They’d won, hands down, every day of every year for as long as there’d been Jeffersons in Benevolence. That had been nearly as long as the town had been a town. Not that that mattered to Sinclair. Not the way it had when he’d been the kid that teachers pitied, the one who received hand-me-down clothes from well-meaning church ladies every Christmas.
They hadn’t understood the truth.
He hadn’t wanted slightly used mittens, boots, coats. Hadn’t really needed faded jeans and cotton T-shirts. Grandpa was pretty adept at picking those things out of trash cans and Dumpsters.
What he’d wanted, what he’d longed for, what he’d needed about as desperately as he’d needed air to breathe and water to drink, was a home. The kind that friends could visit. The kind that smelled like good food and furniture polish. The kind his friends lived in.
No church lady could have brought him that.
So, he hadn’t really wanted anything at all.
Except to escape. Which he had. Thank you, Uncle Sam and the good old Marine Corps! Seven years. Three tours. A bum knee and an honorable discharge, and he’d taken the money he’d saved and put it into restoring a row of painted ladies in San Francisco. He’d turned those around for a profit and continued on, building the kind of business his grandfather had always talked about having—using reclaimed materials from condemned buildings to bring at-risk properties back from the brink.
That was the difference between Sinclair and most of the men in his family. He didn’t just dream. He did.
Maybe he could teach Gavin to do the same before he left Benevolence.
He doubted it, but he’d give it as good a try as he’d given his relationship with Kendra. He’d put his all in it. If it didn’t work out, he’d walk away with a clear conscience and no regrets, go back to his life and his business and his clean, quiet apartment.
The empty one.
Which hadn’t ever bothered him before.
The last couple of days, he’d been thinking about all those old childhood dreams. The ones where he’d come home and smell cookies in the oven or fresh-baked bread cooling on the counter. Where there was someone waiting for him with a smile and a How was your day?
Maybe it was coming back to Benevolence that had made him think about those youthful fantasies. Probably it was.
All the more reason to get out of Dodge as soon as humanly possible.
“Sinclair?!” Janelle called, her high heels tapping on the wood floor. “I’ve got the agreement.”
Good. He was ready to sign it.
He might have to be in a town he hated, but he didn’t have to spend his nights in a cluttered and dirty single-wide trailer listening to his brother complain.
That was the beauty of working hard.
It paid off. Gave a man the ability to do what he wanted when he wanted. Gave him the freedom to make decisions about where he wanted to be and when.
It couldn’t warm his bed at night, couldn’t fill a house and make it a home, but Sinclair would be happy for what he had.
That was part of his life plan. Contentment. Something his father hadn’t had, his grandfather had never found, his brother longed for.
Elusive as mist on the water, but Sinclair had been managing to grasp it. It was that or drown his disappointments in a bottle the way three generations before him had.
The way he almost had.
One drink away. That’s all he was, and there was no way in hell Sinclair was ever going to forget it.
Chapter Two
The scissors had done the trick. Ten seconds and Adeline was out of the dress. Ten more and she was back in her jeans. She could have tucked the scissors into the medicine cabinet and left the bathroom, but facing her mother was out of the question. Not only did Adeline not want to hear another lecture on her overactive imagination, but she didn’t want to be asked the question that she’d been asked every day since May announced her engagement: Do you have a date to the wedding, dear?
Just thinking about it made her break out in a cold sweat, because . . . No! She did not have a date.
Furthermore, she was not going to have a date.
Not unless some handsome stranger who happened to like chubby redheads suddenly moved to town.
She knew this for a fact, because she’d called every unattached guy she’d ever had any contact with. They were all either busy or newly attached. That was the problem with being everyone’s good friend and no one’s lover. When you really needed an escort to some major event, you couldn’t count on having one.
Not that it mattered to Adeline.
She’d tried the love thing. She’d headed down that happy path of commitment and promises, her heart doing a joyful little dance the entire way. She’d had a ring on her finger and every intention in the world of saying I do. Right up until the moment that Adam had said he didn’t, Adeline had been committed to them and had been absolutely sure that they had the real thing.
Why wouldn’t they? They’d grown up together. Attended school together. Went off to college together. They’d fit like pieces of a puzzle, and there hadn’t been a person in Benevolence who’d doubted that they’d last forever.
She snorted.
Forever?
That had lasted until Adam got a job offer he couldn’t refuse. Good money. No. Great money. Adeline had wanted to get married before he left to join the law firm in Houston, but he’d had a dozen reasons why they shouldn’t. He’d said good-bye with tears in his eyes and promises on his lips—I’ll send you a plane ticket as soon as I get settled. I won’t sleep a wink until you’re by my side again. It won’t seem like home until you’re with me.
Bull crap. All of it.
A month later, Adeline had gotten an e-mailed Dear John letter. Adam had said that he thought they should take a break, see other people. Oh. And by the way? He’d like the ring back.
She’d tossed it in the Spokane River, and she’d gone on with her life as if her heart hadn’t been broken in a million pieces.
Fickle things, hearts.
So easily swayed, so easily fooled, so easily broken.
Not hers. Not anymore.
