Intoxicating

by Heather Heyford

  She stuffed her feelings into a box along with Heath’s old, threadbare dog and stuck it in the back of her closet where she wouldn’t be reminded of him.

  But she didn’t want to cut all her ties.

  “I promised I’d be home that day. A bunch of us always go on a hike. We’ve been doing it since we were teenagers.”

  It was a whole-day affair, starting out with the strenuous hike in the hills of the Coast Range, followed by a cookout. In the evening, they rented the community pool where Poppy and Junie used to work as lifeguards.

  “Take the following couple of days off. People will be staying home to grill. It’ll be dead around here. As far as the menu, we’re going to do mozzarella toasts with herb oil, a creamy tofu and green pea dip . . .”

  But Poppy was thinking longingly of hot dogs and hamburgers done on a park grill.

  Then she had an idea. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Whatever you want. You’re my star employee.”

  “Can I invite a few of my own guests? My parents would be beyond thrilled to be a part of it. And there are a couple of special friends I’d like to include, too . . .”

  “The guest list is already set.” He shifted in his seat. “You have to understand,” he said, looking vaguely annoyed. “This is all for publicity for the restaurant. That’s the bottom line. It’s coming out of my marketing budget.”

  When Cory had said he was having a party in her honor, she’d naturally assumed there would be people there that meant something to her. Not the usual crowd he kept placated with favors so that if he ever needed them, they’d be obligated to come running.

  She couldn’t help but compare Cory’s event to the impromptu going-away party Heath had held for her the night of the reunion, to celebrate her passing her test. Heath didn’t even like parties, but he had opened up his brand-new, gorgeous home on the spur of the moment for her, and included every single person at the reunion.

  * * *

  On the day of her party, Cory showed up wearing a new suit. He had had a special backdrop created with all of his restaurant names plastered across it, and he pressed Flash, her Palette photographer, into service, posing with Poppy in a dozen ways for use across all his PR platforms.

  That explains poor Flash’s presence, thought Poppy. It’s a working party for him, too.

  Cory’s arm drew her in tighter to his side and Flash’s camera whirred. Then, one by one, Cory corralled his VIP guests toward the backdrop, where they were more than happy to pose with his “star employee.” In fact, thought Poppy as she smiled and said “cheese” yet again, the photo op seemed to be the main reason for the get-together.

  Simon was the one light in the crowd. He took her hand in his and kissed both cheeks.

  “I knew you were garnering a bit of a following as a sommelier, but I had no idea you modeled, too,” he said in his crisp accent.

  “I don’t, really,” she replied. “This is my first time.”

  “The photos are lovely. You’re quite multitalented.”

  “Thanks, Simon.” She looked around to make sure no one overheard, and asked, “How’s the job prospect coming along?”

  “Very well, actually. Seems it’s down to two candidates. Oddly enough, I seem to be one of them.”

  “That’s not odd at all. It’s great. I’m really happy for you.”

  “I am as well. But not just because of the job. There’s a lovely American I wouldn’t mind seeing more of.”

  Poppy hesitated. Simon was really nice, and they could talk wine for hours. But when he held her hand, she felt . . . nothing.

  “You should know something. I want to take things slow. I hope I haven’t been leading you on.”

  “Not at all. I’m not a rube. I can tell there’s something unresolved that you’re dealing with. And when you do, I’d like to be here, waiting.”

  Poppy smiled politely, but her mouth ached from grinning and her feet hurt. At work, she wore clogs, and she was so busy moving around she didn’t even notice it. This evening she’d been standing around in four-inch heels with nothing to do but accept obligatory congratulations and make watery small talk.

  Feeling hollow, she thought of Junie and Red and Sam and all her other friends back home, enjoying each other’s company. And of Heath, with Mona playing the role of chatty foil that Poppy had always owned.

  Her relief was palpable as she watched Cory walk the last guest to the door and shake his hand good-bye. Alone, she exited the kitchen into the alley, peeled off her heels, and limped to her car.

  * * *

  Red called Poppy later that night.

  “Can you spare a minute to chat?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t want to bother you. I know you have important things to do.”

  Has it come to this—the people I care for most reduced to begging for a morsel of my time? “You could never bother me.”

  “We missed you at the hike.”

  “I missed you, too. Sorry I had to work.” Nobody in Clarkston would consider that party “work,” but she knew better.

  “One of us, in particular.”

  Awkward pause.

  “Heath and I are through.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I saw him and Mona Cruz down by the creek surrounded by his dogs and her boys.”

  “And?”

  “They were cozied up in the Adirondack chairs with her kids running around like it was their second home.”

  “I—” Red stuttered—a totally foreign sound, coming from Clarkston’s Best Therapist. “I’m pretty sure that was nothing.”

  “Really?” Funny. That’s what Heath said. “Because it sure looked like the cover of next year’s Christmas card to me.”

  A relieved laugh burst through the phone. “You know about the new brewpub, right?”

  “Heath was going to open one, but then he quit.” She didn’t add at the same time I left town. She already felt bad enough about her role in tanking that project.

