Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (166 page)

“We gotta go. Just got a call from Heather. A new space has just become available. She’s there now,” Amber said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin and grabbed her purse.

“You’re only going to have one?” Haley asked in surprise.

“No,” Amber answered, looking at Haley like she was out of her mind. “I’m taking one with me.” And with that, she wrapped a glazed donut in two napkins and started moving towards the door.

That sounded more like it.

“So where is this one?” Haley asked, not getting her hopes up as they stepped outside and Amber locked the door behind them.

Over the past couple of weeks, they’d seen over a dozen spaces and none of them were right. Too small. Too big. No parking. No foot traffic. Going into this, Haley had had no idea all that went into choosing the right retail space.

She had never once regretted her decision to go with the partnership deal instead of the investment option Amber had given her. Amber was a smart, savvy, successful businesswoman. Haley hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said she felt like she’d been handed a winning lottery ticket, because that was exactly what going into business with Amber felt like—like winning the lottery.

“Riverwalk East. I’ll drive,” Amber offered.

Haley followed behind her. It was a quiet morning in Harper’s Crossing. The only sounds Haley could hear were the birds chirping and the click-clacking of Amber’s high heels as they walked the short distance to her car.

“Have you seen any pictures of it?” Haley only asked because after the last property they’d seen they decided it would be best if they screen them first so they didn’t waste their or their realtor Heather’s time.

“I did.” Amber pressed the unlock button on her fob. “Everything looks good, but we’ll see.”

Haley slid into the passenger side of the car just as she heard Amber’s phone ring. Starting the engine, she pressed the answer button. “Hey, babe. You’re on speaker. Hales is in the car with me. We’re headed over to see a space.”

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment, and Haley wasn’t sure if the call was still connected until she heard her cousin’s baritone voice come through the speakers.

“So I shouldn’t talk about our shower this morning.”

Amber laughed and Haley shook her head and looked out the window as they passed the rolling green hills that bordered the city. She tuned out her cousin and Amber’s conversation as she watched the few hot air balloons that sprinkled the vista. The bright, vibrantly colored patterns that decorated the balloons looked so beautiful against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, dotted with white puffy clouds.

Haley loved the hot air balloon season. When she was a kid, she’d go for a ride in a hot air balloon every year. She hadn’t been since returning from college four years ago, but she made up her mind in that moment that this year she was going to change that.

After several rounds of ‘I love you’ with Seth and disconnecting the call, Amber asked, “So, Hales, did you do anything fun this weekend?”

Sure, she’d had an unbelievable, revealing conversation with Eddie where she’d found out that he was definitely attracted to her and also that she had no chance with him. Oh, and she’d also declared her love for him.

Then she’d spent the entire day at Bella yesterday wishing she would have said something different, done something different, basically…handled the entire thing differently. Not the part where she’d said, “I love you.” She wouldn’t change that for the world. She was glad that fact was out in the open. But the rest—the pushing him to talk, the weak-ass kiss, the leaving when she was sure he might have had more to say? None of those things were sitting so great with her.

So she’d guessed it was more of a mixed bag.

Instead of going into it, because there was no point, Haley went with, “Yep. I went and saw Em in
Annie
. She was
amazing
!”

“Oh that’s right. I’m so bummed I missed it.”

Amber turned the car onto Riverwalk East, and even though Haley was determined not to get her hopes up, she did feel a little excitement bubbling up inside of her. They had only seen one other space actually on the Riverwalk. It had been on Riverwalk West. The space had been way too small. There would not have been room for dressing rooms, but Haley had been tempted to snatch it up in spite of that for its location alone. Luckily, she had an amazing business partner who had assured her that they would find the perfect space.

“How did things go in Texas?” Haley asked. Amber and Seth had spent the weekend visiting Amber’s mom in Austin.

Amber’s brother had been killed in combat almost a decade ago, and in trying to deal with the loss, Susan, Amber’s mom, had become an addict. She had been in and out of recovery facilities over the last several years. Amber had told Haley before, that emotionally, she couldn’t allow herself to be too optimistic, but, she would never give up hope that she would one day have the mother who had raised her and her brother back.

