Hunter left Hannah’s, thinking about everything she’d said. As an accountant and the fiduciary steward for his family’s business interests, he was extremely risk averse. He didn’t take unnecessary chances. He didn’t gamble. As a rule, he didn’t risk anything he couldn’t afford to lose.
So taking a gamble on Megan went against everything he believed in, especially because he had no way to do his due diligence, to fully investigate all his many questions and options before he put his heart on the line with her.
Perhaps he was overanalyzing the whole situation, which wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that. He couldn’t help the way he was wired, and that wiring had served him well in his professional life. However, his instincts, which he usually trusted implicitly, were telling him that his overanalyzing tendencies might not be useful to him in this case.
He arrived at the office late, which was also not like him. Hunter was a stickler for family members setting the right example for the rest of their employees and insisted everyone get to work on time. So when he walked in to find an impromptu family staff meeting going on in the outer office, he wasn’t surprised to see his siblings check their watches—even the ones who didn’t wear watches.
“Yes, thank you,” he said without actually looking at any of them as he headed to his office. “I know I’m late. First time for everything.”
“And you look like hell, too,” Will said. “What gives?”
“Nothing.”
“Something,” his sister Charley said, making the others laugh.
“Leave him alone,” Ella said, earning a permanent place in Hunter’s heart. “He gets to be human like the rest of us once in a while.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Charley said. “If he becomes human, the whole operation will fall apart.”
“I can hear you,” Hunter said from his office.
“I intended for you to hear me,” Charley retorted in her usual pain-in-the-ass fashion.
“Don’t you people have work to do?” Hunter asked.
“You’re not the boss of us,” Charley said.
“Dad! Tell them to work!”
“Kids, get to work,” Lincoln said from his office. “You’re making your brother mad.”
“Who’s mad?” Elmer Stillman asked as he came up the stairs and into the reception area.
“Hunter,” Charley said. “Rolled out on the wrong side of the bed this morning and was late to work.”
“You don’t say,” Elmer replied. “It’s the end of the world as we know it.”
“Right?” Will asked with a laugh. “That’s what we said, too.”
“I expect better from you, Gramps,” Hunter said, even though he was amused by his grandfather’s contribution to the expected abuse. Sometimes working with family members truly sucked. Most of the time, however, it didn’t.
Elmer came to his door, eyes twinkling with mirth. “I apologize profusely.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hunter said with a grin. “The damage is done.”
“May I come in for a minute?”
“Of course.”
Elmer closed the door, which surprised Hunter.
“Everything okay?”
“Oh sure. I just have some personal business I’d like to discuss with you.”
“What kind of personal business?”
“The financial kind.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“And you do a damned fine job of it. You know how proud I am of you, don’t you?” Before Hunter could form a reply to the unexpected compliment, Elmer continued. “Smartest kid I ever met grew up to be the sharpest, savviest man I know.”
Hunter swallowed hard, unprepared for the wallop of emotion that accompanied such effusive words from a man he worshiped. “Thank you, Gramps. Means the world to me coming from you.”
“It’s all true. Every word. I trust your judgment, and I need some advice.”
“Whatever I can do.”
“I’ve got some money I’m looking to invest. I’m trying to find the right opportunity, but I’ll be damned if I know where to look.”
Hunter was immediately riveted by the possibility that his grandfather’s desire to invest in something could keep Megan in Butler. However, he pushed that thought aside because acting in his best interest wouldn’t necessarily be in his grandfather’s best interest.
“Do you have any ideas of what you might like to do?” Hunter asked.
“I’m thinking a small business maybe. Something that could use the boost that comes with new capital, but I’d need you to help me hire someone to oversee the actual business. I’m enjoying my retirement too much to get bogged down in the details again.”
“Right,” Hunter said, tapping his mechanical pencil against his lip as he contemplated the convergence of ethics and desire. What to do? “I heard of one business in town that’s closing unless they find new owners.”
“Which one?”
“The diner.”
“Yes, I heard that, too. Something about Brett and Nina moving overseas …”
Hunter eyed his grandfather warily. “What’re you up to?”
“Up to? I’m talking to you about an investment I’d like to make. How does that make me up to something?”
“The timing is interesting.”
“How so?”
“The whole town is probably abuzz with the news that Brett and Nina are leaving, and suddenly you’re interested in investing in a business, something that could use an influx of capital. It’s … curious.”
“I still don’t understand why.”