  “It seems as though he’s resurrected the idea. I drove by his operation the other day and noticed that it’s under construction. Sam told me he’s adding on a space in the front where people can come and drink his beers on tap, and Mona’s going to work there.”

  Brassy, sassy Mona. With her big personality, she’d be great in the front of the house.

  She couldn’t hate Mona for that. Hadn’t she been Heath’s first choice for the job, and turned him down?

  But she still wasn’t convinced there wasn’t more going on between Mona and Heath than just work.

  She hung up reluctantly, wondering how her life had gotten so out of whack. Then she changed into her old flannel pajamas and got online to see if pictures from the hike had been posted yet . . . as if her mental pictures weren’t torture enough.

  Her heart flooded with warmth and longing when she saw the achingly familiar silhouettes backlit by an orange sunset, clowning around in their shorts and sneakers.

  Unlike her at her party, they looked like they were having a blast.

  There was Keval’s smirk. Red’s open-mouthed profile, about to bite into her hot dog. Junie and Manolo, glued at the hip.

  And the one she was really looking for—Heath. But instead of the picture she’d dreaded, of Mona hanging on him, he was sitting by himself holding a stick threaded with marshmallows, contemplating the campfire.

  Poppy went to her closet, pulled out the shoe box in the back, and sat down on the edge of her bed.

  She opened the lid and stared at Heath’s old dog.

  And then she took it out, lay down, turned off her new lamp, and just held the token of him close, breathing in the comforting smell of green woods and leather and laundry soap.

  Six months into her move, and she realized: I’m not happy.

  She missed Heath’s charming shyness, his dorky tees. The way he always came through for her when she needed something, even when it was at his own expense.

 
She needed him in her bed, where all of his tentativeness disappeared and he moved with certainty. She loved having that secret side of him. The thought of him sharing it with another woman was almost more than she could bear.

  Maybe she had jumped the gun that day she saw him down on the creek. Maybe he was telling the truth—that there really wasn’t anything between him and Mona.

  Impulsively, she reached for her phone on her bedside table and poised her fingertip above his name.

  Then she remembered Red’s sage advice—that playing tug-of-war with his heart was selfish. Even cruel.

  With resignation, she put back the phone and hugged Heath’s dog until she fell asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  It was the first time in six months that Poppy had two whole days’ vacation in a row. She wasn’t sure how she was going to spend them, but she had an idea.

  She threw some things into a bag and headed back to Clarkston, already savoring a sticky bun for her breakfast.

  She cranked up the music and allowed her mind to be a blank the whole way through Tigard, and on through Sherwood and Newberg. But when she reached Clarkston’s Main Street, she drove straight past the café, barely getting a glimpse through the big picture windows, and turned right onto North Yamhill.

  From a block away from Clarkston Craft Ales, she could see the imposing orange construction vehicles. As she drew closer, she saw the new façade that, according to Red, was going to be Heath’s new brewpub.

  Before she could change her mind, she parked at a safe distance from the machinery.

  It was a warm morning. In the back of the building where the canning took place, the garage door was open.

  Poppy looked around at the enormous silver tanks with a bewildering array of gauges and yards of hoses looped around the latches.

  The faintly familiar woman working with the canning machine close to the doorway spared her a questioning look.

  “Can you tell me where to find Heath?” yelled Poppy over the mechanical din.

  “Should be in his office.” She nodded toward an inner door.

  Heath had given Poppy and some others a group tour of the manufacturing part of the brewery years ago, but she’d never been in the administrative offices. She wandered hesitantly through the hallway, feeling like an intruder.

  What did she think she was doing? Her coming here wasn’t good for Heath. And not just because she was interrupting him at his job.

  She heard voices coming from an open door and peeked inside.

  Heath looked up from his chair, facing the door.

  John twisted around in his. “Hey, Poppy!” he said courteously, though with a look of puzzlement.

  Heath was on his feet. “Is something wrong?”

  No wonder he would think that, what with her showing up at his work on a weekday morning. She knew she shouldn’t have come.

  “No, nothing’s wrong,” she hastened to put his mind at ease. “I just thought I’d stop by.”

  Heath released a held breath and dropped his head with obvious relief.

  Poppy’s nerves felt like a rubber band, stretched to the breaking point. She bit her lip.

  For a tense moment, nobody knew what to do, how to act.

  “I was just leaving,” John lied cheerfully. “Heath, I’ll get back to you on that new pressure vessel.”

  Poppy stepped sideways to let John pass.

  He gave her a nervous wave, barely meeting her eyes. “Nice seeing you again, Poppy.”

  Heath walked around Poppy, shut his door, and glared at her.

  “What are you doing?”

  Poppy looked down. “I know. I shouldn’t have come. But I . . . I . . .”

  To her dismay, she started to cry.

  In an instant, the defensive atmosphere between them dissolved. A strong arm curled around her, and she realized that, right or wrong, that was what she had come here for.

  She turned into him, as naturally as day follows night.