She liked her life just the way it was, but dang if she didn’t wish she had someone to go to the wedding with, because Janelle? She wanted nothing more than to see her three daughters married. To her, it was a source of never-ending disappointment that there hadn’t been a wedding yet. Three daughters, and not one of them had walked down the aisle. At least she could say that Willow and Brenna were in committed relationships. Willow was even engaged. Both of Addie’s sisters had exciting lives in exciting cities. A fact Janelle pulled out at every church function, every community event, every situation where bragging about children was considered a social norm.
But Adeline?
She was still living in town, working as an accountant with no man in sight. There wasn’t a whole heck of a lot that her mother could say about that. My daughter crunches numbers all day and spends most of her evenings alone? Not exactly bragging material.
Not that Addie usually cared.
Janelle was Janelle. She’d met Addie’s father in high school, fell in love with Brett Lamont and never once looked back. Their relationship had been one for the record books—true love that only seemed to grow as the years passed. If cancer hadn’t taken her father, Addie was quite sure her parents would still be together and still be madly in love.
Was it any wonder that Janelle wanted that for her daughters?
Too bad she didn’t realize that some of her daughters. . . one of her daughters . . . didn’t want the same thing. Whether or not Addie was happy with her choice to remain single didn’t play into Janelle’s thought processes.
Which was a shame, because Addie was happy.
Very happy.
Or had been until Granddad fell and ended up in the hospital. Now her nice routine life had turned to chaos.
She was under too much stress. That’s why the dang Lamont fudge wasn’t turning out and w
hy every heart she made seemed to be weeping chocolate. The last thing she needed was her mother hounding her about having a date to the wedding.
She also didn’t need to be hiding in a bathroom in her grandfather’s apartment. An apartment that was being rented by a guy who looked like he’d stepped off a magazine cover.
Sinclair Jefferson had been handsome when he was a kid.
Now...
Wow!
Women were going to be falling all over themselves trying to get his attention.
Not Addie.
All she wanted to do was get back to work and get home.
“Screw this,” she muttered. “I am not going to hide. If Mom asks me about my date for the wedding, I’ll just tell her I’m taking Tiny.”
She stalked into the hall.
The apartment was silent.
No sound of high heels clicking on wood. No murmured voices. Not even the soft sigh of fabric.
She hurried into the living room, the ugly orange dress under her arm. Empty. No one in the kitchen. Maybe they’d gone down to the parking lot, and maybe . . . just maybe . . . she could get into Chocolate Haven, get the kitchen cleaned up, and get home without hearing one word about wedding dates.
“Leaving so soon?” Sinclair asked as she reached the door.
She didn’t know where he’d come from.
The office maybe? Or Granddad’s bedroom? Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to be able to sneak out. She turned to face him, hoping to heaven her mother wasn’t there too.
She wasn’t.
Thank God.
“Soon? I figured I’d already outworn my welcome,” she replied, her hands itching to smooth her hair and to tug at the end of her T-shirt to make sure it was covering the rip in the thigh of her jeans.
She didn’t do any of those things, because Sinclair was just a guy who was renting her grandfather’s place, and it really didn’t matter what she looked like or what he thought of her.
His gaze dropped to her thigh. Obviously, her shirt wasn’t covering the tear.
“If I’d been in a hurry for you to leave, I’d have let you know,” he said, his gaze traveling from her thigh to the splotch of chocolate in the middle of her shirt. “Since you make the place smell like chocolate, I figured it would be okay for you to stay for a while.”
That made her laugh, all the tension she’d been feeling sliding away. “You have a thing for chocolate?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Not me.” Not anymore.
“Too many days in the shop?”
“Something like that.” She kept her voice light. No need to announce to an almost complete stranger just how desperate she was to be done working at Chocolate Haven.
“We could switch off. You can help my brother. I’ll work at your grandfather’s store,” he suggested.
It was a joke.
She knew it was, but she’d have happily switched places with him for a day or two.
Or a thousand.
“I wouldn’t want to ruin your fun,” she said.
“Fun?”
“I heard you and Gavin were cleaning out your grandfather’s house, trying to get it ready for the baby.” She’d also heard that Gavin’s wife had moved out. Seven months pregnant, Lauren had insisted that Gavin make the house he’d inherited habitable for her and their child before she returned to him. According to the blue haired ladies at the diner, he hadn’t been making much progress toward the goal.
“I guess not much has changed since I left town,” he said, all the humor gone from his face and eyes. “Gossip still travels faster than the speed of light.”
“Gavin is the one pushing the gossip along,” she replied, suddenly defensive and not sure why. She loved Benevolence, but not everyone did. Sinclair had every right to his opinion about the town.
“What’s he been saying?”
“He’s told everyone who cares to listen that Lauren walked out on him.”
“He needs to shut up. No one in town needs to know his business or Lauren’s.”
“Maybe you should tell him that.” She stepped outside, cold air bathing her hot cheeks. Perfect. That’s what this was. The perfectly horrible end to a perfectly horrible day.
“I will.” He’d moved to the door and stood in the threshold, backlit by the living room light.
