Chapter One
HANNAH
I was late for work.Again.Vinnie was going to kill me. My mom’s chemo treatment had run late and there was literally nothing I could do. Especially with her treatments being an hour away and two towns over.
I passed Main Street as the volunteers of the Willow Harbor Christmas team took down the decorations for the year and began to pack them up.
After easing my ten-year-old Toyota Camry into the parking lot behind Vinnie’s, I screeched into an empty spot and threw the car into park. I grabbed my apron and ran from the car like my hair was on fire, clomping through the snow like a wild woman. I needed this job, and Vinnie was not a man to be tested. Once I’d quickly crossed the lot, I charged into the back door of the restaurant, passing through the hectic kitchen.
Fragrant smells of basil, cream, and garlic hit my nose, and I realized I hadn’t eaten lunch. I’d been too focused on entertaining my mother and making sure she was okay.
“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t go out there! He’s positively evil today!” Sydney tried to get in my way and stop me from stepping out into the restaurant. Sydney was a single mom in her fifties who treated me like a daughter, always looking out for me.
I normally heeded her advice, but not today.
“What’s new? He’s always on about something,” I said and sidestepped her.
I was over an hour late for my shift, but it was just past lunch, so hopefully it was slow. He’d yell, probably in front of customers, and then he’d get over it.
Typical Vinnie.
“No, honey, this time—” She tried to finish, but I had no time to stay and listen.
I had to show him I was here and ready to work and profusely apologize for being late for the third time this month. I burst through the doors and into the restaurant. I was still tying my apron when I nearly ran right into my boss.
Crap.
Vinnie was an angry Italian who had owned and run Vinnie’s Fine Italian Cuisine for over thirty years. But to make up for his hot temper, he served the best gourmet Italian in the entire state of Idaho. Right now, he was wearing an expression I’d never seen before. Not the rage that I was used to. There was no anger there. Just a deadly calm that scared me.
He was also wearing a serving apron, something he never did. Which meant he’d had to pick up my tables. This was bad. Really bad. Why were we so busy? It was the day after Christmas. People should have been back to work.
Please don’t fire me. I need this job.
“You’re fired, Hannah,” he said through clenched teeth.
No.
In that moment, my gaze flicked to a gorgeous man at table nineteen. He was in his mid-to-late twenties and looked like he’d just stepped out of aGQ Magazineperfume ad. What was a guy like him doing in Willow Harbor, Idaho? And why on earth was he witness to this mortal embarrassment of mine?
“Vinnie, I’msosorry. You know my mom’s sick, and I had to?—”
He raised a hand in front of my face to stop me. “I’m sorry your mom got cancer, Hannah, but that’s notmyfault. You need to get over it, and I need to run a business here.” He flicked his hand as if I were a fly that wouldn’t shoo.
Get over it?Get over my mother having cancer? Had he really just said that? No, he must have meant something else.
I frowned. “Just give me another chance. I tried to call,” I begged. The line had been busy, probably with to-go orders. He had to understand. “Please, you can’t do this, Vinnie.”
Tables twenty and thirteen were staring now, and I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide, but I held my chin up.
Vinnie looked over at me. “What did you just say?”
I gulped. “You can’t do this…Vinnie?”
He nodded, and that angry mask he usually wore began to show itself. “That’s right.Vinnie, my name, is on the sign out front. And until yours is, Icando this. You’re FIIIIIRED.” He drew out the last word like I was slow on the uptake, and then he turned and walked away to tend to another table.
My desperation transmuted to rage then. How dare he speak to me like that! I’d been through hell the past three months, feeling abandoned by God and working two jobs to keep the bills paid, all while I tried to help my mother cling to life. Him speaking to me like I was an idiot, in front of the entire crowded restaurant at that, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
No more nice Hannah.