“Good. My mom’s in a sober-living house. It’s the first time she’s opted for anything like that after treatment, so that’s encouraging.”

Haley wondered if her ‘opting’ had had anything to do with the fact that last year her mom’s then boyfriend broke into Bella, Amber’s car, and Amber’s house and then attacked Amber in a parking lot. All to try and get his hands on some big nest egg her mom had bragged about. Haley thought to herself that if putting your daughter through all that wasn’t rock bottom, she wasn’t sure what was.

They pulled into one of the four open spaces in front of one of the many brick buildings that lined Riverwalk East. Haley noticed the large glass window to their left with a for-lease sign sitting in it. Amber reached down and grabbed her purse.

“But we’ll see. She’s just taking it day-by-day and that’s all we can do too.”

As they stepped out of the car, their realtor Heather met them on the curb. “Good morning, ladies. Thanks so much for meeting me so quickly. I wanted you to see this and I’m not sure how long it will last.”

She turned the key in the glass door and pushed it open. Both Heather and Amber entered the space as Heather talked about the square footage and other details.

Haley didn’t move. She needed to take a moment before walking inside. Call it intuition, a sixth sense, or something else. She wasn’t sure what to name the phenomenon she was experiencing, but she just knew that this would be it. The one.

Turning her head, she surveyed the street and saw beautiful green trees that were sprouting up along the sidewalk. On one side of the space they were looking at, there was a yoga studio that must have been fairly new because Haley had never seen or heard of it before. To the left of the space, there was definitely something going on inside, but it didn’t look like it was open yet. Beside the yoga place was an art studio.

The east side of the Riverwalk was being gentrified. The opposite side had new buildings which had been built around a staple in Harper’s Crossing and also one of Haley’s favorite places to eat, The Grill. Even though it had that going for it, Haley liked this side so much more. It was more her style. She would have been happy with either, but in her heart, this was the side she felt Tempting by Bella belonged on.

“You coming, Hales?” Amber’s voice called out from inside.

Taking a deep breath, Haley walked through the door and her mouth dropped open as chills ran up her arm. It was exactly what she’d always envisioned when she’d dreamed of having her own shop. The space included high ceilings with exposed support beams and vents. The back wall had huge picture windows overlooking the river rushing by. There was a loft to the right side corner that would be perfect for displaying a line of body care she wanted to carry, with plenty of room underneath to install dressing rooms with a seating area.

Spinning around, Haley took it all in. It was big enough without being too big. It had personality without being so overpowering that she couldn’t make the space hers. There was adequate parking and the foot traffic was going to keep increasing as more and more businesses opened in the newly renovated buildings.

Heather looked between Amber and Haley. “What do you ladies think?”

Without miss

* * * * *

EDDIE TURNED THE wheel, his headlights shining on the chain-link fence as he pulled into the gravel lot. Parking his truck, he grabbed his to-go cup of coffee out of the cup holder and picked up his hard hat. He yawned as he made his way up the steel steps to the trailer.

He hadn’t slept much the past couple nights. After Haley had left on Saturday, he’d spent the entire night tossing and turning. A cold shower had not done the trick. Not even close. Every time he’d closed his eyes, he’d felt her lips pressed against his, smelled her sweet breath, and tasted the caramel from her banana split.

Even when his eyes had been wide open, he’d been having a difficult time concentrating on anything else. Flashes of Haley kept popping into his mind. Haley in the white towel. Haley’s toned, tan legs as she crossed them while they were seated in the auditorium. Haley snuggled up on his couch in her sweats and a tank top while they watched the performance. His mind was all Haley, all the time.

Luckily, Emily had opted for a ‘chill’ day, as she called it, on Sunday. Eddie figured she must have been tired from all the excitement of the play. So they’d watched movies, including an encore of the taped
Annie
performance, and ordered pizza.

Which was great. Except the entire time he had been wondering what Haley was doing. Thinking about how much fun it had been the night before when the three of them had gone to Tasty Treats and had ice cream and then all changed into “comfy clothes,” as Haley called it, and watched the show on the big screen.

