Corner-Office Courtship

by Victoria Pade

  But her stupid, stupid car had conked out. With plenty of time to spare, she’d left Cade’s house, slipped behind the wheel, put the key in the ignition and turned it. And nothing had happened. No matter what she did.

  So at four-fifteen she’d had to call a tow truck. That was almost three hours ago and when the tow truck had finally pulled up and she’d learned that she wasn’t allowed to catch a ride back to Arden in the truck, she’d called a cab. But just when the tow truck driver was locking in the chains that kept her car secure, just when the cab arrived, so did Cade.

  Looking as terrific as always in tweed dress pants and a black mock turtleneck sweater.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he approached her where she stood on the curb. He’d been forced to park there since he couldn’t get near his driveway due to the tow truck.

  “My car wouldn’t start,” Nati said.

  “And the cab?”

  “To take me back to my shop. I need to get my scarecrow over to the festival organizer by eight. I thought I could just ride with the tow truck driver but he says that for insurance reasons the company can take my car but not me. I couldn’t get hold of my grandfather—he hasn’t been home and he’s not good about keeping his cell phone turned on or even remembering to take it with him half the time. Holly couldn’t come—someone left her three dogs to groom today and still hasn’t picked them up, and since I don’t know anything about where to catch a bus or which bus would get me back to Arden, I was out of other options.”

  And if only he’d been ten minutes later. Then she wouldn’t be standing here adoring the sight of him with a little stubble that only added to his appeal.

  “I’m not going to let you pay for a cab,” Cade decreed, heading in the direction of the waiting taxi.

  “No, it’s fine, really... Please...” Nati called after him, unable to pursue him because just then the tow truck driver was coming her way with a clipboard.

  Cade didn’t acknowledge her plea. When he reached the cabby’s window, he leaned over to the talk to him. The view of Cade’s great rear end gave Nati a hot flash, and she scolded herself for that, saying, “Really, this is not your problem. Please just tell him I’ll be there in a minute....”

  But still Cade ignored her.

  She saw him pass something through the window and hoped that he was merely paying the cabby in advance. But she had those hopes dashed when the cab drove away.

  Nati signed what the tow truck driver wanted her to sign and gave him the address of her mechanic. He returned to his truck about the time that Cade rejoined her and said, “I’ll get you wherever you need to go.”

  “I’m working for you,” she said as if they both needed to be reminded of that. “You don’t take any of your other employees home, do you?”

  “If they need a ride I do,” he said.

  The loud rumble of the tow truck’s engine was too much to talk over. When it drove off, Nati was once again alone with Cade.

  And fighting an unreasonable sense of delight that she knew she shouldn’t be feeling.

  “Let me call another cab,” she said, because being with him poked a hole in her willpower and she already knew where that could land her.

  “No chance. Come on, let’s get you to your shop, and then I’ll help you with that freaky scarecrow, too.”

  And that’s how it starts, Nati thought, doubting that he would accept her rejection of his offer to help with the scarecrow any more than he’d accepted her rejection of his offer to drive her back to the suburbs.

  “Don’t you need to go inside first?” she asked.

  “No, I’m good. I even ate—I had a dinner meeting with my brother and sister. But what about you? I’ll bet you haven’t had anything since lunch—”

  “Actually, when the tow company said it would be a two-hour wait—which ended up being a three-hour wait—I walked over to Cherry Creek Mall and grabbed a slice of pizza. I just need to get back to my shop.”

  “Then let’s go,” Cade suggested, moving to the passenger side of his car to open the door for her.

  With a sigh of resignation, Nati got in and he closed the door behind her.

  The car smelled of his cologne. While he walked around to get in the driver’s side Nati closed her eyes and took a deep breath, breathing it in as if it were life’s oxygen before she realized what she was doing and forced her eyes open.

  What was wrong with her?

  She really was acting like a crazy, infatuated kid.

  Vowing to stop, she sat up straight and stiff and put on her seat belt just as Cade slipped behind the steering wheel.

  As they drove, Nati stuck strictly to business, reporting on the status of his wall, telling him that she would be finished sanding and polishing it by Friday.

  Just as they were getting on the highway Cade’s cell phone rang. He checked the display and said it was a call he had to take. His side of a business conversation filled the rest of the drive to Arden, ending only when they pulled into the small parking lot behind her shop.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said as he put his phone away.

  “It’s okay. Business. I understand,” Nati said, more concerned over the fact that her grandfather’s car was parked in the lot, too. And that he was just crossing the street from his lodge at that moment.

  When it was originally built, Old Town had only needed to accommodate horses and buggies, so the streets were narrow. Parking areas were at a minimum. One of the few parking lots in the neighborhood was behind the building that housed Nati and Holly’s shops. Whenever Jonah went to the lodge and couldn’t get a spot in its tiny lot, he parked in Nati’s.

  And now here he came. And here was Cade Camden.

  “You can just drop me off,” Nati said, hoping that might actually work.

