“So, I have an idea,” Caden said.
I sighed. “Here we go.”
“What if we opened our own restaurant?” Caden asked.
“Right, and what is this restaurant going to be called?” I asked.
“Hoppin’ Hoppers.”
“What the ever-loving hell does that mean?” I asked.
“Two things. One, we would brew our own beer. Hence the ‘hoppers.’”
“Okay. And the hoppin’?”
“We would specialize in foods featuring meats from animals that hop.”
I turned toward Caden and glared at him. “What the fuck are you talking about? Animals that hop?”
“You know, like rabbits, kangaroos, crickets.”
I snorted. “You’re going to serve customers crickets?”
“Hey, they have a hell of a lot of protein. And apparently, that’s the new thing now. I researched it and everything.”
“You researched restaurants and found the growing trend was eating crickets? Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
“Look, I’m wanting to get out of this lumber business. You might be okay with hauling hundreds of pounds of timber a week for the rest of your life, but I’m not.”
“Caden, we’re friends, and I’ve got your back. Hell, I’ll invest if you want me to. But these ideas never come to fruition.”
“But this one will,” he said.
“Crazy ideas work,” I said. “I get it. But you don’t follow up, man. You can’t just keep dreaming. Dreams don’t do anything if you don’t execute them.”
“Does that mean you’d do it with me if I tried?” he asked.
I rolled me eyes as I turned toward my car. “You draw up a business proposal with a breakdown of finances, a five-year business plan, and a location for this place, and we’ll do it. But leave out the poor rabbits and especially the crickets. That’s just weird, man.”
“Are you serious?” Caden asked. “You’ll join in with me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
It wasn’t like I had planned to work for a lumber company my whole life. Why not try something else? I just needed to make a living so I didn’t have to depend on my dad’s billions of dollars.
“Oh, man. You’re not gonna regret this. I’m serious.”
“I’m sure I won’t,” I said.
Caden hurried off to his car, and I got into mine. The workday was over and I needed to make a run to the grocery store. The last thing I needed was to get tied up in some bullshit scheme of Caden’s that he would only be passionate about for an evening or two.
Caden was brilliant. He always had been. From the time he was in high school, he always wanted to open his own business. He never knew what kind, or where he wanted to do it, or how he was going to get there without a formal education, but that was the thing with him. It wasn’t about the how or the when or the where. It was just the what.
And nothing else.
Since this next date with Paige was something I was going to choose, I decided to cook for her. A Friday night date at my place with some wine, some good food, and some candlelight would help us both unwind. I had the day off work, which meant I could prepare not only the food, but my game plan for getting her in bed. She was a sexy woman with a sassy little mouth and so many avenues I wanted to explore.
I wanted to probe her mind before I probed her body.
She had standards, and that wasn’t something many women had in Brookings. Women in the bars were only after one thing. They didn’t want to get to know you or figure you out in any way. They wanted what you could give them, and it didn’t matter to them what they had to do or how they had to dress to get it. And that was fine. That was what the bar scene was about around here. But it was nice to find a woman who was more interested in talking with me than sleeping with me.
And holy fuck, did that turn me on.
I walked into the grocery store with Paige still on my mind. I wanted to surprise her with something instead of simply asking her what she wanted to eat. She had been on my mind constantly since our last date, and a part of me wanted to impress her. I wanted to listen to her moan and gush over my food.
I walked up and down the grocery aisles, and I thought about her smile. How radiant it was and how it made her eyes shimmer in the moonlight. I thought about how tightly her arms had been wrapped around me during our motorcycle ride after our last date. I thought about our eating contest and how it had been drop-dead sexy that she had an appetite she wasn’t afraid to show off.
Why the fuck could I not stop thinking about her?
I decided to keep it simple and cook chicken. I grabbed some vegetables and cheese to stuff the chicken breasts with. Then I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to cook as a side. I already knew the bottle of wine I was going to grab to go with dinner, but I wasn’t sure what to do for anything else. I wanted to impress Paige, as well as heighten my chances of at least being able to run my fingertips along her skin.
“Excuse me, could I ask you a question?”