But more than anything else, what had been keeping him up, what his brain had been obsessing about, were those three little words she’d spoken.
“I love you.”
He still couldn’t quite believe it. Sure, he’d had other women tell him that they loved him. But he’d never felt that love before. With Haley, he realized that, as shocked as he was at her admission, he’d
felt
her love long before she’d uttered the words.

It was seriously messing with his head.

Opening the heavy door, he was stopped short when he saw Jason already seated at his desk. He looked to be poring over paperwork. Eddie got an uneasy feeling. It was unusual for Eddie not to be the first one in. Jason hadn’t shown up this early to a jobsite since he’d taken over the reins at Sloan Construction.

The door shut loudly behind Eddie and Jason lifted his head. When he saw Eddie, he nodded his head. “Hey.”

“Morning.” Eddie pulled out the folding chair that sat behind his desk. “You’re here early.”

“Yeah, I got your e-mail last night and wanted to take a look for myself before I headed out to the Tanner site.”

Eddie didn’t take offense to the fact that Jason wanted to come see things in black and white for himself. That made perfect sense. If it were Eddie’s company, he would do the same. Eddie had emailed Jason last night to let him know that they would be finishing up three days early and about ten thousand under budget on this project. That was pretty unheard of in their field.

This was the fourth project this year that Eddie had overseen with similar results. He didn’t cut corners either. In fact, he went so far as to follow guidelines that were just recommendations and not requirements, just to be on the safe side. In the three years since he’d become a project foreman, he’d had the lowest injury rate in the company and had not had one incident report filed on any of his jobs for the last fourteen months. Eddie knew that most of the guys he worked with just considered this a job, but he took pride in his work.

“Man”—Jason sat shaking his head—“this is unbelievable. I still don’t get how your productivity can be so high, your incident reports so low, and you’re actually under budget.”

Eddie appreciated Jason acknowledging his hard work, and it wasn’t as if those were just empty words. In the ten-plus years he’d worked for Sloan Construction, he’d always received bonuses that reflected his labor and dedication to the job, first from Bob, Jason’s dad, and then from Jason once he’d taken over.

“Listen, I wanted to ask you…” Eddie figured this was as good a time as any to see if he could stay a little closer to home over the summer. “After this job wraps, do we have anything lined up in Harper’s? Emily gets out for summer break this Friday and I would love it if I could be around a little more. At least for the next month or two.”

Jason nodded. “Actually, we just put in a bid to work on the brick buildings on Riverwalk East. New owner wants to handle all remodels himself as well as renovations. It’s ABC stuff, really basic. I was going to put a small crew on it, but if you want it, it’s yours.”

“That sounds great.” Eddie could use some
basic
right about now. Between the stuff going on with Haley and him, and Emily’s mission to grow up faster than she should,
basic
sounded perfect.

“Actually, I was going to wait to do this, but now seems like a good time, ” Jason closed the files on the desk and looked back up at Eddie. “What would you think about stepping up to vice president?”

Eddie could not have been more shocked if Jason had said he had decided to have a sex change and was going to become a woman. Shaking his head, he said, “No. What about Bobby?”

The youngest Sloan brother Bobby, was the only other of the five Sloan brothers who worked at Sloan Construction. It was a family business. Bobby had taken Jason’s spot as V.P. when Bob had stepped down. He was a hard worker who deserved the position.

“Bobby told me last week that he didn’t mind staying on for as long as it took me to find someone to replace him but that he wanted to get back out on sites. The paperwork, the budgeting, the project management—he hates all of it. When we sat and talked about his replacement, the list was short. It had one name on it. Yours.”

Eddie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. As V.P., he would primarily work out of the Sloan Construction offices, which were located about five minutes from his house. He’d have more flexibility with his hours, even the possibility of working from home some days. Sure, maybe one or two times a week he’d have to head out to sites, but it wouldn’t be five to six days and he wouldn’t be there from dawn ‘til dusk.