Chapter Nine
It was only six a.m. Monday, and Willow wanted to quit Chocolate Haven forever.
Or at least for a few hours.
Unfortunately, Byron had made sure she couldn’t.
He’d left town.
Just for the day, he’d said. I’ll be back by Tuesday opening time.
“Lies,” she grumbled, stirring a pot of melted chocolate and heavy cream. She needed it to boil. Now. Not fifteen minutes from now. Or twenty. Or thirty like the last batch.
She eyed the trash can and the pile of disgusting fudge that was in it.
How had it come to this?
She knew how to do this. Or at least she had. She’d done it dozens of times when she was a kid. Now? She couldn’t make smooth, beautiful Lamont fudge if the stuff jumped out of the cupboard and plopped itself in the pan.
She grabbed the candy thermometer and attached it to the side of the pan. Byron never used one. He didn’t need one. He knew exactly when the mixture was ready. He knew exactly how it should look when it coated the wooden spoon, exactly how much of it should cling to the sides of the pot.
He knew it all, but he was on his way to Seattle. For doughnuts!
Benevolence Baptist senior bus trip.
She’d heard the announcement while she was sitting in church yesterday. Squeezed between Janelle and Adeline, Brenna and River and their crew sitting behind them, she’d heard all about the trip to Seattle, the overnight stay in the gorgeous hotel, the visit to some famous doughnut place. Sightseeing and dinner, and fun.
Yep. She’d sat there and listened, and she’d thanked God that Byron wasn’t going, because there was no way she was ready to run the shop on her own.
Only, Byron was going.
He’d just conveniently forgotten to tell her until last night. When he’d finally mentioned it, he’d assured her that he’d be back Tuesday morning, but she’d very clearly heard the trip coordinator say that they’d be spending all day Tuesday seeing the sights. The bus would be returning home at seven p.m.
Byron was going on the trip.
He was going to be on the bus.
Therefore, he was not going to be back Tuesday morning.
Simple logic.
“And big fat lies,” she muttered.
Not that there was anyone around to hear.
She was by herself, the hall right behind her. She’d turned on every light in the place, and that narrow alcove still seemed dark.
I can still smell his damn cologne.
Had she really told Jax that?
Of course she had.
Because of the kiss and the way it had made her feel—as if every possibility was still open to her, as if the life she’d wanted when she was a young kid could still be hers.
She stirred the thick, goopy chocolate mess, eyeing the clumps of unmelted chocolate floating in their bath of cream. Obviously, she couldn’t have those old dreams. She couldn’t even make the Lamont fudge.
She had to try, though, because the shop was opening in a few hours, and she needed twenty pounds of it.
A car drove into the back lot, its headlights splashing across the window.
Hopefully, it was Brenna or Addie coming to the rescue.
She’d texted them both immediately after Byron had broken the news about his Seattle road trip. She hadn’t heard from either of them. She’d imagined them both curled up beside their husbands, sleeping the sleep of the innocent while her frantic cry for help went unnoticed. She’d thought about calling their home numbers, but she hadn’t wanted to wake them. They deserved their rest. They’d done their time helping with the shop.
Now it was Willow’s turn.
Too bad she was failing miserably.
A key scraped in the back door lock, and the door opened, cold air sweeping in. Brenna swept in with it, her dark jeans clinging to long, slim legs, her lilac turtleneck comfortable and soft, her hair speckled with snowflakes.
She looked classy and comfortable and stunning.
“You’re here!” Willow hugged her. Hard. Because they’d spent too many years apart, and it was good—really good—to be back in the same town, seeing each other anytime they wanted. “I was worried you wouldn’t get my text.”
“I just got it. I was so tired last night, I went to bed early. Fortunately for you, Ajax woke up screaming—”
“Angel’s baby?” The young mother lived with Brenna and her husband. She wasn’t the only one. River’s aunt had taken in a handful of young people who’d all desperately needed a place to stay. Now they’d become a family of sorts, working on the old house that used to be a home for troubled kids, tilling the fields and building what would one day be a working farm.