I turned around and saw a woman with her head wrapped in a silk scarf. She was holding the hand of a small little girl, who looked no older than three or four years old. The little girl was staring up at me with large blue eyes, and her curly black ringlets cascaded down to her shoulders.
“Of course,” I said as I looked back toward the woman.
“What is that bottle of wine in your cart? My daughter can’t get over how shiny the label is.”
“It’s a new one for me,” I said as I pulled out the bottle. “It was in the Riesling section of the wine aisle.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at it?” she asked.
“Go ahead.”
The woman was stunningly beautiful, with big, brown eyes and porcelain-white skin. Her lips were just the right amount of plump and had a naturally red hue. Her body was tall and thin, with long legs and delicate fingers that held the neck of the wine bottle.
There was something about her that was familiar.
I saw the little girl staring up at me through her black curly hair, and I smiled. She was a small little thing, with a cute button nose and chubby red cheeks. She was clinging to her mother’s leg as she watched me warily, her eyes slowly wandering over my form.
It was like she was sizing me up for some reason.
The woman handed the wine back to me. “Thank you for letting me take a look. I’m not very good with remembering things, so I knew I’d have to take a good look at it if I wanted to find it later.”
“It’s not a problem,” I said. “I’m more than happy to help.”
“Blithe, can you say hi to our new friend?” the woman asked.
I wasn’t sure if I was a new friend, but I understood what the woman was trying to do.
I smiled gently at the little girl. “Hello there, Blithe. I’m Zach.”
All she did was cower closer to her mother.
“She’s really shy,” the woman said.
I nodded. “That’s fine. Stranger danger should be a thing all children should know about.”
“Well, thank you again,” the woman said.
“Anytime.”
In another world where Paige wasn’t on my mind so much, I would’ve gotten more information on the woman. I would’ve gotten her number and possibly asked her if there was a time where her child wasn’t going to be with her. Or maybe I would’ve enticed her to have me over one evening after her little one had already gone to bed.
She was a beautiful woman, with very kissable lips and legs I wouldn’t mind having wrapped around my body. But right now, there was a very interesting woman that was already occupying my thoughts.
A woman I was still shopping for.
I gathered up the rest of the things I would need for dinner and dessert before I headed to the cash register. The cashier rang me up, and I went to my car and began placing things into my trunk. I was eager to get home and get the chicken marinating before I hopped onto my computer for the night, but a piercing cry caught my attention.
I whipped my head around and saw that same beautiful woman struggling with her daughter.
This was why I didn’t want to have children. One moment they were just fine, and the next moment they were angry beyond belief. I could tell the woman with the silk scarf was struggling to keep her daughter in the cart and put her groceries away. I felt bad for her. I really did. She was obviously a single mother trying her best with a situation that had been thrown at her.
So, I shut my trunk and walked over to her to see if I could help.
“Hello again,” I said.
She jumped at the sound of my voice before relief cascaded over her features.
“Oh, hi,” she said as she struggled with her daughter.
“I’ll get your groceries in the trunk,” I said. “You just look after your little one.”
“Are you serious? Oh my gosh. Thank you.”
The moment she took her daughter out of the cart, the little girl stopped crying. She nestled her nose into her mother’s neck, and they swayed together in the parking lot.
I put the woman’s groceries in her trunk as she sang lowly to her daughter, her hand running through her daughter’s pile of ringlet curls. I looked back and saw the little girl’s eyelids drooping— Blithe, I think was her name— and I grinned as I put the last of the groceries in the woman’s car.
“All set,” I said as I closed her trunk softly.
“How in the world can I repay you?” she asked.
“Not necessary. It looks like your daughter’s tired.”
“She is. I need to get her home.”
“Well, I don’t blame her. It’s been a long day, and I’m going to do the same thing soon enough.”
“Me, too,” she said. “You know, once I can get her down.”
There was still a quality to her that seemed familiar. Intimately so, like I’d known her in a past life or something. I studied her for a little while as her eyes danced along my face. Then I sighed when I couldn’t place where she was from.
Maybe I was just going crazy.
“Well, drive safely,” I said.
“We will. And thank you again.”
