by Tracy Ewens
Travis laughed. “Tired, that’s mainly what we are, but it’s been great. Logan brought back your new manchego last week. That’s more than a cheese, it’s a statement, man.”
“I’ve got to keep it interesting, ya know? It’s taken me a few batches, but I think I’ve finally got the aging down. Logan was making something special. He seems happy. How about you?”
“Me? I’m good.”
“Happy?”
“I, well . . . you know, I’m good. Not settled into wedded bliss and reproducing like you are just yet, but I’m doing my thing.”
Jarrod laughed. “You better get on it, my man. You’re missing out.”
“Is that so?” Travis laughed, threw out his breakfast sandwich wrapper, and took the piece of cheese Jarrod handed him.
“Oh, yeah. The marriage thing is fun, but being a dad . . . it’s over-the-top love, crazy.”
“Crazy like we used to be?”
“Better.” Jarrod’s eyes were serious, caring even, Travis thought.
Hell, if love got someone like Jarrod, no man was safe.
“Great cheese, is that a Parmesan?”
Jarrod nodded. “Dodged the daddy talk like a true bachelor man. Well done.”
Both men laughed.
“So what can I get you?”
“I need a good cheddar, the best one you have.”
“What are you making?”
“Mac and cheese.”
“You going with fontina? Or, a lot of guys are adding Gruyere too.”
“No, I want classic. It’s for a five-year-old girl.”
Jarrod raised an eyebrow and Travis offered no explanation.
“Well, this is my best extra sharp. That’s about ten pounds right there.”
“Perfect, I’ll take that and give me three or four pounds of that Parmesan.”
“You got it.” Jarrod wrapped the Parmesan in brown paper and put the cheddar in a box. After running Travis’s credit card, he walked around the counter and handed him everything.
“Thanks, man. Give the family my love.”
“Will do.”
“See you next time. Come by when you can and I’ll buy you lunch.”
“Deal.” Jarrod extended his fist, and Travis put the box under his arm and returned the bump.
By the time he reached The Yard, it was just past ten. Now that Logan was busy being in love, he no longer showed up on the day they were closed to catch up on his infamous yellow pad. Travis had the kitchen to himself. He flipped the lights, grabbed an apron, and turned the Red Hot Chili Peppers on over the sound system. Jarrod had seemed happy, he thought as he unwrapped his ingredients and pulled out a few bowls.
Travis didn’t do marriage. He knew that made him a cliché, but there were far worse clichés he could imagine being. He didn’t want family, at least not like the one he grew up with. He was content with what he had: his work and friends.
He needed to fix things with Makenna, figure it out because she was part of his life, he thought as he went into the walk-in for cream and butter. Pulling a food processor up from the cabinet beneath him, he hummed along to Californication, occasionally working his air drumming skills. Life was good, and he was good. Besides, he didn’t have time to analyze, he had mac and cheese to make, a special request. Travis smiled at the thought of Paige’s note and got to work.
Chapter Five
Monday morning had not gone according to plan. Makenna had been up late, obsessing about the millions of questions on the stupid dating profile link Sage emailed her to fill out. Good God, she didn’t even know some of this stuff about herself, and she certainly didn’t want to share it with complete strangers.
Complete strangers. Those words had struck her right around one in the morning because that’s what she was really doing, right? Putting herself—her likes and dislikes—out there for Lord knows who to comb over and decide if she was worthy of coffee. She had started to freak out so she turned on Sherlock, whose blathering mind was much like her own. She didn’t need more angst, so she clicked the remote and tried to sleep.
She must have fallen off sometime after three, so naturally she hit the snooze button past its limit and woke up late. She and Paige had raced around the house getting ready for school. Breakfast was a waffle wrapped in a paper towel to go. Kenna didn’t have time for a shower, so she pulled her hair back, made sure she put deodorant on, and used one of those all-in-one face wash wipes right before she pulled up to The Yard and ran in to grab Paige’s lunch box. It was full and sitting on the middle of the counter. He’d made her lunch again. Even though Makenna had been a complete lunatic without an explanation, he’d still made lunch. It was honestly one of the sweetest gestures. He made her daughter lunch, without fail. In that moment, she wanted to thank him, but he was nowhere to be found and she needed to go, so she left.