“Yes. He’s got colic or some da . . . rn thing.” She grabbed an apron, pulled a net over her hair. Somehow even that looked good on her.
“Are you and River babysitting him?”
“Are you kidding? Angel barely lets anyone get within two feet of the kid. She leaves him with the sitter while she works, and the rest of the time, he’s tied to her hip. I heard him crying and woke up. Then I couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Too much on your mind?”
“Yeah. River has great plans for Freedom Ranch, but the restaurant addition is a huge project. I’m worried it won’t be finished by the time we open for business in the fall.”
“Of course it will be. You and River are a great team. You’ve put together a doable plan. You’ll get it done.”
“I hope so. River’s aunt isn’t getting any younger. We’d both like her to see the plans come to fruition.”
“Is her health deteriorating?” Belinda had suffered a stroke two years ago, but she seemed to have mostly recovered from it. Willow had spoken to her at church, and the older woman had been cheerful and happy.
“No. Nothing like that. Time just flies, you know? One minute you’re seventeen and the world is at your feet, and the next you’re nearly thirty, married and caring for a houseful of people who don’t have anyone else to love them.”
“You sound tired, Bren. Is everything okay?”
“No,” she said, and then she burst into tears.
Tears!
Brenna never cried!
“Hun! What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Brenna wailed.
But of course something was wrong.
How could it not be when she was sobbing like her best friend had died?
“Is it River? Did something happen between you?”
“Yes! And I don’t know what I’m going to do!”
“You’re going to tell me what’s going on, and we’re going to figure it out. That’s what you’re going to do.” She pulled her into a hug and wished it had magical properties. The kind that could heal hurts and mend hearts.
But of course, it didn’t, and all she could do was stand there and listen while Brenna cried.
God! She wished she were better at this.
She wished she’d spent the past decade learning her sister’s heart the way she’d learned criminal law.
The back door flew open, and Addie stepped into the shop.
Hair scooped into a bun, strands of curly hair escaping in every direction, she stood wide-eyed on the threshold for about two seconds, her gaze jumping from Willow’s face to Brenna’s and back again.
Then she was moving, shutting the door, turning the lock, crossing the room, putting one arm around Willow’s shoulders, one around Brenna’s.
“Who do we need to kill?” she whispered, and Brenna’s sobs turned to laughter.
“Oh. My. Gosh. Addie!” she choked out before she started crying again.
They stood there for several minutes, arms wrapped around one another, a combined front against whatever foe Brenna was facing.
River?
It didn’t seem possible.
Willow had seen them together at church, holding hands during the sermon, looking into each other’s eyes during the hymns. They hadn’t looked like a couple who was struggling. They’d looked like two people who were deeply in love.
But looks could be deceiving.
Look at her.
People thought she was confident, accomplished, brave. She’d spent her career facing down bad guys—drug dealers, murderers, rapists, child molesters. She put on a good front, portrayed herself exactly as she wanted to be seen.
But inside?
Inside, she was scared spitless.
“Okay,” she said, grabbing a clean dishcloth from the drawer and wiping Brenna’s damp cheeks with it. “Spill. What did the idiot do?”
“Idiot?” Addie asked, inhaling deeply, her nose crinkling. “Female or male? And . . . what the heck is burning?”
“Nothing,” Willow answered, but suddenly she could smell it too. Scalded cream. Burnt chocolate. “Damn! The fudge!” She turned off the burner, grabbed the pot and tossed the entire mess into the trash can.
“That’s Granddad’s favorite fudge pot,” Brenna pointed out, her tears nearly gone now, her cheeks and nose red from them.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I know, because I threw it away a couple of dozen times when I was helping in the shop. It always reappeared. Didn’t matter how much crap it was coated with. It didn’t matter how burnt the bottom was. Granddad still took it out of the trash, cleaned it, and put it back in the cupboard.”
“That explains it,” Addie said, grabbing oven mitts and retrieving the pot. Blobs of grainy chocolate coated the sides, and lumpy streams of it dripped off the bottom.
“Explains what?” Willow asked.
