Sweet Surprises (12 page)

“That,” she said, trying to wrap her mind around it, trying to envision this big thing happening in Benevolence, “is huge.”

“Yeah.” He grinned, setting another bowl into the cupboard, his biceps bulging against the cotton fabric of his shirt. “I like huge projects. I love when people tell me something won't work. It gives me the incentive to prove them wrong.”

“Have you been talking to people about it?”

“I ran it by one of my restaurant managers and my financial adviser. They think I'm nuts. I also talked to the business council in Benevolence. We had a meeting yesterday.”

“And . . . ?”

“That's where the favor comes in.” He stopped drying, turned her so they were face-to-face. “They seem . . . interested. The idea of local produce, local products, local business benefiting is never a bad thing for a town this size. Seasonal tourists are moneymakers, and if they can add to them, it's a win-win.”

“I still don't see what that has to do with me.”

“They want me to prove I can use local people and businesses to get the farmhouse up to snuff. Once I've proven it can be done, they said they'll grant me the permit to add a large demonstration kitchen. I can have classes there, show guests how to use what they harvest at home to create restaurant-quality dishes.”

“And the favor?” she prodded, because she still had no idea where she fit into this thing.

“I was talking to Adeline about finances this morning and she mentioned you had a shop in New York City.”

“A
clothing
shop.”

“Which you designed. She showed me photos: lots of antiques and vintage wallpaper. Old books on shelves on the walls.”

“Those were just small details. No one paid much attention to them.” She went back to scrubbing the marshmallow pot because her cheeks had gone hot. She'd added the antiques, the books, the vintage wallpaper, after the interior designer Dan had insisted on had finished his work. The posh modern shop had been exactly what Dan thought would match her reputation as a runway model.

“Details make the dish, red,” he replied. “The right cheese, the perfectly ripe tomato, the crisp spinach for the salad. Details are what make the person, too. Like your freckles.” He touched a spot on her cheek, and a shiver of excitement raced up her spine. “Your spiky hair. The way your mouth curves downward when you're thinking.”

He didn't touch that.

Thank God!

She moved out of reach. Just in case.

She was done with excitement, with men, with complications.

But she was intrigued by what he was saying and the fact that he wasn't talking about making a buck. He was talking about saving a lifestyle, maintaining a tradition that was nearly as old as the town. “What does Belinda think about your idea?”

“I haven't run it by her yet. I don't want her to be disappointed if it doesn't work out. If you agree to help me out, I'm just going to tell her that I've hired some people to update the farmhouse. What I'd like you to do is go to some of the local antique shops, pick up some things that will work in the farmhouse. Choose the paint colors. I know you're busy here during the day, but Adeline said she'd talk to some shop owners to see if they'll let you look around after hours. She does all their taxes so she's got an in with most of them.”

“Decorating my own shop is a lot different from helping you with a project like this.” But the idea excited her. She couldn't deny that any more than she could deny the little ping of heat that danced up her arm when he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the pantry.

“You see all this?” he asked, gesturing to dozens of ingredients that lined the shelves. “This I know about. Decorating? Not so much. You have an eye for it that I lack, and you're the only local person who has any experience. I know. I've been asking around.”

“There's a lady in Spokane—”

“Local,”
he emphasized. “Otherwise I'll lose the bid for the permit.”

“River, I really don't have experience. I decorated one shop.”

“A highly successful shop,” he pointed out.

Until my fiancé emptied out the business account
, she almost said, but that was a story for another time. One she had no intention of telling anyone. “I really don't think—”

“I hear Byron is going on a fishing trip next week,” he cut in, grabbing a clean dish towel and scrubbing the stove with it. Somehow the chocolate and marshmallow and peanut butter splattered all over it disappeared.

There
was the magic Byron had been talking about.

Which sucked, because she needed it way more than River did. “Who told you that?”

“Your sister. She's concerned you might be in over your head.”

“Does it look like I'm in over my head?” she muttered, because she knew damn well it did.

“Fair trade, red. I come in three nights a week to help you make candy. You come over to the ranch the other two nights and get the place ready for the business council's visit.”

“When is that?”

“Two weeks from today.”

“That's not much time.”

“You're saying no?” He rinsed the rag in steamy hot water, swiped chocolate from the edge of the sink. Somehow, the kitchen was nearly clean, and all she'd done was wash one marshmallow pot.

“I'm saying yes,” she found herself saying, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them.

River grinned, the kind of I-got-what-I-wanted smirk that should have made her blood boil.

Instead, she was grinning, too, smiling like some inane schoolgirl who'd pleased her crush.

“I . . . need to take out the trash,” she managed to say, grabbing the bag and yanking it out of the can.

She was pretty sure she'd left a trail of chocolate on the shop floor. She didn't bother looking. She'd clean it later. After River left and took his contagious smile and big plans with him.

* * *

He'd gotten what he wanted, and that should have been all River cared about. After four fifteen-hour days, long meetings, longer phone conversations, and just about every single thing that could go wrong at the ranch going wrong, he was ready for something to go right.

Yeah. He had what he wanted: an agreement from Brenna to help with the ranch. That would make the business council happy and would smooth the way for the permit he needed.

But he'd lied to get what he wanted, and that didn't sit well with him

Truth? He had an eye for detail and he could have easily chosen antiques from any of the shops on Main Street. He could choose paint. He could choose lighting fixtures, linens, everything a place like he'd envisioned was going to need.

What he couldn't do was all of it himself and still expect a bunch of old-timers who had their heads up their backsides to issue the permit.

