“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Anything you need, don’t hesitate to let us know. And we need to have you over one night for dinner.”
“I’d love that,” I said, finding that I really meant it. It would be nice to have people to hang out with while I was here. The guys FaceTimed me regularly to keep in touch, but it wasn’t the same as having them with me.
We said our goodbyes a minute later, and I headed to the counter to order coffee and a slice of banana bread. Since I was out, I didn’t have to watch my diet as strictly as if I were still playing. So if I wanted sugar, I was damn well going to have it.
With my coffee in one hand and a white paper bag with my pastry in the other, I headed out the door back into the cold, taking a left like Ivy instructed.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled to myself after my first sip. Connor had been right; the coffee was amazing. Maybe the best I’d ever had.
That was definitely a mark in the pro column for Hope Valley.
Chapter Four
Holiday
“Ooh, what about this guy?”
I didn’t bother looking up from my task of unboxing a shipment of new books to acknowledge the phone my friend Naomi was waving in front of my face.
“Pass.”
“But you didn’t even look,” she said with a pout.
I was sure the man in the picture she was so eagerly trying to show me was handsome—Naomi had good taste, and all that—but it didn’t matter if he was the sexiest man on two legs. “I don’t need to look. The answer is always going to be no.”
She let out a disgruntled huff, dramatically tossing herself back in the plush chair closest to where I was currently working. “You’re no fun at all. Online dating is totally safe.”
“It’s not the online part of it that I’m opposed to.”
Ever the drama queen, Naomi crossed her eyes and blew out an obnoxious raspberry. “Boo. You’re no fun,” she declared as she clicked out of the dating app she’d been scrolling through and shifted in the chair to stuff her phone into her back pocket.
I smiled, unable to help myself. Naomi Sheppard’s craziness was just one of the reasons we all loved her so damn much. Gypsy liked to joke that Naomi’s wild streak was a gift from Karma to test her father, Lincoln. And to hear her mother, Eden, tell it, she was responsible for every single gray hair on her father’s head.
“Shouldn’t you be at work right now?”
She lifted her shoulder in a careless shrug and threw a leg over the arm of her chair like she was settling in. “Ugh. I’m taking a mental health break. If I don’t, I’m liable to beat one of those pains in my ass senseless.” Her eyes came to mine. “No offense. I know your brother is technically my boss.”
Naomi had made a career at her father’s company, Alpha Omega, coming in to wrangle the men who worked there when the previous woman who held her position, Roxanne, retired a few years back. When Lincoln decided to retire for good, he’d handed the business over to my oldest brother, Rhodes.
“No offense taken. I grew up with him, remember? So I know exactly how punchable his face can be at times.”
She pointed her finger at my face. “See? You get it. Now, back to this whole dating thing...”
My head fell back on my shoulders as I groaned up at the ceiling. “Are we really back on this? I told you, I’m taking a break from dating.”
“Come on. You can’t just give up because of a couple lousy relationships.”
I snorted, shooting her a look of disbelief. “Acouplelousy relationships? Are you forgetting about Gregory?”
She pulled her lips into a wince. “Okay yeah. He wasn’t so great.”
“Not so great? Naomi, he stole my underwear! And not for the reason you’d think.” My brows pulled into a frown. “Hestretched four pairs to hell. And they were my expensive lacy ones too. Not laundry day panties.”
As much money as that jerk had cost me in replacement undergarments, he still wasn’t the worst. I’d dated men who gaslit, attempted to cut me off from my family and friends, verbal abusers, and rounding out the suck-fest was my last boyfriend, Blane, a manipulative cheater.
If there was a loser out there, it seemed they were drawn right to me. And my radar on spotting them was seriously defective.