“Why it never stayed in the Dumpster.”
“You threw it in the Dumpster?”
“You would have, too, if your fudge had stuck to the bottom like cement.”
“You make great fudge!” Willow protested, hoping with everything she was that it was the truth. One of them needed to make the days’ quota of fudge. Brenna looked worn out and fragile. Willow was an abysmal failure at fudge making.
That left Addie.
Sweet, uncomplicated, wonderful Addie who’d already set the pot in the sink and was running hot water into it.
“Now I do, but a couple of years ago”—she shook her head—“I broke knives in the cement that was my fudge. I could have crushed skulls with it. I probably could have attached it to the end of a stick, called it a mace, and conquered the world with it.”
Brenna laughed again, dropping into one of the rickety chairs. “God! It’s so good to be with you two. I’ve missed this so much.”
“Are you lonely out there on Freedom Ranch?” Willow asked, filling the old tea kettle and setting it to boil. Grandma Alice had once told her that tea could fix any ill.
It hadn’t fixed their father’s cancer, but maybe it could fix Brenna’s wounded heart.
“With all those people? Not at all.”
“Then why the tears?” Adeline had scrubbed out the pot and set it back on the stove. She’d already started the heat under the double boiler and was pouring chocolate pieces into it. No measuring cup. Just eyeing it the way Granddad did.
“I found something out last night, and it’s going to ruin everything.” Brenna didn’t break down again, but she looked like she wanted to, eyes red-rimmed, her cheeks pale.
“Is he cheating on you?” Willow guessed, hoping that she was wrong.
“River would never cheat. He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t play around or say stupid things or make me feel like I don’t measure up. He’s as close to perfect as anyone can get. The problem isn’t him. It’s me.”
“You,” Addie huffed, pouring cream into the fudge pot and motioning for Willow to grab the sugar, “are not the problem.”
“Of course I am. River and I had one deal going into the marriage. One thing we were both very clear on. We both agreed that we weren’t ready for kids. Not yet. Maybe in the future. After we got things sorted out at the ranch, and Belinda was better, and . . .”
She said more.
Willow knew she did. She could hear the words, but her mind was connecting dots, putting things together, coming to a very obvious conclusion.
“My God!” she said, cutting in before Brenna finished. “You’re pregnant.”
And, of course, that just made Brenna cry again.
“I am!” she said through fresh sobs. “And I don’t know how I’m going to tell River.”
“You’re going to just come out and say it,” Addie responded.
“We’re not ready for kids!” she insisted, but her hand was on her lower abdomen, and there was something in her face Willow had never seen before. Something soft and quiet and enthralled.
It took her breath away to see her youngest sister like that.
“No one is ever ready for kids until they have them,” she said, touching Brenna’s shoulder and feeling that thing well up inside—the warmth of family and connection and love.
How had she not realized how much she’d missed that, how much she’d needed it?
“Willow is right,” Addie said, pouring melted chocolate into the bubbling cream and sugar. “I was terrified when I found out I was pregnant.”
“But you’d planned the pregnancy.”
“Like heck we did.” Addie laughed. “We didn’t even talk about it, and then I was pregnant, and we had two teens living with us and my giant dog and no room for a crib or even one of those tiny bassinets.” She shrugged. “It worked out just fine. Just like things are working out for Willow. She wasn’t expecting to be a mother.”
“I’m not—”
“But here she is with a crib up in the apartment and plans to stay here until Miracle has a permanent home. And she’s happy about that, aren’t you, Willow?” Addie speared her with a look that told her she’d better darn well be.
“Of course I am.”
“See?” Addie poured the fudge into a buttered pan, the beautiful chocolate streaming out in smooth ribbons. “It’s going to be fine, Brenna. You’re going to be a great mother. River is going to be a great father. Belinda is going to be over the moon, and Mom—”
“Don’t mention this to her,” Brenna cut in. “Not one word from either of you, okay? She’ll be announcing it to the world and planning a baby shower before I get through my first trimester.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Willow assured her, pouring hot water over a tea bag and handing Brenna the mug. “My schedule is packed. I’m not going to have much time to talk to anyone these next few days.”