They remembered him from his wild days.

That was the problem.

They figured he was shooting for the moon, with no plan for the hard work it would take to get there. They probably also figured he was going to make more of a mess of their town than he would bring in as a profit.

They were wrong on all counts.

He'd showed them facts and figures, charts and financial statements, but River had a reputation. In Benevolence that could be difficult to overcome. Even if the reputation
was
over a decade old.

He grabbed a sponge from the edge of the sink and used it to wipe down cabinets that had somehow been splattered with chocolate and cream and—unless he missed his guess—melted sugar.

Regardless of whether he really needed Brenna's help, she needed his. He doubted she'd admit it, but the evidence was everywhere: the counters, the floor, the trash bag filled with discards she'd just dragged out.

Speaking of which, it was taking her a long time to return from her trash run.

Not his worry. Benevolence was a small town, and a safe one. If she wanted to wander around after dark, it was nothing to him.

Except he kept remembering that phone call she hadn't answered and the look on her face when he'd asked about it.

There was something going on with her. Something more than the broken engagement everyone in town seemed to be whispering about. He'd heard about it at the diner, at the barber, at the flower shop where he'd bought Belinda a dozen orange daylilies. Everyone, everywhere, seemed to know that Brenna had dumped her two-timing fiancé. But no one seemed to know why she'd gotten rid of her posh, successful clothing boutique.

A broken heart was what most of the women seemed to think.

Not that River paid all that much attention, but it was difficult not to hear the blue-haired ladies at the diner whispering about the lovelorn Lamont sister.

Brenna didn't seem heartbroken to him.

She seemed tired, overwhelmed, and a little sad, but she didn't seem heartbroken.

She also still wasn't back.

He dried his hands on a dish rag and opened the back door.

Summer was fading quickly, the cold, crisp night air reminding him of all the things that were good about eastern Washington. No humidity in the air, no hot nights at the end of long summer days. Just the sun going down and coolness setting in, the air clean and fresh with the coming fall.

He could hear a woman's voice and he followed the sound around the side of the building and into a narrow alley. A Dumpster stood against one wall and Brenna stood next to it, the trash bag abandoned at her feet.

“Jeff, you really need to stop calling me,” she said as River approached. She must have heard him, but she gave no indication of it. The phone was pressed to her ear and she tapped her free hand against her thigh, impatience in every line of her body. “I already told you he didn't. I already told you he wouldn't.”

A long pause as River grabbed the trash bag and tossed it into the Dumpster, then a sigh.

“Right. I know what he owes you. He owes me, too, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about either thing. Okay, Jeff. I get it. Like I said the last four times you called, I'll contact you if I hear from him.”

She shoved the phone into her apron pocket and raked her hand through her hair. “Sorry about that.”

“Who's Jeff?” he asked, and she frowned.

“No one important.”

“If he's not important, why has he called you four times?”

“Because he knows my ex and he wants to get in touch with him.”

“That explains nothing, red.”

“Did I imply I planned to explain?” She tossed the words over her shoulder as she walked out of the alley.

“You didn't imply you weren't going to.”

She stopped short and turned, her face a pale oval in the darkness. She'd been thin as a kid, tall and gangly compared to her peers. Now she looked gaunt. Surprising, because she'd been working in a chocolate shop for nearly a week.

“I know that in a town this size, everything is everyone's business,” she said quietly, “but that doesn't mean I want everyone knowing I have a guy named Jeff calling me several times a day. I'd appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

“I'm too busy to spread gossip. Even if I weren't, it's not my style.”

“Sorry; that probably sounded rude.” She crossed the lot and yanked at the door, breathing a sigh of relief when it opened. “Thank God for small miracles. I forgot to bring the key. We could have both been locked out. Which would have meant finding Granddad and telling him.”

“Finding Byron might not be a bad idea.” He untied his apron and hung it from a hook near the back door. “He's probably getting Belinda into all kinds of trouble.”

“How much trouble can they get into at church?” She pulled ingredients from the pantry, set them on the counter. Unless he missed his guess, she was going to dive into another battle with chocolate.

A useless endeavor unless it was something she really wanted to do. Based on the tension in her shoulders and the expression on her face, he'd say it wasn't.

“Enough that we should probably check on them.”

“We?” she asked as he tugged at her apron strings.

“I wouldn't want to face Byron alone,” he replied as she batted at his hands and tried to keep the apron in place.

“Seriously, River, I'm not going.” She pulled away, the apron sliding off her hips and falling onto the floor in a puddle of white cotton. “I have a million things to do here.”

“Like?”

“Chocolate. Fudge. More chocolate. And I might attempt the marshmallows again.”

“I'm not sure the stove or the pan can take that,” he said, and she offered a tired smile.

“You could be right, but like you said, Byron is leaving Monday. I'll have to run this place mostly on my own, and that means I have to learn how to make all this shi . . . crap.”

“Not tonight. Tonight, you need to take a break.” He grabbed the apron, took her phone from the pocket, and handed it to her.

“River—”

“There are certain things I know to be true about cooking. One of them is, if your heart isn't in it, you might as well not.”

“Who says my heart isn't in it?”

“The look on your face when you took these out of the pantry.” He replaced the ingredients, took a last look at the kitchen. Spotless. Just the way a kitchen should be. “We'll have your first lesson tomorrow morning. Six
A.M.
, because it's a therapy day. Just an hour. Tonight, we'll go check on Byron and Belinda, and then we'll go over to my place and you'll give me some ideas for the paint and the décor.”