“Then I guess there’s nothing more to say but good night.” She flounced down the stairs. At least, she hoped that’s what it looked like she was doing—a nice energetic retreat from a guy who she hoped wasn’t going to prove to be another complication in her already too complicated life.
She tripped on the last step, nearly landed on her face, but managed to right herself before she hit the pavement.
“Careful,” he called.
She offered a quick wave, doing everything in her power not to look at him again. No sense staring into those eyes, taking in those long lean muscles, those very broad shoulders. Let the other women in Benevolence drool and dream. She had work to do.
She stepped into Chocolate Haven, grabbed Granddad’s apron from the hook, hung the dress in its place. Chocolate permeated the air, the scent of it so heavy and thick she was sure she could stick out her tongue and taste it.
“I see you finally made it down here,” someone said, the words so startling Adeline nearly jumped out of her skin.
She whirled to face the speaker, spotted Janelle in the hallway that led to the front of the shop, a broom and dustpan in her hand.
“You nearly scared the life out of me, Mom,” she said, wishing to God she’d cleaned the kitchen right after the shop closed for the day. There were pots on the stove, chocolate dripping from a bowl on the counter, splotches of chocolate on the floor.
And then there was the fudge, sitting in a pan in the sink, the scissors poking out of it.
Janelle noticed. Of course, she did. The woman could spot imperfection a mile away, and there wasn’t one bit of perfection in Chocolate Haven. Not now. Not in all the time Adeline had been running the place.
“Sorry. I wanted to talk to you about the new renter and decided to sweep while I was waiting.” She set the broom and dustpan against the wall.
“What about him?”
“Sinclair is a very successful man, Addie.”
“And?”
“He’s paying a lot of money to rent Byron’s place.”
“Okay.”
Janelle sighed. “Don’t be obtuse, Adeline. You know what I’m getting at.”
“If you’re getting at me not causing your new renter any trouble, don’t worry. I’ve got enough on my plate without adding that.” She grabbed dirty pots from the stove, set them in the sink, and ran hot water over them. Chocolate melted and mixed into the swirling liquid, the scent of it drifting up from the steamy sink.
God! If she had to smell chocolate for one more minute, she was going to puke.
“It’s not that, Addie.” Janelle nudged her out of the way, plunging her hands into the chocolate- and soap-filled water and scrubbing the first pot.
“Then what is it?”
“I just don’t want you to be loud while he’s upstairs. He’s a busy man—”
“I’m a busy woman.” She cut her mother off, because sometimes she thought Janelle forgot that Adeline had a life, that she had a thriving accounting business and dozens of clients and plenty of friends to spend time with. Just because she hadn’t moved out of town like her sisters, Willow and Brenna, didn’t mean she didn’t have more than enough to keep her occupied.
“Busy in a different way.” Janelle finished scrubbing the pot and handed it to Adeline to dry.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that this is small-town America. We’re here doing small-town things. Sinclair is like your sisters. He’s living at that frantic city pace. He—”
“Mom, is there some point to this? I have a lot to do.” She gestured at the messy counters, the chocolate-dotted floor.
Janelle
handed her another clean pot. “Look,” she said with a sigh, “I didn’t come in here to upset you. I came because I don’t want Byron stressed more than he already is.”
“Neither do I.”
“And I don’t want you to be more stressed than you already are.”
“I’m not stressed,” she lied, drying the pot and setting it in a cupboard.
Janelle raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow, gestured toward the scissors that were still stuck in fudge. “No?”
“Minor setback in the fudge-making department,” she explained.
Janelle nodded, scrubbing another pot, sadness flitting across her face—there and gone so quickly Adeline wasn’t 100 percent sure she’d seen it. “It’s just difficult for me to watch you spend so much time here, Adeline. You’re young. You have so many things you could be doing, but you’re devoting every minute of every day to this.”
“Just until Granddad recuperates.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
An odd question, and one that filled Adeline with cold dread. “Is there something you know that I don’t, Mom? Is Granddad sick? If he is, just tell me.”
“No!” Janelle said hurriedly. “Aside from the broken bones, he’s healthy as a horse. But he’s not a young man, Addie.”
“I know.” She did. Byron had turned seventy-five a few months ago. They’d had a big party to mark three-quarters of a century. But Byron seemed younger than that. He walked every day, ran Chocolate Haven, volunteered at church and at the community center.
“Then you must know that there’s a possibility he won’t be able to go back to what he was doing before the accident. He wants to. We all want him to, but he might not be able to, and if he can’t, I don’t want you wasting your life here.”
“First,” Adeline responded, “I have an accounting business to run. There’s no way I could take over this place permanently. Second, if I did decide to do that, it would be because I wanted to, and that wouldn’t be a waste.”
“That’s what your father said. Look what happened to him.”
There it was. The crux of the issue. Finally out in the open. “Dad loved this place.”
“That’s my point. He loved it to his dying day, and it gave him nothing in return. If he hadn’t spent most of his twenties and thirties learning the business from Byron, maybe he wouldn’t have . . .” She shook her head. “Look, I don’t want to open old wounds. I just don’t want to see you consumed by this the way your father was and your grandfather is.”
Sweet Haven Page 3