They pulled through the drop-off line at St. Christopher’s with two minutes to spare, and Kenna could have sworn the teacher who helped Paige out of the car looked at her like she was a crazy, out-of-control mommy. Maybe this stuff was in her head, Kenna thought. Maybe she looked perfectly normal to people on the outside and only felt like a leper on the inside.
She drove through McDonald’s for a Coke, put on some moisturizer, and kept one hand on the wheel while she hunted through her purse for lip gloss, ChapStick, something to keep her from looking just-out-of-bed by the time she pulled back up to The Yard.
She went in through the front door again. The fleeting warm and fuzzy moment over the lunch box was gone, and she was again hoping to avoid Travis. As she approached the hostess station, the specials board was off the wall and propped on the bar. The perfectly placed word Ratatouille and the little description below that Sage had worked on Saturday night before closing were wiped clean and in their place were the words, Classic Mac and Cheese.
Kenna threw her now-empty cup in the trash, frustrated that the bathtub of caffeine she’d slurped down on the drive in hadn’t helped her frenzied, almost-late-for-school mood.
“Why has the special changed?” she asked, pushing through to the back kitchen, forgetting for a minute her whole plan to avoid the chef who was most likely responsible for the mac and cheese. That was her specials board, damn it—the one thing she had control over these days. “The specials board was done on Saturday. It was pretty. Why’d we have to mess with pretty on a Monday morning?”
Travis was the only one in the back kitchen, which seemed perfectly aligned with the rest of her crappy morning. He was already in his apron and, of course, his beard was trimmed close to that adorable cleft in his chin Makenna hadn’t even realized existed until two weeks go. She stepped closer to him, determined to be brave, until he turned those eyes on her. Changing her mind, she stepped back.
“I did,” Travis said, spreading pecan halves on two baking sheets.
“You prepped for the ratatouille and n—now you just changed it to mac and cheese? Do you even do a mac and cheese?” She was being ridiculous. It didn’t matter that he’d changed the special. Well, it sort of mattered because that wasn’t the plan, but she really should just turn around and get the hell out.
“Of course I do a mac and cheese. There’s not a legit chef alive who can’t pull off mac and cheese. I made extra yesterday, so it’s the lunch special. I can change the special. It’s allowed. Logan’s gone for a couple more days. I set the menu. I made a cold salad with the prep work, so that’s not a waste. Calm down, Ken.”
“Why mac and cheese? Is it like a three cheese or something special?”
“Nope.”
“You made plain old mac and cheese on your day off because you just got a wild hair up your ass and decided to do that?”
He said nothing, still adding pecans.
“Of course you did. Right, because why not? You probably rolled out of bed Sunday morning, still in your pajamas, and said, ‘I think I’ll show up somewhere, do something no one expects.’ Fine!” She was tilting a little into crazy, which was
normally manageable, but she was tired so that set her over into scary. She drew in a deep breath and finally turned to leave the kitchen.
“Hey, Ken.”
Crap. She turned.
“I’m not sure what’s gotten into you, but if you’re going to play crazy lady this early, you need to get your facts straight.”
Makenna scrunched her face in frustration. Her gaze was focused on the edge of the cutting board, so he naturally bent to catch her eyes. When he found them, he smiled.
“I don’t wear pajamas.”
Makenna felt her face flush, shook her head, and left. As the kitchen door swung closed, she could still feel the rumble of his laughter all the way in her toes.
Travis was relieved that things felt a little closer to normal. She was rambling and he was teasing, but something was still off. She wasn’t gazing through him anymore or checking out his ass, but she seemed almost nervous. She normally blushed and dismissed him, but she rarely looked uncomfortable. Shit, what did I do?
Nothing. He didn’t do anything. Whatever it was, she needed to spit it out. She was back to being all over him about “the plan” and her silly little details. He could hear her in the bar dragging what sounded like chairs around. He supposed that was a start back to normal.