  “Don’t you ever hesitate to come to me,” Heath said low in his throat, in that unvarnished way that she had missed so much.

  * * *

  Poppy was brimming with needless explanations and unnecessary apologies.

  “. . . then, the next morning when I saw the pictures plastered all over social media, it was written all over my face exactly how miserable I was, I had been, for so very long. The irony was just too much . . .”

  “I know,” said Heath, stroking her hair.

  “. . . whole thing was so superficial. Cory, in his new suit with his arm so tight around my waist got me almost wondering if he wanted to make people think he and I were actually a thing . . .”

  “But you’re not.”

  “No! Never. And that’s when I realized that that was how this whole thing started—as a quest to prove to myself that I was more than just a prom queen . . .”

  “Shhhhh,” said Heath. Then again, best to get it all out now, because when he got her into his bed, he wanted her head clear of all that old garbage.

  “. . . Christmas Eve with my family and you and your dad. Sandy and Kyle’s baby shower. And then, yesterday, missing the hike . . .”

  “I know. It wasn’t the same without you.”

  “. . . and worst of all, I’d wasted all that time trying to prove to myself that I was good enough, when I could have been spending that time with you . . .”

  He let her sob until all the doubts and misgivings of the past year had been washed away with her tears.

  Finally, he raised the hem of his shirt, which read WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, USE THEM TO MAKE CRUDE ELECTROCHEMICAL BATTERIES and used it to mop Poppy’s face.

  “You okay?” he asked, looking down at her with kindly concern.

  She nodded, red-faced and shaky.

  “Come on. I’m going to walk you over to a side door, then get the car and pull around and pick you up. Spare us from the gossip mill.”

  Minutes later, Heath couldn’t stop glancing over at the now-subdued Poppy, sitting next to him in his car. He’d missed the heavenly scent of her. Now he took full advantage of her proximity, breathing her in with slow inhalations.

  He’d been longing for this moment without knowing if or when it would come, or what it would look like when it did. It didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that it was finally here. She was home.

  When they got to his house he took her hand and led her down the steep path, across the forest floor, and up the ladder to the tree house, neither of them speaking.

  He rolled his bed with the purple comforter and the casters he had nailed onto it out onto the outdoor platform.

  Then he went back to her and started methodically unbuttoning her shirt. He slipped the sleeves off her shoulders.

  In silence, he unbuckled her sandals and lifted first one of her feet and then the other, and then he unzipped her pants and she stepped out of those, too.

  Heath’s need for release was so long overdue he wasn’t sure he could make it. He pulled his shirt over his head, slipped out of his jeans, and stood in front of her.

  Then he did something he’d wanted to do since the day he’d watched the exaggerated sway of her posterior as she’d stalked off in a fit of temper after seeing him with Mona. He reached around and cupped that fine ass and drew her hips into his.

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes flying open.

  He looked down at her lashes, pale as straw. He watched her sapphire eyes begin to glow at the feel of his obvious arousal pressed against her. Her lips trembled, and he kissed them, first tenderly, then hungrily, as if he could never get enough.

  He yanked down the purple comforter, picked her up, and laid her gently on the sheets.

  Then he climbed in bed with her and they made love to the chirping of the birds, beneath the rustle of the maples and oaks.

  * * *

  Poppy stretched her limbs until her hands and feet extended beyond the mattress and she sucked in a lungful of fresh country air, then relaxed com
pletely, one arm slung over her head.

  Above her was a canopy of scallop-edged leaves; surrounding her, birdsong.

  And next to her lay her Heath.

  “Did you know that ninety percent of our bodies is stardust?” he asked.

  She laughed, feeling her stomach going up and down. “That’s random. Especially since it’s daytime.”

  “But the stars are still there, even if we can’t see them.”

  He propped himself up on one elbow, picked up a lock of her hair, and tickled her chin with it.

  She turned her head and looked up into his hazel eyes.

  He kissed the tip of her nose.

  She looked up through the leaves at snatches of azure and white. “Do you know what time it is?”

  Heath frowned. “Why?”

  “There’s something I have to do.”

  He leaned over, picked up his jeans, and turned them around until he found the back pocket. “Twelve thirty-five.”

  She swung her legs over the side of the mattress.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To stop the sale of my café. The closing’s at one.”

  Heath brightened. “You are the smartest, bravest person I know. Just one thing before you go.”

  She stopped from where she was gathering up her clothes and raised a questioning brow.

  “If you’re going to be sharing my bed from now on, does that mean I get my stuffed dog back?”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  A month after she’d moved into Heath’s house, Poppy went over to give Kyle and Sandy Houser their lunch check. Next to them in an infant chair, their newborn son, Hawthorne, blew raspberries.

  Sandy’s four-year-old thrust a picture of a princess at Poppy.

  “Here.”

  “For me?”

  She nodded somberly.

  “Who is this?”

  She pointed to Poppy. “You.”

  “Me?” Her hand flew to her breast. “Why, thank you so much!”

  “It’s for your new picture wall.”

  “I will go right over and hang it up,” said Poppy.