It was time to find out firsthand if those hot-chocolate-laced kisses would be as sweet as I imagined these last four months.
1
candy kane
“Uncle Rus––“I started to say, but I knew he wasn’t going to let me finish.
“You’re doing great, kid,” he praised, though I knew what was coming. “But…” The big olebuthe had seriously become famous for. Uncle Russ made a face, and the smile on my face tightened as I blinked away tears.
I couldn’t help but feel that I was being jerked around and wasting my time.
Frustration swam in my blood as I tore my gaze away from my uncle and looked around Rusty’s Hardware.
The place had been my very own home away from home.
When Uncle Russ offered to train me to take over because he was ready to retire, I didn’t think twice about putting my day-to-day life in limbo. I worked at the hardware store during the day, because despite having basically lived there growing up and working there throughout high school, Uncle Russ wanted to make sure I didn’t run the place to the ground. And I’d understood.
At first.
For the last year, I had been more than understanding. Flexible. But where last year, at the start of the holidays, I was excited about the future, this last year had been wearing me down. Working mornings at the hardware, for free, and then at the coffee shop every night had started to chip away at me.
“You’re great, honey, and you know I want to hand over the place to you––“
“But?” I cut him off, turning around and meeting his caramel gaze that matched my own.
Enough was enough.
I hadn’t planned on doing this today, to be honest. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to, but I had to do something. Say something. I had to force him to be clear about what he wanted to do when it came to the hardware store, like Lola, my best friend and the new head librarian of our local public library, said I should do.
Afterall, there wasn’t anything I didn’t know about the hardware store that he could have left to teach me. I knew the floor. How to take and restock inventory. I had been managing the books since my senior year and doing payroll. There wasn’t one thing I hadn’t been trained in. Sure, I had left to work at a couple of different places throughout the years, but at the end of the day, he approached me about taking over.
“But…” He swallowed hard. His eyes connected with mine before they went over my shoulder and nothing but silence fell between us. My shoulders fell forward because I knew that look in his eyes.
He wasn’t ready to walk away.
I got that, too.
It was hard to walk away from things. From people.
“Right,” I whispered. He had kept the business running since he’d been a kid himself.
My cousins, his two sons, both grown men now, didn’t want anything to do with the store or Moonlit Pines after their parentsdivorced, and they moved back east. When he’d brought up this offer, I took it because I loved the store and the rich history of our small mountain town.
“I think I am going to leave early.”
“Awe, come on, Candy! Don’t be like that, girl. I’ll go get us lunch and?—“
“I need a nap, Uncle Russ. I have a closing shift at Pine and Grind tonight,” I cut him off, feeling like a complete and utter bitch. Then, because I knew just how hard it was to give up on people, I turned and looked at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” My voice was hardly above a whisper because that was all I could muster.
“Yeah, kid. See you tomorrow.” He nodded, and I turned to walk out. Just as I opened the door and took two steps forward, my eyes pinned on the cement sidewalk because I knew I was about to burst into tears, I bumped into a huge wall of hard muscle.
“Shit!” a deep all-too-familiar voice sounded, and my body stilled.Shit, my day definitely just got worse.
A strong arm wrapped around my body to stop me from slipping, and a big open-palmed hand rested against the small of my back. If I weren’t so upset, I would have been able to log the feeling, soak it all in for when I was home alone, thinking about the dark, almost black eyes that haunted my sleep.
“Onyx,” I mumbled, pulling back, but the tall, dark brewery owner didn’t let me go. Those usually hard-set dark eyes were filled with worry.
“What is it?” he asked. I opened but immediately shut my mouth. I knew the moment I tried to speak, I would cry, and I didn’t want to cry. Not ever, but more importantly, in front of the one man in town whom I couldn’t stop thinking about and seemed to hate me. God, why was he so stupidly hot?She’s kind of a big girl, isn’t she?His words still played on repeat in myhead. I tried to pull away, but he didn’t let me. Then my dumb lips wobbled, and he turned slightly blurry as I shook my head.