Travis decided to put together the meatballs next, so he walked to the dishwasher to pick up two large stainless steel bowls he’d used earlier. When he turned, Sage was holding a rack of glasses and bumped right into him.
“Hey.” He steadied her and the glasses.
“Hey, sorry. I’ve gotta get back to the bar.” At first, she didn’t meet his eyes either, but then she locked on to him. She knew something.
“So, wanna tell me what’s up with Ken?”
“Umm . . . she hates it when you call her that?” Sage tried.
“Is that why she’s either avoiding me or looking like she has a dirty secret?”
Sage huffed with phony indignation. “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about. She’s fine, she’s good. Busy—maybe that’s what you’re sensing—she’s really busy.”
“No, that’s not it.” Travis tried not to laugh at her entirely laughable performance.
“Oh, well then I have no idea. Maybe you pissed her off.”
“Do you think it was the Trixie thing? She seemed weird after that. Maybe—”
“Maybe what?”
“I don’t know. She’s never looked at me like that, and there was nothing on my jeans.”
Sage seemed like a trapped animal with a fight-or-flight decision. “What are you trying to say, that she was upset or jealous of your . . . escapades?” She laughed. This time, it was a real laugh, and Travis knew she’d chosen fight.
“That’s not what I was saying.” Maybe he was because he had thought of it more than once. That day in the kitchen, it sort of felt like he should be embarrassed, which was weird because he didn’t do embarrassed or ashamed anymore, but there was something about the look on her face. It felt personal.
Sage was hunching over a little bit. Were those tears of laughter now?
“Oh, forget it. She’s acting weird and you’re hiding something.”
She stopped laughing. “Maybe you should ask her.”
Travis said nothing, because why the hell hadn’t he thought of that?
Sage smiled and left him standing there like an idiot.
“Travis, lunch is starting to pick up. I need some help up here, dude.”
Crap, he’d left Todd up front alone? He really didn’t need these distractions. Kenna was often a minor distraction in her sexy flannels or those muck boots that drove him a little nuts. He might even have a sexy farm girl fantasy starring a version of Makenna Rye, but that was no one’s business. He knew who she was, she knew who he was, but that look she’d given him . . .
Why the hell did he care what she thought anyway? If she had a problem with his personal life, well, that was too bad. He supposed he did invite criticism with the phone call, but he didn’t know they were standing there. Maybe he did. Aw, shit!
“Runner,” he called, and placed the spinach salad in the window.
This was stupid. He had work to do.
Garrett sat at the bar about a half hour into the lunch rush. He was wearing another green shirt. This one wasn’t John Deer; it bore the name of some fertilizer, but Kenna just knew it would be a topic of discussion, or at the very least mentioned at coffee with Sage the following weekend. He took his baseball hat off, put it on the bar, and snagged a cherry out of her Coke.
“Hey!” She slapped his hand, but was too late.
“How’s my favorite sister?”
“Only sister,” she said, engrossed in her laptop.
“That too.” Garrett took a seat next to her. “What’re you working on there?” He leaned in and before she could turn her computer, Garrett began reading. “Best date: A. Fancy Restaurant B. Intimate Bar C. Anything Outdoors or D. Moonlit Dive.”
She closed her eyes and waited for the laughter.
“Moonlit dive. You think they’re talking scuba or Jake’s Rib Shack?” Garrett laughed. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s a dating profile.”
“Are you kidding me? You don’t need one of those.”
“I do. I can’t date anyone here and I have Paige. I want to be able to screen people first.”
Garrett shrugged and pulled her laptop in front of him. “Okay, well, let’s see what you’ve got.” He skimmed her answers.
“Well, I’m glad to see your ideal date is anything outdoors because the rest of that shit was lame. Sexiest car, a truck. Good choice again. Are baseball caps worn backward ever sexy, yes or no?” He looked up at Kenna. “That’s a no-brainer. Again, you chose yes. Nice. Sexiest job? Who comes up with this stuff? Let’s see what you put—a man who works with his hands. A farmer? Aww, isn’t this cute, you’re looking for your big brother. I’m flattered.” He pushed the laptop back over to her.
Kenna shook her head. “Are you finished now?”