“When’s Miracle being released from the hospital?” Adeline asked. She’d already begun a second batch of fudge. Thank God!
“Friday. Alison and I are going to pick her up around midnight. Hopefully, that will keep the reporters away.”
“Are they still trying to get interviews with you?” Brenna took a sip of tea and stood, pulling ingredients out of the pantry and starting what looked like a caramel.
“Not in the past couple of days.” Except for the calls she kept getting in the middle of the night. Always from the same number. Always voice mail with nothing but the sound of empty air.
“Mom said she saw a news story just yesterday morning. The reporter interviewed Wilma Strafford. Remember her?” Addie poured chopped nuts into the newest fudge mixture, poured it into another pan.
“Our seventh-grade English teacher?”
“Yes. She lives a few blocks down on the corner of Main and Windsor. She swears she saw a car drive by her place the night Miracle was born. Hand me another pan, will you? Alice is going to want to eat soon, and I’d like to be home before then.”
Willow grabbed a pan, handed it to Addie, and then started chopping apricots for the fruit-studded chocolate bark Granddad sold every Monday. Six pounds of it. That’s what the inventory list demanded.
She glanced at the clock.
Time was ticking away, but with her sisters there to help, things were getting done quickly. She’d be ready to open on time, and with enough stock to serve whatever customers braved the weather.
“I saw that.” Brenna had finished the caramel and was layering it over dark chocolate wafers. “She said she recognized the car. She’d seen it out at the Bradshaws’ farm a couple of months ago.”
“Really?” Jax had mentioned something about the Bradshaws’ place and a couple of young adults who were renting a house on the property, but she hadn’t asked him for a follow-up.
“Yes. She swore that the car belonged to one of the hippies who have taken over the farm. Her words. Not mine. I think the reporter tried to go out and interview the people renting Sunday and Matt’s house, but no one answered the door.”
“I wonder if Jax knows about that?” Willow poured warm chocolate on a marble slab, smoothing it out with a spatula before sprinkling apricot bits and almonds on top of it.
“Jax . . .” Brenna murmured. “Yeah. I wonder. Maybe you should call and ask?”
“Don’t tease,” Addie chided as she finished another batch of fudge. It looked luscious—smooth and silky and creamy. “Willow is sensitive about her love life.”
“I have no love life, and therefore,” Willow argued, “I have nothing to be sensitive about.”
“That’s not what Mom says.”
“What does she say?” Willow asked, curious and a little appalled that there’d been a conversation about her relationship with Jax.
Relationship?
Not quite.
They’d kissed.
It had been good.
Who the heck was she kidding?
It had been earth-shattering, toe-curling, soul-searing.
Addie pressed her lips together, stepped away from the stove, and wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “I think Alice is about to wake up. I’d better go.”
“What you’d better do is tell us what Mom said,” Brenna responded, a gleam in her eyes, a little color in her cheeks. She looked better. Happier. More confident.
“I really shouldn’t,” Addie hedged, opening the door and letting cold air blow in.
“You really should,” Willow insisted. “Remember the pact we made after May’s wedding? Remember how we swore to always have each other’s backs?”
“Okay. Fine. You twisted my arm. Horribly, if Mom should happen to ask. She said that you two stopped by Granddad’s house the other night. According to him, you looked really chummy. Really chummy.”
“So he didn’t mention—” the kiss almost popped out.
“What?” Addie let the door close, and it was just the three of them again. That silly vow between them. The one they’d sworn by candlelight after Brenna had found out her then-fiancé was cheating on her. The bond between them was still there, the threads of love woven so tightly they hadn’t been broken. Not by the sorrows each of them had suffered. Not by distance or time or years when they’d barely talked.
“Willow!” Addie squealed, her eyes wide again, her beautiful curls nearly vibrating with excitement. “Is there something else? Something scandalous. Or titillating? Or . . .”
“If it happened where Granddad could see it, how scandalous could it . . .” Brenna began, and then her eyes widened too. “Oh. My. Gosh. He kissed you. He did, didn’t he?”