  But of course it didn’t. “I don’t have anything to do tonight. I’ll help you get your scarecrow and take it wherever it needs to go and maybe we can check out that ice-cream shop over there.” He nodded in the direction of the newly opened ice-cream parlor that promised old-fashioned, dreamy, creamy ice cream.

  About that time Nati’s grandfather spotted her in Cade’s passenger seat and waved. Then Cade parked in the spot next to Jonah’s car.

  “My grandfather,” Nati said by way of explanation as she waved back, getting out of the car as soon as Cade had come to a stop.

  “I’ve been trying to call you,” Nati said to her grandfather. “My car died and had to be towed.”

  “Oh... I’m sorry. I left my phone at home,” Jonah said contritely. “I was playing poker.”

  Cade got out and came around to join them. There was nothing Nati could do but introduce them, so that’s what she did.

  Cade extended a hand for her grandfather to shake, and they exchanged amenities before Jonah said, “So you’re Georgianna’s grandson. How is she?”

  “She’s doing well. I know she’d want me to send her regards. She speaks highly of you.”

  “She was always a good gal. The best thing about old Northbridge. Does she still make those oatmeal raisin cookies?”

  Cade laughed and assured Jonah that she did, and while the two of them rhapsodized about the cookies, Nati relaxed.

  She didn’t know what she’d expected to happen if they came face-to-face, but the thought of it had made her instantly tense. Not only was there a less-than-desirable history between the Morrisons and the Camdens, but she’d had flashbacks to the way Doug had always behaved around her family—patronizing, condescending, disdainful—and she’d feared the same would be true of Cade.

  Instead Cade was faultlessly respectful, congenial and friendly, and her grandfather was his usual warm, open self.

  “Well, tell Georgianna that I said hello,” Jonah said after announcing that he needed to get going to meet a
friend by eight.

  Cade promised that he would.

  Turning to Nati, Jonah offered to pick her up later. But Nati rejected that idea. She told her grandfather that she’d get home in the old truck that was now parked alongside the building. She used it only as needed to make occasional deliveries for the shop, but it still ran, so her grandfather accepted that solution, agreed that they’d talk in the morning and left.

  “I have to get that scarecrow to Gus before he goes home,” Nati said a bit frantically, digging in her purse for her keys to let them in the store’s rear door.

  She was grateful for Cade’s help after all. The scarecrow was no small thing to maneuver but he managed to do it easily and they got to the sandwich shop just as Gus Spurgis was turning the sign hanging on the inside of his door from open to closed.

  Gus took the scarecrow, and told her he’d be putting them all up at various spots around Old Town the next day before making it clear that he wanted to get home.

  Then Nati found herself back out on the sidewalk with Cade, who leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Ice cream!”

  She couldn’t help laughing as she realized that all of her good intentions today were floating away in October’s evening breeze and she was just happy to be with him.

  “Ice cream,” she conceded. “But only if you let me buy—it’s the least I can do for saving me cab fare.”

  “Deal.”

  Ten minutes later they were sitting at a café table enjoying their ice cream and paying no attention to the flier the shop owner had given Cade inviting them to the wine and cheese tasting that was being held the next night to launch the Scarecrow Festival.

  “This is great!” Cade decreed of his mint chocolate chip.

  “Mine, too,” Nati said, almost missing a drop of triple chocolate that threatened to fall from her spoon down the front of the tan-colored turtleneck sweater.

  “It was nice to meet your grandfather.”

  “Thanks for being friendly to him.”

  Cade frowned in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be friendly to him?”

  She’d spoken out of her own past experience with Doug and her in-laws, and wasn’t too sure how to explain what she meant without getting into that topic.

  So she hedged. “Oh, you know how it is. Some people aren’t comfortable meeting family and they can come off...I don’t know, unfriendly, I guess. Cold. As if they think they’re better...”

  “Yeah, I’ve met a few people like that. I didn’t like them. I definitely don’t want to be one of them.”

  He paused for a moment as if he were judging his next words before he said, “Just between you and me, my grandmother feels bad about the history between her and your grandfather.”

  “My grandfather feels bad about that, too,” Nati said. It had felt awkward to be introducing the grandson of the woman who had been rejected, to the man who had rejected her.

  “He said he was just too young and he still had too many wild oats to sow,” Nati went on. “He just wasn’t ready to settle down. But he only has glowing things to say about your grandmother—I can tell he genuinely cared about her. They were just too young.”

  Cade really looked confused now. His brow was creased over those penetrating blue eyes. “Am I hearing that right? I know your grandfather and my grandmother were high school sweethearts, but are you saying that your grandfather dumped my grandmother?”

  “You didn’t know that?”

  “No. When GiGi has talked about him being her first love and the fact that they broke up just before she met my grandfather, she never says that it was your grandfather who did the breaking up.”

  Nati wondered if she’d revealed something she shouldn’t have. “Your grandmother wanted to get married right out of high school—”

  “Which she basically did. She married my grandfather the February after she’d graduated.”