“Yeah, just be sure to meet in public places and let me or Logan know if you want us to go with and sit at a different table.”
“Oh yes, that’s a great idea. Thanks for that offer.” She rolled her eyes.
Sage came out of the kitchen, her back facing them as she carried a rack of clean glasses. “Okay, so did you fix my profile?” Her back still to them, she didn’t see Garrett.
“Garrett here has graciously volunteered to chaperone our dates if we need protection from the big bad world,” Kenna said, hoping Sage wouldn’t say anything more about her profile.
Sage’s shoulders tensed and she slowly set the rack down on the bar, sort of like someone trying to avoid a bear attack. Kenna was sure at that moment Sage wanted to shrink into the floor, but she had no choice: she had to turn around and face the music. She looked quickly over her shoulder to confirm Garrett was actually sitting at her bar and immediately started hanging the clean glasses. Sage was suddenly all about keeping busy.
“Well, isn’t that thoughtful of him, but we will be just fine.”
Garrett was looking back at Kenna’s computer, and she knew what was coming next. She wanted to warn Sage again, but there was no time.
“Wait, that’s your profile?” Garrett asked.
Sage glanced at her, clearly looking for an explanation. There was nothing Kenna could do, so she scrunched her face in resignation.
“You think backwards baseball caps are sexy and you like trucks? You’re looking for a guy that”—he looked at the screen again—“works with his hands, such as a farmer?”
“I . . .” She was still putting the glasses away, and Kenna recognized that look. Her friend was not going to find her way out, and there was no way in hell Garrett was going to win this.
Kenna slapped his arm and closed her laptop. “I never said it was my profile or hers, dumbass. That was a sample, showing us how to do it. You just assumed, as you always do.”
Gar
rett gave her a look, as if thinking about this any longer was more than he was willing to do, and shrugged. Sage’s shoulders dropped in relief.
“Do you want a beer, Garrett?” Sage asked, picking up the now-empty rack, still with her back to them and walking toward the kitchen.
“Sure. I’ll take that new one.”
“Give me a second.” She disappeared into the kitchen and probably collapsed onto the floor, Kenna thought.
Garrett turned to Makenna. “The profile said Sage Jeffries at the top. When I looked over again, just then, it said her name.”
“Huh, weird.”
“Yeah,” Garrett said with his eyes on Sage as she returned and poured him a Born Yesterday Pale Ale. “Really weird.”
Paige sat in front of St. Christopher’s toward the end of the U-shaped pickup line. On the adjacent sidewalk, a teacher wearing a striped wraparound dress seemed to be having trouble walking in the wedge heels she wore. Kenna wondered why, with everything else teachers had to deal with, they would choose to wear heels. The job seemed daunting enough from her perspective, making comfort a top priority. Hell, Kenna wasn’t even a teacher and comfort was always her priority, she thought, looking down at her boots.
Two more cars to go before she arrived at the front of the line, so she reluctantly paused her audiobook, The English Spy, even though it was up to a really good part. Because her life tended to get busy, Kenna always bought an e-book or a print book and then the audio version. That way she achieved maximum reading time. When Paige was little, Kenna read all the time, but now she had school activities and things had gotten busier at the restaurant, plus there was always work at the farm. Makenna believed in covering all of her reading bases because fiction was her escape, probably her therapy too.
She grabbed a granola bar from the center console and pulled her navy-blue Jeep, correction, her muddy navy-blue Jeep, up behind a silver Jaguar. A teacher with a large stone necklace loaded two little girls into the clean, perfect car, and Kenna wondered if that mom had two pack rat traps in the back of her car. The thought made her laugh a little. Jaguar had probably never even seen a rat trap. Although, she thought as she pulled up next in line, she shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Her father was always telling her that Oprah said something like critiquing others only shows the weakness in ourselves. Since discovering Oprah, her father had become the most evolved farmer she’d ever met; he even starting reading her book club books. Kenna smiled at the thought, and then her smile grew as a vision of cuteness with pigtails climbed into her booster seat and pulled her seatbelt on. Kenna waved politely to the teacher and pulled forward.