“Morning, all,” I say, my voice flat. I’d hoped to beat the gaggle of townies into the shop. I did not. A chorus of greetings and questions rings out around me but I barely hear them. I watch the counter, searching. After a few seconds she comes through from the back kitchen with a tray of muffins. A halo of steam surrounds her and with her white bakery shirt, white bandanna (with tiny ocean waves on it, I think) she…well, damn. She looks like an angel.
Her green eyes pop up from the tray to me. And, like most mornings lately, she blushes just slightly. There’s a tiny smile too. Today though, she frowns.
Oh. I’m just standing, frozen in the middle of the store like a right twat.
She’s already made my usual, while I was standing gobsmacked, I guess. Her brows raise, asking me what the gang at the site wants for breakfast.
I feel all the locals watching us and…decide to improvise.
“I’ll just have a chocolate eclair today.”
She tilts her head slightly, “Just one?”
“For here,” I say, pointing over my shoulder. “I thought I’d sit and work from here for a bit.”
“Oh,” she says, sounding disappointed. Oh right, the money.Think, you fool.
I turn to the room, “But, Steven?”
“Present!” Steven is, as usual, eager to help.
“Could you take a box of eclairs to the site for me? And Croissants,” I study the display case. “And a box of donuts, too.”
Harper is fighting a smile, I think. It’s a big order. To her. It’s pennies to me. Plus, those men will eat all of it. I should’ve been ordering double every day.Idiot!
I pay and take a seat with a view—of the counter and kitchen, not the windows—and Steven takes my order. Everyone else…stays. I wait for the crowd to thin, for a quiet moment where employees and locals and actual customers stopding ding dingingat the door but the moment never comes.
My stomach growls at exactly the moment Harper puts a quiche down in front of me.
“I didn’t—”
She holds up a hand, “You bought out almost all of my pastries earlier, I can sport you a quiche.” Spot, she means. I don’t correct her. “Spot!” She closes her eyes tight. “Spot you a quiche.”
“I knew what you meant,” I say softly.
Do people give her a hard time about that? Is that why she’s so quiet? I don’t have a chance to ask because she’s already gone back to work.
And work she does. I do too, sort of. Halfheartedly.
I happen to look up and see her talking to DJ with her bag on her shoulder. Shit, she’s leaving. I get up and walk to the counter.
“Harper, can I, uh, ask you something?” I ask, sounding…nervous?Get a grip, man! It’s just dinner!
“Uh, sure,” she says tentatively.
She’s been skittish with me since that night with her dad. Earlier that day, of course, she’d told me basically to screw off and die. She can be as mad as she wants, I won’t change my plans. I cannot.
I’ve had my eye on this prize for almost a decade. Even the slightest change in plans could shift the numbers. I want the title. I’m getting it. In order to do so, I need this Juniper Falls project. And I need it exactly as my designers laid it out, parking lot and all.
Still, I understand her disappointment.
Then before we’d even had a chance to talk it through, before I could tell her I’m sorry her shop is on the wrong side of the street, I saw her at a very low point. It doesn’t get much more vulnerable than that. Blows away my embarrassing little bout of claustrophobia.
I also helped Betty clean up the mess. I think that angered Harper even more. I suppose I can understand that as well. Thus, even though I’ve showed up for coffee as usual, she’s kept me at a distance. Then Ben called me on my BS and here we are.
“I’ll walk you out?” I look down at the partition in the counter. She considers this, then leans forward and lifts it so I can come through. A surge of adrenaline runs through me, which is ridiculous. It’s just access to her back kitchen, not a portal to another universe. My chest can’t seem to tell the difference.
I follow her through the front of the store, the kitchen, past the ovens, dish washing station, storage, fridge and small office.
