Because she had insisted on no last names. No hometowns. No personal information. That was the deal they made. One wild, crazy, passionate weekend. It was stupid to keep wishing things had been different. She couldn’t go back and change it, now. No, she had to live with the fact that she would probably go the whole rest of her life and never find them. Would likely never find anything that even came close to what she’d found with them. And it sucked.
It had been six weeks since her birthday weekend in Chicago… six weeks since she’d left two of the hottest men she’d ever seen sleeping in her hotel room, and snuck out like a thief in the night. Only she wasn’t the thief… they were. Because her heart had not been the same since. Besides, whatever had been started in that room between the three of them… it could never work in the real world.
And she’d had to leave before her poor heart could beg for them to try. Because dammit, she had wanted to try.
Which was crazy, right? Who fell like that for two strangers over the course of a weekend?
Hope did, that’s who. And it hurt like hell every day since. Stupid, stupid heart. It had always been her downfall. She fell in love too easily. She was hopeless like that. She snorted to herself.
“We can find them,” Jade suggested softly, as if reading Hope’s thoughts.
She smiled over at her sister, then shook her head. “I can’t go my whole life looking for two strangers, Jade. The likelihood of ever finding them is slim-to-none. I had a wonderful weekend, and that is what it is.”
“Well, you’re home now, and the Mackenzie sisters are back together finally. This town doesn’t know what’s hit them yet,” Jade teased.
“Damn right,” Hope laughed, raising her wine glass toward her sister. They tapped their glasses together in a cheers.
“Any prospects on jobs?”
Nodding, Hope swallowed a drink of her wine and said, “Yes, actually. I have an application in with a pre-school that is looking to add another early childhood education teacher. It sounds hopeful, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. They said they should have an answer for me by tomorrow.”
“Well, if you get it, we have to go out and celebrate,” Jade said, hauling herself off the couch to grab the bottle of wine from the kitchen. “I know your visits were never long enough for us to really go all out, and there’s this restaurant that opened a couple years ago that is justto die for.” Folding herself back into the corner of the couch, she topped off her wine glass and then reached out and did the same for Hope’s. “The girls from work and I usually go on Friday nights anyway. They have live music, and they serve warm bread with oil and balsamic to dip it in.”
“Ugh, I love bread,” Hope groaned and laughed.
Jade laughed and once again gestured to herself and her curvy body. “Girl, same.” Smiling at each other, Jade reachedout and clasped Hope’s hand with hers. “I’m glad you’re home. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” she whispered, dragging a deep breath in and then letting it out as tears stung her nose. It was good to be home.
Chapter Six
His business partner was in his office chair, leaning forward, one hand bracing his chin with his elbow on the desk. He was staring at the computer in front of him when Sulivan Laurance walked in without knocking. Grant Price’s eyes sliced up to him briefly before returning to the screen. Scrubbing a hand over his bearded face, he sighed, and Van leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, crossing his arms over his chest.
“This sucks, man,” Grant muttered darkly, shaking his head. Leaning back in the oversized office chair, he sighed again and raised his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “We have to fire him.”
Van nodded from where he stood, one hip thrown out, his ankles crossed. He stared down at the floor. Fuck. They were fair and lenient bosses. More than fair. More than lenient. But stealing was stealing, and they had solid proof, as Grant had just found on their camera system.
“Stupid prick,” Van muttered, shaking his head as he pushed away from the door. He crossed the carpeted floor and sank into a chair opposite Grant, reclining on his tailbone, legs outstretched in front of him. “How much?”
“Three bottles, over the course of as many months,” Grant grumbled, leaning forward and placing a giant paw of a hand on the computer mouse, dragging it around. Van assumed he was replaying the video. “Fuck! I hate losing a good bartender.”
“So what do we do? Do we want to try to hire someone before we let him go? Or just run short for a few weeks until we can find someone new?” Van asked, sitting up and bracing his elbows on his spread knees. This was shit news on a Friday morning.
“No, he needs to go, like yesterday,” Grant grunted, shaking his head angrily. His dark hair had been pushed back from his forehead several times already with tense fingers. The silver seemed to stand out more in the early October daylight streaming through the window behind him. At least the summer rush was over, the summer tourists having left for their warmer climate homes until springtime the next year. “I’ll pull Michelle off the floor and put her behind the bar with Jackson. The others will just have to absorb an extra table into their section, and I’ll table-touch more throughout the evening to watch for any issues.”
Van nodded, once again staring at the floor between his widespread feet. Working alongside his best friend was a blessing most days and a curse on the rare day. It wasn’t often that they ever disagreed on anything, and luckily, they trusted each other enough to run their areas of the restaurant nearly seamlessly.
The last six weeks have been a struggle… Shaking his head, he dispelled the thought. He couldn’t afford to fall down that rabbit hole again. It hadn’t helped that he’d woken up that morning thinking about her. Again. Like every goddamn night before that. He knew that Grant was struggling just as he was.
Damn woman.Hope.
What a name for the woman that had left him with such a hopeless hole in his chest. What fucking irony.
Staring at Grant, Van assessed him. Older than Van by about six years, his dark hair was streaked heavily with silver, as was the thick beard that covered his face. Laugh lines etched at the corners of his dark eyes, rimmed with dark lashes that spiked away from his eyes. Built like a goddamn grizzly bear, he was big and beefy, but cuddly like a fucking panda. Kind and generous and sometimes much too willing to forgive transgressions. Though rarely, the man could hold a grudge like no other. When he leveled that dark, intense stare at someone, he could be more than a little intimidating.
He looked tired, withdrawn. Van knew his friend well, and though infrequent, he would sometimes fall into a black mood. He wondered if the last appointment hadn’t gone well and made a mental note to ask about it later. Grant didn’t like to discuss personal things in the office. Claimed there were too many ears. Which was true, and the rumor grapevine ran longer and faster than one of their vintage wine grape vines.
Or, like Van, maybe he was just miserable for a completely different reason. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed mystery girl reason.