Elmer was a formidable opponent when it came to sparring, and Hunter knew when he was outmatched by a master. He had no doubt his grandfather was up to something, but because it suited his own agenda, Hunter decided to play along.
“So you want to buy the diner?”
“Thought crossed my mind.”
“And you didn’t think to just say that when you first came in here?”
“I didn’t want to limit my options if you knew of a better opportunity.”
Elmer never blinked, yet Hunter still sensed he was being played. “Have you approached Brett and Nina?”
“Not yet. I was hoping you might handle that for me.”
“I’ll look into it,” Hunter said casually even though his heartbeat accelerated at the possibility of a solution that might keep Megan around. If his grandfather bought the diner, they could hire her to run it for them or at least work there if she wasn’t interested in management. Unless she had other plans altogether, a thought that left him feeling deflated.
Elmer withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it over to Hunter. “Offer them this.”
Hunter unfolded the paper, his eyes bugging at the zeros. “You can’t just go in there and make them a blind offer. We have to do our due diligence.”
“Our due what?”
“Diligence. We need financial statements and an inspection of the building and equipment. We need profit and loss information for the last five years and …” At the sight of his grandfather’s perplexed expression, Hunter stopped himself. “Didn’t you once run a business?”
“Yeah, but we did it the old-fashioned way.” Elmer winked at him. “A handshake was good enough.”
“That’s not good enough for me.”
“Figured as much.”
“Where’ve you been hiding all this money?”
“In tin cans I buried in the backyard. Where else?”
Hunter gaped at him. “Are you kidding me?”
“Yep,” Elmer said with a deep guffaw. “You don’t know everything, young man. I got a few secrets here and there.”
“Apparently,” Hunter said, equal parts annoyed and amused.
“Do your due doodoo or whatever it is, and keep me posted.”
“Diligence, and I will.”
“Excellent.” Elmer stood and headed for the door, a jaunty bounce in his step.
As his grandfather went out, his brother Will came in after exchanging greetings with Elmer. “What’s he up to?” Will asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Hunter said. “But he’s definitely up to something.”
Will laughed. “Watch out. When he meddles, people end up engaged and living together and married.”
Will’s words set off a powerful sense of yearning in Hunter, for things he hadn’t known he wanted before spending time with Megan the night before. He wanted more. He wanted to get to know her—what she liked and didn’t like, what she enjoyed, what made her smile, what made her happy.
“Hunter? Where’d you go?”
He realized he’d zoned right out of the conversation. “Sorry. Did you need me for something?”
“I need your help with a very personal project.”
Intrigued, Hunter said, “What kind of project?”
Will looked over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear him. “I want to buy an engagement ring for Cameron, but I have no idea where to begin.”
“Oh wow, that’s big news. Congrats.”
“Thanks.”
“You could ask Colton. He’s probably better versed on diamonds and rings than I am.”
“I can’t tell him out of fear of it getting back to Cameron through Lucy.”
“Lucy would never say anything.”
“Still, it’s kind of personal, and the fewer people who know the better. I want Cam to be completely surprised, and I want to get it right with the ring, which is where you come in. Will you help?”
“Of course. When do you want to go?”
“Maybe Saturday? I scouted out some jewelry stores in Rutland.”
“I can do that.” Hunter glanced up at his brother. “So you’re really going to do this, huh?”
“I really am, and I can’t wait to ask her. She’s … Well, she’s everything, and I want her to know that.”
“I’m happy for you, Will. Truly. She’s fantastic. We all love her.”
“Yeah,” Will said with a goofy smile that Hunter might’ve made fun of if he hadn’t been so incredibly envious of his brother’s obvious happiness. “She’s pretty great.”
“So Saturday it is.”
“Thanks, Hunter. I really appreciate your help.”
“Anytime. Let me ask you something …”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Did you really tell Megan she was focusing on the wrong Abbott brother?”
Before his eyes, Will seemed to squirm. “Maybe …”
“Did you do that to help me out or to get her off your back?”
“Some of both—not that she was ever ‘on my back,’ as you put it. She was a little much with Cam a few times, and I wanted that to stop. She was acting like a jealous ex when there was never anything between us.”
“There really wasn’t?”
“We made out once at a party the summer after she graduated. One minute we were talking about what she’d been through losing her parents, and she was crying and then her tongue was down my throat. It lasted all of five minutes. For me anyway.”
“Her crush on you lasted ten years.”