She didn’t answer quickly enough, and Addie grabbed her arm. “He did! Was it everything you dreamed it would be?”
“I never dreamed—”
“Of course it was,” Brenna interrupted. “Look at her. She’s blushing.”
“I’m not—”
“Jax Gordon, the town’s most eligible bachelor, and you managed to snag him.”
“Addie . . . it was one kiss. That does not constitute a lifetime commitment.”
“That’s what I told myself the first time Sinclair kissed me. But I knew I was lying. Sometimes, something is just so right there’s no denying it. Now I really do have to run. Alice is like me. She loves her food!” She ran outside, snow swirling in the early-morning darkness and swallowing her up as she crossed the parking lot.
Willow stood in the doorway, watching as she climbed into her car and drove away.
She was wrong.
Of course she was.
A kiss was just a kiss. No need to overthink it. No need to analyze it. No need to remember the way it had made her feel.
“Are you trying to freeze us out of here, Will?” Brenna asked. “Or just trying to avoid answering questions you think I might ask.”
“Neither.”
“Then close the door, and let’s get to work. Hopefully, at some point during the prepping process, you can help me come up with a way to break my pregnancy news to River.”
She was giving Willow an easy out, and there was no way she wasn’t going to take it.
“It’s good news, Brenna. And he’s going to think so too.”
“I hope you’re right.” She frowned, sprinkling chocolate shavings on top of white chocolate bonbons. “Speaking of good news. Granddad has a bunch of mail piled up on his desk.”
“What’s good about that?”
“Nothing. Just a segue into something I wanted to talk to you about. When I was in the other day, I knocked the stack of mail over. I noticed one of the envelopes had your name on it.”
“Okay.” She’d been too busy to pay attention to the mail situation, but she made a mental note to go through the pile.
“I recognized the return address. It was from the guy who came into the shop looking for you. He gave me that check, remember? The one you told me to burn?”
Willow had been trying really hard not to remember that. She’d known what the money was before she’d looked the guy up and found out he was an attorney who represented high-powered clients in the D.C. and Northern Virginia area.
Eric’s family lived there.
His younger brother Josh was a senator, and people were whispering presidential candidate along with his name. That meant his opponents would be busy digging up dirt. As far as Willow knew, Josh had kept his nose clean, but he had seen her the night she was raped. He’d been waiting outside the shop, ready to give Eric a ride home. Eric who’d lost his car keys when his father caught him driving drunk.
Yeah. Josh had seen her running out of the shop, her dress torn and her stockings ripped and her body shaking.
He’d called her name, but she’d just kept running.
Months later, when his brother had been accused of raping a cheerleader, he’d been the only one in the family—probably the only one in the town besides Willow—who hadn’t defended the star quarterback and track champion.
“Willow?” Brenna said quietly.
“I remember.”
“You never told me what that was about.”
“Because, it wasn’t important.”
“Twenty thousand dollars is important. Twenty thousand dollars that someone burns to ashes is really important.” She washed her hands, leaned against the counter, long-legged and beautiful. Married. Pregnant. She didn’t need more complications in her life.
“Maybe, but it’s not important anymore.”
“Right.” Brenna tucked a stray strand of hair under the net and sighed. “Well, the guy sent you something. Probably another check for twenty thousand.”
She’d just burn it again, but she couldn’t say that without opening the door to questions she didn’t want to answer.
“I’ll look at it later.” She walked to the whiteboard that contained a list of the candy they needed for the day. She crossed off the fudge, the chocolate bark, the caramel crunch squares, the bonbons.
Her hand was shaking, but she didn’t think Brenna noticed.
If she did, she didn’t mention it.
* * *
Jax needed chocolate like he needed Aunt Vera to knit him another Christmas sweater. In other words, not at all. That was as good a reason as any to take his early-morning run in the opposite direction of Chocolate Haven.
Of course, he didn’t.
He also didn’t turn around when snow started falling and the sidewalk got slippery. He’d worked most of yesterday, graveyard shift and then extra time in the office, finding out everything he could about Eric Williams.
