“You did?” he replied with undisguised pleasure that produced a lump in Poppy’s throat. “I missed you, too.” He cupped her chin in his work-worn hand and squinted down at her, his smile fading to concern. “What’s that dirt under your eyes?”
“Nothing. Just a little smudge of mascara.” She made a show of swiping a finger beneath a lower lid.
“Looks like someone’s been burning the midnight oil.”
“Maybe a little.”
Big Pop averted his eyes. Mom was the established worrier queen. His role was smoothing over the inevitable mother-daughter tensions that arose from time to time.
“Got your mattress here. How’d you like sleeping on the floor the past few nights? Not much, by the looks of you.”
“It wasn’t bad at all,” she lied. Between the harsh workouts and the long hours getting the restaurant ready for the grand opening, her body felt like one giant bruise.
“Might as well take this back, then,” he said, pretending to yank down on the van’s door.
“No!” she protested, laughing. “Let me help you carry my stuff in before I have to get ready for work.”
Even a little furniture made her small place look as if it had shrunk.
After Big Pop positioned her bed, he stood back and looked around the space. “Too bad your mother couldn’t come. She could have helped you figure out where to put all your knickknacks and so on better than I could. But someone had to work the lunch shift till we find a new hire.”
The idea o
f someone else working so closely with her mom, day in and day out, almost made her jealous. Ridiculous.
“That’s okay. I like deciding for myself where I want to put things.”
“A little independence and you’re craving more. Well, don’t worry. I had a talk with her. Told her you’re a grown woman now, wanting to stand on your own two feet. And it won’t help for us to be showing up on your doorstep all the time uninvited.”
“Aw, Big Pop. You know you’re welcome any time. But do me a favor? If I look a little tired, don’t mention it to Mom. I’ll catch up on my rest now that you brought me this.”
“You think I’m crazy? The woman worries enough for ten people as it is.”
Over the weekend Poppy experimented with exactly where she wanted her eclectic combination of new and old, moving things around according to her whim: a sophisticated new lamp on her old chest of drawers . . . a framed photo of her parents in the living room.
Sunday night she crawled into her bed, looked around, and sighed with satisfaction.
But when she turned off her new lamp and curled Heath’s dog into her chest, his parting words popped into her head.
Think of me.
She flipped onto her belly and tried to concentrate on the new chardonnay she wanted to put up for a vote to add to the wine list.
But she wasn’t used to the sound of traffic right outside her window. So she switched to her other side, bunching her pillow over her exposed ear.
Think of me.
She had a full day tomorrow. If she’d learned one thing in her first week of working for Cory Anthony, it was that she had to be at her best at all times. She needed her rest.
Think of me.
The night before her test, when she and Heath had discovered a new, adult side of each other, came back to her. The feel of smooth skin stretched over taut muscle. The taste of his mouth. His easy grace . . . his unexpectedly sure hands.
She remembered how he looked the morning after, standing bare-chested in his driveway despite the cold, right after she’d turned down his offer of a partnership.
She turned onto her back again, coming full circle, inadvertently knocking Heath’s dog to the floor in the process.
She sighed. It can stay there. Inhaling Heath’s scent with every breath probably wasn’t helping her any.
Intoxicating Page 15