“I never encouraged it.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. I just … I wasn’t into her that way. She’s a nice girl and everything—well, most of the time she is. I cut her some slack because of what she’s been through, but the last time she got bitchy with Cam right in front of me. I’d had enough at that point.”
Hunter thought about what Will had said and wondered why Megan had spent so much time yearning for a man who’d shown so little interest in her.
“What’s going on, Hunter? Why all the questions about Megan?”
“I wanted to better understand what went on between the two of you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to ask her out.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“What brought this on all of a sudden?”
“It’s hardly all of a sudden. At least not for me.”
“I had no idea you were into her until Cameron figured it out and told me. I hope I never did anything to, you know, make it harder for you.”
Hunter grunted out a laugh. “You being alive makes it harder for me with her.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
He waved off Will’s apology. “No worries. You have a couple of other redeeming qualities.”
“Just a couple?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“I’ll quit while I’m ahead and let you get some work done. Good luck with Megan.”
“Thanks.” After Will left, Hunter stared at the piles of folders and papers on his desk that required his attention. But rather than dive into work the way he usually did, he sat behind his desk and stared off into space thinking about the important question he needed to ask Megan, how he should ask it and what she might say.
News traveled with the speed of wildfire in a small town, and Butler was no exception. By the time the diner opened that morning, all their regulars already knew Brett and Nina were moving overseas and the diner was closing down after the weekend. Moving from table to table, refreshing coffee and taking orders the way she did every day, Megan did her best to dodge the endless questions about what she would do now that her sister—and her job—were going away.
Over the course of the first hour they were open, Megan must’ve said a hundred times that she was happy for her sister and Brett to have the opportunity to live overseas and no, she didn’t know what her plans were after the diner closed.
As the breakfast rush started in earnest, Megan was too busy to answer questions, which was just as well because she’d run out of answers, and her emotions were swinging all over the place.
“Megan!” Butch, the cook, was never the jolliest of fellows, especially first thing in the morning, but he’d been extra surly this morning after Nina broke the news to him that his job was going away—soon.
Megan scurried toward the open window where several plates of pancakes and eggs waited for her to deliver them.
Butch grunted at her. “Move your ass, will you?”
“I’ll move my ass if you shut your mouth.”
He grunted again, half laugh, half aggravation, which meant business as usual between them.
She secretly loved Butch, who was big and burly with sleeve tattoos on both arms and bulky muscles, all of which he loved to show off by wearing tank tops year-round, even when it was freezing outside. Though they bickered nonstop most days, she knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, which he frequently proved when he fixed her car for free or gave her rides when it was snowing, allowing her to keep her eyes closed while she breathed deeply and tried to forget that she was in a car in the snow—her least favorite place to be. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for him either.
Butch was someone she would miss when the diner closed. Their relationship defied easy definition—it was part brother-sister, part angry coworker, part dysfunctional relative. He was a member of the family she and Nina had put together in the years since they lost their parents, and he was important to both of them. Nina had cried when she told him her news, which had made Megan cry, too. She felt like she was losing her family all over again as the closing of the diner loomed large in the immediate future, like a dark, threatening cloud.
Megan moved through the diner, tending to seventeen tables at once without having to think too much about what she was doing. Nina manned the register and kept the coffee pots full while busing tables, dealing with customers and handling takeout orders.
The three of them had a good groove, one that had worked well for years. It was funny, Megan thought, as she refilled the mugs of Hunter’s grandfather, Elmer Stillman, and his friends Cletus Wagner and Percy Flanders, how you don’t think much about the people in your daily life until they aren’t going to be in your life anymore. People like Mr. Stillman, who always made her laugh with his homespun sayings about everything from coffee to moose to love.
And had she just thought of him as Hunter’s grandfather rather than Will’s? That was a first. Although Hunter hadn’t been far from her thoughts all morning as she relived the night before over and over again. What he’d said to her, how he’d said it, the way he’d looked at her and the tenderness he’d shown her … It had all been so … unexpected.
Despite the usual morning chaos in the diner, exacerbated by Brett and Nina’s news, she kept expecting him to walk through the door and realized she was watching for him, hoping to see him again sooner rather than later. He’d missed his usual seven-fifteen muffin run, which had her wondering if he’d skipped breakfast altogether.
“Are you all right, honey?” Mr. Stillman asked kindly—and quietly.
Megan realized she’d been standing by their table holding the coffeepot for at least a minute if not two. “I’m sorry to space out on you, and yes, I’m fine.”