The most important thing he’d found out was that the guy was dead, killed in a single-car accident a few years back. Blood alcohol level three times the legal limit. The last piece of information had been a little more difficult to get his hands on, but he’d managed it. A few phone calls, a few people who were more than willing to talk about a guy who’d been dead for years.
Yeah. He’d gotten what he’d wanted. He’d found Eric Williams. There wouldn’t be any confrontation or any closure, though.
Not that it should matter to Jax.
This was Willow’s deal. Her past. Her story.
And, unless he missed his guess, she already knew the guy was dead. She seemed like that kind of person—one who kept her secrets, built her walls, and secured her fortress. He couldn’t imagine her going through life without knowing exactly where Eric was.
He’d wanted to talk to her about it yesterday, but he’d been running late for church, and she’d slipped out as soon as it ended. Then he’d had to drive out to the Bradshaws’ place again. Still no sign of renter number four. Phoebe. According to the guy who’d called himself her husband, she was eighteen.
Jax had done a little checking.
He’d asked around town and then in the next town over. He’d finally found someone who knew a girl named Phoebe. She’d worked at the feed store until a few months ago. She was one of several girls who lived off the grid with their parents.
Or, she had lived with her family.
She’d stopped coming to work and hadn’t been seen since.
Jax had spent the rest of the day hunting down her family. Not easy, because they lived on fifty acres in the middle of the woods. Three teenage girls who’d been hidden away in a back room. Father named Josiah who’d had cropped hair and an attitude. Mother named Mary who looked about twenty years younger than he was, her hair pulled back from a tired face, her smile a lot kinder than the guy’s scowl.
She’d invited Jax into a cabin that had probably been hand-built by the family, offered him coffee, told him all about their oldest daughter. Phoebe had been gone for six months. She’d run off with a twenty-year-old whom she’d met at a church revival.
Jax couldn’t say he blamed her. The place was rustic, and that was putting it kindly. No electricity. No running water. She’d probably gotten sick of living in antiquity and even sicker of living under her father’s thumb.
Or maybe she’d gotten pregnant and had been terrified of his reaction. Jax planned to ask. Once he finally met her.
He was off the clock until Wednesday, but he wasn’t going to let the case go. He planned to make a few more trips out to the Bradshaws’ farm.
For now, a quick jog to clear his head and get his blood pumping. Then, work on the house. He had floor tiles to put in and a bedroom to paint. The place was coming together. Which should have made him happy, but the more he worked on it, the more he realized how big it was and how empty. Bedroom furniture in his room, an old couch and a rocking chair in the living room. A card table and a couple of chairs in the kitchen.
Plenty for a guy like him.
Lately, though, it hadn’t seemed like enough, all the emptiness reminding him that houses should be filled with people and noise and laughter.
He frowned, jogging along Main, the streetlights illuminating the sidewalk and road, everything coated with a dusting of powdery snow. He could see the lights from Chocolate Haven, and he knew Willow was working.
He’d be smart to jog past.
But, of course, he didn’t do that, either.
Two cars were parked in the back lot. Willow’s and an old Chrysler that he knew belonged to Brenna. He’d heard that Byron was out of town. The sisters must be working together to open the shop.
He didn’t even bother telling himself he should leave them to it. He wasn’t going to.
He knocked on the back door.
When it opened, he found himself looking into Brenna’s face. She grinned.
“Speak of the devil,” she said, stepping back so he could enter.
“Is that what they’re calling me now?” he asked, his gaze drifting from Brenna to Willow. She stood near the sink, a dishrag in one hand and a chocolate-coated spoon in the other.
“No one was calling you anything. We hadn’t even mentioned your name,” she responded.
“In at least ten minutes,” Brenna intoned, and Willow swatted her with the dishcloth.
“Bren! Enough.”
“I’m just telling the truth. We were talking about Jax.”
“We were talking about Miracle and her mother, and you asked if I’d heard anything from the sheriff’s department. That’s all it was,” she added, looking Jax square in the eyes.