“Not a problem.”
I walked back over to my car before I turned and looked behind me one last time. The woman was shutting the back door of her car and climbing into the driver’s seat. I studied her one last time, taking in her long legs and her thin stature. I racked my mind for who the fuck she reminded me of because it was obvious I’d never met her before.
But when she backed out of the parking lot to drive off, I froze.
A white car didn’t pique my interest—not in the slightest—but a white car with a dented door and a missing hubcap grabbed my attention immediately.
The woman was driving the same car that kept buzzing by the worksite. She was the woman stalking the site.
My hotel room was warm, but the voice on the other end of the phone was as cold as ice.
“I don’t know what it is you’re doing out there, but you’re not on vacation,” my boss said. “Your target doesn’t require this kind of up close and personal surveillance to gather information for our client.”
I gritted my teeth. “I disagree. Something isn’t right with this—”
“Make Mr. Kent happy, and you’ll get a permanent position on my staff. He specifically picked you for this case, so if this goes well, it means repeat business for our agency and for you.”
“Boss, I understand that, but you hired me all those years ago because of my gut instincts,” I said.
“I hired you because you were able to track down information on people. When I found you, you were working at a credit collection agency, wasting away in an office and still dreaming of becoming an artist.” His dismissive tone stung a bit.
“Sir, there’s something really weird here.”
“I don’t care about weird,” he said, sighing. “Mr. Kent practically solved this case for you. Find the paper trail that ties this man to the accounts so we can move on.”
“But he hired me for the entire month, didn’t he?” I asked.
“No, he paid three times what you’re worth for month because he wanted the job done as quickly as possible.”
“That’s not what he told me in our meeting,” I said. “He wants me to keep an eye on Zach Harte and report back to him. So, that’s what I’m doing.”
“You’re supposed to report back to me. Have you been calling him directly?”
“Sir, I really don’t understand why you’re—”
“Stop,” he interrupted. “I don’t even care. Here are your orders. You do your research, you wrap up this case, and you get home. Understood?”
“Understood. But at this point, I still have to meet up with him to wrap up this case. Randomly backing out but staying in town would look suspicious.”
Silence fell on his end of the line as my boss contemplated my words. He was irate, and I understood why. He was being left out of the loop, which wasn’t how things worked.
Normally, if I had information for a client, I routed all my information through him. He was the middle man and for good reason. He provided a buffer, just in case things got rough with a client. Sometimes, they did. Still, Mr. Kent was paying me a great deal of money to report back to him, and something in my gut told me there was much more to this story than Mr. Kent was letting on.
The evidence I was digging up was slowly proving that theory.
“Fine,” he said. “You’ll go tonight, and you’ll get more intel. But you call me before you call Mr. Kent, and you brief me on everything. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said. “I understand.”
“Good. Get what you can and use any means necessary. I expect a call tonight.”
He hung up the phone before I could get another word in. I hated my boss with every fiber of my being. With every case that came across my desk, he became more aggressive. His attitude was beginning to get to me, and the way he talked down to me pissed me off. I tossed my cell phone onto the bed and sighed.
I’d worked for this man for four years. Four fucking years, and the only thing I had to show for it was my own little dinky office. It wasn’t any bigger than the bathroom in my apartment back home. Hell, if I took a meeting with a client, I usually had to do it outside of the office.
Even though I hated the job I had when my boss found me, he offered me much more money to do it. That meant paying down my student loans faster, which meant I could get back to doing what I really wanted to do with my life more quickly.
I needed about two more years to pay off my student loans, but I couldn’t take this for another two years.
I couldn’t take the attitude and the haughty tone he took with me because he was my superior. I couldn’t take the incessant need to exert his authority over me just because he was the middleman when it came to cases. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to take any more insinuations that I should be using my damn body to get information on cases.
I still had three hours before I was set to meet Zach at his place, and I was nervous. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, and I was ready to call it quits.
I was prepared to pick up the phone, tell Mr. Kent what he could do with this fucking case, then call my boss and let him have it. My hands were shaking, and my eyes were watering with anger.
Use any means necessary. What a scumbag.