“Must’ve come as a surprise to you to hear your sister and her husband are moving overseas.”
“It did.”
“You’ll miss her.”
“Very much.”
“Lots of people in this town care about you. I hope you know that.”
“I do, thank you.” He was such a dear, sweet man, and she would miss seeing him every day.
“My son’s a lawyer in St. J,” Percy said. “Looking for a new office manager. I can put in a word for you if you’re interested.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.” The thought of driving all the way to St. Johnsbury in winter weather made her feel ill, but she was in no position to turn down any job opportunities. She wrote down her phone number on a slip from her order pad and handed it to Percy. “Have him give me a call if he’d like to.”
“I’ll do that.”
She thought about her conversation with Elmer and Percy as she counted her tips after the lunch rush had come and gone with no sign of Hunter. Maybe he’d had a change of heart after last night. Maybe spending time with her one on one had shown him there was nothing all that special about her and he’d moved on. Surely a successful, self-assured man who looked like him could have any woman he wanted.
The thought made her sag into the booth she’d chosen in the far back corner, away from where Brett and Nina were having lunch and whispering with excitement about their big adventure. Butch had gone home after lunch but would be back in a couple of hours to cook dinner. Megan was done for the day. Two other waitresses took alternating days on the dinner shift.
They had a routine they followed, a routine that would be interrupted when the diner ceased to be the center of their existence. What would she do without this place to come to every day? That thought made her feel panicky. It wasn’t the money that worried her. Their parents’ life insurance had ensured that she and Nina were quite comfortable, so technically she wouldn’t have to work right away. The diner had been about much more than earning a living to both of them for as long as Nina and her husband had owned it.
Now it was about to disappear from her life almost as suddenly as her parents had. If she stayed here any longer, she was going to cry again, and she wouldn’t do that to Nina or Brett. She refused to rain on their exciting parade. Collecting the cash from the tabletop, she shoved the rolled bills into her purse and headed for the door.
“I’ll see you at home.”
“Are you okay?” Nina asked, tuned into her as always.
“Yep. Just got a couple of things to do, and now’s as good a time as any.” In truth, she had nothing to do, and after the diner closed, she’d have days full of nothing to do until she figured out her next move. Thinking of the empty, pointless days ahead brought back the panicked feeling as she pushed through the door and nearly smashed into Hunter, who was on his way in.
He reached out to grab her, keeping them both from tumbling down the stairs. “Whoa. What’s the rush?” Hunter took a closer look at her, slipped an arm around her shoulders and guided her down to the sidewalk. “Walk. Talk. Tell me what’s wrong.”
How could he know with just a quick glance that she was teetering on the edge of another meltdown? He didn’t give her time to answer him before he guided her along the sidewalk, his arm around her shoulders drawing inquisitive looks from people they encountered along the way—people who knew them both and were clearly stunned to see them together.
And were they together or was he just being nice again? How the heck was she supposed to know? But God it felt good to be surrounded by him and the scent of class that clung to him in the form of cologne that was probably ridiculously expensive. She barely knew him but had no doubt he didn’t go for the cheap stuff. That wasn’t him.
His arm was heavy and muscular around her, holding her against his side as he walked with no apparent destination in mind. As they passed Nolan’s garage, Hunter’s new brother-in-law stopped what he was doing to watch them go by. Hunter didn’t seem to notice Nolan watching them, but Megan did.
They continued along Elm Street, past the art gallery and coffee shop, the pizza place and the barn where Hunter’s brother Lucas did his woodworking. As usual, Lucas was out front, watching the world go by as he created his masterpieces. When he saw his oldest brother with his arm slung around Megan’s shoulders, Lucas froze, his mouth open in surprise as they went by. Hunter seemed as oblivious to Lucas as he’d been to Nolan. His entire focus was on her and wherever he was taking her.
Megan had to admit it felt pretty good to be scooped up by Hunter Abbott and escorted through town with his arm around her. At some point during their walk—or forced march or whatever you wanted to call it—she’d forgotten that she’d been on the verge of tears when she left the diner.
With the way things happened in Butler, by the time she returned to the diner in the morning, the questions would’ve shifted from the diner closing to what was she doing with Hunter Abbott’s arm around her. That thought brought a small smile to her face as she ventured a glance up at him. His handsome face was set in an unreadable expression. It stayed that way until they reached the playground at the far end of town, where he directed her to a bench and encouraged her to sit.