No tears this morning. Just smooth, pale skin and kissable lips, and the kind of beauty that could take any man’s breath away.
It sure as hell had stolen Jax’s.
“I’ve told you everything we know. I’ve been following up on a few leads. So far, we’re coming up empty.”
“You heard that news report, right?” Brenna dropped a chocolate-coated pretzel on waxed paper.
“There have been a lot of reports. Which one are you referring to?”
“The one where they interviewed Wilma Strafford.”
He’d heard it, but none of the information she’d provided had been new to the sheriff’s department. “I heard it.”
“Well, maybe you should follow up on it. See if she knows more than what she told the reporter,” Brenna suggested.
“Bren, he and Kane know what they’re doing. I’m sure they’ve already followed up.” Willow grabbed a cookie sheet filled with chocolate hearts and carried it from the room.
If he hadn’t been watching, he wouldn’t have seen her hesitate at the entrance to the hall. If he hadn’t known her story, he wouldn’t have thought anything about the split-second pause, the deep breath, the hurried footsteps as she nearly ran into the service area.
But, of course, he had been watching and he did know.
“You could go help her put those in the display cases,” Brenna said. “Or, if you were feeling really industrious, you could grab the bonbons from the walk-in and bring them out to her.”
“You’re putting me to work on my day off?” he asked, but he walked into the fridge and grabbed what looked like a tray of bonbons.
“You have days off?” Brenna grabbed a tray filled with white chocolate bark and stood right in front of the doorway, blocking him from exiting.
She had an agenda.
He could see it in her eyes, in the slight tilt to her head, in the way she was studying him like he was a problem she needed to solve.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Yeah, but it seems every time I see you, you’re in uniform.”
“Probably because most of the time you see me, I’m pulling you over for speeding.”
She laughed. “You’re right about that! So . . . big plans for the day?”
“Just working on the house.”
“Yeah. That’s a big project,” she said, still blocking the door, her blue eyes a shade darker than Willow’s, her hair a shade lighter. She was the tallest of the three sisters, the sharpest edged, too, but Jax had always liked her, so he’d play her game for a few more minutes.
“It’ll be worth it when it’s done.”
“Just like Freedom Ranch. River and I are up to our eyebrows in renovations. He’s torn apart the entire kitchen, and now we’re piecing it back together.”
“Need some help?” Maybe that was the purpose of the blocked door and the twenty questions.
“Now that you mention it.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I do. See, I can’t be here and there at the same time, but Willow is in over her head.”
“I can head out to the ranch. What time—”
“Oh. No. I don’t need you to do that.”
“Then what do you need?”
“I need you to hang around here until Chase is finished at school. He’ll be in at one.”
“I know squat about chocolate making.” It was as good an excuse as any to avoid what would be a colossal mistake. Spending a few hours in the shop with Willow?
Yeah. No.
He was already having trouble staying away.
Look at him now—standing in the walk-in with a tray of bonbons in his hands.
“Willow knows plenty. She’ll teach you.”
“Brenna—”
“Come on, Jax. It’s just for a few hours, and I could really use the help. Plus, you owe me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“My tickets probably pay half your salary.”
“That’s—” Not how it works, he started to say, but she’d already walked out.
He followed, telling himself he wasn’t going to agree to help and knowing he was lying.
He’d come to the shop because he wanted to.
He’d stay because he wanted to.
Whatever else happened?
It would because he wanted it too.
And what he wanted? It was a hell of a lot more than he should, because he didn’t want to see Willow hurt, and he didn’t want to be hurt, but he couldn’t make himself stay away from her.
No matter how hard he tried.
“Well?” Brenna demanded as he closed the walk-in door. “Would you be willing to help out? I can pay you, if that’s the issue.”
“I never need payment to lend a hand,” he replied, and she smiled, the kind of sly smile that said she had more on her agenda than getting his help in the shop.
“You’re a good guy, Jax. A really good one, but if you hurt my sister, I will, for sure, hurt you. That’s just a little free advice,” she added, and then she set her tray on the counter, took off her apron, and left the shop.