  “But she and my grandfather broke up at graduation because he wasn’t ready to get as serious as she wanted them to.”

  Cade chuckled at that, and it was a relief to Nati, who was beginning to think she might have opened a can of worms. “I’ll be damned. All these years and that little devil left that out. She’s only said it was good that they broke up because it left her free when she met my grandfather.”

  “Don’t tell her I told you,” Nati beseeched him. “Nobody wants to be reminded of being dumped.” Then something else occurred to her and she said, “So if that wasn’t what your grandmother feels bad about...”

  It dawned on Nati belatedly what he’d been referring to. “Oh, the farm...”

  With a chagrined sort of lift to his eyebrows, Cade said, “I didn’t know whether to talk about it or not, but I keep feeling like it’s the elephant in the room. Maybe we should. GiGi only recently found out how that went down and she does feel bad about it.”

  “She only recently found out about it? Surely she knew that my great-grandparents had the farm foreclosed on, that that was why they left Northbridge.”

  “She did. But she thought it was the bank that did the foreclosing. She thought that H.J. just bought the farm from the bank after the fact. All these years that’s what she’s believed and then some things came to light and she learned that it was H.J. who took over the mortgage from the bank and orchestrated the foreclosure. He was worried that she might still have feelings for your grandfather and...” Cade shrugged apologetically. “H.J. was not one to sit back and just let things run their course. He thought your grandfather was a threat to my grandfather getting the girl he wanted. If GiGi had known what was really going on back then she would have never stood for it. And she hates that that’s what was done to your family. Especially over her.”

  “I can’t deny that my great-grandparents were hurt by it,” Nati admitted. “They’d had a few bad crop years and were behind in their mortgage payments. Usually the bank was understanding and gave some leeway until things had a chance to turn around for the farmers in the area. It came as a surprise to find out that their mortgage had been bought out from under them and that they were being foreclosed on.”

  “So it was really rough on your great-grandparents,” Cade said with sympathy and regret.

  “It was,” Nati admitted. “Of course when I knew them I was just a little kid and they were pretty old. But even then I can remember them ranting and raving if the name Camden was in the news. And from what my grandfather has said, yes, they did have it rough after losing the farm. They basically came to Denver with nothing. My great-grandfather was hired as someone’s gardener for a little while, but then he had a stroke—”

  “From the stress?” Cade asked, clearly bearing the weight of what she was telling him.

  “That’s always been the theory,” Nati confirmed. “After the stroke he couldn’t work, and my great-grandmother needed to take care of him, so neither could she. That left it all up to my grandfather—he supported his parents from then until they died.”

  “Wow. I’m kind of surprised he was friendly to me just now....”

  Nati laughed. “That’s just the person he is. He actually never thought your grandmother knew about what H. J. Camden did. He’s always given her the benefit of the doubt. He’ll probably be glad to know he was right. But he’s a really positive, upbeat person—he’s the king of making lemonade out of lemons.”

  “So would you say that he’s basically been happy with the way his life turned out?”

  Nati could see that Cade was looking for reassurance, possibly for his grandmother as well as for himself. “Yes. He always says that he plays whatever cards life deals him. When it comes to your great-grandfather and the farm, it isn’t as if he’s thankful that that happened. And I know he has some guilt for the fact that his involvement with your grandmother was to blame for what his parents suffered. But he made the best of it and put it
behind him. I also know that he doesn’t like thinking that he might have hurt your grandmother in any way.”

  Cade smiled wryly. “He’s worried that she was hurt, she’s worried that he was. That sounds like two people who still might care about each other, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, you know, first love...”

  They finished their ice cream as the shop was closing, so they threw away their napkins, spoons and the plastic bowls, and left.

  As they walked back to Nati’s store Cade glanced at the flier the ice cream shop owner had given him.

  “So what’s this?” he asked.

  “A wine and cheese tasting—the wine shop and the cheese shop joined forces to put on the first event of the Scarecrow Festival,” Nati explained. “There’s a big effort being made to draw people back into Old Town. Events—especially seasonal events like the Scarecrow Festival—are part of that and we’re all doing anything we can because what brings more people here means more business for everyone.”

  “Then the wine and cheese tasting benefits you and your shop in the long run—that sounds like something that should be supported. I’m free tomorrow night. What do you say we go? Or did you already have plans for it?”

  She didn’t. Holly couldn’t make it and Nati didn’t want to go alone.

  But to go with Cade?

  She could rationalize the meals she’d shared with him so far. They were unplanned. But going together to the wine and cheese tasting tomorrow night? How could she not look at that as not a date even if he did couch it in terms of the fact that it would benefit her business?

  So she knew she should refuse.

  But should and could? Two different things when the temptation was intense to have a real date with Cade, to spend the entire evening with him without pretense, to do something she wanted to do anyway.

  “I didn’t have plans to go,” she said, managing a little restraint.

  “But it sounds like fun. What could be bad about wine and cheese? And it’s for a good cause—to boost your business.”