He’s antsy as I approach. “I lie just fine.” When I get closer, almost within arm’s reach, he leans away and holds up a hand. “Stop. Don’t get closer.”
“Why?”
“Because you have cooties.”
I’m getting as close to him as I can now. “Why,James?”
He backbends over the stair to avoid me while holding his hand behind his lower back. “Because I haven’t showered!”
“James.” I lean in, hands bracketing his shoulders, gripping the stair behind him.
Finally, he rolls his eyes and raises his cigarette up beside my face. “Because there’s still smoke in the air and I don’t want you to breathe it. It’s not good for you.”
“Hmm. And if it’s not good for me, it can’t be good for you either. So why the hell are you smoking?”
He licks his lips and the faint smell of the cigarette burns in the air between us. I can taste it. “Why the hell did you have a panic attack?” he says, rewording my question a little and throwing it back at me.
I grin softly. “Touché.”
“Hold your breath.” He lifts the cigarette to his lips, takes one more drag, then blows it up into the air away from my face before dropping it to the ground and stomping it out.
I move to sit on the stair beside him. We don’t talk for a solid minute. Which is one minute too long for me. “I have a question.”
“Just one?”
“I want a truthful answer too. Even if you think it might hurt.”
He looks at me, one dark brown eye closing a little. “I already don’t like this question.”
I take a deep breath, gathering my nerve, and then exhale. “Did you create the restaurant just for me . . . ?” He opens his mouth, but I hold up a finger. “Wait. I’m not done. Did you make the restaurant just for me . . . because you and my siblings thought I wouldn’t cut it as a chef on my own? Did you concoct this restaurant as my safety net?”
He angles to me now and intentionally meets my eyes. “Madison. I swear to you, I did not make this restaurant for that reason.” Relief washes over me. “First, that would be a terrible financial investment to concoct a restaurant for someone who I think could run it into the ground. I love this farm too much to do that.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. Now I feel silly.
“And second,” he goes on, “I’ve never tasted food as good as yours. I asked you to be our chef because I genuinely believe you’re the best person for the job. Honestly, there’s no one else I’d rather have in that kitchen.”
My throat tightens. Not only because he believes in me, but because the dishes he’s talking about? They’re all ones I made before culinary school. Back when cooking was pure joy. A playful experiment in reimagining the meals we grew up on. I missher—the girl who cooked for fun. Who tossed ingredients together just to see what would happen. Who didn’t second-guess every dish.
New York stripped that version of me away. It turned something I loved into something that scares me. And now I wonder . . . will I ever get her back?
“Okay,” I manage, blinking fast and swallowing hard. “Thank you.”
His brows pull together. “What brought this up?”
“My siblings tonight. They made me feel weird.” I pull my feet up a stair so I can wrap my arms around my knees. “They kept saying things that made it seem like the restaurant didn’t exist before me—like I was tied to it somehow.”
“I see.” He looks toward the crops.
“And they implied that you renovated the cottage yourself. Just for me.”
“Well . . . I did do that.”
I whip my gaze to him. “Why?”
“Why what?” He picks up his hat, shakes it out once, and places it on his head.Backward.
“Why would you renovate the place yourself?”
